Water is at the heart of one of the most controversial tribal resource debates in the Southwest. Last week in Tucson, a panel of activists, journalists, and environmentalists gathered for “Power Struggle: A dialogue on energy, environmental activism and the role of the media on the Navajo and Hopi Nations.”
The panelists included members of the press as well as environmental and community activists: Marley Shebala of The Navajo Times, Andy Bessler of the Sierra Club, Dennis Wagner of The Arizona Republic, Wahleah Johns of the Black Mesa Water Coaltion, Tony Skrelunas of the Grand Canyon Trust, and Vernon Masayesva of Black Mesa Trust. (Representatives from the Navajo and Hopi governments and from Peabody Coal were invited to participate, but unable to attend). In a dynamic debate, the panelists discussed the implications of tribal sovereignty, environmental justice, and coalitions between tribes and outside environmental groups.
The controversy discussed by the panel stems from the Peabody Coal mining operation situated on Black Mesa, home to both Navajo and Hopi tribal members. In order to slurry the coal, Peabody drew from the N-aquifer, a large reserve of water beneath Black Mesa that feeds sacred springs on the Hopi reservation and acts as the sole water source for the entire region.
In 2006, Hopi and Navajo grassroots organizations, primarily the Black Mesa Water Coaltion and Black Mesa Trust, along with outside organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Grand Canyon Trust successfully lobbied for the close of the mining operation. The closing was seen as a victory for the grassroots groups, environmentalists, and other members of the Hopi and Navajo tribe concerned about water and air quality issues. However, the closing of the mine was not a welcome development for the 230 mineworkers who lost jobs and other tribal members who saw the mine as an important source of revenue and employment in a cash-strapped region.
In the aftermath of the closing, tribal governments blamed environmental groups for causing the economic turmoil resulting from lost revenue. The Hopi tribal council voted unanimously to ban environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Grand Canyon Trust, from the reservation stating that they posed a threat to the tribe’s economic development and their right to self-govern. Their resolution encouraged “all Indian nations across the country to evaluate their relationships with environmental groups and possibly reconsider those alliances in order to protect tribal sovereignty.” Navajo Nation president Joe Shirley issued a statement supporting the decision of the Hopi tribal council: “I stand with the Hopi Nation. Unlike ever before, environmental activists and organizations are among the greatest threat to tribal sovereignty, tribal self determination, and our quest for independence.”
Some of the panelists argued that the tribal government ban of environmental groups didn’t reflect the sentiments of the entire tribe, some of whom identified very deeply as environmentalists. Panelist Vernon Masayesva, former Hopi tribal chairman and the founder of the Black Mesa Trust, said that the move to ban environmental groups was hypocritical. “The word Hopi means to be an environmentalist because we have a covenant to care for the Earth.” Masayesva told the audience last week that to ban environmentalism is to ban an ethic that has traditionally been a unifying force in Hopi ideology. There are different degrees of sovereignty, he said, and while tribes do have the right to self-govern, “we still haven’t learned to do it very well, but we need to exercise our right to control our resources.”
In the case of the Peabody Coal mine, the hard fact remains that jobs and revenue were lost when the mine shut down. Groups like Just Transition have organized to help “transition tribal economy, employment, and energy off fossil fuel extraction and onto a sustainable renewable energy path.”
Discussions about tribal resource use and the search for pathways towards sustainable development will continue next month when Arizona State University hosts the conference, “Tribal Energy Economies: Investing in a Sustainable Future.”
For Further Reading:
The suggestion that environmental groups pose a threat to tribal sovereignty raises important questions about the nature of sovereignty and self-governance in the post-colonial era. For more on this topic, see Kevin Bruyneel’s The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Post-colonial Politics of U.S.-Indigenous Relations (University of Minnesota Press, 2008):
“In resistance to this colonial rule, indigenous political actors work across American spatial and temporal boundaries, demanding rights and resources from the liberal democratic settler-state while also challenging the imposition of colonial rule on their lives. This resistance engenders what I call a ‘third space of sovereignty’ that resides neither simply inside nor outside the American political system but rather exists on these very boundaries, exposing both the practices and the contingencies of American colonial rule.”
See also, Mining, the Environment, and Indigenous Development Conflicts by Saleem H. Ali (University of Arizona Press, 2003).
