Navajo Voices: Peabody Coal's dark legacy on Black Mesa

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Navajos on Black Mesa describe the disease and death that Peabody Coal has brought. As Navajos continue to live without running water and electricity, Peabody continues to profiteer and gouge out the coal, the liver of Mother Earth. --Censored News

Forgotten Peoples Voices: Glenna Begay’s residence, Black Mesa (Navajo Nation), Arizona, Thursday, February 17, 2011, 1:00 PM
By Forgotten Peoples
Forty people attended the meeting. Due to a death at the mine Friday, February 11, 2011 the Peabody mine tour was cancelled. Due to confusion about whether the community tour would still take place, Navajo Generating Station owners were absent. Present were Bill Auberle and John Grahame, EN3 Professionals/Communications, Andy Bessler, Sierra Club, Marie Gladue, Black Mesa Water Coalition, John Braham, a documentary filmmaker, Beth Holland, Climate Scientist, Noelle Clark, NAU Climate Scientist, Jane Marx, NAU Climate Change educator, Mr. Weatherspoon, Council delegate for Hardrock, Forest Lake and Black Mesa and local residents

Carlos Begay, Jr., Black Mesa opened the meeting about 1 pm, served as meeting facilitator and opened with a prayer. Then Carlos introduced his mother Glenna Begay, his uncle Bilta Begay who has black lung, his sisters, Salina and Helena Begay, his father, Carlos Begay, Sr.

Glenna Begay, Black Mesa: I use the land like I did in younger years. In our tradition you never say this is my land. This is where I grew up with livestock, a cornfield. I am still using a lantern and haul water and wood. I live off my livestock and crops. There is no compensation from Peabody. I have no electricity, no running water. I want my roads graded, gravel and culverts in the wash for the mud season. The roads are usually ungraded. I asked Peabody for help and Walter Begay, Black Mesa Review Board on numerous occasions. All the natural springs are depleted from the slurry pipeline. Peabody’s water well is my only water source now and it needs to be upgraded for our use with the best available technology. In the early dawn there is a lot of dust and smoke over the valley. We all have respiratory problems.

Bilta Begay, Black Mesa: I was a Peabody employee. We endured this hardship everyday. No help. In the beginning before Peabody came in there were negotiations between a few people. Only the older folks were involved and we were told local residences would be employed. This never really happened and due to the strip mining, the vegetation has disappeared and the people who lived on the land. It is due to Peabody that I have health problems. I see so many doctors about my heart, black lung, sickness due to coal dust. So many others have passed on with health problems, black lung, silicosis, accidents. People die there.

Billy Austin, Black Mesa: I grew up 2 miles from here. Due to Peabody a lot of people relocated to different regions. When I was young I participated in the negotiations. It was only for people with grazing permits. Mainly older people negotiated. When that happened, people were promised utilities, water, most were never met and people got dislocated from the land, never compensated, corrals bulldozed. All the coal was taken out. There were so many springs. When I grew up traditional, we made offerings to sacred places. Everything now is displaced and we are forced to travel great distances to haul water. The windmills are broken. We go to the Chapter and Peabody to ask for help. No help. We are neglected from everywhere. No electricity, no water lines. The closest water is Peabody and Peabody is threatening us they will shut it off. Last year we had deep snow. No help. People were trapped in Cactus Valley. We had to get the National Guard to help. Our homes are suffering from blasting damage, our streams are contaminated and dark from coal dust. The air is full of dust and smoke and it settles in our lungs. Jimmy Manson died of black lung. I have three young grandkids. They have delicate lungs and we have no where else to go. The ozone layer is gaping hole. The world was good in the past but now it is contaminated. The ozone was balanced and now it is ruined and we can’t fix it. The mine should stop.

