The fundamental aim of the Water Is Life project is to empower the grassroots communities in the southwest region of the Navajo and Hopi Nations. They and other regional stakeholders will participate in a peacemaking process focused on water resource issues of importance to them. Peacemaking will work with these issues through developing relationships among all of the stakeholders involved in water resources, helping to create respect and cooperation through a comprehensive goal identification and change realization process.
Commercial interests operating in the Navajo and Hopi Nations have a definite need to use water to meet public demand for electric power. Regional municipalities require water for their populations. On the other hand, local Native American communities experience a lack of water and basic services. Our goal is to reconcile the differences between the numerous stakeholders with interests in the water lying beneath the Navajo and Hopi Nations. We aspire toward collaborative management of the resource, with accountability and trust.
Water resources are sacred in the Native American sense of conservation, contrasted with a prosaic public utility view of water use. For Navajo and Hopi people, water is the central element of life and heart of their spiritual belief. Fire is sacred, water is sacred, air is sacred and the plants that grow are sacred according to their spiritual tenets. As it interacts with Native communities and stakeholders, the Water Is Life Peacemaking Project will be guided by the Dinè intrinsic cultural principle of Kè or clanship. It will seek to honor traditional Navajo and Hopi traditional belief systems as it carries out the peacemaking process.
Project Context
Black Mesa: Black Mesa is located in northeastern part of Arizona within the boundaries of the Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations. This high desert region is home to diverse vegetation of sagebrush, pinon and juniper trees and has been the cultural land base for the Dinè and Hopi people for countless generations. There are thirteen Navajo Chapter Houses (municipal governments) in the Black Mesa area with a total population of 4 0,000 people. This region has been heavily impacted by previous extraction mining and water remains a crucial community concern for Navajo and Hopi citizens due to the heavy water consumption required in mining operations and transport.
Since 1965 Peabody Coal Company has been operating two of the largest coal strip mines on Black Mesa called the Kayenta Mine and Black Mesa Mine. The Navajo and Hopi Nations signed lease agreements with Peabody Coal to permit the use of local groundwater (Navajo Aquifer) and mine an average of 14 million tons of coal per year.
The Black Mesa Mine provides coal to the Mohave Generating Station located in Laughlin, NV. The process for delivery is called “slurry “. Crushed coal is mixed with water and sent through a 273-mile slurry pipeline owned and operated by Black Mesa Pipeline Inc. to power the Mohave Generating Station operated by Southern California Edison Company.
Peabody Coal Company and Black Mesa Pipeline use an average of 3,8 00 acre feet per year of water from Peabody’s wells in the Navajo Aquifer for the slurry. (One acre foot = 325,851 gallons: or size of a football field, one foot deep). This process of transporting coal is unique in the U.S. and has raised local community concerns of drawdown and the sustainability of the Navajo Aquifer because of annual industrial and municipal withdrawals. It is the only source of drinking water for the communities of Black Mesa that naturally meets EPA’s standards for drinking water.
With heavy community opposition of Peabody’s use of aquifer water resources, local Navajo citizens have successfully encouraged the Navajo Nation Council to pass a resolution that would end Peabody Coal Company’s use of the Navajo Aquifer for the slurry pipeline by December 2005. Despite this resolution it is likely that extensions will be granted for continuation of coal mining despite the wishes of the Navajo people. In addition, Mohave Generating Station has a consent decree for the violation of the Clean Air Act in 1999 with the court ruling for MGS to install pollution control scrubber by December 2005 or face closure.
Black Mesa Project: In July 2004, Peabody Coal Company submitted a proposal to the U.S. Office of Surface Mining (OSM) for a “Life of Mine” permit which seeks to combine the two existing permits for the Kayenta and Black Mesa Mines into one permanent permit. Currently the Black Mesa Mine officially operates on a temporary permit that ends in December 2005. With a Navajo Nation resolution opposing the use of the Navajo Aquifer, Peabody Coal Company, Southern California Edison Company, Mohave Generation Station and both Hopi and Navajo Nation governments seek to use another source of water, the Coconino Aquifer (C-Aquifer), to replace the N Aquifer in order to continue use of the coal slurry line and maintain power plant operations.
Southern California Edison has proposed constructing a 120-mile pipeline from Leupp, a Navajo Nation Chapter House, to the Black Mesa Mine taking in 6,000 acre-feet of C-aquifer from a local Leupp well-field . Feasibility studies for use of the C-a quifer have been completed and indicate that a sufficient quantity of water is available for mining use. This proposal has alarmed the communities of Leupp, Hopi and Black Mesa concerning issues of equity and water management. The sentiments range from questioning the decision- making process of the Black Mesa Project to unresolved accountability issues with Peabody Coal Company.
