A 200-mile hydrogen pipeline on the Navajo Nation raises safety, environmental concerns

A proposed hydrogen pipeline that would stretch 200 miles across the Navajo Nation is an environmental threat and a safety concern due to lack of regulations, a Navajo grassroots group argues in an educational campaign about the project.

The group, Tó Nizhóní Ání , hosted an informational summit at the Shiprock Chapter to help the community understand the potential impact of the proposed hydrogen pipeline, which Tallgrass Energy, through its subsidiary GreenView , aims to build. It was information community members may not be privy to.

“This will be Tallgrass and Greenview’s first hydrogen pipeline,” said Eleanor Smith, Tó Nizhóní Ání community organizer. “They are basically an oil and gas company. This will be their very first hydrogen pipeline they will build, and it will be the longest of any continuous pipeline pretty much anywhere.”

Smith said Tó Nizhóní Ání has always had four main concerns about the project, starting with the pipeline itself, which would be among the longest in the U.S. “It’s going to take up so much land use from grazing people, land use from homesite leases," Smith said. "They want to use this land for up to 70 years and we are worried about land encroachment.”

Other concerns are water usage, the effects on communities and climate change. The preliminary map shows the proposed hydrogen pipeline beginning in Hogback and Gadiiahii on the New Mexico side of the Navajo Nation. It then travels through several Arizona communities, including Kayenta and Tuba City, before reaching Cameron.

“They’re saying that they want this pipeline to go toward Phoenix, Las Vegas, go down toward Yuma,” said Smith. “They want to use it for agriculture down there and the cities of Phoenix, Las Vegas, they want to use it for all the industrial use.”

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Proposed pipeline is longer than any in operation

Jessica Keetso, Tó Nizhóní Ání community organizer, has led the efforts to educate communities on the development and research about the project. She said hydrogen pipelines are not as common in the United States.

About 1,600 miles of hydrogen pipelines operate in the United States, according to the federal Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy . Owned by merchant hydrogen producers, these pipelines are located where large hydrogen users, such as petroleum refineries and chemical plants, are concentrated, such as the Gulf Coast region.

“The longest is only about 15 miles,” said Keetso. “So this 200-mile pipeline is really long, and places like Texas have had regulation on hydrogen for quite a while. The Navajo Nation Minerals Department does not have hydrogen regulation or laws for generating, consumption, or transportation of hydrogen gas.”

In 2013, the Navajo Nation established the Navajo Nation Energy Policy, and Keetso noted that this is where some language on hydrogen should be written. Instead, the policy states, "Types of energy projects not contemplated by 2013 Energy Policy (e.g., hydrogen, hydro pump storage)," raising a question about whether oil and gas are adequately covered by the policy.

Establishing pipelines on the Navajo Nation is ambitious and concerning given the lack of specific regulations, Keetso said, noting that the Arizona Corporation Commission does not regulate hydrogen pipelines and has no plans to develop such regulations.

In New Mexico, the Public Regulation Commission refers to federal regulation 49 CFR from the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration. The U.S. DOT has regulated hydrogen pipelines since 1970 under laws that set minimum federal safety standards for transporting natural and other gasses by pipeline. The safety administration oversees approximately 700 miles of hydrogen pipelines.

Other agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and the Environmental Protection Agency, also lack specific regulations for hydrogen pipelines.

Keetso said that in her discussions with a representative from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, she was told that that agency's approach to regulation is more reactive, meaning regulations are implemented in response to crises rather than proactively established beforehand. FERC does not have hydrogen pipeline regulations in place.

“If Tallgrass or Greenview, or whoever, there are a lot of different partners, tell you hydrogen is highly regulated, that is not true,” said Keetso.

On the Navajo Nation, there are only eight firefighters with hazmat certification who could potentially respond to an incident like a hydrogen fire along a 200-mile pipeline. In contrast, a fire department in Las Vegas has 15 people with Hazmat certification, highlighting a significant disparity, according to Smith.

The language in the law "is vague like most regulations are,” said Keetso. “If something were to happen, it says call emergency. But like Eleanor said, the Navajo Nation has only eight people who can respond to an emergency that are Hazmat certified. We are already falling short.”

Some communities were already concerned about outside companies trying to develop resources on the Navajo Nation, such a a plan for a hydropower project that opponents said threatened water supplies and ignored local concerns.

In February, FERC denied preliminary permits for three such hydropower projects on the Navajo Nation, and in April, FERC denied the preliminary permit application for the Big Canyon Pumped Storage Project , which would have dammed Big Canyon, a tributary canyon to the Little Colorado River Gorge, mere miles from Grand Canyon National Park.

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'Sunrise Proclamation' drew interest from developers

Navajo Nation leadership has not been receptive to learning more about the research Tó Nizhóní Ání has done or about their concerns, Smith said. The group has tried to get a meeting to present to the council’s resource and development committee since last year, and that meeting didn't happen until July 8. The group attended the first day of Navajo Council's summer session Monday, holding banners and signs opposing the pipeline for delegates and other tribal leadership to see.

She also said the Navajo Nation Council’s legislation in support of the pipeline could surface soon.