Leta O’Daniel, Big Mountain: There used to be a lot of rain. Not much now. Pollution is really happening. I live 10 miles down the road from Peabody and the blasting moves my Hogan. My home is coming apart. A lot of coal dust blows around. Can you help us? Can you make our lives a little better. We have no water and no electricity. Make Peabody help. I burn kerosene, propane. The fumes are affecting our health . We smell the coal dust all the time. I would like electricity and running water. A school. Peabody here should make our lives a little easier. We go through a lot of hassle to fix dinner at night. It is a difficult life. There are only elders out here now and Peabody will not help. We want decent roads, emergency assess in hash weather. The roads are so bad it causes erosion and sometimes the roads cave in. It makes our trucks rattle. Some of my children are in the Marine Corp. Where will they live when they come back home? It seems to me we are going backwards. Peabody made a lot of promises. What I see makes me really sad. Please help us, our children and grandchildren. Our homes are beyond repair and are not safe. My daughter’s hogan roof caved in from the snow. It is not safe for her to live there. Mr. Weatherspoon here, you are a council delegate for Hardrock, Forest Lake and Black Mesa. I am happy there is a lot of interest by agencies who are listening to our voice for the first time with Navajo Generating Station, Salt River Project, Central Arizona Project.

Rena Babbitt Lane, Black Mesa (did not have a chance to speak. Marsha Monestersky assured her, that her comments would be included in these minutes.) Rena Babbitt Lane said: We live in on top of Black Mesa, Horse Corral Point and Look Out for Horses Point, Water Chimney, above the route of Peabody Coal Company’s/Black Mesa Pipeline, Inc. coal slurry pipeline. Burt and Caroline Tohannie are my neighbors. A few times the pipeline burst and they had to weld off the pipe at the water shaft contaminating our land and water resources. My use of my customary area is my livelihood. I am a medicine woman herbalist healer and hand trembler. Medicine men and patients ask me to gather herbs and prepare it for them. All the washes, canyons where most of the herbs are found are gone. The springs have dried up from Peabody’s coal slurry pipeline. The herbs are gathered with offerings but the land and water sources are dry and the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has capped off and dismantled four of the windmills near where we live. I am forced to travel 17 miles each way over rough dirt roads to get water. This caused the fame of our truck to break. Peabody should help fix the road and provide bulldozers to dig out water impoundments at locations we identify near our homes. My grandfather built some of these earth dams but they are filled with sediment. All my children and myself want a home. I live in a house that is very small. All I see are broken promises to rebuild from the past but it is not there anymore. I want to see all my children have homes and hogans and I want access to water and sanitation. I want Peabody’s Kayenta mine to close. They are not a good neighbor.

Marsha Monestersky, Program Director, Forgotten People: I see you are not taking notes. I will submit my notes and a Peabody Health Effects study that was used as evidence to oppose US DOI’s OSM approval of Peabody’s Black Mesa life-of-mine permit. The last time I saw Roy Tso was to accompany him and David Brugge, anthropologist on OSM investigations to help protect his burial and sacred sites from Peabody bulldozers including the burial site of his son. Roy died shortly afterwards of black lung and silicosis. I knew Jimmy Manson. He died of black lung. James Johnson and Lee Nez (Lena Manheimer’s brother) all have black lung and silicosis. James Johnson was part of the exploration team and he, Roy Tso and Calvin Etcitty were drillers for blasting. They all died. Lee Nez, Simon Crank and Paul Johnson are still around but they all have black lung.

Postscript: On February 19, 2011, Jay Turner asked if his comments could be included. He said: I am a 10-year Miner (2 plus years as representative of miners) and I have seen the failure of MSHA and FMSHRC-ALJ to uphold Federal Mine Safety & Health Act (Public Law 95-164) Miner protective provisions, as evidenced in Pro Se 105C Discrimination case (copies of case related docs available from me 661 242-3000), and audio recording of FMSHRC’s “open meeting” (Docket No. WEST 2006-568-DM) available at: http://www.fmshrc.gov/new/meetings.html

