Black Mesa

Water

Each year Peabody Coal Company pumps more than 4,500 acre-feet of pristine Navajo and Hopi drinking water from the "N-Aquifer".

Peabody uses this pristine water supply simply to mix with crushed coal-called "slurry". This "slurry" is then pumped through a pipeline over 275 miles to the Mohave Generating Station in Nevada.

With every breath we take, 50 gallons of pristine ground water has just been pumped from the dry lands of northeastern Arizona. On Black Mesa, home to the Hopi and Navajo people, over 300 gallons of potential drinking water has, in the last 10 seconds just been mixed with crushed coal. In the time it took to read these sentences Peabody Coal Company pumps over a thousand gallons of the cleanest groundwater in North America, simply to transport coal.

Instantly and permanently a sole drinking water source is pollutes and taken away from a land and peoples that need it most. For over 30 years, atop Black Mesa, Arizona, Peabody Coal Company has been exploiting the pristine drinking water source of the Navajo and Hopi people.

Black Mesa

Black Mesa extends into both the Diné (Navajo) and Hopi reservations, in northeastern Arizona. This area has been the center of many environmental and social injustices. The continued destruction of Diné and Hopi traditional homelands is endangering the cultural survival of our people and is largely contributing to the many challenges our youth face.

The Black Mesa region of northeastern Arizona is a land of sweeping beauty, deep colors, and thriving cultural roots. This area is the traditional land base and home to both the Navajo and Hopi peoples. The area is full of life, wild sagebrush and grass valleys spread between mesa covered in pinion and juniper trees. Among the range of wildlife are lizards, coyotes, deer, and eagles. Domestic sheep, horses and cattle dot the landscape. However, the earth in this area supports only so much of her creations. The living beings of this land must learn to live within the resource boundaries our Mother Earth has outlines.

Water is precious on this land.
The high plateaus of the Black Mesa region are describes as a semi-desert environment.

On a good year, the area gets, at most, between 7-12 inches of rain. Rain waters recharge underlying groundwater sources (called "aquifers"), the most significant being the Navajo-Aquifer.

Groundwater feeds an array of natural springs. The springs are essential to the religious practices of both the Hopi and Navajo people.

Navajo and Hopi communities depend on this groundwater for livestock, agriculture, cleaning, and drinking.

On this magnificent land, rich with so many beautiful creatures, water really is life.

Peabody Coal Company

Coal

Since 1965 Peabody Western Coal Company has been operating two strip mines on Black Mesa - the Kayenta and Black Mesa mines. Together, these mines makeup one of the largest strip mining operations in the United States.

The Black Mesa mine supplies coal to the Mohave Generating Station (MGS) outside of Langhlin, Nevada. Electricity from this plant powers southern California, Las Vegas, and central Arizona.

As a part of the mining operations, groundwater is used to supply a transport process know as "slurry". On this slurry process, pristine groundwater is mixed with pulverized coal and sent through a pipeline 273 miles to the Mohave Generating Station. Today Peabody Coal pumps over 3,600 arce-feet (equivalent to 4,6000 football fields, one foot deep) per year of pristine water from the Navajo Aquifer.

This is the only slurry pipeline in the U.S. It has been operating without a permit for the last 10 years, under an "administrative delay" allowed by the Department of the Interior.

The annual reports of the U.S. Geological Survey to the Office of Surface Mining show that the water table is dropping.

see National Resources Defense Council report "Drawdown Mining Water on Black Mesa."

There are viable alternatives to transport coal, which have been known for at least 10 years, yet nothing has been done to stop the draw down of a sole source of drinking water.

People of the Black Mesa region and beyond are outrages by this unwise use of an only drinking water source. In an area where water is already limited, water should not be used to transport coal. In the Southwestern United States slurry is particularly outrageous, as the battle over scarce water resources have been underway for decades. Furthermore, there have been a number of reported breaks in the slurry pipeline over the past months. These breaks have resulted in hundreds of tons of coal slurry flooding and contaminating previously undisturbed lands and stream beds. Most people do not need science to see the obvious: all to precious water is being rapidly and permanently wasted.