Most families on the Navajo and Hopi reservation do not have basic access to water. The majority of the residents are farmers and ranchers and live in isolated rural regions where water can only be accessed by driving long distances to the nearest water wells and hauled back to their homes in barrels and tanks . The nearest well can be as much as fifty or sixty miles from residential homes.
With pending mining proposals and heated stakeholder water management debates, there is a need for an intervention that will be beneficial to all communities and deliver equitable solutions related to water that are long-term and sustainable.
Such an intervention has been complicated by lack of communication between tribal government and the local grass-roots people and organizations who are most effected by decisions about the allocation of water resources. In addition, grass-roots communities are frustrated because they feel their voice has not been heard by those with decision-making authority and that their views about the sacredness of water have not been acknowledged.
What will CHANGE if the WATER IS LIFE PEACEMAKING PROJECT is successful?
- Navajo and Hopi people will feel included because they will have experienced a new level of respect (ke’) and empathy from their leaders. This will be in response to their participation in and recovery of traditional peacemaking practices and ceremonies.
- Navajo and Hopi people will be better informed and educated about water management issues that effect them and learn to approach them collectively.
- As a result of peacemaking and the use of traditional ceremonies to teach about the sacredness of water, people will experience an awakening of their inner authority that will allow them to speak with a more powerful and unified voice about the equitable distribution of water.
- This process will restore some measure of healing and balance to lives that have been trapped for too long in the anxiety and uncertainty of the neutral zone.
How will the Water Is Life Project help manage Transitions?
The heart of this project is the belief that the resolution of the outer conflict of water rights management will be ineffective or impossible until the Navajo and Hopi people can reclaim their voice by bridging the gap that currently exists between those with decision-making authority and those who have been most effected by past decisions about the distribution of water. Although the Navajo and Hopi have gained much in their interactions with Western culture, there are two important cultural and spiritual connections that have been lost. First, a hierarchal and representative form of governing that emphasizes efficiency has replaced the historical traditions of consensus-building and peacemaking. The primary feeling of many, generated by today’s hierarchal system is one of exclusion. Second, Western thinking and the demonizing of Native spirituality by Christian missionaries has eroded the once strong sacred and deep connection with the earth and the understanding and immediate sympathy and understanding between neighbors.
Using the lens of transition theory we could say that through generations of trauma and isolation many, but not all Navajo and Hopi people, have lost an important connection to the ancient traditions that helped keep their inner lives in balance. This loss has been both unacknowledged and unmanaged by both Western and tribal leaders. This unmanaged transition has inflicted untold harm upon these communities in the form of violent and self-destructive behaviors (alcoholism, domestic violence, extremely high murder and suicide rates, etc.). Without a way to acknowledge losses and without other tools to help manage the conflict and anxiety of the neutral zone, the transition has taken place through destructive symptoms rather than in healing ways. The Western systems and structures that were systematically imposed on Native people to replace traditional ways have not provided them the tools they need to negotiate the neutral zone. The result, according to some, has been the loss of an authentic voice in the allocation of ALL their resources.
This project believes that the beginning of the resolution of the natural resources conflict between stakeholders at all levels will begin to take place when some of the longstanding trauma and isolation of the Dinè people has been healed. We believe that the primary step in this process is restoring the voice (harmony) of the people by educating and reconnecting them to the traditional practices of peacemaking and in so doing, bridge the communication and inclusion gap between tribal authorities and the people.
This model, which will be described in detail below, uses peacemakers and the peacemaking way as a guide to help people through the neutral zone. By grounding this work of community reconciliation in the context of healing ceremonies and rituals (one of Bridge’s methods for getting through the neutral zone), we believe that we can frame and contain the conversations about the sacredness of water in ways that will avoid the explosive charge of current “political” conversations on this subject.
Project Summary:
The new beginning that we hope this project will create is the reawakening of the naast’iin (inner being—inner essence) that will allow the Navajo and Hopi to speak with a more powerful and unified voice to their leaders about the sacred nature of and equitable distribution of water.
