Navajo faction wants to shut off plant
Generating station drains away water, demonstrators say

By Bobby Cuza
Los Angeles Times
Apr. 21, 2000

A half-dozen Navajos staged a demonstration Thursday to demand that
Southern
California Edison shut down its Mohave Generating Station near Laughlin,
Nev., saying the plant's operation is draining local groundwater and
imperiling their way of life.
The enormous coal-fired power plant, which lights more than 1
million
homes in Arizona, Southern California and Nevada, is the single largest
source of sulfur dioxide pollution in the Southwest, making it a prime
target
of environmentalists. It is partly responsible for haze over the Grand
Canyon, 75 miles away.
But Edison, which owns a controlling interest in the plant, has
generally
counted as allies the Hopi and Navajo tribes that depend on the Mohave
plant
for jobs and royalties. Now, a small Navajo faction who make their home
on
Big Mountain in the Black Mesa area of northeastern Arizona is calling
for
the plant's immediate closure.
"More than 3 billion gallons of aquifer water are being drained
every
year. All the surface water is gone. And that's all so that Southern
California Edison can do business," said Sharon Lungo of the Action
Resource
Center, an environmental group that helped organize the demonstration at
Edison's Rosemead headquarters.
The problem is how the coal is transported to the Mohave plant.
The Peabody Western Coal Co. crushes coal, then mixes it with
drinking-quality water pumped from aquifers. The so-called slurry mix is
transported via a 273-mile pipeline - the only one of its kind in the
world.
Edison officials note the pipeline avoids pollution that would be
created
by transporting coal via trucks or train. But protesters say the slurry
line
also is drying up this Navajo community's water supply.
"We're talking about life here - about trees, about animals. The
whole
life of Black Mesa," said Leonard Benally, one of six Navajos, including
two
grandmothers, who drove from Big Mountain for the demonstration. "You're
talking about ecology devastation. When I was a kid, I remember flowing
streams. Those things dried up."
Benally said that in order to retrieve water these days, he must
drive 25
miles to a school operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Benally's community also bemoans the power plant's assault on its
ancient
way of life. The Navajo regard coal as the "liver of Mother Earth," and
are
dismayed to see it mined on the land they have inhabited for
generations.
Most Navajo, however, aren't complaining. Many work at Peabody's
Black
Mesa coal mine, earning as much as $60,000 a year in a region of high
unemployment and poverty-level wages. The Mohave plant also pays tens of
millions of dollars in royalties to the Navajo and Hopi each year.
Nader Mansour, Edison's manager of environmental regulations, said
the
utility is committed to finding another source of groundwater for its
slurry
pipeline. He said all parties - including the Navajo and Hopi - have
agreed
in principle to a plan that would use water from Lake Powell.