Navajo Nation seeks Grand Canyon projects
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Generations of Navajo families have grazed livestock on a remote but spectacular mesa that overlooks the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers. This is the East Rim of the majestic Grand Canyon -- the last with no significant development.
But ancestral tradition and the tranquillity of the landscape could be subject to change if the Navajo government's plans are realized for a resort and aerial tramway that would ferry tourists from cliff tops to water's edge.
The 27,000-square-mile Navajo reservation abuts Grand Canyon National Park, and tribal leaders say they're losing out on tourist dollars and jobs for their people by leaving the land undeveloped. Navajo president Ben Shelly recently signed a nonbinding agreement that lists the gondola, a restaurant, a half-mile river walk, a resort hotel and spa and RV park among the attractions of a proposed development that he says will bring up to $70 million a year to the tribe and 2,000 jobs to the impoverished reservation.
"We want people from all over the world to visit Navajo land and the Grand Canyon," Shelly said. "We have many of the world's wonders in our midst." True enough, but the National Park Service already is voicing objections to the large-scale development on its eastern flank. Environmental organizations and some Navajos who call the area home also oppose the project.
"This is just one more thing that is going to chip away at the solitude of the area, and it's really not the appropriate type of development for that area," said Alicyn Gitlin of the Sierra Club.
Similar proposals for a tramway that would take tourists from the East Rim to the river have been opposed by the local community of Bodaway-Gap. They oppose the scale and character of the current plan and want more say in what could be built there.
The confluence is a 100-mile drive off Interstate 40 from Flagstaff off a rough dirt road. Sagebrush, rolling hills, arroyos, canyons and desert mark the landscape where the Colorado meets the blue-green waters of the Little Colorado.
The land has remained undeveloped for decades because of a land dispute between the Navajos and the neighboring Hopi tribe, both of which claimed aboriginal ties to it. A construction ban implemented in 1966 barred home and land improvements; it was lifted in 2009.
Snow totals may be less across the South Shore A winter storm is expected to pummel LI as artic air settles in across the region. NewsdayTV meteorologist Geoff Bansen has the forecast.
Snow totals may be less across the South Shore A winter storm is expected to pummel LI as artic air settles in across the region. NewsdayTV meteorologist Geoff Bansen has the forecast.
