<center>Letters to the Editor</center>

Editor,

They are coming again to take our land and our water. Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private sector coal company, is planning to tear another 180 million tons of coal from the Hopi heartland. This ancient carbon, part of an essential internal organ of Mother Earth, will be forcibly removed to provide power to run air conditioners and VCRs for energy-hungry Californians. Scientists tell us that every year, 35,000 Americans will die from breathing the particulates emitted by coal-burning power plants and that our climate will change in ways not beneficial to life as we know it.

For forty years, huge draglines have decimated our living mesas and sacred shrines. Peabody’s mining operations have turned our land upside down, lacing it with poisons and turning it into a lifeless, silent place, empty of spirit and original, primal beauty. Peabody’s deep wells have noticeably lessened our springs and streams, and lowered groundwater levels. Now our fields stand dry and desperate in the hot wind. Our elders warned us that, “Should this happen, our lands will shake like the Hopi rattle, land will sink and dry up. Rains will be barred by unseen forces. Plants will not grow, animals will die—and not only Hopis, but all will disintegrate to nothing.”