Navajo Nation

Cataloging information from the Confluence may also be used to potentially deter future commercial development by industries like hydropower — while the Trump administration is eyeing energy projects on tribal lands.

The tribe is asking the Trump administration to dramatically expand the life — and size — of an operational coal mine that could uproot the lives of some Navajo families. And their longtime homes.

The federal agency's action — published Tuesday — contends that its decision is intended to "encourage energy production" in the midst of Trump's self-declared national energy emergency.

So instead of Santa hand-delivering stockings of coal along with his team of reindeer, it's NTEC — or the Navajo Transitional Energy Company — with its diesel-powered trucks trekking across the sprawling 27,000-square-mile reservation.

Coal is perhaps most closely associated with Appalachian states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky — or Wyoming, the nation's leading producer of the fossil fuel. But the coal-mining business was once thriving in northern Arizona as well, atop the Colorado Plateau.

It's been an interesting few weeks since Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren suddenly fired the tribe's controller. The Navajo Nation Council contends Nygren's recent behavior has been "unlawful."

Senate Republicans confirmed William Kirkland among more than 100 Trump nominees along party lines — while Democrats, including Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, voted against it a week into the government shutdown.

The conference in White Mesa, Utah, focused on abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation and the operating uranium mill near the Ute Mountain Ute community in White Mesa.

The project, which would bring fresh water to over 200,000 people, was authorized under the Obama Administration in 2009. The federal government is contributing $2.2 billion to the project.

Residents of Westwater, a small Navajo subdivision in Utah, set their sights on water in the early 2000s. Now, after years of effort, their dream is turning into a reality.