Very happy to see that the EPA is prosecuting the Metropolitan Colliery for last year's wastewater spill in the Royal.

#RoyalNationalPark #peabodyCoal #coal #Sydney l
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-08/epa-takes-legal-action-against-metropolitan-collieries-nsw/102832864

The Long Journey Home: #PeabodyCoal removed 341 #Navajo and #Hopi ancestors from their burial places

Peabody Coal's theft of the ancestors began 45 years earlier on #BlackMesa

by Brenda Norrell, January 24, 2023

Louise Bennally, Dine´of Big Mountain said: "Peabody Coal Company doesn't care about anything or anybody, only their #greed matters."

#ThackerPass #NativeAmericans #CulturalGenocide

Read more: https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-long-journey-home-peabody-coal.html

2008: America’s West Bank: #McCain’s Forced #Navajo Relocation

"S 1003, sponsored by Senator #JohnMcCain (R-AZ), comes as #PeabodyCoal, the world’s largest coal company, is planning to expand its strip mining of American Indian lands, drawing down another high-quality residential #BlackMesa in the process. Only one thing stands in Peabody’s way: indigenous people live on the land below which lies billions of tons of low-sulfur coal. As with their ancestors, the land is the basis for the #BlackMesa people’s traditions, spirituality, and livelihoods."
#WaterIsLife #Thackerpass #EnvironmentalRacism #Mining #NativeAmericans

http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/176

There is precedent for #ThackerPass resistance!

Navajo and Hopi tribes campaign to remain on Black Mesa lands and protect it from coal mining, United States, 1993-1996

"The land on the Big Mountain reservation has been disputed by the U.S. Government and the Navajo and Hopi tribes since 1882. This area in Black Mesa, Arizona, which was extremely rich in sulfur coal deposit, attracted mining companies and the government due to the potential profit. Mining began on the Navajo and Hopi land and started to increase greatly by the 1970s. Congress signed a relocation act in 1974, which would allow one company, Peabody Coal, to mine this area uninhibited. The reservation lands of Black Mesa were then to be used as strip mining sites for private U.S. mining companies.

"Since 1974, Navajo and Hopi peoples received a lot of pressure from the government and mining companies, Peabody Coal in particular, to relocate. The U.S. government issued laws reducing Navajo and Hopi ability to keep livestock on their land. They also offered $5000 to those who willingly gave up their homes and moved elsewhere. Despite all the government pressure, by the 1990s, there still remained about 300 Navajo and Hopi families who had refused to leave.

"Despite the government pressure, #Navajos and #Hopis, already sharing government protected land, lived amicably and struggled beside one another in order to protect the land their people shared. The struggle between the government and the #indigenous tribes continued through the '90s but escalated on 5 August 1993 when a federal judge ordered the remaining Navajo to either relocate or sign a lease that would give them squatter’s rights on the land for the next 75 years. The Navajo ignored the order and continued living on the land—neither relocating nor signing a lease.

"From 1993 to 1996, the 300 Navajo families stood their ground and occupied their land against government wishes. They also ignored the continued orders demanding that they either choose to relocate or to forfeit their rights to the land and become squatters. In response, in November of 1993, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) began daily raids of livestock in order to push out the remaining Navajo and charged increasingly large sums to release the livestock.

"In the meantime, #PeabodyCoal had #mined the area since 1968 and continued to do so as the tribes fought to stay on their land. To transport the coal, Peabody created a slurry pipeline that used natural reserves belonging to the natives. This act dried up fifty springs and #poisoned water, killing livestock and threatening the lives of the Navajo. Navajo elders took actions in order to combat the advancing mining. El Elders Pauline Whitesinger and Roberta Blackgoat, in particular, were known for their decades of resistance, for tearing down fences, for confronting the BIA, and for ignoring official demands and turning away government workers who tried to persuade them off their lands.

