Peabody bankruptcy looms; effect on tribe unclear
The Peabody Coal Mine on Black Mesa, Ariz., has been the focus of a major lawsuit filed by the Navajo Nation against the company and its partners. (Times file photo.)
CHINLE
With Peabody Energy Corporation’s warning on March 17 that it may be the next coal giant to topple, ears are perking up on Navajo.
Asked what effect a bankruptcy would have on the Navajo Nation, where the company’s Kayenta Mine employs more than 400 people and its only customer, the Navajo Generating Station, employs about 500, the corporation’s public relations department would only issue this statement:
“In a challenging market backdrop, Peabody continues its aggressive efforts to improve the business, with a major focus on operational, portfolio and financial initiatives. Our dual financial objectives are to optimize liquidity and deleverage, and we continue to pursue multiple actions on this front.”
But Crystal Deschinny, the tribe’s new director of economic development, said the tribe is closely watching developments at Peabody and scrambling to reduce its dependence on the roller-coaster fossil fuel market.
“We are working out the details regarding the potential shakeout at Peabody,” Deschinny said in a phone interview. “I don’t know all the specifics yet but one of the goals we have for the Nation is to develop and diversify what the tribe has relied on.”
Oil and coal leases and royalties comprise a relatively large portion of the Navajo Nation’s income, but the effects on the families around Black Mesa, where the now-defunct Black Mesa Mine and the still-operating Kayenta Mine are located, are also considerable, said Jennafer Yellowhorse of Black Mesa Coal’ition, a grassroots watchdog group.
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