Tribes Fear Mine Will Disturb Cultural Sites, Damage Sacred Salt Lake
by Rene Kimball
This article appears here by kind permission of The Albuquerque Journal: 27
February 1994.
Zuni Pueblo - During the hot summer months, the shallow lake evaporates and
the salt layer forms, often so thick that it rises into cones on the lake
bed.
That's when the Zuni men journey 60 miles south from their reservation to
harvest the salt.
It's, literally, according to their religion, the flesh of Salt Mother, a
central deity of the tribe who resides at Zuni Salt Lake.
The gathering of salt and its use in tribal ceremonies and by curing
societies has gone on for many centuries. The salt is essential to
maintaining balance in the spiritual and cultural lives of the pueblo, said
Zuni tribal representatives.
It is, in their eyes, a source of life, said Roger Anyon, director of the
Zuni Heritage and Historic Preservation Office.
Now, they and three other tribes fear for the future of the northwestern New
Mexico salt lake, south of the hamlet of Fence Lake, near the Arizona border.
That's because no one has been able to guarantee that a strip coal mine that
a large Arizona utility wants to open 12 miles away won't interfere with
water filling the lake from underground or pollute the salt with tiny
particles of airborne coal.
"This is not any lake; it's not just any salt. It's of central importance to
Zuni. This is Salt Woman," Anyon said.
The Zunis, Acomas, Hopis and Ramah Navajos are also concerned that
potentially thousands of ancestral burials will be disturbed by the mine,
tribal representatives said.
The Salt River Project, based in Tempe, wants the coal to fuel its
700-megawatt Coronado Generating Station in eastern Arizona, which it says
would be cheaper than continuing to bring coal from McKinley County.
"It is the closest coal to Coronado, which translates to cheaper coal, whch
means we can either decrease the cost to our customers or run that plant
more, produce more electricity out of it," said Les Presmyk, a company senior
mine engineer.
Plans call for the company to build a railway line about three miles north of
the small lake. Railroad cars would haul the coal 40 miles to the power
plant.
During the life of the mine, the company expects to produce up to 60 million
tons of coal, starting with about 1 million tons a year, Presmyk said.
The utility has worked for more than a decade, gathering environmental data,
and has worked extensively with the tribes for several years to hear their
concerns, he said.
"Salt River Project has a reputation and a tradition of being concerned with
the archaeology and the cultural resources, as well as with the environment,"
Presmyk said.
"I think we have proven that by the fact we have been working there for so
many years and spending a fair amount of money doing baseline studies and
meeting with tribes."
Zuni and Hopi officials agreed that the utility has gone far beyond the
spirit of the law in working with the tribes.
"I think this is one of the first projects that the Hopi tribe has been
involved in where a private entity has actually solicited tribal
involvement," said Leigh Jenkins, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation
Office.
"Give them due credit that they have done something to foster a good working
relationship. We know there are hard issues that we both have to deal with,
but at least everyone is working very hard to make it workable," he said.
Still, that doesn't erase concerns.
"The issue really comes down to, why does this coal here have to be mined?"
Anyon said. "Why couldn't the mine be elsewhere?"
Zuni women aren't allowed to see the lake, which rises and falls with the
seasons in the 1-square-mile center of a large volcanic cinder cone, fed
mostly from underground.
Inside the larger volcanic depression are two smaller cinder cones that are
holy places, where several tribes have shrines and make offerings.
The Hopi, Acoma and Ramah Navajo tribes also have religious shrines in and
around the lake. And, for generations, tribal members have used sacred
trails to make pilgrimages to the salt lake.
Zuni tradition holds that, at one time, Salt Woman lived at the main
reservation but was mistreated so she moved south to the salt lake, said
Andrew Othole, Zuni's cultural preservation coordinator and a tribal member.
"If mining activity would have adverse impacts to the Salt Woman, the
community is concerned (she) will leave and go elsewhere, and then what will
we do?" he said.
Several Indian tribes want assurances that no damage to cultural sites will
occur.
"We're not publicly opposing (the mine), but we're concerned about
archaeological sites, wildlife and the Salt Lake pilgrimage trail," said
Petuuche Gilbert, land coordinator for the Acoma tribe.
He said Salt River Project has documented more than 550 archaeological sites
in the coal-mining area and 50 in its proposed transportation corridor.
Anyon said the Zunis want either a new environmental impact statement or a
supplemental document that takes into account "non-use values," meaning the
value of just knowing something is there.
