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Date Posted: 09:26:20 03/12/01 Mon
Author: Anonymous
Subject: News and Issues

Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

http://www.newsday.com/ap/regional/ap298.htm

School tosses team name deemed offensive to Indians
SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. (AP) - Mirroring a growing trend, a school board Wednesday
''honorably retired'' the Redskins name from the district's sports teams.

The 6-1 vote by the Saranac Lake board ended a three month tug-of-war between
those who called the name insulting and others who said it was source of
pride for alumni.

At the meeting, three American Indians told the board the name brought harsh
feelings of 500 years of mistreatment.

''This evening we have come to teach the people the true meaning of the word
Redskin and why it is so demeaning to our people,'' said Alice Euber, before
presenting a short video depicting the massacre and skinning of American
Indians. ''We do not call ourselves Redskins. We don't call you White Skins.''

''I am desperately trying to make you understand how we feel about the word
Redskin,'' said Kodata Britton. ''It's a terrible hurt.''

Former athletes said they were proud to play sports as Redskins, calling the
name a source of pride for five decades. The team's original name was Red and
White. Saranac Lake is 116 miles north of Albany.

Before the meetings, Miles Van Nortwick, the lone dissenter, said the board
and the community should be ''very, very cautious'' on the issue.
{REF: NEW YORK MASCOT }



27 Date: 2001-02-09 12:19:25
Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

Black Mesa Trust, Feds to Investigate N-aquifer Damage
Navajo Hopi Observer
http://www.navajohopiobserver.com/navajohopiobserver/myarticles.asp?P=362204&S

=392&PubID=6171&EC=0

KYKOTSMOVI—The Natural Resources Defense Council has concluded that Peabody
Coal Company’s pumping of ground water for its coal-slurry operation on Black
Mesa may already have caused substantial damage to the Navajo aquifer in
Northern Arizona.

The Council’s report, “Drawdown: Groundwater Mining on Black Mesa,” gives
added weight to the concerns of Hopi farmers and ranchers who have long
maintained that their traditional seeps and springs fed by the N-aquifer are
drying up.

On February 7, Black Mesa Trust founder and executive director Vernon
Masayesva and the Trust’s president Leonard Selestewa, as well as David
Beckman, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, will meet
in Denver, Colorado with representatives of four federal agencies to present
the Council’s findings.

Peabody Coal Company uses N-aquifer water to slurry coal from the Kayenta
Mine on Black Mesa to the Mohave Generating Plant in Laughlin, Nevada, 273
miles away.

“This meeting is welcome news,” said Mr. Masayesva, “but I hope that
whatever comes out of the meeting will not just be another excuse to delay
resolution of serious water depletion issues on Black Mesa and the settlement
of the Little Colorado River water rights adjudication. Black Mesa Trust
remains firmly committed to ending Peabody’s use of N-aquifer water by the
end of the year 2004.”

The N-aquifer is the sole source of drinking water for the Hopi Reservation
and parts of the Navajo Reservation, and therefore its long-term health is
critically important to both tribes. Peabody Coal Company currently drains
hundreds of millions of gallons a year from the aquifer for its coal-slurry
operation.

The federal agencies that will be involved in the meeting are the United
States Geological Survey, the Office of Surface Mining, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and the Bureau of Reclamation.

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl has secured funding for studying the Black Mesa water
issue as part of the $1 million in the 2001 Energy and Water Development
appropriation for the Bureau of Reclamation to study water projects to serve
municipal and industrial uses on Hopi and Navajo as part of the settlement of
Little Colorado River water rights.

David Hayes, Deputy Secretary of the Interior, stated in his memo of January
19 to the four federal agencies that an investigation and analysis of the
N-aquifer will include “a review of recent N-aquifer studies conducted by
private, government and tribal agencies, incorporation of updated information
into the USGS groundwater model originally constructed in the 1980s, and
recalibration of the USGS model using currently available data and up-to-date
calibration methods.”