– refer: “October 7th, 2010” – “Audio of Meeting”. Please read.
Thank you, Navajo Generating Station for paying for Subway sandwiches and drinks. Thank you, Andy Bessler of Sierra Club and Marie Gladue of Black Mesa Water Coalition for organizing the community tour. Notes prepared on 2/20/2011 by Marsha Monestersky, Program Director, Forgotten People, (928) 401-1777, forgottenpeoplecdc@gmail.com, http://www.forgottennavajopeople.org/

Also see: Navajos Forgotten Peoples Right to Water, United Nations:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49227137

Secret negotiations released on Navajo water rights settlement

Secret negotiations released on Navajo water rights settlement

Navajos are urged to attend the Navajo Nation Council special session on Sept. 29, and persuade the council delegates to vote 'No' to this giveaway of Navajo water rights, which has been negotiated in secret.

Censored News http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Photo by Calvin Johnson

Briefing on the Navajo Nation’s Proposed Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Agreement

Summary

The proposed Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Agreement gives away, waives, does not protect, and does not claim the Navajo People’s and Navajo Nation’s priority rights to all waters that fall on, run by or through, or are under the land surface between the Four Sacred Mountains. The proposed Settlement waives, gives away and does not claim --

· Navajo priority water rights -- “first in time, first in right”;
· Navajo water rights established by the Winter’s Supreme Court Doctrine to enough water to serve all purposes for which the Navajo homeland was established; and
· Navajo water rights provided for in Arizona v California to enough water to irrigate all practicably irrigable acreage

The proposed Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Agreement :
· Prohibits any more than 10,000 acres of irrigated agriculture along the Little Colorado River; including building any surface water reservoirs for irrigation;
· Claim only 40,000 acre-feet (25%) of average annual Little Colorado River surface flow;
· Gives Navajo only 32,000 acre-feet per year of 4th Priority Colorado River water –

-- this water will NOT BE AVAILABLE in times of drought ;
-- this water will require over $500 million of new federal funding to deliver the water to our communities – and may not be used for any new farming;
-- this water will be extremely vulnerable to disruption by natural or human causes;

· Gives Navajo no more than 60,000 acre-feet/year total from the C-aquifer in a 36-mile strip of “Protected Areas” along the Navajo Nation south boundary;

· Allows non-Indian users unlimited amounts of C-aquifer water 18 miles south of the Navajo Nation boundary –even though excessive pumping will reduce flows in the River and may bring more salty water to Navajo wells .

· Allow non-Indian water users to pump as much “underground flow” as they want without regard for impact on Navajo use of same aquifers.

· The proposed Settlement waives all Navajo priority and reserved water rights to the Little Colorado and Colorado Rivers for other uses forever.

Some More Detail on the Navajo Nation’s Proposed Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Agreement

Surface Waters of the Little Colorado River (LCR)

The proposed Agreement prohibits any future irrigated agriculture beyond some 10,000 acres of farm projects identified along the main-stem of the Little Colorado River between Birdsprings and Cameron.

The Agreement also prohibits the Navajo People from building any new reservoirs for irrigation anywhere; and prohibits any new agriculture on Navajo off-reservation lands.

-- This makes it practically impossible to use the surface flows of the Little Colorado River, which only come an average of four months a year. This also closes the door in the Leupp area to the beneficial use of LCR water on thousands of acres of Class 1 irrigable soils west of North Leupp Farms – completely eliminating Navajo Winters Doctrine rights to enough water to irrigate the major resource area of “practicably irrigable lands” in the LCR Basin.

The proposed Agreement only claims some 40,000 acre-feet per year of Little Colorado River surface flow within the Nation – even though the Navajo Nation has a clear priority right to all that flow.

-- 40,000 acre-feet are only 25% of the average annual flow of 160,000 acre-feet measured at Cameron -- why not claim 50% or 75% or more of this average ? In wet years, there is a great deal more water in the River – for example, in 1973 the highest recorded LCR annual flow at Cameron was over 800,000 acre-feet -- which could be used if there was a storage reservoir along the River.

