Copyright © 2000 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

I would like to respond to Peabody Vice President, Vic Svec's letter to the Editor in the August 30 2000 edition of the Navajo Hopi Observer.

Mr. Svev accuses me of trivializing American Indian history. The holocost is real. Joseph William Singer, an eminent legal scholar, along with other experts call it an Indian holocost. As for my ability to write good fiction about a coal conspiracy, Professor Charles Wilkinson, and other legal authorities cite ample evidence of a coal conspiracy, detailing John Boyden simultaneous role as Counsel for the Hopi Tribe and Peabody Coal while negotiating the mining leases.

While it is correct that Peabody is not currently mining in Big Mountain and may not intend to, Peabody is currently mining in Hopi Partition Land, less than a mile from where Dineh families live. Dineh families facing relocation by the US government.

Peabody claims to inject 2 million dollars a week into tribal communities! What tribal communities? Mr. Svec must mean that 2 million dollars is injected each week into the Navajo and Hopi tribal council operating budgets. It certainly is not going to people living in the mining area, and to current and former employees suffering from Black Lung, Silicosis and environmental degradation. Certainly it is not funding an environmental health clinic, a library, a youth center or generous funding for a youth scholarship fund.

The real issue, Mr. Svec is that the coal industry will soon be bound by regulations which will greatly hinder continued "unclean" energy production. It is only a matter of time before the US Senate will ratify the Kyoto Protocol, domestically binding Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission limits. This will end subsidies given to the coal industry. If the US Senate does not do this, then the State's will exercise their right to impose a carbon tax, thereby eliminating subsidies for the coal industry. Already, the state of Massachusetts is limiting the importation of "dirty" power.

So is the City of Los Angeles. On May 10, 2000 the AES Corporation (NYSE: AES) announced that it purchased a controlling interest in the Mohave Generating Station. But where will this energy go? Two weeks ago, the Los Angeles City Council supported Dineh resisters in Black Mesa by voting NO to Mohave energy and coal mined in Black Mesa, banning its use in the city of LA. Others will follow.

So what is AES going to do with Mohave energy? AES is planning to sell this energy on an interstate electrical transmission grid that allows coal-fired power plants that should have been shut down years ago to continue operating, grandfathered from implementation of most Clean Air standards. But not for long since Senator Lieberman, democratic Vice Presidential candidate is an advocate for de-grandfathering coal-fired power plants from environmental regulation.

Resource Data International, Inc., in the Fall of 1998 stated, "For the United States to meet the thirty-six percent GHG reduction requirements of the Kyoto Protocol, an estimated thirty-six percent of current coal-fired capacity must be eliminated or replaced by cleaner energy."

Mr. Svev, there is NO future for coal.

Yours sincerely,

/S/ Marsha Monestersky,
Consultant to Sovereign Dineh Nation
Black Mesa, AZ
Phone: (520) 779-1496
E-mail: sdnmarsha@aol.com