As the Navajo Nation prepares to take over its namesake coal operation this winter, an impending lawsuit over the mine’s lease extension will pose an interesting question: Should the sovereign nation adhere to federal environmental standards?
“Our dependence on coal was created in the 1960s from people who advised us to do so,” said Erny Zah, communications director for the Navajo Transitional Energy Company. “And now, outsider influence again is telling us to get out of coal. But as a sovereign nation, we can find the balance. This is our land, and we shouldn’t be told what to do with it.”
Navajo Mine, about 15 miles west of Farmington, was sold to the Navajo Nation three years ago when its manager, BHP Billiton, could not come to an agreement with the operators of the Four Corners Power Plant, owned by Arizona Public Service Co.
The generating plant, just a few miles from the open pit workings, is fed exclusively from the Navajo Mine and powers communities in Arizona, California and Texas.
But in April, a coalition of environmental groups filed an action against the U.S. government for its decision to allow extended operations at the power plant and the Navajo Mine for 25 years.
Mike Eisenfeld with the San Juan Citizens Alliance said at that time an extension of the coal lease would be at odds with the national initiative to reduce carbon emissions.
“Now that coal is on a permanent decline, we deserve real attention to how our region can diversify going forward,” Eisenfeld said. “Given the energy landscape today, it’s a serious disservice for government leaders to just tell the Four Corners to stick with collapsing coal without even a look at alternatives.”
And therein lies the complicated matter – the mixed blessing of a polluter that is also a significant source of revenue to the country’s largest, and one of its poorest, Native American reservations.
Between the power plant and mine, more than 800 high-paying jobs are infused into a community with a 50 to 60 percent unemployment rate. The Navajo Mine alone contributed $35 million in taxes and royalties to the sovereign nation last year, hauling 6 million tons of coal to the power plant.
Yet the environmental impacts of the operation cannot be understated.
In author Andrew Needham’s 2014 book, Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest, astronauts in the early 1960s claimed that from space, only two human-constructed objects were visible: the Great Wall of China and emissions from the Four Corners Power Plant.
Known as one of the worst for toxic emissions in the country for years, the plant recently shut down three of its five generating units to meet federal standards.
The plant releases tons of arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, baron and thallium, among others, into the atmosphere annually. Its carbon-dioxide emissions are equated to that of 2 million cars, or 13 million tons.
And not all in the Navajo Nation support the coal operation despite its jolt to the economy.
“We here are pretty much on the opposite end of the administration, standing in opposition to the mine purchase,” said Shiprock Chapter President Duane “Chili” Yazzie.
Yazzie cited several details when the Navajo Nation decided to purchase the mine in 2013. It spent $6 million for an analysis of the purchase, and then another $85 million for the purchase – money Yazzie said the nation did not have. So, BHP signed a loan agreement with the Navajo Nation.
“We still don’t know what that interest rate is,” Yazzie said.
Also, Yazzie said the “real crazy” part of the Navajo-BHP agreement is language included that effectively absolves BHP from any liabilities “past, present and future” from its operations at the mine.
“We were told the primary reason we purchased the mine was to save jobs and secure that source of revenue,” Yazzie said. “But already, the concerns we stated at the time (of purchase) are becoming evident.”
Yazzie was referring to the downturn in the coal industry, largely attributed to the cheap cost of natural gas. Some of the country’s largest coal companies – Arch, Peabody, Patriot – have declared bankruptcy in recent months.
The industry also is getting hit from President Obama’s Clean Power Plan – a set of regulations intended to phase out the nation’s coal-burning power plants and reduce their carbon emissions.
Zah said the Navajo Nation could enter the pending lawsuit as an intermediary in the coming weeks to argue that, because of its sovereign status, it should be free of federal regulations.
Even so, the 50-year-old Four Corners Power Plant must perform $600 million in upgrades to continue operating.
Also, the Navajo Nation’s energy company will be responsible for picking up reclamation projects that include irrigating and replanting the land to return it to grazing standards.
“Our concern is there’s a possibility that the financial situation will make it more difficult for reclamation to occur in the long term,” Eisenfeld said.
Zah said the energy company is aware of the political turn toward renewable energy, and that like any community attempting to make the shift, the transition will take time.
“I don’t think people understand the importance of a job here,” he said. “And if you look at what we’re doing, we’re a small piece of the overall pie. There is no silver bullet; yet coal is treated like it is a silver bullet.”
Yazzie disagreed.
“Yes, it is a hard issue with the livelihood of families at stake,” he said. “But our concern has been and always will be the environment, the quality of the air, and the contribution that those things make to climate change.”
jromeo@durangoherald.com
This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Erny Zah’s name and clarify his comment about a possible intervention in the lawsuit.
