Friday, August 29, 2014

Helping Hands: The Navajo, The Secretary, And Saving The Grand Canyon


A proposal  to construct a tramway from the rim of the Grand Canyon at the far southern end of Marble Canyon to its floor at the Confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers would locate the structure on land of the Navajo Nation immediately adjacent to lands in Grand Canyon administered by Grand Canyon National Park. This scheme would be destructive of Navajo and Grand Canyon values and land alike.


An existing political mechanism authorizes the Department of Interior to work cooperatively with the Navajo Nation for the preservation and interpretation of the Grand Canyon and to enhance the Navajo environment and economy. This cooperative, resource-protecting approach to human activity in the eastern half of the Grand Canyon was directed by Congress almost forty years ago in the 1975 Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act, PL 93-620, sections 2, 3a, 5, and 6.