Tucson Democrats and Ann Kirkpatrick vs the Navajo People and the EPA

[walksalone11]

I feel that many Democrats are well intentioned and dialog is necessary for them to understand minorities more.

The Navajo Generating Station and the Three Sisters of Destruction

Even the ones that are minorities sometimes get caught up in the politics or on other issues and forget the web of effects their decisions have on others.

A perfect example is with Democrats vs the Navajo Nation.

Democrats in Tucson are key players in allowing the Three Sisters of Destruction at the Navajo Generating Station to continue to pollute the sacred Navajo land, with almost no financial benefit going to the people.

While the Tucson city council contains Latinos and 5 of the 6 seats belong to Democrats, there are still no Native Americans on the council, yet the decision of these 6 people has impacts that destroy Navajo Nation, and I write about this now so that cannot claim they didn’t know.

I am also going to add Ann Kirkpatrick to this story since she was the Democratic Congressperson that represented CD1 and was ousted after only one term, and Native Americans have a lot to do with this also (they don’t like her at all).

Why?

Some quick history: Before I was writing for the Three Sonorans, I wrote a column known as Tucson Science. One of the issues dear to my heart was the environment and how “Greens” and “Democrats” are hypocritical on this issue in a subconsciously racist level perhaps (not considering impacts on those most affected).

It all has to do with water. This is the name of the game in the desert.

There is no Tucson without water; there is no life without water.

Just as with gas and oil, we sometimes look the other way while atrocities and huge injustices take place just so we can access the fossil fuel at any gas pump in Tucson, the same is true for water.

Right now you can turn on the water faucet in any part of your house and water will run — clean drinkable water also.

Right now you can let water run from the faucet outside and just waste water all month long if you want to. No one will stop you, and as long as you can pay the bill, this water waste will be allowed.

Water is a luxury in the desert, but just like oil, we continuously oppress darker people for this resource that will soon run dry.

This Tuesday the Tucson city council will vote to keep the Trail of Tears, or in this case the Long Walk, going well past 2011.

I always mention the Trail of Tears analogy because I remember when we learned about it in school kids would be ashamed of this, and the teachers would say that we have learned from this, that we don’t do this anymore to the Native Americans, but the truth is that we do continue to oppress them and TUCSON HAS A MAJOR ROLE IN THIS OPPRESSION.

The Native Americans were moved to the reservation so that the white man could get access to their land and their resources.  The Trail of Tears and the Long Walk both refer to a forced relocation, almost always on foot, and some never finished the journey and entered the spirit world along that trek.

But now we know better, right? Now we have learned what we have done to the Native Americans, and now we let them live on the rez in peace, right?

WRONG.
Tucson Electric Power

Tucson Electric owns a part of the dirtiest power plant in the nation... and it is in Navajo land.

If you drive by the TEP plant on Alvernon and I-10, you will see huge mountains of coal, and you might also see trains that are a mile long filled with more coal to drop off, and what you won’t see is all the coal they have stored up out of sight.

Every time you turn on the light, the AC, the microwave… anytime you do ANYTHING that requires electricity you are directly using energy that was produced by burning coal. The pollution caused in Tucson is another story for another time. What almost no one has told you is where that coal comes from.

The answer: Peabody Coal.

We will return to Peabody in a moment.
Tucson Water – CAP

The water issue deserves a daily article for a year to do the issue justice, but I will get right to the point.

In Tucson the Santa Cruz river used to run all year round. Then mostly through agriculture we sucked it dry and then we started pumping water that built up over the years in our underground aquifer.

But now are ground is sinking and that water is running out. So we decided to bring water over 300 miles over the desert from the Colorado river to Tucson to be able to waste even more of it.

The main problem is not so much the 300 miles, but rather that Tucson is at over 2000 feet above sea level. If any of you have had to pay the energy costs for a backyard water pool pump, you know that it takes a lot of energy to move water around, especially if that water moves up. And this is what water has to do to get here. It has to be pumped uphill, sometimes through mountains and other obstacles along the desert path.

We are also talking about a lot of water here, and it takes a lot of energy to get it here to Tucson just so we can flush it down the drain.

Where does this energy come from?
      

Slide 1 of 4.
From the Black Mesa to the train to the Navajo Generating Station for Tucson's CAP water

The answer: The Navajo Generating Station… with coal from Peabody Coal.

Perhaps you have heard of the Black Mesa?

