Roberto Nutlouis says residents of the Navajo Nation community directly affected by the closure of the giant coal plant near Page deserve a fair and equitable transition out of the coal industry. Tucson.
Ntruy, who lives in Pinon, last week briefed Sandra Kennedy, a member of the Arizona Business Commission, on the power plant and the coal mining operations that supplied it.
Similar conferences were held in Tuba City, Kayenta and the Hopi Reservation.
“Here in the Black Mesa area, there is a huge lack of basic infrastructure,” Nutlouis told Kennedy. “Much of this infrastructure should have been developed, but unfortunately, these unjust policies were created and the contracts negotiated resulted in billions of dollars that could have been invested in communities for social development. lost.”
The Navajo Power Station, along with the Kayenta Mine, employed approximately 700 workers and provided $30 million to $50 million in income to the Navajo Nation. For most of its 40-year life, the power station moved water from the Colorado River through the Central Arizona Project Canal to Phoenix and Tucson, enabling the growth of these cities.
“We basically subsidized those dollars again for the development of Phoenix and other cities like Tucson and other beneficiaries like today. A safe transition is our duty.”
Navajo Upgrades:$1 billion recovery fund to update infrastructure and create new jobs
The hearing gave the Commission an opportunity to hear from local citizens about the impact of the mine closures and an opportunity for the community to explain why the Commission should support the $100 million Just Transition Agreement.
Navajo Nation and Arizona Public Service have established a fair transition agreement to fund Navajo Nation for 10 years to address the impact of the plant closure. Significant aspects of the contract are now subject to approval by the Works Council.
The deal includes $100 million for general economic recovery and an additional $10 million specifically. Electrification Efforts in the Navajo Nation, a commitment to conduct or fund evaluations of unelectrified homes and businesses in the country. Also included is a guarantee that APS will purchase 600 megawatts of renewable power from the state or neighboring communities.
Factory closures meant lost revenue
At the Kayenta hearing, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez told Kennedy why the commission should support the agreement. he said. Now those jobs are gone, as is the income the Navajo made from these businesses.
“When the decision was made to close the Navajo power plant, there was no caution about this closure,” Nez said. “I was really unprepared.”
Nez praised the commission for holding town halls to gather information on affected communities. He said the communities in and around the country are different than the communities in Phoenix. It is important for Commissioners to gather information to better understand the impact of Navajo communities and coal plant closures.
“It is important to reiterate that the national Coal Community Transition Fund should be approved immediately,” Nez said. “Ongoing delays hurt communities and our ability to properly plan the economic transition beyond coal. it won’t.”
The coal-fired Cholla power plant operates near Joseph City, south of Navajo Nation in Navajo County. It is scheduled to be closed by 2025.
At another hearing at the Hopi Middle School, tribal vice chairman Craig Andrews described the power outages the Hopi community has recently experienced. He said such incidents affect the tribes and that the majority of the tribes’ budget comes from NGS, so the tribal government is not working well.
“We all know that the closure of NGS is reducing the income stream for the Hopi,” said Andrews. “NGS was 85% revenue for the Hopi. I am appealing to the committee to help
Little information at first
The Navajo Power Station was built in 1968 to power the Central Arizona Project, which was authorized by Congress to move water from the Colorado River to Phoenix and Tucson.
Home Secretary Stewart Udall proposed building a large coal-fired power plant at CAP to replace the Grand Canyon hydroelectric dam. Udall worked to build a power plant on tribal land to provide income and jobs for the Navajo.
The plant was approved along with the passage of a mining lease between the Navajo Nation and the Peabody Western Coal Company to supply the plant with coal from Black Mesa. The Kayenta mine supplied coal to his NGS, writes Andrew Curley, his assistant professor of geography at the University of Arizona, in his article “T’ááhwoajít’eego and the Moral Economy of Navajo Coal Workers.”
“When I first graduated from college in the early ’70s, my mother said to me, ‘I’m going to have a meeting,'” recalled Percy Deal at City Hall at the Hard Rock Chapter. “We went there. Most of the people there were elderly people. They had trouble communicating with the visitors. was doing.”
He said people were unaware of the approved leases at the time. .
“The problem here was people were told that the industry was going to come in and mine coal,” Deal said. “They weren’t told they were going to mine water for 50 years in addition to mining coal. That’s what it is.”
At the same City Hall, Lorraine Herder told Kennedy in Navajo about natural hot springs that no longer exist due to mining. So he said he had to carry water for his livestock and himself because there was no running water.
When the coal companies came, she said they were depleting water and affecting livestock and medicinal plants.
Other community members have watched for decades as power plants and coal mines rob precious water sources, pollute the air, and extract substances from the earth.
Help needed for local infrastructure
Curley further writes that the plant’s operator failed to honor an agreement to continue operations until 2044, and that the tactic was “buying time with tribal states through unequal negotiations, and pushing tribal states to one side.” We’re following a long pattern of settlers abandoning the land,” Curley said. Eventually the situation will change in favor of the settlers. ”
“Navajo Nation entered into these negotiations to continue operations through the end of the original contract, which was in 2019. It was only by that agreement that operations continued. We never planned, the industry never helped us plan our transition, APS, SRP, TEP, LA, Nevada, the Frontier never helped us plan. I didn’t.”
She said the Navajo Nation itself never planned the transition, but the community knew it was all shut down and that transition had to happen.
Well-known water rights activist and Hard Rock chapter member Horseherder says the region has the most fragmented roads, with some paved roads leading to the majority of unpaved roads. . Coal mines and power plants may have brought income to the Central Navajo He Nation government, but that was not the case for the directly affected communities who had no choice but to host the mines and power plants.
Horseherder said the reduced amount under the Just Transition Agreement wasn’t enough and hoped the commissioner would consider reverting it back to about $127 million within 10 years for the Navajo Nation. She knows that some of the four other commissioners who did not attend the hearing have doubts about whether the funds are actually needed or can be managed. Stated.
“I hope the committee approves the Just Transition packet before you,” Horseherder said. so that all communities in Black Mesa who share the same water sources that used to have a degree of support so that they can diversify their economies, build basic infrastructure, and move forward to help their communities; For almost 50 years, our fundamental resources have been dedicated to industry.”
The Arizona Republic reached out to President Kennedy, but the commission’s communications director said the commissioner could not provide comment due to legal concerns.
Arlyssa D. Becenti covers Indigenous Affairs for the Republic of Arizona and azcentral.send ideas and tips arlyssa.becenti@arizonarepublic.comFollow her on Twitter @ABenti.
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