The controversey around Peabody Coal still not only simmers, it has once again boiled over, or at least it looks to if things don't change in the immediate future.
More leaders need to know, as it has been pretty rampant as of late, that not every Indian speaks for EVERY Indian. If indeed the Life of Mine provision, addressed in this latest Indian Country Today Opinon Piece by the Hon. Ben Nuvamsa, was passed in the dark hours of a passing administration, then the powers that be, need to request clarification from the Hopi Tribe that this is what the Hopi Tribe is in agreement with.
Perhaps a referendum should be initiated from the new Hopi tribal administration to reveal what the true voice of the people is concerning the provisions of the Black Mesa Area Mining permit. This is the truest path to discovering if the Hopi people really want to grant such broad sweeping permission to the Peabody Coal Company.
Alternatively, if the Hopi Tribe's process permits it, the Hopi people should present an immediate Direct Initiative to determine their own opinion on how to supply the needs of the Mohave Generating Station, while still addressing the natural resource needs of the people in a way that is transparent, respectful of all that will be impacted, and in the end run is in the best opinion of an informed Hopi tribal population. (A Direct Initiative will go directly to a vote and circumvent the legal maze that many will not be familiar with or have the patience to endure)
A tribal law will hold status that should weigh heavily in any pending lawsuit
Both sides of the issue should be most supportive of a Direct Initiative because the majority will come out on top, and if either side believes it really is correct then this is the ultimate mechanism for putting money where mouth may be. Then there will be no questions left to answer.
No questions will be left except-what will the Hopi people do either with or without their resources in either scanario?
Showing posts with label Bureau of Land Management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bureau of Land Management. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Dairyman Blues
The Dairyman Blues was filmed near the Yakama people; it includes people from on the reservation or those concerned about the water/air quality on or near the Yakama Indian Reservation.
It certainly raises questions, whether you're against it or in support of the video, if you have unanswered questions, you are right with the people who live there and have questions about their own health.
Thank a local farmer or rancher for keeping his business going and keeping out monstrous operations.
click here to see "Dairyman Blues" by Michael Harris
Jan Whitefoot is a Yakama Nation Member who has questions that maybe we all ought to be asking. She certainly has a Native "land" Issue.
It certainly raises questions, whether you're against it or in support of the video, if you have unanswered questions, you are right with the people who live there and have questions about their own health.
Thank a local farmer or rancher for keeping his business going and keeping out monstrous operations.
click here to see "Dairyman Blues" by Michael Harris
Jan Whitefoot is a Yakama Nation Member who has questions that maybe we all ought to be asking. She certainly has a Native "land" Issue.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Repeal of the Bennett Freeze
Now this is only my opinion and I gather that there are a lot of opinions out there on this subject-piece of land, and I'm sure the Palestinians and Israelis will also tell you that land is an issue for them in a similar way.
Read here to see what the Bennett Freeze is. Basically, in the opinion of myself and others out there in Cyberspace, it was a blockade of services to Dineh (Navajo Tribe) to force them off their aboriginal land so that the Federal Government could "give" Peabody Coal Company access to the land and the water there.
Indianz.com reports that this Thursday May 15, 2008, there is a U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing to repeal Sect. 10 (f) of P.L. 93-531, which is also known as the "Bennett Freeze." Robert Bennet was head of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1966 and he is "credited" with having created this policy.
The web page, Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute, states that:
Observers at the time of this decision felt (and wrote) that it (the Bennet Freeze temporarily being removed) seems to have been influenced by the fact that the Navajo tribe could be expected to be more compliant and friendly to Peabody Coal than Hopis with newly-affirmed Navajo subsurface rights. The coal deals were the basis for the swift rise to power of long-term Navajo tribal chairman Peter MacDonald, who had been appointed (in 1963) to head Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity. MacDonald was elected to the first of his many terms as tribal chairman in 1970. MacDonald was recently released for health reasons from federal prison terms being served for convictions in 1990, 1992 and 1993 for racketeering and corruption charges in relation to land and financial dealings.
