"Motivating and inspiring…Thirst for Justice tells the stories of two of the communities that are among the hundreds that experience water injustice across the country. It’s a problem of priorities, racism, and classism."
—Dr. J. Pablo Ortiz-Partida, Union of Concerned Scientists
Thirst for Justice
Directed by Leana Hosea
58 minutes | English SDH Captions | Scene Selection
Armed only with facts and their illnesses, extraordinary citizens take on industry and government, risking arrest to protect clean water. From Flint, Michigan to the Navajo Nation, via Standing Rock, this is their story. 

Thirst For Justice follows Janene Yazzie as she searches for the source of contamination in her son’s school’s water in Sanders, Arizona. She suspects drinking uranium contaminated water from the Church Rock dam spill caused her ovarian cancer. Armed with a geiger counter she begins investigating radioactive waste on the Navajo Nation and finds areas hotter than evacuation zones in Chernobyl. When the epic movement for water justice ignites in Standing Rock, Janene is compelled to join. There she meets Flint water activist Nayyirah Shariff, and their struggles converge.
Thirst for Justice is available on DVD with public performance rights for school and library purchase or rental. Academic streaming can be licensed from Docuseek. Campus and community groups interested in hosting a community screening can book now through Bullfrog Communities.
"Thirst for Justice presents the lived realities of different U.S. communities struggling for access to clean water from their perspectives, in their own words. It serves as an important resource for teaching in my Environmental Anthropology classroom."
—Dvera Saxton, Associate Professor of Anthropology, California State University, Fresno


"Thirst for Justice is powerful and disturbing. The US is the richest country in the world. It is an obscenity that we allow Indigenous Americans and poor and minority urban people - even when on municipal water supplies - to drink water so contaminated as to threaten their health and cognitive function. It is especially tragic when our children drink contaminated water that will increase their risk of cancer later in life and cause an irreversible loss of IQ that will last as long as they live."
—David O. Carpenter, M.D., Director, Institute for Health and the Environment, University at Albany
To order Thirst for Justice on DVD with public performance rights for educational use,
Order by phone at (610) 779-8226
or email us at info@bullfrogfilms.com
Bullfrog Films is the oldest and largest publisher of documentary films about the environment in the United States. We define "environment" broadly, and our catalog includes programs on ecology, energy, agriculture, indigenous peoples, women's studies, environmental justice, international relations, sustainable development, anthropology, economics, ethics, and conflict resolution.