Black Mesa Update
June 1, 2001 by pathfinder
Filed under Voices from the Land
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 6:11 AM
Dear Big Mountain Supporters,
I wish to share with you some words from Caroline Tohannie of Tonalea and Leta O’Daniel of Big Mountain. My question upon reading these statements is how can the US government Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) justify turning off working windmills to deprive people the right of access to water?
I believe as Caroline Tohannie says, this invades the Dine’ peoples dignity and self-worth. I believe furthermore it is immoral and contrary to the practice of common decency, the US Constitution and international law.
Read the 2 articles published in the NAVAJO HOPI OBSERVER on May 9, 2001. The US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is denying Hopi Partition Land (HPL) Dine’ residents access to water by capping off, fencing off and dismantling local water sources WHILE Peabody Coal Company is wasting 3.3. million gallons of pristine water each day from the sole source drinking water aquifer of the Hopi and western Navajo just to slurry coal.
In addition to the BIA denying HPL residents access to water, the BIA is continuing to deny HPL residents the right to a livelihood and the right to food. I wonder how the BIA can justify these actions when they are currently embroiled in a lawsuit involving their mis-mangement and loss of millions of dollars of Indian Tribes Trust funds. Is the BIA so in need of additional fund that agency personnel sit around in Washington, DC examining the names of HPL residents so they can decide how many sheep, goats, horses and cows each HPL residen will be allocated in their grazing permit, if any is issued and how much these permits should cost?
Please put pressure on the BIA, Hopi Agency 
(520) 738-2249
and Secretary Gale Norton, US Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary (202) 208-7351 to fix the water wells and stop denying HPL residents access to water and livelihood. The BIA must exercise their Trust Responsibility to the Dine’ people. Without water and food no one can survive. Further news and contact information will follow.
Yours sincerely,
Marsha Monestersky
