TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT PEABODY ENERGY

As COVID 19 sweeps across the Navajo Nation, access to basic human needs has become of paramount importance. In the remote areas of the Navajo and Hopi nations – Black Mesa– being able to wash your hands is a difficulty that most of us in the U.S do not have to worry about. This has directly impacted the health of the Dineh and Hopi people’s ability to keep themselves and their families safe from the Coronavirus. Running water from municipal sources is impossible as the home sites are too remote to pipe water in. Families and elders have to travel miles to collect and haul water in barrels to use at home.

Racism and the exploitation of natural resources on the Navajo reservation has a long and sordid history. Peabody Energy (formerly Peabody Western Coal Company) is a large multi-national company that has fully exploited poverty and racism to exploit the natural resources, i.e., coal that lies underneath the surface on the reservation. For more than 40 years, Peabody Energy pumped billions of gallons of pristine groundwater from the N-aquifer to slurry coal from its mining operations, named the Kayenta mine, on Big Mountain 273 miles to the Mojave Generating Station. Controversy has surrounded this operation.

The environmental impact has been devastating to the people, animals, and the environment. Springs and natural water sources that were used for drinking, washing, watering of animals etc have dried up to the extent that people now have to drive miles to collect potable water for household use. Growing food is near impossible with no natural water source for irrigation. Often people do not have the money for gas or a truck that is operational to carry barrels of water. Many are elderly and sick from the mining operations, many have or have died from black lung, or have cancer from years working unprotected in the Uranium mines. As the Coronavirus attacks the respiratory system, the impact from the coal mine on those living in the area has also put this population at greater risk from the disease.

The environmental impact reports can be seen here.

https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/draw.pdf

Not only did Peabody ignore signs that they were depleting the aquifer, and thereby threatening the Navajo and Hopi access to clean drinkable water, they extended invasive mining operations in Black Mesa.

Peabody has yet to pay any restitution to the Navajo and Hopi people and to those specifically impacted living in remote areas. In 2019, Peabody Energy made over $4 billion in profit, first-quarter earnings of 2020 state totaled revenues totaled $846.2 million. This petition calls on Peabody to pay adequate restitution to the Dineh and Hopi peoples directly (not through any government entity) and fund a restoration to the natural environment for wildlife, fauna, and flora impacted by the loss of water. Corporations should no longer be able to profit from the exploitation and annihilation of our natural world.

The originators of this petition are not collecting donations for this issue. All negotiations and funds should be directed to the Forgotten Navajo People's and the Traditional Hopi Elders themselves who have been severely impacted by Peabody’s operations for years. The purpose of this petition is to collect signatures to pressure Peabody to finally do the right thing and spend some of its billions in profit, providing for the people and animals whose lives they assaulted.

Links to more info

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coronavirus-is-attacking-the-navajo-because-we-have-built-the-perfect-human-for-it-to-invade/?fbclid=IwAR1zBsrAuTHTRMSI6Tgsf9odIAd_hy1YWgYoUoBMFMcgN17Xsd4Ny2scScI​

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271216/revenue-of-peabody-energy-since-2005/#:~:text=Peabody%20Energy%20Corporation%20is%20the,some%204.6%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars.​

https://www.ndoh.navajo-nsn.gov/COVID-19​

https://www.peabodyenergy.com/Home/Company-News-1065

Declaration of Nathalie (Medicine Man) Norris Nez to UN Rapporteur: Land, Resources and Forced Relocation 

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/05/hathalie-medicine-man-norris-nez-to-un.html

Board of Directors: Bob Malone, (Chairperson), Michael Sutherlin, Dave Miller, Glen Kellow (CEO), Stephen Gorman, Nicholas Chirekos, Andrea Bertone, Samantha Algaze. 

President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Peabody, Glenn Kellow at Peabody makes $7,610,820 annually.