Peabody Coal was formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kennecott Copper. Many mergers later, it is now part of an empire of coal, owned by a British holding company, Hanson. Not only was the Black Mesa to be strip-mined, but the Mohave power plant, 275 miles away was to be -- and is -- fed by a liquified slurry of crushed coal pumped along a pipeline that uses 3,000 gallons a minute of precious desert aquifer water, laid down in the deep rocks millions of years ago, before this land was desert. This irreplaceable water is the most valuable of the subsurface rights Peabody acquired access to, and its profligate use is the most threatening to long-term survival of the entire southwest. The water pumping all takes place near the Black Mesa mine (though it can suck water from hundreds of miles away, the entire aquifer). The Peabody Kayenta mine feeds the power plant at Page with dry coal on coal trains. But for Black Mesa, Peabody counts only the cheaper method of delivery, which maximizes its profits, not counting the cost of stolen water to all life in the southwest.
Dirty Per Caps? Keep the Natives dependent, poor, denied of basic privileges, so that you can gain the most precious resources from under their feet for the cheapest of prices. Sounds like the policy was hard hitting all over Indian Country.
"It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit." (think: "money & bottom line")
Related Blog Posts:
"Good Indians"
"An Ammotment of Sorts"
Read here to see what the Bennett Freeze is. Basically, in the opinion of myself and others out there in Cyberspace, it was a blockade of services to Dineh (Navajo Tribe) to force them off their aboriginal land so that the Federal Government could "give" Peabody Coal Company access to the land and the water there.
Indianz.com reports that this Thursday May 15, 2008, there is a U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing to repeal Sect. 10 (f) of P.L. 93-531, which is also known as the "Bennett Freeze." Robert Bennet was head of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1966 and he is "credited" with having created this policy.
The web page, Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute, states that:
Observers at the time of this decision felt (and wrote) that it (the Bennet Freeze temporarily being removed) seems to have been influenced by the fact that the Navajo tribe could be expected to be more compliant and friendly to Peabody Coal than Hopis with newly-affirmed Navajo subsurface rights. The coal deals were the basis for the swift rise to power of long-term Navajo tribal chairman Peter MacDonald, who had been appointed (in 1963) to head Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity. MacDonald was elected to the first of his many terms as tribal chairman in 1970. MacDonald was recently released for health reasons from federal prison terms being served for convictions in 1990, 1992 and 1993 for racketeering and corruption charges in relation to land and financial dealings.
Peabody Coal was formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kennecott Copper. Many mergers later, it is now part of an empire of coal, owned by a British holding company, Hanson. Not only was the Black Mesa to be strip-mined, but the Mohave power plant, 275 miles away was to be -- and is -- fed by a liquified slurry of crushed coal pumped along a pipeline that uses 3,000 gallons a minute of precious desert aquifer water, laid down in the deep rocks millions of years ago, before this land was desert. This irreplaceable water is the most valuable of the subsurface rights Peabody acquired access to, and its profligate use is the most threatening to long-term survival of the entire southwest. The water pumping all takes place near the Black Mesa mine (though it can suck water from hundreds of miles away, the entire aquifer). The Peabody Kayenta mine feeds the power plant at Page with dry coal on coal trains. But for Black Mesa, Peabody counts only the cheaper method of delivery, which maximizes its profits, not counting the cost of stolen water to all life in the southwest.
Dirty Per Caps? Keep the Natives dependent, poor, denied of basic privileges, so that you can gain the most precious resources from under their feet for the cheapest of prices. Sounds like the policy was hard hitting all over Indian Country.
"It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit." (think: "money & bottom line")
Related Blog Posts:
"Good Indians"
"An Ammotment of Sorts"
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Yet more MOTIVATIONS!
Take a look around and you will see that the Certified Federal Surveyors Program (CFEDS)is supposed to be self funded. Self Funded? No budget from the great white father? Cut off? For real? Why would they do that? Why would the great white father create a program in the federal government that isn't funded? What gives? Come on now, you can't create a school traffic warning sign without some sort of maintenance fee in this country. Why would you create a program and "hope" it grows up on its own?
