Two New Mexicans are vying for the top Navajo political position—current New Mexico State Senator Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint, and current Navajo Vice President Ben Shelly, who hails from Thoreau. If elected, Lovejoy would be the Nation’s first female president. Her campaign received a boost last week when Shelly—who was a tribal delegate before becoming Vice President—was caught up in charges brought by a special prosecutor against the majority of the tribal council.

Navajo Nation Special Prosecutor Alan Balaran alleged in the complaint that 77 delegates and the current Vice President inappropriately gave discretionary funds to their family and friends.

Shelly spokesperson Brayden Nez told The Independent that the charges were released a couple of weeks before the election for political reasons, and that Shelly is caught up in a conflict between the executive and legislative branches that has seen almost the entire tribal council included in the charges. Shelly, he said, followed the rules in place when he was a tribal delegate in 2006, and has done nothing wrong.

“They’re being brought because of the elections,” Nez said. “He [Shelly] isn’t a crook. He’s got an ordinary family, he had problems like anyone. He got help from the Council, he did not write it out.”

Others share that view, with an attorney for one of the delegates alleging that the timing of the complaints were an effort to “tamper with the elections.”

Shelly’s campaign has in turn filed an ethics violation alleging that Lovejoy’s running mate, Earl Tully, was the recipient of some of the discretionary funds at the heart of the complaints. The complaint against tribal council Speaker Lawrence Morgan and other tribal delegates–detailed in the Gallup Independent, and not currently online–sets out that the funds were allegedly given to Tully while he was making in excess of $50,000 as an employee of the Tribal Housing Authority.

Nez said that Shelly supports the reduction in size of the council, an issue that has been at the center of a political dispute between the Navajo president and tribal council.

President Joe Shirley has been in a power struggle with the tribal council for years. He was a strong advocate last year for the reduction in council size, as well as obtaining line item veto power for the president. The Council attempted to derail Shirley’s power at one point in 2009 by putting him on administrative leave, which the Navajo Supreme Court later said they did not have the power to do. The Council attempted to put a referendum on the ballot this year that would require Navajo justices to be elected rather than appointed. The question is on the ballot, but after vigorous protest by the office of the President, among others, Navajo election authorities announced this week that it was not a valid question, and would not be counted.

Sen. Lynda Lovejoy did not reply to an email by The Independent requesting comment about the charges brought by Balaran.

When Lovejoy made it to the general election in 2006, it was considered a milestone. Another woman who had run for president in 2002, Genevieve Jackson, said it was a “historical day” that proved women are equal to men. Jackson noted at the time the important position women hold within the Navajo clan system:

”As we make these great strides toward the future, it is important that the Dine’ [Navajo] matriarchal clan system is recognized,” said Jackson.

”The woman is held in high regard and considered the owner of her property, the custodian of her children, and maintains balance and harmony within her family and nation,” said Jackson, currently running for council delegate in her home chapter of Fort Defiance.

In her announcement Tuesday, Lovejoy said she’d focus on jobs, basic necessities for Navajos and noted that competing interests in Navajo government are “unprecedented”:

“Our people are still battling oppressive conditions of not having the very basic necessities (such) as running water, electricity, Internet or improved roads,” she said. “These are the most unprecedented times of competing interest here on Navajo land. We as Dine people have strayed from those deep-seated core values that once held us in unison.”

Lovejoy will face a raft of contenders, including another woman, Sharon Clahchischilliage, who recently served as executive director of the tribal field office in Washington, D.C.  Others running include Vice President Ben Shelly, tribal Department of Justice attorney Harrison Tsosie, Tribal Council Delegate Rex Lee Jim, former state Rep. Daniel Peaches, and Shiprock Chapter Vice President Donald Benally.

In a surprise move, current president Joe Shirley has also announced he will seek a third term, despite the two-term limit currently imposed on his office. His candidacy will most likely be challenged. His spokesperson, George Hardeen, said Shirley wants to continue as president in order to complete government reform efforts, most notably the reduction in size of the tribal council and the implementation of a presidential line-item veto provision given by the voters.

About 44 percent of 94,000 eligible voters turned out, according to the Associated Press. The reduction in size of the tribal council was supported by nearly 61 percent of the voters, and the line item veto measure got 59 percent.

The AP quotes Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. expressing satisfaction that the ballot initiative he launched was successful:

“This is history in the making,” said Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr., who launched the initiatives last year. “I feel like I helped write the Navajo Nation history at this juncture. That makes me very happy for my people. I feel we’re going to be where we should have been a long time ago.”

Shirley was just reinstated to his position on Monday by District Court Judge Geraldine Benally in Window Rock. He had been  put on administrative leave by the tribal council on Oct. 26 for alleged ethical, civil and criminal violations  concerning two companies that have contracts with the Nation. At the time, Shirley said the move by the council was politically motivated in response to the impending vote on reducing the size of the council and giving the president line item veto power. Benally ruled that the council acted outside its authority. Her decision to reinstate Shirley can be appealed to the Navajo Nation Supreme Court.

