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| Zuni battle for sacred site a win - prevents coal strip mine development |  Email this page  Print this page |
| Posted: August 26, 2003 |
| by: L.A. Shively / Indian Country Today |
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ZUNI
PUEBLO, N.M. - Zuni people stood up for cultural values and won the
struggle to protect Salt Mother and the Zuni Salt Lake from damage from
a proposed coal strip mine that spanned two decades.
In a surprise vote recently, the Salt River Project's (SRP)
board of directors decided to abandon its plans to develop the proposed
Fence Lake mine and relinquish permits and coal leases; purchasing coal
from other sources instead.
"It was financial reasons," said Jeff Lane, SRP spokesman.
"The coal market has become much softer than it was over the
period of years we've been studying this project and financially for
us, it's beneficial to enter into a long-term coal contract, than to
invest in the infrastructure of building a mine and a railroad. Right
now, with a competitive market, we were able to get a favorable offer
from one of the companies in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming," said
Lane.
"It's an example of what can be done if we all pull together
and be of like minds and hearts, our spirits together," said Cal
Seciwa, Zuni and a founding member of The Zuni Salt Lake Coalition
(ZSLC).
"I hope we serve as a model of things that can be achieved -
even as challenging and daunting as we had, in the area of the whole
scheme of sacred sites - we do have victory," continued Seciwa who
originally heard about the decision from televised news reports.
Just over a year earlier victory seemed only the wisp of a
dream. Zuni Pueblo leaders and leaders from Taos Pueblo, the All Indian
Pueblo Council, the ZSLC and the Sierra Club held a press conference at
the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center to publicize the federal approval for
SRP to begin an 18,000-acre coal strip mining operation near the Zuni
Salt Lake in Western New Mexico.
The event highlighted then Zuni Pueblo Governor Malcolm Bowekaty's appearance before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
Bowekaty testified against SRP's plans and expressed his
disappointment with a federal government failing in its trust
responsibility to protect Native
American sacred sites.
SRP planned to mine 80.1 million tons of coal over 50 years,
from an area 11 miles northeast of Zuni Salt Lake, to replace the
dwindling coal supply from McKinley Mine near Gallup, N.M.
Coal would have been shipped via a 44-mile railroad to the
SRP Coronado Generating Station near St. John, Ariz. to supply power to
its nearly 190 thousand customers living in Phoenix.
"Now it looks like Zuni has lost another fight," then Zuni
Pueblo Lt. Governor Barton Martze began his address during the press
conference. "But with the (Salt Lake) Coalition and all of the
interested agencies and individuals that are now coming to assist the
Zuni tribe," Barton continued on a more dogged note, "I can only
guarantee that the battle has just begun."
The battle began with ZSLC organizing the People's Hearing on
Zuni Salt Lake where, according to a press release, over 500 people
gathered in Zuni to offer testimony for the protection of Zuni Salt
Lake.
ZSLC held 24-hr prayer runs around SRP headquarters,
organized marches and rallies and pursued legal actions against the
mine. The organization purchased multi-language radio ads, billboard
trucks, solicited letters and support resolutions from the Inter-tribal
Council of Arizona, the All-Indian Pueblo Council, National Congress of
American Indians, and the New Mexico Council of Churches.
The New Mexico Congressional delegation sent a letter to
Secretary of Interior Gale Norton asking her to stop the mining permit
until pump tests on groundwater near the Zuni Salt Lake could be
completed.
"Officially, according to the press release, it was
economics," said Seciwa. It's probably true to an extent, but I
couldn't help but feel they saw the political handwriting on the wall."
Seciwa said he felt that continuing development of the Fence
Lake mine was becoming more challenging in terms of political pressures
and public opinion for SRP and that the solidarity of the Zuni
community convinced Arizona's largest utility to stop plans for the
mine.
"We started to exercise our knowledge and our networking," said Seciwa. |
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