Early this year, in an attempt to maximize profits at its Black Mesa mine, Peabody Coal submitted a permit request that contains a 32 percent increase in water use for its slurry operation. The slurry uses 3.3 million gallons of water per day to flush the coal through a pipeline 273 miles long to the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada, which generates electricity for Las Vegas, Nevada; Los Angeles; and Phoenix.

Black Mesa mine sits on the Hopi and Navajo lands and the water comes from the Navajo Aquifer, which lies underneath the entire area. The 273-mile slurry is the only one of its kind in the United States.

Black Mesa Trust recently submitted hundreds of pages of comments against Peabody’s request as a part of the permit application process regulated by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

"We jumped on the issue," Leonard Selestewa, a leader of Black Mesa Trust, told the Militant. "It was difficult because Peabody submitted their request at the beginning of our most sacred holy months. This is a time when things are at a standstill, a time when there are no meetings and business, a time when we clear our minds of negative thoughts."

The first step was to look at the actual request for the revision, which was difficult since three out of the four copies made available were placed far out of the way of most Hopis and Navajos. "One copy was in Denver and another in Albuquerque. A third was in Forest Lake, a small isolated village on the Navajo reservation," Selestewa explained.

"Peabody wants to mine more coal and up the ante from 4,200 acre feet of water to 5,700 acre feet per day for use in their slurry," Selestewa continued. "They also want a Life of the Mine permit. Right now they have an Administrative Delay permit. If they get a Life of the Mine permit it will make it much more difficult to prove that Peabody is hurting the aquifer."

Black Mesa Trust representatives transcribed the permit request into laymen’s terms to make it broadly accessible to the Hopi and Navajo population. "We testified before all the meetings that were organized on the reservation and we won," Selestewa said. "For the first time, the Office of Surface Mining refused to grant Peabody’s request for a revision, instead they ordered a new environmental impact study."

Peabody and the U.S. government have a long history of exploitation on native lands. In 1934 the Bureau of Indian Affairs used the Indian Recognition Act--which the government claimed was designed to reduce exploitation of tribal land--to set up tribal councils that authorized the extraction of valuable resources from the sovereign native areas. In 1966, John Boyden negotiated a lease on behalf of the Hopi to set up the Black Mesa mine. It was later discovered that Boyden was representing Peabody in the negotiations as well as the Hopi, creating a very poor and unfair contract for the Hopi and Navajo.

Coal companies are the main source of income for the Navajo and Hopi. Peabody alone pays $13 million in royalties to the Hopi reservation, yet these are only pennies on each dollar that Peabody makes.

The slurry operation comes at a great cost to the aquifer. Documentation collected by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that works with Black Mesa Trust, shows that the Office of Surface Mining (OSM), charged by Congress with regulating surface mining on native lands, has continually ignored important regulations to protect that water supply. The OSM has often employed outdated information to make decisions or simply not bothered to even collect or view the data.

In its 35 years of operation, Black Mesa has illegally obtained dozens of permits through the OSM, giving it permission to build large dams and construct more than 222 small ponds. Part of the permit granting procedure allows for public review. However, until Peabody’s most recent proposal this step was passed over, and the company’s requests were granted without resistance. Peabody has also operated with interim permits, another trick that allows them to ignore mining regulations.

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s October 2000 report "Drawdown: Groundwater Mining on Black Mesa" states, "The Office of Surface Mining is supposed to ensure that local springs and washes, which irrigate Hopi crops, do not drop below 10 percent, however surveys conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey show that springs have dropped up to 30 percent and washes have declined by 25 percent. Water levels have decreased 100 feet in local wells."

"The stream through my village of Moenkopi is drying up," Leonard Selestewa said. "When I was a child I grew up playing with the pollywogs, we had a swimming hole, and at this time of year the stream was two to three feet deep. Now it does not run after May and it will not start back until October."

The Navajo Aquifer is the main source of drinking water for the Hopi people living in the area and its long-term viability should be protected under the Safe Drinking Water Act of the Federal Sole Source Aquifer Protection Program.

"Peabody takes water from the Navajo Aquifer, which is the lowest aquifer because it is the best water with fewest minerals and it will not corrode the pipes of its slurry," continued Selestewa. "The slurry has lasted past its projected life because Peabody used the best water and the slurry has no corrosion."

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s records, between 1994 and 1999 the slurry pipeline that Peabody’s Black Mesa mine uses to transport coal has failed 12 times. This led to contamination of water on the land of ranchers and farmers, with grave implications for the crops and water used by people. After each failure corrective action was promised but no such action ever occurred.

"We cannot compete with Peabody’s abuse of the aquifer," Selestewa said. "The water cannot be recharged. Wells are running dry throughout this area."

"Farming in this part of the Southwest is a science because it is so dry," Selestewa said. "My father taught me everything I know--how to watch the weather and how to use the water."

"Every farmer in Moenkopi has a 20-acre plot that is allotted by the government," Selestewa said. "All of the plots need to be irrigated. We grow corn; casaba and musk loose-knit Indian Waters Coalition with a number of other tribes after meetings that occurred in Seattle and Denver. "I am going to testify before a hearing organized by Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye who heads up the Indian Affairs Committee in the U.S. Senate," Selestewa stated.

"We are trying to untangle the whole mess. Every time you try to find the government agency that is supposed to deal with this issue you are told to go someplace else--sometimes it’s the Department of Defense, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Office of Surface Mining, or the Environmental Protection Agency," Selestewa said.

The Hopi and Navajo’s fight to protect their water is getting a much broader hearing. Recently major articles about their struggle have appeared in the Grand Junction Sentinel and Albuquerque Journal.

"We went to the shareholders meeting of Lehman Brothers, the company that owns Peabody," Selestewa explained. "We said that it was fine to be making money but it shouldn’t be done by depleting the Hopi and Navajo’s resource of water. They passed a resolution trying to get the Indians off their back."

In a move that further compromises the water situation, Hopi Tribal Council members have entered into discussions with the Reliant Power Company to build a coal-fired power plant on the reservation. Reliant was recently charged with unlawful trading practices during last summer’s California power crisis.

Currently, as seen in practically every page of the May issue of the official Hopi paper the Tutuveni, there are many community forums being organized to discuss what the power plant would mean for the Hopi people.

The plant is projected to create 400 new jobs and needed energy for the reservation. However, after inspecting the proposed contracts, Black Mesa Trust discovered that the jobs were not guaranteed to the Hopi people. Also the plant would be 75 percent Hopi-owned yet they would only have 50 percent voting rights in all issues concerning its operation. Reliant would have control over the other 50 percent.

The most pressing concern is the further exploitation of Hopi water sources. In order to build this plant the company must have access to a "firm water supply." It does not have this.

The plant would use 2,500 acre-feet or 815 million gallons of water each year in its operation.

"We are confident we can win," Selestewa said. "There are other ways--like rail--to send the coal to Nevada. One of the things that we are most pleased with is that many of the Navajo miners at Black Mesa have told us they agree with our fight."  
 
 
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