The Gila River Indian Community is seeking payouts from the federal
government to conserve water in Lake Mead. Plus, why a shipping-container wall along the Arizona-Mexico border is likely to be challenged in court, and airports in the state work to become more sustainable.

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Host:  Damon Fairall
Producer: Athena Ankrah
Contributors: Alexia Stanbridge, Michelle Aerin, KUNC

Gila River tribe reverses decision on conserving water

Justis Brokenrope (Sičháŋǧu Lakȟóta) is a musician and educator currently residing in Bdé Óta Othúŋwe, Mní Sóta (Minneapolis, Minnesota). Wathéča Radio is an offshoot of Wathéča Records, a label and archival project focused on North American indigenous artists who were often overlooked in the canons of rock, folk, and country music.

Brokenrope hosts his radio shows completely in Dakhóta, the eastern dialect of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (the seven Lakota and Dakota tribal nations), and the original language of the land he presently resides on. Anáǧoptaŋ po! 
https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/watheca-radio-w-justis-brokenrope-27th-october-2023

Wathéča Radio w/ Justis Brokenrope 271023

12-year-old Miss Baker Middle School Nala Nelson sang a traditional Diné song for the Miss Navajo Nation audience on the first day of the pageant. (Audio by Brianna Chappie/Cronkite News)

Navajo pageant princess sings during Miss Navajo Nation pageant

Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
Oversight Hearing to “Examine Native Communities’ Priorities for the 119th Congress”
Date: February 12, 2025
Time: 2:30 PM
Location: Dirksen
Room: 628

Witnesses
Panel 1
The Honorable Mark Macarro
President
National Congress of American Indians
Washington, DC

The Honorable William Smith
Chairperson / Alaska Area Representative
Valdez Native Tribe / National Indian Health Board
Washington DC

The Honorable Rodney Butler
Board President
Native American Financial Officers Association
Washington DC

Mr. Kerry Bird
Board President
National Indian Education Association
Washington, DC

Mr. Kūhiō Lewis
Chief Executive Officer
Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement
Kapolei, Hawaii

Committee Notice:
https://www.indian.senate.gov/hearings/oversight-hearing-to-examine-native-communities-priorities-for-the-119th-congress/

Kerry Bird / National Indian Education Association

Explore the context and history of diversity, equity, and inclusion with Velicia McMillan Humes, chief diversity officer for the city of Tempe.

(Audio by Cheyla Daverman/Cronkite News)

DEI order jeopardizes science and health program for Native American youths

About Us
Apache Stronghold, San Carlos, Arizona, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit community organization of individuals who come together in unity to battle continued colonization, defend Holy sites and freedom of religion, and are dedicated to building a better community through neighborhood programs and civic engagement. We work from San Carlos, Arizona connecting Apaches and other Native and non-Native allies from all over the world. Chi’chil Biłdagoteel (also known as Oak Flat) is a sacred site for our Apache people and many other Native Americans. This is a place that has special significance— a place where we pray, collect water and medicinal plants for ceremonies, gather acorns and other foods, and honor those that are buried here. We have never lost our relationship to Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, though the U.S. Government, at times in our history, has imprisoned us on our Reservations and not allowed us to come here. We have established an encampment to protect the Holy Ground at Chi’chil Biłdagoteel with its four crosses, representing the entire surrounding sacred area, including its water, animals, oak trees, and other plants central to our tribal identity. The four crosses are now part of the body of Chi’chil Biłdagoteel. 
Once Again, The Fight for Religious Freedom in America Begins

Background on Oak Flat

Oak Flat is an area about an hour east of Phoenix that is a sacred site known to Apaches as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel. Home to a diverse desert ecosystem, it’s also currently federal land within the Tonto National Forest. In December 2014, in the 11th hour, Arizona Senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake attached a land-exchange rider to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act Bill. The bill included the Oak Flat land exchange which gave multinational mining company Resolution Copper this area, located in Tonto National Forest, to build one of the world’s largest copper mines, the largest in North America. The mine is slated to permanently decimate Oak Flat and surrounding desert features. Apache and mining-reform activists had been successfully fighting the proposal for nearly a decade before this “backroom deal” was made in Congress. Currently the Forest Service is undertaking an environmental impact statement, a legally mandated assessment that must be completed before the land exchange is finalized. We are fighting to repeal this land exchange.

"They declared war on our religion. We must stand in unity and fight to the very end, for this is a holy war." -Wendsler Nosie Sr., long time opponent of the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and former Chairman and Councilman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. 

