The Future of Navajo Coal Country — A panel conversation with KJZZ

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Yes and no. It kind of depends. It used to be the dominant fuel in the U.S., got us through the Industrial Revolution, and then has been phased out in most of the U.S. in place of cleaner, more efficient energy sources. But on the Navajo Nation, it's always been a very important element. There's a complicated relationship with the fuel source. It plays a pivotal role in the economy, but it's also a lifeline that can keep homes warm in the middle of the night. And that's sort of a foreign concept to a lot of the people who live here in Phoenix, where there's electricity. And also, now we have an administration that is sort of reversing the order of coal and making a push to expand the use of coal. And you can kind of connect some of the dots. There's bigger and bigger energy needs, data centers and things like that. And a lot of a lot of people in charge are looking for all types of ways to expand fuel production all over the place, including with coal. But we have a great panel of experts and Gabe's done a lot of reporting on coal after tonight. I encourage you to stay tuned to KJZZ. We're going to have a three part series on Gabe's reporting where he's been traveling all over. to get perspectives on coal and just having been the editor for that series, I've learned a lot and I really think you'll appreciate it. So without further ado, I turn it over to Gabe. [00:01:35] Gabriel Pietarazio: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming out and yate to all of our Navajo listeners here in person and online. My name is Gabriel Pietarazio. I'm the tribal natural resources reporter here at KJZZ and I just wanted to set up a bit before we go into this discussion, kind of what the inspiration for the panel and this reporting project was about, but first I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor and that tonight's discussion was made possible by the Katina Foundation. And the Katina Foundation is dedicated to restoring human and ecological systems. And first I'd like to introduce all the way to the furthest to the right is Carletta Chief, who is the Danette hydrologist and director of the University of Arizona's Indigenous Resilience Center. And she also leads the National Science Foundation's Native Fuse or Food, Energy and Water Systems Alliance. And next to her left is Robin Jackson, who is the executive director of the nonprofit Danette Care. Her leadership centers on Danette ancestral values of relationality and kinship with the natural world while honoring matriarchal strength and the Danette philosophy of life. Next to Robin's left is Alex Alexander Osef, who is Navajo, Hopi, and Pima, and he's from Kanta, Arizona, and he's a retired coal miner of nearly four decades. And he's also responsible as the black lung case manager for Canyonlands Healthcare and also currently serves as president of his local union, the United Mine Workers of America Local Union 1924. And lastly, but not least, to my immediate right, is Clara Pratt, who lives in Flagstaff, is also the co-founder of Navajo Power, which is a public benefit corporation that develops large-scale energy projects on tribal lands. She's also a candidate in this year's Arizona Corporation Commission election. If elected, she'd be the first Native American to hold statewide office in Arizona, and you could read more about their bios by visiting coal.kjzz.org to read the full bios. These are the abbreviated ones to set us up for this discussion. And so going on to the next point of what kind of inspired the project, Chad, would you mind sliding? So it started with this photo. It's a selfie with President Boone-Igren and President Donald Trump at an executive order signing for coal. And that was last April, I believe. So I've been looking into this coal history for a year, and it was very interesting to see this selfie get the rounds. It kind of went viral. It was kind of like, well, why is this important today? And the Biden administration during that time got rid of the National Coal Council. It sunsetted it, which was essentially this group of industry stakeholders and leaders in the coal mining industry, which basically advocated for it through the Department of Energy. And these are all appointed figures. And under the Trump administration, they brought back the National Coal Council and among them, the Crow tribe of Montana, as well as ENTEC, has a seat on the 50-member National Coal Council. So we're seeing this kind of convergence of Indian country with the coal interests of the current Trump administration and kind of this new focus on coal energy development. And so if you mind going to the next slide, this was me kind of recreating my version of the coal image that also made the rounds, which is a photo of President Bu Nigren and a sticker on a piece of coal at the Navajo mine, which says, Nigren digs coal. That's me on the right with my KJZZ pendant next to a coal pile in Upper Fruitland, New Mexico, where we went to a coal delivery to a local chapter house with ENTEC as part of its CHIRP program, which is the Community Heating Resource Program, if you'd like to continue. So before we go to what's now happening with the Trump administration, I want to step back to where it all began, really, in Arizona. And you talk about Kayanta Mine, the Kayanta Mine Complex, the issues of Black Mesa. And I'd like to start with Carletta because Carletta has been leading the scholarship in this place for a really long time. And it was I think it was it was last month, correct, that you presented last month, she presented preliminary results of longtime research to the Resources and Development Committee of the Navajo Nation Council about the impacts of coal mining in Black Mesa. So I was wondering if we'd start with you and if you wanted to talk a bit about what inspired you to do that research, what are the preliminary findings, what have you found, and your work with Black Mesa United. [00:07:14] Speaker 3: My name is Dr. Carletta Chief and I'm a professor at the University of Arizona in Environmental Science and I actually grew up within the Peabody Lee School area, so I have a really personal experience of my family being relocated from different ancestral lands due to mining. My family live originally lived where the Peabody Airport is currently, so if you go on the mine, that was where my great grandmother lived and I grew up seeing my family displaced and that really inspired me to do the work I do today. So as a professor, I do a lot of work on environmental justice and combine environmental science to address the environmental contamination and when I was completing my PhD my grandmother called to me and directed me to participate in a just transition effort that the community was doing with. So I was a professor of the National Council at the National Council at the National Council at the National Council at that time, Lawrence Morgan. And so I became involved with the community there and co-founded Black Mesa United, which is the National Council at the National Council at that time, Lawrence Morgan. And so I became involved with the community there and co-founded Black Mesa United, which is to advocate for the residents living within the Peabody Lee School Area. And oftentimes there are misconceptions about the people who live in the Peabody Lee School Area, misconceptions that they are provided for. They've received royalties and that they support the mine in every way. And so they are living across various jurisdictional lines across five different chapters and never making a majority of any one chapter. So they're left to fend for themselves because they're not able to get the support from the chapter, not able to get the support from Peabody themselves or the Navajo Nation. And so, um, uh, 20 years later, um, I am now collaborating with my own community. I've, um, left the board many years ago and now I'm collaborating in the research. So we conducted, uh, listening sessions across, um, Black Mesa last year. We interviewed, um, over 40 participants, um, uh, majority of them being, uh, women and, um, across the Forest Lake, Kienta areas. And we found that it's a very complicated story, um, related to the traditional livelihood, health, um, even the wildlife, uh, feral animals, um, displacement, and again, Black lung disease. And so, um, we are, um, going