The proposed Agreement prevents Navajo either from claiming any priority rights, or from claiming any in-stream flows to provide for and protect wildlife, trees, quality of life, cultural or environmental purposes.

The proposed Agreement encourages the Navajo Nation to give up its priority water rights to other interests with less priority.

-- Whatever happened to “first in time first in right…” ? Why should the Navajo Nation give up its priority water right?
Some More Detail on Proposed Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement

The proposed Agreement provides the Navajo Nation with some 31,000 acre-feet per year of 4th Priority * Colorado River main-stem water -- which has to be pumped from Lake Powell at enormous energy and operating and maintenance costs; and which will NOT BE AVAILABLE in times of shortage on the Colorado River.

-- We are in a drought cycle which may well be long-term – like the drought which affected the Anasazi for a century or more. Why is the Navajo Nation making many of our communities totally dependent on water which will not be there in severe drought years?

The proposed Agreement does not clearly quantify how much LCR surface water Navajo has a right to.
-- If the Navajo Nation has a right to unappropriated surface waters, how much LCR surface flow is actually unappropriated – and who has appropriated the rest, and when?

The proposed Agreement prohibits the Navajo Nation from challenging non-Indian use of sub-flow waters -- including waters in the alluvial aquifer -- even though such use takes surface waters to which the Navajo Nation is given a right.

-- For example, folks in Winslow or Holbrook could set up a well field beside the LCR to capture large amounts of the waters of the LCR alluvium without regard for impacts on Navajo water rights

Peabody Coal is allowed to retain its surface water impoundment structures on Black Mesa permanently – why?
_________________________________________________________________________

* For more information on Priorities to Colorado River Surface Water, see --

http://www.azwater.gov/AzDWR/StateWidePlanning/CRM/documents/CopyofAzCRPrioritiesListing-Alpha05-2009_web.pdf

Priority 1 - Present Perfected Rights (PPRs) as provided for in the Arizona v. California Decree.
Priority 2 - Federal Reservations and Perfected Rights established prior to September 30, 1968
Priority 3 - Contracts between the United States and water users in Arizona executed on or before September 30, 1968
Priority 4 - Entitlements pursuant to contracts and other arrangements between the United States and water users in the State of Arizona entered into subsequent to September 30, 1968, not to exceed 164,652 acre-feet annually;
Priority 5 - Unused Arizona Entitlement
Priority 6 - Surplus Water

Some More Detail on Proposed Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement

Ground Water in LCR Basin C-Aquifer

According to the Bureau of Reclamation, there are about 140,000 acre feet average annual re-charge to the entire C aquifer . This is the maximum sustainable yield for all users – if more water than that is taken out in a given year, the aquifer is being mined and will (eventually) be exhausted. See http://www.usbr.gov/lc/phoenix/reports/ncawss/NCAWSSP1NOAPP.pdf

The proposed Agreement allows non-Indian users to pump unlimited amounts of C-aquifer water from wells beyond 18 miles south of the Navajo Nation boundary;

-- Even though excessive pumping will reduce flows in the River and may bring salty water to wells on the Navajo Nation (eg, Leupp). Note for example --

“Local heavy withdrawals from the C-aquifer may also cause upward shifting of the salt water interface from the evaporites in the Supai Formation near Joseph City” …
“ Long-term pumping could lead to long-term increases in salinity of pumped water” …

-- Mann, L.J., and Nemecek, E.A., 1983, Geohydrology and water use in southern Apache County, Arizona: Arizona Department of Water Resources, Bulletin 1, 86 p.

The proposed Agreement allows non-Indian users to pump no more than 50,000 acre-feet per year from an 18-mile strip south of the south boundary of the Navajo Nation; and allows no new large capacity wells within 2 miles of the Navajo Nation boundary;

The proposed Agreement allows the Navajo Nation to use no more than 60,000 acre-feet/year total from the C-aquifer in an 18-mile strip of the Navajo Nation, north of the Navajo Nation’s south boundary.

