Thesis Abstract

Modern Environmentalism has often been called a white middle-class issue. The early environmental legislation of the 1970's helped create a white middle-class opposition to toxic waste and industry that forced many factories to close down. The minority and working class citizens employed by these factories obviously saw the environmental movement as yet another attack on their livelihoods. The divide between environmentalist and marginalized peoples was reconciled with the environmental justice movement of the mid to late 1980's. Much has done to improve the inequities bore by both race and class, but inequality remains a constant.

The Hopi indians of Arizona are an example of a race that America has marginalized. Forty-one years ago the Hopi and neighboring Navajo tribes signed a deal with the world's biggest privately owned coal mining company, Peabody Energy, to begin mining their lands. The egregiously low price Peabody paid has helped make their venture on the Black Mesa extremely lucrative for the company. The large strip mining operation has conversely been a environmental, economic, and cultural disaster for the Hopi indians. Each year Peabody Energy pumps 1.3 billion gallons of pure freshwater from an Aquifer on the Black Mesa just to transport coal slurry to neighboring plants. This aquifer also doubles as the Hopi's main source of drinking water in this extremely arid region of Arizona.

Revenue from the Peabody company totals to 60% of the income to the Hopi tribe. The Hopi's aquifer is now running dry and the estimated life-of-mine operation is 2015. What will happen to the Hopi when Peabody leaves? By telling their story I hope to illustrate larger truths about the state of Environmental Justice within the United States.