into the area of Black lung, um, disease next to, with my collaborators at the University of Arizona to look at the, the health impacts, um, because not a lot of it is well documented. I've had, um, my uncles, um, my grandmothers who were non coal miners that have died of Black lung disease. [00:10:27] Gabriel Pietarazio: Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing, and I wanted to make a note as well that we did invite Peabody, as well as Ntech, the Navajo Transitional Energy Company, to participate in this discussion. Both declined. Um, building on that, I, Carlotta, would you mind going, explaining a little more about the displacement side? Um, I know it's a very long, kind of complex history, but would you mind giving kind of a brief overview or the spark notes, essentially, of what led to, um, that displacement you were talking about? We're talking about the Navajope settlement and, um, kind of the lead up to those thousands of families being, you know, moved as a result of, of this mining project. Yes. [00:11:10] Speaker 3: Um, so if you go on to the, um, empowerblackmesa.org, you'll find a video on there that, um, shares a little about, about the elder stories. Um, and, um, a lot of it was conversations that were taking place by the council delegate at the time. Um, I believe his, um, can't remember his last name, but Ned, um, who, uh, basically, um, promised the community that they would get jobs, they would get homes, and they would be compensated, but not really telling them about the environmental impacts of what was to come. Um, and, um, and so much of that was never written down. And as time went on, um, they were unable to, to really, um, advocate for themselves because they had no agreement in place. And so, um, the people, once the Navajo Nation made the agreement, um, the people were, um, basically just, um, you know, uh, at the mercy of the people. Um, and so, um, and so, um, the people were just forced to be moved from that area, either adjacent or they were taken to other places, um, um, um, off the Black Mesa region completely. Um, and so, um, some families were given, they were, uh, compensated homes. Some were just given cinder blocks. Like my dad, um, they dropped off cinder blocks at the new location, and he just had to build his own home, um, by himself. And then for my grandmother, similarly. So there's a range of, um, people who had different types of relocation experiences. Thank you for sharing. [00:13:01] Gabriel Pietarazio: And I think, you know, what's also interesting and kind of shout out to the Maricopa Community College District. I, um, I took a Navajo government class here, um, through the district and learned about the founding of the, the original Navajo Tribal Council and kind of how that came about in like 1922 to help essentially facilitate oil, gas, mineral leasing, um, with the federal government. So to essentially kind of negotiate these kind of deals that would come down originally was oil, gas, but then this would set up the way for how we have coiled the coal agreements that, you know, Carletta is talking about with Peabody in 1964 and then 1966 when they did the final one. And so I thought that was an interesting kind of contextual framework of how these federally recognized governments like kind of emerged as a result of that. And so building, you know, on that point, you know, I was wondering if Alex would like to weigh in because he had personal experience there, um, at Peabody. And I was wondering, you talk a bit about what it was like for you mining and what you do today and how that connects to what Carletta is talking about, especially with obviously your work in the black lung space. [00:14:16] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:14:17] Speaker 4: Good evening. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. My name is Alexander Osef. 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My name is Antec, which is the Navajo Mine, which is near Upper Fruitland, New Mexico in the Four Corners region. And I had a chance to go out there and see where the new coal mining boom is occurring. So we had Arizona from the 60s. Black Mesa shut down 2005. Kayanta shut down 2019. Arizonans are familiar with the Navajo Generating Station and the history around that. Would you mind going to the next one? And so this is an image of coal being dumped into the back of a pickup truck by the CHIRP staff who are part of the heating program. And so they give out tickets and vouchers to members of not only the Navajo Nation. They work with the 110 chapters, but they also work with the dozen Hopi villages to help those families. Some families stay warm during the winter months. And so this is just one example of them doing a loading of the truck. They put a ton of coal in the back of a pickup truck or the flatbed of a truck or what have you. And so that's just an image of that. Would you mind going to the next one? So this is kind of like where the new coal battle is. This is the Long family. I spent time with them while I was out in Burnham, which is a chapter about 75 miles north of Gallup, New Mexico. And they are one of a dozen or so families in that region that are facing the expansion of the Navajo mine that we just mentioned, which under the current proposal, it's called the no-name permit, would essentially expand the mineral leasing boundary by about 12,000 acres, give or take. And tech claims that that would be about 500 million tons of new coal reserves that would be added to the area where they could mine. And that would allow them to theoretically mine until 2136. So that's 110 years from now, more than a century. And so the Burnham community had passed a resolution opposing the plan. And Robin has worked really closely and she's been on the ground leading a lot of the grassroots efforts interfacing with community and, you know, kind of informing people about this happening. And so I remember we had our discussion about how you first learned about this situation. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about how like the net care learned about the proposal. I believe it was back in like November or so. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about since then, how you found out about the plan and the lead up to now with through the comment period and what it's been like for you to be on the ground working with, you know, affected chapter members. [00:29:57] Speaker 5: Hi, everyone. I'm from Wheatfields, Arizona. It's sort of the northern central part of Navajo Nation, not too far from the Four Corners region. And so that's the area I grew up in on the reservation. That's my mother's side, where she's from, is along the Chuska mountains. And then my father's side is from Sadagan and Sabataya. So Hogback, Shiprock, New Mexico. And those communities where my father's from are the northern communities. And so it's not too far from actually this Navajo mine that we're going to talk a little bit about. And then the Four Corners power plant. So Navajo mine is an existing mine active on Navajo Nation lands on the New Mexico side. And their coal gets taken to the Four Corners power plant, which is also on the New Mexico side, on the reservation. And it's the one remaining coal plant. It's been in operating for over 50 years. It has one operating unit, possibly a second one. That's kind of questionable, but for sure, one operating unit. And at one time it had four. So it's a very old aging plant. And it's one that we're very worried about because of all the impacts that have happened over the years to the environment, our air, the land, the water and the people. And in the Northern agency, there's the San Juan River there. And that's actually where a lot of communities still, they use the river for irrigation. And so they grow their crops, melons, beans, squash. And I can remember as a child going with my family to my father's side and helping them pick those plants when harvest time came, which was a very happy time. I remember orchards. And so that part of our community is still there and something we value. And we do want to remember and think about how that's being impacted by everything. And so I also work for the Navajo Environmental Justice Organization, Dine Care, which is short for Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment. So we work across the reservation on multiple energy environmental issues affecting our land. And over the