Learn more:  http://apache-stronghold.com/save-oak-flat-act.html

Save Oak Flat. Vanessa Noise shares with us, "Make No Bones About It." April 27th, 2025 4pm

May 20, 2025 - Governor Kathy Hochul made remarks at the Seneca Nation of Indians in Chautauqua County.

Governor Hochul Makes Remarks at Seneca Nation

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Date: March 18, 2026
Time: 9:30am
Location: Senate Dirksen Building, SD-342

Witnesses
The Honorable Markwayne Mullin
Nominee to be Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Written Statement:
https://indianz.com/News/2026/03/18/statement-markwayne-mullin-to-be-secretary-of-homeland-security/

More on Indianz.Com:
https://indianz.com/News/2026/03/06/native-republican-tapped-for-cabinet-post-in-surprise-shakeup/

Q&A Part 6 [22:56]

Join Stephanie Mushrush and Carrie "Cc" Curley Strong as they share about the Apache Stronghold spiritual movement to Save Oak Flat (Chi'chil Bildagoteel). Apache Stronghold, led by Wendsler Nosie, Sr. for the last decade, is a spiritual movement to protect the Apache Way of life: their sacred sites and cultural and spiritual heritage. The movement is committed to preventing Resolution Copper, a foreign mining corporation & subsidiary of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, from desecrating the San Carlos Apache Nation's ancestral lands. 

Resolution Copper proposes building an environmentally destructive "block cave" copper mine on Oak Flat, which would gravely threaten land, water, air quality, cultural and sacred sites, including areas with petroglyphs and burial grounds of the Apache. In 2015, a deceptive land swap hidden in the Defense Authorization Act, aimed to give the ancestral Apache lands of Oak flat to Resolution Copper. 

Having been deemed "Forest Service land" as a result of colonization, Oak Flat was to be exchanged for private "conservation" lands throughout Arizona. Since 1955, due to the Oak Flat Withdrawal, Oak Flat had been protected from all forms of public appropriation as part of the Tonto National Forest. Oak Flat advocates assert that President Eisenhower initiated this withdrawal to effectively protect the area from mining due to its cultural and natural value. The Save Oak Flat Act, recently reintroduced in Congress (sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders in the Senate and Representative Raul Grijalva in the House) would repeal the Oak Flat Land Exchange Act, and prevent Resolution Copper from developing and operating a large-scale copper mine on sacred territory of the Apache, essential to their practices of cultural and spiritual renewal. 

Both diverse artists in their own right, Stephanie and Cc share how artivism informs the breadth of their activism and how their spiritual journeys marching to Oak Flat have distinctly empowered and forever transformed their own lives.

Stephanie Mushrush is a Co-Founder of Red Earth Defense, a grassroots indigenous-led LA community organization; a Many Winters Gathering Of Elders - Core Committee member; and an organizer with Apache Stronghold to protect Chich’il Bildagoteel aka. Oak Flat in Arizona. Stephanie is a member of the Washoe Tribe of NV & CA and identifies as an urban Native, as well as half Filipina. After working at Sherman Indian High School for nearly a decade, Stephanie earned her Master of Social Welfare from UCLA in 2013. She now works as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at American Indian Counseling Center for LA County. She is also a singer/musician under the artist name Sallee Free. Her debut album, inspired by intergenerational healing, will be released in early 2019.

Carrie "Cc" Sage Curley is a key member of the Apache Stronghold spiritual movement to Save Oak Flat, Chi Chil Bildagoteel. She resides on San Carlos Apache Reservation, and her clan is K'aitsehit'i'dn'. Cc is among the Stronghold that maintained an Oak Flat occupation that lasted over 1.5 years, extended from the first annual gathering in February 2015. As a longstanding artivist, Cc uses art as her “weapon” to support and engage people in the Apache Stronghold spiritual movement to “Save Oak Flat,” the movement to stop copper mining on the sacred ancestral lands of the San Carlos Apache Nation. She has murals across Indian Country, including a piece representing four generations of women, on Los Angeles' own Winston Street Alley, aka. Indian Alley. By depicting indigenous peoples, she educates and inspires others about Apache culture and their Earth-honoring wisdom traditions. Dedicated to her community, Cc teaches art to Apache children and contributes daily to an indigenous farm project.

Interview by Carry Kim
Host and Engineer: JP Morris
Executive Producer: Mark Morris
Music: Javier Kadry
Episode 28

Apache Stronghold: The Spiritual Movement to Save Oak Flat - Ep. 28

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Q&A Part 6 [22:56]

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