Coalition
works to bring renewable energy to northern AZ
Submitted by Just Transition
Coalition
Special to the Observer
1/30/07
FLAGSTAFF-Navajo and Hopi tribal members, regional and
national renewable energy experts gathered at Northern
Arizona University (NAU) on Jan. 17-19 for the first
step in bringing renewable energy to northern Arizona's
Indian lands on a grand scale.
The Community Tribal Investment Workshop, assembled
by the Flagstaff-based Just Transition Coalition, was
an attempt in part to position the tribes to receive
millions of dollars following the closure of the Mojave
Generating Station. The workshop participants believe
there is no better way to reinvest money from past coal
operations than to build a renewable energy program.
By the end of the workshop, the group of approximately
50 participants had sketched plans for a task force
to oversee the development of a multi-level renewable
energy program for the reservations. The summit also
yielded copious directives for the task force, ranging
from the preservation of core cultural values to various
legal, political and outreach strategies to use in building
renewable energy programs.
Nationally recognized Native author Winona LaDuke participated
in some of the breakout sessions following her own presentation
and complimented the participants. "I'm going to
support you as you go on," she said.
"We have a positive direction we can go. We're
doing a good thing," said Andy Bessler, Southwest
tribal partnership representative for the Sierra Club
in Flagstaff. "Having something like this gives
me hope that we can provide help...to make people's
lives better. Renewable energy is a way to do that."
During the course of the workshop, participants attended
several informational talks about the myriad intricacies
of renewable energy policy. Among the presenters were
Bob Gough, co-director of Native Wind; Winona LaDuke,
program director of the Honor the Earth Fund; Dick Lowry,
policy analyst at Sharp Solar; and Debby Tewa, Renewable
and Tribal Energy coordinator for the Arizona Department
of Commerce Energy Office. Following the presentations,
workshop participants broke into various subgroups based
on their expertise and interests in order to record
their experiences and suggestions for the new task force.
The task force will be partly comprised of representatives
from the groups that convened the workshop, including
Northern Arizona University, the Just Transition Coalition,
Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club, Black Mesa Water Coalition,
Native Movement and the Natural Resource Defense Council.
Its members will be charged to expand on the input from
the workshop as it creates a detailed business proposal
for renewable energy programs on northern Arizona's
Indian reservations.
In part, such a plan will serve as a tool for justifying
the acquisition of funds from the closure of the Mojave
Generating Station. And when it's implemented, the plan
could result in any number of scenarios for the buildout
of Native renewable energy, from converting the generating
station to a solar or wind-solar hybrid plant, to empowering
rural reservation families to invest in small-scale
renewable energy systems, to manufacturing sufficient
sustainably-generated electricity to sell to nearby
power grids, including Flagstaff's.
Participants were adamant that such a plan would incorporate
tribal spiritual and community values, including honesty
and sustained efforts to support and empower people
at the levels of families and villages, as well as entire
tribes.
Bessler acknowledged that it's an ambitious effort,
but he mirrored the optimism of the rest of the participants
when he said, "There's no road map. There's no
blueprint. We're just doing it." The atmosphere
of the summit was optimistic and charged, with many
participants staying until the tail end of the talks
at 5 p.m. on Friday.
Roger Clark, Air and Energy Program Director for the
Grand Canyon Trust and Wahleah Johns of the Black Mesa
Coalition made reference to the spiritual and cultural
notion of planting seeds; in this case the seeds of
renewable energy programs that will help sustain Arizona's
tribes.
"We want to be in partnership," Johns said,
"to share this food." For more information
on the Just Transition Plan, log onto www.blackmesawatercoalition.org.
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