years, it's primarily been resource extraction, impacts from coal mining, impacts from oil and gas, past uranium mining. And there's a lot of waste issues associated with all of those industries. And there's new proposals that are concerning with carbon capture and sequestration, with hydrogen and helium. So these are new things we're also dealing with. But in looking at coal, there is that one remaining coal plant and coal mine. And actually with Navajo mine that had been primarily operated by other operators, not Navajo for a long time was BHP Billiton, which is an international mining company out of Australia. And in 2013, they went and sold it to the Navajo Nation. And that's when they formed Intec. And so Intec, it's funny, their name is short for Navajo Transitional Energy Company, because the purpose was for them to always diversify the tribe's portfolio and to actually develop other sources of revenue, not just coal. So we always remind them that they're pretty late on developing into other areas other than coal. So with our organization, actually, yeah, I happen to be looking at the Navajo Times, checking out. This is this is a Navajo newspaper looking through the back in the classified section and, you know, in the classifieds in the back text, nothing particularly interesting unless you really want to look for something and happen to see a map. And that is where we saw that there was this proposal for expanding Navajo mine and knowing that area because I've worked in that area, been to that area, families from that area. You could see that that expansion that they were proposing from Navajo mine would go further south along this one road that the community uses a lot. So just knowing that area, seeing the map, it was going to be a huge area impacted. And I know from previous work of working with organizers since 2007, that there are Navajo families who live in that area. So once we learned about that, we shared information with as many people as we could. We put announcements out on our side and and that's how we got back in touch with families like the Long family. Dylan Long hit his family. His grandmother were a big part of resisting a third coal fire fire power plant that had been proposed in 2007 called the Desert Rock Power Plant. So there has been a lot of proposals and our communities were not oftentimes notified of these things. And I mean, we just happened to notice in the classified there was nothing in the newspaper. There was nothing announced by our tribal council. There really wasn't much announced at the chapters either, because when we checked with Dylan and his sister Joni, they said there was an original resolution proposed at their chapter during Christmas time. And there was also a dinner, honestly hosted by Intech. And there was just a little bit of a mention of proposing Intech's expansion, but nothing nothing really explained. So these things are not fully explained to our communities even now in 2026. [00:35:55] Gabriel Pietarazio: And to build on that, so Robin had helped organize and her whole team really helped lead a lot of commenting on the proposal that's being done by the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation. And they say that there will be a decision on that proposal sometime by the end of this month in August. And so, yeah, it's interesting. If you'd like to go to the next slide, this is a herd there, the Long's Churro sheep, Navajo Churro sheep. And in the distance, not in this image, but heading this way more so, you'll see like the smoke or the steam, excuse me, billowing from the Four Corners power plant that Robin was talking about. And their, you know, backyard butts up against this coal mine. And he talked about the island's dad, Emery, was talking about how you go out and feed the sheep and he'd feel tremors if they were blasting nearby and the very real impacts of, you know, of this proposal. There's discussion, they have a home that he's preparing in, I believe it was Lupton actually, where he's from originally, and it's kind of like a contingency plan. If things do go awry, that they could relocate to Arizona as a result of this. And so something that I thought a lot about was kind of like the situation with Peabody and relocation happening over again in a new era. And, you know, I didn't know if anyone had thoughts generally about, you know, is this kind of history repeating itself, you know, 60 plus years later from, you know, the original Peabody mining. Would you like to weigh in on that problem? [00:37:59] Speaker 5: Yeah, I was just gonna mention that. So yeah, with the, with the mining on Navajo, there was what's, what's happening on a New Mexico side with Navajo mine, and then over Black Mesa Canta mines. Um, this mine, uh, with Navajo mine has been since the 1950s. So it's, it's the older one, but it's, it's, I mean, on both sides, Arizona side and New Mexico side are people have been immensely impacted. Um, the numbers I kind of remember were somewhere around 12,000. Didn't have people removed from, you know, being relocated and maybe 400 something of Hopi too. Um, but that has had huge intergenerational impacts to people. Um, to not be able to go back to the area where you are from, where your grandmothers, grandfathers are from. I mean, there's so much history to place and our identity is, is really linked and tied to the land. Um, and with this proposal of, um, intake wanting to expand Navajo mine, um, 11,000 over 11,000 acres, um, 18 square miles. There are several families that live within that area. And then if we think about the bigger ramifications of climate change, of the water impacts to people who use the San Juan river and that San Juan river goes down the Colorado river. And that eventually comes down here. Like that is a huge impact. And the other thing in this proposal that, um, in, in the application for the expansion of Navajo mine is that it would be for 110 years. Allowing coal mining for 110 years over a century. That's just ridiculous. That's really not heard of. And we feel like it's, um, an attempt made at this time under this current federal administration. By Trump, you know, I think they think that they'll have a higher likelihood of passage for something this, this big that they, they're not even going to be around to deal with. I don't understand how they can make a decision that they're not going to full feel the impact from. This is going to affect generations of not only our people, but people throughout the region. So it's, it's a huge, um, issue that's going on. And we hope that, um, we hope that our tribe looks at this. One of the things we're pushing our tribal members on is trying to educate them. I don't think they fully understand everything that's going on that in tech is proposing. There's been issues in the past of in tech, not fully sharing all information and being transparent, especially about the financial part of what they're doing. Um, but even, um, in 2017, when they bought some coal mines in Wyoming and Montana, that came as a surprise to our tribal council. Um, so in tech, really, we feel they need to share more information, um, in our interactions with them. Um, they've not shared with us and we just, we would like our tribal government to push them on the transition part. Like we need that now we need it for future generations and especially now with the heat we're feeling with the drought we're feeling with the crazy floods. Like we can't ignore this era of climate chaos. [00:41:30] Gabriel Pietarazio: And to build on that. And I would like to offer a comment. It was something that, um, the NTEC CEO, Vern Lund said during the, uh, NABECA committee, which, um, oversees, um, legislative actions between, uh, multiple branches of Navajo nation government. Um, he testified with some of the NTEC executives and pushed back on that narrative that, oh, it's only, you know, five years, every five years, we have to get a new permit to do the mining, um, to, to continue the mining, even though they're going to expand. The proposal says they'll expand the actual, um, mining permit area by 110 years or by a, by 12,000 acres and 110 more years. But they said that they'll do it piece by piece. Every five years, they have to get a new permit. That's through the feds. That was their kind of, um, justification in response to kind of concerns raised by like Robin and other, uh, grassroots organizers and activists. And so, um, you know, she, she