Eagle's eye



Enjoying an extra day off from school Tuesday, Shawn Slim, 6, concentrates on lining up a shot at the pool table at the Neighborhood Center in Gallup. Gallup-McKinley schools did not hold classes Tuesday because of parent-teacher conferences and then the snow closed schools Wednesday.

Photo by Jeff Jones

 

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Zunis push to protect sacred lake

S.J. Ludescher
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A transition time at the White House is one of the most dangerous times for undesirable bills to be passed, Zuni Gov. Malcolm Bowekaty said. That's one reason that he and three council members are in Washington, D.C., this week to
make sure that does not happen.

One of the issues that they are keeping close watch over is a bill that could contain a rider approving a controversial permit for the Fence Lake Coal Mine near the Zuni Salt Lake, a site considered to be home to some of their deities. Due to the federal court appeals filed by the Zunis, the opening of the mine has been delayed for several years.

"It's very contentious," Bowekaty said during a phone interview Tuesday.

The lake is also prized as a source of natural salt and Zunis also revere it as the home of their Salt Mother.

The lake has qualified for the National Historic Register and sits in a shallow valley in Catron County, just 13 miles from the proposed site of the mine. The Phoenix-based utility company, Salt River Project, owns the mining site and claims the region's geology will allow the pumping of millions of gallons of water over the 40-year life span of the mine without impacting the Zuni's scared spring-fed lake.

During a recent hearing, a motion was raised requesting the Indian Affairs Commission to investigate the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department's decision to grant the mining permit.

"I think the commissioners were faced with the question of whether or not they have the authority to do so," Zuni Councilor Eldred Bowekaty said. "But under the statute that created the commission they have very broad powers, and what they have not really done is pushed the envelope."

The Zunis claim they were given insufficient notice to properly prepare for the critical 1996 mining permit administrative hearings. The tribal attorney had just 17 days to find and hire a qualified geology firm that could answer and prepare the testimony.

The Zunis also claim critical information was withheld at the hearing, information from the state engineer's office that would support the Zuni position about the resultant draining of the lake due to the large amount of pumping for the mine.

Evidence also excluded, the Zunis argued, was a hydrological study finding errors in the application for the permit itself.

"An inexpensive 90-day pumping test would resolve the water drawdown issue," Zuni legal counsel Paul Bloom said. "The baseline question is: why do we have to run the risk that SRP will detect the effects before they happen? Why not make a billion-dollar company prove what they've said up front? That's there's no risk?"

The issue of the value of traditional cultural properties had never been properly addressed, either, according to the Zunis.

"When the information was originally presented to the Mining and Minerals Division, as well as the Coal Mining Division, there was not that much weight given to that testimony," Eldred Bowekaty said. "They had already had a lot of that work done by a consultant contracted under SRP."

Bloom added, "Basically, we felt there were a great many due process problems.Some of those we've been able to raise in district court."

This year's election uncertainty added to the problems, Bloom said. "We know it's the tail end of one administration. ... I know there's always a fuzzy little area (in Washington D.C.) where people wait for the lights to go off and they try to do things when nobody's watching."

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Man held for murder trial

AZTEC, N.M. (AP) — A Farmington man accused in a four-year-old murder case has been bound over for trial.

District Judge William Birdsall ruled Wednesday that prosecutors presented sufficient evidence to try Robert Fry on two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of tampering with evidence and three counts of intimidation of a witness.

The charges stem from the Nov. 29, 1996, slayings of Matthew Trecker, 18, and Joseph Fleming, 25. They were found dead at The Eclectic, a downtown Farmington store that sold knives, swords and occult-related crystals.

Fry was arrested and charged with the murders in December. He was already held at the San Juan County jail awaiting trial on two other counts of first-degree murder in the June slaying of Betty Lee of Shiprock and the 1998 killing of Donald Tsosie of Ganado, Ariz.

Crime scene photographs and police and witness testimony were presented during Wednesday's seven-hour hearing.

Harold Pollock, the prosecution's primary witness, testified that he was with Fry at The Eclectic when the murders took place. Pollock offered his testimony in exchange for immunity against prosecution.

