Uranium Mining and Mt. Taylor

Save a mountain, divide a community
Filed under: Mining, Public Lands, Tribes — Ernie Atencio at 1:11 pm on Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Ernie AtencioNew Mexico’s Mount Taylor, sacred to several tribes and under threat of uranium mining, has been designated (again) as a Traditional Cultural Property (TCP). Uranium mining historically wreaked havoc in the area and left a legacy of environmental destruction and cancer and among miners and residents, including many Native Americans. The Acoma, Hopi, Laguna, Navajo and Zuni tribes requested the designation after a recent flurry of uranium permits and exploration on the 11,301-foot mountain that disturbed some shrines and grave sites.

Uranium is hot in more ways than one right now, climbing from $7 to $130 per pound without declining once since 2003, and sure to threaten other landscapes around the West.

According to the Albuquerque Journal, the public hearing on Saturday at the Grants High School gym divided the community between Indians supporting the designation on one set of bleachers and Anglo and Hispano opposition on the other. Those opposed to the TCP designation worry that it will hinder the economic salvation that mining represents in this impoverished area.

I hope the racial characterization is oversimplified, because issues of land, culture and economy in what we like to imagine as the “New” West are seldom that black and white.

The State Cultural Properties Review Committee made an initial determination in February but had to reconsider after the state attorney general ruled that it did not give adequate public notice. Following hours of heated and impassioned debate on Saturday, the committee reaffirmed its original decision in a 4-2 vote.

A TCP is a designation under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), like, say, a historic district. But it is intended to protect “cultural practices or beliefs of a living community,” not just architecture. A TCP can be a single shrine site or, in this case, an entire sprawling landscape of 422,840 acres of public and private land.

Supporters say that TCP designation will not freeze development, but all proposed projects within the area will have to go through a review by the state Historic Preservation Office to make sure that they do not endanger the cultural values under protection. Imagine the kind of protection historic buildings have and the bureaucratic red-tape you have to go through to change a simple architectural feature. Now imagine trying to get a permit to mine uranium in a way that will not endanger the cultural values embodied in the sacred southern peak of the Diné homeland – Tsoodzil – the Acomas’ Kawesktima or the Zunis’ Dewankwi Kyabachu Yalanne.

TCPs, and another NHPA designation called a Rural Historic Landscape, are underused tools that can provide powerful protection for rural lands. They look beyond simple environmental preservation to also recognize cultural values attached to the land. Like some other rural communities that have suffered the brutal economic shift away from industrial mining and logging, the divided community around Mount Taylor might even come to appreciate this protective designation.