The Navajo Nation has fired the remaining workers at
its defunct sawmill and paid $500,000 from general funds to bail
out Navajo Forest Products Industry, the business it created in
Navajo, N.M.
Tribal leaders say they had no
alternative: Defaulting on the company’s loan would have damaged
the tribe’s credit rating and lost the mill to creditors. Diné
CARE, a Navajo environmental group which fought to have the mill
shut down, worries that the tribal leaders plan to someday reopen
the mill. “Giving Navajo Forest Products Industry money has always
been a Band-Aid,” says Earl Tulley of Diné CARE, who adds that
three of the company’s board members are also on the tribal board.
The mill closed in 1994 amidst charges of
overcutting and mismanagement of Navajo forests, but the company
still owes more than $16 million, including $6 million to the
Navajo Nation, reports the Navajo-Hopi
Observer.
“Elizabeth
Manning
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Navajo Nation bails out timber mill.
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