Frack Off Greater Chaco: Native Youths run 80 miles in heat, with purpose!

Frack Off Greater Chaco: Native Youths run 80 miles in heat, with purpose!

Photos by Frack Off Greater Chaco

Article by Brenda Norrell

Censored News

COUNSELOR, New Mexico -- The International Indigenous Youth Council and Native youths in the Four Corners Area ran 80 miles, in 103 degree heat, to bring attention to fracking in the Greater Chaco Area. The runners exposed the negative health effects fracking has on the local communities on the Navajo Nation, and the region.
Runners began south of Counselor and concluded their run at the Bureau of Land Management offices in Farmington.
“The Greater Chaco Region is a checkerboarded area of Tribal, state, federal, and allotment land," Native runners said.

"The Bureau of Land Management has approved more than 400 new fracking wells without adequate Tribal consultation or protections for community health, water and climate impacts. Fracking development threatens ancient Chaco culture and sacred sites and also Navajo people and living communities in the area who have been dealing with the impacts of resource extraction for decades.
“Please help native youth protect our health, our future and our Mother Earth.”

In camp at night, the runners hosted, "Southwest culture nights.” Native elders and youths shared with local communities, songs, stories, prayers and ceremonies.

Watch video below by Frack Off Greater Chaco

In the news, at KOB TV: Group runs 80 miles to bring attention to fracking
Devin Neeley
June 26, 2017 08:26 PM
FARMINGTON, N.M. – A group in the Four Corners area is on an environmental mission. Members went on an 80-mile run in the June heat to deliver a message to federal authorities. “They said it was about 103 yesterday. It was rough, but it wasn't rough enough to keep us away,” runner Kendra Pinto said. Kendra Pinto was one of about a dozen runners that ran the 80 miles, relay-style, from Counselor, New Mexico to the Bureau of Land Management Farmington Field Office in three days. The group wants people to know about the effect they say fracking has on the land and people who live in it.
Read more and watch news video at: http://www.kob.com/new-mexico-news/group-runs-80-miles-to-bring-attention-to-fracking/4526218/

Water Protectors Honored at Oglala Commemoration 2017

Oglala Commemoration honors Guy Dull Knife, Eyapaha, announcer at Oceti Sakowin Camp, Cuny Dog, AIM Security and Red Warrior Camp. Olowan Martinez accepted on behalf of Deb White Plume.

Photos by Jean Roach and Peji Trudell

Published with permission at Censored News

Water Protectors Honored at Oglala Commemoration -- Remembering Leonard Peliter 2017

"Water Protectors honored for fight for Mni Wiconi at Oglala Commemoration! Great Family Reunion! Remembering Leonard Peltier's FIGHT for Justice and Freedom! The Genocidal War didn't just start -- it been going since first contact! FREE Political Prisoners Leonard Peltier Red Fawn and Water Protectors who were targeted and abused!" -- Jean Roach and Peji Trudell
Photos and video copright Jean Roach and Peji Trudell. May not be reposted without permission. Please share our link.

Leonard Peltier's statement to Oglala Commemoration
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2017/06/leonard-peltier-statement-for-oglala.html

Click image below to watch video, listen to drum 

Supai Carletta Tilousi 'Grand Canyon is our home. Uranium mining has no place here'

Photo courtesy No Haul Red Butte Gathering 2017

Grand Canyon is our home. Uranium mining has no place here

By Carletta Tilousi, Havasupai

Censored News

The Havasupai resided in and around Grand Canyon for many centuries. This region is sacred – that is why we oppose the pollution of our land and water

The Havasupai – “people of the blue-green waters” – live in Supai Village, located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Today our lives and water are being threatened by international uranium mining companies because the US government and its 1872 mining law permit uranium mining on federal lands that surround the Grand Canyon.

In 1986, the Kaibab national forest authorized a Canadian-based uranium company to open Canyon mine, a uranium mine near the south rim of Grand Canyon national park. The Havasupai tribe challenged the decision but lost in the ninth circuit court of appeals. Miners were just starting to drill Canyon mine’s shaft in 1991 when falling uranium prices caused the company to shut it down for more than two decades.

Havasupai ancestors share stories of the sacredness of the Grand Canyon and all the mountains that surround it. They have instructed us to protect the waters and the mountains from any environmental contamination. That’s why we stand firm against any uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region.

As uranium prices began to rise again in 2007, the uranium company reopened three closed mines on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, north of the Grand Canyon. More than 10,000 new claims were also filed on those public lands and US Forest Service-administered lands on the south side, above where we live.

In 2009, the Havasupai gathered together hundreds of supporters at Red Butte to oppose the reopening of the nearby Canyon mine. Red Butte is the sacred lungs of our Grandmother Canyon. It is also important to many neighboring tribes. We joined in prayer and ceremony to stop the desecration.

The Havasupai tribe also filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service for failing to consult us and other tribes when it permitted Canyon mine to reopen. They did not consider new evidence of its potential to pollute our people’s sole source of drinking water or to harm Red Butte. We are anxiously awaiting a decision on our case that we argued before the ninth circuit court of appeals in December 2016.

Earlier this year, miners drilled Canyon mine’s shaft to a depth of 1,400ft. But before they could start mining and trucking uranium ore to the mill in Utah, millions of gallons of water needed to be pumped from the mine’s shaft after it was flooded with water from underground sources. The company reported that water in the mine’s containment pond had three times the level of uranium considered safe for human consumption.

