30 years after a Navajo forest enterprise closed, local leaders want the site cleaned up

NAVAJO, N.M. — Navajo Forest Products Industries was a booming industry, until it wasn’t. Now what's left is the small New Mexico community of Navajo looking to assess the decades of contamination left behind and clean up the mess, looking to revitalize their community and create economic development opportunities.

Indian Route 12 to Navajo could easily be one of the most scenic drives in the country, with tall red rocks on one side of the highway and, on the other, the greenery of vast lands sprinkled with homes.

The community sits in the shadow of Fuzzy Mountain, with red rocks that slowly turn into the Chuska Mountains 30 miles from the New Mexico-Arizona state line. There's an elementary school, one charter school for grades 6-12, one junior high and high school, one gas station and the local favorite, Grandma’s Restaurant. There's also a post office next to what used to be the only grocery store.

There are newer homes, and some that are abandoned or vacant. The reported 2023 population is 1,942, according to the census.

And among all of it sits the remnants of Navajo Forest Products, mostly in the form of lingering contamination in the water and soil from the buildings that once spread across over 100 acres of land.

Six months into his first term as council delegate representing Red Lake, which is located in Navajo, and other Navajo Nation communities such as Crystal, Fort Defiance and Sawmill, Andy Nez is picking up where his predecessor left off concerning the community cleanup efforts.

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“I'm not only a legislature to people but to our natural elements, which include our land and those that don’t necessarily have a voice at the people’s chambers,” Nez said. “NFPI and its detriment to our land is what has me eyeing on potential opportunities that will help to support its remediation and assessment.”

The NFPI was the first completely tribal-owned enterprise. It harvested and processed ponderosa pine from the Defiance Plateau and the Chuska Mountains, operating from 1962 through the mid-90s. From 1962 to 1992, an average of 40 million board feet of lumber were harvested annually from the Chuska Mountains.

During the enterprise's heyday around 1966, it recorded four straight years of making a profit. It had an annual payroll of $1.3 million and provided employment for 450 tribal members. Many of the high-paying jobs were held by non-Indians, but about 70 tribal members were being trained to hold supervisory positions at the plant in Navajo.

“I grew up in Navajo and my family has been in that area for many generations,” said Prestene Garnenez, the president of the economic development committee for the Red Lake Chapter and a lifelong resident of Navajo. “I feel very passionately for my community.”

$5 million needed to assess the contamination

Garnenez, Nez and Navajo tribal EPA are asking the Navajo Nation Council for $5 million from what is called the Síhasin Fund to go toward assessment and remediation of environmental damage. A work session will be scheduled on the matter.

“How do we know this $5 mIllion will be put to good use?” Garnenez said. “I think NFPI and the assessments and remediation of that site is just part of a much larger picture that we envision for the community of Navajo.”

It will cost more than $5 million to clean up the over 100 acres where NFPI sat, as well as the Navajo Tribal Sawmill Enterprise located in the Arizona community of Sawmill, but officials see it as a start to adequately assessing the area and move forward with reclamation.

This request has been ongoing, even before Nez took office. A work session had also taken place with former leaders. Under the previous administration, then-Vice President Myron Lizer toured the site with Navajo EPA and members of the community.

The damage and cleanup from years of work

The damage at the site is severe, local officials say. NFPI had been in operation for eight years before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established and 10 years before the Navajo Environmental Protection Commission was developed.

“In 1972, the Federal Clean Water Act became law and NFPI was in constant violation of its discharge permits,” said Pam Maples, who has been working with the Navajo EPA for the past 13 years and who reported findings to the Navajo Nation Council.

In the summer of 2021, the Navajo EPA urged the U.S. EPA Superfund Emergency Response Program to conduct what's known as a time critical removal action at the Red Lake site, and the EPA spent $6 million on surface cleanup of asbestos contamination. The project involved 3.5 months of 70-hour workweeks, and resulted in the removal of over 4,000 cubic yards (about 200 tractor trailer loads) of hazardous asbestos waste and surface debris.

Further significant spending by the Navajo Nation on the assessment and cleanup of both sites will allow the Navajo EPA to continue leveraging funds to encourage further federal activities and potentially secure new funding for the remediation, according to legislation requesting for the $5 million.

“Complex industrial contamination resulting from these operations remains a threat currently in the creek, in soil beneath and around the site, and in the groundwater also beneath and around the site, in the creek water and also the lake,” said Maples. “And it's spreading.”

Residents who live about 1,400 ft away from the site have a spring that is contaminated to the point of the water is black and smells foul, she said.

“Contamination could’ve migrated very far indeed in 63 years,” Maples said.

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Contamination could affect surface water, groundwater

A 2022 report from the Navajo EPA reported the extent of the contamination found within the site, the scope of cleanup and project cost. Among the environmental concerns in the area:

• Groundwater beneath the mill site is contaminated with hexavalent chromium, diesel gasoline, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, chrysene, naphthalene and other compounds resulting from the incomplete combustion of organic matter, like sawdust.

• Approximately two feet of diesel fuel is floating on areas of the groundwater at the site, about 2.5 acres in all.

• Asbestos has commingled with the soil in several locations at the site to a depth of two feet below ground surface.

