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>>> Coming up next on
"Arizona Horizon," we'll
hear about a new solar
Project approved for federal
land in western Arizona.
>>> And an ASU history
Professor says it's time to
rethink the way American
Indian history is considered.
Those stories next on
"Arizona Horizon."
>> "Arizona Horizon" is made
possible by contributions from
the friends of eight.
Members of your Arizona PBS
station.
Thank you.
>>> Good evening and
welcome to "Arizona Horizon."
I'm Ted Simons.
The state house of
representatives is about to
move on the budget and
Medicaid expansion.
Speaker Andy Tobin today
ended weeks of inaction at
the capitol by assigning
budget bills, including
Medicaid expansion, to the
House appropriations
Committee with a vote in
The full house expected as
early as the end of the week.
We'll have more on the story
tomorrow in our legislative
update with the "Arizona
Capitol Times."
>>> Tonight's focus on
sustainability looks at a
new large-scale solar power
plant proposed for public
land in western Arizona.
The quartzite solar energy
project was one of three
major renewable energy plans
announced yesterday by the
U.S. interior department.
Here to tell us more about
the quartzite project is
Dennis Godfrey.
He's from the Arizona office
of the bureau of land
management.
Good to see you.
Thank you for joining us.
>> My pleasure.
>> Three projects, two in
Nevada, one in Arizona.
Near quartzite --
>> About 10 miles north of
quartzite along the road that
heads north.
You will be able to see the
project from the road in a few
years.
>> What is out there now?
>> Very little.
Desert land.
There is differences in what is
little and what isn't.
Difference of opinion on that.
Basically flat, desert land.
>> How much power are we
talking about regarding the
plant?
>> This is a 100 megawatt
project.
>> Translates to how many
homes?
>> Roughly 30,000.
>> Who builds the plants -- who
will build the plant once it is
getting going here?
>> Solar reserve, out of santa
Monica, California, applied to
the bureau of land management
for the use of the land and
they are the owner of the
technology and will be building
the project.
>> And so, the santa Monica --
it is their baby then, in other
words.
Who will they be selling the
electricity to?
>> That is up to them.
That is something that the
bureau of land management does
not get involved with.
We make the land available and
they will work out the deal and
to my knowledge, they do not
have a buyer at this time.
>> So, does that mean ground
doesn't break until they get
the buyer?
>> Most likely.
Expensive propositions and they
would probably need certainty
that they are going to be able
to sell the power.
>> You are not in that
particular business, per se.
Is there any indication how
long that may take, what kind
of delay we would see here?
>> Another project on bureau of
land management land near
buckeye.
Approved for a year and a half
and they still do not have a
power purchase agreement.
It varies.
I really can't say.
>> As far as the technology is
concerned, can you tell us
about that, power cell -- power
tile --
>> Yes, this is an interesting
technology that solar reserve
has.
They build an array or a large
array of mirrors, heliostats
they call them that track the
sun during the day.
They will focus the sun's
energy or heat on a spot on a
tower at the top of the tower,
about 650 feet tall.
This is a -- it will be a large
tower.
You will be able to see this
from the road.
You will see the glow as the
mirrors are focused on it.
And that -- that power, that is
actually heat used to heat
molten salt and turn it into a
liquid.
That liquid is stored and used
to generate steam which turns a
standard steam turbine to
generate electricity.
>> My goodness.
This technology is already in
use around the world.
>> It has been used.
I wouldn't say it has extensive
use.
There is a tower in Spain that
is working.
There is a demonstration and
research project in the '90s in
California that solar reserve
has learned a lot from.
And solar reserve has other
projects under construction.
One in Nevada right now that
they hope to complete this
year.
>> How much water is needed for
something like this?
>> Under a conventional --
using a conventional steam
turbine, you would expect that
it would use quite a bit of
water.
But solar reserve and the
bureau of land management
concluded early on that the
best use of this resource would
be to be -- to use a dry tool
technology.
Meaning they use very, very
little water.
>> Interesting.
>> Compared -- they will use
about 200 acre feet a year.
If they were to use a
combination of hybrid and dry,
that would be about three times
more than that at 600.
If they were to do wet cooling,
which is the most efficient and
the least expensive, it would
be up to about 1,500 acre feet
a year.
So, this is a fraction of the
amount of water that would be
needed and we feel that is the
responsible way to respond to
the needs of the desert.
>> How are these particular
lands -- we will talk about the
ones in Nevada.
Outside of quartzite, how is
that land chosen?
What input was involved?
>> The company went looking for
a site, and they measured and
did scientific research and
considered what the natural
resource conflicts might be,
and said this looks like a good
spot and made application for
it.
They're the ones that applied.
And made a decision that this
is where we want to put this
project.
>> As far as public input for
that particular piece of land,
how much goes into something
like that?
>> The bureau of land
management, any time that
federal lands involved, looking
for all of the public input we
can get.
We held scoping meetings where
we encourage the public to
respond to tell us what is out
there that we need to be
looking at.
We feel like we've had a very
successful scoping and research
project for the public.
