“Every time we take a breath,” says former Hopi Tribal Chairman Ferrell Secakuku, “another 50 gallons of water are gone.”
As Peabody Western Coal Co. pumps three million gallons of pure
drinking water a day from beneath Black Mesa, Hopi and Diné (Navajo)
residents are watching the ancient springs and washes that have
sustained their way of life for centuries dry up. Peabody has been
sucking the life out of Black Mesa for over 30 years, and with the
Bush/Cheney Energy Plan’s emphasis on fossil fuel extraction, Native
communities are facing new threats to their water supplies and
environmental integrity by the coal industry.
In a challenge to this renewed corporate threat, a group of Hopi and
Diné runners gathered April 21 on the San Francisco Peaks outside
Flagstaff, Arizona, where Ferrell Secakuku performed a traditional
prayer ceremony to commence a 200-mile run to Window Rock, Navajo
Nation. The prayer run, organized by the Black Mesa Water Coalition
(BMWC), with the help of runners Bucky Preston (Hopi) and Cardenas
Redsteer (Diné/Chiricahua Apache), was designed to send the message to
the Hopi and Navajo Councils, as well as the government and energy
corporations, that the wasteful use of their drinking water for
industrial purposes must cease. The run was also intended to restore
bridges between the elders and youth, and to unite the Diné and Hopi
communities behind this vital issue.
“We are asking that Hopi and Navajo work together and put aside their
harsh words and politics,” says Diné Enei Begay of the BMWC.
Peabody - whose parent company, Peabody Energy, is the largest coal
company in the world - has attempted to divide the Hopi and Diné since
it brokered its secret deals with the tribal councils in the mid-1960s.
It is not surprising that the leases stressed corporate profit, not
environmental or cultural protection, since it was later revealed that
the Hopi’s lawyer, John Boyden, was also working for Peabody.
Government agencies partitioned and fenced the land, impounded Diné
livestock and evicted thousands of families. The breach created between
Hopi and Diné has benefited only one sector - the corporations seeking
more energy leases on Native land.
Slurrying coal to Nevada
As documented by the Black Mesa Recovery Campaign, Peabody applied for
a “life of mine” permit for its Black Mesa Mine to the Office of
Surface Mining (OSM) in January 2002, which if approved, would allow it
to strip the previously untouched region of Hopi land known as J23, as
well as increase their pumping of the N-aquifer by 32 percent.
Most of the water taken from the N-aquifer is used to mix coal into
slurry and pump it 273 miles to the Mohave Generating Station in
Laughlin, Nevada. A Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report has
gathered data from the OSM, the US Geological Survey, Peabody and a
private firm, concluding that “since Peabody began using N-aquifer
water for its coal slurry operations, pumping an average of 4,000 acre
feet - more than 1.3 billion gallons - each year, water levels have
decreased by more than 100 feet in some wells and discharge has
slackened by more than 50 percent in the majority of monitored springs.”
Since many of the region’s other aquifers are contaminated with uranium
or coal, the N-aquifer remains the primary source of water for
drinking, subsistence farming and sacred religious practices. Activists
feel the Department of Interior (DOI) should uphold a clause in the
original leases that requires Peabody to find an alternate source of
water if the tribes’ supply is endangered.
While Peabody claims to use only a small fraction of the aquifer’s
water and blames any negative impact on increased municipal use and
drought, the corporation sucks up almost three times the amount used by
the two Indian nations combined. Most Hopi, for example, must haul
their daily rations by hand, and therefore use water sparingly.
“We feel strongly that Peabody is threatening the culture of our people,” says Hopi Lillian Hill of the BMWC.
Local residents also fear that a Peabody expansion would bring more air
pollution, respiratory problems and the destruction of burial sites and
medicinal plants. While those who live in close proximity to the Black
Mesa Mine feel they bear only the negative effects of coal extraction,
the Navajo and Hopi governments depend heavily on royalties from
Peabody. For this reason, activists are not calling for the closure of
the mine.
But they are urging the tribal councils to look at more sustainable
forms of energy production, like solar and wind-generated power, to
loosen the grip of the outside, corporate influences on the two Native
nations.
“We need to stop financing the dominant society with resources from
here,” says Diné Roberto Nutlouis of the Indigenous Youth Coalition,
and “to develop in a way that is sensitive to the culture of our
people.”
English only
The lack of sensitivity for the Native cultures was demonstrated when
Peabody placed the required announcements of its “life of mine”
application in local newspapers. Both Peabody and the OSM have been
criticized for printing the ads only in technical, legal English, which
many Hopi and Diné don’t understand. The 30-day comment period
following the last notice took place concurrently with Hopi prayer
ceremonies, which strictly limited Hopi participation. Rick Holbrook of
OSM claims Peabody fulfilled the legal requirements, and that the “OSM
can’t hold them to anything more than is required.” Holbrook says the
OSM has determined that the permit will require an Environmental Impact
Statement, a two-year process that will allow for continued public
input.
Activists are calling for Peabody to stop its pumping of the N-aquifer
no later than 2005. The company has considered building a pipeline from
either Lake Powell or the Fort McDowell Reservation near Phoenix, where
it has acquired water rights, but neither option will eliminate the
waste caused by the archaic slurry line, the last one in the US.