Pollock described the chain of events that started with a Thanksgiving Day party and ended with Fleming's and Trecker's deaths.

Jae Williams, an acquaintance of Fry, also testified that Fry told him and his fiance at a Farmington nightclub two to three months after the killings that he murdered Fleming and Trecker.

"Fry said he walked into The Eclectic with a buddy. He said he killed the first one and his buddy got the second one," Williams said.

When asked by Fry's attorney, Ed Bustamante of Albuquerque, if he was involved in the killings, Pollock replied that he didn't remember. He said he may have blacked out.

Leslie Engh was also called to the stand. Engh, who is charged with Fry in the Lee and Tsosie murders, said Fry told him shortly after the Tsosie killing that he committed the Eclectic murders, and warned Engh not to talk about it.

Engh also testified that Fry told him that store manager Alex Seifert wanted something done to Fleming for an affair Fleming allegedly had with Seifert's wife.

Following witness testimony, Bustamante told the judge that prosecutors didn't have a strong case.

"The best thing they have is Mr. Pollock," he said. "Pollock was the only one who placed Fry at the scene, and he was very drunk, very wiped out. He said he had no idea what really happened."

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Boy Scouts put survival skills to test

Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

MOUNT TAYLOR — For some folks the name Klondike conjures up images of rough-and-tumble gold miners of yesteryear in the wilds of Alaska. For some 58 Boy Scouts in McKinley and Cibola counties, it means wintry lessons in survival skills
atop this sacred mountain each year.

Shirley Dickens (as in Charles Dickens, she likes to say) is chairperson of the event for the Church of the Latter Day Saints Boy Scout Troop 10. The troop is this year's host for the Klondike.

Back in the days of the Alaska gold rush, the Klondike was synonymous with rugged individualism and working in teams to get things accomplished. "The men had to learn certain skills just to survive," Dickens said. "The Boy Scouts of America wants the scouts to learn those same skills."

Scout leaders established the Klondike a few years ago as part of the winter skill-building exercises for the Zuni Mountain District of Boy Scouts of America.

The scouts spend the night on Mount Taylor. For the last two years it meant no snow, but this year there are a couple of feet up there and the boy scouts will have to contend with it.

"Some will sleep in tents, some (on) the ground and some will build igloos, which can be really warm inside," Dickens said." If the temperature drops to zero or below each of the boys gets a polar bear award."

Dickens said 58 boys from six troops are entered in this year's Klondike. The troops come from Grants, Gallup, Bluewater, Crownpoint, Ramah and Thoreau. Each troop has from six to 10 boys.

All boys will register at 5 p.m. Friday on the side of Mount Taylor. After registration there will be a cracker barrel. "That's where we sit around a campfire and explain the rules of the Klondike," Dickens said.

The boys then sleep for the night. Bright and early the next morning they eat breakfast and straighten up their camps, which are graded.

Each of the troops arrives at camp with a sled the troops made. The scouts are given a series of five tasks they must perform at different sites within two miles of the camp. Each troop acts as a unit and must depend on teamwork to accomplish the tasks.
Tasks range from cooking to fire starting and all items needed at each of the task stations must be carried on the sleds.

There are no guides to the task stations. The scouts must know orienteering (using a compass to navigate across the landscape) to get from one task station to the next.

The scouts break camp about 3 p.m. Saturday and head for home.

At no time are the scouts in any danger. Each trains for the event.

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Panel OKs $4.5 million in contracts

Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — More than $4.5 million in contracts received the Inter-Government Relations Committee's approval Tuesday for everything from a Head Start bus to water and sewer extensions to senior citizens centers.

The largest project, $1.9 million, will bring water and sewer service to 90 new homes on the Canoncito Navajo Reservation; the $39,900 bus will come from New Mexico severance tax bonds and is being bought by the Counselor Chapter for the Head Start Department. It is in addition to the department's 17 new buses expected to arrive by Jan. 31.

