The Black Mesa Coal Mine

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses the Black Mesa coal mine site and the battle over the rights of the Hopi and Navajo native peoples to protect their sacred lands and the Peabody power company's wish to expand operations. The paper explains this issue as the struggle for a balance between the needs of the more developed areas and the needs of the Native Americans. The paper further explains that this is an issue of protecting the environment's resources as well as dealing with the issue of how the Peabody company receives water for virtually nothing and therefore wastes this resource.

From the Paper:

"The Black Mesa Coal Mine is in Northern Arizona and is owned by the Peabody Coal Mining Company, which leases the land from the Hopi and Navajo tribes under an agreement from 1964. There are actually two mines in the ore, both owned by the same power company under the same agreement, one at Black Mesa and the other at Kayenta, with each mine providing coal for a different power plant. The site today is the focus of a battle over the right to protect sacred lands and to maintain the way of life associated with that land and the desire on the part of the power company to expand operations and to make the lease permanent for the life of the mine."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Anderson, Frederick R., Jeffrey D. Baxter, Bruce A. Bishop, David Brookshire, F. Lee Brown, Albert M. Church, Mark O. Evans, Allen V. Kneese, Jerrold E. Levy, Alfred L. Parker, William D. Schulze, Walter O. Spofford, and Michael Williams 1981 The Southwest under Stress: National Resource Development Issues in a Regional Setting. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Benedek, Emily. 1999 The Wind Won't Know Me: A History of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
• Black Mesa 2007 Sacred Land Film Project. Electronic Document. http://www.sacredland.org/endangered_sites_pages/black_mesa.html, accessed July 7, 2007.
• Center for Biological Diversity 2007 Groups Challenge Environmental Analysis of Controversial Black Mesa Mine: Feds Failed to Consider Harmful Impacts to Sacred Springs. Electronic Document. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/black-mesa-02-06-2007.html, accessed July 7, 2007.
• Federal Register Environmental Documents2007 Black Mesa and Kayenta Mines, Life-of-Mine Plans and Water Supply Project, Coconino, Navajo, and Mohave Counties, AZ, and Clark County, NV. Electronic document. http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/2004/December/Day-01/i26439.htm, accessed July 7, 2007.

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