Black Mesa, Arizona

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For other places called Black Mesa, see Black Mesa

Black Mesa (also called Big Mountain) is an upland area in Navajo County, Arizona. In Navajo it is called Dziłíjiin ("Black Mountain") and during Mexican rule of Arizona it was called Mesa de las Vacas (Spanish "mesa of the cows"). It derives its dark appearance from the numerous seams of coal which run through it.

Satellite image of northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico, including the Four Corners Monument (FC). Some higher elevations have a dust of snow. Labeled natural features are the Chuska Mountains (CM), the Carrizo Mountains (C), Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park (MV), Black Mesa (B), Canyon de Chelly National Monument (CdC), and the Defiance Uplift (D). Labeled towns are Farmington, New Mexico (F), Gallup, New Mexico (G), Window Rock, Arizona (WR), and Kayenta, Arizona (K).

The mesa is located on the Colorado Plateau near Kayenta, Arizona, and rises to over 8168 feet. Its highest peak is located on Black Mesa's northern rim, just a few miles south of the town of Kayenta. Reliable springs surfacing at several locations mean the mesa is more suitable for continuous habitation than much of the surrounding desert area, and the mesa has been home to native peoples for at least 7,000 years. It is now split between the Hopi and Diné (Navajo) tribal reservations.

Since the 1960s the mesa has been strip mined for coal by the Peabody Western Coal Company, stirring a debate over Peabody Energy's use of groundwater to transport coal. Each year, the water level in an underground aquifer is lowered over 100 feet because of Peobody's need to transport their coal. Peobody Energy has forced thousands of Native Americans to relocate so that they can use Native land for strip mining. In the beginning, until a few years ago, seven environmental regulations were waived so that the Peobody Energy company could mine any way they wanted without disturbance from the government. In creating the mine and using the water source, they are destroying the Native American culture, since both the aquifer and the land is sacred to the Hopi and Navajo tribes. The US Government is ordering the Native Americans to move off their land so the coal company can use it, and when the Native Americans do move they are given no financial help and often fall into bankruptcy and depression, since not only did they not need to worry as much about money on the reservation, but the land is both mother and father to them and their tribe.