In 30 years the Black Mesa mine has contributed an estimated 325 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere! If Peabody's Black Mesa Project is permitted, coal from the Black Mesa mine could potentially contribute an additional 290 million tons of CO2 to the global warming crisis!
Save Nihima Dzil Yijiin! Protect Our Mother Black Mesa!
The Office of Surface Mining (OSM) has recently re-activated the Black Mesa Project (BMP) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) in May 2008. http://www.wrcc.osmre.gov/WR/BlackMesaEIS.htm
After being shelved for one year, the preferred alternative for the draft EIS has changed to Alternative B.
In 2006, OSM released the DEIS for the BMP supporting preferred Alternative A. Which meant the expansion of the mine, the building of a coal-washing facility, the use Coconino Aquifer and Navajo Aquifer, and re-building of the 273-mile coal slurry-line to transport coal to the Mohave Generating Station. It is still unclear what exactly Alternative B is, community people of Black Mesa are outraged for the lack of notification and sudden change in the DEIS. Residents of Black Mesa have been opposing the BMP draft EIS since its release. In particular, the majority of public comments submitted to OSM last year are comments regarding Alternative A.
The proposed Black Mesa Project will have many harmful impacts to the ecological and cultural life ways on Black Mesa, particularly to the environment, and Navajo and Hopi communities. The spiritual significance of the area is manifest, providing religious shrines and/or offering places. To the Dineh (Navajos), the whole Black Mesa region including Navajo Mountain represents one of the supreme deities ~ Female Mountain... and the belief is that she possesses both human and divine forms and qualities as she lies across from her male companion, the Chuska Mountains . Both of these ranges are considered alive, and they dictate systems for all life forms across these particular landscapes. According to Dineh spiritual understanding, Black Mesa as a female entity is the provider of medicinal herbs, tobacco blends and regional floras and faunas.
The Dineh's spiritual view further describes that Navajo Mountain in Utah is the head, Marsh Pass below the north rim of Black Mesa is a turquoise necklace, in her left hand she holds a sacred staff (the El Captain spire), in her right hand she holds a medicine basket (Cowsprings Formation around the confluences of Moenkopi-Cowsprings washes and Coal Mine canyon), and her bare feet are the jutting mesas of Hopi country. The Dineh, children of Female Mountain, were given the responsibility of ritual prayer offerings to insure the continuation of the hydrologic cycles that replenishes (her) bodily fluids ( the Navajo Aquifer) and that also regenerates the natural springs throughout.
Coal is the liver embodiment of this female mountain and its functions will be jeopardized if it is furthered extracted. Despite scientifically supported methods of reclamation and hydrological analysis, the terrain and its ecosystem will lack soil nutrients that the liver provides which are necessary to rebuild natural landscapes and to re-energize plant ecology.
Thus, the modified Alternative B as it concludes in the Draft EIS inadequately interprets the destructive processes of aquifer and coal extraction of Dineh and Hopi lands that encompasses mostly pristine topography that contain numerous cultural and religious sites. The haste in soliciting comments for an entirely new project precludes an adequate representation of these harms.
Thus, the modified Alternative B as it concludes in the Draft EIS inadequately interprets the destructive processes of aquifer and coal extraction of Dineh and Hopi lands that encompasses mostly pristine topography that contain numerous cultural and religious sites. The haste in soliciting comments for an entirely new project precludes an adequate representation of these harms.
