The Crestone Eagle, February 2007:

Energy developers & traditional people at odds in Navajo territory
by Mary Lowers

The Doodá (“no” in Diné) Desert Rock Committee, currently protesting a proposed coal fired power plant on the Navajo Nation, is part of a wave of environmental action throughout the west. Citizens, those belonging to the first nations and others, try to stem the tide of systematic environmental rape. From folks in Crestone working to stop oil development of the sensitive Baca Wetland by Lexam, to activists trying to stop further coal development in the Hopi and Diné lands around Black Mesa, Arizona, Westerners are taking a strong stand for our land and water against the developmental agenda of national and global interests.

On December 12, 2006, Alice Gilmore, a Diné (Navajo) elder and resident, went out to check her sheep about 20 miles southeast of Shiprock, NM near the four corners area. While out in the remote area of the Navajo Nation, Gilmore noticed a worker in a truck and realized Texas-based Sithe Global Power and the Diné Power Authority were beginning work for the proposed Desert Rock coal power plant without proper authorization and necessary environmental impact studies. Gilmore believed, without notice of such development activity, illegal activity was taking place.

Family and supporters from around the community, the Navajo nation and the region rallied around the “grandmas” and the Desert Rock Vigil was born. Gilmore explained, “We’re camping here, and our reason is that we don’t want the third power plant in a twenty- five mile radius, and the reason we don’t want the power plant is that we want to keep our health, keep our land, keep our air fresh, and we want to keep our water.”

A blockade of tents, tepees and campers with a cooking pit and porta-potties was constructed around the dirt road accessing the site of the proposed 600-acre power plant. Protestors initially were blocking access to the site, demanding to see permits and documentation proving the legality of the test-drilling employees of the proposed Desert Rock Plant are doing to establish the best water source for the proposed plant. If completed the Desert Rock plant would bring the total of coal burning power plants in the four corners area to three.

Residents claim that at least one elder, Alice Gilmore had not agreed to relinquish her traditional grazing rights to the Desert Rock Plant. Lori Goodman of the Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment said in a written statement, “Desert Rock company trucks have begun moving into the back yard of Alice Gilmore. Desert Rock officials and Navajo Police have not shown any documents or permits to the local residents stating their purpose or permission to be there.” Specifically, Goodman said that the project lacked the federal water quality permits required before any drilling could take place.

On December 14, 2006, protestors at the site who had organized themselves as the Dooda Desert Rock Committee were served with a temporary restraining order on behalf of the Diné Power Authority and Sithe Global Power. Protestors had their camp moved by tribal police and were forced off the road. Several times during the weeks of this occupation, under pressure from authorities, protestors were removed from the site of their original occupation. But they have refused to leave the area. The police came when only one grandma was at the blockade site alone with some of her grandchildren; Navajo Police intimidated her into allowing them to move the camp. Grandma Lucy Willie said, “I want to tell everyone that we are not moving. I’m sick, but I’m setting up camp right here on the side of the road.” Many local elders oppose the plant, but the Navajo Council has approved the project, citing the projected $50 million a year revenue from property taxes, royalty payments and worker pay.

Diné Elders like Willie, and other protestors at the site, say the Navajo Council sold out, pointing out that the proposed coal fired plant electricity, which would eventually distribute 1,500 megawatts of electricity throughout the Southwest, is toxic.

Protestors and environmentalists maintain that, in a land already environmentally under siege from fossil fuel based industries, another power plant will bring serious health problems and further threats to traditional Diné ways of life. In addition to undermining public health, the plant would desecrate sacred sites, while area residents fear the 1.4 million gallons of water sucked out of their water table each year to run the plant would undermine their own infrastructure.

Protestor Dailan Long of Burnham, a Diné community near the Desert Rock site, said, “the action is a direct appeal for accountability. Tribal officials have pushed their Desert Rock plans forward without considering the health and environmental concerns brought forth by community groups.” Cancer rates, breathing problems and birth defects are already much higher than national average, which is attributed to the two existing plants—a third could only aggravate a tenuous health problem of this area and communities downwind.

Pat McCabe, a supporter of the action at Desert Rock and relative of the Gilmore Clan, is working on certain legal aspects of this case. McCabe told me, “At this point it seems clear that Sithe Global is operating under the very limited rights of a preliminary EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) permit. It appears to me that by setting out survey stakes to mark where the plant will be built and by building a road across the land in question, about three miles long and wide enough to allow two large dump trucks to pass one another, they are working well beyond the limits of their permit. They seem unduly confident that the final permit will be granted before an EIS can be evaluated by government and/or environmental agencies or the community that will be directly affected. This should be alarming to every community far and wide that hopes to call upon these same protective measures that are in place to protect all US citizens against proposed projects that are toxic and dangerous.”

For generations the Navajo Nation has seen it’s lands desecrated by mineral development, illegal waste dumps and uranium mining pollution. Local residents at Desert Rock are standing up and saying no to further development of the tribe’s lucrative resources and the poverty prevalent in many Diné communities. The proposed plant will distribute energy throughout the Southwest, but despite the money the Navajo Tribal Government generates from electric power plant development, many Diné have no electricity in their homes.

It is logical to predict that mercury and gas emissions from the proposed plant will mix with the pollution already poured out from the nearby San Juan Generating Station and the Four Corners Power Plant, which already rank among the heaviest polluters in the US, according to statistics released by the Environmental Integrity Project.

McCabe points out, “Contrary to public statements given by representatives of Sithe Global, with the kind of backing the project has, I doubt that they are in this to do good and to provide our people with a chance to profit. Fifty million might sound like a lot to certain individuals, but what is the profit margin of Sithe Global? More importantly, why is it that our people are set against each other believing that our only two choices are devastation of our land and culture or abject poverty? Look at the names of companies working with Sithe Global: The Blackstone Group, principle advisors to Enron, or the Reservoir Capital Group. These are names that create this ‘divide and conquer’ dynamic in poor communities around the world. I don’t want poor people to be another notch in their fancy Italian leather belts.”

To track and support the Desert Rock action, check out the website: www.desert-rock-blog.com for directions to the protest site and for contact information on how to support the Grandmothers at the heart of the Dooda Desert Rock Committee.

Back to Archives Page

Subscribe to the Eagle!