Environmental angle
offices and about 1,000 residents.
Retired miner Lewis Pavinyama lives there in a small block home. He earned plenty of money working at the mine for 40 years to move to Flagstaff, Phoenix or some other community where he could get water service, but he prefers living close to where he was raised.
He still grows corn in a nearby sandy wash, like many Hopis. Raising sheep also is common across the reservations, even for people with goodpaying jobs. Those cultural perks aren’t available in the big cities.
Years ago, Pavinyama built a large backyard rodeo arena, spending $30,000 for livestock chutes, an announcer’s booth, stadium lights and small bleachers. He’s hosted full rodeos with events from calf roping to bull riding, drawing competitors from across the Southwest.
Several have been rained out, which he took as a good sign.
“According to our elders, when everybody comes together, when we bring our hearts together, it brings the rain,” Pavinyama said. “It means people are happy there.”
He said the coal operations are important because Native Americans in Arizona don’t want handouts. They want to be self-sufficient. He started working at the mine in 1973, when he was 19, driving a bulldozer during the night shift.
Sometimes, his truck would get stuck in snow on the way home and he would sleep in the cab. He’d simply turn around and head back to work once it was unstuck to make sure he was there on time for the next shift, he said.
“We were determined to have a job,” he said. “That’s a coal miner’s life. I tell people I’m glad for Peabody for what I have today.”
Though it serves a critical role in the region’s economy, coal has long been the bane of environmentalists.
“Ding dong the coal witch is dead!” the environmental group New Energy Economy said on Twitter the day after the Navajo Generating Station’s closure was announced, one of many similar comments that day.
The station’s size has always meant an oversized environmental footprint, ranking among the top plants in the country for carbon emissions.
It is responsible for haze over the Grand Canyon and other national parks, and mercury contaminating fish and other aquatic organisms in the Colorado River and lakes throughout Arizona. The coal mine disturbs massive tracts of land and water from the aquifer.
The emissions from coal plants increase the incidence of pulmonary diseases such as asthma, not to mention the health issues some miners have after years in the dusty coal pits.
Because of the globalwarming effect of carbon emissions in the atmosphere, utilities and governments around the world are working to limit them.
“The era of coal is over,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in 2013 when that city reached an accord to sell its share of the generating station. “Today we affirm our commitment to make Los Angeles a cleaner, greener, more sustainable city.”
Alternatives sought
“I want to put my kids through school. That’s all I’m looking at right now. If the mine closes, it would most likely mean relocation. It could possibly mean going back to construction. I dread going back into that.”