Heart of Dinetah, Tahchee Blue Gap and Solutions - Building Bridges: Pt. 5

As I close this series of stories and experience, there has been much reflection. I wanted to close this as the solutions part but the story that was shared with me in the community there about uranium mining and water issues was not the same as how it was with the other communities so I feel obligated to share it like I did the others.. I appreciate anyone reading this and I have so much gratitude for the folks that welcomed me in and shared so much of everything with me. Wado.

After all our journey and stories of them, Jenn from BREDL would be hopping on the plane to go home and Leona was worn out from guiding us and doing her schooling at the same time. So now it was up to me to decide if I was going to Pinon, Arizona into the Heart of Dinetah, or not, to meet with another person and learn from their community. This was for the last leg of the trip. I decided to go for it because I knew I may never get another chance like this again if I didn't go. Originally I was hoping to catch a Traditional Kneel Down Bread making workshop, where I could meet and chat with the folks who were present, but it had rained heavily and lots of roads were washed out and it was canceled. I was still being welcomed out because the location was still accessible from the direction that I would be traveling from. So I headed out from Albuquerque towards Pinon and made my way to Black Mesa area to check out what's going on and get a tour of the Blue Gap Tachee Community. Again I would see the impacts of uranium and mineral extraction but I would also see much more. The drive was about 4 hours and the land was so pretty I must have tried to take a hundred pictures along the way. When I pulled up it felt like home and I could see two houses that had a scenery which reminded me of Cherokee Country in Oklahoma and a Traditional Hogan up a little slope from a runoff area and what looked like a massive spread out garden/farm space. I was greeted by a young crew of workers who were filling in the ruts in the road and they pointed up over a hill and told me that's where I could Find Roberto.

I first met Roberto Nutlouis a few years back in Lawrence Kansas at Haskell University, we were attending the Indigenous Just Transition Conference hosted by the Indigenous Environmental Network, Climate Justice Alliance and It takes Roots. He was there with some good folks from Black Mesa Water Coalition and I was really feeling their energy and the way they came across when we met at the time. He now has things going on in multiple angles and levels in the community out there and he shared more as we chatted a bit. He showed me around, and then we sat down and talked some more, the sun was starting to set when we decided to cut it short for the night and would regather in the morning and take me in the morning to some of the local places where there are and have been uranium mining issues. I was offered the hogan as a sleeping space and I was more than obliged.

That night i got the best restful sleep i had in a long time and it really wasn't that long i was asleep. I couldn't really sleep at first and kept being drawn out into the night sky. It was amazing to take in the big sky with all the stars showing so clearly. It again felt like home, so much that when I heard something run off away through the low brush, I didn't even get the least bit nervous. Left with my thoughts, the land and the stars, I was in a good place for the night. I slept really well and felt all kinds of rested the next morning. I awoke before the sun and was there to greet it and say some good words for the day. I got the call from Roberto saying he would arrive soon to take me on the tour of the Tachee Blue Gap and Pinon area. I was most curious about land restoration and relationships and whatever cool projects they had going. Which, to my amazement, was almost all old time ancestral life and food ways of the land. Telling me that they were basically just keeping alive old cultural traditions that the matriarch had held down for millennias. He would show me more on that later, first we would go see the land where communities couldn't get justice or help because the United States government wouldn’t cough up the money. This left the communities with less population density to live with no cleanups. This attitude led many Dine’ peoples in the area even further towards seeking and using new and old solutions to take care of and restore the land in and from its old and present condition. For Roberto, being in balance with the future, people, and land as intended I would soon find.

On our journey deep through the back roads of dirt there were scars on Mesas Roberto pointed out. These were from the mining activities causing them to collapse and the debris/rocks fell on peoples properties and messed up some homes. The byproduct of mining activities isn’t always pollution, the destruction of the land counts too. Both harm and pollution are present here. It was the grandmas leading the efforts for the cleanup here kinda like how it was over at the Red Water Pond Road Community. This area's story was different though, this was an area where the population was so low that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed on helping with cleanup and dealt with areas with higher populations instead of this one.

Exploratory mining is a big thing here, uranium in particular, the companies and the United States are always seeking it. It's not commonly known what is done with the materials that are borne out during this exploration. Sometimes it is put back in the hole it came out of, other times it's just left above ground and other times it is shipped off to other Indigenous lands to be buried or processed and just pollutes a different Native Community too. Regardless of the outcome, you can believe that the land has been altered to the core quite literally at times. If there was radioactive material present, it has been released and the community and world has been exposed. The people are mostly left to fend for themselves. We owe these communities and peoples so much for what has been done in the name of “progressing america '' with nuclear energy and bombs and other dirty profitable processes.

So now there are water issues, lack of water and lack of access to safe water. The community works to protect and heal what water there is but don’t want any projects that will lead to being exposed to contaminated sediments. Folks are doing preparations in many ways to welcome solutions that help the community. This is where I learned so much more about regenerative agricultural practices and Dine’ culture and how they might be the key to the future here, just like it has been, long into the past. So there was a Hogan, crops, a processing area, and a giant and deep fire pit dug in the ground where corn is roasted and bread made. The ashes and other coals are discarded into an area and become runoff and nutrients for the corn and other crops right off a little hillside, in an area that has a natural water runoff, plus a little modification that keeps the water evenly flowing across the field of crops. All and all there's much work to be done to restore the future and I keep gratitude for those in this realm. So many challenges have presented themselves to this world, so much has been sought in the direction of solutions to these challenges. Indigenous Peoples have always faced these challenges with a sense of respect and forethought as well as the best interest of the communities existence in mind. Without all the earthly and universal relatives in the balance there really isn't one. It is a good thing that Indigenous Peoples are helping to protect and still live in balance to the best of our abilities. Maybe someday science will catch up and help the restoration.

On the way home, I picked up a young man headed from Chinle to Window Rock, near the New Mexico/Arizona border. He was headed to work pumpkin harvesting and said that there's a fair amount of pumpkins that come from there where he was headed. He shared more about seasonal work locally and some ins and outs of hitchhiking and how it's a pretty common way to get around. Eventually we got to why I was there and on the subject of the environment and he was very knowledgeable about plants, waterways and local history of some contaminants that have impacted some. His grandparents, he said, spoke of the time when the invasive species of plants and trees came in and choked out the old plants and they didn't know how to use the new plants for a long time and still don't know about some. We laughed at the end of the ride because neither of us really expected to have had the big conversation like that about all this wild environmental and traditional stuff but it was special and we both acknowledged it. After dropping him off and meeting his cousins there in Window Rock we peaced out and I rolled back into Albq ready to rest. The next day I woke and readied to come back home and fly back into Detroit.

There's hope for the world still yet, regardless of what people say. As long as there's a kinship amongst all of nature, humans included, we will be smiled upon. Be under the smile.

Wado

Here are some good resources to follow up with and folks to follow:

NIRS - New legislation offers hope – and urgency – for uranium mining survivors

Don’t Nuke the Climate - Leave Uranium in the Ground

Disruption of Life Cycles in Blue Gap-Tachee Community, Navajo Nation

Tachee/Blue Gap community continues push for uranium site cleanup

Environmental Groups Gain Court Victory Over Peabody Coal on Black Mesa

Nuclear Colonialism in the Southwest? Haul No!

Pinyon Plain/Canyon Mine & Grand Canyon Colonialism Timeline