The Scientific Method according to Diné Knowledge and its application to addressing water contamination in Diné Communities

The legacy of mine waste contamination continues to affect many Indigenous communities throughout the U.S. Often resulting in numerous water sources that exceed established maximum contaminate levels for uranium, arsenic and other contaminating elements. These contaminations are often a result from the improper disposal of mine waste materials and abandoned mines. Some of these legacy-contaminations posed significant health and environmental impacts on the community members and livestock.  In addition to addressing longstanding water contamination issues within Diné communities, a research framework that implements Diné philosophy and teachings has been developed to pair with the aims of the study and to assist the community with bringing about awareness of environmental exposures and risks. The aims of this research are to obtain a chemical profile of the unregulated water sources in the study area, develop a temporary point of use filter that implements silica polyamine composites to selectively bind and remove contaminating elements, and to develop a hands on tool that can inform the community of risks.