The Navajo Nation is the largest tribe in the United States, with about 300,000 members as of 2000. About 180,000 live within it’s boundaries, which encompass approximately 26,000 square miles in three states–Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

That study has been underway and will be completed and turned over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs this month, Wally Murphy, supervisor of the Albuquerque office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, told the Independent in an interview. Species potentially impacted by the proposed Desert Rock project — which would be the third coal-fired power plant located within 16 miles of each other — are the southwestern willow flycatcher, the Colorado pikeminnow, the razorback sucker, the silvery minnow, the Mancos milk-vetch and the Mesa Verde cactus.

While the data isn’t publicly available yet, Murphy said there are serious problems posed by high levels of mercury and selenium both in the air and in the San Juan River. Both elements are naturally occurring, but in large concentrations pose a significant health hazard to humans and the environment. According to the New Mexico Environment Department, coal-fired power plants account for more than 50 percent of the mercury found in New Mexico; they are also a significant source of selenium.

“Selenium in the San Juan River is at the point where reproduction and nervous system function in the fish are impaired,” Murphy said.

While selenium is a by-product of power plants, the high levels in the San Juan are in large part due to agriculture. Water used for agriculture leaches the selenium out of a geological formation called Mancos Shale. The addition of more selenium from another power plant would make this problem worse.

Mercury levels in the San Juan are also much higher than are healthy for fish, Murphy explained. While the two existing power plants in the four corner region share much of the blame for the high levels of mercury, we can also point the finger at China, he said.

“Mercury precipitates over water bodies, that’s why we see mercury warnings in the Gulf of Mexico for shrimp,” he said. “A lot of the mercury in the San Juan River actually comes from China — most of their power is from coal-powered plants.”

It’s rare for an endangered species consultation to shut down a project, Murphy said. In most cases, a “reasonable and prudent” alternative can be found. But still, the study will show there are significant threats already posed to the vulnerable wildlife and plant species in the area.

“The San Juan River has some problems,” Murphy said with understated candor.

The endangered species review was one of the major reasons EPA gave for officially pulling the air permit in September, but Desert Rock Energy Company spokesman Frank Maisano told The Independent that the move was “nothing more than politics at play.”

Maisano said EPA officials have told him air permits are issued all the time without first having official results in from ESA studies, and that the argument otherwise is being made by “activists or people opposed to the project.”

“The new administration isn’t interested in moving forward with the project,” he said. “Desert Rock isn’t alone, it’s other projects also.”

But Murphy said the EPA is supposed to wait for information about endangered species before issuing the permit.

“The EPA regulations require that they consult with us prior to releasing the air quality permit,” he said.

A project like the proposed Desert Rock plant is subject to several federal studies, including a comprehensive study under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and a look at the impact on endangered species. An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is prepared through the NEPA process that assesses the project from multiple angles.

The draft Environmental Impact Statement for Desert Rock was completed in 2007. That report pointed out that the plant would be a state of the art facility that would emit pollutants — but at levels below what would prohibit the project. The company has also agreed to fund the installation of technology on the two older power plants in the vicinity that would reduce the sulfur dioxide emissions of the region by 110 percent of current levels.

Still, even small amounts of new emissions in an area already overloaded with pollutants is too much, activists and New Mexico officials have said. The Desert Rock plant would be the third coal-fired plant within an area that also has a large oil and gas industry, and agricultural activity. It’s a rural area that has had periodic ozone pollution problems equivalent to a densely populated urban area.

“If you have two Hummers running in your garage, and you add a hybrid — it may not add a Hummer’s worth of emissions, but it still worsens an already pretty bad situation,” Dailon Long, an organizer for Diné Care, a Navajo environmental organization, told The Independent in September.

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. is at odds with those opposed to the plant, which include some Navajo families who would be displaced by the project, as well as environmental organizations and the state of New Mexico.

In a statement reacting to the remand of the air permit in September, Shirley said the project is the most important economic development project in Navajo history, and he insisted that it will eventually be completed. The Endangered Species Act consultation and the final Environmental Impact Statement will be completed soon, he said. The company applied in August for a stimulus grant to install experimental technology that would capture carbon dioxide emitted by the plant and inject it into the ground.

Carbon dioxide is the primary industrial emission pinpointed by scientists as the primary culprit causing global warming, and coal-fired power plants are a major source of it. The Desert Rock project would emit approximately 12 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. The installation of carbon capture and sequestration technology, however, would reduce that by about 25 percent. And the company thinks that a selection of the Desert Rock project by the federal government as a pilot project would green-light Desert Rock once more.

“I would suspect that if the stimulus money came through, it would be a strong reason for the project to move forward,” Maisano said.

