Ryan Randazzo

The Republic | azcentral.com

BLACK MESA — The massive dragline bucket at the Kayenta Mine claws deep into the brittle rock, lifts and swings to the side, uncovering enough shiny black coal to bury a small house.

The coal from Black Mesa, a mountainous area straddling Navajo and Hopi land in the northeast corner of Arizona, is loaded into an oversize dump truck, crushed and placed on a conveyor belt arcing over hilltops into silos 17 miles away. Then, an electric train hauls the load 80 miles across the scenic high desert outside Monument Valley to the largest coal burner in the West.

The Navajo Generating Station consumes 240 rail cars of Kayenta’s coal every day, making enough electricity to power more than a half million homes at once.

Some of it lights up the Las Vegas Strip. Some goes to Phoenix and Tucson. Still more of the coal power runs pumps along the Central Arizona Project canal, pushing Colorado River water nearly 3,000 feet uphill across the state, enabling cheap water for agriculture, grass lawns and pools.

Together, the mine and the power plant employ 750 workers, nearly all Native Americans living on the two reservations, where unemployment approaches 50 percent. The operations support communities from Tuba City, a small enclave 60 miles west of the mine, with a grocery store, banks and a few hotels, to the non-reservation city of Page on the shore of Lake Powell and the Navajo town of Kayenta, with about 5,000 people.

But because there are cheaper alternatives for making electricity, the power plant’s owners voted to close it in two years.

If the generating station closes, the mine loses its only customer. It, too, will close.

Both tribes will lose jobs and income from the plant and mine. But the Navajo Nation, with about 170,000 members on the reservation, draws revenue from multiple sources. The 15,000-member Hopi tribe has little else but the crops and livestock they cultivate in the surrounding canyons.

After spending years on expensive negotiations with the Environmental Protection Agency to keep the coal plant open, four of the five owners — Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service Co., Tucson Electric Power and NV Energy — decided in early February to give up the fight.

This time, the issue is not carbon emissions or haze at the Grand Canyon. It is economics. The utilities can get cheaper power from natural-gas-powered plants, saving each owner millions of dollars per year.

The fifth owner, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, uses its share to power the pumps on the canal and pay off debt from its construction. The agency wants to keep the facilities open but can't foot the bill for the entire plant.

Combined, the mine and coal plant generate billions in economic benefit that spreads statewide. When they close, the Navajo's $173 million budget will shrink by about $40 million from lost coal royalties and lease payments from the power plant.

But the Navajo also have coal operations in New Mexico, as well as casino gambling and access to major highways to tap into tourism.

About half of the Hopi live on their reservation, which is surrounded by the Navajo Reservation, effectively cutting off the smaller tribe from most economic opportunities.

Hopi Chairman Herman Honanie has worked for tribal government since 1977. He said tribal members are split nearly evenly between support for the mine and closing it because of environmental concerns.

He sides with keeping the mine open.

“The practicality is we have a growing population and we have growing needs,” Honanie said. “We have one foot in our culture and the other foot on the other side of dominant society and we are trying to mesh that together.”

Approximately 350 people who work for the tribe rely on the royalties from the mine for a significant portion of their paychecks. Those workers provide services from tribal courts to hospice care for the elderly.

The tribe anticipates $18.4 million in revenue this year, and more than $12 million of that will come from mining activities and from SRP for payments based on how well the power plant performs. Less than $2 million trickles in from court fees, business taxes, and investments in the KoKopeli Inn in Sedona, Three Canyon Ranch near Winslow and Moenkopi Legacy Inn near Tuba City.

Like many people in coal country across the U.S., Honanie is hopeful President Donald Trump's government will step in and ease regulations to make coal more competitive. Toward that end, the U.S. Department of Interior has invited all stakeholders to Washington, D.C., on March 1 to discuss options for the plant.

"If we can manage to lobby effectively and bring this attention to their ear, to their minds, and hopefully in some effective unified front between us and the Navajo and whomever else, if we can get an audience with them, we hope that they can come to our aid in the best possible way," Honanie said.