set up a really good point that I like to bring Clara into because we got a lot of great questions. It made my job moderating and putting a panel together very easily because I got a lot of really great questions from our smart audience of people who signed up in advance about this big debate over solar and coal. And of this, um, a lot of questions around kind of things like how long can coal be used for energy before it gets too expensive? Is it expensive already? Um, you know, would it be less expensive and more environmentally friendly to build a huge solar farm than to continue burning fossil fuels to generate electricity? Um, what is the plan for power if or when coal is no longer available from New Mexico or other states? Is there a transition to solar? And so I was wondering if you would like to weigh in on your expertise in this space, doing this work a lot, developing, um, you know, solar projects on Navajo as well. Um, and kind of this tug of, um, tug and pull, so to speak, when it comes to coal versus solar and how do we transition, uh, forward into a more renewable energy space? [00:43:41] Speaker 6: Thank you. So I live, um, in Flagstaff, Arizona now, but I'm originally from the community of Lupton, Arizona. So when you said, uh, the Long family might locate to Lupton, I said, Oh, I wonder if I know their family. I was trying to think through our very small town Rolodex. Um, but this, this, I think this is a fundamental question because we already know there are environmental impacts from coal usage, both the mining and the burning. Um, we also know there are environmental impacts and health impacts and all of these other things. And it's often couched to us as residents. It's an either or situation. Uh, but I think from, from my perspective, it's largely in those things are important, but when I'm looking at it, I'm looking at it from an economic one. So to your point, coal is, it's a great energy source. If you literally have nothing else, if that's all you have to produce energy, then yeah, it's, it's the thing to do because it's high burning depending on the quality of coal, um, whether it's brown coal or not. Uh, it, it, you know, there's so many variables, but when you think about the price of coal right now, it is, it is not efficient and it's certainly not worth the human and health and environmental cost. Regardless of the price per ton, it's not worth those costs. But when you factor in the actual economic cost, it's really not worth it. So, you know, this is a troubling, um, trend that we're seeing backsliding into coal. And, and I say this, um, with a lot of respect for our, our coal communities that have, you know, built careers and clothed children and fed families on the coal industry. Um, but we know now how harmful and detrimental to our health it is. And I had to kind of laugh when I saw the, um, the end tech, uh, community outreach because we burned coal in our home for heating and it would always be distributed to the chapter houses. So we'd go and we'd get our coal allocation for the winter, but every spring, summer, we would have to wash the walls inside the house because of how much soot would be built up on the walls. And it never occurred to me as a kid, how much I was breathing in as well. I just knew, Hey, this is warm. You know, this is good. And my parents didn't have to pay for it. That's great. Um, but you know, I, I began my career working with the Navajo nation in 2006. And that was under the Joe Shirley administration, heavy, heavy, heavy supportive of coal. And that was during the, uh, desert rock timeframe as well. So that administration was very much into coal. And I was working in the DC office at the time. And our mandate was lobby to keep that coal plant open at all costs because of the economic impact and the thousand or so jobs at the plant. Plus another 500 or so jobs in the mine. So it was a very real economic impact. And, you know, when we saw the closure of Navajo generating station, which was the largest coal fired power plant in the Southwest. So here in the Southwest, we have, um, four corners, which is still in operation, but our biggest one in the Southwest is in Utah in terms of both, uh, capacity from the, the electric generation, but also in terms of how much CO2 it puts in the air. Uh, so when we think about these things, we're also thinking about it from not just a region or domestic, it's also international because air doesn't care where it goes. It doesn't recognize, oh, these people burn coal. These people don't. Uh, the dirtiest, largest coal power plant is actually in Poland, which kind of surprised me. I thought it was China for sure. Second and third largest are in China. And then the fourth is in India. And I think when we have an administration that's leaning into coal, despite all evidence to the contrary, including the price of solar. So I think to answer your question, yes, solar is cheaper. It's cleaner. It's faster to develop, but we have a fair amount of nimbyism in the state, which is not my, in my backyard ism. And we're seeing it happen with renewable projects as well. So renewables, when it comes to solar and when people love the idea of clean energy, they don't necessarily want it to be cited next to them. But when you think about the environmental, economic and health impacts, renewable is far better for us, but also it's cheaper. And we wouldn't have to rely so much on LNG and other gas lines that we're building in from Texas. So it makes sense all the way around to produce domestically, meaning in Arizona, as much renewable as we can. And then if we have the need, the demand, which we know is not going away and is only increasing, we can backfill as needed. But use your cheapest, cleanest first, and then backfill as needed. I think we would all run our households in that way. But unfortunately, our government doesn't do the same. [00:48:32] Gabriel Pietarazio: I appreciate that answer and kind of building on it. I think, you know, it was interesting doing the research about like coal and the prominence and dominance in this country that, you know, from 1885 to 1950. So through the tail end of the Industrial Revolution, all the way up until, you know, like 70 years ago, it was the most dominant fuel source in the country. And now we're seeing you may have heard the headline that last year was there's a new report that came out that said basically last year more energy was created in other spaces other than coal. And so we're starting to see the the trend, the tipping point, so to speak, of the economic calculation of, hey, there's more energy being created. Not with coal, but through other sorts of things like renewables, solar, wind, energy. And so, you know, I'm curious, like, do you see that as a sign that the industry people are shifting away, too, and that the markets are being receptive to that? [00:49:39] Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I think that's exactly what it is. It's not penciling out because I hate to say it, but the industry doesn't necessarily care about the health and human environmental costs. They're looking at the bottom line for the shareholders. So when you think about the price of coal not being feasible, they're, you know, shifting to other things. And that can include, you know, solar, wind, geothermal. Right now it's gas, LNG and oil and natural gas as being one of those competitors. But I think as time goes on, we are going to see more and more renewables taking shape as the dominant thing in that we have for our energy source, which is a positive overall. And right now I see the Trump administration as a last dying breath of the coal industry because, you know, the administration gave permission for Choia power plant to be fueled by coal. It was a very proud announcement I think they did in DCA, the Choia power plant, which if you've ever driven between Flagstaff and Holbrook, you've passed that big power plant there. And the utilities said, no, we don't want coal. No, no, no. We're putting it to natural gas, LNG. So, you know, I think it's just a matter of time. But it's not it's not the coal resurgence that everybody thinks is going to be there. It just doesn't pencil out mathematically. [00:50:54] Gabriel Pietarazio: Yeah. And to your point about the Choia, that was actually the event that President Nygren was also at. That was the executive order signing for it to keep Choia up and running, even though