Black Mesa, AZ, Focus: Native Americans vs. Peabody Coal

I have focused a little on this in my Arizona State Section, but I think it is worth discussing it separately for a bit. This is actually an issue I was involved in 20 years ago, and it is still going on.

The basics are this: Native Americans are being forcibly displaced because Peabody coal wants to strip mine Black Mesa for coal. Here is the background on this issue from the view of the Dineh (Navajo) people:

Dineh (Navajo) families are currently struggling against corporate and governmental powers which have attacked their right to remain on their ancestral land, to practice their traditional life-style and religion, and to retain their civil rights. The primary corporate power is Peabody Coal Company, which operates two large strip mines in the area and whose activities have caused environmental damage and the destruction of burial and sacred sites. The governmental powers include the Hopi and Navajo tribal governments, whose history and operation are interlinked with the mining industry, and the US Government, which empowered the tribal governments at the expense of the people on the land.

The combined actions of these corporate and governmental powers have had a devastating impact on the Dineh families. The forcible relocation of Dineh families living in areas partitioned to the Hopi Tribal government was mandated by P.L. 93-531 in 1974. Over 12,000 people have already been relocated from their ancestral land at a cost of over $350 million to the US government. Land to which they are intimately bound by their religion and traditional economy. The estimated 250 Dineh families who remain on the land are currently being forced to choose between relocation and life without civil rights under the rule of an openly hostile government. Families near the mining area are subject to the routine destruction of their burial and sacred sites by mining activities which have also destroyed water supplies, defaced the landscape, and negatively impacted their health.

In its war against the Dineh who have resisted relocation, the US Government has destroyed wells that supplied water needed for their survival in the arid climate, outlawed even the most basic home repairs, confiscated the livestock that sustain their subsistence life-style, and subjected them to the rule of a tribal government in which they are not allowed to vote or participate.

The driving force behind the oppression was the discovery of enormous reserves of low-sulfur coal beneath the surface of their ancestral lands, so that control of these lands became the subject of a dispute between tribal governments manipulated by the coal companies. In the resolution to this dispute arranged by the US government, the civil rights of the Dineh were sacrificed so as to satisfy the ambitions of the coal companies and the tribal governments.

This issue has been largely ingnored in the US, but has gotten international attention:

In 1998, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights sent an investigator to the area. It was the first time a UN human rights organ officially and publicly took on investigation of a specific case against the U.S., being particularly concerned about the impact of the relocation on the practice of traditional Dineh religion. The Dineh religion is closely bound to their traditional land, and relocation would destroy their traditional religion. The UN report, The Lehigh Presbytery of the Synod of the Trinity, The General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church, the World Council of Churches and the Society for Threatened Peoples agree with the position of the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, Mr. Abdelfattah Amor, and over 250 Non-Government Organizations at the UN, that the human and religious rights of the Traditional Dineh people are being violated...

During the plenary sessions in Strassbourg on February 17, 2000, the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT adopted the URGENCY RESOLUTION, against the forced relocation, the ongoing violations of human, religious and land rights of the Dineh at ‘Big Mountain’ and raised the concerns of the European Parliament members about the contaminated ‘New Lands’. In this Resolution, they call upon the US Government to respect the land rights of the Dineh people as well as the provisions for Indigenous peoples of the Vienna Declaration.

One of the main problems is Peabody coal is pouring money to Congress to get their support. U.S. Senators and Congressional representatives have accepted $40,404,519 from the coal industry. Not surprisingly, this buys support.

This is more than just a native righhts issue. It is a critical environmental issue for all Americans. More from the Black Mesa website:

At this moment the decision makers in Washington D.C. are planning ways to expand their occupation of tribal lands to extract mineral & other resources. Peabody Coal, the world’s largest coal company, is currently pushing through plans to massively expand dirty coal strip-mining operations targeting the Dine’ (Navajo) & Hopi peoples sacred ancestral homelands of Black Mesa, AZ. The Office of Surface Mining (OSM) has recently re-opened the Black Mesa Project - Final Environmental Impact Statement which outlines harmful impacts to every level of the ecological and cultural systems on Black Mesa and has global repercussions.

If we don’t stop these plans, Peabody will have the green light to:

* Establish permanent mining rights until the coal runs out or until at least 2026!
* Substantially accelerate global climate disruption and cause an ecological meltdown.
* Destroy thousands of acres of pristine canyon lands, causing animal and plant ecology and cultural sites to vanish.
* Increase the detonation of coal on a daily basis, affecting air quality and health of miners, local residents, and their livestock.
* Deplete the already scarce water tables and regional aquifer that are all essential to residential survival.
* Uproot & relocate families from their ancestral homelands due to coal mining expansion.
* Sacrifice human dignity and planetary health for elite profit! Peabody would cause many more problems than what is reflected here. Its roots remain sunk deeply in the history of colonial genocide, corporate power grabs, and ecological devastation.

In 30 years of controversial operation, Peabody’s Black Mesa Mine has been the source of an estimated 325 million tons of CO2 that have been discharged into the atmosphere.* If expansion plans are permitted, it would exacerbate already devastating environmental and cultural impacts on local communities and significantly add fuel to the fire of the current climate chaos we face globally. Coal from the Black Mesa mine could contribute an additional 290 million tons of CO2 to the global warming crisis!*...

The Black Mesa Water Coalition (BMWC) is spearheading a campaign to stop the Black Mesa Project and to protect their homelands of Black Mesa. BMWC has additional information about protecting Black Mesa and is leading the Just Transition Campaign, “an innovative plan to transition tribal economy, employment, and energy off fossil fuel extraction and onto a sustainable renewable energy path”. Support green jobs! No to coal!

Also working with BMWC to stop Peabody is Sierra Club’s Environmental & Tribal Partnerships Program: www.sierraclub.org/partnerships/tribal

And you can find out more you can do by clicking here.