1. Instead of enriching the program, instead of empowering tribes to become self sufficient, instead of teaching them how to fish, you drain their checkbook paying for each and every fish. Instead of putting funding into training tribal surveyors so that tribes can become self sufficient in at least one more area, you take TPA funds away from tribes across the board, and you pay those TPA funds into overpriced surveys on a piece-meal basis. Tribal Priority Allocations were meant in their infancy in the 1970s to pursue Indian self-determination by offering ways to set [TRIBAL] priorities and allocate funds for those activities they [TRIBES] wanted to fund, in consultation with BIA. BIA was supposed to give TRIBAL PRIORITY ALLOCATION FUNDS to tribes by funding TRIBALLY OPERATED ACTIVITIES or through SERVICES PROVIDED BY BIA as well as some of Bureau of Indian Affairs' management and administrative costs, according to A 1998 GAO report. The consultation went out the window. I know two years ago that when a regional BLM surveyor-type was made aware of the elected officials who would now be conducting boundary surveys, he said "I wasn't aware of that." And now apparently, neither is anybody else aware of the problem (the results) built into the Certified Federal Surveyor Program. Does the Certified Federal Surveyor program meet the test of being a TRIBALLY OPERATED ACTIVITY or a SERVICE PROVIDED BY THE BIA? Afraid not. Somebody at the Office of Special Trustee has made a horrible case for this program which will take a serious link out of the Indian Self Determination which Tribal Priority Allocations was supposed to create.
2. Instead of doing it outright, in front of GOD AND EVERYBODY, you make it sophisticated, covert, and you make believers of even the smartest people that it is in the best interest of the Indian population, when in reality it isn't. I really feel sorry for my friends at the Certified Federal Surveyor Program. I hope and I do pray that their eyes are opened to the sophisticated effects that are at work here. Remember it isn't the rules we care about in Indian Country. It's the RESULTS that we're concerned about. Do my friends, the Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinators really know what we're talking about here? Do they really know how they're being used to facilitate this egregious infraction against Indian Self -Determination? Why else would they willingly participate unless they didn't know? Why else would otherwise very intelligent, professionals so willingly participate? Why else would they cash the checks from the Tribal Priority Allocation funds like a Federal Spendthrift instead of advocating for these funds to be turned around and sent back to the Tribal Priority Allocation Fund coffers where some really advantageous work can be done?
3. Could it be because, the Certified Federal Surveyor program is now supposed to be SELF FUNDED? Could it be because the reputation as a manager, is on the line for a Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinator and staff? Could it be because they really put one over on him and his staff when they gave him about $400,000 dollars to start it up, and then "sell" the program to every state licensed surveyor who is at this moment clamoring to get in the class to "pad their resume?" Could it be because the Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinators on the ground level really aren't as experienced as they thought they were? Like maybe they didn't realize that the funds that went into starting this program now provides "the customers to raid the cash register?" Believe it- now the funds have been shifted through the Office of Special Trustee into paying for outrageous surveys. We pay now in some cases $15,000 dollars per survey and get what? Instead of providing funding at say $45,000 -$60,000 per surveyor per year to have them in-house in the tribes, or at BLM. Then if they screw things up, we have some accountability. As it stands now, we take away their contract and point and say "bad surveyor!" In a normal situation that would be sufficient. But in a Fiduciary Trust Model under the ownership of the Office of Special Trustee, it reaks of irresponsibility, and under-handedness, and a general lack of ethical fortitude.
We look for motivators to constantly evaluate how well we work for the "common good." Or do we? It isn't an easy thing to admit we've been hoodwinked. It isn't easy unless we think we have backing, unless we think we have support...when in reality we really do already have that support, that backing, when we withdraw from something less than honest (in a fiduciary trust model). All that support, all that backing will come from all those people we are supposed to remember we are supporting. When we really do come out in their corner, we find that they're there like they've always been: waiting for us to fight for them.
I'd shake the hand of somebody like that. I think the TRUE MOTIVATION is there for a whole "helluva lotta dem dere Indians" to shake the hand of someone who champions our cause, because then the results, the negative results, the disastrous results, would have one less protagonist.
Socrates would be proud.
