Navajo Council Hears Message on the Wind: 
It's Earth Day. Be sure to honor your Mother 

WINDOW ROCK — When the Diné Medicine Men Association met in Window Rock earlier this month to air their opposition to use of reclaimed "sewer water" to make snow on the sacred San Francisco Peaks, it rained and snowed above the nation's capital. Thursday as the Navajo Nation Council took up an amendment to the Navajo version of the Clean Air Act, the power of the wind was felt in Window Rock. When delegates broke for lunch in the afternoon, they heard the howl of the wind at the Council Chamber doors and opened them only to be greeted by a blast of sand in the face. What was the message on the wind?

"It's Earth Day. Don't forget to honor your Mother."

Apparently Council heard the call.

"I would have to say that Earth Day has been pretty good here on Navajo," said Stephen Etsitty, Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency (NNEPA) executive director.

In a 68-1 vote, the 20th Navajo Nation Council approved an amendment to the Navajo Nation Air Pollution Prevention and Control Act, giving the Navajo EPA executive director authority to enter into a voluntary compliance agreement with a facility to regulate air pollution sources where jurisdiction is in dispute, such as the case with APA Four Corners Power Plant and SRP Navajo Generating Station.

"You're familiar with the adage, 'Pollution knows no boundaries'?" Etsitty asked. "In air quality, I think that best exemplifies that situation where you have sources off the reservation that have impacts." The amendment approved Thursday "just gives us another tool to address some of those issues later on if it gets to a point where we have to do something.

"We needed this tool in this act. It's a tool that is in a lot of the other Navajo environmental laws, and it was just left out. This Navajo Nation Clean Air Act was one of the first Navajo environmental laws that was passed. So now we're happy that we have this additional tool in our tool kit."

Etsitty said he shares Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr.'s concern that "Earth Day is Every Day," and one goal is to get out to the communities and engage them in cleanup efforts. "We know there is a lot of need out there, and a lot of concerns about solid waste continue. They're well-founded. With the resources that we can bring to the situation, we try and live that motto: 'Earth Day is Every Day.'"

On April 13 in a letter to Council Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan, Orlanda Smith-Hodge, delegate from Cornfields/Greasewood/Klagetoh/Wide Ruins chapters, informed Morgan that Navajo EPA would deliver literature, clean-up materials, trash bags, and gloves to the offices of Council delegates. Smith-Hodge asked that all delegates "participate in cleanup of our Mother Earth by picking up trash within their communities over the weekend ..." Smith Hodge said a trash bin would be provided for disposal of the trash on April 19 start of the spring session.

Etsitty offered his thanks to the council for supporting the amendment, and thanked "Smith-Hodge and her leadership within the council for bringing the issue of Earth Day and offering a challenge to the delegates to do something to help Mother Earth during this week."

As EPA executive director, Etsitty said it is his job to implement the president's environmental agenda.

"One of the major ones is to clean up the reservation, and we do that on a daily basis," he said. "I appreciate all the work that all of the communities have done. We're looking to work with more communities directly and get them to use their own devices to do more community-oriented effort. I applaud all of the communities that have done something this year, and we hope to just work with other communities so that they're able to do more next year."

Though it takes initial effort from Window Rock to get things rolling, Etsitty said, "We have more communities doing things that aren't relying on Window Rock so much."

The majority of changes to the Navajo Clean Air amendment were to correct typographical errors and section numbering. Besides the added voluntary enforcement provision, other substantive changes amended the definition of air pollution and enforcement of daily maximum fine from $25,500 per day to $32,500 per day to bring it more in line with the federal Clean Air Act.

"Tidying up" the law for Navajo EPA's Air Quality Control Program will make it easier for the program to obtain primacy when the time is right, according to Etsitty.

"There's been a lot of work done to implement the EPA's ability now to delegate primacy to tribes under the Clean Air Act. So there's been a whole slew of regulations, and even though our act was passed in 1995 initially, there's been changes that we need to now reflect in our law so that it is more consistent," Etsitty said.

"Every program here that works under a federal regulatory scheme, where we have an opportunity to go for primacy, basically every one of them is working on doing just that. The Navajo Air Quality Program is no different. They've been working on this for 10 years," he said.

The Navajo drinking water program, or Public Water Supply Supervision Program, was the first to achieve primacy, Etsitty said. "We're hoping that in the next year or two we will have three additional programs where we have primacy."