Head Start also received the committee's blessing to contract for three years of teacher training with both the University of New Mexico-Gallup and Diné College, with the first year's funding being $100,978 and $71,500, respectively.

The committee also approved a piece-rate contract worth up to $1 million a year to the only bidder, Nobel-Sysco Food Services Company, to provide the 115 Head Start centers with food until May 31, 2003. The program will receive 95 percent reimbursement from Arizona and New Mexico.

The Shiprock Day Care Center will receive $12,846 over three years from the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department.

The tribal low-income home energy assistance program will receive a $682,929 grant.

Many of the water and sewer contracts are for extensions or improvements by the Indian Health Service:

$90,000 to upgrade a water line to Toyei that is part of the Steamboat and Ganado systems.

$1.9 million for the Canoncito project in the To' Hajiilee Chapter.

$665,000 to build sewer lagoons and an 80,000 gallon water storage tank for new homes in the Crownpoint Chapter.

$235,000 to improve water pressure from the Dilkon wells and pumps to the Greasewood Springs Chapter which will also help Indian Wells and Tees Toh Chapters' residents.

$310,000 for water and sewer improvements in the Houck, Round Rock, Tuba City and Tonalea (Cow Springs and Red Lake communities).

The U.S. Agriculture Department's rural housing preservation fund will supply $38,8510 to the Mexican Water Chapter for its Toda West waterline extension and the Utah Community-Economic Development Department will supply $42,000 to the seven Utah chapters for housing needs.

Senior citizens centers will receive the following funds from the New Mexico Agency on Aging:

$20,000 to Iyanbito

$100,000 to Newcomb

$30,000 to Smith Lake.

The committee is composed of the chairs or vice chairs of the council's 11 regular committees with the 12th member being the council speaker who acts as the IGRC chair.

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Rep. Kennedy to visit uranium sites

Larry Di Giovanni
Staff Writer

WINDOW ROCK — The itinerary has changed, but a Rhode Island congressman, one from the Kennedy clan, is scheduled today to visit some abandoned and unremediated Navajo uranium mines.

Weather has changed the travel schedule for the visit of Patrick Kennedy, an environmental advocate and Clean Air Act supporter who is another in a long line of Kennedy Democrats. A small tribal passenger plane was scheduled to leave at 7:30 a.m. today from Window Rock airport, then rendezvous with Kennedy in Kingman, Ariz.

From there, Kennedy was to board the tribal plane and fly with Navajo EPA Director Derrith Watchman Moore and a small group to Kayenta, Ariz. A motorcade will take the entourage to the Monument Valley and Oljato Chapter areas, where uranium mining flourished.

The trip is expected to conclude around 5 p.m...

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Johnson wants top jobs appointed, not elected

Walter Howerton Jr.
Managing Editor

SANTA FE — Gov. Gary Johnson didn't know much about government when he was elected. He admitted it. It was part of his goofy charm for some people.

Others have not found it so charming.

His lack of knowledge has backfired over time, especially when he could not get things to go his way. The way he sees it, such offices as the New Mexico Attorney General and the Secretary of State have not been team players. And as a businessman, Johnson was accustomed to working with the kind of team players who when he said "Jump!" simply wanted to know "How high?" and "How many times?"

But no matter how much business is business, and in spite of Johnson's best efforts to the contrary, government goes on being government. Especially when Democrats have control of so many offices, including the attorney general's and the secretary of state's...

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Deaths

Edison "Ed" Dooline

FORT DEFIANCE, Ariz. — Services for Edison Dooline, 35, will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Jan. 19, at the Good Shepherd Mission. The Rev. Margaret Hardy will officiate. Burial will follow on family land, Natural Bridge, Ariz.

Visitation will be held one hour before services.

Dooline died Jan. 16 in Fort Defiance. He was born Jan. 2, 1966, in Fort Defiance into the Red Running into Water for the Coyote Pass Clan.

Dooline attended Window Rock High School. He was employed with the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department as an archaeologist/Navajo cultural specialist. His hobbies included traveling, fishing and camping.

