The immediate future is already hitting hard on the Peoples of Black Mesa where tribal and federal mismanagement have failed to improve water wells and the quality of water, and the current drought conditions could make things disastrous. The current Relocation Programs implemented upon hundreds of Dineh family for the last two and half decades has, also, created restrictions on water developments among Dineh communities, and it has even resulted in closures of all wells once used by the Dineh resistors of today. To make the situation more inhumane and unjust, there is the daily pumping of thousands of acre feet of aquifer by the current Peabody Western Coal Company's operation on Black Mesa which is adjacent to the communities resisting the forcible relocation policies. With complete well closures within lands that cover some 75 square miles, there are over a hundred families in this area that use to have only one water source which was located at a local government boarding school, and a few more extra families still haul water from the Peabody's "public" water well. Now, the water source at the boarding school has been shut down, and this is already creating an epidemic by forcing families to haul water that is either bad quality or that forces them to only haul for their human use only.

 The Dineh culture has always been based on a pastoral society and because of the recent closures of wells and the drying up of natural springs (due to Peabody's operations), the Dineh had to haul water for their livestock when there is a drought. Families have to keep their vehicles maintained enough so that they can haul 150 to 200 gallons each time to water their herd of sheep and goats and the couple of horses that the government has allowed them to keep. The amount of hauling happens every other day since animals have to drink at this rate. Families might have to do a second hauling of water that same day to keep up with this type of demand. The small herds of cattle are left to search for water which makes cattle wander into ranges far away from the families' ranging areas, and some cattle either encounter the federal government's Indian Rangers that result in impoundment or confiscations. Some cattle are never found again, and if the elder ranchers are able to keep their cattle locally with feeding them hay in the winter these cattle will expect to drink along with the sheep herds, too.

 These Dineh ranchers and herds people are not rich or have any kind of livestock owners' insurance nor do they have large water trucks. Most of these elder resistor/livestock owners don't have transportation or their vehicles are worn out by the years of distanced water, hay and firewood hauling over rocky and unmaintained, jeep trial-like roads. Basically, these utility and family vehicles are normally tied together by bailing wires and strips of rubber tubing instead of paying for some adequate maintenance of the trucks. Finally, these are traditional people who only know this way of lifestyle, and they are all so old that the work of hauling heavy barrels of water or bales of hay is dangerous for them. Almost all the work that is required out there involves great physical abilities, and the chores are endless. These resistor/ranchers work from sun up to sundown. Would a normal American, senior citizen be (forced) to live like this? Most of these elders don't even have electricity or propane gas that can be hauled out to them. Survival is nearly based on a day-to-day scenario. And now, they have no water source that is closer than before, and we are seeing elders or occasionally their children/grandchildren have to drive 15 to 30 miles to find some water source.

 It is understandable that the local government boarding school has to save their water for school-use only and not for domestic or livestock use. However, this is a complete injustice being instituted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Department of the Interior, and its tribal governments. Millions of dollars are allocated through the BIA Indian Trust Fund which compose mostly of "a drop in the bucket," government/State funds and energy development royalties, and none of it reaches to where it is mostly needed. The Indian Health Services (IHS) is responsible for providing adequate water to the remote parts of the reservation, and tribes can establish wells if they feel it is of necessity and if it is "feasible." Apparently, they consider the needs of the resistors at Big Mountain and elsewhere throughout Black Mesa not a necessity, but instead they are just considered as "trespassers" who should not be served or even counted as existing. Are these water development policies for the Indian Reservation being used uniquely against these traditional resistors as the final, forcible eviction strategy? Ultimately, it is. Water is as precious as plutonium or oil to the industrial and "free" world.

Technicalities in Peabody and Environmentalists'
View of the N-Aquifer:

What will Summer 2002 bring in terms of this type of demand for water on Big Mountain and Black Mesa? Due to Global Warming, these high desert lands of northeastern Arizona has not had its adequate share of normal precipitation. Historically, despite the excessive numbers of livestock among the Dineh cultural lifestyles, precipitation patterns have always provided the replenishment of catch ponds and the natural springs were functioning to full capacity. The last two decades, even the records will show that, the area is getting more drier, and the government and their corporate experts secretly know this, and this why rights to water for Indian populations becomes less valid. Also, "the corporate experts" will say that records can demonstrate that this region has had ENOUGH (normal) precipitation throughout the last two decades and which they claim was enough to recharge the underground water flows. But the wells and the springs have been drying up or dropped to very low levels, and something that is attributed to the reasons why the boarding school has concerns every year.

 Peabody's hydrologist expert and the concerns about the massive pumping of N-Aquifer both have been misleading especially in terms of a supposed, environmentally sounded mining operation, and the basic focus being drawn to the depletion of the aquifer from environmental advocates. To try to understand what the 'expert hydrologist' is not telling us is to look at the geological structure of the Black Mesa formation. This structure is basically what this sector of the earth will look like if it was cut out in a cross-section. When Peabody pumps thousands of acre feet of water from the Navajo Sandstone formation (or where the N-Aquifer is), just imagine a glass aquarium filled with marbles or small tiny balls. The spaces between each ball is what hydrologist call permeability where liquid fluid is able to permeate through.

 So as this fluid is extracted from these spaces by Peabody and with decades of drought that caused a much slower recharging process, the nicely rounded grains of sand (from ancient regional, coastal sand dunes) are then squeezed closer together and eventually, the spaces either get small or completely closed up. The permeability of the sandstone is gone causing the whole formation to sink and the thickness of the formation gets thinner. This is why the Northern Arizona Earthquake Center (NAEC) at the Northern Arizona University detects micro-quakes (magnitude 2.3 to 3.5) at least several times a year, and these micro-quakes aren't associated with the daily blasting at the mines. Those denotation at the mines are, also, well-detected by the center. The NAEC have procedures in confirming if it these epic centers are related to blasts or a tension-release in the geological structure. 

