Fierce years of fighting a well-funded campaign to build Grand Canyon Escalade, a mega resort and tramway on the canyon’s east rim, have finally paid off.
As for the project, Grand Canyon Escalade, this Administration has already stated it does not support the Grand Canyon Escalade project and that position has not changed….it is not in the best interest of the Navajo Nation and the Navajo people.
– Russell Begaye, President of the Navajo Nation
In 2012, local residents and family members formed Save the Confluence to oppose outside developers’ plans to construct hotels and restaurants on Grand Canyon’s east rim and a tram to carry up to 10,000 tourists a day down to the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers.
This week’s inauguration of President Russell Begaye effectively ends promoters’ push for approval by the Navajo Nation. The era of Escalade advocates employed within the Navajo president’s office, is over…at least for now.
At the inaugural podium, the former president presented the incoming president with a written agreement to sign in front of hundreds of witnesses.
The next morning’s headlines proclaimed: “Begaye Backs Aerial Tram: The new Navajo president agrees to advance the Escalade project in the Grand Canyon.” However, neither the new president nor his staff had read the document and were “blindsided” by Escalade’s exiting advocates.
Save the Confluence families and allies immediately asked the new Begaye-Nez administration to reject the agreement and to issue a definitive statement against Escalade.
The next day’s headlines read: Navajo President Takes a Firm Stand Against Grand Canyon Tram. “Begaye issued a statement saying he's opposed to the project and always has been. His spokesman Eric Descheenie added that Begaye was blindsided by the agreement and didn't actually read what he signed.”
Vice President Jonathan Nez said “any attempts to pass legislation to proceed with the development would be vetoed by the president. Nez said the administration's stance on the issue stems from opposition from nearby communities who view the area as a sacred place and are advocating to protect the land.”
Save the Confluence family members expressed relief and thanked the new leaders for ending their “nightmare” under the Ben Shelly administration. “We believe ‘the two mighty’ rivers, the Colorado and the Little Colorado, have spoken.” And added that “we hope the land users [can] re-establish our relationship with…sacred-banded cliffs and canyons…[and the] forces which have existed since time immemorial.”
They expressed appreciation “to our neighboring tribes, countless activists, and the 3,000 Navajo individuals who signed our petition, in addition to the Navajo chapters that stood with us against the development at Grand Canyon east rim.” They also thanked “the Grand Canyon Trust, the river runners, the nation and the world to Save the Confluence.”
They concluded that “while the president’s stance is being recognized as good and welcome news, we will remain cautious of the Navajo Nation Council.”
The Grand Canyon Trust pledges our ongoing assistance to Save the Confluence families and efforts to permanently protect the confluence and Grand Canyon from inappropriate development.
Thanks to all for your enduring support to Keep the Canyon Grand.
on
May 12 2015
by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director
Breaking news: AP reports Navajo Nation president Begaye signed an agreement that includes moving forward on the Grand Canyon tourist tram.
Sitting at an Earth Day information table on the South Rim last month, Renae Yellowhorse answered the same question—over and over: “How can we stop it?” Two days later, Navajo voters answered.
April’s election of Russell Begaye as Navajo Nation president is a significant setback for Escalade, the proposed mega resort and tramway on Grand Canyon’s east rim. It effectively ends promoters’ multi-year push for approval, which gained momentum under the Joe Shirley/Ben Shelly administration (2007-2011) and reached its apex under President Shelly's four years in office. Shelly was the only elected official to ever endorse Escalade. Out of touch with his constituents, he finished seventh in the presidential primary election last September.
Today, Begaye takes office during an inaguration ceremony in Fort Definace, Arizona. The political landscape on the Navajo Nation is still uncertain given the new administration, but the voices of Navajo residents who oppose Escalade are being heard.
When you talk about Escalade or any projects out there, we need to involve … the voice of the local people, rather than allowing big corporations to make those decisions. Yes, we’re trying to create jobs, but we’re doing it in the wrong places and in the wrong way, and [Escalade] is one of those.
– Russell Begaye, campaign statement
Save the Confluence family members have spent thousands of hours traipsing across the reservation to do radio programs, attend council meetings, and meet with community leaders, journalists, presidential candidates, and anyone who might lend a hand in stopping the Navajo Nation from approving Escalade. During the four years that outside developers have been trying to obtain the council’s necessary approval, not a single delegate has ever spoken in support of the project or sponsored the legislation required to approve it.
Delores Wilson-Aguirre, Earlene Reid, and a tenacious band of opposing residents and grazing permit holders earned candidate Begaye's support through regular briefings before the election. In the Bodaway/Gap Chapter, where the development is proposed, Begaye out-polled Joe Shirley by more than a two-to-one margin. Tuchoney Slim, their newly elected council representative, is also opposed to the project.
The campaign to defeat Escalade is not over. A fleet of black jeeps carrying interested investors on their way out to visit the proposed site of the project was recently intercepted by a local sheepherder. Escalade lobbyists are still courting council delegates. And there’s talk of a revised development plan in the works. But the reign of Escalade advocates employed within the Navajo president’s office, is over…at least for now.
With your continued support, the Save the Confluence coalition will keep educating the new administration and work to permanently prevent development below the entire eastern rim of Marble Canyon, down to the confluence.
