Black Mesa protection settlement is reached Gallup Independent - TopicsExpress

Black Mesa protection settlement is reached Gallup Independent - 5/23/14 By Kathy Helms Diné Bureau navajo1@gallupindependent WINDOW ROCK — Native and environmental organizations have reached a landmark agreement with a federal agency and company officials that will ensure the environmental, cultural, and historical resources of Black Mesa are considered before allowing Peabody Western Coal Co.’s Kayenta Mine to continue operating. Additionally, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement must plan for how the mine site will be used after mining ceases. The settlement requires OSM to evaluate whether the site could be used for a solar or wind energy-generating facility. It also requires OSM to evaluate using that renewable energy to power the Central Arizona Project, an aqueduct that transports water from Northern Arizona to southern and western regions of the state.. “These concessions are a small but critical step to undoing the 40-year legacy of environmental impacts and harm Peabody has caused our community,” Nichole Horseherder, a Black Mesa resident and co-director of To’ Nizhoni Ani, one of the plaintiff organizations, said. In 2012, three Native organizations – To’ Nizhoni Ani, Black Mesa Water Coalition, and Diné Citizens Against Ruining our Environment, joined by Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity – challenged Peabody’s permit to continue strip mining at Kayenta. OSM oversees Peabody’s mining operation and reviews Peabody’s applications to renew or revise its five-year mine operator’s permit. When OSM approved Peabody’s latest application to renew its Kayenta Mine permit, the groups took legal action. A Peabody spokesperson said Thursday that the company is pleased with the settlement agreement, which acknowledges that a full environmental analysis will be conducted in conjunction with the upcoming Environmental Impact Statement for the Navajo Generating Station-Kayenta Mine Complex Project. “Peabody continues to work closely with federal agencies, the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe and others, to prepare a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement. We are pleased that these groups have agreed with us on important points regarding the scope of the review. As a result, those groups have dismissed their challenge to the 2012 permit renewal,” the spokesperson said. OSM will hold three informal conferences in June to hear and receive written comments on the Life of Mine significant permit revision application package submitted by Peabody for the Kayenta Mine, according to Ann McGregor of OSM. The informal conferences will be held at the same time and same place as the EIS scoping meetings for the Navajo Generating Station- Kayenta Mine Complex Project Environmental Impact Statement, she said. The first meeting will be held 4-7 p.m. June 11 at Forest Lake Chapter House, followed by a meeting 4-7 p.m. June 12 at Monument Valley High School in Kayenta. The third meeting is scheduled 1-4 p.m. June 14 at Hopi Day School in Kykotsmovi. Level playing field The lawsuit brought before the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Hearings and Appeals in 2012 was finally resolved April 29 when all parties – including counsel for the groups, OSM, Peabody and Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District – signed a settlement agreement after two years of litigation and negotiations. SRP owns about 20 percent of Navajo Generating Station – sole purchaser of coal from the Kayenta Mine – and operates the Central Arizona Project. “The settlement is a recognition that the community’s concerns are valid,” attorney Justin Gundlach of the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center, said. “The community wants a relationship with OSM where their interests and concerns stand on an equal footing with Peabody’s. We feel this is a small step by the agency in that direction.” Jihan Gearon, executive director of Black Mesa Water Coalition, said, “Legal action is only one strategy we’re using to address the concerns of Black Mesa and Navajo Nation communities. But it’s an important step in calling out Southern Arizona’s insatiable and unsustainable energy and water consumption, for which our communities suffer. It’s time the Navajo Nation is afforded the opportunity to create a just transition to an economy that works for us. Navajo-owned renewables can help start that transition.” For the residents of the Black Mesa region, the Kayenta Mine and the nearby coal-fired Navajo Generating Station it feeds have meant decades of environmental degradation and disruption to historical and sacred sites, according to the groups. In addition to seeing visible impacts on the landscape since the mining operation first began in 1973, Black Mesa residents have felt the operations’ impacts on air quality, and on the quality and quantity of water available from the Navajo Sandstone Aquifer, or “N-aquifer,” located beneath the area surrounding the mine. “For far too long, our communities’ interests have been ignored while our land, water, and culture has been threatened,” Nellis Kennedy-Howard of Sierra’s Beyond Coal Campaign said. “This is a very important step forward for better preserving the environment and the well-being of the Black Mesa region.” Seat at the table In its upcoming review of Peabody’s application for a revised permit, OSM must give To’ Nizhoni Ani and Black Mesa Water Coalition a seat at the table as “consulting parties” when it conducts the 106 review process required by the National Historic Preservation Act. That process will identify sites deserving of protection from ongoing mining and will develop recommendations on how best to avert or mitigate damage. In addition, OSM must evaluate the merits of placing Black Mesa on the National Register of Historic Places. OSM also must improve its monitoring and reporting of the quantity and quality of water in the N-aquifer. The 2012 permit renewal application sought to allow Peabody to estimate water levels using a computer model, but the settlement requires Peabody to take actual water level measurements at well heads above the aquifer to determine whether mining activities have caused material damage to the aquifer. “This is my homeland. My community. I raise my children here and they will raise theirs here. We are hopeful that this agreement is a signal that U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell is taking our concerns seriously, but we will continue to stand and fight until these dirty energy projects are retired,” Horseherder said.