🚀 go-pugleaf

bernhard@nativechild.com (Bernhard Michaelis) wrote:
> > Some of the people living on Big Mountain can trace their habitation of
> > that land back for 25 generations, longer than the USA has been in
> > existence.  But since 20 billion tons of coal are believed to lie under
> > Black Mesa, mining interests have been trying to get rid of them.
> Another one of these myths that has been going around for decades now.
> I never understood why this issue supposedly is a mining issue - go to both
> reservations and look around..you'll find the powerplants and the pollution
> on the Navajo reservation, not on Hopi

The Hopi have had coal-mining contracts with Peabody Coal since 1966.
Pollution from these mines has killed and sickened animals, plants, and people.
Pollutants found so far at levels above federal standards include arsenic,
cadmium, copper, chromium, lead, selenium, and other metals.
The mines are the subject of a Superfund investigation.

The Hopi Tribal Council has filed plans in Arizona Superior Court for a coal
mine on Big Mountain, a second slurry line, and a coal-fired power plant in
Hopi Partition Lands.
I'm having trouble understanding why denials from the press office should be
given greater weight than legal documents submitted in court.

People living on Big Mountain have found core holes and related drilling
equipment used to locate mineral deposits.

In a meeting that was supposed to be secret but some details leaked out,
Peabody Coal told the Hopi Tribal Council of plans for a new mine in Hopi
Partition Lands, and told them to complete the relocation.

The Navajo Tribal Council was originally constituted for the purpose of
facilitating mineral development. The Hopi Tribal Council was reconstituted for
the purpose of facilitating mineral development and filing land claim lawsuits.
Both were imposed by Washington with disregard for the prior sovereign
systems of governance.

The relocation law was written by John Boyden and congressional sponsor Wayne
Owens, who later went to work for Boyden's law firm, which had represented
Peabody Coal and moved into the Kennecott Copper Corporation Building; Peabody
Coal was a subsidiary of Kennecott at the time.
Harrison Loesch, one of the people who helped push the act through Congress,
later became a vice president at Peabody Coal, and subsequently became counsel
to the Relocation Commission.
Immediately after the act was signed into law, Jerry Verkler, who played a key
role in the bill's passage, was hired by Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation,
which was considering building a coal gasification plant on Black Mesa.
Rick Lavis, who also worked on the legislation, subsequently went to work for
El Paso Natural Gas Company, which was trying to negotiate leases on Black Mesa
for coal gasification.

Peabody Coal is sucking such astronomical amounts of water out of the land
that a USGS study projected the water table would drop 200 feet by the turn of
century. Water levels in some wells have already fallen more than 160 feet since
Peabody began pumping.
A document from the Hopi Tribe's Water Department projects drought within five
years for the outlying regions of the Navajo-Aquifer being depleted by Peabody.
Loss of water is a grave threat to the survival of land-based people in arid
places such as this.

> It always has been easier for companies to make contracts with Window Rock
> [Navajo] rather than with Hopi.

Not true.
The Hopi Tribal Council was the first to approve a coal exploitation lease, in
1961. The Navajo turned down a coal exploration proposal at that time.
In 1964 the Hopi Tribal Council approved a Peabody coal exploration permit.
A committee appointed by the Navajo Tribal Chairman also approved the permit but
it was then revoked because it did not have the approval of the Navajo Tribal
Council.
The Navajo approved the mining leases several months before the Hopi in 1966,
but during the time leading up to the passage of the relocation law in 1974,
the Washington Post reported that some Navajo "were saying threatening things
about closing down polluting power plants and requiring expensive reclamation of
strip-mined land", while "the relationship between the Hopi council and the
power companies became almost symbiotic", Hopi Tribal Chairman speeches were
written by an energy industry public relations firm, and the Hopi Tribal
Council was still under the influence of John Boyden, who "negotiated" the
original coal mining leases while simultaneously "representing" both the Hopi
Tribal Council and Peabody Coal.

When mineral interests first started dealing with the Hopi Tribal Council, they
had a problem: the Tribal Council did not have the power to grant mineral
leases, since its original constitution specifically allowed it only to prevent
the sale or lease of tribal land.  The Tribal Council refused to hold a
referendum on the subject because it did not want to face the power of the
traditionals, nor did it want the public to know that the most easily accessible
surface mineral was coal, which would result in strip mining.  Boyden and the
Hopi Tribal Council then found a loophole in their constitution permitting them
to exercise powers delegated by the Secretary of the Interior, who then quietly
granted them the power to lease mineral rights.  Soon after, the Tribal Council
began issuing permits.  In other words, the Hopi Tribal Council launched into
mineral development in contempt of the right of the Hopi people to even
be informed of what was going on, much less be involved in such momentous
decisions.

A Peabody official has stated that one reason for their interest in Indian
coal was the lack of tribal "sunshine laws" like those states have that require
public meetings as a prerequisite of mining decisions -- in other words they're
interested because deals can be cut in secret.
Hopi village leaders have been denied the right to even see the mining leases
after they've been signed, much less participate in decision-making.

We can hope the Hopi Tribal Council of today is or will become different from
the one that participated in all these actions. There is an encouraging sign:
a former Hopi Tribal Council chairman is calling for the shutdown of Peabody
mining because of what they're doing to the water.

But we are in the dark about what's really going on, and are sorely in need
of sunshine.
If the Hopi Tribal Council had an open democratic process, with a prohibition
on secret dealings and a guarantee of public access to all documents, meetings,
and decision-making, then their denials regarding current or future mining might
have some credibility.
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