Until now, Peabody Coal Company and the federal government have maintained,
based on the current USGS computer model, that no significant damage to the
N-aquifer has occurred or will occur due to the company’s pumping of water
from the ancient aquifer. Peabody and OSMRE have consistently maintained that
that during the life of the mine the mining company will use only one-half of
one percent of the water available in the aquifer.

However, NRDC’s report, issued in October of last year, found that at least
one of the federal government’s criteria for assessing material damage to the
aquifer has been exceeded.

Based on the same evidence reported to OSMRE, (the Interior Department’s
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement), NRDC determined that
the structural stability of the aquifer may already have been compromised.

The stability of the aquifer is determined by evaluating its internal water
pressure, which is determined by a measure called potentionmetric head, or
the height to which confined liquid will rise when tapped by a well.

The government’s standard for the N-aquifer is that water in the well
should rise at least 100 feet above the aquifer’s top; if the water level
falls below this level, material, in this case structural, damage to the
aquifer could occur.

NRDC’s report, based on a two-year study of the federal government’s and
Peabody’s own data, found that in two of the 15 monitoring wells, the water
level was only slightly above the top of the aquifer, nowhere near the 100
feet above the aquifer required by the assessment criterion. Since this
criterion has been exceeded, “OSMRE’s finding that no material damage has
occurred [to the N-aquifer] is without foundation,” according to the NRDC
report.

When the Hopi and Navajo Tribes initially signed mining leases with Peabody
in the mid 1960s, with the approval of the Department of the Interior, then
Interior Secretary Stewart Udall was concerned that pumping a billion gallons
of water a year from the aquifer might cause damage to the structural
integrity of the aquifer, the quality of the water within the aquifer, or the
discharge into seeps and springs fed by the aquifer. Secretary Udall put an
escape clause into the leases stating that if Peabody’s water pumping
adversely affected the aquifer in any one of those four ways, the use of
groundwater from the N-aquifer could be stopped by the federal government.

Responding to concerns raised by the Hopi Tribe, Manuel Lujan, Secretary of
the Interior during former President George H. Bush’s administration,
initiated an Alternative Transportation Study to evaluate alternatives to the
use of the coal slurry pipeline and to the use of N-aquifer water for the
slurry operation. Phases I (a literature review on coal transportation by
slurry and rail) and II (a look at other sources of water for the slurry
operation, including a pipeline from Lake Powell, as well as a further
examination of alternative methods for moving the coal) of the study were
completed while Secretary Lujan deferred a his decision on permitting the
Black Mesa mine.

Phase III, however, was put on hold when President Clinton took office and
Bruce Babbitt was appointed Secretary of the Interior.

“Secretary Babbitt convinced the Navajo and Hopi Tribes to support shelving
the alternative transportation studies and making the coal slurry pipeline
issue part of the overall negotiations for the settlement of Little Colorado
River water rights,” said Mr. Masayesva, who is a former chairman of the Hopi
Tribe.

“That decision was like mixing apples and oranges,” he said. “The N-aquifer
water is groundwater and the Little Colorado River is surface water.

“Secretary Babbitt lived with us all his life. Everyone said he would take
care of the N-aquifer problem, but he just made its resolution more
complicated.”

Last December, Secretary Babbitt refused to meet with Black Mesa Trust to
receive a petition signed by more than 3,000 people representing, among
others, most households on the Hopi Reservation. The petition requested that
the Secretary invoke existing federal regulations to prevent Peabody Coal
Company from continuing to use N-aquifer water to slurry coal to the Mohave
Generating Plant, based on NRDC’s findings that one of the government’s own
criteria for assessing damage to the aquifer had been exceeded.

The February 7 meeting in Denver comes partly as a result of the hundreds of
letters sent to Secretary Babbitt by Black Mesa Trust supporters, said Mr.
Masayesva.

