Closure of mine wipes out tribe jobs

BLACK MESA, Ariz. — The gigantic earth-moving crane sits idle, a 5,500-ton behemoth stilled by a legal, cultural and environmental dispute playing out far from the rich vein of coal beneath the desert of remote northeastern Arizona.

The rig, known as a dragline, may never again scrape the earth's surface at the Black Mesa Mine to get at the coal beneath the Hopi and Navajo lands.

Some welcome the idling of the earth-gobbling beast, a symbol, they say, of the rape of the land and precious water below. Others, mostly American Indians who have come to depend on the high-paying jobs at the mine, are furious.

For 35 years, the Black Mesa Mine has produced coal for a power plant in southern Nevada. But it suspended operations at the end of December, ending the jobs of nearly 200 people.

Most of them are members of the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe whose livelihood and dreams depend on work at the mine, jobs that pay as much as $80,000 a year in wages and benefits, 10 times the average annual income on the reservations.

The mine is ceasing work indefinitely because the sole power plant it supplies, the Mohave Generating Station 273 miles away in Laughlin, Nev., is shutting down under a legal agreement with environmental groups that sued because of repeated pollution violations.

The power plant is owned by four utilities that have balked at paying the estimated $1 billion in upgrades to comply with the court order and keep the plant operating.

One idled worker is Myrata Cody, 48, a heavy equipment operator at Black Mesa for the past 27 years. She is a Navajo and a single mother, providing support for three children and her aging parents. Her anger at losing her job drives her to tears.

"This income is the only thing I have," she said. "There is no power line to my house, no phone line, no running water. Everybody else has everything at the tip of their hands."

She reserved particular ire for the environmentalists who went after the owners of the power plant to try to stop the thick plume of smoke and noxious chemicals it has poured into the atmosphere for decades. The groups contended that the emissions fouled the air over the Grand Canyon and threatened the health of people who lived downwind.