navajo hopi

=Black Mesa
A 2018 TPPF video promoting the continued operation of a coal-fired power plant on the Arizona Navajo reservation has been rebranded with the Life:Powered name. The video showed images of smokestacks with a voiceover by a young Navajo girl saying, “Papa says it’s the heart of the land. I can hear it beating.” <a href="https://www.desmog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation#s60" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">[</a><a href="https://www.desmog.com/life-powered/#s22" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">22</a><a href="https://www.desmog.com/life-powered/#s22" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">]</a>The video’s closing text reads:<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative; margin-top: 10px;">“Extreme environmentalist politics will eliminate jobs, destroy families, and spike electric bills in the Navajo Nation and across America. The Navajo don’t need to be told what to do. They’ve been protecting the environment for centuries.” <a href="https://www.desmog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation#s60" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">[</a><a href="https://www.desmog.com/life-powered/#s22" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">22</a> [vid]Local environmental groups responded with claims that the plant’s consumption of billions of gallons of groundwater has led to contamination and depletion of the reservation’s water supply. The executive director of a Navajo non-profit organization told the Statesman: <a href="https://www.desmog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation#s60" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">[</a><a href="https://www.desmog.com/life-powered/#s22" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">22]</a></blockquote><blockquote class="wp-block-quote" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative; margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The pro-coal supporters have made it all about jobs. There’s more to it than that. What’s happening on Black Mesa shows that jobs and revenues is not all that it’s made out to be. When you lose your own potable water source, that’s life or death right there.” <a href="https://www.desmog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation#s60" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">[</a><a href="https://www.desmog.com/life-powered/#s22" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">22]</a></blockquote>Peabody Energy, a TPPF donor, operates the Navajo Generating Station, which will be shuttered at the end of 2019. <a href="https://www.desmog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation#s60" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">[</a><a href="https://www.desmog.com/life-powered/#s22" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">22]</a>Another TPPF <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEovKjVkUpc&t=" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Life:Powered-branded video</a> on the topic of “Energy Poverty” featured <a href="https://www.desmog.com/caleb-rossiter" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Caleb Rossiter</a> of the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/co2-coalition" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">CO2 Foundation</a> promoting wider adoption of fossil fuel-generated electricity in the developing world. <a href="https://www.desmog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation#s60" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">[</a><a href="https://www.desmog.com/life-powered/#s22" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">22]</a>Life:Powered plans to target future messaging in New Mexico, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and Alaska in opposition to renewable energy and carbon reduction initiatives. <a href="https://www.desmog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation#s60" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">[</a><a href="https://www.desmog.com/life-powered/#s22" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">22]</a>an 720<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/crisis-in-the-navajo-nation-voter-suppression-racism-and-a-deadly-pandemic/" style="font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" color="color" rgb="rgb" transition="transition" all="all" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" font-size="font-size" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" line-height="line-height" display="display" inline="inline" important="important">Crisis in the Navajo Nation: Voter suppression, racism and a deadly pandemic</a><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-daley/" title="Posts by David Daley" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">David Daley</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/salon/" title="Posts by Salon " class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Salon</a></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Navajo Nation has been under lockdown the last two weekends as COVID-19 cases surged to dramatic highs across Arizona and Utah, potentially unraveling weeks of painstaking efforts to keep…</div>=719<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The areas in Greater Chaco Landscape contain the threatened ruins of Chaco Canyon — what some have referred to "as close as the U.S. gets to Egypt’s pyramids and Peru’s Machu Picchu" — as well as "the remnants of great houses, kivas, ancient roads and sacred places built a millennium ago by an indigenous people who became proficient in architecture, agriculture, astronomy and the arts."1,2 Today, the Diné or Navajo people rely on the Chaco Landscape to sustain their livelihoods and traditional practices and modern New Mexican Pueblos, the descendants of Chaco culture, still consider these sites sacred.3<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">More than 91% of the area around Chaco Canyon has already been leased to the oil and gas industry, yet Sec. Bernhardt and his Big Oil cronies are eager to wipe out the last remaining protected sacred areas with dangerous drilling and fracking techniques. The democratically-led House or Representatives recently passed an amendment to a spending bill that included a one-year moratorium on drilling in the area, yet it's unclear whether the Republican-controlled Senate will include the provision in their version, and BLM continues to approve more fracking in the area.4 That's why pressure on the BLM is so important right now.= ==<div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-2408760609.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-2408760609.html</a></div><div>