"In 1993, Peabody bulldozed at least four Navajo #burial grounds. The Navajo blocked bulldozers with their bodies, tore down fences, turned away government officials, wrote numerous letters and emails, lobbied for government attention, and raised awareness among the Navajo people using the internet and frequent meetings. It is unclear when several of these tactics were employed. In addition, Navajo peoples filed several lawsuits in response to unfair land use by Peabody, for water rights, and against Peabody’s violation of federal #mining laws. Peabody carried on with their normal practices despite objections. Peabody Coal cited studies backed by their own funding that indicated that their mining practices were in no way damaging the environment.

"On 11 March 1996, a federal judge ruled the activity of Peabody as an infringement on human and environmental rights of local residents. Peabody’s pipeline was found guilty of violating the National Environmental Policy Act and the Surface Ming Control Act. Thus, the judge revoked Peabody's mining permit. He found that the tribal councils, the OSMRE, and BIA were disregarding the basic rights of the people in this area for profit's sake. Peabody appealed the decision and continued fighting for reestablishing mining access after this ruling.

"When the deadline, 1 April 1996, finally arrived most of the remaining families had not complied with the courts. The Navajo remained in their original homes, though as many as fifty families had accepted the proposal by the government. The courts took no action against the remaining families.

"On 26 September 1996, the U.S Congress passed the Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act, which would require all Navajo to relocate by 2000. In 1996, a group of Hopi and Navajos travelled to the London Stockholders meeting of Hanson’s ltd. to protest Peabody Coal’s presence in Black Mesa. Lord Hanson ordered his security guards to throw out the tribe representatives. Before doing so, resistance leader, Roberta Blackgoat offered a prayer. Today, families still refuse to acknowledge the various land acts. In regard to Peabody Coal, the Department of Interior Office of Surface Mining (IOSM) granted a permit to Peabody Coal to allow the continuation of operations in Black Mesa on 22 December 2008. However, after reevaluation due to an appeal from Navajo and Hopi peoples, the Department of IOSM withdrew this permit granted to Peabody on 8 January 2010. This was a success for the tribal and environmental organizations."
#EnvironmentalRacism #CulturalGenocide #NativeAmericans

http://websites.umich.edu/~snre492/parker.html

Diné elders resist eviction from Big Mountain

Debra O'Gara and Guerry Hoddersen, August 1986

"Forced relocation. The words bring to mind the Trail of Tears, Nazi concentration camps, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Past atrocities, not present and future ones.

"But on the #BlackMesa surrounding Big Mountain in northeastern Arizona, over 11,000 #Diné (Navajo) are facing a new holocaust: removal by armed U.S. troops from their ancestral homelands in an area jointly held by the Navajo and Hopi nations.

"The U.S. media bills the government’s role as peacemaker in a #Hopi vs. #Navajo war. But the reality is very different at Big Mountain.

"For over 50 years, #mining companies have sought to exploit the rich mineral resources that lie beneath the land now occupied by the #Navajos. To do this they first secured the assistance of the federal government, which in the 1920s and ’30s unilaterally replaced the traditional forms of government, based on clan elders, with malleable tribal councils. Over the years these councils have been only too willing to negotiate mineral leases, and the elite who run the councils have gotten rich doing it.

"Now, giant energy #corporations like #PeabodyCoal, #KerrMcGee, and #Exxon want unhampered access to the estimated 44 billion tons of high-grade #coal and deposits of oil, natural gas, and #uranium found on and around #BigMountain.

"There’s only one problem: the traditional Diné who live on the land will not move voluntarily.

"So once again the energy moguls have turned to their servants in the government and the Hopi council for help.

"Forced relocation, the holocaust hatched in corporate boardrooms, has in fact gathered formidable support: it is endorsed by Congress, covered up by the press, and sanctioned by a phony tribal leadership."
#CulturalGenocide #ForcedRelocation #NativeAmericans #EnvironmentalRacism #ThackerPass
https://socialism.com/fs-article/dine-elders-resist-eviction-from-big-mountain/

Last night, I had looked for this website that I remember from 2004 (it was not in my current bookmarks). A good night's sleep and a DuckDuckGo search got me the results I was looking for. Page bookmarked now. This page also has links to .wmv files with the documentary "Vanishing Prayer".

