Navajo government ignores elderly without water

Navajo Nation government caters to coal mines and power plants, while Navajo elderly go without water

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Photo: Navajo elderly drinking contaminated water/Forgotten People

BIG MOUNTAIN, Ariz. -- While Peabody Coal and power plants use the precious aquifer water here, Navajo elderly go without.

Forgotten People shares the voices of Navajos resisting relocation, where Navajo elderly are forced to haul their water, elderly who are often ill and without transportation. The wells have been capped off and the springs are drying up.

Still, the Navajo Nation leaders only make an occasional, superficial gesture at caring about the suffering of Navajo elderly without water. Instead, the Navajo government continues to focus on polluting and disease producing industries.

By ignoring the suffering of Navajos on Black Mesa, and instead catering to the needs of Peabody Coal, the United States government and other mining and power plant operations, the Navajo Nation government has engaged in a crime against humanity. While providing the Southwest cities with electricity produced with large quantities of pure water, the Navajo government has neglected to provide water for their own people.

The media has been a complicit partner in this crime. While failing to expose the suffering and injustice on Black Mesa, the media has continued to promote the polluting industries on the Navajo Nation, even cheerleading for more coal-fired power plants.

Coal-fired power plants not only use excessive water, but they are the primary cause of global warming and the melting of the Arctic, now causing Native villages to crash into the waters. The pollution from coal-fired power plants has resulted in habitat change in the far north, causing the deaths of polar bears, walruses and other wildlife.

Black Mesa comments from Forgotten People:

Pauline Whitesinger, Big Mountain speaks: We want to participate in a water hauling project. The wells throughout HPL (Hopi Partitioned Lands) have been capped off, fenced off, bulldozed and the natural water source near me is contaminated and unregulated. When I drink the water it hurts my throat and I have a reaction when I swallow it and get sick. I have no vehicle and have no access to safe drinking water. My livestock are thirsty. We are living under a State of Emergency! We are endangered, denied access to water, forced to travel over unpassable dirt roads and endure violations during our ceremonies that the Hopi Tribe says requires a permit to conduct. There are other water sources near me and they are all denied to me for my use. When I was offering a sacrament to the water the Hopi told me to leave the water alone, it does not belong to me. I speak on behalf of my people. We have brought our case and our words (as attached) to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner (see link for UN OHCHR website), Congressional, federal, and tribal forums advocating for our human right to water and sanitation.

Caroline Tohannie, Black Mesa speaks: Our springs were our wetlands with cat tails and other wetlands growth. But they are no longer here. This is where we make offerings and get our healing medicine like cat tails or wreaths for ceremonial purposes. These are our sacred sites. The BIA made wells that had concrete covers and manual pumps. But BIA Rangers came around and disassembled them, taking the pumps out, unscrewing parts, taking off pipes. All the windmills in our region were capped off by the BIA. At first one windmill was capped off but we could reopen it at first but then found the BIA welded the cover shut with dirt over the well opening. There was no longer any way to get water from the well. At another windmill in the area, the BIA disassembled the windmill pump so it would not work. We have been fenced and capped off from access to water. This has created many problems for living things, even insects that need water, animals, birds and people. These tactics are being done to force us off our land so Peabody Coal Company can expand their mining operations.

Read more statements from Navajos on Black Mesa:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/61460412/8-2-2011-FP-SUBMITTED-Comments-to-President-Shelly-HPL-Right-to-Water
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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

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