by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director
“Escalade”—the proposed tramway into Grand Canyon—is one of several threats author Kevin Fedarko writes about in the September issue of National Geographic, which will hit newstands later this month. The article will also be posted online with bonus photos that do not appear in the print version.
Fedarko will document the 700-mile trek through the canyon while presenting an unsettling view of how developments outside of the park are shaping its future. Fedarko will discuss the hike during this year’s Colorado River Days in Flagstaff, Arizona on September 9. Escalade, uranium mining, and air tours are among the threats featured in Fedarko’s talk.
Since our last update, profit-promising promoters have continued to press Navajo Nation council delegates to support Escalade. The good news is that they failed to introduce supporting legislation before July 18, 2016, the first day of the summer session of the Navajo Nation Council. That means that they will have to wait for the fall session in October, or call for a special session. In either case, Escalade promoters will need to win over 16 of the 24 Navajo Nation council delegates needed to override a certain veto by Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye.
For the last several weeks, the grassroots organizers of Save the Confluence have been widely distributing an informational flyer and fact sheet and have published three full-page newspaper ads in the Navajo Times, Navajo-Hopi Observer, and Gallup Independent opposing the tramway. The group has also broadcast two two-hour radio programs on KTNN, voice of the Navajo Nation, and engaged Navajo citizens at community gatherings across the nation.
Veteran grassroots organizer Rita Bilagody has been spreading the word at the Navajo Nation fair and in weekly flea markets in Tuba City, Kayenta, Shiprock, Gallup, Leupp, and Window Rock, with plans to visit many more in weeks to come. She has gathered more than a thousand new signatures on the Stop Escalade petition and is reporting that nearly half of her visitors mentioned the radio programs favorably.
Opposition to Escalade continues to mount as people learn the facts about its liabilities and lack of approval by local land-users, cultural leaders, and the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and other tribes who consider the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers, where the tramway would descend, to be one of the Grand Canyon’s most sacred spaces.
For timely updates, please keep visiting the Save the Confluence website and Facebook page.
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