The proposed Agreement prohibits the diversion of any surface waters out of the LCR Basin …

-- But no mention is made of pumping ground water out of the LCR Basin –
as has already been done by Phelps Dodge – who initiated the LCR Adjudication in 1978. This opens the door to down-state folks who are running out of their local water (Verde Valley, Payson, Phoenix, etc) setting up well-fields along the Mogollon Rim to pump as much as they want of the C-aquifer … without regard to possible long-term impacts to the quantity and quality of Navajo Nation C Aquifer water.

There are many other serious concerns with the proposed Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Agreement. The Navajo People must be allowed to study, understand, and decide openly for themselves every aspect of this proposed Agreement which will determine the quality and even the possibility of life for the Dine for all time to come.
.
Download or print this document:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37688923/Navajo-water-rights-give-away-exposed

Shannon Rivers, Akimel O'otham, standing up for Indigenous Rights

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Gila River Pima-Maricopa Indian Nation became the first in the United States to ratify the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Shannon Rivers, Akimel O'otham from Gila River in Arizona, speaks on the importance of this action on Censored News Blog Talk Radio.

"We hope it becomes customary law, throughout the United States and the world ," Rivers said of the Declaration, speaking on Earthcycles' Longest Walk Talk Radio at the end of the Longest Walk.

Pointing out that the Declaration includes rights at borders and self-determination, he said Gila River undertook this hallmark move in commitment and solidarity with Indigenous Peoples worldwide, on May 21, 2008.

Rivers also describes the visit by Bolivian President Evo Morales to the United Nations in New York and the disrespect this world leader has been shown in the U.S. Rivers also describes how Homeland Security used fear after 9/11 to increase fear of migrants. Ultimately, the US profiteered with jails and prisons.

Further, Rivers discusses how the lifestyle and foods of the colonized U.S. has damaged the health of Indigenous Peoples in the Sonoran Desert. Rivers said there is a revitalization on Gila River of people growing traditional foods in their fields.

"Indigenous Peoples are some of the richest peoples," he said, during the interview a Greenbelt Park, Maryland. "We have many languages and we can learn many songs, many teachings."

Rivers urged Indigenous Peoples to stand up with courage and fight for what they believe in, with sacred walks and sacred runs, protection of sacred places and listening to the stories of the elderly.

Rivers is joined by Phillip Morris, Navajo from Page, Arizona. Morris describes the abuses of the US government and Peabody Coal in the destruction of Navajo lands and aquifer water.

"They call it 'Relocation.' I don't care what you call it, it is another way of the government saying, 'We want your land,'" Morris said.

Morris said the strip mining of Peabody Coal has resulted in the springs drying up. While Peabody Coal drained the aquifer, most Navajo people were hauling their water there. With words and millions of dollars, the U.S. and Peabody has continued with their ways, he said, "Of keeping us poor."

Morris said, "Healing is within us, but when we do it together as a group, in unity, it is more powerful."

"It all starts with prayers. We have to start coming together," Morris said, urging people to go to sweatlodges and learn from others.

Also, on the blog radio show, Long Walkers speak in tornado-hit Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was more than 90 percent destroyed by a tornado in 2007. Adriano Buckskin, Luv the Mezenger, Calvin Magpie, Jr., Paul Owns the Sabre and Rebecca Duncan speak as Long Walkers over a feast to the community. The show includes a song by the Miwok youth singers who were Long Walkers.

Recorded live by Earthcycles, producer Govinda Dalton, and cohost Brenda Norrell, on the Longest Walk northern route across America, Feb. through July, 2008.

Listen: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Brenda-Norrell

Radio stations may rebroadcast in whole or part. Please credit Earthcycles.