The natural structure of the land surrounding Big Mountain is being altered, and it is unnoticed but only to the keen eye of the longtime residents or the sheepherders who frequent these territories. There had been a few reports from these aboriginal inhabitants, being referred to as the traditional Dineh resistors also, that strange small fissures have appeared across a good length of pasture or meadow. About 15 years ago, an elder mentioned to me about "a long crack running over a ridge" in an area southwest of the Big Mountain summit. I went up there with my parents' (illegal) herd and decided to see what the elder talked about, and it was fissure with gap-openings at four to six inches wide and running over this clay and shale ridge. The visible length was about two (American) football fields long. About eight years after, I returned to the 'crack,' and the weathering had nearly closed it and made it hardly noticeable. Due to my investigations in many other local issues including human rights violations and cultural documentations, I never was able to observe the other reports. I did noticed also that this particular fissure's orientation laid directly southeast to northwest, and the Peabody mines was about eight miles directly northeastward. Was this caused by the sinking effect from the thinning of the Navajo Sandstone formation where the N-Aquifer is located?

 Peabody spokesman once denied that the pumping of the N-aquifer effected the upper water tables which provides natural springs and wells (also, some being referred to in this article) that are used by the Hopi and Dineh communities. The reason why, as Peabody explained, was that the formation structures have an interval of clay and shale between layers of sandstones, and these layers of shale "seal off the upper water table" which leaves the Hopi and Dineh water sources undisturbed. Myself and a friend of my, a former Geophysicist, told them that if deformations is occurring from such sinking-effect then fissure can occur through the shale and clay causing upper water tables to drain. Mr. Peabody stated that the aboriginal sheepherders and our claim is 'very' unreliable. There are more technical aspects to this water issue that I can get into, and it is better to keep the real scientists and experts, the traditional Dineh, involved.

 What about something called, conductivity, which is in reference to moisture in the ground and in the air. Yes, there are the western science interpretations of it. Lets look at the traditional or ancient indigenous interpretation. The Dineh of Big Mountain believe in the Water Spirits. They created the natural springs and that, these natural springs are interconnected. The early Dineh have instructed generations of Dineh that in order to maintain the continuous flow of moisture Sacred Offerings and Prayers to these springs must be made. Due to the tremendous decrease in the local Dineh population, the few that remain are too occupied with the resistance or the chaos that has come with it, and they are unable to visit these sacred places or else the knowledge is gone. Peabody and its free enterprise domination is what has caused these traumatic assimilations upon a once proud and self-sufficient peoples. Now, this Energy Giant has altered the lands' invitation for moisture by draining its aquifer and de-charging the conductivity between land and air.

 The prophecy of traditional Hopis and Dineh still rings even though they were stated at the beginning of this relocation program and the land partitioning over two decades ago. "If We allow (them) to mine and suck all the water out of Black Mesa the Spirits of the land like Water and Vegetation will all disappear. There will be great sicknesses, some will be incurable, and these will spread among the peoples. Our own Indian people will start to turn against us, and we will not care for one another anymore. We must not leave these lands! We should not accept the relocation programs! We/You must stay and remain as caretakers of these lands just as Great Spirit instructed us when we were all created." 

Recommendation/Conclusion:  

The Indigenous struggle at Big Mountain must continue to belong to the guidance of the traditional Dineh Elders. The traditional Dineh voices seemed to have been silenced by numerous outside legal maneuverings, outside philosophy about environmental standards, and by a few 'real' outside agitators who are able to continuously seek grants to initiate their self-centered agendas. It must be up to the Dineh and their Indigenous allies to reaffirmed, again, their universal Indigenous movements, and rebuild our trust to initiate autonomy within our own ancient territories.

 Outside support must begin to honor such guidance and make assurance that such guidance are genuine. Outside support must begin to first, and most of all, become the resource that will re-enable the Dineh to meet the Spiritual Requirements for the care taking of the Earth and Sky. There had been much On-Land Support which also encompasses certain aspect of these Requirements when Elders are helped with their harvesting, sheep herding, direct marketing of Dineh industry products and goods, preparing meals for the elders, cutting wood fuel, and providing maintenance to their properties. However, as a human society with a shared history of oppression by Peabody and its similar Corporate giants, we must make some serious reassessments about how to help each other more effectively. The original outlines of the Dineh resistance and the contemporary Indigenous Resistance still hold much guidelines that can assist as to how to represent the traditional Indian struggle.

 In the continuing efforts of working together, there must be a refinement made in spreading the messages from the peoples in struggle. Especially for those traditional peoples who have no knowledge of (Amerikan) Freedom of Religion, the US Constitution, Civil Rights, and Tribal Codes. We can all be sovereign, interpersonally, if we honor the real spiritual beliefs and practices of the peoples in struggle. Thereby, as messengers of humanity, it can be shown how the tribal governments have falsified their interpretations of sovereignty and the legality of their corporate, court systems. The message has to be heard loud and clear on tribal governments' fax/phone lines and e-mails about how they are, not only killing the land of thirst, but how they are aiding and abetting in refusing water to its peoples. The tribal governments must be pressured more than ever since they covered up US strategies of implementing terror upon the lives of the Resistors. The tribal governments should be reminded that the federal government provided them Domestic Aid to undermine their traditional Indian communities' autonomy to create a National Security for Natural Resources and Toxic/Radioactive Waste Storage Sites throughout Indian country. Basically, the tribal governments have been harboring terrorist cells like the Anti-Indian Federal Agencies that are intended to disrupt the existence of an ancient Indigenous world of harmony and peace.