By Michelle Tirado
November 4, 2009

Though most Americans get that the nation needs to switch to greener energy sources, too few may understand what it takes to make the switch. But as shown in Power Paths, a documentary that debuted on the PBS series Independent Lens on Nov. 3, 2009, several Indian tribes not only know what it takes, but they have made a lot of progress toward change.

Directed by Bo Boudart and narrated by Peter Coyote, the one-hour film examines the complex and often heated debates on energy that take place on Capitol Hill, in corporate boardrooms and in tribal communities. It also pays tribute to grassroots efforts to protect tribal lands, air and water — all considered sacred by Native American people — from the effects of mining and coal burning.

Power Paths puts much of the spotlight on the Hopi and Navajo reservations, which for decades played host to the Black Mesa mine. Once the world’s largest coal strip-mining complex, it was connected via a 273 mile-long pipeline to the Mohave Generating Station to supply some of the Southwest’s largest cities, such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles, with electricity.

Although the mine provided royalty payments to the tribes and jobs to tribal members for three decades, there were enormous negative impacts, including high cancer rates and severe environmental degradation. Then there was the irony: While energy from their lands was being consumed by power-hungry cities hundreds of miles away, nearly 20,000 Hopi and Navajo families lived without basic electricity.

Grassroots efforts succeeded in pressuring the Hopi and Navajo governments to not renew their leases with Peabody Coal, Black Mesa’s owner. The mine was closed in 2005. In the same year, several environmental groups won a court-approved settlement that mandated the Mohave Generating Station to either reduce its pollution output or shut down. The station shut down in December 2005.

Power Paths in large part chronicles the efforts of the Just Transition Coalition, a tribal grassroots group that assembled to develop a plan to transition the Hopi and Navajo from a dirty energy-based economy to one based on sustainable, renewable energy, like solar and wind power. It was at the heart of the movement to shut Black Mesa down and has prevented future coal mining on the reservations.

The film, shot on location in Arizona and New Mexico as well as Colorado and South Dakota, took two years and $250,000 to make. It also required lots of collaboration with communities and grassroots organizations involved.

Norman Brown, a Navajo grassroots organizer long associated with the Dineh Bidzill Coalition, a group that has fought against uranium mining, served as co-producer of the film. Having Brown on board was a big help to the film’s makers in establishing trust within the communities and explaining the movie’s objectives to tribal members, Boudart said.

Viewers will definitely come away from Power Paths with a clearer understanding of energy issues in the United States, including past and present federal policies regarding green power; the challenges of shifting to renewable resources; and what part tribes have had in the nation’s power supply (about 10 percent of America’s energy comes from Indian lands). They will also have a better sense of the connection that Native people have with the earth and their need to defend it and pursue greener energy solutions.

What Boudart hopes viewers come away with, however, is what is required to create change and some inspiration to create it from the Just Transition Coalition.

“They were doing it with a lot of people power and with hardly any monetary resources,” he said.

Boudart believes real change does not happen in a boardroom or within a government. Rather, he said, it often has to come from the bottom up.

“We are not going to see any measurable difference in what happens with climate change or in the way that we get our energy until we really fight for it,” Boudart said.

In addition to airing on PBS, Power Paths is available for sale in DVD format. To learn more, visit the Power Paths Web site.