Black Mesa

Every day for 35 years, 3.3 million gallons of pure groundwater were pumped from the Navajo Aquifer, which flows beneath the Hopi and Navajo Nations in northeastern Arizona. Peabody Coal Company used the water to transport coal from a stripmine on Black Mesa to a power plant in the Mojave Desert, 273 miles to the west. Vernon Masayesva of Black Mesa Trust followed the example of Hopi traditional leaders of the 1970s and 80s and fought hard against the slurry line, saying, “One billion gallons of our ancient, sacred water, mined to slurry coal, fouled beyond reclamation, evaporates each year in Nevada’s desert skies.” Hopi spiritual leaders won a rare victory on January 1, 2006, when the Mohave Generating Station was shut down, and the slurry line terminated. But the drive to sacrifice pristine desert groundwater for cheap energy has not disappeared.

Report by Amy Corbin
Updated August 2007

History

Hopi clans came to rest along the southern rim of Black Mesa over a thousand years ago. To this day, intricate ceremonies call rain to thirsty corn plants, and each Hopi village still bears the name of the spring that sustains it. In the 1960s, both the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribal Council signed mineral exploration agreements with Peabody Coal Company (now Peabody Energy). Both tribal governments felt compelled to enter into lease agreements in pursuit of economic development that would benefit their people. Documents now prove that the Hopi Tribe’s attorney, John Boyden, was secretly working for Peabody Coal Company at the same time that he was negotiating the coal lease (select View Film Clips on our home page to see a short film about Peabody and Boyden). Boyden advised the Hopis to approve the pumping of groundwater to transport coal, and the lease was approved by the Department of Interior, which holds tribal lands in trust. DOI included an “escape clause” in the lease that requires the Secretary of the Interior to force Peabody to find another way to move the coal if the slurry line has an adverse effect on the Navajo aquifer (also known as the N-aquifer). Despite scientific evidence of damage to Hopi springs, the slurry line operated unhindered until environmental groups forced the closure of the Mohave Generating Station due to sulphur dioxide pollution of the skies around the Grand Canyon.

Threat

Water is physically precious and spiritually significant to the native people in the desert regions of the Southwest. Water is life, and the situation at Hopi is a harbinger of the water conflicts that many experts predict in coming years. A Hopi individual on average uses 10,000 gallons of water per year, while each golf course in the Phoenix metropolitan area uses 185 million gallons per year, and the Peabody slurry consumed 1.3 billion gallons in a year. From 1970 to 2005, this amounted to a total of 40 billion gallons of water. Peabody also constructed 222 impoundment ponds that hold more than 4,400 acre feet of water — that’s another 1.4 billion gallons that do not flow into local washes or percolate into springs. Embedded in the Peabody mining lease is a dangerous attitude: “We live in an illusory world,” says former Hopi Chairman Vernon Masayesva, “imagining a limitless supply of water.” The water Peabody pumped from the N-aquifer has depleted the most significant water source in the region. Underground water flows into natural subterranean storage areas and collects, coming out years later in the washes and springs. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, since Peabody began the current rate of pumping, N-aquifer levels have decreased by over 100 feet and poor-quality water is seeping in. The flow of Moencopi Wash is greatly diminished. The Hopi expect at least one village may be without water by 2011.

However, as in other areas, tribal governments are caught between trying to preserve the quality of their land and trying to provide for their people’s economic health. Peabody’s mines provided jobs and injected $2 million into the Navajo and Hopi communities every week, according to the company. In March 2003, Hopi Tribal Chairman Charles Taylor suggested that the Tribe might extend their 2005 deadline for Peabody to stop using the N-aquifer if Peabody showed that it was working on an alternative means of transportation, a move which angered many citizens. Despite many attempts, Peabody was unable to find an alternative water source and the Mohave Generating Station closed at the end of 2005. Right up through the final days, the plant’s owner, Southern California Edison, was still negotiating for an extension that would have allowed the plant to remain open and the slurry line to continue operating.

