This is a guest post by Caitlin Sislin, a public interest environmental attorney in Oakland, California and founder of the Transformative Advocacy program of Women’s Earth Alliance.

On December 22nd, 2008, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining granted Peabody Western Coal Company a “life-of-mine” permit for its Black Mesa project. The permit authorizes the Kayenta mine, which generates 8.5 million tons of coal per year to the Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, to continue unabated until 2026.

Navajo and Hopi activists protest this permit as an unacceptable desecration of Black Mesa mountain, regarded as a living, female being and a central component of Native religion. Wahleah Johns, co-director of the activist organization Black Mesa Water Coalition, said that “[t]his decision will uproot the sacred connection that we have to land, water and all things living on Black Mesa.”

Peabody has operated the Kayenta and Black Mesa mines on the sacred Black Mesa mountain since the mid-1960s, to the great detriment of the Navajo nation. Coal extraction destroys the environmental integrity of the mountain, contaminates the air with methane gas, and threatens miners with illness and injury; coal burning is among the most highly-polluting forms of energy production in existence. Navajo land throughout Arizona and New Mexico is littered with coal mines and coal-fired power plants, nearly all of which fail to provide power to Navajo residents, instead exporting the coal and power to far-away urban communities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

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As I stated in an earlier article, the Navajo Nation is challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a Federal appeals court, over proposed in situ leach uranium mining on tribal lands. It’s the first time in history that the NRC will be challenged in court for its approval of a source materials license for an in situ leach uranium mine.

The Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock are represented by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC), Eastern Navajo Dine against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) and Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC). They are demanding that a New Mexico mining company, Hydro Resources, Inc., stay off tribal lands.

Eric Jantz, a lawyer with the NMELC, spent some time with me, explaining the lawsuit and that organization’s role in other uranium related issues. I asked him for a briefing on the litigation.

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Image: World Nuclear Association

For all the minorities in this country who have raised pluperfect hell about their past or current situations, the American Indian has been the quietist, and I wonder why.

Before you write me nasty emails, I’m not minimizing the concerns of minorities in this country: they have their issues and the right to use their voices, and that’s good.

But think for a moment about the original settlers of this land, the American Indian.

They did just fine for centuries, sustaining their cultures with the fruits of the land, picking fights and having wars, just like we all do.

Then, came the white man (no emails please, because that’s what happened), who invaded the natives’ birthright, confiscated their tribal lands, transferred them to reservations and literally forgot about them. Many of those Native Americans to this very day are without electricity and running water, in some cases, living in dirt poor conditions, and they languish without raising their voices.

How incredibly sad.

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A Navajo Nation enterprise has filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday for dragging its feet on an air permit for a proposed coal-fired power plant. Dine Power Authority of the Navajo Nation and Houston-based Sithe Global Power have partnered to build the $3 billion, 1500 megawatt Desert Rock plant. The group filed for a permit back in 2004 and is still awaiting a final decision. “Time is money,” said Steven Begay, the general manager of DPA. Begay added, “Sithe is spending money, and we’re spending money. The longer we wait, the more money we spend … and we don’t want to do that. We want to move forward.”

Sithe has alredy invested about $20 million in the project and the lawsuit claims the tribe is losing $5 million per month in tax revenue for each month the permit is delayed. The investor group announced in January that they would be suing the agency, and that they would be represented by friend of ‘big energy,’ Giuliani and Bracewell. Apparently Rudy Giuliani will find ways to assert his political will, even if he can’t be President.

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