By Marley Shebala Dine’ Bureau

COUNSELOR — Communities impacted by hydraulic fracking launched their own health study after repeatedly asking their elected officials to fund an independent health assessment of the impacts.

The study, conducted by Dr. Herbert Benally and Dr. Larry W. Emerson, is ongoing and was presented to four members of the Navajo Nation Council during a public hearing on the impacts of fracking at Counselor Chapter Monday.

Four delegates, Speaker LoRenzo Bates, Amber Kanazbah Crotty, Leonard Tsosie and Davis Filfred were the only Council members who attended the hearing. Bates said in a news release that the chapter started a group called the Counselor Health Impact Committee, which is assessing the health and environmental impacts of fracking through monitoring and surveying local community members.

Teresa Seamster, who spoke on behalf of the committee, noted they didn’t have adequate funding, but they were able to compile a brief report based on their initial work. Emerson said elders reported that no prior informed consent was sought from a Dine’ traditional knowledge perspective before they and other community people signed leases to allow fracking on their allotments, which they felt was a lack of responsibility by the Navajo Nation, New Mexico and federal governments to protect their constituents’ health, environment, air and water quality, and wildlife.

“This is a tragic situation since Dine’ elders’ worldview seeks a well-balanced life rooted in harmony, happiness, beauty, peace and love,” Emerson said. “When Dine’ traditional knowledge is ignored, not only do the people suffer from trauma, but so the plants, herbs, ceremonies, animals, birds and other life forms.”

Benally and Emerson reported in the study that after communities became fully aware of the fracking operations, they began protesting, but their tribally elected officials supported the industry. The researchers also stated in the study that after a few years of fracking in the communities, the people reported contamination of their groundwater and air, which endangered livestock, wildlife and plants.

The study showed that the pollution from the day and night burning of methane gas from the fracking operations created unexplained illnesses, increased asthma among the elders and children, and forced wildlife from the area.

“Rampant discrimination, bias and prejudice against Dine’ traditional knowledge are forms of cultural oppression, trauma, social and environmental injustice,” Emerson said. “This implies that non-western world views no longer count as contributors to how health and well-being are perceived and acted upon.

“Promises of money and wealth don’t work in the long run. Money and perceived wealth derived from desecration of the sacred Mother Earth is unwise when compared to the health and well-being of the people and the land,” he explained. “Dine’ traditional knowledge is concerned with compassionate and positive sustainability of the people and their relationship to the land, water, plants and other life forms.” Bates, who presided over the hearing, said in his news release that the public hearing resulted after the Naa’bik’iyati’ Committee tabled Legislation 0025-17 March 9 and directed Bates to schedule the hearing.

Health, Education and Human Services Committee Chairman Jonathan Hale sponsored the bill, which requested the United Nations to conduct a field hearing on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing. Bates announced at hearing that the Naa’bik’iyati’ Committee would act on the legislation May 25, which is also when the committee would discuss the hearing.