Navajo Peacemaking Traditions
Peacemaking is a system based on Dinè (Navajo) culture and traditional narratives, songs, chants, prayers, ritual, and preparation of ritual objects. These are the foundations for planning, decision making, problem-solving and healing. As Dinè people we think the system originates from within the Universe and from the Earth. This unified inner knowledge informs all of our planning, decision -making, problem-solving and healing. We also have rituals and ceremonies that are integral to peacemaking; they are the Naachid (Navajo Traditional Congress) and Naant'aaii (Orating Knowledge to the Masses). These are ancient traditional techniques used during ceremonial gatherings for giving and getting knowledge (Naant'aaii). The Naachid is a vehicle for traditional policy development and leadership. We personify all of creation; the sacred fire, air, water and earth contained in the Universe and Earth. These are our relatives whom we must care for and heal. The Naachid therefore becomes a mechanism for guiding human decision making through respecting and incorporating powerful natural elements into the process.
Traditional peacemakers are Dinè who understand and use power and knowledge to help to problem solve and heal. Peacemaking is currently used by community peacemakers and by peacemakers who are trained by the Navajo Nation Court System. Many peacemakers are self- taught through personal experience. Others have received this knowledge through mentor or apprentice relationships. Traditional knowledge is our usage and application of our common laws taken from historical practices used to organize Navajo society and establish rules of conduct. We believe these traditional societal guides to be sacred knowledge to be employed to help all beings to heal.
In the case of the Navajo and Coconino Aquifer issue, traditional peacemaking will be a central tool in reawakening the inner-being of those people who live in the areas most effected by these water resource concerns. Peacemaking is grounded in Dinè ceremonial traditions and we expect activities of the Water is Life Project to reflect this serious, disciplined, and optimistic cultural heritage.
Water is Life Project Change Plan
The objective of the Water is Life Project is to educate, train, convene and facilitate Navajo citizens in peacemaking practices. These experiences will enable these stakeholders to help resolve water resource and other issues of importance to them. In the course of achieving this objective, Navajo participants will experience a transition into strengthened awareness of, appreciation of, and use of highly effective culturally-based problem resolution techniques.
In order to develop peacemaking skills among Navajo citizens and other stakeholders, Dinè Inc. will conduct a series of traditionally based meetings in three Chapter House locations of the Navajo Nation: Tuba City Chapter, Hard Rock Chapter and Leupp Chapter. These three Chapter Houses are located in areas in which water resources and/or coal mining are central concerns. Meetings will consist of traditional gatherings Naachid (Local Navajo Congress), Naan’taii, (Orating Knowledge to the Masses) and traditional peacemaking sessions. Throughout this training and experiential learning process, data will be gathered in order to improve and refine the peacemaking training. Locally trained peacemakers will ensure that decisions made, consensus formed and commitments regarding the use of peacemaking are carried out in the communities served by the Water is Life Project.
The stakeholders who will be trained through the Water is Life Project may include: citizens of Hard Rock Chapter, Leupp Chapter and Tuba City Chapter and Navajo Nation government officials. Other interested stakeholders will be welcome to participate in peacemaking training sessions if they so desire. All of the stakeholders with interests in Coconino and Navajo Aquifer resources will be invited to participate in the Water is Life peacemaking training to prepare them for interacting with other stakeholders and achieving resolution.
Actions
- Tuba City Chapter
- Hard rock Chapter
- Leupp Chapter
- Seven quarterly peacemaking trainings with the target communities.
- P eriodic peacemaking trainings with Navajo Nation government officials to ensure application and sustainability.
- Project presentation and education through the Naachid and Naant’aaii at Enemy Way, Yeii Bi Chii and Blessing Way ceremonies .
- Equitable distribution peacemaking session including Navajo Nation governmental officials and community members conducted at each Chapter House as the culminating event in each target community .
- Points of Resistance: If the above interventions (change plan) are effective, we realize that we will be creating new endings for many people. Recognizing this, the project has identified those parties that we feel might offer the greatest resistance and who might try to undermine, subvert or sabotage the Water Is Life project.
- Tribal Council and Chapter Officials who might perceive diminished authority; competing BIA philosophies that could be threatened by the perception of greater individual authority.
- E vangelical Christians who have consistently demonized the use or reclamation of native spiritual practices.
- Youth culture, which often embraces popular culture more readily than traditional culture.
- Traditional spiritual leaders who may fear the abuse of traditional knowledge.
- Citizen’s personal financial interests in jobs and family economic security; citizen’s normal fear of change, especially in a culture where imposed change has often brought suffering instead of relief.
- Commercial interest groups (energy companies) looking out for their stockholders and economic interests - this last very powerful group is a real concern for this project insofar as the success of this project would have a very real impact on their prospects for future financial gain.
- During the development/community outreach phase of this project, these resistance points will be used to shape the content communicated to stakeholders. Every effort will be made to address the losses and to soften the blow so as to reduce the potential resistance points. This will be especially true in the development of the peacemaking curriculum .