The coal seams running through the hills course through the region in other ways.

Both tribes depend on the free coal the mine’s operator, Peabody Energy of St. Louis, sets aside each weekend to heat their homes. Freezing temperatures are common from November through May and tens of thousands of homes on the two reservations lie beyond the reach of electricity, water and natural-gas service.

Many also make use of the water depot at the mine, which allows them to fill cisterns in their trucks with water for homes and livestock.

For the free coal, some people drive hundreds of miles in the middle of the night to be first in line when the gates open at 6 a.m. at an area called the load out.

On a recent Saturday, about 100 people swung picks, sledgehammers and hatchets to break off chunks of coal to be stacked meticulously into cars and trucks.

Darryl Sahema drove more than an hour from the Hopi village of Polacca. He rolled his pickup truck past frosted coal piles until he found one that hadn’t been picked over. Big, shiny pieces burn best in stoves, and they get scooped up fast.

“It burns slow and hot,” Sahema said, wool cap pulled down low, catching his breath in the morning chill between armloads. “It’s a good, reliable source of heat.”

Sahema, 37, earns a living by helping with a relative’s livestock and by cutting and selling firewood. The father of three young boys, he also hauls coal for elderly relatives who can’t handle the labor.

Some entrepreneurs purchase the coal, bag it, and sell it on street corners in reservation towns. Such activity flouts the spirit of the program, but the mine turns a blind eye.

Maurice George, 41, loaded up before dawn with the best coal and sat in the cab of his white Dodge pickup with 9-year-old son Chesney, looking for a sale on a corner in Tuba City. The pair took two hours to load 3,250 pounds of coal into the truck, selling bags similar in size to sacks of concrete for $10. When it’s cold, they will sell 60 bags in a day.

“That’s my income right there,” George said. “I supply my family with food and electricity and everything from selling.”

He was raised in a nearby canyon by his grandmother, herding sheep, without running water or electricity. Without the mine and the coal, he would work construction or cutting wood.

George, who also has a 3-year-old at home, previously lived in the Phoenix area, attending Arizona State University and dealing cards at Casino Arizona. But it was too hard to support a family in metro Phoenix, so he and his wife returned to the reservation.

“It’s a fast life down there,” he said.

Fifty miles from the draglines via a dirt road lies the Hopi town of Kykotsmovi Village. It's got a small store, post office, schools, the tribe's administrative offices and about 1,000 residents.

Retired miner Lewis Pavinyama lives there in a small block home. He earned plenty of money working at the mine for 40 years to move to Flagstaff, Phoenix or some other community where he could get water service, but he prefers living close to where he was raised.

He still grows corn in a nearby sandy wash, like many Hopi. Raising sheep also is common across the reservations, even for people with good-paying jobs. Those cultural perks aren't available in the big cities.

Years ago, Pavinyama built a large backyard rodeo arena, spending $30,000 for livestock chutes, an announcer's booth, stadium lights and small bleachers. He's hosted full rodeos with events from calf roping to bull riding, drawing competitors from across the Southwest.

Several have been rained out, which he took as a good sign.

"According to our elders, when everybody comes together, when we bring our hearts together, it brings the rain," Pavinyama said. "It means people are happy there."

He said the coal operations are important because Native Americans in Arizona don't want handouts. They want to be self-sufficient. He started working at the mine in 1973, when he was 19, driving a bulldozer during the night shift.

Sometimes, his truck would get stuck in snow on the way home and he would sleep in the cab. He’d simply turn around and head back to work once it was unstuck to make sure he was there on time for the next shift, he said.

“We were determined to have a job,” he said. “That’s a coal miner’s life. I tell people I’m glad for Peabody for what I have today.”

Though it serves a critical role in the region's economy, coal has long been the bane of environmentalists.

"Ding dong the coal witch is dead!" the environmental group New Energy Economy said on Twitter the day after Navajo's closure was announced, one of many similar comments that day.

