Letters | Diné want the truth, what is the leadership hiding?

Diné want the truth, what is the leadership hiding?

Editor,
I am encouraging concerned Navajos to join the grassroots people to protest outside the tribal Council Chamber in Window Rock, Arizona, on Thursday May 23, 2024, against the proposed AZ/NM Water Rights legislations, that are bad for our Diné people.

What are the DOJ, the Council delegates, and the president and his staff deceptively hiding from the people? Tell them to come clean! It appears that they are actually lobbying for the state of Arizona and outside energy corporations.

Is it a coincidence a Navajo Nation Energy Summit is scheduled for Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 4-6, 2024? This obviously has been in the works for some time and designed to coincide with the approval of the current Water Rights settlement. All energy companies require large quantities of water for fracking and other extractive activities. The DOJ and Water Rights Team’s claim that they knew nothing about the Energy Summit is a flat out lie in line with the deception. The DOJ and staff represent both the Water Rights Team and all the Navajo Nation departments, so they should be in the loop on all Navajo Nation ventures. If they don’t know what the left hand is doing from the right hand, then they should step down because they are not doing their job. Also, if you believe they don’t lie, look at what is going on with the top-down cover-up of all the abuse cases/investigations going on in Window Rock.

The upcoming Energy Summit demonstrates our own Navajo Nation leadership together with Navajo Nation Oil and Gas and NTEC, and some, but not all, Council delegates want to return to fossil fuel on Navajo, an industry that has literally destroyed our homeland as well as our precious water – water that belongs to the Navajo people and future generations of our people. As before, the Navajo Nation will again get pennies on the dollar, in exchange for a destroyed homeland. Look all around at the hundreds of abandoned mines that have yet to be reclaimed!

Outside entities especially the state of Arizona could care less about Dinétah. These outside energy companies wait like vultures for the large profits they will get from our clueless Navajo government again. We need to find out the names of all those Navajo Nation officials who are behind this major deception and vote them out of office.

Remember we are all on borrowed time from our children and their children. We want our sacred water because water is life, but we want it, more so, for our children, who will need it years from now. Our children don’t want to inherit contaminated, tainted water and land. They want clean water and land that is free of contaminated landfills, rivers, lakes, and un-remediated waste ponds that have been left behind by the greedy fossil fuel industries. We need those Council delegates, who do care for their children and future generations, to step up and vote these bad legislations down, or at least table them until more of our Diné people can be educated about the deception behind this administration’s real agenda and distorted information campaign.

The Navajo people want the truth, they want ”free, prior and informed consent,” not the propaganda the water rights team has been calling public education. Call your respective Council delegate to do the right thing. And stop creating jobs that destroy Navajo water!

Ed Becenti
St. Michaels, Ariz.

‘Extremely disturbed’ with Tallgrass Energy/GreenView

Editor,
This is a letter sent to the Council delegates, the Resources and Development Committee members, and members of the 13 chapters that would be affected by a proposed 200-mile hydrogen pipeline. The oil and gas company Tallgrass, operating through its subsidiary GreenView, is currently seeking approval for the pipeline from Navajo Nation leadership.

Dear Resources and Development Committee:
We are a diverse group of community members across many of the thirteen chapters that would be impacted by GreenView’s proposed hydrogen pipeline in the Navajo Nation. On April 5 and April 21, 2024, we respectfully requested a meeting with the Resources and Development Committee to discuss GreenView’s proposed project. We also raised serious concerns about alleged unethical practices by GreenView in the company’s engagement with community members, including grazing permit holders.

We have yet to receive any response from you. Our understanding is that RDC plans to vote in the near future on a resolution of support for GreenView’s proposed project. We are extremely disturbed that RDC is apparently prepared to weigh in on a massive project with long-term ecological and health implications for Navajo Nation residents without so much as meeting with affected community members.
Navajo Nation leadership has had in-depth, lengthy engagements with GreenView. RDC held an all-day work session with GreenView/Tallgrass on April 22. The company also met with the Office of the President & Vice-President on March 11. Our local and Council Delegate leaders have been speaking directly with GreenView but have failed to afford us the same access and opportunities to meet. We respectfully remind Navajo Nation leaders that they are accountable to us—the constituents who elected them into office and whose interests they are charged with representing. It is not acceptable for our leaders to ignore our repeated requests to be heard.

Navajo Nation leadership apparently expects us to engage in dialogue with GreenView rather than with our elected leaders. We reject this model of community engagement. To be clear, we have been engaging with Greenview/Tallgrass and its allied organization Four Corners Clean Energy Alliance at our local chapters for over a year now, and we feel that these engagements have gone nowhere. In the last couple of weeks, GreenView has reached out to us regarding the concerns we raised in our letters to you and has requested “listening sessions.” Meanwhile, we have heard nothing from you, our Navajo Nation Council leaders—even as you appear poised to vote on a resolution of support for the company’s project. We must respectfully insist on speaking directly with you, our elected officials, before we engage in any further discussions with GreenView.

Finally, we remind you that the Navajo Nation Council is required by law to lead with the central tenets of Diné Philosophy. 1 N.N.C. § 201 (Declaration of the Foundation of Diné Law) and 1 N.N.C. § 205 (Diné Natural Law) make clear that the Navajo Nation must respect and protect Nihimá Nahasdzáán (Mother Earth) and its Diné people. This includes authentic community engagement with us, the impacted grassroots Diné, after our repeated requests to engage with you, our elected leaders.
Once again, we ask to meet with you at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,
Community members from across the thirteen affected chapters
T’iis Názbąs Collaborative Coalition C 4 Ever Green
Environmental Justice Clinic, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

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