The Navajo Nation is the largest reservation in the United States, with more than 170,000 Diné living on the reservation, which spans more than 17 million acres across the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Id. at 559. A significant number of households in the Navajo Nation do not have access to potable water. See, e.g., About the Bennett Freeze, Navajo Thaw Implementation Plan. Drought has devastated the Navajo Nation, with ranchers being particularly hard hit. Many sheep ranchers must now remove sheep from the range more frequently than in earlier years to allow ecosystems to restore themselves. Other ranchers have transitioned to cattle ranching, which is harder on grass and requires the introduction of nonnative plants for feed, resulting in further ecological disruption. See., e.g., N. Ariz. Univ., Navajo Nation: Dune Study Offers Clues to Climate Change Impacts (2008). In light of this ruling, the Diné will be forced to continue to deal with the extreme drought on the reservation, being exacerbated by climate change, without any additional assistance from the U.S. federal government.

Then in 1966, the Bennet Freeze threw up another significant roadblock to electrification. To force negotiation between the Navajo and Hopi Tribes over a land-ownership dispute, the then commissioner of Indian affairs, Robert Bennet, imposed a development ban on 1.6 million acres of Navajo Nation land claimed by both tribes. The Bennet Freeze prevented development of homes, schools, businesses, roads, and utility infrastructure (water wells excepted). It even disallowed maintenance of structures and infrastructure on contested lands.

Many Navajo Tribal members, some 13,000 households, living on the Nation’s reservation still lack access to electricity services.

It’s common for people to begin a project with one research question in mind only to abandon it once they learn that question has been asked countless times or is too broad to be meaningfully pursued.

Researchers are driven by a desire to solve personal, professional, and societal problems.

outright fabricating is not.