Save the Peaks!

Editorial: Tribal sovereignty over Peaks a stretch
Arizona Daily Sun for the original.
02/22/2002
When it comes to the making of artificial snow at the Arizona
Snowbowl with reclaimed wastewater, it's time that tribal
activists confront some inconvenient truths.
The first is that the San Francisco Peaks, although regarded by
some Native Americans as sacred, are managed largely by the
U.S. Forest Service. As such, they are "off the reservation," just
as is the Moon, which Navajos also hold sacred (they oppose,
among other things, landings and the spreading of Gene
Shoemaker's ashes there). Neither the Peaks nor the Moon is
likely to be handed over to Native American control anytime soon.
Yet Navajos and other tribes continue to make claims on the
Peaks that no other ethnic or religious group would get away
with. There are no burial sites or settlement ruins on the Peaks.
The Peaks are simply part of a natural landscape that native
peoples have elevated to unnatural stature and to which they
have attempted to extend a religious sovereignty. It's one thing to
worship a landscape feature from a distance. It's another to
demand that the feature -- whether the Moon or the Peaks -- be
kept in a pristine state.
Right now, the Peaks are hardly pristine. On an average summer
weekend, hundreds of hikers tromp up the Humphreys Trail to
the 12,633-foot-high peak. At the Snowbowl, hundreds ride the
chairlift nearly to the top of Mount Agassiz. In the Inner Basin,
giant pumps tap pools of snowmelt, sending the water by
pipeline down to Flagstaff. Campers frolic in Lockett Meadow.
In the winter, activity on the Peaks actually slows down. When
there is snow, skiing at the Snowbowl attracts several thousand
people on a busy weekend day. If artificial snow is made, that
level would remain constant throughout the four- or five-month
season.
Yet tribal activists contend that snowmaking, especially with
reclaimed wastewater, is a "desecration." That's a strong word
for a process that produces water with a purity similar to drinking
water. In fact, it's likely that not too many years from now, we'll be
relying for drinking water on recycled wastewater to take the
stress off rivers and aquifers. The stigma is wholly a cultural
construct, not a scientific one.
If tribal activists simply don't want a ski area on the mountain,
then they should say so. But then they would have to explain how
a ski area is more objectionable than hikers leaving litter atop
the sacred peak or all of that sacred snowmelt being pumped
down to Flagstaff to be flushed down people's toilets. By
opposing snowmaking, the activists, by extension, are telling the
Forest Service to remove the hikers and the water pumps and
the campers in the name of a pristine, sacred space. And while
they're at it, the Forest Service should clean up the air pollution
that mars the view of the Peaks from the Painted Desert.
The problem with that position is that this country is not a
theocracy. Religious groups are free to worship and express
their beliefs. But they are not free to extend those beliefs and
practices into the civil arena. Even the designation of the Peaks
as a "cultural property" by the Forest Service calls into question
the separation of church and state. We wonder whether the
Forest Service would be so accommodating were the Methodists
to suddenly assert a religious claim to Oak Creek Canyon or the
Catholic Church a claim to Bill Williams Mountain.
There are dozens of mountains in this country under Forest
Service and BLM jurisdiction that are leased to ski areas. Some
of them make artificial snow. If the Forest Service is going to
entertain a claim of tribal religious sovereignty in Flagstaff, in
fairness it should review ski area permits for similar claims
throughout this country. We don't think, however, that such
claims are valid, and we urge the city of Flagstaff and the Forest
Service to proceed with the NEPA evaluation of the snowmaking
application on its environmental, not religious, merits.