Conversation Cafe

Today, our last full day together as a group, was spent learning about and witnessing the site of the proposed coal-fired power plant at Desert Rock, just outside of Burnham, NM.  In the morning we met with Dine CARE (www.dinecare.org, www.desert-rock-blog.com), a Navajo environmental justice organization that has obtained several significant victories against proposed environmentally-destructive projects on Navajo lands.  Several members of the community which would be affected by the proposed power plant, a joint project of the Dine Power Authority (a Navajo Nation corporation) and Sithe Global, came to our meeting in Farmington to share information and stories with us.

And again, we were reminded:  it's always the women.  In addition to the younger leaders who gave us detailed presentations on the destructive potential of the power plant, we met Grandma Sarah, Grandma Lucy, and Grandma Molly, three strikingly beautiful (and beautifully-adorned with turquoise and fetish jewelry) elder women who initiated this protest back in 2002.  These three women, one of whom does not even speak English, spearheaded and led this powerful, multi-year effort to stop the power plant.  Some of the community members told a story of how Grandma Molly, at the first Navajo leadership council hearing on the project, stood up to talk to all of the mostly-male decision-makers present in Navajo language.  This tiny, gray-haired grandmother spoke and spoke, chastising them and demanding that they preserve the sanctity of the Desert Rock area, until finally they relented and agreed to postpone the approval of the project.  The power of women to galvanize, organize, and point the way to truth never ceases to amaze and inspire me.

The speakers shared several significant and astounding facts with us.  There are already two coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners area, causing the region's air quality to be among the worst in the state.  While the president of the Navajo Nation, Joe Shirley, believes that this three billion dollar project will bring jobs and income to the Navajo nation, grassroots leaders believe that it will wreak unacceptable harm on Mother Earth without ensuring any benefits for the people.  Already, the existing power plants in the region cause environmental, cultural and economic injury.  Navajo families that haul water, for example, pay nearly 30 times more per gallon than do the power plants.  The Navajo nation exports approximately 1200% more energy than it consumes.  And the people suffer from acute and long-term health concerns resulting from existing power plant air pollution, such as chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, as well as neurological disorders due to mercury and other heavy metal toxicity. 

All of these conditions challenge the traditional Dine Life Way, in which the Dine people (another word for Navajo) are charged with maintaining balance.  In a fascinating report outlining the potential for lucrative alternative energy development on Navajo lands (http://www.box.net/shared/static/tirr6zsw0g.pdf), the Dine leaders write: "opposites [such as Mother/ Father, earth/ sky, up/ down, and male/ female] are not mutually exclusive, but they relate to each other and are interconnected to maintain equilibrium."  One of the central balances for the Navajo is the balance between humans and all of life (there isn't really a word, as we discovered, for 'environment' in Navajo language, just as there isn't a word for 'toxic' -- when Dine CARE was first beginning to organize against the plant, they used the Navajo word for 'scary' to explain the potential for such major contamination).  Individual health is dependent on the earth's health, and the health of all of the interconnected web of life.  When the land suffers, the people will also suffer.

So these organizers have fought hard against the Desert Rock plant, entering the courts and policy-making arenas as well as organizing massive protests such as a months-long blockade at the site, and they have succeeded in postponing the development of the site for approximately the past five years.  It is a major victory, and especially given the ailing U.S. economy, it is highly likely that the continued protest will drive up the cost of the plant until it is simply prohibitive for the proponents. 

After this high-density learning experience, we drove out to meet with Elouise Brown of Dooda Desert Rock (http://tinyurl.com/4blrxa) at one of the blockade sites.  Because of time constraints we weren't able to visit the proposed site itself, but we did learn in detail about the history of the blockade and all of the creative actions -- such as music festivals and healing arts festivals -- that have occurred to bring media and international attention to the issue.  Elouise is an amazing activist, whose dedication to stopping the proposed coal-fired power plant on her nation's land has led her all over the world, to speak out in a wide range of fora. 

We were all deeply inspired by this day, especially since there is such a sense of success already, even though the plant is still in its development process (and in fact, the Clean Air Act permit for the plant was recently approved by the EPA).  The activists of Dine CARE expressed their belief that it is just a matter of time before this project becomes more trouble than it's worth for the proponents, and they intend to keep fighting until that day comes.

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