>> Environmental review.
What kind of --
>> It is a long term process.
Federal government is involved.
We want environmental impact
statement.
This has been in the process
for pretty close to three years
now where we have been studying
what is there.
What are the concerns for
the -- for the cultural
conflicts, what are the
resource conflicts.
What are they -- what are the
wildlife conflicts?
And we have concluded that we
are in pretty good position on
this project.
>> Indeed, it sounds as though
this particular project was on
the fast track and may still be
on the fast track for approval.
Is that accurate?
>> Has now been approved, yes.
It has been -- in the past
year.
>> Why was it on the fast
track?
>> Because it had progressed to
the point where it was ready to
move forward.
We needed to -- the previous
work had been done.
We were satisfied with.
The secretary of the interior
said let's finish the work on
this.
>> And you have -- it sounds
like 15 some odd more sites
being looked at by the BLM
overall?
Does that sound accurate?
>> That is about right.
We have several in Arizona as
well.
A few in Arizona that are
progressing and moving along.
>> Basically I know the utility
scale project in the right way
and right places --
>> Absolutely right.
Absolutely right.
>> All right.
Hopefully we will get this
thing up and operational here
relatively soon, as soon as
they can find electricity to
sell to.
Good to have you here.
>> Thank you very much.
Enjoyed it.
>> Along state route 80 in
southeast Arizona is the town
of tombstone.
Two miles west at the end of a
dusty road stands a monument to
its founder, prospector ed
Schefflin -- despite being
warned that the only thing he
would find there was his
tombstone.
He cheated death and discovered
silver strikes which launched a
boom and established the town.
By the 1880s, tombstone was the
county seat.
The boom had ended by the mid
1890s.
Over the following decades,
tombstone transformed itself
into a town ed would not
recognize by turning legends of
its lurid past into tourist's
gold and the town too tough to
die.
>>> History can be viewed in
different ways by different
people.
That certainly is the case
With the American Indian
history.
In a new book "call for
Change: The medicine way of
American Indian history,
Ethos, and reality," ASU
professor Donald Fixico
argues that the current
discipline of native
American history is
insensitive to and
inconsistent with how
American Indians view their
past experiences.
Here with us now to talk
about his new book and a new
class he will teach this fall
is Donald Fixico.
Good to have you here.
Thank you for joining us.
>> Nice to be here.
>> Time to rethink American
Indian history.
What are we talk being here?
>> The operative work -- from
the outside, about Indian
people.
Here is the chance to get
inside the communities of
native people and inside of
their minds and explain how
they're cultural different,
decisions different, values
different, they come up with
different world views.
But that is also saying that
there is Comanche logic --
let's look at history that way.
>> Current discipline
insensitive to Indian views of
history.
Tell us about that.
>> The books written by --
the -- saying here are the
facts.
Here is what happened.
And then that is what happened.
And that really kind of
disregards how that native
people think and their point of
view and how they see history.
>> Do you think that some of
these historians basically
misunderstand American Indians.
>> Very much so.
I can read a history book about
American Indians.
In the first few pages you can
determine that.
You can at the same time read
the same few pages of a
different book and you can tell
that scholar spent a lot of
time with that native group.
>> Give us an example of a
misunderstanding that you have
seen out there.
>> Misunderstanding.
Much of the history written
probably before the late 1960s.
Historians have written books
about native people -- the book
about the American west, he
said in reading the
introduction, he says read the
introduction facing east.
When you face east, you can see
the miners coming towards you,
the railroads, soldiers,
settlers and everything like
that.
>> Basically it is Indian views
and values mixed with what
actually happened.
>> Yes.
>> When you teach a class, when
you wrote the book, who are you
writing this for?
Who are you teaching to?
>> I'm writing it for everyone
because we need to kind of
learn to think different ways.
And we need to -- if we take on
the most difficult questions
and problems, well, how do you
approach things differently?
Because if we don't, we will
limit our thinking and not be
able to tackle the difficult
questions.
>> In the book you write
about -- I want to get to the
medicine way in a second.
But first something natural
democracy.
How do you define natural
democracy in the context of
this book and in the context of
what you are talking about?
>> Natural democracy, a term I
used in 1982 when I was talking
about the Iroquois and how they
dealt with democracy and
decision making.
I remember giving that lecture
way back then.
Natural democracy the way I
apply it, mutual respect for
everything and not just human
beings, but respect for rivers,
mountains, flora, fauna, that
they're in all of this because
all of our relations, to look
at history and to look at
society in general and to only
look at it in terms of human
relations is only looking at a
piece of the pie.
And so we need to look at the
entire society of life.
>> So, looking at -- saying
that everything should be
mutually respected.
You then move on to the
medicine way of looking at
history.
Talk to us about that.
>> Okay.
The medicine way is something
that I grew up with and native
people are close to their
traditions.
I think even indigenous people
in different parts of the world
would agree.
If you are close to you are --
what you see is almost
everything has a potential
energy.
Everything, water, rock, a wind
storm, all of that has
potential energy but we refer
to that as the medicine way or
the medicine power.