APS was kind of like, do we really want to do this? And, you know, to that point. Would you mind going to the next slide, Chad? So this is an image. You've seen this image probably before. This is the Four Corners power plant. There are four utilities that are owners currently in it. Majority shareholder is APS. The public PNM, which is the public service New Mexico utility company, is also involved as well as SRP and Tucson Electric Power TEP. And so as part of the reporting, we reached out to all of them to be to ask them about what do you think of this proposal? And like, what's your plan? Does this impact your decision making moving forward? And so all but Tucson Electric Power responded to us for our requests. And none of them said that their plans are changing about divesting from the Four Corners power plant ownership. Some as early as 2031, which has been reported and others toward the tail end at like APS to 2038. And so even the idea of expanding this mine by 110 years isn't necessarily changing course or trajectory for the utilities and the investment side from what we're learning about this facility, which is solely powered by the Navajo mine that the Entech is looking to expand. So to underscore how important coal is to the Navajo Nation, Entech claims to be the third largest coal producer in the country. They, to Robin's point, she brought up that they own deposits in Montana and Wyoming. And so that has grown the footprint of this industry. And Entech talks about, I believe it's like $120 million a year, give or take, that they point to as the economic benefits of the coal mine itself. They recently cut what is what they consider to be the largest dividend check for any tribally owned company in nation history, which I believe was a little over $5 million or so. And they presented that to President Nygren. And it was touted as this very big success of it's the largest single dividend check that was given to the nation by any tribally owned company. So that's a bit of context of how important coal mining is still economically to the nation. And so, you know, building on that point, another interesting series of questions we got from listeners was about jobs and kind of like, so coal mining is bad. Let's say we assume that premise and coal miners need jobs. So where do they go to find comparable jobs? And so I was wondering, Alex, if you had any thoughts on that of one question specifically said, can panelists identify successful examples where displaced coal workers obtain comparable wages and benefits in new industries? And, you know, talking about this ushering in of potential renewable energy projects and could those workers translate their skills elsewhere? [00:54:33] Speaker ?: And so, I think that's a good question. [00:54:35] Speaker 4: I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. [00:54:37] Speaker ?: It's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. [00:54:39] Speaker 4: I think that's a good idea. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. [00:54:47] Speaker ?: I think that's a good idea. [00:54:48] Speaker 4: I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. So, tell me about, you know, I was very reluctant for my family. I told my kids, you don't get a job in a coal mine. You go and get a college education. In fact, a lot of those minors, one of them's right here, Carlotta. You know, we had a good high school who offered the Chief Manuelito Award. And I guarantee you, Peabody put a big chunk of change into that award for our students there at the local high school. Again, too, you know, there's a lot of kids that walked the aisle way of Monument Valley High School. And what's really unique about this Peabody mine, we had the United Mine Workers. We had a lot of kids looking over our miners, who played a big role in giving job security through both mines. Peabody, Coal, Black Mason, and Kienta mine. To this day, fighting for the health, fighting for the medical of the miners, they still stand up. And they still want the Senate, the Congress, in getting this for our miners. So our miners aren't left with nothing. But we're reluctant to have that under the UNWA. Jobs, again, we look at jobs. I'm still an active president of our local. I get calls from our younger generation. I'm still on the panel, am I? And I say, yes, you are. But it's just, we only hire, they're only doing reclamation. That only requires 21 people. And that's mainly operators. Those are operators. End-up operators. No more drag line. No more laborers. All operators. Mechanics. maybe one electrician but that's it there were over with both minds combined there were over 800 people employed and that's three shifts no more now we're just down to two shifts by seniority they're put on a panel they're hired back on if they want another miner to come up but other than that they're in massachusetts they're in louisiana most of them are welders iron workers they're building structures down here like they're working at the palo verde power plant here yeah there's overhauls at some of these power plants that's the jobs they're getting but how far is that from the navajo reservation where these families are when this solar thing started coming in they were it sounded like they were going to hire 375 people for a long time once that solar thing was built only three people were hired and left there's no jobs in solar other than probably electrician uh somebody that security drives around and checks to make sure the panels are all right heat heat specialists and that's one thing we did as a union when these solars start coming up we were in negotiation not only with the solar but also the water issue we were talking about what jobs you you promised us jobs as miners what jobs do we have is it going to keep our miners local we never got to work back from them we had town hall meetings the people stood up and said yeah solars some of the kids of the miners were working there building these things but as soon as that thing was built they took those special people took them to the next community there's another solar field red mesa over a hill a huge one they left there and i believe they're now somewhere building another one down here between tucson and phoenix apache so again no jobs it is hard on these families the loved ones you know they'll maybe come home for three days for christmas and they're back out on the road so again there's no jobs on the reservation not as much that pay for that type of education the cost of the living that we have and the health as well that's my job now i walk i watch over these miners the miners that started in 1970 are starting to show positive for pneumocosis because back in the day respirators weren't in force what a lot of our miners used to do and they were right on top of the hopper where the truck stumped it wasn't until i started in the mine probably 1980 yeah we had respirators but it wasn't enforced until 1985 is when it was enforced by the federal government in shaw they actually herded us into a room fit tested us and it was mandatory when you were out in the pits and stuff like that again jobs not as precious as it was back then now it's limited we're very reluctant again like I said for the United Mine Workers for the ones that had the retirement they are blessed to this day they're blessed with a pension they're blessed with medical I think the union work hard for them and I'm glad to be a part of that so I will say if you're if you're if you're close to being if you're close that your company has a union join it they'll fight for you or you regulate that how they want you how you want them to fight for you I think that was how it really happened up there a lot of the older council delegates can't mean remember some of them but Nakai Big A Nakai those guys they were smart they wanted unions to be on the Navajo reservation so again jobs are limited now our younger generation have to travel off to that reservation and it's afar Montana Wyoming they're chasing power plants they're chasing nuclear power plants now too so again my my small community clinic is now looking into testing for uranium and not I'm not a uranium miner but I guarantee I will fight for any miner or uranium or coal copper we're even going to be testing down here in Marinci them copper mines every mining has a health issue but that's where a lot of our people went for jobs that had of course a Native American worked with their