Posted on 01/01/2006 12:28:36 PM PST by bkwells
BLACK MESA, Ariz. – The gigantic earthmoving crane sits idle, stilled by a legal, cultural and environmental dispute playing out far from the rich vein of coal beneath the desert of remote northeastern Arizona.
Some welcome the idling of the crane, calling it a symbol of the rape of the land and precious water below. Others, mostly American Indians who have come to depend on the high-paying jobs at the mine, are furious.
For 35 years, the Black Mesa Mine has produced coal for a power plant in southern Nevada. But the plant suspended operations at the end of December, ending the jobs of nearly 200 people.
Most are Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe members whose livelihoods depend on work at the mine, jobs that pay as much as $80,000 a year in wages and benefits – 10 times the average annual income on the reservations.
The mine is ceasing work indefinitely because the sole power plant it supplies – the Mohave Generating Station, 273 miles away in Laughlin, Nev. – is shutting down under a legal agreement with environmental groups that sued because of repeated pollution violations.
The power plant is owned by four utilities that have balked at paying the estimated $1 billion in upgrades to comply with the court order and keep the plant operating.
One idled worker is Myrata Cody, 48, a heavy-equipment operator at Black Mesa for 27 years. She's a Navajo and a single mother, providing support for three children and her aging parents. Her anger at losing her job drives her to tears.
"This income is the only thing I have," Cody said. "There is no power line to my house, no phone line, no running water. Everybody else has everything at the tip of their hands."
She reserved particular ire for the environmentalists who went after the owners of the power plant to try to stop the thick plume of smoke and noxious chemicals it has poured into the atmosphere for decades. The groups contended that the emissions fouled the air over the Grand Canyon and threatened the health of people who lived downwind.
"All those people protesting for the environmental groups, none of them live up here," Cody said. "If this plant shuts down, some of us are going to have to leave our elderly parents behind to go find work. Who's going to go out there and check on them, make sure they get their medication? Nobody from the environmental groups, that's for sure."
The mine is operated by Peabody Western Coal Co., a subsidiary of Peabody Energy Corp., the world's largest coal company, which has made tens of millions of dollars from the Black Mesa mine. But it also has poured millions of dollars into schools, community centers, roads and power lines on the Indian lands of northeastern Arizona, though basic services are still lacking in much of the tribal region.
It provides $89 million a year in payroll, lease payments, taxes and other benefits to this region, where unemployment among the Hopi and Navajo is nearly 40 percent.
Buck Woodward, the mine's manager, called the closing of Black Mesa "a tragedy" that could hinder economic development on the reservations for years.
She reserved particular ire for the environmentalists who went after the owners of the power plant to try to stop the thick plume of smoke and noxious chemicals it has poured into the atmosphere for decades. The groups contended that the emissions fouled the air over the Grand Canyon and threatened the health of people who lived downwind.
"All those people protesting for the environmental groups, none of them live up here," Cody said. "If this plant shuts down, some of us are going to have to leave our elderly parents behind to go find work. Who's going to go out there and check on them, make sure they get their medication? Nobody from the environmental groups, that's for sure."
Well said!
This mine is a really big operation. I can't believe it is being shut down.
Looks like an injun raid is justified on the envirowackos homes.
Can't they migrate to Alaska and work for the oil rigs in ANWR? Oh, right, my bad, I forgot.
I live directly across the river from this plant in Laughlin. I'm looking at it right now. It does give off alot of pollution. I wish there could have come up with a compromise.
Ping to more...
--I don't have a link nor does the Las Vegas R-J have a search feature that will get it, but within the last month there was a glowing article on the Indian "activist" who nearly single-handedly takes credit for the closure, after dedicating most of his life to this goal---
Ahhh! An activist action for the liberal enviro-whackos that has multiple benefits!
1.) Shut down an evil energy producing, polluting coal mine
2.) Deny profits to some evil energy conglomerate.
3.) Save the habitat of the Horned European Blowfly
4.) Puts people out of work, hurts unemployment figures
5.) Puts people out of work, makes them more dependent on the government
6.) Increases American dependency on foreign energy sources
What more could they ask for?
The indians screwed up, they should have had the power plant built on the reservation and told the clean air nuts to go to hell!
This guy must be happy, the Indians can go back to their former ways of making pots and baskets, selling them in little booths at Four Corners and lying dead by the side of the road on Rt. 666.
Hint to Indian "activist": The buffalo ain't coming back to the Checkerboard Reservation.
--there is a tribe in Utah trying to get a nuke waste repository--that's causing all kinds of consternation--
Can't happen. The idiot Navajo chief just got back from a vacation with his "first lady" in Oslo, Norway where the envirowackos presented them with a plaque for declaring "the rez" a nuclear-free zone.
Making it a National Park is so they can limit boats and fishing on the lake and continue to push to dismantle the dam. Backpackers Magazine has started a campaign in their magazine for their readers to push their reps to make this a Park -- and the editor claims he has the Navajo onboard.
Joe Shirley, the leader of the tribe is a very "strange" guy so it's hard to know if they really have him on board or not, but given his comments on snowmaking at Snowbowl it would not suprise me if he is supportive of getting all of us out of Glen Canyon and off the Lake -- Think of how few people really get to see any more of the Grand Canyon than a peak from the rim -- well that is what they want to do at Powell...
In addition the dems are running a 'crooked' Navajo to try and defeat Rick Renzi this coming year and Renzi has been the best representative this tribe has had in DC.
They actually wanted to build a pipeline to send the water from Mohave to the reservation at one point. Though this is electricity being produced in Nevada for SCE (Southern California Edison)
Right now there is concern about a plume of hexavalent chromium PG&E dumped close to the Colorado River in Topoc a long time ago -- it's leached through the sand and under the river; ADEQ is supposed to be overseeing the cleanup, but they do such a lousy job of policing what Nevada is dumping in the river from Laughlin that I dont' have a whole lot of confidence.... If the Colorado gets polluted it is bad news for California as well as Phoenix and Tucson.
They have a whacko Indian Medicine Man who is joined to the hip with the environmentalist-whackos in Flagstaff.
Do you have a link to this??????
"Looks like an injun raid is justified on the envirowackos homes."
Manhattan, LA and Seattle are a long way away.
You missed "puts people OF COLOR (standard Lib classification for Native Americans) out of work"
Some of these 'Indian' activists aren't Indian at all. There is a game played by some for many years to claim to be Indians and to then proceed to argue for their favorite reforms under color of civil rights. Some actual Indians are beginning to get annoyed by this behavior.
Toyota pickups get very good milage.
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