Methodology
- The Water is Life Project will commence in February 2006 with a 4-month period of staff recruitment, staff training of project personnel, peacemaking curriculum development, discernment of local level of peacemaking knowledge, and field contact assignments . During this period initial Chapter House based peacemaking training sequences will be scheduled . Peacemaking training schedules will be integrated to provide systematic quarterly meetings for each targeted Chapter House. In June, 2006, the initial peacemaking training will occur at each Chapter House . Prior to these meetings, project staff will conduct outreach meetings with key Chapter House leaders to lay the groundwork for successful meetings.
- Naannt’aii: Project information distribution will occur during traditional Naant’aii, ceremonies. The Enemy Way ceremony, Yeii Bi Chii ceremony and other seasonal ceremonies will be used as venue for the Naant’aii process. These ceremonies occur seasonally throughout the project area. The Naant’aii means “to stand proud and provide information to the public attending the Enemy Way ceremonies”. This traditional information dispersal process will provide an opportunity for project staff to address and inform ceremony attendees on the value of peacemaking and begin the process of drawing them into the Chapter House based peacemaking training sessions. T ypically, 100 to 200 participants attend these frequent ceremonies in communities of the Navajo Nation. During the Naant’aii experience, project participants will receive general information on how peacemaking can be used for problem resolution with a focus on Navajo and Coconino Aquifer resources issues. Participants in the ceremonies will be given an opportunity to speak about their experiences with water issues and relate stories concerning the application of peacemaking to meeting their life needs. This dialogue of ideas will include questions and needs regarding the Navajo and Coconino Aquifer water resources providing an opportunity for the Water is Life Project to gather information on local perspectives concerning water resource conflicts. The Naant’aii component of project service delivery will be the initial contact point for the project with communities and will naturally lead toward the more formal Naachid and local formal peacemaking training sessions.
- Naachid: The traditional Navajo congressional process, Naachid, will be held to facilitate development of policy and focus local group efforts toward peacemaking as a problem resolution tool. A Naachid is an independent local gathering facilitated by Dinè (Navajo) medicine people in which issues are discussed from the perspectives of traditional Warrior Leaders and Peace Leaders. The objective of the Naachid is to help form a Navajo national agenda from a local perspective. The agenda for action resulting from the Naachid (Local Congress) will be given to the Water is Life Peacemaking Council for further discussion to help define the scope and inform the project on underlying problems for subsequent project area peacemaking training sessions. A typical Naachid will include: Medicine Man Practitioners and their apprentices, extended family members and other elders, community observers, Peace Leaders (six), Warrior Leaders (six), Water is Life Project staff/ interviewer, Peacemakers, and Coordinators.
- Project Staff and Peacemakers: The Water is Life Peacemaking Council are advisors and consultants to the development and design of the Water is Life peacemaking process and training. The Peacemaking Council consists of four people who are highly experienced and knowledgeable of the Dinè peacemaking process. The Peacemaking Council, in conjunction with the Principal Peacemaker and Coordinating Peacemaker, will be the official peacemakers throughout the duration of peacemaking session. These trainers will have personal knowledge of the traditional Dinè (Navajo) culture and have demonstrated skills in peacemaking. The peacemaking training will be developed by the peacemakers themselves guided by the Project Coordinating Peacemaker. All project peacemakers will take turns, rotationally, attending Naachid, Naant’aii, and local Chapter House peacemaking training sessions. This will help to develop a working knowledge and participation among all project staff.
- Process and Tradition: The content of each series of local peacemaking training sessions will be customized to respond to the specific information and needs obtained from the Naant’aii, Naachid and previous interviews. The peacemaking training sessions will be conducted by one male and one female peacemaker. The process for dispute resolution offered to attendees will be comprised of; 1) Traditional teaching 2) Proper relationships 3) Talking things out 4) The value of the Process of Consensus. The training will teach and model the traditional life way toward healing in conflict situations. The core value of Ke’ becomes vital during the “talking onstage” in peacemaking training. Ke’ is used to establish relation, family, and community. It is used to identify yourself through clanship and defines your relationship to all life. The principles of Ke’ are: respect, sharing, caring, wisdom, responsibility, relationships, compassion, and reciprocity. These key Dinè values will be demonstrated through the Seven Steps of Peacemaking. See below.
The attendees at the local peacemaking session will include: designated representatives from the Naachid and Naant’aii constituencies from the three focus Chapter Houses, Navajo Nation governmental officials and all those with an interest in participating in the peacemaking process. Through merging formal peacemaking training with traditional ceremonial practices trust will be earned by project staff among the target communities before engaging in training events.
