bout two years ago, Peabody applied to the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining to extend its mining permit for Black Mesa indefinitely and to increase the N aquifer pumping to more than 5,000 acre-feet a year. Federal law required that all concerned parties, in this case the Hopi and Navajo tribes, be given time to comment on a new lease. Past renewals of the annual lease had been routine. But this time the Black Mesa Trust was ready -- and Internet-savvy. Its supporters sent the department hundreds of pages of comments and more than 6,000 e-mails. The overwhelming response pressured Joe Shirley, the president of the Navajo Nation, and Wayne Taylor, the Hopi chairman, both of whom had been reluctant to risk the tribes' mining revenues, to join with grassroots activists in calling for an end to the pumping from N aquifer. Peabody agreed to the demand, with one caveat: The company first had to find an alternate source of water.
Because of Peabody's willingness to consider a new supply of water for the slurry line, the Office of Surface Mining is not forcing the company to end its use of the aquifer immediately and has put the renewal application on hold. Peabody can continue to use the N aquifer pending the outcome of an initially unrelated lawsuit against the Southern California Edison plant in Nevada. The Mohave Generating Station is one of the worst polluters in the West, dumping 40,000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere each year and fouling the air as far away as the Grand Canyon. In the late 1990s, the Sierra Club and the National Parks Association sued Southern California Edison. The federal government has ordered Edison to retrofit the plant with air pollution controls by December 31, 2005 -- a date that, by chance, coincides with the deadline the tribes have set for Peabody.
But before investing $1.1 billion to renovate the plant and replace the aging slurry pipeline, Edison and its partners want to make sure that Peabody will be able to continue delivering low-cost coal. Edison in fact wants Peabody to increase its coal production, which would require a 34 percent boost in the amount of water used in the slurry. That would mean pumping more than 5,000 acre-feet per year. Unless Peabody can come up with an alternative to the N aquifer, Edison says it will be forced to shut down its plant, which would also effectively end Peabody's pumping and mining at Black Mesa, with ruinous economic consequences for the Hopi and Navajo.
To avoid that outcome, Peabody has agreed to consider using the vast Coconino aquifer, which lies in a sandstone layer just above the N aquifer. The Coconino's brackish water is unsuitable for drinking without treatment, and Peabody could have been using it all along. But the company was concerned that dissolved solids in the Coconino water might damage the pipeline. So Peabody cut costs and used the N aquifer water, which doesn't require any purification. The tribal governments see the Coconino aquifer as a viable solution, especially since the plan also calls for a new pipeline that would bring water to Hopi and Navajo families. But it's unlikely that a new pipeline from the Coconino aquifer would be ready before the 2005 deadline. One question now is whether the federal government, in light of the economic risks to the tribes, will give Edison more time to retrofit its plant. Hearings underway before the California Public Utilities Commission should decide the Edison case before the end of this year.
Since Edison may shut down the Mohave plant, NRDC has encouraged the tribes to explore replacing it with a sophisticated coal gasification plant, which breaks down coal into cleaner-burning carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The plant could be built on either the Hopi or the Navajo reservation, with federal funds picking up as much as half the construction cost. Coal gasification plants emit about 40 percent less carbon dioxide than do conventional power plants and require substantially less water. Under the NRDC plan, the Hopi and Navajo would jointly own the plant, and Peabody would continue to provide the coal.
"The idea is that both tribes would have some equity interest in the plant," says David Beckman. "One of the problems for the Hopi and Navajo economies is that they have not owned the means of production. Other people are making the retail dollar off the natural resources on their land. We need a win-win situation here that is good for the environment but also addresses the fact that a significant portion of the Hopi and Navajo economies are directly related to the Mohave plant. You can't close it and ignore the impact on the tribes."
It's dark now, close to midnight. Thousands of stars wheel slowly over Kykotsmovi village. Not far to the north, miners even now are blasting tons of coal out of Black Mesa. Before the sun rises, the Peabody company will have pumped another several hundred thousand gallons of water from beneath the desert. The future of the N aquifer remains undecided, and with it the future of the Hopi, whose past here is so long.
The Hopi believe that when they first came to these mesas untold years ago, the land was empty save for one humble farmer, a man they call Massau. He taught the Hopi how to survive here, says Masayesva, and he warned them about dangers ahead.
"He said, 'There are others who are coming. It will be a very short time before they arrive. They're not going to ask; they'll take. With each step, they'll say, "This is mine." They have a disease called owning. With every step they will claim the land. They'll claim the water, the air. They will think they are gods.' This is what Massau said. He said we will witness amazing things.
"Our ancestors asked him, 'How big is your land?' He said, 'This is not my land. I only take care of it.' Then he made a circle with his hand to indicate the earth. 'This is what I'm taking care of. I'm not a god. I'm a farmer.'"
