Coal, Relocation, Alameda
The Port of Los Angeles stands at the very axis of an increasingly "globalized" world system, including all environmental and human rights abuses implicated therewith. The Alameda Corridor Project intensifies this condition. As the project speeds towards expected completion by next year, Random Lengths News traces out one of the more unsettling tentacles extending from the ACP.
8/02/00
Kykotsmovi, AZ
A recently released document from the Hopi Reservation in Arizona explains a connection between the Alameda Corridor Project and the ongoing forced relocation of 14,000 Navajos from one of the last remaining strongholds of traditional Native American culture, an area known alternately as Big Mountain, Black Mesa, or the Hopi Partitioned Lands (HPL). The former director of the relocation program, Leon Berger, has described the relocation as "a tragedy of genocide and injustice that will be a blot on the conscience of this country for many generations". The document, dated Oct.19, 1988, suggests that the promise of shipping large amounts of coal obtained from Black Mesa, was a causal factor in the upgrading of LA port facilities, particularly the ACP. The ongoing validity of this pressure is seriously questionable, but remains a possibility. Certain factors call for ongoing scrutiny of the situation connecting the two areas.
The document, the minutes of a closed-door meeting between Hopi Tribal Council members and representatives of Peabody Coal, the world's largest producer and marketer of coal, details a vision that PC presented to the tribe repeatedly over the course of years surrounding this meeting, according to the document's author, Rev. Caleb H. Johnson, a traditional Hopi. Peabody at the time was expressing interest in doubling the size of their current mining operations on the reservations, which presently supply power through the Mojave Generating Station to Los Angeles, an additional 10 million tons of coal per year. The expansion would extend over 54,000 acres to the south of current operations, well into the area still occupied by Navajos in defiance of relocation pressure that is entering its 26th year.
The additional coal would be exported to Japan, whose power needs and environmental regulations made it the ideal customer for the operation. The major catch was at the port of LA: "There are port facilities in LA and Long Beach," explained Sam Shiflet, the executive VP of Peabody at the time (acc. To the documentation) "but presently they are not up to par for the shipment of coal. The port authorities recognize this and so they will upgrade their facilities… RR into LA will go through what will eventually be called the Alameda Corridor… It will handle 10,000 tons of coal in 100 rail cars at a time from here to LA.
Peabody spokesperson Beth Sutton denies any ongoing connection between Peabody and the Alameda Corridor. "We have no plans and no agreement at this time to mine outside of the existing lease areas on Black Mesa. All coal from the Black Mesa Mine is under contractual obligation to the Mojave Generating Station through 2005." However, she concedes that "years ago, the AC represented a path for unit trains to get to the Port."
Expansion of the mine is blocked at this time by the unexpected resilience of the native peoples, some 80+ families holding fast to their land around the mine. Elder Roberta Blackgoat states: "The creator is the only one who is going to relocate me." Logistically, the other major obstacle to exporting massive amounts of coal is transportation. The present mine uses a 273 mile slurry line that drains the Hopi and Navajo water table at a rate of 4,000 acre feet per year, which has already done serious damage to the local water supply. Hopi Tribal Councilman Eugene Kaye insists that Hopi is not going to jeopardize its water any further, and former Tribal Chairman Vernon Masayesva is presently heading "Black Mesa Trust", an organization created to pressure the Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and The Mojave Generating Station (56% owned by SoCal Edison and 20% by LADWP) into developing an alternative means of getting the coal to the Station. Peabody's representatives in 1988 had presented rail construction as an option, and with increased pressure from the Hopi to abandon the slurry line, it would seem again to be worth considering. Steve Hanson of Southern Cal Edison claims that other water sources will more likely be exploited and no talk of a rail system has been heard recently.