1. Instead of enriching the program, instead of empowering tribes to become self sufficient, instead of teaching them how to fish, you drain their checkbook paying for each and every fish. Instead of putting funding into training tribal surveyors so that tribes can become self sufficient in at least one more area, you take TPA funds away from tribes across the board, and you pay those TPA funds into overpriced surveys on a piece-meal basis. Tribal Priority Allocations were meant in their infancy in the 1970s to pursue Indian self-determination by offering ways to set [TRIBAL] priorities and allocate funds for those activities they [TRIBES] wanted to fund, in consultation with BIA. BIA was supposed to give TRIBAL PRIORITY ALLOCATION FUNDS to tribes by funding TRIBALLY OPERATED ACTIVITIES or through SERVICES PROVIDED BY BIA as well as some of Bureau of Indian Affairs' management and administrative costs, according to A 1998 GAO report. The consultation went out the window. I know two years ago that when a regional BLM surveyor-type was made aware of the elected officials who would now be conducting boundary surveys, he said "I wasn't aware of that." And now apparently, neither is anybody else aware of the problem (the results) built into the Certified Federal Surveyor Program. Does the Certified Federal Surveyor program meet the test of being a TRIBALLY OPERATED ACTIVITY or a SERVICE PROVIDED BY THE BIA? Afraid not. Somebody at the Office of Special Trustee has made a horrible case for this program which will take a serious link out of the Indian Self Determination which Tribal Priority Allocations was supposed to create.
2. Instead of doing it outright, in front of GOD AND EVERYBODY, you make it sophisticated, covert, and you make believers of even the smartest people that it is in the best interest of the Indian population, when in reality it isn't. I really feel sorry for my friends at the Certified Federal Surveyor Program. I hope and I do pray that their eyes are opened to the sophisticated effects that are at work here. Remember it isn't the rules we care about in Indian Country. It's the RESULTS that we're concerned about. Do my friends, the Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinators really know what we're talking about here? Do they really know how they're being used to facilitate this egregious infraction against Indian Self -Determination? Why else would they willingly participate unless they didn't know? Why else would otherwise very intelligent, professionals so willingly participate? Why else would they cash the checks from the Tribal Priority Allocation funds like a Federal Spendthrift instead of advocating for these funds to be turned around and sent back to the Tribal Priority Allocation Fund coffers where some really advantageous work can be done?
3. Could it be because, the Certified Federal Surveyor program is now supposed to be SELF FUNDED? Could it be because the reputation as a manager, is on the line for a Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinator and staff? Could it be because they really put one over on him and his staff when they gave him about $400,000 dollars to start it up, and then "sell" the program to every state licensed surveyor who is at this moment clamoring to get in the class to "pad their resume?" Could it be because the Certified Federal Surveyor Program Coordinators on the ground level really aren't as experienced as they thought they were? Like maybe they didn't realize that the funds that went into starting this program now provides "the customers to raid the cash register?" Believe it- now the funds have been shifted through the Office of Special Trustee into paying for outrageous surveys. We pay now in some cases $15,000 dollars per survey and get what? Instead of providing funding at say $45,000 -$60,000 per surveyor per year to have them in-house in the tribes, or at BLM. Then if they screw things up, we have some accountability. As it stands now, we take away their contract and point and say "bad surveyor!" In a normal situation that would be sufficient. But in a Fiduciary Trust Model under the ownership of the Office of Special Trustee, it reaks of irresponsibility, and under-handedness, and a general lack of ethical fortitude.
We look for motivators to constantly evaluate how well we work for the "common good." Or do we? It isn't an easy thing to admit we've been hoodwinked. It isn't easy unless we think we have backing, unless we think we have support...when in reality we really do already have that support, that backing, when we withdraw from something less than honest (in a fiduciary trust model). All that support, all that backing will come from all those people we are supposed to remember we are supporting. When we really do come out in their corner, we find that they're there like they've always been: waiting for us to fight for them.
I'd shake the hand of somebody like that. I think the TRUE MOTIVATION is there for a whole "helluva lotta dem dere Indians" to shake the hand of someone who champions our cause, because then the results, the negative results, the disastrous results, would have one less protagonist.
Socrates would be proud.
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