So, when did discussions on a hydrogen pipeline through the Navajo Nation start? Keetso has been following this issue since 2021 when she first learned about it. But in an email to The Arizona Republic, Rachel Carmichael, senior director of communications and public affairs for Greenview, said development efforts in the southwestern U.S. initially did not include plans to invest in projects on the Navajo Nation.

“There are many routes to connect renewable-based and decarbonized hydrogen throughout the southwest U.S., across existing utility and road corridors, and we were focused originally on routes that did not include the Navajo Nation,” said Carmichael.

Then, in 2019, the Navajo Nation released what leaders called the Sunrise Proclamation, the brainchild of former Navajo President Jonathan Nez and his administration.

The Sunrise Proclamation, also known as the Navajo Hayoołkaał Proclamation, prioritizes clean and renewable energy for the Navajo Nation.

First signed in April 2019, the proclamation is based on four principles:

• Developing a diverse energy portfolio
• Creating workforce development and job opportunities for the Navajo people by transitioning from carbon-based energy to renewable energy
• Restoring land and water after decades of uranium and coal mining
• Achieving rural electrification of homes that lack access to electricity, as well as developing utility-scale renewable energy projects to supply electricity to the Navajo Nation and the Western United States.

The proclamation caught the attention of Greenview because it articulated an ambition to build a new clean energy future for the Navajo Nation, said Carmichael. In summer 2021, the company reached out to Navajo Nation leadership about the possibility of working together to develop a new clean hydrogen ecosystem.

“That was the start of a multi-year engagement process by Greenview across the Navajo Nation,” said Carmichael.

Since 2021, Carmichael said Greenview has “conducted hundreds of one-on-one meetings with Diné people across the Navajo Nation.” They have participated in over 60 events at local chapter houses, hosted five regional open-house events, and sponsored two regional fairs

“This goal is critical given that communities continue to experience the loss of jobs and revenues on the Navajo Nation, as mines and coal-fired power facilities are shuttered and the often lauded 'renewable revitalization' has failed to materialize as promised,” said Carmichael. “This is certainly not because renewables are not essential and beneficial. They are incredibly so. This is because they do not often generate the same number of direct jobs and revenues for communities as the retiring energy and mining industries have in the past.”

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Critics ask if hydrogen is really clean

During the Shiprock summit, Tom Solomon of 350 New Mexico gave a presentation on blue hydrogen and climate change. Ruhan Nagra, director of the Environmental Justice Clinic at the University of Utah School of Law, also spoke.

Solomon explained that blue hydrogen, derived from methane, is a fossil fuel with a carbon footprint more than 20% worse than burning fossil natural gas directly. He emphasized that the push for hydrogen is driven by industry, not the environmental community.

"The so-called hydrogen economy is a solution proposed by the gas industry, not to climate change, but to the ‘problem’ of declining natural gas sales as the clean energy transition cuts the use of gas in water and space heating and in power plants," Solomon said in his presentation.

"Industry plans for hydrogen will boost demand for natural gas in two ways," he said. "First is as a hydrogen feedstock, and second and more deceptively, by increasing total electricity demand by 62% just to make green hydrogen, providing them a reason to keep gas-fired electric plants operating when they would otherwise close."

The gas industry benefits from promoting hydrogen in two ways, Solomon said. First, since 95% of all hydrogen is currently produced by steam-reforming methane, new markets for hydrogen create new markets for methane or natural gas.

Second, the proposed "better" way of producing hydrogen involves using clean electricity to run water through an electrolyzer, creating "green" hydrogen. This process also benefits the gas industry because it delays the closure of existing gas-fired power plants due to the inefficiency of using manufactured hydrogen as a fuel and the increased electricity needed to produce it.

Carmichael said that every scientific and environmentally focused government agency has unequivocally supported the development of clean hydrogen and CO2 capture and sequestration. These agencies have championed policies and incentives to promote these initiatives, and numerous parties are advancing large-scale projects in other regions across the U.S.

"In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency publicly announced that clean hydrogen and carbon capture and sequestration are the country’s 'best available control technologies' to stop greenhouse gas emissions from thermal power production," she said.

After the summit, Tó Nizhóní Ání noted that some community members believed hydrogen was beneficial and posed no threat to Navajo communities. Others drew parallels to the Navajo Nation's history of resource exploitation and environmental injustice, openly condemning this new project as another scheme to extract natural resources, transport them through the Navajo Nation, and sell them to outside companies and states. They argued that this would enhance outside economies while providing no substantial benefits to the Navajo Nation.

Carmichael acknowledged that as the company expanded engagement with local communities on the Navajo Nation, they frequently heard that local Navajo chapters involved in a project wanted to see more benefits at the chapter level. To address this, the company initiated a dialogue about a community benefits plan to address key concerns raised by community members.

"One of which relates to establishing an annual community investment vehicle where additional funds — over and above what would be received by the Navajo Nation government — are provided for use in each chapter directly involved in the project," Carmichael said.

Arlyssa D. Becenti covers Indigenous affairs for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Send ideas and tips to arlyssa.becenti@arizonarepublic.com .

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: A 200-mile hydrogen pipeline on the Navajo Nation raises safety, environmental concerns