Friday, November 7, 2008
A Navajo creation story about how the wind gave life to the first man and first woman inspired Nasbah Ben to study the quality of air that Native Americans breathe.
Ben, Chinle, Ariz., graduate student and member of the Navajo Nation, researches air quality in the Four Corners, where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico share a border.
Nasbah Ben is writing her graduate thesis about ground level and satellite-imaged aerosols to analyze forecasts and air quality. Ben works to benefit Native American tribes who lack the equipment to predict forecasts and analyze the quality of their breathing air.
The Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation, spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Ben, who is conducting the research for her master’s thesis in global indigenous nations studies, is among a small group of KU faculty and students studying the effects of environmental degradation on indigenous people.
“The environment is there to protect us. It’s part of the way we live our lives,” Ben said. “My family, I, my tribes and a lot of other tribes have a really strong connection to the lands.”
She said her research will show publicly available data such as satellite images and ground-level monitoring data. She said the information could be used by smaller tribes that didn’t have their own air quality programs.
“It’s just bringing awareness to the tribes that there are data available and they don’t have to invest a lot of money,” Ben said.
Ray Pierotti, associate professor of global indigenous nations studies, said environmental burdens, such as air pollution and industrial facilities, were felt first by indigenous people or poor communities.
Ben found the research opportunity when a new coal-fired power plant was proposed in Farmington, N.M., by Desert Rock Energy Co. She said despite the local community’s opposition to the power plant, the president of the Navajo Nation supported it to boost the reservation’s economy and provide jobs. Ben said she wanted to raise awareness about the plant’s influence on the air quality and people’s health because many Native Americans didn’t have access to health care.
Ben said her previous research found many accounts of respiratory illness in the four-corners regions, which was overpopulated with power plants, transfer stations and mines. Ben said that 60 percent of all American Indian and Alaska Native bronchiolitis associated-hospitalizations in children occurred in the southwest region. She said that through her master’s thesis, she proposed the tribes in the Navajo Nation use the data as a cost effective way of forecasting, analyzing, and documenting air quality.
She said language and cultural barriers could cause misunderstandings when Navajo people negotiated with Desert Rock Energy Co.
“There are a lot of people in this community who don’t even speak English, who only speak and understand in Navajo,” Ben said. “When you bring in people who don’t speak or understand Navajo, you are not going to get mutual understanding or mutual agreement between them.”
Ben said she would help develop air quality programs in the Navajo Nation after finishing her master’s degree in May 2009. She said she wanted to work the Navajo Nation to help them make decisions about their land and environment.
— — Edited by Jennifer Torline
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