Projects: Incomplete: Black Mesa - Navajoland

Navajoland, USA

The U.S. Senate has voted to lift a decades-old ban on development on about 700,000 acres in Arizona's Black Mesa region that both the Navajo and Hopi tribes claimed as their own.

The Senate unanimously approved a bill by Arizona senators John McCain and Jon Kyl on Thursday night to lift a ban on development in the "Bennett Freeze" area. The ban had prevented about 8,000 Navajos who live there from putting in electric lines, repairing leaky roofs and running water lines to their homes unless the improvements were approved by the neighboring Hopi Tribe.

The ban was imposed in 1966 by former U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert Bennett as a way to settle the land dispute between the tribes.

The Bennett Freeze area, on the western edge of the Navajo Nation, includes nine Navajo communities and arguably is the most depressed area on the 27,000 square-mile reservation.

A recent study commissioned by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs found that 77 percent of the homes in the area aren't suitable to live in, more than 40 percent of homes don't have electricity and 10 percent of residents make almost daily trips to haul water.

It's expected to cost upward of $1.3 billion to rehabilitate the area.