This is the coal mine near Kayenta. It is one of the few industries on the Navajo Nation. We drove up to see it- much bigger than we expected. It is an open-pit mine hiring 425 people. They mine 8 million tons of high-grade low sulfur coal a year. A 17 mile long conveyor belt takes the coal from the mine to the big silos at the rail head. The coal is then taken 80 miles by train to the Navajo Power Plant at Page, AZ- the other big industry on the rez. The pick-ups are private citizens lined up to get coal to heat their homes- $60 a ton. It comes in big chunks that they have to break up to burn in their wood stoves.
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