Details of the alleged violations found during the investigation haven’t been made public, but the Tribal Council passed legislation requesting that the Navajo Nation’s Attorney General decide within 60 days whether or not to appoint a special investigator.

Others also under investigation, according to the Farmington Times, are the president’s chief of staff, and the directors of the divisions of Economic Development, Community Development and Public Safety. Also included in the investigation are former Shiprock Chapter President Duane “Chili” Yazzie, and Ernest Franklin, former employee with the Division of Community Development. Navajo Controller Mark Grant had been included, but the tribal council voted to remove his name from the investigation.

The two companies in question are both sources of controversy within the tribe, according to the Farmington Times:

The Nation entered into a $1.9 million contract with the Utah-based OnSat Network Communications in 2001. OnSat agreed to provide satellite Internet services to all 110 chapters on the Nation, but service was disrupted after the tribe stopped making payments, claiming the company overbilled for services.

The Nation owns 51 percent of Biochemical Decontamination Systems, or BCDS, a corporation created to seek federal contracts for the sale of metal fabrication products.

The Nation in 2006 approved using the Navajo Dam Escrow Fund to back a $2.2 million loan to finance an expansion of the plant. But by 2008, the company was defunct and $4.7 million in debt.

Shirley’s spokesperson, George Hardeen, told the Arizona Republic he thought the action by the council was politically motivated, coming in advance of two December ballot measures that would lessen the power of the Council. One would reduce the size of the council from 88 to 24, and the other would give Shirley line-item veto authority.

The action drew praise from critics of the plant and blistering commentary from its proponents.

Assistant New Mexico Attorney General Seth Cohen, who has been one of the primary litigators working on the state’s appeal of the original permit, said the decision by the new administration at the EPA marked “a huge victory.”

“The EPA was supposed to file their final brief today in opposition to our arguments, but had asked for an extension, so we were hopeful,” Cohen told NMI. “Today, in effect, they agreed with us that EPA had cut corners in issuing the permit last summer. It’s a huge victory for public health and the environment in New Mexico.”

But Jeff Holmstead, former head of the air program at EPA and now head of the Environmental Strategies Group at Bracewell & Giuliani, the law firm representing the plant’s developer, Sithe Global, said in a statement that he has “never seen anything like it.”

“I don’t think anyone ever imagined that the new team at EPA would seem to have such little regard for due process or basic notions of fairness,” Holmstead said. “Everyone understands that a new Administration has discretion to change rules and policies prospectively. But I’ve never seen any Administration try to change policies and rules retroactively.”

While a lot of attention has been paid in the last week to the EPA’s recent finding that carbon dioxide–the greenhouse gas that is belched from coal-burning power plants–poses a danger to human health and the environment, the decision to withdraw the Desert Rock permit yesterday rested on other issues put forward by the state of New Mexico.

The EPA found that the permitting process was issued prematurely, before complete analysis could be conducted of hazardous air emissions like mercury, or the impact of the facility on endangered species, or the impact on soil, vegetation, and visibility in the region. The permit also didn’t adequately examine particulate matter.

Also, in the review of “best available technologies,” developers of the project didn’t include a process called integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), the EPA said. Using IGCC technology–which turns the coal into gas before burning it–would make Desert Rock better able to control air pollution.

While many consider IGCC to be an experimental technology, it’s currently being used in at least two other coal-burning power plants, and the state argued in its appeal that it should have at least been studied as an option.

Yesterday’s decision effectively sends the entire permit back to the drawing board.

Holmstead argued that the permit was the most stringent of any such permit issued in the country. The application was submitted five years ago, he said, and dragged on for several years while the company and the Navajo Nation — a strong supporter of the project — tried to “address everybody’s concerns.”

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley said in a statement the decision was further proof that the U.S. government isn’t “honest and truthful in its dealings with Native America.” Shirley said that the EPA withdrawal of the permit will harm the Navajo people.

“I have people dying every day because of poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, gangs, and the U.S. Government is not there to adequately fund the direct service programs that cater to these needs,” he said.

Shirley concluded by saying that the message from the EPA is that it will hold projects “on Navajo land to standards that may well be impossible to meet — and that wouldn’t be applicable elsewhere.”

Cohen, however, said New Mexico respects the right of the Navajo Nation to develop its land, but it needs to be done in a way that protects air quality in New Mexico.

“There needs to be a substantial re-analysis, but we’ll work with the applicant to re-think the permit,” he said.

New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry made similar remarks in a statement issued by Gov. Bill Richardson’s office that noted concerns related to carbon dioxide and climate change.

“Air emissions from Desert Rock would have singlehandedly undone our state’s climate change initiatives,” Curry said. “We stand ready to assist EPA Region 9 and the Navajo Nation to make significant improvements to the design of this facility including technologies that will address greenhouse gas emissions.”