Jeneda Benally responds to Wednesdays court decision regarding snowmaking at the Arizona Snowbowl as her brother Klee listens during a press conference in Buffalo Park Thursday afternoon.
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Local environmentalists opposed to snowmaking on the Peaks are mounting a campaign to get the city of Flagstaff to cancel its agreement to sell reclaimed water to Arizona Snowbowl.
If that fails, they plan to attempt to block the construction of a water pipeline to Snowbowl.
They will also work to get City Council members who don't agree with them thrown out of office following Snowbowl's legal victory Wednesday.
"We will pursue all legal means to stop desecration of the Peaks," Flagstaff Activist Network President Carly Long said.
About 60 people, including high school students from Coconino High School and Flagstaff High, gathered at Buffalo Park for a press conference after their setback in court Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Paul Rosenblatt upheld the Forest Service's approval of Snowbowl's request to make snow with reclaimed wastewater on Wednesday, possibly the first snow in the world to be made entirely of such water.
Now members of the Save the Peaks Coalition are planning to ask the city of Flagstaff to cancel its contract to sell reclaimed wastewater to Snowbowl, or to oppose them in re-election this spring.
In addition, they want to amend the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality's guidelines on the use of reclaimed water to exclude snowmaking and block right of ways that would allow construction of a pipeline to Snowbowl.
Opponents called Rosenblatt's decision a racist action tantamount to "genocide."
"It is another sad day in the history of not only the Navajo Nation but Native Americans where, in this day and age, in the 21st Century, genocide and religious persecution continue to be perpetrated on Navajo people, other Native Americans living in the states of Arizona and New Mexico, who regard the Peaks as sacred," Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. said.
"Where is justice for Native Americans?," Coconino County Supervisor Louise Yellowman wrote in a statement. "The Native Americans are forgotten people in the United States including the veterans who sacrificed their lives and everything they had to protect this country and liberty for freedom of the United States. And yet our NA vets are not treated with respect."
The Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Flagstaff Activist Network and Save the Peaks Coalition have vowed to seek an injunction to stop construction at Snowbowl and to appeal the case to the next highest court.
Members of Youth of the Peaks held signs. One had a depiction of a fist. Another said, "Native Resistance."
Snowbowl and the Coconino National Forest have yet to chart a timeline for development of new ski trails, logging, construction and snowmaking infrastructure there. Snowbowl General Manager J.R. Murray said he's legally allowed to start construction immediately barring an injunction.
About 47 acres of forest to be thinned has already been surveyed and appraised, the Peaks Ranger District said.
While Murray had hoped to have the ski area open for skiing with manmade snow by the winter of 2006-2007, he'd at least like to have it open by 2011 if there are further court appeals, he said.
Flagstaff's city council and the world at large might face consequences of Rosenblatt's decision, Save the Peaks members said.
Flagstaff's lack of a snow season thus far is possibly a result of Rosenblatt's ruling, Save the Peaks member Klee Benally said.
"We see this not as a defeat for our mountain but as a miscarriage of justice," Benally said.
Yavapai-Apache Chairman Jamie Fullmer said in a statement, "This decision to move ahead with the fake snow may see some short-term success, but the long-term consequences and repercussions could haunt all of us, regardless of which culture you claim as your own."
Northern Arizona University Anthropology Prof. Miguel Vasquez cast the judge's decision, which was built on legal cases, as another in a long line of actions against Native Americans that could only likely be blocked at the local level.
"It's OK to screw the Indians. You've just gotta make it sound good," he said.
Benally's sister, Jeneda, compared Rosenblatt's decision to the Holocaust, in terms of legality.
"When Hitler was in Germany, what he was doing to the people there was considered legal … When will we have justice?" she said.
Cyndy Cole can be reached at ccole@azdailysun.com or at 913-8607.
