BLACK MESA COAL COMPLEX

The notorious Peabody Coal Company is seeking a revised permit for the Black Mesa and Kayenta coal mines, which are located on Arizona’s Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona and together comprise the 95,000-acre Black Mesa Coal Complex. If approved, this large-scale strip-mining operation would mine 670 million tons of coal, allowing the emission of millions of tons of greenhouse gases, depleting aquifers and drinking water supplies and lowering the surrounding area’s water table, draining springs and seeps, and hurting the threatened Little Colorado spinedace and its critical habitat.

The Center appealed the Office of Surface Mining’s permit for expansion of the Black Mesa Coal Complex, and in January 2010 our appeal was granted and the expansion was halted. In response to another appeal, filed by the Center and allies, in December 2009 the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew the water permit for the Black Mesa mine due to its toxic discharges of heavy metal and pollutants.