Word: navajos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...desiccated climate of New Mexico's San Juan Basin, a land of red sandstone mesas peppered with pinon trees, water is so precious that Navajo tradition regards it as a living entity. Survival here has long depended on the health of underground pools and streams that feed wells and the occasional surface spring. That's why Billy Martin is worried. The water supply to his tiny town of Crownpoint (pop. 2,500) is threatened, he says, by money-grubbers who don't understand water's importance to Native American culture. It sounds like a familiar story... until you realize that...
Challenging the stereotype of Indians as uncompromising conservationists, more than 200 individual Navajo landowners have quietly leased 1,440 acres to Hydro Resources Inc., an Albuquerque company that plans to mine uranium ore from a local aquifer (a layer of water-bearing rock). The company has promised a lucrative payoff: more than $40,000 for each property it leases, plus royalties as high as 25% on the sale of the uranium ore. For some Navajo landowners that could translate into more than $1 million a year--a nice paycheck anywhere, but especially in a region with double-digit unemployment...
...aquifer containing the ore also supplies water to an estimated 10,000 people in and around Crownpoint, a town in which dusty yards are decorated with stripped-down car frames and visiting neighbors honk their horn rather than ring the doorbell. Less than 10% of the local Navajo stand to benefit directly from the mining leases, and many of the rest, conditioned by a history of false promises from outsiders, aren't buying Hydro Resources' assurances that their water will remain unpolluted by the mine...
...Regulatory Commission concurs, and the company has been granted a license to mine. "If there's a resource there, why shouldn't our people be able to enjoy the proceeds of it?" argues Ruth Bridgeman, 79, who leased her property to Hydro Resources several years ago. Leonard Arviso, a Navajo who acts as the company's liaison to his tribe, talks not of land or money but of children who are forced to leave the community for lack of jobs. "We can respect Mother Earth," he says, "without wasting...
...National Monument, which offers all the Grand Canyon's splendor minus the traffic, crowds and noise. Inhabited by Indians for about 2,000 years, the canyon has two scenic rim drives with breathtaking views of the multihued canyon and ancient cliff dwellings. All visitors must be accompanied by a Navajo guide for walks, horseback rides and driving tours. The only public access into the canyon without a guide is at the White House Ruins Trail. Lodging options in the area include the Thunderbird Lodge, built around an 1896 trading post, a Holiday Inn and a Best Western. For those...