hands that's how we were taught that's how we were raised so that's why they're welders they're electricians they're operators we work with our hands a lot of them that were operators came down here to help build these freeways so again jobs are limited on a reservation so if if you know you see a Native American one of my ex coal miners they're going to say yeah I used to work at Peabody I used to work at the mine I miss that I miss being home thank you [01:05:19] Gabriel Pietarazio: thank you I was going to come to you next Carletta because I know you've been working a lot in Black Mesa and now you know in the vacuum of the Peabody we're seeing the push for hydropower which is a whole other discussion for a whole other panel with Black Mesa and something that's very important to talk about too is now there's interest to do hydropower work up in Black Mesa and you know I'm wondering if you talk a bit about building on like what Alex was saying about the job vacuum kind of in the Black Mesa region but also but also like this kind of need for jobs and now there's kind of new interests right that are emerging that could benefit the community but there are new concerns in that respect I was wondering you could talk a bit about the need for jobs but also the challenges of that [01:06:17] Speaker 3: sure and I just want to point out that within the Peabody leasehold area the residents that were living there they were also promised jobs to work at the mine but there was only a minority of those that wanted to work there didn't get the jobs that they were promised so that was always an issue with the community is preference or the ability of the people living within the Peabody leasehold area to have jobs at the mine now we're in a just transition and trying to make it just and so during the Biden administration there was an effort to support communities in transitioning away from coal and so I worked with Black Mesa to do to write grants to the EPA for community change grant and part of that was an effort to reuse the Peabody facilities to develop workforce skills and economic opportunities for coal impacted communities so we actually tried to get a Peabody building it's the N8 building which is a former engineering building where all the engineers sat to strategize where the coal deposits were and the community wanted to get that asset and turn it into a resilience hub and like Robin was saying a lot of things you just here by chance nobody tribe doesn't come out and tell you oh this is an opportunity or this is what's happening and but just by chance one of our community members had attended a meeting where the Peabody asset list was provided and there was a certain number of days for the Navajo tribe to say yeah we want to get this asset whether it's a building or the old testing lab the you know different different things and so the community was able to write a letter to President Nigrid and asked can we have the innate building to turn into a resilience hub we have a vision by the elders to to rejuvenate the land to create jobs to provide educational opportunities to have health clinics to have an elder care center senior care center have the people get the care where they live and not have to send elders out to Blanding or Farmington and that was a vision by Nettiazzi and so we worked for a year you know a couple of years trying to get the asset but in the end the Navajo Nation didn't they said they don't have the legal power to fight Peabody in regards to the liability they did not want to turn over any of those assets to the people whereas in West Virginia you see thriving communities in Appalachian where they have been able to turn those buildings into something that they could utilize and so in the end we went back to deciding that the only place that we can actually have a resilience hub is off the Peabody leasehold area so now we're working with 10 acres that Ned Yazzie and his family have donated off the Peabody leasehold area to develop a resilience hub where there could be educational opportunities workforce development to try to provide education to community members and the youth so that they could have jobs skills and then jobs is an issue for many of the community members and more recently there was an effort to a proposal to develop a pump hydro storage on Black Mesa and Chichibito chapter was the first one to really be behind it and then now Kienta chapter is now stepping behind it and they're proposing to develop it off the Black Mesa rim where they would pump groundwater and then drop it by gravity down to the Kienta valley floor and create electrical energy by that gravitational to mechanical energy conversion and so that is looking good for people in terms of jobs because people really want jobs and so people there's some people who are jumping on that to support it however there's a contingency of the people within the Peabody Leesaw area that have such a negative experience emotionally traumatic experiences from the mine that they do not want that they've seen the environmental destruction of coal strip mining that they don't want to see that happen again but again much like what Robin is saying is that there's very little information conversations happening behind closed doors individually with individual leaders officials grazing officials permittees and using that lack of communication to work against the people without transparency and so we're working to just make that information known and transparent so that people have information before them to know exactly what is the environmental impact what does this mean and a lot of these efforts don't have a transition plan like my relative is saying here like how many jobs is it actually going to produce they're promising a lot of construction jobs but once it's created the number of jobs to maintain it is very little so trust transition is not happening there's no plan by the Navajo Nation for a lot of these and Trump is making it easier for these developers many of them who are foreign to come on and use you know Trump's support of lack of tribal consultation to come in and start just doing feasibility studies getting in these communities and and using lack of information to make their ways through these communities [01:13:31] Gabriel Pietarazio: and obviously because of the coal mining the Navajo aquifer is obviously really important and that's also the same aquifer that we discussed for the hydro pump project I believe Nature People First I believe is a French company French national that's looking to do that so there's been a lot of discussion around that and more to come in the coming months on that reporting once I get through the slog here but thank you Carletta for your thoughts and I think building on that maybe directed to Clara first and then Robin after what do you think like a just transition looks like from a leadership perspective in the moving forward and what could that look like what are I guess some of the strategies or tips for leadership to consider when looking at this energy transition or what could be an energy transition [01:14:28] Speaker 6: yeah no we I think as Navajo people we were promised a just transition that never occurred and there's a lot of mistrust and I think Dr. Chief brings that up really well there's a lot of mistrust when it comes but we're dealing with a lot of trauma that has happened to these communities and you know just not wanting to have any development at all because of what has happened in the past so I think you know one of the things that we did with Navajo Power when we founded that company was to really deal with that issue because even if you bring in a new industry you're dealing with not coal it's solar but we wanted to make sure we're working from a bottom up approach because there is this disconnect I think with central government on the tribal government level and individuals in the communities and that's a Navajo government problem and a process problem where there's just this lack of transparency between the different entities so when a company comes out let's just say they want to develop a project and we can use pumped hydro or solar or coal any of the above when they want to do something there's a checklist of things that you need to do to get through that process that whole process needs big time reform because it doesn't work it's broken and even if you're an entity and you follow that checklist you know you're