But the push for cheap ways to transport coal does not end. In November 2006, the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) issued a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that recommended Peabody Energy reopen the Black Mesa Mine, and with it the destructive coal slurry line. Peabody sought to tap into the Coconino Aquifer (south of Black Mesa, between Flagstaff and Winslow) while increasing the amount of water pumped from the Navajo Aquifer by 33% compared to the previous rate. The Navajo Aquifer had already been devastated by the water pumped from 1970 to 2005; seven local springs and several wells are down by approximately 30%. In addition to this expansion, Peabody was also seeking a “life of mine” permit from their friends in the Bush Administration. Vernon Masayesva described the plan as further “illegal depletion of trust assets” and Black Mesa Trust demanded public hearings and a full EIS before any more operations moved forward. Meanwhile, the Salt River Project was negotiating to re-open the Mohave Generating Station, again with coal supplied from Black Mesa.

Despite OSM’s fast-track process, the proposed re-opening of the mine and slurry was squelched by an outpouring of public comment. In May 2007, Southern California Edison announced it had stopped funding OSM’s EIS process and had discontinued its efforts to sell the Mohave Generating Station to the group led by the Salt River Project. However, according to Vernon Masayesva, Peabody is still considering an expansion of their other reservation stripmine, the Kayenta Mine, to the south, onto the part of Black Mesa exclusively controlled by the Hopi tribe. This could result in stripmining an additional 180 million tons of coal, and a 32% increase in water use if the slurry line is ever put back into service for this project.

Solution

At this point, it will probably take a lawsuit to convince the Department of Interior to take its responsibility for tribal lands seriously and force Peabody to stop all water extraction, water impoundments, and to develop an alternative method of coal transportation in order to cease all pumping for future mine operations. This power is clearly laid out in the lease agreement, which after all is a business contract. Peabody should be required to pay for the damage caused to the land and the aquifers before it can begin new projects. Methods for monitoring water reduction must also be improved. Funding is desperately needed to invest in alternative energy development, such as wind and solar, on the Hopi and Navajo Reservations, to replace the jobs and revenue lost with the closure of the Black Mesa Mine. Transitioning the Mohave Generating Station to a solar thermal plant is a potentially feasible solution that would model clean energy production in a culturally sacred and fragile environment.

Take Action

Contact and contribute to the following grassroots organizations:

Keep the pressure on the Department of the Interior to find a permanent solution to coal mining and transport in the Black Mesa area.

Resources

• The Stop Peabody web site has comprehensive background information and updates
• In 2000, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published an assessment of the damage caused by Peabody Energy's groundwater mining at Black Mesa and determined that the Navajo Aquifer showed signs of serious decline after 30 years of pumping by Peabody. This 2006 update to the original report concludes that material damage is still present in Black Mesa and that the aquifer shows signs of continuing damage and deterioration. Read a two-page summary.
• Read the January 1, 2006 New York Times article, the Los Angeles Times report on the plant’s closure.
• Read an opinion piece by Vernon Masayesva (Arizona Republic, November 3, 2005)
• Read “Gathering Clouds” — the cover story from the Los Angeles Times Magazine (June 6, 2004)
• Read an Indigenous Declaration on Water “Water is Life - Protect Water Now!” co-authored by Black Mesa Trust.
• Read Black Mesa Trust President Leonard Selestewa’s Op-Ed piece: “Central Arizona Project: Robbing Black Mesa to Fuel Phoenix” from the Navajo-Hopi Observer (August, 2001).
• Read Peabody Energy’s response to the NRDC report (March, 2001).
• Read the Time Magazine article “Indians vs. Miners” (November 5, 2001)
• Read “Dark Days on Black Mesa” by John Dougherty, from Phoenix New Times, (April 24, 1997 - part one of a two-part series)
• Read “A People Betrayed — John Boyden’s Legacy” by John Dougherty, from Phoenix New Times, (May 1, 1997 - part two of a two-part series)