Published on December 01, 2009
The battle for Mt. Taylor
Freelance writer extraordinaire, Laura Paskus, has a recently published piece in High Country News that delves deep into the drama surrounding New Mexico designating Mt. Taylor a traditional cultural property. As with all of Paskus' work, the thread unwinds more like a Tony Hillerman novel than standard journalistic fare, which is a good thing.
The clumsy way the state went about informing the public and land owners of the new distinction caused an uproar in the communities surrounding Mt. Taylor and exposed deep cultural riffs. For Native Amerians in the area the mountain is sacred. Small communities like Grants once saw a boom because of regional mining and for many in the area future uranium mining prospects mean a shot in the arm to a struggling economy and unemployment. While the land and people of the area are still dealing with a toxic legacy of uranium mining, non-Native Americans with generational ties to the land believe they're entitled to a say in the matter.
Paskus does justice to the story by highlighting its complexities and looking at the situation through the various lenses of those most impacted. The story touches on Native Rights, ecological and economic impacts of uranium mining, racism, land rights and rural economies... all happening in our backyard.
An excerpt from the piece:
The clumsy way the state went about informing the public and land owners of the new distinction caused an uproar in the communities surrounding Mt. Taylor and exposed deep cultural riffs. For Native Amerians in the area the mountain is sacred. Small communities like Grants once saw a boom because of regional mining and for many in the area future uranium mining prospects mean a shot in the arm to a struggling economy and unemployment. While the land and people of the area are still dealing with a toxic legacy of uranium mining, non-Native Americans with generational ties to the land believe they're entitled to a say in the matter.
Paskus does justice to the story by highlighting its complexities and looking at the situation through the various lenses of those most impacted. The story touches on Native Rights, ecological and economic impacts of uranium mining, racism, land rights and rural economies... all happening in our backyard.
An excerpt from the piece:
Over the course of 10 days last June, at least five Navajo men were brutally beaten in Grants, N.M...
Just three days before the beatings began, the state of New Mexico had decided to place Mount Taylor and some of its surrounding lands on the State Register of Cultural Properties as a traditional cultural property, or TCP. The decision ended a 16-month-long process that became a battle pitting Native Americans and environmentalists against mining companies, Anglo ranchers and Spanish land grant communities. The new TCP covers 400,000 acres -- an unprecedented size -- and many locals worried that it would prevent uranium development and even restrict use of the mountain by anyone not Native American.
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