following the letter of the law it doesn't really go far enough to making sure these communities are included that they benefit and they're protected so with Navajo Power we kind of had to do that differently and we had to work with the communities locally about what they wanted from a community benefit standpoint and even that at times was not supported by the central government because they see themselves as the keeper of all these things but you need the local support in order to make things go so I think there needs to be a rehab of that and there has to be better dialogue and communication and there has to really be something in it for the communities I don't know how the pumped hydro has formulated their community benefits for Kanta and Chilcinbato I'm assuming that there is something specific for those communities but by and large what's occurred in the past is a project would happen like Navajo generating station they negotiate a lease rate and a right of way payment and taxes with the central government and that gets divided among all 110 chapters so if you're a local person in that area that's impacted by a mine or power plant you're splitting that 110 ways even though you're mostly impacted and that left a lot of bad taste in people's mouths so we have to do that better and in my opinion just speaking as one person if the community is the impacted community they should be getting the lion's share of the economic benefit that includes jobs lease payment taxes and I think that's just the right thing to do I think that's an uphill battle especially when you have a hungry big government a big bureaucracy I you count in the mine it's easily double that for operating income and you have to remember that tribal governments are largely funded by a couple different mechanisms money that has no strings which is money that they are able to generate on their own through gaming lease holdings royalty taxes and money that comes with a lot of strings which is federal government money and by and large our preference from government perspective is to have money that you can allocate the way you want to do it so it's all very complicated and at the end of the day that government is providing direct services to people so it's a trade-off but we need to do better from a government perspective of working with our people [01:18:24] Gabriel Pietarazio: Thank you Robin would you like to that at all [01:18:28] Speaker 5: yeah I think there was a yeah it's it's it's mixed it's varied with our tribe so we do have the largest reservation of a federally recognized tribe over 400,000 27 over 427,000 enrolled members not all live on the reservation but around 160 170 so I mean there are a lot of tribal members and there's a huge expanse of land and what's been brought up is how we have the central government but it it does get bottlenecked like not enough gets trickled down to the chapters and with when you look at jobs that you know in GS and if we look at four corners okay 800 I mean that's not enough for all of our tribal members and when it comes to coal I mean we've talked about the economics of that but that is why NGS closed because those owners decided that it was more profitable to make money elsewhere other than coal so that was an economic decision those utility owners made and [01:19:52] Speaker ?: and and and [01:19:52] Speaker 5: it's not strategic it's not smart to put all of your eggs in one basket and at the time when there was discussion about NGS our tribal leaders at the time did recognize oh yeah we should have diversified our portfolio we need to have other sources other than just coal like that did not do us well because we're at this point now with these coal plants they're closing and it's it's not our decision it's the utility owner's decision and they're doing it for their own profit so we're still in that position and our tribe really needs to find a way for other sources of revenue that's sustainable that's renewable there's the job piece of things but there's also the resource like the actual replacement of that power and so some of what we've been doing with other groups in the Four Corners region is to really press on renewable development solar development in particular so where the Four Corners power plant is if you could just go across the river 15 miles there was the San Juan generating station another coal plant that was just off reservation but they're within 15 miles of one another so double the impact of emissions from those facilities San Juan generating station closed in 2022 that had an underground mine and so just thinking about the impact one of the things our groups along with groups like the San Juan Citizens Alliance really pushed on solar development so if you go to where San Juan used to be not too far off actually you'll see the San Juan solar so it's a big solar field they've added more and there's other proposals for other areas for more solar development and in New Mexico there's something called the Energy Transition Act that also was passed and in there with the closure of San Juan generating station they said we need to have funding that will go to the economic development department Indian resource or Indian affairs department and workforce development so I appreciate workforce also being brought up additionally they said that in the closure of San Juan the utility owners needed to make sure that there was resource replacement power renewable so that's that's just a big important piece to all of this now we're being pressured with things like AI data centers which are kind of questionable but we do need to think about our power and where where this comes from what's the cost of that because there's always an environmental cost there's a social cost and we need to look at the numbers and think about how it's not it's just not smart to invest solely in coal I hope that our tribal leaders hear us when we talk about this and you know I'm right now I'm 39 years old and I've been working on these coal related issues since I was 19 I was part of that effort to bring about information about desert rock how we did not want a third coal fire power plant in our region we need to move beyond coal and I hope that our leaders know that my generation and those coming after we are dealing with all of these environmental catastrophes that is a huge huge issue we can ignore so thank you [01:23:28] Gabriel Pietarazio: yeah thank you as well and you know I would be remiss because we've been talking a lot about it you know for all of our Navajo citizens out here it's a big election year and we talked a lot about President Nygren he was primaried out of the election and now we have two candidates and it'll be interesting to see what they may say about not just coal but energy development on the reservation Justin Jones is coming tomorrow to do an interview with me as part of our election preview and we'll be talking to speaker Crystalyn Curley at some point down the line as well when she's back in Phoenix so stay tuned on that and it'll be interesting to hear perspectives there as we wrap up we're in the last five minutes or so of our discussion I wanted to do the lightning round the title of the panel the future of Navajo coal country that's the name of the series I'm curious if each of you have any on the Navajo nation what does that look like is it going to be there is it not going to be there in however many years and you know I'm curious what each of you may have to say it's a little open ended and kind of a loaded question so you can take it however you would like to looks like Carletta is ready to go though [01:24:51] Speaker 3: actually I was worried because I didn't see the title and later I recently I saw the title like the future of Navajo country what panel am I on there is no future for coal on Navajo lands and it's just dirty energy thinking about you know our grandchildren grandchildren grandchildren and what they will have and our leaders need to clearly state how they are going to protect our land and our environment and have a sustainability plan it's very disappointing to hear all the presidential debates and all but one did not clearly state how they're going to protect our environment on the net how we have sacrificed so much we have gone through so much trauma and we need to come to a healing and recovery and restore our lands and lead the way towards environmental sustainability thank you [01:25:59] Speaker 6: jump