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The Zuni people are not alone in their efforts to protect their sacred lake.
Last July, runners from five Southwest tribes conducted a three-day,
270-mile ceremonial run from Phoenix to the Zuni Pueblo to highlight
the struggle. Other organizations pledged their assistance: "The
700,000 members of the Sierra Club stand with the Zuni people,"
promised Andy Bessler, the Club’s Southwest environmental-justice
organizer. A member of the Zuni
Salt Lake Coalition, the Club joins the Citizens Coal Council,
the Center for Biological Diversity, the Water Information Network,
Tonatierra, the Seventh Generation Fund, and Friends of the Earth
in bringing grassroots pressure on government officials, both within
New Mexico and nationally. The coalition has organized marches,
postcard campaigns, and radio ads in English, Spanish, Navajo, Hopi,
Apache, and Zuni, asking the Salt River Project to drop its plans
for the coal mine and focus instead on alternative energy sources,
such as wind and solar.
The runners to the Zuni Pueblo brought with them prayers for the Zuni leaders
who then traveled to Washington, D.C., to testify before the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs on the federal government’s failure
to protect Native American sacred sites. (To read the Senate testimony
of Zuni governor Malcolm Bowekaty, go to http://indian.senate.gov/2002hrgs/071702hrg/bowekaty.PDF.)
In answer to their pleas, Representative Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) has
introduced H.R. 5155, a bill calling for the protection of Native
American sacred sites, including Zuni Salt Lake. For more information,
visit www.zunisaltlakecoalition.org
or contact Andy Bessler, P.O. Box 38, Flagstaff, AZ 86002; (928)
774-6103; andy.bessler@sierraclub.org.
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