Greenwashing -- Biden, Haaland and the Navajo Nation's Runaway Train: Oil, Gas, Coal and Lithium

 

Ha ‘Kamwe is a hot spring sacred to the Hualapai Tribe in Northern Arizona. An Australian company is threatening the spring with a proposed lithium mining project.

The Green Hoax -- Biden, Haaland and the Navajo Government's Runaway Train: Oil, Gas, Coal and Lithium

Brenda Norrell

Censored News 

While President Biden and Interior Sec. Deb Haaland push for more oil and gas wells and fracking in the Greater Chaco region -- the Navajo Government's "Navajo Transitional Energy Company" is pushing coal mines, and now plans to join an Australian company to devastate the sacred land of the Hualapai with lithium mining. 

Lithium, in demand for electric vehicle batteries, is part of the fake green solutions to climate change.

Flying under the banner of energy transition, the Biden administration and Navajo Nation are pushing the most polluting and devastating drilling and mining on earth.

The Climate Trace map revealed at the U.N. Climate Summit in Egypt shows the San Juan, N.M., oil and gas fields, and Navajo power plants and coal mines, are among those polluting the world's air, emitting greenhouse gases causing global warming, and poisoning the air and causing respiratory illnesses.

The Navajo government's energy transition team is operating four coal mines and a power plant, and invested in a Texas company mining rare earth minerals.

The Navajo Transitional Energy Company, part of the Navajo government and located in the bordertown of Farmington, N.M., owns 20 percent of the shares in Texas Mineral Resources Corp., and 7 percent ownership interest in the Four Corners Power Plant on the Navajo Nation. It also operates the Navajo Coal mine, and three coal mines in Wyoming and Montana, according to its website.

The Texas Mineral Resources Corp. mines rare earth minerals for U.S. military killing machines. Besides mining for electric vehicles, it produced "rare earths used in each F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet, assembled by Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth Texas," its website states.

The U.S. Government's Rapid Response Team met with regional officials in August and said the energy transition in the Four Corners would be led by the atomic bomb industry, the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Interior Sec. Deb Haaland was among those present, visiting local oil and gas fields and meeting privately at San Juan College to discuss energy transition.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is pushing for new oil and gas wells, and fracking, in the Greater Chaco region in northwest New Mexico.

Ivan Bender, Hualapai, visisting Thacker Pass

Ivan Bender, Hualapai, describes how the sacred springs of Ha'kamwe' are threatened by Hawkstone Mining Company's planned lithium mine in Arizona.

Bender has been the caretaker of the sacred site, Ha'kamwe', where a healing spring bursts onto the land.

"Their mine would surround the sacred site on three sides, and initial test drilling has already harmed the springs," said Max Wilbert, who interviewed Bender during Bender's visit to Thacker Pass. Thacker Pass is the Paiute Massacre site threatened by a lithium mine in northern Nevada.

While visiting Thacker Pass, Bender said Ha'kamwe is a holy place, a sacred place, and the water and land must be protected from drilling and mining.

"Water is life. Water is sacred."

"We need water, we need clean water," Bender said. "They are poisoning our water."

"Do what is right for our future generations," he said, adding that the water will be depleted and poisoned by drilling and mining, and destroy the animals.

"It will destroy what is important to our people," Bender said. "Every living thing needs clean water."

"Let's come together and fight for our water."

High Country News reports, "Hawkstone hopes to break ground on an open-pit mine and dig an underground slurry to pipe the ore about 50 miles to a plant in Kingman, Arizona, where it will use sulfuric acid to extract the lithium. Lithium, which is listed as a critical mineral, is crucial for reaching the Biden administration’s goal of replacing gas-guzzling vehicles with electric vehicles, and Big Sandy Valley is relatively close to the Tesla factory in Nevada."

"Altogether, Hawkstone has mining rights on more than 5,000 acres of public land in Arizona for this project. Yet tribes whose sacred sites are at risk have almost no say in its decisions."

Earthjustice shares the photo above of the sacred spring that would be devastated by the lithium mine, and words of Hualapai.

The Hualapai and other tribes have used Ha’Kamwe’ for centuries for healing, prayer, and rites of passage, such as childbirth and coming-of-age ceremonies for young women.

Now Paya and other Hualapai are fighting to save the spring. An Australian company on the hunt for lithium is drilling exploratory holes deep underground, in some cases just yards away from Ha’Kamwe’. In recent months, the water level of the spring has been dropping, according to Hualapai leaders, amid the continuous drilling.

Read more:

Earthjustice: Lithium Mining Threatens Arizona Tribes Sacred Spring

https://earthjustice.org/blog/2022-october/lithium-mining-threatens-arizona-tribes-sacred-spring

Navajo Government joining Australian company to devastate Hualapai sacred land with lithium mine

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2022/12/navajo-government-joining-australian.html

Atomic Bomb Industry to lead energy transition in Four Corners

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2022/08/energy-transition-in-four-corners-led.html

High Country News: Mining for lithium at a cost to Indigenous Religions

https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.7/indigenous-affairs-mining-for-lithium-at-a-cost-to-indigenous-religions