2004: #NativeAmericans: #Navajo Indians targeted for brutal genocide, in #Arizona, #USA ...by Sen. #JohnMcCain, the #BIA & a few greedy Politicians

"To facilitate his special interests, namely: Peabody Western Coal Company (the largest coal group in the US) and the Mohave Generating Facility in Laughlin (operated by Bechtel) delivering low cost coal produced electricity to Las Vegas's Casinos in exchange for Beer Distribution Contracts afforded his wife's business, Hemsley Inc., John McCain personally, over the course of 25 years in the state legislature and federal senate introduced and arranged for the enforcement of unethical and constitutionally unlawful legislations which brutally displaced thousands of Navajo farmers onto a #Nuclear Waste Dump, Church's Rock, #NewMexico to live after brutalizing them for two decades in peaceful resistance. McCain assembled support to modify existing laws and produce new ones (Navajo Resettlement & Navajo Accommodation Agreement, Navajo Settlement, and amendments to PL 93-531, PL S.1003), illegal and unethical enactments designed to force Native American Navajo of the Dineh Band off their Arizona lands, moving them onto Church's Hill in New Mexico, depriving them of lands they've owned since 1500 AD. As a result, thousands of aboriginal elders passed away from shock associated with displacement into urban apartment settings and on to uranium contaminated waste sites such as Church's.

"Using a phony #Hopi tribal counsel composed of paid stooges, and Rangers comprised largely of BIA police, McCain and Peabody Western Coal Company progressively stole and exploited the Dineh's lands for mutual personal gain, brutalizing the natives, terrorizing #elders and engaging in thuggery, forcing these peaceful people to leave 'or else'. They even bulldozed their sacred sites and sweat lodges, beating their members physically and abusing their elders to the point of terrorizing them and causing health failure and heart failures and worse. Fake Hopi Rangers (BIA Police) organized by McCain allies arrested and beat any peaceful resistors on their own lands and while celebrating holy days at their sacred sites. Three Presidential runs by McCain have been backed by the Mining, Power company and its Nevada Casino clients through street names organized in Nevada. McCain's wife has been granted huge Beer distribution contracts at her liquor company, Hemsley, by Nevada gaming interests. Two faced political favor banking has robbed the Dineh of any political support. The supposed 'new lands' at Church's Hill are a #Superfund Nuclear Waste Dump landfill site where children in schoolyards play among openly dumped uranium tailings! Children born in these communities have twice the national average of birth defects!"

#EnvironmentalRacism #PeabodyCoal #McCainShame #NativeAmericans #ThackerPass
Read more: http://www.acsa.net/cain2004.org/

Documentary: Vanishing Prayer (2004)

A 15-minute documentary about how Native American Grandmothers and Elders at #BIgMountain, both #Dineh/#Navajo and #Hopi, resisted relocation by #PeabodyCoal, who wanted to mine on their land, and used legal precedents from #Colonialism (as well as corrupt tribal leaders appointed by the #BIA), to force people off their land.
#NativeAmericans #Genocide #Mining #Lithium #BlackMesa #ThackerPass #EnvironmentalRacism

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs2DXHUKASA

One of the first stories I reported on back in the 1990s was #PeabodyCoal's #genocide of the #Dineh peoples -- forcibly removing #elders from their land (which is how I began corresponding with Brenda Norrell, who was working for Indian Country Today back then). I learned that #JohnMcCain was in cahoots with Peabody Coal and did their bidding. In addition to #EnvironmentalRacism, Peabody Coal also relocated "341 Navajo and Hopi ancestors from their burial place" as part of their "tools for genocide, oppression and relocation.

The Long Journey Home, by Brenda Norrell, Censored News, February 14, 2023

#NativeAmericans #Genocide

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-long-journey-home-peabody-coal.html