USDA Award Will Help Train Navajo Students in Water Treatment

The University of Arizona and Diné College (a public tribal college in northern Arizona) have been awarded a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to collaboratively train the next generation of Navajo water scientists. The grant comes from the USDA National Institute of Food & Agriculture through the Tribal College Research Grant Program and will provide Navajo youth technical and hands-on experience in microbiology, molecular biology, chemical and microbial water analysis, and pressure-driven membrane processes. Through the collaborative research program, students will also learn about traditional and advanced water and wastewater treatment procedures.

"The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American tribe, with more than 20,000 households with no access to public infrastructure in terms of running water and electricity," said CHEE assistant professor Vasiliki Karanikola, UA's principal investigator on the project. "Providing STEM tools and opportunities to Native American college students to understand and solve emerging water challenges is very important, as it creates a new generation of scientists and engineers ready to address water challenges within their own communities."

Through the three-year program, a multidisciplinary research team of experts from both land-grant institutions will focus on issues of water sustainability, particularly potential reuse applications for polished effluent, which is wastewater that has gone through its final treatment stage.

The research team will identify and address the possible presence of microbial and chemical contaminants in treated wastewater, the use of pressure-driven membrane filtration systems to polish effluent before reuse, and potential technical impediments to agricultural use of polished effluent.