in we'll jump back and forth and give you guys some more time I have to echo that I don't I don't believe there's a future coal country I think that as the Navajo nation we've been the battery of the southwest and the west for a long time we've got a lot of transmission line there we've got a lot of opportunity it's not in coal and the idea when somebody says well what about clean coal there's no such thing as clean coal and if they talk about carbon capture which I know has been a topic of discussion that has very limited success rate and what happens to that carbon where is it being put that's a huge issue if you're going to put it in the ground that carbon is going to come out at some point somewhere somehow and who's going to face that impact is the communities that are living there so you know I think on one hand there's a balance between wanting cheap affordable forms of energy I don't count coal in that mix anymore we have to transition to other things and our leadership from a tribal perspective they really do need to say it clearly what is our plan and you know I started out the panel by saying I worked for Joe Shirley I worked for Joe Shirley I worked for Ben Shelley I worked for Russell Begay I worked for Jonathan Nez and Nez was the only one who finally said clearly we when he left we went right back to coal so I think we're in this time where we need to speak clearly as citizens and hold our leaders accountable to hey we want this we want a renewable energy economy and it's not where all the jobs are created for sure much much like Shanna's comment here it doesn't create jobs that's very true so when we think about transition we think about coal country it's not going to be there anymore we have to figure out other ways to employ our people [01:27:59] Speaker 4: I always wondered when I was working at the coal mine I would see these wells to the in aquifer and the purpose you know of two tribes the that wo and the Hopi and then we have the Pima down here you go east here you see fields and fields and fields green I always wondered sitting in my haul truck at work you know man we get these we got these in aquifers wells at one time towards the ending of Kienta mine the Hopi tribe had drawn interest in putting a farm up there at Peabody sort of like what we have in Farmington Nappy that was one thing that they were looking at the other thing they were also looking at is reversing the water pump that we had like Mesa slurry line reversing that out of Colorado river in Nevada there and pumping that water back into the J7 dam that would have been the farmlands that the Hopi would have had but again politics you're only served three years then you got new ideas come in so it's not you know and we talk about our presidents the Navajo nation again look at what's happening with the new electees coming in they want to do their special thing there's not one as years I remember there isn't one president that had an idea that the next president carried out it never happens we lose it so again for the coal mines yeah that's not going to happen definitely not with Peabody we sit across the table with them and we look at each other we talk memory stories that's all we talk about where the best coal was the people that work there that's all we talk about now we know it's history we know it's done I did a presentation at the community of Forest Lake chapter one day and I sat in the back all the community residents of that Peabody area Forest Lake chapter they had concerns about when Trump made that notice that he's going to support coal and bring coal mines back up I sat in the back I listened to every elderly story about I didn't get this we didn't get this this didn't happen but yet I know those people and they live around the coal mine they got gravel to their highways they got homes built rebuilt but yet they tell that story I didn't get this I wasn't promised this and then I sit there and the speaker of the house this curvy lady [01:31:48] Speaker ?: lady lady [01:31:48] Speaker 4: she saw me sitting in the back and she says I let why aren't you saying something I said I'm waiting for all those people to leave first then [01:32:01] Speaker ?: then then [01:32:01] Speaker 4: I'll say my thing and the thing I'll tell you yeah that's not going to happen maybe it would relieve some of the elderly people that were sitting there to hear that from a person that was a minor to say that's not going to happen those days are gone but I surely like to see the plants come up what do they say about plants produces oxygen that blackness of mine seems like it's being choked right now and she probably feels it in the Hopi way they talk about plants that's the oxygen of the tribal traditional ways look what happened two weeks ago it was probably on Facebook social media the village of Monkopi was flooded out their little bridge Monkopi wash water was overflowing it somebody took a picture of the fields majority of that village lost their crops the Hopis were you talk about ocean front property all the Hopis were staying on the edge watching this water big river go through their gardens all the way down to down to the end there was a little Jehovah Witness church down there they're lucky they were up on the rock but it washed out everything down there but we gotta remember that's what we prayed for we prayed for water but we got it in a big substantial amount now as Hopis we gotta work even harder in trying to bring what crops is left back to life but again oxygen that's what we need on black mates is greenery trees our traditional plants are gone we need to refurbish that I was a part of that reclamation when I was a part of the safety but in part of that IMSHA the federal regulated mine inspectors they come in and they want to look at Peabody's the way the land was prior to it being mined the Navajo the Hopi they all made agreement that it would be put back to that the shrubs will be replant they collected specimens of each plant up there all that had to be put back in the contour of the way the earth was the way the water is going to run but was there at that time every environmental person that was saying let's make these storage sheds let's make these water ponds let's you know to refurbish the ground up there no it was all about this actually both tribes lost lost their people as well thank you [01:35:35] Speaker 5: I think for me the just the last piece I appreciated what was brought up about just transition that there is hopefully a transition happening I mean coal we can't invest in coal anymore so for us it's really important to move away from fossil fuels and invest towards renewable and sustainable types of development there's renewable energy solar wind actually if you go to our website we help develop a report economic and renewable alternatives to desert rock so there's a lot of potential for those types of development in the Four Corners region on Navajo nation lands and then also in areas like the San Juan River and others we could do more you know rebuild our food sovereignty there's a lot that we can do and that's something I want to be hopeful about I know there are people out there doing that kind of work and then also I did hear Carletta mention in Appalachia that they're faced with this same problem there are other communities in the same position where you know maybe there was a heavy reliance on coal same with Powder River Basin in Wyoming Montana so there are other examples out there and I think we do have a lot to work with and I hope that for us our leadership especially those listening hear us out thank you [01:37:11] Gabriel Pietarazio: and on that note I'd like to thank all of our panelists again and I'd like to extend our gratitude to Nicole who was supposed to be here tonight she had a ceremony she had to attend to yesterday and was unable to make it in person so she's with us and appreciate her willingness to come speak as well and thank you again to all of our panelists thanks again to tonight's sponsor of our discussion the Katina foundation thank you again to all of our guests or visitors for those here in person and online and for taking part in our discussion thank you again and good night thank you [01:38:02] Speaker 3: thank you thank you thank you may i get a photo any of your photo remember of course i think they started [01:38:11] Speaker ?: sitting so long in the back okay can i get a photo here maybe you're in front or sorry