Navajos Say 'NO!' to Revitalizing the Coal Industry During Forest Lake Hearing

Dine' tell Navajo Council 'NO COAL!'

The Monster has returned, and it is even more grotesque than the one before. Dine' remember forced relocation, the loss of water and medicine plants, and the loss of loved ones. Navajos say 'No!; to Trump and Navajo President Buu Nygren's push for coal.

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, June 1, 2025

FOREST LAKE, Navajo Nation -- Dine' told the Navajo Nation Council that the coal industry has cost them their aquifer water, and their health. Combined with uranium mining, they have lost their loved ones to widespread cancer and black lung disease killing their people. Dine' remembered forced relocation and the stripping of the forest by Peabody Coal, during a hearing on Friday.

The Navajo Council was told to stand up for future generations, or step aside.

"The Navajo Nation has provided coal to the big cities for decades, while the people of Black Mesa have nothing to show for it," Dine' from Black Mesa told the Council.

"We are supposed to be the Protectors of the Earth."

During the day-long hearing at Forest Lake Chapter on Black Mesa, Dine' said Navajo President Buu Nygren should have come here and talked with the people, before going to Washington and partnering with Trump to revitalize the coal industry.

Louise Benally of Big Mountain told the hearing that you can't trust what Trump is telling you because he'll change whatever he says in the next sentence. Louise said he has no concept of what being a human is.

"Keep your prayers and your language, those are the things that really matter for us indigenous people," said Louise. She and her family spent their lives resisting forced relocation brought by Peabody Coal's mining on Black Mesa.

"Everyone was opposed to another coal mining, it's not good for anything, and it is causing greenhouse gases to continue to rise," Louise told Censored News.

"Doctor Nygren doesn't know that. He needs a hogan level of education."

"Climate change is so, important to every living thing, we need to be finding solutions not making things worse."

A young Dine' woman from Black Mesa said, "This is where my ancestors have lived and stewarded the land with their animals, and where I will do the same."

"Winters now bring hardly any snow."

Speaking for the water, she told the Navajo Nation Council, "Today you are borrowing from us just to keep a few dollars in the government and saddling my generation and future generations, for which there will be no solutions."

Climate change is accelerating the changes, she said, adding that the new fossil fuel projects are not the answer. She worries about the air and the water so life can continue here. "I just want to live the rest of my life on Black Mesa, and I don't know how that is going to happen."

Percy Deal, Dine' of Black Mesa, said Navajo President Buu Nygren should have come to the people, and talked with the people to seek their opinion and review his plans, as the Navajo Council is doing today, before going to Washington and endorsing the push for new coal development.

Deal said he was a high school senior when the coal mining began. The people here on Black Mesa were never told about Peabody Coal's before the lease was signed.

"The people were never told about the water being subjected to contaminated," Deal said of Peabody Coal's mining on Black Mesa, pointing out that traditional herbs began to disappear, it became hard to grow food, the air was changing, and the snow was vanishing.

"The ground was drying up, the cornfields were less productive."

"Wild animals were disappearing, the air was changing."

Speaking eloquently, Dine' elders and youths described the destruction brought there by Peabody Coal.

"There is no such thing as clean coal," a Black Mesa community member said. She pointed out that while Peabody Coal ripped through the land, Dine' here were forced to haul their water.

-- Watch live on Tó Nizhóní Ání, Sacred Water Speaks

https://www.facebook.com/tonizhoniani

-- Part II https://www.facebook.com/tonizhoniani/videos/1203702101240498/

-- Part III (after lunch) https://www.facebook.com/tonizhoniani/videos/1445953923063551

-- Watch live on Navajo Nation Council Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/navajonationcouncil/videos/1385171825861649

"Tó Nizhóní Ání thanked the coal-impacted communities that made it to the Public Hearing on Coal hosted by the Forest Lake Chapter.

"There were over 50 individuals who made comments today. Thank you to the Speakers’ Office for organizing this event and the three council delegates who joined us today. Stay tuned for our full recap of this event."

The Navajo Nation Council said the purpose of the hearing is to gather public input from the Navajo Nation on the federal executive order 14261,’Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Amending Executive Order 14241,’ which is aimed at revitalizing the coal industry by reducing federal oversight and expanding coal production.

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