1-year $100,000 Impact Grant (2025)

Tó Nizhóní Ání - Black Mesa, AZ

Watershed Restoration in the Black Mesa (Dził Yíjiin) Region of Navajo Nation, Arizona, United States

Tó Nizhóní Ání, which translates to “Sacred Water Speaks,” is a Diné-led nonprofit organization established in 2001. The organization originates from the Big Mountain community on Dził Yíjiin (the Black Mesa region). It was formed in the spirit of the Diné elders who fought to protect Black Mesa and bring power back to Diné communities impacted by coal.

In 2005, Tó Nizhóní Ání led efforts to end the industrial use of the Navajo Aquifer—Black Mesa's only source of potable water—from Peabody Coal Company. Today, TNA continues to protect water and bring power back to the Diné communities impacted by coal while leading community transition away from fossil fuels.

TNA’s Black Mesa project builds on the Tsiyi’ Tó Wash Pilot Project in Hardrock Chapter, Navajo Nation previously funded by the Foundation,  furthering watershed restoration in the Black Mesa (Dził Yíjiin) region of Navajo Nation, Arizona, United States, and begins the implementation of learned lessons into the headwaters of the Oraibi Wash watershed in the Black Mesa (Kits’iilí) Chapter, Navajo Nation.

Funding from this streamlined application will go directly towards the watershed restoration efforts at the highest reaches of one of the five washes on Black Mesa that feed into the Lower Colorado River. This funding will supply worker stipends, travel, meals, equipment rental costs and supplies that will be used directly in field implementation of low-tech erosion control structures to enhance shallow water recharge, promote native plant growth and reduce erosive surface water flow velocity in a very remote region of Navajo.

TNA will survey the site to prepare the area for restoration led by Carrizo Archaeological Group, establish a basecamp at the site (including the construction of a shade structure and outhouse restroom), model structures for Kits’iilí residents to see what kind of structures to expect, create seed pellets with native grass seeds to disburse into rock structures, gather rocks and logs from adjacent cliffsides to pre-stage building materials, build erosion structures as large as Navajo Bowls and as small as one-rock dams, and monitor the efficacy of the work over 18 months.