Survivors include his mother, Sadie C. Dooline; brothers, Elvin Dooline and Emery Dooline; sister, Sandra Dooline and grandfather, Glen Chischilly Sr.

Dooline was preceded in death by father, Edward Dooline; brother, Edgar Dooline; maternal grandmother, Mary Chilchilly and grandparents, Eddie and Eva Dooline.

Pallbearers will be Dennis Yazzie, Dwayne Waseta, Ernest L. Upshaw Sr., Richard Chischilly, Ronnie Peshlaki and Glen
Chischilly Jr.

The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Sadie Dooline's residence if weather premits; if not, at
Parish Hall, Good Shepherd Mission.

Cope Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements.

Grace Carl

NASCHITTI — Services for Grace Carl, 86, will be held at 10 a.m., Friday, Jan. 19 at the Christian Reformed Church, Naschitti. Pastor Phillip Destea will officiate. Burial will follow at Naschitti Community Cemetery.

Carl died Jan. 14 in Gallup. She was born May 15, 1913 in Naschitti into the Edge Water for the Red House People Clan.
Carl was a rugweaver, homemaker and rancher.

Survivors include her son Joe B. Carl Sr of Naschitti; two grandchildren; four great-grandchildren and 5 great-great grandchildren.

Carl was preceded in death by her husband, Lewis Bahe Carl; father, Hosteen Tsosie; and brothers, John Tsosie, Yazzie Tsosie and Wilbert Tsosie.

Pallbearers will be family and relatives.

The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Naschitti Chapter House.

Cope Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements.

Suzie Ann Yazzie

ST. MICHAELS, Ariz. — Services for Suzie "Bessie" Yazzie, 54, will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Jan. 19, at Mary, Mother of Mankind Catholic Church, St. Michaels. Father Melden Hickey will officiate. Burial will follow at community demetery, St. Michaels.

Yazzie died Jan. 13 in Window Rock. She was born July 5, 1945, in St. Michaels into the Edge of the Water People for the Dark Streak in Wood People Clan.

Yazzie atttended Intermountain Indian School. She was employed as a waitress, housekeeper and did beadwork. Her hobbies included sewing and cooking.
Survivors include her sons, Edward Yazzie Jr., Michael Yazzie, Edwin Yazzie and Edmund Yazzie, all of St. Michaels; daughter, Shirlene Yazzie of Phoenix; brothers, Albert John of Bitahochee, Ariz., Paul Kinlicheenie and John C. Yazzie, both of St. Michaels; sisters, Irene Charley Sr. of St. Michaels and Shirley Yellowfeather of Fort Defiance, Ariz.; and three grandchildren.

Yazzie was preceded in death by her husband, Edward Yazzie Sr.; mother, Emma Robbins; sister, Lena C. Tsosdia; and grandparents, Benino and Nellie Robbins.

Pallbearers will be Edward Yazzie Jr., Michael Yazzie, Edwin Yazzie, Willam Blackgoat, Delbert Nez and Gary Nez.
The family will have a meeting at 6 tonight at St. Michaels Chapter House.

Tse Bonito Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

James "Buck" F. Keeney

Services for James Keeney, 92, will be held at 10 a.m., Friday, Jan. 19 at Grants Mortuary Chapel. Rev. Gil Riggs will
officiate. Burial will follow at National Cemetery, Santa Fe.

Visitation will be at held one hour before services.

Keeney was born Oct. 14, 1908 in Chappel, Texas.

Keeny served in the U.S. Navy in World War II.

Survivors include his daughters, Judy James of Portland, Ore., Helen Harvest of Ala., Judy Price of Rio Rancho and Gail Del
Valle of Albuquerque; six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Pallbearers will be Greg Gonzales, Randy Roberts, Mark Kellar, Jimmy Kellar, Jimmy Gonazles and Nicholas Price.

Joe Kee Charley

MARIANO LAKE — Services for Joe Kee Charley, 90, will be announced at a later date.

Charley died Jan. 16 in Gallup. He was born April 10, 1910, in Mariano Lake into the Bitter Water People Clan for the
Towering House People Clan.

Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.