Navajo's size has always meant an oversize environmental footprint, ranking among the top plants in the country for carbon emissions.

It is responsible for haze over the Grand Canyon and other national parks, and mercury contaminating fish and other aquatic organisms in the Colorado River and lakes throughout Arizona. The coal mine disturbs massive tracts of land and water from the aquifer.

The emissions from coal plants increase the incidence of pulmonary diseases like asthma, not to mention the health issues some miners have after years in the dusty coal pits.

Because of the global-warming effect of carbon emissions in the atmosphere, utilities and governments around the world are working to limit them.

“The era of coal is over," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in 2013 when that city reached an accord to sell its share of the Navajo plant. "Today we affirm our commitment to make Los Angeles a cleaner, greener, more sustainable city.”

Percy Deal, a representative of the Navajo environmental group Diné CARE, was raised and still lives off the dirt road between the Hopi villages and the mine. He wants to see it close.

He supports economic opportunities for the tribes with renewable energy.

"There's been two or three different studies produced having to do with solar energy and wind energy," Deal said. "The result is there is plenty of energy that can be developed on those two sources."

Other environmental groups, including Sierra Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and Grand Canyon Trust have similarly suggested renewable-energy projects to replace coal jobs.

"It would not require a single cup of water and the air would be clean and the environment would be clean," Deal said. "That is what we would like to see."

A 2012 report on the potential for wind energy on Navajo land found significant wind potential, particularly in the Gray Mountain area north of Flagstaff.

But such projects face hurdles. The permit process for a test tower took a year and a half. Solar and wind projects still rely on federal tax credits. Tribes have no tax liability. That means they need partners or they pay more to develop.

Factions within the tribe fought over their preferred developer for a wind farm at Gray Mountain. No turbines turn there today.

Another proposed wind farm on Navajo land separate from the reservation west of Flagstaff called the Big Boquillas Ranch was to be finished in 2013. SRP had agreed in principle to buy the power. Ultimately the price was not competitive. That plant has not been built.

Even if one wind farm is constructed, it would take several renewable projects to replace what coal provides. The Boquillas project, for example, would have taken 300 people to build but just 10 or fewer to operate.

A solar project that broke ground near Kayenta last year put about 100 people to work building it, but will employ a few people once finished. SRP will buy power from that plant.

Workers who have come to rely on the coal are understandably skeptical that renewable energy can replace the quality jobs they've found in the region.

Myron Richardson, 41, oversees a small welding shop at Kayenta Mine where the giant dragline buckets are brought by crane for repair. His crew welds cracks or adds new teeth if needed.

He lives in Page, where he grew up, and is thankful for the work he found at the mine five years ago because it allowed him to stay closer to home and his four boys, ages 5, 13, 15 and 17.

He previously worked construction, often on jobs that kept him from his family for long stretches.

“It’s rough living on the road out of a suitcase,” he said.

Now he can be around the house more, catch more of the boys' wrestling matches and coach more baseball games.

"It’s important for me to stay for my kids,” he said.

And the jobs pay well. The average wages at the power plant are almost $40 an hour; for miners more than $33.50 an hour.

Richardson also connects with fellow Navajos, who often speak the native language to him at work, something that didn't happen on distant construction sites.

He's not sure how he's going to support his family without coal.

“I want to put my kids through school. That’s all I’m looking at right now,” he said. "If the mine closes, it would most likely mean relocation. It could possibly mean going back to construction. I dread going back into that.”

He also worries for the families of the children who play sports with his sons.

“I know these kids. I know their families,” he said. “Where are they going to go?”

Hopi Chairman Honanie said if the mine closes, most people will stay.

“This has been the homeland for Hopi for all these years,” he said. I don’t think now is the time for anyone to start thinking let’s pack up and move on, because that’s just not going to be a way of thinking.

“We’ve been through hard times. We’ve been through challenges. We’ve adjusted. We’ve acclimated. We’ve endured."