To many people, the prospect of living in the city of Phoenix, Arizona, with its oppressive desert heat, is unthinkable. But since 1940, when Phoenix was only a small, agricultural community of 65,000 residents, the city has grown to over 1.5 million people and become the sixth most populous metropolis in the United States. Cheap electricity has been the key to its growth, as Phoenix lawyer Frank Snell attributed “airplanes and air conditioners” in an interview in the 1970s, claiming, “If you hadn’t had either we’d never grown.” This energy is produced by coal-burning power plants and mining on the Navajo Reservation, which has taken a toll on both people and the environment of the Southwest. Severe pollution has marred the landscape. While Phoenix residents have taken inexpensive power for granted, a large percentage of impoverished Navajo households have remained without electricity and viewed the power lines as a form of white colonialism. This uneven social structure is the subject of Andrew Needham’s book Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest. Coal deposits exist throughout the Southwest, storing ancient energy to be harnessed for electricity. However, this resource remained buried until technology made it accessible in the twentieth century. During the 1930s the Bureau of Indian Affairs found that coal was found “very cheaply and with very little trouble” on Navajo land. By the middle of the decade, thirty-four mines had opened on the reservation, producing 3,300 tons of coal annually. It seemed like a win-win situation for the Navajo. Coal mining provided jobs for many tribal members seeking employment. Coal could be exchanged for cash or credit, like wool at trading posts. A report by the Bureau of Reclamation in the 1950s declared that the coal supplies of northern Arizona would “last one thousand years.” Moreover, coal production was cheaper than natural gas or atomic power. Many Navajo leaders stressed energy development as a way to improve the economic status of their people. After the end of World War II a consumer culture ethos emerged in white American society as domestic appliances (powered by cheap electricity) became linked to social status. Phoenix was no exception. Most of the city’s white population had all the trappings of middle class life. Although the Navajo supplied Phoenix with electricity from power plants on reservation land, they did not share any of these benefits. It was only a matter of time before many Navajos spoke out against the colonial nature of the electrical system. One disgruntled letter to the Navajo Times newspaper in 1970 complained that Phoenix’s white population “destroyed our land so they can use electric can openers and tooth brushes.” Much of the criticism was directed at the Navajo leadership, which did not use energy profits to help the common people and instead used the money to enrich themselves. Navajo resentment against the power plants and coal companies sharply increased during the 1970s, a time of Native American nationalism throughout the United States. Power Lines is a sobering, eye-opening book that raises awareness of the electric utility system’s social effects in the Southwest. Previously I was unaware of the significance of coal as a energy source, which is even more important than dams and hydroelectric power. There are no easy answers, as I was disturbed to learn that environmental groups like the Sierra Club opposed the construction of a dam at the Grand Canyon (a picturesque Southwest landscape) during the 1960s while supporting coal plants on Navajo lands because they were removed from public view. However, this current system is unsustainable. For example, the Four Corners Power Plant in northwestern New Mexico (and the largest coal-fired plant in the state) produces almost 16,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, significantly contributing to climate change. The Southwest's population is expectedly to grow significantly during this century, putting more strains on natural resources. As I read this book I was reminded of William Cronon's classic environmental history Nature's Metropolis (1991) of nineteenth century Chicago and its relationship to the entire West. Like Chicago, Phoenix has reached out into the hinterlands of rural areas with commodity flows (in Phoenix's case, electricity). Power Lines is an excellent combination of urban, environmental, and Native American history that illustrates how one society's wealth often comes at the expense of another culture. Needham, Andrew. Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest. Princeton University Press, 2014.
1 Comment
4/1/2016 11:42:27 pm
While Phoenix residents have taken inexpensive power for granted, a large percentage of impoverished Navajo households have remained without electricity and viewed the power lines as a form of white colonialism.
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CategoriesAuthorTom Schmidt lives in Prescott Valley, AZ. Archives
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