• Soil at the site is contaminated by mercury, hexavalent chromium, dioxins, heavy metals, pesticides, asbestos, solvents, oil, grease and other elements.

Hexavalent chromium is known to cause cancer. In addition, it targets the respiratory system, kidneys, liver, skin and eyes. The presence of various toxic heavy metals on the site and in the creek could have resulted in impaired neurological development of children who live and attend school near the site. Navajo Nation EPA is researching the effects of metals and hexavalent chromium in edible plants and livestock.

“U.S. EPA aren’t concerned that children play in the creek, and it's used to grow corn and vegetables,” Maples said. “The creek with a point source of hexavalent chromium falling directly into it is currently used to fill a recreational and swimming lake.”

Maples said grants are competitive, and the U.S. EPA Brownfields grants have strict rules on groundwater. The EPA will not pay to delineate the limits of any groundwater contamination plume because the agency maintains groundwater is not real property.

“The U.S. EPA will not pay to clean up groundwater unless it's a primary drinking water source," Maples said. Using risk assessment and population density formulas, the agency said "most areas on the Navajo Nation don't qualify because of that."

Brownfields money can’t be used to clean up petroleum, contaminated soil or groundwater, and trust funds won't be available since the petroleum came from above-ground tanks. There are no EPA funds to clean up above-ground tanks unless they are situated on a navigable waterway.

“The U.S. EPA can decide at any time it has given us enough money,” Maples said. “Navajo brownfields program has a plan for assessment and cleanup. Assessment is currently underway, cleanup can proceed once there is a non-federal funding source to fill in the gaps left by the U.S. EPA.”

Garnernez said the community received an environmental justice grant from the EPA in 2020 for $120,000 and they are using it to pay for a redevelopment plan for the NFPI site.

The contamination can reach as far as Houck, Arizona, and communities in between, about 54 miles west by way of Black Creek Wash.

“There have been discussions to retain water, but because it extends right where NFPI is situated, there are a lot of concerns on things that were buried there,” said Nez, citing car batteries, diesel fuel and other items.

Nez was critical about the fact that NFPI still sits in its own mess without being seriously addressed for cleanup. Even though there has still been a fair amount of movement in recent years, he said more should’ve definitely been done by now.

“It’s well over 30 years that it's just been there,” Nez said. “There was a long delay. It should’ve been maintained. It should've been cleaned up after.”

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Aftermath of industries across the Navajo Nation

The entire Navajo Nation continues to be affected by the aftermath of uranium, oil and gas and coal extraction, and cleanup and reclamation has been lacking.

From 1944 to 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from the Navajo Nation under leases with the tribe, according to the EPA. There are over 500 reported abandoned uranium mines spread out throughout Navajo Nation, but many believe it's actually over 1,000 that for the most part have yet to be addressed. These legacy mines have contaminated land, water and buildings, issues that still need to be addressed, officials say.

A recent study published by Institute for Energy Economic and Financial Analysis reported that the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has begun the bond-release process on various portions of the Kayenta Mine Complex. The bonds were an incentive for Peabody Western Coal Company to adequately restore the land damaged by their mining activity in the Black Mesa region of the Navajo Nation.

Two of three sets of Peabody’s reclamation bonds were recently approved for release by the federal government. The total surety bonds held for the mines is $178.6 million.

The report said the Department of Interior has failed to hold Peabody responsible for the effects of its decades-long mining activities in the Black Mesa region on Navajo Nation.

Peabody operated the Black Mesa mine, which operated from 1965 to 2005, and the Kayenta mine, which operated from 1973 to 2019. They produced an average of 14 million tons of coal per year and pumped billions of gallons of groundwater from the N-Aquifer.

“Peabody’s mines operated for almost five decades on tribal lands, depleting scarce water sources, yet OSMRE did not include water use or aquifer depletion in its considerations of environmental damages caused by Peabody,” said the July 2023 report. “The oversight demonstrates a flaw in OSMRE’s criteria for environmental reclamation and a failure on the part of the DOI to hold Peabody accountable and uphold its trust responsibilities to the Navajo and Hopi tribes in Black Mesa.”

Navajo Nation leadership has been discussing various ways the land could be used for other forms of extraction and fossil fuel development, such as helium, carbon capture, hydrogen pipelines and oil and gas.

“We can all love money. We can all love economic development, but at the end of the day these are some of the situations that we come across, the closures, and having to deal with the safety of not only the people but of our medicines, plants, farmers, our ranchers, our animals,” Nez said.

NFPI was shut down for various reasons, including pressure from the environmental group Diné CARE, which raised concerns over the habitat of the endangered Mexican spotted owl. NFPI also lacked an adequate forest management plan, and there were reports of financial mismanagement.

“I think that’s the problem when we talk about disrupting our land, that there are no reclamation efforts,” Nez said. “In Navajo culture, when you go hiking, or take yucca for a ceremony, you give an offering. But I think when it comes to revenue, and going after funds for economic development there has to be a post-closure of whatever you used the land for.”

Arlyssa Becenti covers Indigenous affairs for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send ideas and tips to arlyssa.becenti@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Local leaders want action in cleanup of Navajo industrial site