Although President Joe Shirley Jr. has put one foot down, signing an agreement with the Citizen Enterprises Corporation to produce more than 500 megawatts of sustainable wind energy on Navajoland, the air is not quite clean yet.

Why is it that he said that Navajos "do not want to sit by (and) watch another generation of mothers and fathers die" regarding uranium mining on Navajo land? How about the Desert Rock Plant? How about using precious water to slurry coal?

The Desert Rock Plant and slurrying coal with precious water are also not welcome by many of his people on their land. Also, many species of animals, including man globally, depend on him putting his other foot down.

Desert Rock Plant will put the Navajo Nation in the category of man living luxuriously off the energy-rich land, like a spoiled child off wealthy parents.

I attended the Longest Walk 2 forum at Northern Arizona University on March 26, 2008. When the panel discussion ended, it ended on a negative note: that most of the tribal governments do not support increasing awareness of the consequences of high-energy consumption.

It is quite obvious the Navajo Nation is not an exception. Money for gold rings and travel expenses is what seems to drive them, just like kings. However, they need to remember that they are our servants, that they were elected to serve the Navajo people.

I also read the Longest Walk 2 founder Dennis Banks' story about how the growth of his wild rice plantation is growing shorter every year. He made it quite clear that global warming is real.

Many of us are scratching our heads and asking, "How can President Joe Shirley Jr. sit by and watch mothers and fathers and their children die from the pollution from another power plant, the Desert Rock Plant?"

The time has come for President Joe Shirley Jr. to put the other foot down on Desert Rock Plant. Otherwise in the Navajo custom it is considered that one is out of balance in his intellectual approach and leadership - specifically for a people whose elders strongly believe that they are the keepers of Mother Earth and who have elected him to serve them.

Erma Yellowman-McCabe
Flagstaff, Ariz.