Navajos Split With Environmentalists on New Coal Plant on Navajo Land.

[NNadir]

Coal Power on Navajo Land

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

BURNHAM, N.M. — For the Navajo nation, energy is the most valuable currency. The tribal lands are rich with uranium, natural gas, wind, sun and, most of all, coal.


Tribal head, Joe Shirley Jr., at Window Rock, Ariz., headquarters, said, “Why pick on the little Navajo nation, when it’s trying to help itself?”

But two coal-fired power plants here, including one on the reservation, belch noxious fumes, making the air among the worst in the state. Now the tribe is moving forward with plans for a bigger plant, Desert Rock, that Navajo authorities hope will bring in $50 million a year in taxes, royalties and other income by selling power to Phoenix and Las Vegas.

The plan has stirred opposition from some Navajos who regard the $3 billion proposal as a lethal “energy monster” that desecrates Father Sky and Mother Earth and from environmental groups that fear global warming implications from its carbon dioxide emissions.

New Mexico, which has no authority over the tribal lands, has also expressed misgivings and has refused to grant the plant tax breaks.

The struggle is a homegrown version of the global debate on slowing climate change...

From that bastion of antinuclear propaganda, the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/us/27navajo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

There is always a lot of talk about uranium miners in this region in the 1950's but in the meantime coal plants were built, leading to the worst air in the area. One assumes that the people who were so concerned about the uranium miners couldn't care less about what happened with the coal in the intervening years.