- Narrative Gathering: Project staff will be meeting with people in target project areas to hear and gather their stories about peacemaking. They will inquire about community members’ experiences with local peacemaking. The stories will be redacted and presented to peacemakers as they design curriculum and train one another in peacemaking. These stories will also help to set the agenda for the Naachid. We expect to gather approximately 10 rich narratives across a variety of community members from each of the three target Chapter Houses. We expect that respondents will tell us about the local history concerning peacemaking and their personal experiences with using this valuable conflict resolution tool. Additionally the respondents will express their personal concerns with water equity issues affecting their community. The interviews collected will be translated and collated into stories and reports that can then be archived for future reference. The interviews will have historical value for use by the younger generations of Dinè people and future peacemaker.
Transitions Consultant: Ken Downes will work with the Project Peacemaking Coordinator and Principal Peacemaker to arrange for training experiences with staff and peacemakers so that the Transitions framework is understood and incorporated (in a non-intrusive and culturally sensitive way) into the Chapter House peacemaking process. This methodology will become more evident during the description of how endings, neutral zone, and beginnings match up with the seven step peacemaking model described later. Ken, within the normal scope of his support, will also help project staff to consistently apply Transitions as the project develops.
Transitions and Peacemaking: At the center of the peacemaking method (see below), which will be taught and used at local chapter-house gatherings, is a seven-step process that parallels the three stages of transition. Because this process is rooted in the context of ceremony and ritual, it doubles its effectiveness inasmuch as it embodies the helpful qualities of ritual described by William Bridges in managing the neutral zone.
Steps one through three of the peacemaking method acknowledge and draw out of participants their expressions of problems (endings). This is a time of catharsis, gathering internal information, and clarifying the problems that need to be healed.
Steps four and five, help to contain the chaos of the neutral zone by transforming negative energy (loss) into positive problem solving statements. These two steps help create the positive environment where it becomes possible to envision a new beginning and to draw healthy energy from a situation that had been negative.
Steps six and seven represent the new beginning when the group experiences an integration of their inner knowledge, a sense of release or letting go, and a sense of deeper commitment, unity, and harmony within the group. As the group identifies action steps, the group moves into a new beginning.
A Seven Step Peacemaking Method based on The Dinè Journey to Father Sun Narrative.
STEP 1. Preparatory Information
a. Describe the Peacemaking Purpose by giving a description of and the history of Peacemaking. Base the information on Dine culture and traditions.
b.Describe the formal (Dinè Traditional Law) and the informal rules (information based on practical experience of the participants).
STEP 2. Opening Prayer
STEP 3. Statement as to why the Peacemaking Ceremony is to be held and the underlying situation requiring this intervention.
a. Make inquiry for establishing accurateness and integrity of the information gathered in the Ceremony.
b. Continue to question for the purpose of clarity and accurateness of all information provided in the Ceremony.
c. Always review, reframe the issues, and get clear and specific information to draw out the problems to be healed.
STEP 4. Develop Problem Solving Statements.
These are statements created from the problems identified in STEP 3. The statements are positive statements, are goal oriented and create an environment where solutions for healing are established.
STEP 5. Summarize and Refocus.
Utilize STEP 3 and 4 until there is clarity in all the solutions. The objective is to come from negative energy to positive and healthy energy.
STEP 6. Form Commitment, Unity and Harmony in the group, do this by:
Creating a written agreement based on the information formed at STEP 5.
1. Identify action steps.
2. Assign participants to carry out the steps of action.
3. Provide clear deadlines for the completion of the assigned steps.
Call a review Peacemaking Ceremony to determine progress. Use STEP 3, 4, and 5 to help the individuals along to complete their responsibility.
STEP 7. Closing Prayer |
The Water is Life Project is committed to assisting the Dinè people in their transition change process. The project was conceived as means of achieving dual outcomes - reawakening of culturally-based problem solving techniques for the Dinè people and creating new solutions to intractable water resource equity issues - outcomes which represent new beginnings for this tribe which has been in the limbo of a neutral zone following their long experience as a subjected nation. We expect the project to successfully reintroduce peacemaking as a viable community-based tool utilizing the clan system of ke’ to bring the leadership of the Navajo Nation together with grass roots communities in an exchange of ideas and strategies for equitably distributing precious water resources. Finally, we hope that the Water is Life Project, through engaging key communities in a peacemaking experience, will demonstrate to the Dinè people that real change can be achieved with their own cultural heritage honored as the means to entering new beginnings.
Aditional Information:
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