Water

In the Southwest it is always about the water. I think I’ll start this out with a little story. (Go Figure) Back around 1994, I had a body of work that traveled through the 67 Counties of Pennsylvania. I went to a Western County to attend an opening, and after the event, I went to lunch with some County Commissioners, a State Senator, and a State Representative. During that lunch, the topic of conversation moved to storage of Low Level Nuclear Waste. There was talk of the windfall profits that could be gained by the County that would allow this dump to built. I remember one Senator saying, the levels would be so low, that it would be all right if children were to play on it. Certainly, at this point, the conversation became a little more heated. Me, wanting to inject my 2 cent into the conversation, threw out a smart ass remark, why not on a indian reservation. I wasn’t being serious, just trying to loosen it up a little around the table. I know it has been our history, that if it is a bad thing, just pawn it off on the indians. I was shocked at how fast the answer came back to me. In an instant, I heard, “oh, we flooded all the reservations”, they were serious. The post following this one I coped, an open letter about Peabody Coal, the Black Mesa, the Navajo, and the Hopi. It is about a year late, but I think it is important. There is certainly to much here, for my to wrap my brain around, but what I see as the core, is how Native Americans are manipulated by our Government, by Big Business, all to feed the GREED. Now I think our government learned a long time ago, there was no need to fight indian wars, instead just turn one tribe against the other. In 1966 the Bennett Freeze was enacted, taking Hopi lands and giving them to the Navajo. This at the least, increased tension between the tribes. The reasoning for this, was a belief that the Navajo, would be more open to doing business with Peabody Coal, the company strip mining the Black Mesa. They crush the coal, and pump it about 275 miles in slury form, using 3000 gallons per minute of water, pumped from the Aquifer. This went on for 30 years. From what I understand, neither the Hopi, or the Navajo, want this anymore. What they want, as I understand it, is to move to a Green Policy on their land. The man who facilitateted this, has just been released from Federal Prison on health concerns, convicted in 1990, 1992, 1993, for racketeering and corruption, land, and financial dealings. I think I’ll stop here, like I said in the beginning, it is all too big for me to wrap my brain around. My only concern in writing this is for the Native American People. I was surprised that I knew very little of this until this morning. All this information is out there, and I encourage everyone to become educated on Native American Issues. The abuse of these people, has gone on for to long. I only scratched the surface on the Bennett Freeze Act. What was really disturbing is that there were protest about all this in Stockholm Sweden, Go Figure