by Amanda Podmore, Grand Canyon Director
In the late 2000s, an outside developer proposed building Escalade — a tramway resort with a gondola that could ferry up to 10,000 people a day from a remote area on the rim of the Grand Canyon, on Navajo Nation land, down to the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers inside the Grand Canyon, an area that is sacred to many Native American tribes.
Navajo elders and community members in the area organized, calling themselves Save the Confluence, fought the proposal, and won. Now the community is fending off another massive development proposal, this time for a hydroelectric dam, while keeping an eye on several similar dam proposals on nearby Black Mesa.
With all these threats, the community is focused on a permanent solution: getting the area designated a sacred site under Navajo Nation law. Here we catch up with founding Save the Confluence member Delores Wilson-Aguirre.
It’s a group of families that grew up out above the confluence in the Bodaway area. We got together around 2009 because of the Escalade proposal and together we stopped the Escalade. We still continue to look after the area, and the land there is not forgotten. Our history lies within the canyon and land.
The developer is still waiting on the preliminary permit for Big Canyon and we wonder, if he gets it, if he’ll use it to raise investment money. We launched a petition against the project and over 87,000 people signed it. But the developer is not listening — but at least he backed off on two other dam projects near the confluence.
We recently saw some big news for the proposed Big Canyon Dam. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied permit applications for three pumped storage dam proposals on Black Mesa, and a few others, and made a new policy requiring tribal consent for projects on tribal lands. The commission opened a new comment period for the Big Canyon Dam and Save the Confluence was really happy to see that the Navajo Nation wrote a letter opposing it. We are feeling hopeful it could finally be canceled.
We are concerned that, like what happened recently over at Black Mesa, where the developer is going around trying to rile up leaders and communities to support the developer's project, is like what happened during the Escalade. We are concerned about pitting the people against one another. From our experience, developers like to cause a division at the community level to get what they want. They feed all types of lies and promises to community members. As I always say, we, the Navajos, have to be smart. Fifty-dollar gift cards are not worth selling our land.
We have our umbilical cords buried, our prayers are sealed on the land near the confluence and there are many sacred sites in the area. Plus, the water use for the Big Canyon Dam would not benefit the community right there. We’ve been without any kind of infrastructure since the Bennett Freeze (from 1966 until 2009 the U.S. government banned people from making any kind of improvements out here, even fixing their roofs) and here is another project where the benefits would go off the reservation.
Some of the Navajo Nation delegates have been supportive along with the medicine men and the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department. The Bodaway-Gap Chapter, Cameron Chapter, Coppermine, Fort Defiance Chapter, LeChee Chapter, Leupp Chapter, To'Nanees'Dizi (Tuba City) Chapter, Tonalea Chapter, and Sawmill Chapter of the Navajo Nation have all passed resolutions supporting us.
We’ve been educating our leaders and chapters (local governments), telling them how important and sacred the area is, not only for us but for other tribes. We worked with the Hopi Tribe and other tribes when fighting the Escalade and I know people from outside of the reservation that fully support us too. But they can’t really do anything, so we need to do something from where we sit as Navajo Nation members.
We need to go before the Western Agency Council and one more chapter — Kaibeto — to get their support.
This is the first time this type of legislation would happen, so we need support since we hope to get it passed by Navajo Nation Council this year. People can share what we are doing and visit our website and follow us on Facebook, where you can get educated and contact us directly. We hope to plan a cleanup, to pick up trash, above the confluence in 2024 so watch our Facebook.
Delores Wilson-Aguirre is the chair and spokesperson for the families of Save the Confluence. Delores spends a lot of time in the area above the confluence, where she is currently fixing her mother’s old home. She hopes to spend even more time out there once it’s fixed up.
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