Navajo Nation Targeted Again for Sacrifice Zone: 'Energy Companies Preying on the People'

Dine' defending Dinetah April 2025 at Navajo Nation Council. Photo Lydia Fasthorse, Censored News

Navajo Nation Targeted Again for Sacrifice Zone: 'Energy Companies Preying on the People'

Dine' ask: Why is the Navajo Nation allowing energy companies to prey on communities and individuals?

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, May 23, 2025

NAVAJO NATION -- Dine' on the Navajo Nation are now targeted with a push to revitalize dirty coal energy, after Navajo President Buu Nygren partnered with Trump in Washington to revitalize the coal industry.

A hydro-power project is being pushed in remote Dine' communities that would pump precious water from the aquifer. This comes as radioactive uranium ore trucks travel through the Navajo Nation, endangering everyone on the route, after President Nygren's secret deal with Energy Fuels for uranium transport.

Louise Benally of Big Mountain said the bottom line is greed. "They want to eat up everything but, don't know that even their lives depend on it too. Poisoning the natural cycle will come back and destroy them too."

The new stampede of parasitic energy companies to the Navajo Nation comes at the same time that radioactive uranium trucks, covered only with tarps, are traveling across the Navajo Nation, from the Grand Canyon uranium mine to the mill in the White Mesa Ute community in Utah. 

Radioactive uranium truck passing through Tuba City on the Navajo Nation today, May 23, 2025,  traveling from Energy Fuels Pinyon Plain uranium mine in the Grand Canyon, to Energy Fuels dump and mill in the White Mesa Ute community in Utah. The route endangers Havasupai, Paiute, Hualapai, Navajo, Hopi, and Ute who live along the route, and residents of the City of Flagstaff.

At the same time, more than 500 uranium mines, and scattered radioactive debris, remain on the Navajo Nation, and was never cleaned up by the U.S. government. Dirty coal mines and power plants left the legacy of death and forced relocation.

Navajo Council Plans Meeting on Revitalizing Coal Industry

Citing Trump's push for new coal mining, the Navajo Nation Council plans to hold a public hearing on revitalizing the coal industry.

The Navajo Nation Council announced the public hearing, stating that on April 8 President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order entitled, “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Amending Executive Order 14241” aimed at reversing past federal policies, to boost the coal industry and to strengthen the country’s national energy security, according to the White House.

The public hearing is scheduled in Forest Lake Chapter on Friday, May 30.

Louise Benally and her family spent their lives battling Peabody Coal and resisting forced relocation at Big Mountain on Black Mesa. She said what Trump is doing is another chapter in the assault on the land and people.

"Pl 93-531 is a law created by Barry Goldwater to target our rights to water and land base to be taken away. He developed that law so, with what Trump is trying to do is no different."

"They want to eat up everything but, don't know that even their lives depend on it too. Poisoning the natural cycle will come back and destroy them too."

"The American political system is not our government as traditional people which is where all our modern day problems come from in the form of an endless greed to keep eating up the earth and the natural resources."

Louise questioned Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren's support of Trump and coal mining in Washington, and Nygren's agreement for uranium trucks to cross the Navajo Nation.

"The Navajo Nation government is at a crossroads. Buu has been taken by Trump,  and the people he is supposed to be responsible for are in question."

"He has been taken into the bag of greed -- uranium and coal yet, there is no water. We want accountability."

New Uranium Mines in New Mexico

Haul No! said the fast-tracked projects show two new uranium mines of concern bordering the eastern Navajo Nation: The Roca Honda and La Jara Mesa mines on the west side of Tsodził (Mount Taylor) in New Mexico. There is also the Velvet-Wood mine in Utah (for both uranium and vanadium).

Fast tracked projects: Federal infrastructure

https://www.permits.performance.gov/projects/transparency-projects

Navajo President Nygren's agreement with Energy Fuels opens the door for uranium transport through the eastern Navajo Nation to the White Mesa Mill in Utah, if the mines start up in New Mexico. 

(Above) Fact sheet: Navajo Nation agreement with Energy Fuels

The new uranium mines will not only endanger Navajos, but Acoma and Laguna Pueblos, and have already suffered from decades of uranium mining, and cancer, from the Jackpile uranium mine.

Hydropower Project

The companies targeting the Navajo Nation include those flying under the banner of 'green energy.'

Navajo Council Delegate Shawna Ann Claw raised concerns about a project of Nature and People First, and its hydro-power project. Claw points out that the project plans to use water of the C Aquifer. Claw cited legislation from the 25th Navajo Nation Council that identified the Nation’s aquifers as critical resources.

“The project requires 2,500 acre-feet per year from the C Aquifer,” Claw said. “It needs support from all chapters located over that aquifer.”

Tó Nizhóní Ání said the Navajo Nation Resources and Development Committee heard from Nature and People First, a company wanting to do Pump Storage Hydropower projects at Chilchinbeto Chapter.

Last year, another Pumped Storage Hydropower project initiated by Nature and People First, for Black Mesa, was denied by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, after overwhelming opposition from Navajo Communities.

"Recently, Nature and People First has targeted Cameron as the next location for yet another Pump Storage Hydropower project. At the same time, Nature and People First is still pushing its Chilchinbeto Project, which the Resources and Development Committee heard on Monday."

"The Chilchinbito Project seems to have garnered support from the local Council Delegate Shondiin Parrish and some of the members of Resources and Development Committee, who see it as a move to bring revenue back to the Navajo Nation," Tó Nizhóní Ání said.

"Unlike Delegate Parrish and other members of RDC, Shawna Ann Claw, Chinle Council Delegate- 25th Navajo Nation Council, made some critical points during the RDC regular meeting, questioning the integrity of this company, which has been known to pit communities against each other."

Tó Nizhóní Ání would like the Resources and Development Committee to ask the following additional questions:

Where is the Navajo Nation process to vet projects?
Where are the Navajo Nation priorities?
Why are we giving up limited and scarce water supplies for extractive industries?
Why aren’t other communities that share the same water supply being informed, and what will be the impact on those communities?
Why is the Navajo Nation allowing energy companies to prey on communities and individuals?
We know the Navajo Nation Department of Justice represents Navajo elected leaders, but who represents Navajo individuals being targeted and pressured for grazing permits and land use?
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Listen to Delegate Shawna Ann Claws’ comments and questions to Nature & People First at the recorded RDC Regular Meeting linked here: https://www.youtube.com/live/DxPQrU-iJjI?si=ErYRP1nkIcRor6sC
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YouTube Recording Timestamps:
00:21:48 – 1:00:00 = Delegate Claws’ comments
00:04:33 – 01:46:44 = NPF Report Discussion to RDC
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Learn more about the Black Mesa Pump Storage Hydropower Project by visiting www.tonizhoniani.org/no-bmpsp