October 7, 1999
For Immediate Release:
Sharon Lungo, Action Resource Center: (310) 396-3254
Mohave Generating Station to be "cleaned up" at the expense of Dineh (Navajo) families
LOS ANGELES, CA- In a move Wednesday that affects millions of Los Angeles energy consumers the Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club and National Parks and Conservation Association settled a lawsuit with the owners of the Mohave Generating Station to install pollution control devices on the plant by the end of 2005. However, the 300 million dollar clean up comes at the expense of over 5,000 Dineh currently facing a forced relocation from the Black Mesa Reservation where coal is being extracted to feed the Mohave Generating Station.
The Mohave Generating Station, whose ownership includes Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has long since been the target of scrutiny for its link to the environmental devastation and the forced relocation of over 20,000 Dineh in the Black Mesa region of the Hopi-Navajo Reservation. "The Mohave Generating Station, whose sole source of coal is the Black Mesa Mine is contributing to the human rights violations and relocation of the Dineh. " says Kim Mizrahi of Action Resource Center, "It is impossible to ignore the link between Los Angeles energy consumers, who receive part of their daily energy supply from Mohave, and the Dineh families on Black Mesa who are calling for an end to the massive strip mining occurring there."
Some local Los Angeles residents are appalled at the decision to keep the Mohave Generating Station operating as opposed to shutting it down entirely. "Coal powered energy is dinosaur technology," says Jennafer Waggoner a local Los Angeles resident and an active organizer in the relief efforts for the affected families. "It saddens me to know that instead of investing our money towards new, sustainable technology, we are spending millions of dollars to clean up an archaic and obsolete energy plant."
Ultimately, the installation of pollution control devices on
the Mohave Generating Station undermines the tragedy thousands
of Dineh have faced for decades. Depletion of ancient groundwater
to pump coal to Mohave, impoundment of the Dineh's livestock,
and desecration of sacred Dineh sites are among the effects of
the continued mining activity on Black Mesa. Coupled with this,
the remaining Dineh on Black Mesa, (14,000 have already been relocated)
face a deadline of February 1, 2000 for their forced relocation
from a land they have occupied for centuries. Said Dr. Thayer
Scudder, professor of Anthropology at the California Institute
of Technology who has studied the effects of relocation on the
Dineh: "The forced relocation of over 12,000 Native Americans
is one of the worst cases of involuntary community resettlement
that I have studied throughout the world over the past 40 years.
Such a situation would never have arisen in the US if the people
involved had been Anglo-Americans. That alone illustrates the
extent to which the human rights of one of the poorest minority
groups in the US have been violated."
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