Lujan Delays Decision on Lengthy Coal Mine Permit

Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. has decided to defer action on a request by the Peabody Coal Co. for a long-term operating permit for its Black Mesa coal mine, handing a victory to the Hopi and Navajo tribes that blame the company for diminished ground water supplies in the region.

The tribes contend that a 250-mile coal slurry pipeline, which draws 1.4-billion gallons of ground water annually to move the coal to a power plant on the Nevada border, is contributing to reduced water flows on their reservations.

Peabody contends that recent studies have shown that a four-year drought, not the wells that feed the slurry, have diminished the Indian water supplies.

The company had been seeking a “life of mine” permit to continue strip mining well into the next century at the Black Mesa site on the Hopi/Navajo reservation area in northeast Arizona.

Interior Department spokesman Steven Goldstein said that the Interior Department will announce today that Lujan has decided to defer any action on Black Mesa pending an analysis of additional information about the effects on the reservation aquifer.

At the same time, the department will issue a renewable five-year permit for the nearby Kayenta Mine operated by Peabody, which uses a rail line to transport its coal to a different power plant.

Hopi Chairman Vernon Masayesva called the decision a “significant victory,” while Peabody spokesman Ed Sullivan said the company has already begun work on an anticipated lawsuit against the government.

“We pretty much got what we want,” Masayesva said. Sullivan said, “I’m naturally disappointed if that is the outcome.”

Sullivan said that it remains to be seen exactly what the tribes have won from the Interior Department. He said his reading of the decision is that the tribes’ concerns would be “addressed”--which is not the same as saying that new studies will replace the existing environmental impact statement, which took five years to complete and concluded that mine-related ground water pumping is having no material impact on the aquifer.

“I just haven’t seen anything in writing and no one’s told me that they got any water study, and I haven’t heard that they’ve gotten an alternative transportation study which is also what they’re looking for,” he said.

“If the secretary is saying that a study has to be conducted other than the study that is required by the lease, Peabody will not participate in it,” he said. Meanwhile, the company has already begun preparing its lawsuit against the government, which may be filed sometime next week, Sullivan said.

Masayesva characterized Lujan’s decision as “buying time so that both tribes and the federal government can sit down together and work out a plan that will protect our water resources.”