RRFW Riverwire –Tramway Bill Again At Bodaway Meeting
Friday, February 17, 2017
A Phoenix based developer’s legislation to build a massive tourist development with a tramway to the bottom of the Grand Canyon will be taken up once again at 10:00 a.m. February 21, 2017, at the Bodaway Gap Chapter House on the Navajo Nation.
The Budget and Finance Committee is now scheduled to consider the legislation. After this committee makes a decision, the legislation then moves to the powerful Naa’bik’iyati’ Committee.
The Navajo Nation Resources & Development Committee voted to table the legislation at a contentious meeting at the same location last month. The Law and Order Committee voted the legislation down last fall. Once the legislation is reviewed by the Naa’bik’iyati’ Committee, the legislation will move to a debate and vote by the full Navajo Nation Tribal Council.
The tramway legislation is a Phoenix developers scheme to build a luxury tourist resort on Navajo Nation lands at the rim of the Canyon, possibly including many hundreds of helicopter flights to the bottom of the Grand Canyon each day, along with moving up to ten thousand people a day to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back to the rim top via a tramway.
The legislation also proposes to take away 420 acres of land without compensation to the traditional Navajo families that have lived in that location for many decades, while circumventing a number of Navajo Nation laws.
While the developer’s legislation moves through review by the Navajo Nation committees, objections to the development continue. The Shiprock, Crystal, Fort Defiance, Red Lake, Sawmill, LeChee, Coal Mine, Navajo Mountain, Tsaili/Wheatfields, Kaibeto, Tuba City and Cameron Chapters have all voted against the outsider’s proposal.
The Hopi and Zuni nations have strong ancestral ties to the region as well. These First Nations have passed resolutions opposed to the development scheme as well.
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