Drawdown
Groundwater Mining on Black Mesa


Table of Contents


Credits

Principal Authors
David Beckman
Michael Jasny
Lissa Wadewitz
Andrew Wetzler

Project Director
David Beckman

Editor
Michael Jasny

Copy Editor and Production Supervisor
Nancy Vorsanger

NRDC Director of Communications
Alan Metrick

Cover Design
Jenkins & Page NYC

Cover Photo
Lissa Wadewitz

Electronic Assembly
Bonnie Greenfield



Acknowledgments

This report was prepared by NRDC’s Environmental Justice Program in our Los Angeles office. NRDC wishes to thank the Avocet Charitable Lead Unitrust, the General Service Foundation, and The Marshall Fund of Arizona for their generous support, as well as our members -- more than 400,000 nationwide -- without whom our work on this project would not have been possible. The authors would like to acknowledge the important contributions made by our colleagues John Bowes, Tammy Boyer, Cara Horowitz, Lawrence Kerckhoff, Stephanie Pacey, Joel Reynolds, Susan Seager, Tom Vandenburg, Nancy Vorsanger, and Johanna Wald.

Our thanks also go to the many scientists, scholars, and advocates who shared their experience and expertise, especially to Marshall Brown, Brad Cross, and Tom Johnson of Levine-Fricke-Recon, who prepared the hydrogeological analysis on which the technical part of this report is based; to Joseph Armao, Tom Donnelly, and Heather Leal of the law firm Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe for their expert assistance and advice; and to John Echohawk (executive director of the Native American Rights Fund), Paul Andrew Ferré (assistant professor of hydrology and water resources at the University of Arizona), Vernon Masayesva (former chairman of the Hopi Tribe and current executive director of Black Mesa Trust), Charles Wilkinson (Moses Lasky Professor of Law and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Colorado), and Susan Williams (principal in the law firm of Williams, Janov & Cooney) for their insightful peer reviews. We also wish to thank a number of experts from the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe who shared their time and perspectives: in particular, Scott Canty (general counsel of the Hopi Tribe), Nat Nutongla (director of the Hopi Tribe’s Water Resources Program), and Stanley Pollock (water rights attorney for the Navajo Nation). Of course, specialists in this area have reached different conclusions about the Black Mesa dispute, and their kind participation here should not be taken as an endorsement of ours.


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