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| | Orion > Orion Magazine > Current Issue > The Grid and the Village (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08) |
 | | In those days, land development companies were frequently subsidiaries of the railroads, and several years before the transcontinental railroad reached Arizona in 1881, the U.S. government had already explored, surveyed, and mapped the mineral riches of the Arizona Territory. |
 | | By the time the coal is extracted, the land has turned gray, all vegetation has disappeared, the air is filled with coal dust, the groundwater is contaminated with toxic runoff (sulphates particularly), and electric green ponds dot the landscape. |
 | | By transferring land to the Hopi, who lived far away from the strip mining, Navaho residents would become trespassers on the newly-designated Hopi land, and the cost of removing them would be borne by the government. |
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