It is a popular place in activist circles, and it is a well known place to both the Navajo and the Hopi. It is where Peabody extracts its coal. It also pollutes the water and drains the water. They would make the coal into a slush using the water and pipe it hundreds of miles to other power plants just so that tourists can be awed by lights on The Strip in Las Vegas and see water shows, or for Tucson to be able to power all the laptops and iPhones that we all love to use.

The irony is that many Navajos don’t even have electricity running to their own homes, yet their coal is being exploited for urban areas, and we could care less about the environmental impact to the Navajo.

Would it matter if I told you that the 4th largest emitter of CO2 in the United States is the Navajo Generating Station? Would you care if I told you that the nation’s worst polluter is the Four Corners plant, part-owned by TEP, and that another Democrat, and unfortunately a Navajo himself, Chris Deschene wants to expand this pollution in exchange for money? He’s one of the head lawyers for these massive polluters on his ancestor’s soil, and many Navajo don’t like him either. The council may, but the people don’t.

Ann Kirkpatrick, former Democratic Congressperson from CD1 who the Native Americans don't trust and won't vote for.

Ann Kirkpatrick, the Democrat that represented not only the Navajo Nation but the San Carlos Nation, also in her CD1 until she lost her seat last year is another Democrat that sells out Native Americans for corporate polluters.

    Most of them have already been co-opted by the corrupt mining companies and only stand before the American people as a pretense. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick has lied to the Native Americans and her office has lied to the Coalition of Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners saying she can’t find the time to meet with them. She has been putting off meeting with them since last Oct.

    According to Manuel Ortega, Chair of Superior’s Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners Coalition, “The southwestern part of the United States is currently in a prolonged drought. Mining is one of the most water-intensive industries on earth. Mining on Oak Flat could dewater Queen Creek and its aquifer. Superior and Oak Flat are in the Maricopa County Active Management Area, so whatever water is used for mining will affect the East Valley in addition to the local community.”

Ann Kirkpatrick just announced that she will run for CD1 again. She is also a well known “blue dog” which is another way of saying “weak Democrat.”

Yet she is being praised at an upcoming Female Democrat event, a group co-chaired by Kyrsten Sinema, that other Democratic Diva with a history of pissing off minorities and then calling them ignorant since her “tough on immigration” bills are actually good for immigrants, according to the Democratic Senator.

If Ann Kirkpatrick is an honored guest in Democratic circles, then there is no way the Democrats are going to get out the Latino and Native American vote when we put party above principles.

Now back to Tucson. We have 5 Democrats out of 6, and two of those Democrats are minorities.

The EPA is getting involved because of the haze over our natural wonders in Arizona.

The EPA wants to intervene with the mega-polluting Navajo Generating Station.

The station is so toxic is literally brings tears to the eyes, and if you are ever at the Grand Canyon and see a haze, it’s probably smoke from that plant.

Actually, this is probably the only reason the EPA is getting involved, because of the haze over the Grand Canyon.

If there was no natural wonder nearby, the federal government could probably care less about the environmental impact to poor people on the rez, just like it did with the Church Rock radioactive disaster that was worse that Three Mile Island and took place on Navajo land in Arizona.

    More radiation was released in the spill than in the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania, making the Church Rock spill the largest release of radioactive waste ever in the U.S. — and second only to the Chernobyl meltdown globally. The privately-owned site of the Church Rock spill is a Superfund site — and it is still leaking radioactive waste throughout Indian lands to this day.

    Yet few people today have ever heard of it.

This Tuesday the Tucson City Council will vote to continue the exploitation, the oppression, and the continuation of the Trail of Toxic Tears on Navajo land.

Tucson Democrats and Ann Kirkpatrick vs the Navajo People and the EPA


The Navajo Generating Station is bad for the Navajo people, period. Democrats and environmentalists should be ashamed of even thinking of supporting such an evil and deadly destroyer of what little the Navajos have left!

They will talk about CAP water, they will talk about this and that, but what these Democrats will overlook is the Forgotten people, the Navajo and Hopi people whose earth, water, and sky are being polluted for Tucson’s out of control consumerism.

And this is why it is hard to get out the Latino and Native American vote. It is Democrats also that are doing VERY REAL DAMAGE today, and yet get to be keynote speakers and Democratic events.

This Tuesday at the Tucson council meeting, that cycle of oppression will continue and that makes us part of this evil problem affecting poor people. What do you mean there are still real live Navajo living up there, many who do not have electricity in their homes?

Does anyone care?