Black Mesa worker Graymouth: Enviros not real grassroots people

Navajo and Hopi reservation residents can get free coal each fall at this site on BIA Navajo Region Route 41 between the Kayenta and Black Mesa Mines south of U.S. Route 160. Peabody Energy provides the free coal for heating and cooking in the winter. [Photo by Jim Maniaci/Independent]

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

BLACK MESA MINE — Black Mesa Mine workers help each other when they are sick, a practice which continues after retirement, according to the president of United Mine Workers of America Local 1620.

Marie Justice said the union members have helped Code Talkers who need assistance, along with donating to sports camps for kids and other types of youth programs such as field trips to Washington, D.C.

"We are very supportive of our young people getting an education," she said. The union local's vice president, Jessie Chief, had noted that miners, without a college degree, often make as much as people with a degree.

Roy Gilmore has a daughter attending Yale University in New Haven, Conn. She has a scholarship for half the $44,000 a year. But he has to come up with the other $22,000 and that is about three times the average income per person on the reservation. It's even harder now, he said, as his wife died, and she used to work.

Gilbert Graymouth has a daughter at Arizona State. "Window Rock says you are the 'Big Buck' people. When we ask for help, they say 'pay your own way'. So what we get from them is measly. So we are trying to do as our forefathers said get up early; do your stuff and say your prayers."

He blasted the environmentalists who want to force the mine to close ahead of its natural life.

Too lazy
"They are too lazy to get up in the morning and wash themselves. Our forefathers said to not be like that, but to wake up with energy. In a sense, the way I see the closers is that they look down their noses at us. And they use the Navajo scholarships. Peabody royalties are going into (those) coffers. It's an unappreciated thing, biting the hand that feeds you," he said.

Graymouth continued, "... I myself would not have gotten back to nature without the mine. My brother over there, and others, we do (Diné) ceremonies on weekends. The environmentalists say we are ripping up the their land. What they don't see is that we say our prayers with corn pollen at dawn before we come to work, saying 'we'll have another productive day.' They wake up at high noon and say 'I'm grass roots.' How many of the grass roots have computers to get a hold of the Grand Canyon Trust and Sierra Club?"

He concluded, "Like my in-law said, we've got to maintain this mine. This mine has given us an equal opportunity to a living for our kids at home." Chief added that the miners make $50,000 to $70,000 a year.

Justice also said, "We really help our communities. But it's very hard when you do not know what will happen down the road." Since miners support not only their immediate families, but their extended families, it's even harder and a closing of the mine will have a much greater impact than a non-reservation mine shut down would have, she indicated.

Peabody has not announced any plans about the mine. Press officer Beth Sutton said any such announcements would be made first to the workers.

Justice praised the efficiency of her co-workers at more than 4 million tons of coal a year.

$1.3 billion paid
Phil Russell, UMWA international representative and the immediate past deputy chief of staff for President Joe Shirley Jr., said people should stop and do some arithmetic about how much the company has provided the tribes in more than 35 years.

Keevin Becenti said no other Navajo Nation administration until Shirley's would give more than a minimal response to the union's concern first expressed years ago that the mine might be forced to end production because of the federal court order three environmental groups obtained. It says by Dec. 31, 2005, Southern California Edison Company must have in operation expensive new air pollution control equipment at the Mohave Generating Station.

Black Mesa Mine is the sole-source provider to fuel the plant, and needs tribal water to ship the coal as a slurry to the southern Nevada facility. In July 2003, the council joined the Hopi Tribe in setting Dec. 31, 2005, as the date Peabody Energy, the mine's operator, would have to start using a new water source to replace its current pumping from eight wells drilled about 3,000 deep into the high-quality Navajo Aquifer.

Studies should be released any time now about the Coconino Aquifer as that replacement, and union people say they have been told the results are very positive.

"Two-and-a-half years ago the (Navajo Nation) Council was not really informed about dumping the mine, what the real impact would be. After they found out through the media, they're looking back on it now," Becenti said.

To give Edison time to perform the $1.1 billion of work in what is now called the Black Mesa Project, the Dec. 31 deadlines would have to be extended and the environmental groups say they have been excluded from the negotiations. For the deadlines to be rescheduled to 2010 the minimum time Edison projects the work would take the three plaintiffs would have to petition the court and the two councils would have to amend their resolutions.

— To contact reporter Jim Maniaci, telephone (505) 371-5443.