Backing Black Mesa

Elizabeth Hart
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In 1967 the Peabody Western Coal Company began mining on Black Mesa, an area of northeastern Arizona which has been populated by Navajo and Hopi people for 7,000 years. To this day, their mining strategy is to pump thousands of acre-feet of pristine groundwater, otherwise suitable as a source of drinking water, in order to transport crushed coal for processing. The environmental and cultural repercussions of this effort are nothing short of devastating to Black Mesa residents.

Yesterday, a group of activists, youth organizers and elders traveled to Denver, Colorado, where the Office of Surface Mining’s regional headquarters are located, to protest the upcoming “Record of Decision” on the Black Mesa Project. The decision could give “Live-of-Mine” rights to the Peabody Coal Company, re-open closed mines for further strip mining, and potentially relocate seventeen families who live on Black Mesa.

You can offer your resistance to this harmful decision by writing or calling the Office of Surface Mining or the U.S. Department of the Interior. A sample letter is made available by the Black Mesa Water Coalition.  Email letters to Dennis Winterringer, Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcment at bmkeis(at)osmre(dot)gov or call 303-844-1400, ext 1440.

According to the indigenous resource website blackmesais.org, “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 deity Female Mountain and the belief is that she possess 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 that which 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.”

Story suggested by Bethany Yarrow.


Comments

yardang abuse...

Submitted by vivifidal on Tue, 12/09/2008 - 18:31.
every culture near a yardang views them as sacred. They influence the gravitational and electrical fields of energy flow. Often they are defaced (Stone Mountain, Mt. Rushmore,etc.)or become tourist meccas (Ayer's rock, aka Uluru) without respect to their sacred nature. It is difficult not to offer ones blood in defense of such.

hmm..

Submitted by watutinkboutdat8 on Sat, 12/13/2008 - 22:50.
Hopi and Navajo tribes do not want the black rock or san francisco holy sites to be desecrated. However tribesmen consumed by ropean mind control strive to exploit their land in the act of becoming wealthy. The tribes people are different, they love the land and they have died countlessly for it. Their names are never to be known or respected by a commission of ignorant men with minds seeking money and pleasures of the "modern world," 'tis a very sad situation; when the people rise, the vampires trick them unto fighting each other, all the while sucking the sacred fluid from the warm earth. Contradictng the object of conscience their father's gandfather's great grand mother's had so blatently had given them. To live harmoniously, finding power that consumes their pleasure without the killing of sentient beings was fundamental to the way of life around the globe. Certain people have banded togather and are speacking of themselves with disinctions; capitalist,communist etc, whatever the matter persueing wealth. Same old story told retold navajo,hopi,dogon,zulu,celtic,icelandic,australian, you name it. Stick with the roots NO MORE BLIND ACTION AGAINT MOTHER EARTH! !Mucho respeda a la pueblo de america mexico niko, peru! GRANDE a casa me famalia!

we are all related...

Submitted by vivifidal on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 00:45.
and the earth is our mother!