Photo 1: Shannon Rivers as master of ceremonies at the Longest Walk Concert in D.C. Photo by Brita Brookes Photo 2: Phillip Morris and Shannon Rivers onboard the Earthcycles radio bus on the Longest Walk in Greenbelt Park, Maryland, in July 2008, during this interview. Photo Brenda Norrell

Contact Shannon Rivers at:
sunriverhawk@aol.com

A time for eagles: Code Pink, Muntadar and Ackerman

Today is Code Pink, Muntadar al-Zaidi and Judy Ackerman Day at Censored News
A call for whistleblowers: Cyclops in the Closet
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

In Washington outside the White House, the Code Pink ladies were throwing shoes at a Bush effigy on Wednesday, while a lone woman, Judy Ackerman, 55, was getting arrested in El Paso for defending the Rio Bosque Wetlands from the destruction of the US Border Wall construction.
It was a day for eagles.
We can only hope that more eagles in the form of whistleblowers will step forward before another dirty coal mine, Desert Rock, becomes a reality on the Navajo Nation, and Peabody Coal is allowed to expand its genocidal tentacles into the heartland of Black Mesa.
Like a morbid octopus, Peabody wants to usurp everything that does not belong to the coal-chewing monster. Like a thirsty cyclops, Peabody wants to drain the pristine waters of the Navajo and Hopi aquifer, with its one eye focused on more dirty millions.
If the highly-paid spin doctors have their way, there will be more Navajo relocation to make way for the Peabody Coal dragon. There will be more lies in the media and more Navajo elderly will die from broken hearts.
Through the years there have been many whistleblowers on the Navajo Nation, exposing the dirty backdoor deals of Navajo politicians and corrupt corporate spiders.
Today, the Censored News blog calls on all those whistleblowers who are home biting their nails to come out and tell the world about the sleazy deals behind the Desert Rock scheme and Peabody Coal's latest parasitic coal mining plan.
Already, the sex and cocaine of the US Mineral Management Service in Denver with the Big Oil daddies has been exposed.
We would like to hear from the whistleblowers of the Office of Surface Mining in Denver. We would like to hear about the cash that is flowing to keep people silent in corporate offices and what is going on in the US Interior closets.
We would like to hear about the lush meals and lavish hotels aimed at keeping American Indian politicians voting for dirty power plants in tribal council sessions. We would like to hear about the advocates who receive scholarship dollars to speak out in favor of digging into the Earth Mother.
We would also like to hear from whistleblowers at the BLM and elsewhere within the Bush Family. We would like to hear more about how President Bush Sr., before leaving office, cleared the way for Barrick Gold mining to lease lands in Nevada. Once he was out of office, Bush Sr. then went to work as a senior consultant for Barrick. Barrick tore out the trees and bulldozed the area of the Western Shoshone's sacred Mount Tenabo in the past two weeks, as it prepares to core out the mountain for gold mining and poison the water with cyanide leaching.
We would also like to hear from the whistleblowers in the Cheney ring of private prison thieves, who profiteered from imprisoning migrants and all people of color. Surely there are whistleblowers in the US military torture schools and the private mercenaries for profit empire.
Meanwhile, there are the shoes to consider.
With more than 8,300 online articles now in Google Breaking News, Muntadar al-Zaidi -- the shoe-throwing journalist who called Bush a "dog" and remembered the dead, orphans and widows -- has become one of the most famous people in the world.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said of al-Zaidi, "What courage."
Today's AP article on the Code Pink shoe throwers outside the White House says, "The U.S. Secret Service stood by during the protests; however there were no conflicts with authorities and no arrests were made."
How could anyone have a conflict with what the reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi did in Iraq. There is no way to bring back the dead women, children and elderly of Iraq. The mass murders in Iraq can only be considered an act of US genocide. The US kidnappings and tortures were violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Today is Code Pink, Muntadar al-Zaidi and Judy Ackerman Day at Censored News. VIDEO: 'Code Pink Shoe-in at the White House'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yOC4ckof04
VIDEO: 'Shoe-icide at the White House'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju0VpP4oUyM