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On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Labor held an outreach event in Shiprock, New Mexico on the benefits available to some coal and uranium miners on the Navajo Nation. Current and former uranium miners attended the meeting to get more information about accessing benefits through the Energy Workers Program. Coal miners went to the meeting to learn more about their eligibility for federal black lung benefits. Justin Tsosie, a former coal miner and union representative who worked at the Kayenta surface Mine in Arizona, says he frequently encountered dust when he worked as a serviceman at the mine. And the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said on Tuesday that a resident of Montezuma County has tested positive for the plague.

On Friday, a home health care company held an informational meeting in Tuba City, Arizona, on the federal benefits available to some Navajo coal miners who have black lung disease. The meeting, hosted by Positive Nature Homecare, was the latest on the subject of black lung among coal miners on the Navajo Nation. Willa Mae Jones is a member of the Navajo Nation and a health outreach worker at Canyonlands Healthcare in Chilchinbeto. She attended Friday’s meeting to meet with coal miners who largely worked at the Kayenta and Black Mesa mines in northeastern Arizona. Jones says her husband was a dragline operator at the Kayenta coal mine. When her son was growing up, she says she advised him not to follow in his father’s footsteps. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture is offering grants for people that experienced discrimination in the agency’s farm loan programs.

Later this month, Montezuma and Dolores counties will be transitioning to a new emergency alert system called Everbridge. Both counties and the Cortez Police Department will make the change from using the Nixle alert system to Everbridge. The switch comes after recent shootings in Cortez and flooding in Dolores this past spring exposed weaknesses in the old system. Vicki Shaffer, the public information coordinator for Montezuma County, says that the upgrade will mean officials will be able to target specific neighborhoods during an emergency when sending out alerts. And Colorado House District 32 has a new Representative at the statehouse.

Arizona governor Katie Hobbs terminates state groundwater leases for a Saudi Arabian-owned farm, cow-calf producers in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Texas will have the opportunity to sign up for a new insurance option, and cattle producers are seeing a tremendous uptrend in prices so far in 2023.

On Saturday, a community organization held a walk in protest of the White Mesa uranium mill on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation. It’s the only one of its kind still operating in the U.S. About 40 people attended the walk, which began in White Mesa, in southeast Utah, and ended at the driveway of the uranium mill. Manuel Heart, Chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, led the protest and spoke to supporters about the need for more regulations from the state of Utah on how the mill uses its wells. Heart says that the Tribe ultimately hopes the state regulatory agency won’t renew the uranium mill’s application for a groundwater discharge permit later this winter. In 1999, samples were collected that indicated a plume of chloroform was present in the groundwater table underneath the mill facility on their property.

This weekend, Colorado’s Department of Transportation says it expects towns and public lands in southwest Colorado to be inundated with visitors coming to see the solar eclipse. The eclipse will be visible in the U.S. early on Saturday along a path starting in Oregon and eventually passing over Mesa Verde National Park, and the Four Corners region. Lisa Schwantes, a regional communications manager for C-DOT, says that hotels in the area have been booked for months, and that Mesa Verde itself expects to see tens of thousands of visitors for this celestial event. Schwantes says it’s also important that people driving on highways this Saturday don’t pull over to the side of the road to view the eclipse, and instead find a designated area. And a grassroots organization in Arizona is pushing to remove the state's right-to-work statute in an attempt to strengthen unionization.

On Friday, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold visited Towaoc and met with officials from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to discuss automatic voter registration for the state’s tribal communities. The Colorado Votes Act passed by the legislature earlier this year means some enrolled tribal members in Colorado will be automatically registered to vote. It’s the first instance of automatic voter registration for enrolled members of tribal nations in the U.S., and is part of a broader election reform package by the Secretary of State’s office. Griswold says that since she was elected in 2019, her office has been considering ways they could try to reverse the historical voter suppression of Native American people in Colorado. And the funeral for the Cortez police officer who was killed in the line of duty last week takes place on Wednesday morning.

Data from USDA’s Economic Research Service suggests that net farm income will drop sharply from last year, the Colorado Wolf Restoration Final Plan outlines release locations and constraints, major tractor manufacturers anticipate bringing smaller utility electric tractors to the market, and suggestions for bringing home a pest-free live Christmas tree this year.

An officer in the Cortez Police Department was shot and killed in the line of duty on Wednesday. The officer conducted a traffic stop on South Broadway around 11:30 a.m., during which he was shot and injured. The suspects fled in their vehicle but were quickly located. One suspect was shot by police and died at the scene, the other was taken into custody. The officer, who has not yet been identified, was taken to Southwest Memorial Hospital and later died from his injuries. And on Tuesday, the Cortez City Council passed a resolution in support of a grant to fund archaeological surveys of Carpenter and Geer natural areas to identify prehistoric sites. The city’s Historic Preservation Board recommended that the city apply for the grant from the Colorado Historical Society. A preliminary survey conducted in 1993 by the city found six areas of interest in the Carpenter area alone. Geer has never been studied.

A grassroots community group on the Navajo Nation is making winter supply runs to deliver water and food to elders in the Black Mesa region of northern Arizona. Diné Land and Water is a Navajo-led organization based out of Sanders. Mercury Bitsuie, a project manager for the group, hauls water, wood and food to elders and families who live in a highly remote area in Black Mesa’s Big Mountain community. Big Mountain is just north of the Hopi Nation and is located on land that has historically been the subject of disputes between the Hopi and Navajo tribes. Many Navajo families who live there don’t have access to clean water or electricity according to Bitsuie, and roads in the area can frequently become impassable due to snow. Bitsuie says his group is actively raising funds on GoFundMe for winter supply runs. And Colorado workers can now start signing up online for more paid time-off through the state.