Navajo Administrative History

The slurry pointed out one kind of possible encroachment, but there were many other kinds of potential threats. Other industries in the vicinity of the reservation but far from the park had the potential to affect the monument. One of the most evident of these was the Four Corners Power Plant, a coal-fired generating plant near Shiprock, New Mexico, more than 150 miles from the monument. Fueled by coal mined on the Navajo Reservation, the plant constantly belched black smoke. Between 1963 and 1980, the plant caused a significant decrease in visibility in the area, and measured pollutants attributed to it were detected as much as 200 miles away. Under certain weather conditions, a smoke plume from the plant became visible at the visitor center at Navajo National Monument. [15]

As the air around Navajo became less pristine, visibility became a focus of the advocates of clean air in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 was a major step toward bringing the issue to public attention, but many found the law inadequate. Following passage of the act, the Sierra Club argued that the law required programs to prevent degradation of air quality as well as improvement of the quality of polluted air. The basis for new, more comprehensive air quality legislation developed out of a subsequent court battle between the Environmental Protection Agency and the Sierra Club. The 1977 Clean Air Act included a policy to prevent the degradation of air quality. A provision in the act also helped protect visibility in national park areas and an amendment required the EPA to define visibility standards for national parks. [16]

Air quality in park areas was extremely vulnerable and equally difficult to protect. By the time the Park Service began to fashion a response, pollution and marred visibility had become a problem for some southwestern parks. But again there were few options for the agency. Different priorities were difficult to resolve, particularly when the source of the problem and the location of the impact were separated by more than one hundred miles.

As the Park Service sought ways to respond to external threats, the problem became even more evident. In 1979, as Superintendent Hastings compiled the threats to the integrity of the monument that he perceived, he experienced an inversion that impeded the view to the east. A plume from the Four Corners Power Plant was the cause. Hastings noted that the monument was "losing the pristine air quality that has been the norm in this area." [17]

Power plant emissions could have had a number of potential effects on the park. Acid rain generated by the plants seemed likely to have a negative effect on park vegetation, and archeological ruins were also vulnerable. Preserved in part by the constant low humidity in the region, fragile ruins could be damaged by the increase in chemicals in the air. [18]

Air quality monitoring for Navajo and other parks in the region became standard operating procedure. Prior to the formal assessment of threats by the monument late in 1979, the Park Service had selected Navajo National Monument as one of eight park areas where monitoring in compliance with the Clean Air Act of 1977 would take place. Park personnel would monitor air quality on a regular basis and file monthly reports with the Division of Natural Resources in the Southwest Regional Office in Santa Fe. Navajo was equipped with a four-wavelength teleradiometer and a 35 MM camera, although unlike many other park areas, it did not receive a stacked-filter, dichotomous particulate sampler. [19]

After nearly five years of accumulating data, a number of preliminary findings emerged. Park Service scientists took the data collected from twenty-seven western parks and began to draw conclusions. Generally, during the winter, visibility improved, while the converse occurred in warmer weather. Between 1978 and 1981, visibility and air quality decreased throughout the West, but a slight improvement followed in 1982. The data from 1984 showed that air quality in the southwestern parks area was better than everywhere in the West except northern Nevada, northern Utah, and southern Idaho. [20] Despite the reassuring nature of the information, vigilance remained a key for the Park Service.

The threat of the construction of additional power plants in the four corners region added to the fears of degradation of air quality. The Navajo Generating Plant near Page, Arizona, and the Four Corners Power Plant were major contributors to the increase in pollution. Proposals for seven new plants in the late 1970s and early 1980s seemed a prescription for disaster for the vistas of the area.

But again the Park Service found itself in a precarious position. Despite their impact on air and water quality, the power plants and development of other natural resources meant a sizable infusion of capital on the reservation. Many in the Navajo Nation opposed rapacious development in principle, but recognized that anything that provided an economic lifeline, particularly in the more remote parts of the reservation, had to be considered. In the aftermath of the 1930s and 1940s, the livestock-based economy of many Navajos ceased to be a viable form of survival. Clearly new opportunities to develop employment had to be pursued. In many cases, economic growth and environmental quality seemed to be mutually exclusive.

This sort of incommensurable comparison had historically been an issue for the Park Service in the West. In many instances, its desire for preservation was in distinct contrast to economic needs of surrounding communities and people. In a number of cases, the Park Service was able to work with local constituencies opposed to economic development that had potential to damage the environment to slow, alter, or altogether prevent uses of land that could impact park areas. In the late 1960s, support from Navajo Lands Group General Superintendent John Cook played an important role in the establishment of a trading post at the junction of the Tuba City-Kayenta highway, the approach road to the monument, and the new road to Black Mesa. The development "actually fit into the needs of the Monument," Cook informed Regional Director Frank F. Kowski. "We intend to encourage it." As an effort to help Indians derive tangible economic gain from NPS activities, Cook believed the program fit the policies of the Department of the Interior. "We have no business trying to stop this development, only an environmental awareness obligation to try and influence its integrity," Cook continued. [21] In many similar instances, local need overcame protectionist sentiment.

At Navajo this problem had also occurred, but had been resolved by the creation of employment at the park for many local Navajos. MISSION 66 began at a time when economic growth was at its nadir on the western reservation. The increase in permanent staff at the monument and the need for temporary workers helped alleviate the crisis for Navajo people in the immediate vicinity. But in this instance, the park was far from the source of its potential problems and had no way to affect behavior. As a result, the NPS response at Navajo was mostly reactive.