Water
is life By Sararesa Begay FLAGSTAFF | Sept. 25, 2002 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stared pensively at the barren stretch of land visible through the small window of the turbine engine aircraft that flew over the Black Mesa Peabody Coal Mine area the morning of Sept. 19. The now brown Black Mesa land which looks plain and flat from the air used to be beautiful with Juniper, Pinon, Gamble Oak, Ponderosa, Douglas Fir and Red Cedar trees, and green, lush vegetation, according to Dave Beckman, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Beckman noted the Peabody's coal strip-mining activities, and their "squandering" of the Navajo Aquifer which is the sole source of naturally occurring drinking water for the Hopi reservation and sections of the Navajo reservation on and near Black Mesa. Kennedy, a founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance and son of the late Robert F. Kennedy Sr., thought of his Hopi friend, Vernon Masayesva, who is the founder of the Black Mesa Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Navajo Aquifer. "It's hard to say no to Vernon," Kennedy said to the other passengers in the aircraft. Kennedy and the other passengers on the flyover learned more about the aquifer which also supplies hundreds of natural springs that have long been at the center of the religious and cultural life of both the Hopi and Navajo people. Currently, Peabody is seeking approval to pump 1.8 billion gallons of water from the Navajo Aquifer each year to send coal by a slurry pipeline across Arizona from the Black Mesa Mine to the Mohave Generating Plant in Nevada. The night before Kennedy inducted the Black Mesa Trust into Kennedy's Waterkeeper Alliance at a reception and benefit art auction in Flagstaff. The alliance's mission
is to protect and restore the quality of the world's waterways by different
types of strategies and campaigns. The movement is among
the fastest growing grassroots environmental movements and quickly is
becoming a unique force for environmental change, according to Kennedy. Kennedy said he has a special connection to the Native American people because his late father used to take his children to visit reservations especially those in South Dakota. "I feel at home on Indian territories," Kennedy said during the reception. "I'm one of 11 children, and my dad would take one of us on his travels, and he would take us to the Indian reservations." Kennedy said he remembers the first time he saw his father weep. "One memorable trip was to the Pine Ridge reservation where my dad came across a broken down, dilapidated car with no wheels ... there was an entire Sioux family living in that broken down car. "My dad wept," Kennedy said. "I never saw my dad do that (weep), but he did this time ... my dad couldn't reconcile the condition of the American Indian in this democratic society." Kennedy noted that today the Native American people don't have gunmen who take their rights and empowerment away. Rather, it is the attorneys working for corporations like Peabody Coal Mine. Kennedy said he fights
for environmental justice and safe water for everyone because he wants
to leave something for the next generation. "They are part of the community ... we have an obligation to the next generation. We have to leave enough water that is sustainable for our children." Kennedy, Anishinaabe activist/author Winona LaDuke, actor Jon Voight and attorney Charles Wilkinson were special guests during the Black Mesa Trust reception. For more information on the Black Mesa Trust view their Web site at www.blackmesatrust.org or the Waterkeeper Alliance at www.keeper.org.
© 2002, by The Navajo Times.
Reprinted
under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
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