Zunis Say Planned Mine Will Harm Sacred Lake

The Zuni Pueblo says the development of a strip mine in western New Mexico will harm a sacred lake, but an Arizona utility company says it will move ahead with plans to produce coal there by the end of 2005.

Bob Barnard, mine project manager for the Arizona-based Salt River Project, said the utility must find a new source of coal for its Coronado Generating station in St. John’s, Ariz., before supplies from the McKinley Mine near Gallup run out by 2005.

The utility, which has about 190,000 customers, mostly in Phoenix, plans to dig about 80 million tons of coal from the 18,000-acre Fence Lake Mine over the next 50 years. The Zunis are opposing state and federal permits for the project.

Hydrologists hired by the pueblo and the Bureau of Indian Affairs say pumping wells for the mine would harm the flow of brine at the sacred Zuni Salt Lake, which is 12 miles from the proposed mine.

Although a BIA consultant has voiced concerns about the mine, the U.S. Office of Surface Mining--which, like the BIA, is also an Interior Department agency--supports the mine.