How trashy is the rez going to get?
By Cassandra Raye Chee
Special to the Times
FLAGSTAFF, Aug. 18, 2011
I think about the beautiful Chuska Mountains, the red canyon walls, the arroyos, the colorful lakes, the rivers and the endless sight of the painted reservation desert.
Even though I live in Flagstaff, the Navajo Reservation is home to me and I find it a powerful place for healing.
On that note, it's disheartening to drive through the reservation and see all that trash on the side of the road.
There's trash building up in ditches, alongside businesses, near residential homes, by the highway and most of them are empty bottles that announce to the traveling people they exist in the bright sunlight.
I think about how ironic it is that my Diné continue to ignore this issue and at the same time people are at the San Francisco Peaks trying to defend a sacred mountain.
In Flagstaff, activists and American Indian people are working together in growing numbers trying to stop the Snowbowl ski area from making fake snow with sewage effluent.
They're making a stand because they know the American Indian people think the environment is precious to them, especially the Diné to the point where the people are donating money, food and time to help.
On their Facebook page is what is called Nuvatukya Ovi, which in Hopi means the San Francisco Peaks. It declares, "I have considerable religious significance to thirteen local American Indian tribes (including the Havasupai, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni). In particular, I form the Navajo sacred mountain of the west, called the Dook'o'oosl''d."
Another Facebook page declares, "Protect the Peaks! Defend the Sacred! Stop Spiritual Desecration and Environmental Destruction."
Those people took it upon themselves to make a difference. Why can't my Diné do the same?
Start by picking up the trash around your area and fishing out a couple of dollars to dispose of it properly.
I asked a number of Navajos at the Wal-Mart in Flagstaff what they thought about the trash on the Navajo Nation.
Andrea Begaye, 32, who's from Wheatfields, Ariz., said, "I've had it with people dumping trash behind my grandpa's house.
"He's so old now," she said. "When he was younger he use to haul the trash away, but now he just sits there helplessly watching people drive past his house with truck loads of trash."
Jeremy Yazzie, 29, who lives in Tempe, Ariz., and was traveling home to Chinle said, "I'm embarrassed to bring my friends home with me because I see all that trash on the side of the road when I'm heading towards the canyon right before you turn towards Holiday Inn."
He said that people from all over the world come to see Canyon de Chelly.
"It's ugly and disgusting," Yazzie said. "I want to come home after I'm done with school, but there needs to be a change. I don't want to live with trash."
According to the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, open burning and illegal dumping are serious environmental issues on the reservation.
Lilli Lane, public information officer for NNEPA's Resource Conservation & Recovery Program, said, "On a community's request, we can provide gloves and trash bags and in the past we also provided masks for heavy dumping sites."
Information: 928-871-7923.