After years of fighting Peabody Western Coal Co.,
Navajos in northeast Arizona have won a court victory against a
strip mine on their reservation. Citing the desecration of burial
sites, poisoned livestock and filthy air and water, an Interior
Department judge in Phoenix reversed a decision by the federal
Office of Surface Mining to renew the company’s Kayenta mine
permit.
The Diné Alliance, a Navajo
citizens’ group, and a Phoenix-based group, Don’t Waste Arizona,
filed appeals against both Peabody and the federal Office of
Surface Mining after the permit was renewed last July. Steve
Brittle of Don’t Waste Arizona says the groups don’t want to close
the mine since it employs about 450 Native Americans. “We just
wanted Peabody to stop breaking the law,” he says. Judge Ramon
Child allowed Peabody to continue operating temporarily, but
ordered it to meet permit requirements. If it doesn’t, Brittle
says, the Navajos could ask Child for a temporary restraining order
closing the mine.
Although Peabody officials say
that their operation is clean, some sheep and goats have died hours
after drinking water contaminated by coal dust and oil. Strip
mining has also destroyed the graves of an infant and two adults,
and a planned expansion would have disturbed an additional 100
burial sites. Judge Child said, “There appears to be an accepted
tolerance on the part of the Office of Surface Mining and Peabody
to the adverse effects mining has upon the lives and well-being of
Native Americans.”
* Michelle
McClellan
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Navajos win round in coal mine war.
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