Peabody
Plans Carry Harmful Impacts
09 January 2009
Peabody
Coal Company's massive coal mining expansion plans on the proposed
Black Mesa Project outlines many harmful impacts to the ecological
and cultural systems on Black Mesa. The Black Mesa Project has
global repercussions particularly to the environment, Black Mesa
Navajo, and Hopi communities.
Therefore,
it is important to protect Black Mesa as a sacred (religious),
cultural, and historic landscape by having the area designated as
Traditional Cultural Property under Section 106 of the National
Historic Preservation Act, and under the RFRA agreement.
Black
Mesa has many religious shrines and offering places located on its
landscape. However, it must be stressed that the whole Black Mesa
region, including Navajo Mountain is a female goddess that is
lying by her male mate the Chuska Mountains.
Both
mountains are alive, they rule over different form of earth life
within the sacred Dineh (Navajo) landscape of Dinétah. In the
Navajo worldview, all life is divided into female and male, each
with its special purpose of keeping life in balance and
maintaining order in the universe.
In
reference to Black Mesa, she is keeper of water and water
creations. The female mountain has her head at Navajo Mountain,
her upper body is the main portion northern Black Mesa, her arms
are around the Shonto wash, and in one hand she holds a cane
Aghaala' (tall black rock near Kayenta), in the other she holds a
Navajo wedding basket. And finally her feet extend out at Balakai
mesa near Dilkon.
Not only
is the female goddess keeper of the Navajo Aquifer that is pumped
for coal and road washing, but also her liver is the coal being
dug up by Peabody Coal.
Formerly,
Navajo residents were required to make special offerings if they
wanted to dig and use the coal for special purposes, it was known
that its' chemical properties were dangerous - just as our own
liver processes waste from our bodies.
The Black
Mesa Navajo communities have always made offerings at various
special sites for different purposes, the living mountain must be
protected, and more importantly, the female goddess must be kept
alive.
If
Peabody continues to disrupt and destroy the female life of Black
Mesa by pumping water from within her and digging coal, they will
not only destroy Navajo and Hopi communities, but also canyon
lands, indigenous vegetation, shrines, and burial sites.
Furthermore,
if Peabody continues to pump massive amounts of water, it depletes
a precious and scarce resource - water that residents, animals,
vegetation, and land depend on to survive. The blasting the land
for coal also depletes the air quality, and increases the health
risk of t he local residents and their livestock.
Moreover,
families are removed from their ancestral homelands where the coal
mining expansions are planned. The major concern as a result of
Peabody extracting coal to use for producing electricity is the
impact of accelerated global warming which will cause an
ecological meltdown.
Marie Gladue
Black Mesa, AZ
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