During our gathering at Red Butte in 2009, we also prayed for federal agencies to use their authority to prohibit new uranium claims. Local governments that rely on tourism, supervisors of our own Coconino County and business leaders joined with Arizona’s governor in supporting a 20-year ban on new claims on more than a million acres of public land that surround the Grand Canyon.

In 2012, we celebrated the Obama administration’s order that honored our request to stop thousands of unproven claims from going forward and to close the area to prospecting for uranium. Now, misguided politicians in Arizona’s Mohave County are asking Donald Trump to overturn the decision because they claim they need uranium mining to help grow their economy. We oppose their request because we don’t want them to pollute our blue-green waters.

Once again, our sacred water and lands are being attacked to profit other people. For this reason, the Havasupai people and citizens throughout the region have been gathering at Red Butte over the past two days to conduct prayer ceremonies and workshops, and to gain support and bring awareness to the poisonous legacy of uranium all around the Grand Canyon.

The Havasupai are resilient people. We have resided in and around the Grand Canyon for many centuries. This struggle is not about money to us, it is about human life.

Please stand with us to put an end to mining uranium in our home, which has always been the Grand Canyon.


Carletta Tilousi is a member of the Havasupai Tribal Council

Navajo Council Surrenders to Dirty Coal Industry

Navajo Nation Council surrenders to demands from Arizona and dirty coal industry to keep coal fired power plant operating

Monday, June 26, 2017

French translation by Christine Prat at:

http://www.chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=4127

Contact:
Carol Davis, Diné CARE, caroljdavis.2004@gmail.com
Percy Deal, Diné CARE,  deal.percy@gmail.com
Nicole Horseherder, Tó Nizhóní Ání, nhorseherder@gmail.com
Jessica Keetso, Tó Nizhóní Ání, jkeetso@yahoo.com

 

WINDOW ROCK, Arizona – Delegates of the Navajo Nation Council voted late Monday night to approve a replacement lease that will keep Navajo Generating Station running for two-and-a-half more years but that also includes a number of amendments weakening the Navajo Nation's control when the plant is retired.

"There's no other way to put it: with this agreement, the Navajo Nation had their hands tied behind their back. We are being saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars of liability," said Adella Begaye of the Navajo community group Diné CARE. "The deal was rammed through by holding the Navajo tribal council hostage through an 11th-hour ultimatum from the very same people that were given permission to exploit and plunder our natural resources."

The tribal delegates, who approved the new lease on an 18-4 vote, gave up their right to settle any legal differences in Navajo courts over the shutdown of the largest coal plant in the West, and they ceded their right to oversee decommissioning and cleanup, which will begin when the plant closes at the end of 2019.

"We respect the Navajo workers whose livelihoods would be affected by the closure of NGS and subsequently Kayenta Mine, but our leaders agreed to a legacy of waste and contamination for generations of our children and grandchildren," said Percy Deal, a Diné CARE member and a formal tribal council member

In February, SRP and the other owners of the plant decided that the most financially prudent course was to shut the plant because they were losing $100 million a year or more running the plant in the face of an energy market that provides far more affordable alternatives.

"The rest of the world is moving emphatically toward a clean energy economy. The utilities are running away from NGS and coal as fast as they can because coal can no longer compete economically against cleaner sources of energy," said Nadine Narindrankura of Tó Nizhóní Ání, another Navajo community group. "It's ludicrous for our leaders to cling to coal. Tying our people to a sinking ship will only bankrupt us and put off the inevitable for two short years."

Diné CARE and Tó Nizhóní Ání have both been deeply involved in issues around coal-fired power and coal mining on the Navajo reservation for years. They contend that underneath the utilities' promise of keeping coal on life support, there was an underhanded scheme to help the owners of NGS walk away from their financial and ethical responsibilities, even though for decades they have enriched themselves by exploiting Navajo natural resources, polluting tribal land, and poisoning the air Navajo families breathe.

"We will never forget the generations of Navajo families lost during forced relocation. It is on the backs of Navajo and Hopi that Arizona lives in comfort while our people still don't have running water and electricity," said Robyn Jackson of Diné CARE. "Navajo leadership now have two and a half years to create a robust transition plan and can waste no time squandering on short sighted efforts to keep the plant running beyond 2019 or foolishly purchasing the Kayenta Mine."

Water is one of the most important issues to the Navajo and the groups are concerned with the 50,000 acre-feet of Upper Colorado River Basin water that rightfully needs to be returned to the Navajo Nation. Despite disappointment over other areas of the lease agreement, both Diné CARE and Tó Nizhóní Ání are relieved that language from the original 1969 NGS lease that was relevant to water rights was included as an amendment, as they suggested to delegates during legislative hearings on the lease. The amended language on water is not a binding agreement but it will build a solid foundation for the Navajo to regain full rights to that water.

The Navajo Nation has vast potential for developing solar and wind power, and both Diné CARE and TNA see no future in coal. Rather, they are urging tribal leaders to work toward an economy that allows the Navajo Nation to provide for its people for generations to come, not just for a couple of years.

"From here, the nation as a whole needs to make a commitment to transitioning our economy, energy production and leadership," said Jessica Keetso of TNA. "With the 2018 elections coming up, we need to elect leaders who know what climate change means and the importance of developing sustainable businesses and infrastructure. The Navajo Nation needs to put solar and wind energy on or near the NGS site, so that we can utilize the transmission lines and receive revenue back to our Nation.

"It's the only thing that makes sense and it will be one of the only good things to come from this senseless replacement lease."

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