Activists have proposed that Peabody consider using reclaimed
wastewater, or shipping their coal by truck or rail - the common but
more costly method.
The slurry line may shut down regardless of Peabody’s wishes. The
Mohave Generating Station is legally required to make a commitment by
2003 to install pollution-control scrubbers, and its owners are
considering switching to natural gas, which would eliminate Peabody’s
buyer of Black Mesa coal.
Peabody might have gained a new customer as Reliant Resources of
Houston entered the scene, with promises of jobs, revenue, and a
long-term solution to the water needs of the Hopi. But at the end of
May, the Hopi Tribal Council cancelled its agreement with Reliant,
citing the corporation’s “internal troubles.” Reliant Resources’ parent
company, Reliant Energy, is one of the power companies being sued by
the State of California for price-gouging and “over-scheduling” during
2001’s power shortages. Reliant’s CEO Steve Letbetter has been
documented by the NRDC to have raised $200,000 for George Bush’s
campaign and inaugural committee; the Sierra Club points out that
Bush’s hands-off stance toward the California energy crisis has
enriched Reliant and other Houston-based energy corporations.
The Hopi Tribal Council is currently undecided as to whether it will
pursue a similar project with another company, but opponents feel that
other alternatives must be considered.
“This issue provides the opportunity for the Chairman to call a summit
of Hopi people to talk about a sustainable economy for the tribe,” says
Vernon Masayesva, Executive director of Black Mesa Trust.
Many Hopi say they were ignored during Reliant’s initial consultations
with their Tribal Council, and are opposed to the invasion of another
corporation that will continue to devour their water and coal and
funnel the energy to air conditioners and microwaves in Phoenix, Las
Vegas, and Los Angeles.
The lake of tears
Strip mines in desert areas are difficult and costly to reclaim, so
their scars are often left unhealed as they are abandoned by the
government as “National Sacrifice Areas.”
The Zuni people have seen the homelands of numerous First Nations in
the Four Corners region sacrificed for coal, uranium and profit. So as
the Phoenix-based Salt River Project (SRP) threatens the Zuni Salt Lake
with plans of a coal strip mine, a strong opposition has solidified
into the Zuni Salt Lake Coalition - composed of the Zuni Pueblo, Center
for Biological Diversity, Citizen’s Coal Council, Water Information
Network and Sierra Club’s Environmental Justice Program.
For thousands of years, the Zuni, Laguna, Acoma, Diné, Apache and other
tribes have journeyed to western New Mexico to collect salt from the
lake for domestic and ceremonial use, and to make sacred offerings to
the deity Salt Mother. The different nations could gather without fear
of conflict, since the lake was respected as a traditional neutral zone.
SRP’s Fence Lake Coal Mine would operate on 18,000 acres, approximately
10 miles northeast of the Zuni Salt Lake. The Coalition, citing
hydrological studies conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
and a private firm, is convinced that the mine’s pumping of a nearby
aquifer will lower the level of the lake. They are also worried that
mining and the construction of a railroad to ship the coal to SRP’s
Coronado Generating Station in Arizona will destroy burial sites,
ancient trails and the habitat of antelope and golden eagles in areas
that are Traditional Cultural Properties.
The mine’s state permit was recently renewed for another five years by
the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division (MMD). The DOI issued a
Federal permit on May 31, which will enable SRP to begin excavating
coal by 2005, before the supply from its mine near Gallup disappears.
Brian Segee of the Center for Biological Diversity says his
organization is calling for a new supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement, and is appealing the state permit. The Zuni coalition will
also litigate federal approval, since as Segee says, if “this mine goes
in, there will be immediate proposals for expansion and other mines.”
Jim O’Hara of the MMD says it is stipulated in the permit that if the
water level of the lake is affected, then SRP must cease pumping the
aquifer, but Segee argues that the BIA has declared that the system of
monitoring being used is faulty, and the baseline data skewed. SRP
claims to have consulted with the Zuni, and that the project will bring
them jobs and benefits, but Zuni Coalition member Cal Seciwa writes
that the approval of SRP’s permit is “all for the sake of revenue for
state and local counties around the development site,” and that “very
few benefits will materialize for our Native people and communities.”
SRP, a co-owner of the smoke-belching Mohave Generating Station, claims that “you can buy clean, green energy from SRP.”
But if SRP “is being as ‘Earthwise’ as they claim,” states Andy Bessler
of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Justice Program, “they will drop
plans for the Fence Lake Coal Mine and look to energy from wind and
solar, not dirty coal.”
In several Native religions of the Four Corners, it is the Kachinas
that bring rain to the land. Without it, crops wither and livestock
dies. In the Desert Southwest, it has been one of the driest years in
history, sending a message to people that sacrificing water to obtain
coal-produced energy will not only affect the lives of the Hopi, Diné,
Zuni and other Native peoples - but will unbalance the entire
ecosystem.“We truly believe that water is life,” says Bucky Preston.
And all life needs water.
For further information and more numbers, contact: Andy Bessler;
Sierra Club’s Environmental Justice Program; P0 Box 38, Flagstaff, AZ
86002-0038; (928)774-6103.
Brad Miller is a freelance journalist currently working out of the
Desert Southwest somewhere between the Navajo Nation and the Mexican
border.
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