Kayenta residents challenge Black Mesa water project
Navajo Times | Krista Allen
A sign marks the entrance to the former Kayenta Mine on Black Mesa.
KAYENTA
Inside the Kayenta Chapter House, a France-based company spent more than four hours laying out its vision for a pumped-storage hydropower project on Black Mesa, while community members pushed back in English and Navajo with charts, family histories and warnings about water that no longer runs.
The proposal, advanced by Nature & People First America and founder Denis Payre, would place reservoirs at the top and bottom of the mesa south of Kayenta. Water would be pumped uphill with lower-cost daytime solar power and released downhill in the evening through turbines to generate electricity during peak demand.
Company handouts distributed at the meeting described the proposal under the banner “Water and Jobs in Kayenta,” with at least 100 permanent jobs for a century, more than 1,000 construction jobs and water for grazing and farming.
Payre said the site was chosen because of what the closure of the coal economy left behind.
“There is a huge need for economic development because of the closure of the coal mines,” he said. “The social impact has been really bad, and people lost their jobs.”
His company is backed in France by the infrastructure fund Meridiam.
To read the full article, please see the July 2, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
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