‘Woven Ways’ puts focus on environmental issues of Diné

TahNibaa Naataanii of Table Mesa is featured in her chief's blanket on the Woven Way poster and DVD cover. [courtesy photo]

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Just in time for Earth Day, Navajo Nation Museum will present a special screening of the award-winning documentary film “Woven Ways.”

Filmed on the Navajo Nation over a three-year period from 2004 through 2007, the documentary interweaves stories of five Navajo families, their land and livestock, and some of the environmental issues they believe threaten their health and well-being.

“Many documentaries are heavily scripted and narrated, but Woven Ways gives Navajos the opportunity to talk about their personal experiences in their own words,” Director Linda Helm Krapf said. The families in the reflect on some of the negative health and environmental effects of uranium, coal mining and coal power plants. Through the film’s editing, those stories are woven together.

Among the featured families are Little Harvey and his wife Jessica, who raised their family in Sweetwater and now live in Cortez, Colo. Harvey worked in Vanadium Corporation of America’s uranium mines and later suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed as result of excessive exposure to radon and radioactive dust in the mines. His story is similar to that of hundreds of Navajo miners.

Larry King of Churchrock has served for a decade with the grassroots organization Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining because he doesn’t want to see the problems of the past repeated. In the film he recounts his years working as a surveyor alongside underground uranium miners.

King claims that the operation run by his employer, United Nuclear Corporation, lacked safety measures for miners. He is concerned now that a resurgence of uranium mining will add to the contamination left behind by UNC and other companies.

Hydro Resources Inc. of Texas has applied for a license to begin in-situ leach recovery of uranium near Churchrock, which has been hotly contested by ENDAUM and local communities.

Though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given HRI a green light on the projects, the NRC decision is under appeal in federal court, and HRI still must obtain an underground injection control permit from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before mining may begin.
Another issue tackled by the film is the proposed Desert Rock power plant, located near Burnham. Desert Rock would be the third coal plant in the San Juan Valley. It is widely supported for the jobs it would create and the state-of-the-art coal technology it would employ but is vigorously opposed for the added pollution.

TahNibaa Naataanii and Sarah Natani, well known weavers from Table Mesa — also featured in the film — know that dwindling plant life means a lack of good grazing for their sheep. Sarah believes that soot which rains down from the Four Corners and San Juan power plants located within 8 miles of her home is responsible for the loss of plant species the sheep once relied on.

While “Woven Ways” introduces some controversial issues, it isn’t strictly an environmental film. The film is also a cultural piece of cinema demonstrating the hope and determination that inspire some Navajo youth.

The film crew of “Woven Ways” included Navajo cinematographer Samuel Goodman of Salt Lake City, and sound recordist Saul Rodgar of Albuquerque. Goodman is known for his work on “Navajo Healthcare in the New Millennium,” “Rezrobics,” and “First Indian Health,” among other films. Fluent in Diné, Goodman also served as the project translator.

“Woven Ways” has been touring the country, screening at film festivals. Its world premiere was held at the EarthVision International Environmental Film Festival in Santa Cruz, Calif., where it was honored with the Katherine Knight Award. The film will screen at the Global Green Indigenous Film Festival in Santa Fe, April 19-20.