Office Of Public Relations
The Hopi Tribe
May 1, 2002 Tutuveni
(FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.) -Black Mesa Trust and supporting organizations submitted on April 29, hundreds of pages of detailed comments explaining to the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) why it should not allow Peabody Energy to expand their coal and water mining operations at the Black Mesa Mine in northeastern Arizona or grant a life-of-mine permit for the mine until appropriate safeguards are put in place to protect Hopi natural resources.
"This marks the beginning of a new era in relations between the federal government and the indigenous peoples of this country," said Vernon Masayesva, Executive director of Black Mesa Trust, a grassroots organization dedicated to protecting the N-aquifer's waters, which are sacred to both the Hopis and the Navajos.
"No longer will we tolerate unchallenged cultural imperialism that exploits our natural resources and destroys our sacred lands," he said.
Black Mesa Trust, Natural Resource Defense Council, Sierra Club, the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and the law firms of Sherman & Sterling and Hagens Berman and Mitchell prepared the comments, some of which are written and others of which are oral comments on tape from traditional Hopi farmers.
The comments assert that Peabody's latest mining plan violates not only OSM's own environmental justice guidelines, but breaks several laws, including the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
"OSM is violating their own regulations and they are not complying with their own guidelines for environmental justice," said Mary O'Lone, attorney for the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights. Environmental justice guidelines call for OSM to take special care when conducting activities that will impact the health and environment of Native Americans
In the revised mining plan Peabody submitted to OSM last January, the coal company seeks permission to expand coal production on Black Mesa by one million tons a year and to use 32% more N-aquifer water each year to slurry coal from the Black Mesa Mine to the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada 273 miles away. Peabody's new application asks to use 5,700 acre feet of N-aquifer water a year; the company currently uses 4400 acre feet of that water.
A Natural Resource Defense Council report of 2000 found indications that serious damage to the aquifer had already occurred. An update to that report issued by NRDC yesterday concludes that the model Peabody currently uses to assess the effects of pumping N-aquifer water is ill-suited to that purpose and in fact masks the effects of pumping water from the aquifer for the coal slurry pipeline.
In February of this year, Black Mesa Trust asked OSM to come to the Hopi and Navajo Reservations to discuss how to make the decision process about Peabody's application accessible to all of the people who would be affected by the new mining plan. Many of those people do not read English "the only language in which the mining plan is written" and many could not get to the few offices where the revised mining plan is available to the public. OSM declined that request, but did extend the public comment period until April 30.
Black Mesa Trust will hold a press conference in St. Louis, Missouri on May 3, the day of Peabody's shareholder's meeting at the Ritz Carlton. The press conference will be held at 10 a.m. in front of the hotel.