The Navajo Nation Chose a Longer Runway. Will New Mexico Respect It?

The Navajo Nation has secured federal approval for one of the most consequential energy decisions in modern New Mexico: a mining permit potentially opening 503 million tons of Navajo-owned coal at the active Navajo Mine near Farmington.

The decision is an energy win, an economic win and, above all, a tribal-sovereignty win.

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement approved the No Name Area permit on Aug. 31. Its boundary encompasses 11,526 acres, with surface mining and reclamation authorized on 9,042 acres. Depending on demand, production could range from 5 million to 15 million tons annually and potentially continue into 2136.

Those numbers are enormous, but they require context. The permit does not guarantee that every ton will be mined—or that a customer exists for a century’s worth of coal. What it provides is an option: the Navajo Nation can develop its resource if markets, energy needs and tribal priorities justify doing so.

That option matters. It gives the Nation more control over the pace of its economic transition rather than forcing Navajo workers and communities to conform to a timetable written somewhere else.

The operation still running

Many New Mexicans understandably confuse the Navajo Mine and Four Corners Power Plant with the San Juan Generating Station, which closed in 2022.

They are separate operations.

The Navajo Mine began operating in 1963 and supplies coal to the Four Corners Power Plant near Fruitland. Navajo Transitional Energy Company, or NTEC, is owned by the Navajo Nation and has operated the mine since the Nation acquired it in 2013. Four Corners remains operational under Arizona Public Service, although only two of its original five generating units are running.

That distinction is important because northwest New Mexico’s coal economy did not disappear when the San Juan plant closed. Hundreds of families still depend on the Navajo Mine and Four Corners complex.

NTEC says 86% of the mine’s workforce is Native American and that average mine-worker compensation is approximately $153,000 annually. It reports that the mine and power plant support more than 600 jobs, carry a combined payroll of roughly $91 million and provide approximately $69 million annually to the Navajo Nation General Fund. Those are company figures, not independent estimates, but their scale demonstrates what is at stake.

This income supports more than individual paychecks. It helps finance tribal government, infrastructure and community programs. NTEC also reports approximately $10 million in annual spending with Navajo vendors and contractors and more than $4.5 million in community giving.

The benefits do not stop at the reservation boundary. Workers buy vehicles, groceries and meals. Families use medical, housing, banking and professional services. Contractors purchase equipment and supplies. Much of that activity reaches Farmington—the region’s commercial center—as well as Kirtland, Fruitland, Bloomfield and the wider San Juan County economy.

The precise municipal impact requires better local tax, vendor and commuting data. But it would be equally misleading to pretend that one of the region’s largest industrial operations exists in isolation.

This is the central economic fact: high-wage industrial employment is difficult to replace in rural New Mexico. Tourism, agriculture, solar development and small-business growth all belong in the region’s future, but they do not instantly replace hundreds of skilled jobs or tens of millions of dollars in government revenue.

A responsible transition needs a bridge. Navajo coal can help build it.

Sovereignty beyond slogans

The permit also presents New Mexico’s political leaders with an uncomfortable test.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham celebrated the Biden administration’s 20-year prohibition on new mineral development around Chaco Culture National Historical Park. New Mexico’s Democratic congressional delegation—including Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján and Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández, Melanie Stansbury and Gabe Vasquez—has repeatedly defended those protections in the language of tribal consultation and sovereignty.

Their advocacy was public, coordinated and forceful.

As of Sept. 3, however, a review of official releases and publicly indexed coverage found no comparable statement from those leaders about federal approval of the Navajo Mine permit.

That absence raises a legitimate question:

Does tribal sovereignty still count when a tribal nation chooses coal?

Chaco and the Navajo Mine are not identical disputes. Pueblo governments have supported restrictions around Chaco, while some Navajo allottees opposed the federal withdrawal because it affected development surrounding their lands. The No Name permit also faces opposition from Navajo residents near the mine.

Still, the underlying principle deserves consistent application. If self-determination means anything, it cannot mean respecting tribal decisions only when they align with the environmental preferences of politicians and advocacy organizations.

New Mexico’s leaders need not endorse coal mining without reservation. They should explain whether they support the Navajo Nation’s authority to make this choice—and what they propose to replace the jobs and revenue if they do not.

Silence avoids both questions.

People on both sides

The strongest case for the permit cannot ignore the people who may bear its most direct costs.

About a dozen families in the Burnham area could face displacement or serious disruption. Residents have described blasting that shakes their homes and fears involving grazing land, roads, water, dust and the loss of places held by their families for generations. The Burnham Chapter opposed the proposal, while residents and Diné environmental advocates questioned whether consultation was adequate.

Emma and Emery Long told public-radio reporter Gabriel Pietrorazio that their home and sheep-grazing life sit beside the mine. Emma Long’s question about the future was painfully simple: “Where are they going to go?”

A pro-energy policy cannot treat those families as expendable. NTEC and federal and tribal officials owe them transparent consultation, enforceable protections and fair relocation or compensation where displacement cannot be avoided.

The market question is just as real. Navajo Mine currently supplies one customer. Several minority owners plan to leave Four Corners in 2031, while majority owner Arizona Public Service has moved its possible retirement date to no later than 2038. The plant’s federal lease expires in 2041.

That creates a large gap between the plant’s expected life and a permit extending potentially to 2136. NTEC will need new buyers, extended generation, exports or alternative uses for the coal. Federal authorization alone does not solve that problem.

But uncertainty is not an argument for surrendering the option today. It is an argument for using the time and revenue the option may provide wisely.

The permit gives the Navajo Nation leverage: to protect skilled employment, strengthen its treasury, pursue new markets and invest in a more diversified energy economy. It does not require coal forever. It allows the Navajo people—not Washington, Santa Fe or outside organizations—to determine how quickly the next chapter arrives.

The Burnham families should not become collateral damage. Neither should hundreds of Navajo workers and the communities supported by their paychecks.

Both human costs belong in the same calculation. And if New Mexico truly respects tribal sovereignty, its leaders should say whether they respect this decision, too.