During the meeting, Black Mesa Trust will present NRDC’s findings and
conclusions, which include recommending that Peabody cease groundwater
pumping from the N-aquifer no later than 2005 and that the company should
reduce its use of N-aquifer water by December 31 of this year. In addition,
the report recommends completion of the alternative transportation study
begun in the early1990s during former President Bush’s administration.

“We hope that President George W. Bush will complete the work to save the
N-aquifer that was begun by his father,” stated Mr. Masayesva.

Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.


26 Date: 2001-02-09 12:18:01
Advocate Investigator (no email / no homepage) wrote:

story lead from Victor Rocha...thanks!
www.pechanga.net

Jury Still Out on Navajos' Role in Utah Courts

BY DAWN HOUSE
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/02072001/utah/69269.htm

Six years ago, Utah officials envisioned teaming up with the Navajo
Nation for more equitable treatment of American Indians within the state
court system.

The plan was to ensure that American Indians would be fairly represented on
juries, juvenile probationers would be continuously supervised and protective
orders routinely enforced, whether or not the subjects lived on the
reservation.

But state officials say a cooperative agreement with the Navajo Nation has
not advanced beyond the issue of American Indians serving on state juries in
San Juan County. On Tuesday, the Utah Supreme Court sent a lawsuit over that
issue back to the trial court for further hearings over attorney's fees.

"It's been disappointing, but we're not giving up,'' said Brent Johnson,
general counsel for the Utah Judicial Council. "From our standpoint, we're
ready to go -- an agreement is there in principle. We're now waiting for
approval from the Navajo Nation side."

The jury representation suit dates back to 1993, when Navajo Loren Crank Jr.
brought a civil-rights action against the Utah Judicial Council. He alleged
he and other American Indians were being illegally excluded from serving as
jurors in San Juan County, where more than half the residents are descended
from indigenous Americans.

Crank's legal team showed that no American Indian served on a jury in eastern
Utah from 1932 to 1960, and only a handful up until the early 1990s. State
officials blamed the lack of Utah driver licenses and voter registration
among American Indians on master juror lists.

By 1995, the Judicial Council had worked out a settlement in the Crank case
providing for the names of prospective jurors to come from a third source:
the Navajo Nation. Under the historic tentative agreement, a list generated
twice-yearly of 500 names of prospective jurors in San Juan County would
include 52 percent American Indians, plus or minus 5 percent. Navajos living
on the reservation would be summoned by the Tribal Council -- not the state
-- to answer the juror questionnaire or explain why they did not appear for
jury duty.

Said Johnson in 1995: "We know of no other agreement like this in the
country. Hopefully, this will open the door for even more cooperation.'' On
Tuesday, Johnson said: "I had no idea how difficult this was going to be."

But James Zion, solicitor general to the Court of the Navajo Nation,
predicted Tuesday that a resolution empowering the Tribal Council to summon
members for jury duty in Utah could be drafted within the next several weeks.

"We've had a good relationship with Utah judges, but we've been slow in
getting this off the ground," said Zion from his office in Albuquerque, N.M.
"It's hard when you can only bring folks together a couple of times a year."

In Tuesday's 20-page Utah court ruling, justices acknowledged that
establishing protocols to ensure equitable representation of American Indians
on San Juan County juries and obtaining accurate lists of tribal members has
been "more complicated than anticipated."

Both plaintiff Crank and 7th District Judge Lyle Anderson have asked to be
awarded their attorney's fees, each accusing the other of wrongdoing. At one
point in the litigation, Crank's attorneys accused Anderson of "racist
conduct'' in allegedly denying tribal members seats on juries. The Supreme
Court justices, however, said Anderson had not violated any court orders.

The Supreme Court did not resolve the competing claims for attorney fees,
sending the case back to court for further consideration on narrow points of
law. No judge has been appointed in the case to take the place of Judge David
Roth, who has since retired.



© Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.

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