 SHIPROCK, N.M. AP - Duane Chili Yazzie wears a Water is Life shirt as he walks the rows of his farm. He speaks of the river and earth as sacred entities for the Navajo people. But the Shiprock Chapter president cant forget when the river turned yellow. On Aug. 5, 2015, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contractors breached a mine tunnel at the abandoned Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado, sending 3 million gallons of acid mine drainage into the Animas and San Juan rivers. Word of the spill spread as the yellow plume flowed through the river. Communities from Durango, Colorado, to Aneth, Utah, shut off their irrigation systems, unsure of what contaminants were in the water. That dealt a devastating blow to Navajo farmers in the middle of the growing season. Days after the spill, farmers in three states lined up at tanks provided by local and federal agencies to get water for crops and livestock. But for many, the water was too little, too late. We lost our alfalfa fields, Yazzie said. With other things like melons and corn, we had to make the hard decisions of which crops do we want to save. That was heartbreaking. The U.S. EPA, Navajo Nation EPA, and New Mexico Environment Department tested for heavy metals along the river in the weeks after the release. Once agencies reported that heavy metal concentrations left behind by the spill did not exceed state and federal limits, irrigation resumed along the river. But the Shiprock community voted not to irrigate from the river for the rest of the season. Our elders, as culturally connected as they are to the land and the water, that was really traumatic for them to know that the waters damaged, Yazzie said. Its been pretty well substantiated that none of that heavy... 