PRESS
RELEASE
Vernon
Masayesva
P.O. Box 33
Kykotsmovi, AZ 86039
Black Mesa Trust
Calls for Public Hearings on Peabody Mine Expansion
The Black Mesa Trust, a non-profit educational
organization headquartered on the Hopi Reservation, is calling for a public
hearing on the proposed expansion of Peabody Western Coal Company's strip-mining
operations onto Hopi Reservations lands. The Black Mesa Trust is concerned
that additional coal mining will cause further damage to the N-aquifer,
the underground water source that provides high quality drinking water
to Hopi villages and supplies Hopi farmers with irrigation. According
to a recently released study authored by the Natural Resource Defense
Council or NRDC, the N-aquifer may have already suffered serious and permanent
damage.
The report, entitled Drawdown: Groundwater
Mining on Black Mesa, concludes that the N-aquifer is showing signs
of serious decline after more than thirty years of pumping by Peabody
for use in its coal slurry line.
According
to the NRDC report, "water levels in some Black Mesa wells have dropped
by more than 100 feet, many springs have slackened to less than half their
original volume, and washes used by local farmers appear to have declined.
In addition, reduction of pressure inside the aquifer is allowing contaminated
water from another aquifer to leach in." The NRDC study further states
that one of the government's four thresholds for "material damage"
has been exceeded, and the data strongly suggests that two other thresholds
have also been compromised.
Since the ancestral underground waters that
underlie Black Mesa feed Hopi and Navajo physical and spiritual life,
The Black Mesa Trust is strongly encouraging the public to demand public
hearings on any proposed mining expansion and a reconsideration of the
continued Peabody use of N-aquifer water for mining purposes.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is
an internationally recognized and respected environmental organization
that evaluates natural resource management in sensitive areas. The report
is the most recent of a long series of efforts to call regional and national
attention to the violation and betrayal of the "trust relationship"
between the Hopi tribe and the United States Department of Interior. Three
foundations and the 40,000 members of the NRDC supported a team of specialists
in hydrogeology, environmental law and Indian sovereignty to "evaluate
the data, and consider what role the federal government ought to play
in its resolution" to conserve Black Mesa's water supply well into
the new century."
The report is available on the Internet
at www.nrdc.org. For the first time, the public has an opportunity to
examine the history of the corporate exploitation of the Hopi and Navajo
natural resource base that now threatens to seriously compromise Native
American spiritual ties to the natural world and undermine the Hopi and
Navajo cultural heritage.
The mission of the Black Mesa Trust is to
restore the traditional water ethics that have sustained Hopi people for
millennia and to explore ways that Western science and technology that
can support traditional Hopi cultural heritage. The Trust was founded
by former Hopi Tribal Chairman, Vernon Masayesva. Advisors to the Black
Mesa Trust include Robert Kennedy Jr., Senior Attorney at the Natural
Resources Defense Council, Charles Wilkenson, Professor of Law at Colorado
University; Terry Tamminen, Executive Director of Environment Now; Peter
Whitely, Professor of Anthropology at Sarah Lawrence College and Dr. Gary
Nabhan, Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments-Northern Arizona
University, Abe Springer, Professor of Hydrology at Northern Arizona University
and Tom Siske.
For more Information contact:
Vernon Masayesva
P.O. Box 33
Kykotsmovi, AZ 86039
|