The Ramah Navajo Chapter is opposed to the mine, said chapter land board
member Cecilia Ensrude, because Navajos have sacred sites within the mine
area.
The land around the lake at one time was state trust land, but about 600
acres and the lake itself were transferred to the Zuni tribe in 1985.
The Salt River Project, the country's third largest public utility, has
worked for a decade preparing the permit application for the Fence Lake Mine.
During its 35-year-life, the mine would cover 6,800 acres of federal, state
and private lands.
The deepest pit would be about 170 feet deep, but Presmyk said the company
would have to fill the pits when it reclaims the mine.
It will employ 60 to 120 people, depending on the production level.
Presmyk declined to say how much money Salt River Project has invested in the
search for coal, building and operating a small experimental mine in the
Fence Lake Area in the mid-1980s and preparing the 15 thick binders that make
up the permit application.
But the company has worked since the early 1980s on plant surveys,
groundwater and surface water monitoring, studies of birds of prey, mammals
and reptiles. It has also collected meteorological information.
Salt River Project has also done paleontology and archaeology surveys,
Presmyk said.
The utility, which started out as the nation's first federally funded water
reclamation project, began as an irrigation and agricultural improvement
district and later branched out into the generation of electricity.
It has 570,000 electric customers in central Arizona and is that state's
second largest electric utility.
The company must obtain a mine permit from the New Mexico Mining and Minerals
Division, which is accepting public comments through March 7.
At the same time, the federal Office of Surface Mining in Albuquerque is
reviewing the application and will submit its comments to the state, Premyk
said.
Sacred trails to the salt lake, which Zuni priests blessed in perpetuity, are
also of concern, Othole said.
The trails are umbilical cords, tying the tribes to their salt deity and
tying the sacred salt lake to the tribe's other holy places, he said.
The tribes fear the railroad line would sever those umbilical cords although
the Salt River Project has said it would consider building underpasses or
overpasses to avoid that.
Presmyk said the Salt River Project believes hauling the coal by rail, rather
than truck, will tremendously reduce the amount of coal dust.
"We really don't think that's a concern," he said.
Zuni leaders are also worried the large amounts of groundwater that will be
pumped for the operation will harm the hydrology of the area, interrupting or
reducing the flow of water into the lake.
Presmyk said groundwater studies indicate that four aquifers underlie the
region from which it can pump.
Company hydrologists believe at least part of the salt originates from the
second-most shallow aquifer, the Yeso formation.
But the main water source for the lake is believed to be the Dakota
formation, the lowest aquifer.
Aside from concerns about water quantity and quality, the company wants to
protect the aquifers, which also supply area ranchers, Presmyk said.
The company plans to drill wells into all four aquifers and pump alternately
from each so it doesn't deplete any single one, he said.
"This is part of our business, both surface water and groundwater," Presmyk
said. "We know water so, when (company hydrologists) start talking to me
about this (water) management plan, it makes a great deal of sense to me."
Salt River Project has worked with the tribes, drafting memoranda of
understanding, stating that any unearthed burials will be handled, Premyk
said. The documents will provide guidelines for what steps will be taken if
that occurs.
The Zunis' position is that burials shouldn't be disturbed, Othole said.
Zunis believe tribal members have four lives, the current life being the
first, he said.
After death, Zunis continue on a journey through the other three lives, and
unearthing bodies interrupts that process.
"Once they are in the ground, they should stay there," Othole said. "There's
no prayers or no rituals for unearthing and re-interring burials."
Presmyk said the tribes' position that archaeological sites not be disturbed
isn't practical, and surface mining regulations are set up to minimize the
effect.
"They feel the need to express feelings and state positions, but as long as
we have addressed the regulations and the laws and, to the best of our
ability, their concerns, then we have followed the proper procedures and will
continue to develop our mine," Presmyk said.
"We appreciate and understand their concerns, but they understand why we are
doing this."
Richard Hart, an ethnohistorian and executive director of the Institute of
the North American West in Seattle, who has worked with the Zunis for 25
years, said Zunis have serious fears that damage in the physical world from
mining will be mirrored in their spiritual world.
"I believe that the area has such rich cultural value to all these people
that it would be a real shame to damage it, and I would hope that
alternatives could be looked at to the mine," said Hart, who has worked
intensively on the mine issue for the past two years.
He questioned the need for the mine.
"Is it simply being built to give Salt River Project more profit? Could we
impose some very modest (energy) conservation throughout the area and
alleviate the need for the mine?" Hart said.