Wow! McCain's attempt to deprive the Hopi and Navajo people of their water rights is happening right in my own backyard, and I wasn't even aware of it. Thanks for the heads up, Blue!
From
Native News Network:
Quote:
S.2109 and the "Settlement Agreement" deny the Navajo and Hopi people the resources and means to bank their own waters, or to recharge their aquifers depleted and damaged by the mining and energy corporations that S.2109 benefits. S.2109 and the "Settlement Agreement" require Navajo and Hopi to give Peabody Coal Mining Company and the Salt River Project and other owners of the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) tens of thousands of acre-feet of Navajo and Hopi water annually - without any compensation - and to force the extension of Peabody and NGS leases without Navajo and Hopi community input, or regard for past and continuing harmful impacts to public health, water supplies and water quality - as necessary pre-conditions to Navajo and Hopi receiving Congressional appropriations for minimal domestic water development.
This is coercive and wrong.
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Yet one more example of the Republican's ongoing championship of big money interests to the detriment of everyone else. Peabody Coal has caused incredible ecological damage around here, not to mention the destruction of sites considered sacred by the Navajo and Hopi alike. Now McCain wants to reward Peabody for its misdeeds and add insult to injury to the members of both tribes by handing over tribal water rights with no consideration of the consequences for the people living in this land of little rain. I hope a skinwalker gets him!
