Coal Mining Curbed on the Black Mesa, Paving Way for Navajo Green Economy

A shorter version of this post first appeared on RaceWire.

Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie. Sign held by a Hopi youth at a protest against Peabody in Denver, Colorado.

The indigenous environmental justice movement celebrated a victory, early January 2010, when a judge ruled that Peabody Energy cannot expand its coal mining operations on the Black Mesa in northern Arizona.  Former president Bush Jr. approved a permit for Peabody in the twilight of his outgoing administration—not surprising, when you consider that Peabody’s parent holding company was Bechtel, a defense contractor with strong political ties—a permit that failed to fulfill all administrative requirements.  Groups including the Black Mesa Water Coalition filed a petition in early 2009, charging that prerequisites, such as filing an Environmental Impact Statement, were ignored, thereby making the approved permit invalid.

For many Navajo, life in the past thirty years has been inextricably linked to coal mining.  As a small girl, Enei Begaye, knew to be quiet when visiting her friends’ houses.  Everyone in the small town of Kayenta, Arizona worked in the coal mines, which operated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  Some worked night shifts, so Begaye and her friends would play quietly to not disturb the sleeping elders.  Most of the population of over 4,900 residents in Kayenta were employed by Peabody Energy and lived in the trailers the company setup for its workers.

As an adult, Begaye, now co-director of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, questioned the coal mining that sustained her family and hometown, and devastated and torn apart Navajo and Hopi communities.  Energy demands increased in the late 1970s during the oil crisis and large corporations such as Southern California Edison casted about for other sources of fuel.  When the corporations spied the black gold underfoot the Navajo lands, the energy companies colluded with the U.S. federal government to raise questions about Navajo claim over the lands.  The land was transferred to the Hopis and 12,000 Navajo families were displaced from their ancestral homes.  Uprooted from their homes and traditional ways of subsistence, many Navajo fell into poverty and despair, forced to accept any jobs that came their way, including coal mining.

The Black Mesa Water Coalition and partners in the indigenous environmental justice movement organized to shut down Kayenta’s Black Mesa Coal Mine in 2005.  Apart from the low wages and hazardous working conditions of the mines, the operations polluted the township and surrounding environment.  Judith Nies described the disastrous environmental consequences of the technique, strip mining, of removing coal where “the land has turned gray, all vegetation has disappeared, the air is filled with coal dust, the groundwater is contaminated with toxic runoff, and electric green ponds dot the landscape.”  Sheep that drink from these ponds by noon, she added, die by suppertime.

The coal from Kayenta fed two power plants, the Mojave Generating Station and Navajo Generating Station.  The former, the Mojave Generating Station, provided electricity to Southern California and Las Vegas.  The latter helped to power the irrigation of the urban sprawl extending outwards from Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.  Neither provided electricity for the surrounding communities.  In fact, less than half of Navajo families have electricity or running water on the reservation.

The latest curb on coal mining on Navajo lands is a bittersweet victory for many on the reservation who are still dependent on the low wage jobs the mines provide.  Begaye found it hard for many years to return home to Kayenta to face her friends’ parents, who lost their mining jobs.  Now, organizers with the Black Mesa Water Coalition see their strategy for indigenous justice as two-pronged: rid the land of dirty coal mining and advocate for the just transition for Navajo and Hopi peoples to a sustainable and locally-owned economy that provides high quality green jobs and career pathways for indigenous youth and adults.  The Black Mesa Water Coalition and the Navajo Green Jobs campaign won another victory this summer when they successfully lobbied the Navajo Tribal Council to enact green jobs legislation.

The recent judge ruling supports Navajo leadership, not only among tribal nations but also for all of us, in defining the new green way of living.  “We don’t want to create a capitalist system within our tribal society,” explained Begaye.  “We’re in a special position, we’ve got a system that needs to be trashed, an economic system that needs to be gotten rid of.  We need to create a new economy that doesn’t devastate but create and empower our communities to function in a healthy way.”

Photo by the Black Mesa Water Coalition.