Advocates from across the Navajo Nation gathered in front of the nation’s council meeting hall in Window Rock, Arizona on Monday, hoping to tell Navajo President Buu Nygren how frustrated and disappointed they are by his abrupt endorsement of Donald Trump’s executive order aiming to reinvigorate the nation’s coal industry.
But Nygren was in Washington, D.C. As part of his “engagement with our federal partners,” his office said on social media, so he couldn’t address the Navajo Nation Council for its first meeting. That left advocates even more frustrated, they said, that they couldn’t speak to Nygren about their concerns.
Advocates in speeches Monday pointed to the Nygren administration’s recent confidential agreement with uranium company Energy Fuels, which allows the company to transport uranium ore across the Navajo Nation for a price and in exchange for the company’s promise to clean up abandoned uranium mines across the Navajo Nation.
Because of the late January agreement, several trucks carrying uranium ore and other material traverse the western side of the Navajo Nation most days, carrying the material from a mine near the Grand Canyon to a mill in Utah.
The agreement would also apply to the eastern side of the Navajo Nation, which falls in New Mexico, if a proposed massive uranium mine near Mount Taylor is ever approved for operation. That project, called the Roca Honda Mine, is now a “priority project” at the Cibola National Forest, thanks to Trump’s executive order seeking to boost domestic energy production.
In addition to the uranium transport agreement, advocates on Monday also noted that Nygren last week endorsed Trump’s “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” executive order and took a selfie with him during the signing ceremony.
Advocate Percy Deal spoke at the rally Monday in English and Navajo, saying Peabody Energy’s coal mining operations beginning in the 1960s have drained an untold amount of water from aquifer vital to in his community on the Black Mesa plateau in northeast Arizona for generations, plus contributed to climate change.
So he was surprised and alarmed that Nygren, whom he called “Hastiin Bich’ah Lizhinigii” in Navajo or “the man in the black hat” in English, would endorse executive orders boosting coal production from Trump, “Mr. yellow hair,” without consulting people like him who have been so harmed by coal extraction.
“All these things probably are now in the hands of Mr. yellow hair. The sad thing is that Hastiin Bich’ah Lizhinigii never spoke to any of us. Never did,” Deal told attendees. “He’s got a vehicle here furnished by the tribe. He could have gone out to, for example, the Black Mesa and talked to us.”
Nygren’s spokesperson, Alistair Bitsoi, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the group’s criticism Monday afternoon. But Nygren in a letter published Monday on social media defended his endorsement of Trump’s energy executive orders.
“I accepted the invitation (to the White House) because the three executive orders that President Trump signed are intended to advance America’s dominance in energy,” Nygren wrote. “The Navajo Nation shares the goal of American energy dominance because the Navajo Nation has for 100 years been a part of the energy framework of the United States.
“Our lands have natural resources and transmission lines, also known as the grid. We will forever be part of the American energy framework and therefore Navajo’s voice and involvement in these discussions is required,” he wrote.
Advocates said that Nygren’s latest endorsements are a stark contrast from language on his website listing his priorities for the environment, which begins by saying, “Mitigating the effects of climate change on Navajo land is our responsibility, and the Nygren Administration will ensure Navajo community voices are empowered in protecting our water, air and land.”
Larry J. King, who grew up in Church Rock, said at the rally that he once worked in uranium mines in New Mexico and in 1979 he witnessed the United Nuclear spill there, which is the largest accidental release of radiation in United States history. He told Source New Mexico that Nygren, who took office in January 2023, repeatedly promised during his election to clean up uranium mine waste from his community at Red Water Pond but then ignored his calls.
That’s one reason King said he does not believe Nygren’s promises that the new transport agreement will result in the cleanup of legacy uranium mines in areas like Red Water Pond. For one thing, he’s skeptical of “high-pressure slurry ablation,” which Navajo Nation officials have touted as an emerging treatment method for the cleanup process.
King noted that Nygren endorsed Kamala Harris and traveled with the Democratic delegation to the Democratic convention last year. He said he sees Nygren’s latest endorsements as a betrayal of his promises and his constituents.
“He’s just making a turnaround, and in support of all this industry wanting to come and desecrate,” he said. “A repeat of what we’ve been through trying to remedy the situation from the last 30 to 40 years. He’s just, he’s going back.”
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