Medicine power equals energy
and how that is released.
If you don't respect the water,
then the water will come in
terms of the flood.
Or a raging river or something
like that.
In the medicine way, it is a
way of paying the respect for
everything that has potential
power.
And that's what we do.
We respect that.
>> How would you then work
natural democracy in the
medicine way?
>> Well, if we -- if everything
has power, then we respect
everything that is within the
totality.
And the totality has to be
respected or else both cause
their own doom like global
warming.
If we had expected the northern
parts of this -- respected the
northern parts of the planet
and handled the natural
resources in a better way, we
would not be in this forth
coming kind of doom that is
going to happen with global
warming.
>> Medicine way, the way you
approach everything, how does
that work its way into the
history of American Indians?
>> Medicine way has always been
there.
It is the medicine way that
Comanche people, Seminoles in
Florida, myself growing up in
Oklahoma.
It is introducing this to the
larger mainstream and the rest
of the world.
I found that in doing that, I
had to construct theoretically
a cultural bridge.
Cultural bridge -- if they can
understand what the medicine
way is they can cross this
bridge and -- the way of native
thinking, cross that bridge
back.
>> When you talk again about
the ethos and the reality of
native Americans, again, I want
to get back to the context of
history.
How does that change the way
that I would look or someone
else would look at the history
of any aspect of American
Indian history, how would that
change or make me see this
differently or literally change
the reality of that history?
>> It would change a lot.
If we can look back into the
history -- it is almost like
looking at a different book all
together.
Looking at a different way of
life.
A good example is maybe World
War II or even world war I.
If you go to world war I or II
and look at the way the German
people fought about that,
rather than the western
approach -- you don't get the
German perspective.
In this situation, you get the
American Indian perspective and
how each of the individual
nations dealt with history.
And it is like how did that
happen?
Why did that happen?
How come did I miss that?
And so this new perspective,
that is what I'm trying to
suggest in this book.
>> And you talk about Iroquois
logic and other tribal logic
and how they can be different.
How do you incorporate that
into a general understanding of
American Indian history.
I can imagine between tribes
there are great differences.
>> 566 readily recognized
tribes today.
There has to be at least 566
different points of view, if
you add in the gender factor,
men and women, that is twice
that amount.
This is to get on the other
side of the equation, and once
you are on the side of the
equation, facing east, looking
at the frontier, it opens up.
As it opens up, then you see
these different relationships.
Take one group, any tribe, like
in a circle, relationships with
the white world, with the
Cherokees, but also with the
animals, plants, metaphysical
and it becomes more than just a
two dimensional approach it
becomes more spherical.
>> How do you find common
ground?
Are those the circles involved
there as well?
>> Really only looking at
the -- a native group or --
with the American mainstream.
And so that is binary.
If you take that same
theoretical model of two
relationships and turn that
around, then you see the creeks
with the -- with the Seminoles
and any tribe can be in the
middle, but we can't forget the
relationship with the plant
world, metaphysical world,
French and Spanish.
>> When folks look at history
they want to know what happened
and why it happened.
Some want to make sure that it
doesn't happen again.
But for the most part, a
curiosity as to what may have
happened before they may have
been around.
How does this particular
approach alter what happened,
why it happened?
>> Well, I hope, and this is my
goal from the book, is to
really make people think really
hard about history and in
particular, American Indian
history and indigenous history
all around different parts of
the world.
Indigenous point of view, New
Zealand, Australia, or in the
Siberia of Russia, there is a
different story, a different
interpretation.
History is a matter of
interpretations.
With the western approach, we
tend to negate, nullify, forget
the other kinds of history by
not writing about how those
people think.
We use a large paint brush and
paint a way of history and that
is how it happens.
>> You will be teaching a new
class this fall at ASU.
>> Yes, using the basic
structure of it.
This new class, American Indian
studies, 191, a substitute for
Arizona state university's 101.
It will be using two different
biographies.
These individuals, tribal
chairperson and president, the
first Navajo female surgeon,
graduate of Stanford medical
school and also Charles
Alexander Eastman, Dr. Eastman,
became a physician in 1890.
So, how did these individuals
thinking in the medicine way,
how do they survive going to
medical school when they came
from a different set of ideas
and backgrounds and values?
>> Well, it's interesting
stuff.
I mean, it is an interesting
read and it certainly is a
different way of looking at
things.
Thank you for joining us.
We appreciate your time.
>> It was a pleasure.
>>> Wednesday on Arizona
horizon, our weekly legislative
update looks at new indications
that the house is ready to move
on the budget and Medicaid
expansion.
Weather heating up and drying
out, we will hear about
Arizona's upcoming fire season.
on the next
"Arizona Horizon."
That is it for now.
I'm Ted Simons.
Thank you for joining us.
You have a great evening.
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>> "Arizona Horizon" is made
possible by contributions from
the friends of eight, members
of your Arizona PBS station.
Thank you.
>>> The global institute of
sustainability is the heart of
ASU's sustainability
initiatives, advancing
research, education, and
business practices for an
urbanized world.