The Navajo Generating Station smoke stacks in Page, Arizona came crumbling down today. The smoke stacks were created for the energy needs of Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and other off-reservation metropolitan cities. But the demand for energy shifted toward renewable energy over the last years, making the generating station no longer profitable. 2020 has been a strange year with health pandemics, high death tolls, economic hits, and shifts in energy demand. Peabody Coal made millions of dollars and some of the royalties were paid to the Navajo and Hopi tribes. All that came to an end in 2020. As you travel around the Navajo reservation, one begins to see that the pollution-emitting smoke stacks surround the Navajo reservation in the bordertowns. Besides the Page smoke stack, there are generating stations in Joseph City, Arizona (near Holbrook) and Waterflows, New Mexico. The smoke from these stations blow over the reservation causing respiratory problems such as asthma to its residents.
The federal government, through its mining, also released a lot of uranium into the air and water which to this day contaminates the water and air on the reservation. And there's still people who want to mine uranium for profit. This is not to mention the biggest nuclear disaster from 1970's occurring in Church Rock, New Mexico. That was never really cleaned up by the government. More recent, the San Juan River was contaminated in the Gold King Mine Spill, and the Trump Administration allowed the disposal of foreign nuclear waste near Aneth, Utah on the northern edge of the Navajo Nation. America needs to stop this environmental racism. Although some people may think that the racism is directed at certain groups of people, we all need to realize that this goes around full circle.