</div><div> Whitney WebbLast week, mainstream media outlets <a href="https://apnews.com/ad3921277f4b4f1bb4fc098df3d43748/Navy:-%22Significant-amount%22-of-jet-fuel-leaked-at-base" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">gave minimal attention</a> to the news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach had <a href="http://wavy.com/2017/05/11/jet-fuel-spill-at-nas-oceana/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">spilled</a> an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.While the incident was by no means as catastrophic as <a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/371086-worst-pipeline-accidents-2016/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">some other pipeline spills</a>, it underscores an important yet little-known fact—that the U.S. Department of Defense is both the nation's and the world's, largest polluter.Producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined, the U.S. Department of Defense has left its toxic legacy throughout the world in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">pesticides</a>, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead, among others.In 2014, the former head of the Pentagon's environmental program <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-one-worlds-biggest-polluters-259456.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">told Newsweek</a> that her office has to contend with 39,000 contaminated areas spread across 19 million acres just in the U.S. alone.U.S. military bases, both domestic and foreign, consistently rank among some of the most polluted places in the world, as perchlorate and other components of jet and rocket fuel contaminate sources of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">drinking water</a>, aquifers and soil. Hundreds of military bases can be found on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) <a href="http://www.veteransinfo.org/epa.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">list of Superfund sites</a>, which qualify for clean-up grants from the government.<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-one-worlds-biggest-polluters-259456.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Almost 900</a> of the nearly 1,200 Superfund sites in the U.S. are abandoned military facilities or sites that otherwise support military needs, not counting the military bases themselves."Almost every military site in this country is seriously contaminated," John D. Dingell, a retired Michigan congressman and war veteran, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-one-worlds-biggest-polluters-259456.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">told Newsweek</a> in 2014. Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina is one such base. Lejeune's contamination became widespread and even deadly after its groundwater was polluted with a sizable amount of carcinogens from 1953 to 1987.However, it was <a href="http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/02/25/va-to-begin-processing-camp-lejeune-toxic-water-claims.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">not until this February</a> that the government allowed those exposed to chemicals at Lejeune to make official compensation claims. Numerous bases abroad have also contaminated local drinking water supplies, most famously <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/10/new-docs-link-polluted-drinking-water-supply-massive-us-military-base" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">the Kadena Air Force Base</a> in Okinawa.<div class="share-tab-img share-buttons share-trigger" style="max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; overflow: hidden;">
</div>[Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. tested 66 nuclear weapons near Bikini atoll. Populations living nearby in the Marshall Islands were exposed to measurable levels of radioactive fallout from these tests. National Cancer Institute map]
In addition, the U.S., which has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than all other nations combined, is also responsible for the massive amount of radiation that continues to contaminate many islands in the Pacific Ocean. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/02/bikini-atoll-nuclear-test-60-years" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The Marshall Islands</a>, where the U.S. dropped more than sixty nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1958, are a particularly notable example. Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands and nearby Guam continue to experience <a href="https://dceg.cancer.gov/research/how-we-study/exposure-assessment/radiation-dosimetry-cancer-risk-estimates-republic-marshall-islands" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">an exceedingly high rate of cancer</a>.
The American Southwest was also the site of numerous nuclear weapons tests that contaminated large swaths of land. Navajo Indian reservations have been polluted by <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/abandoned-uranium-mines-a/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">long-abandoned uranium mines</a> where nuclear material was obtained by U.S. military contractors.One of the most recent testaments to the U.S. military's horrendous environmental record is Iraq. U.S. military action there has resulted in the <a href="http://projectcensored.org/2-us-department-of-defense-is-the-worst-polluter-on-the-planet/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory</a>, crippling the country's agricultural industry and forcing it to import more than 80 percent of its food. The U.S.' <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/19/iraq5" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">use of depleted uranium</a> in Iraq during the Gulf War also caused a massive environmental burden for Iraqis. In addition, the U.S. military's policy of using <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/16/us-military-burn-pits-chemical-weapons-cancer-illness-iraq-afghanistan-veterans" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">open-air burn pits</a> to dispose of waste from the 2003 invasion has caused a surge in cancer among U.S. servicemen and Iraqi civilians alike.While the U.S. military's past environmental record suggests that its current policies are not sustainable, this has by no means dissuaded the U.S. military from openly planning future contamination of the environment through misguided waste disposal efforts. Last November, the U.S. Navy announced its <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38374-us-military-plans-to-dump-20-000-tons-of-heavy-metals-and-explosives-into-the-oceans" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">plan to release</a> 20,000 tons of environmental "stressors," including heavy metals and explosives, into the coastal waters of the U.S. Pacific Northwest over the course of this year.The plan, laid out in the Navy's Northwest Training and Testing <a href="http://nwtteis.com/DocumentsandReferences/NWTTDocuments/FinalEISOEIS.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Environmental Impact Statement</a>, fails to mention that these "stressors" are described by the EPA as known hazards, many of which are highly toxic at both acute and chronic levels.The 20,000 tons of "stressors" mentioned in the Environmental Impact Statement do not account for the additional 4.7 to 14 tons of "metals with potential toxicity" that the Navy plans to release annually, from now on, into inland waters along the Puget Sound in Washington state.In response to concerns about these plans, <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38374-us-military-plans-to-dump-20-000-tons-of-heavy-metals-and-explosives-into-the-oceans" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">a Navy spokeswoman said</a> that heavy metals and even depleted uranium are no more dangerous than any other metal, a statement that represents a clear rejection of scientific fact. It seems that the very U.S. military operations meant to "keep Americans safe" come at a higher cost than most people realize—a cost that will be felt for generations to come both within the U.S. and abroad.Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="http://www.mintpressnews.com/u-s-military-is-worlds-largest-polluter-hundreds-of-bases-gravely-contaminated/227776/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">MintPress News</a>.</div><div>=</div>