Near the western edge of the Navajo reservation, non-profit North Leupp Family Farm uses solar panels to power irrigation systems and traditional farming practices passed down through generations. About thirty Navajo families grow corn, squash and melons on small plots on the 100 acre farm.
Native owned and operated, the farm recently won a USDA Value Added Producer Grant for socially disadvantaged farmers to pursue becoming a regional producer of milled blue corn (a traditional Navajo crop). But first the farmers must raise another $5,089 in matching funds by Dec 1, 2014 or forfeit the grant.
With only five days to go, we hear from the farm’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, Stacey Jensen, about what the grant would mean for the community on the Navajo Nation, where unemployment hovers around 40 percent, and per capita income is just $10,695 per year.
North Leupp Family Farm was established as Navajo Farm in the early 1980s and has operated as a community owned and operated farm off and on ever since. North Leupp Family Farm was incorporated within the Navajo Nation Corporation Code as a nonprofit in 2009 and we recently obtained 501 C 3 status.
One of the big challenges we face is doing a lot with very little or no resources. We depend on contributions, grants, volunteers, and in-kind donations. To get to where we are now, we’ve had to get creative and devote a lot of energy to building partnerships, as well as generating revenues by marketing produce.
Q: What does North Leupp Family Farm want to acheive?
We hope to become a blue corn milling facility that will employ local community members and provide economic development, as well as promoting access to traditional food for local and outside demand.
Blue corn is more nutritious and is used in Navajo ceremonies. In a traditional Navajo wedding, the blue corn is mixed with cedar ash and hot, hot water and then made into a mushy consistency. This blue corn mush is then put in a wedding basket, blessed, and partaken by the bride and groom.
The farm could also benefit the community by providing a regional corn milling place for people and companies who have corn or grain they’d like milled.
Q: What would the USDA Grant be used for?
We hope to use the grant to develop a business plan and feasibility study for producing blue cornmeal from traditional Navajo blue corn and building a solar-powered, portable cold-storage unit to reduce food waste and add value to harvested products.
We’d also like to establish a mobile market to increase our customer base. Flagstaff-based Local Alternative Inc. is very interested in using the Organic Native Blue Cornmeal in its Tepa™ veggie burgers and would like to purchase 3 ½ tons per year of cornmeal from us, if we can start producing it.
Q: How can people help?
What the farm needs the most at the moment is money. We’ve raised $7,145 in matching funds. People as far away as Virginia have pitched in to help us out, but we still have a ways to go. We need to raise $5,089 more in matching funds by December 1, 2014 or we’ll have to forfeit the entire $26,268 USDA Grant.
Any size donation helps—a lot what we’ve raised so far has come in small increments from people who want to see the farm move forward with blue corn milling—we hope, with people contributing what they can, to raise the rest in time.
YOU can help North Leupp Family Farm reach its goal. Donate today.
Thanks to the tremendous generosity of donors near and far, North Leupp Family Farm (NLFF) has exceeded their fundraising goal of $13,124 in matching funds needed to keep the $26,268 Value Added Producer Grant for socially disadvantaged farmers they were awarded by USDA!
“The grant is scheduled to begin December 1, 2014,” confirmed the farm’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, Stacey Jensen.
Many thanks to all who donated to this important cause.
The community-based nonprofit, which supports about 30 Navajo families and provides fresh produce to local school children in a community with no supermarket, will use the grant funds to develop a business plan and feasibility study for producing blue cornmeal from traditional Navajo blue corn, building a solar-powered, portable cold-storage unit to reduce food waste and add value to harvested products, and establishing a mobile market to increase the farm’s customer base. In the long term, NLFF hopes to become a region producer of milled blue corn and provide jobs–and healthy food choices–to the local community.
“It’s so inspiring to see people give to see this happen,” says Native American Business Incubator Network mentor and entrepreneur Jessica Stago, who helped NLFF apply for the USDA grant.
We’ll keep you updated on the farm’s progress in the coming months.
For nearly thirty years, North Leupp Family Farm, a sustainable community-based nonprofit located on the western edge of the Navajo reservation twenty-five miles east of Flagstaff, has worked to bring food security and economic development to this remote community.
Raise it or Lose it
Now, the farm has been awarded a competitive USDA grant that would allow it to explore growing beyond a subsistence operation to become a regional producer of milled blue corn. They’ve even found a buyer–Flagstaff-based manufacturer Local Alternative Inc. Jonathan Netzky, Local Alternative’s President, has agreed to buy tonnage of blue corn meal at a small premium, but first the farm must raise $13,134 in matching funds by December 1, 2014 or forfeit the grant.
“Milled blue corn sells for a much higher price than regular corn” says farmer and Chairman of the farm’s Board of Directors Stacey Jensen. “Right now, no one’s producing it in northern Arizona—it all has to be brought in from New Mexico.”
A Rez Model
Using traditional farming practices, aided by solar power and drip irrigation, about thirty Navajo families tend small plots on the 100 acre farm, which also provides fresh vegetables to the Leupp STAR School, one of the first farm-to-school programs in Arizona. The farm is a model of sustainability and innovation on the Navajo reservation, where access to fresh produce is limited; the 18 million acre reservation (larger than Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Delaware combined) has only twelve supermarkets.
The farm would use the $26,268 USDA Value Added Grant funds to develop a business plan and feasibility study for 1) producing blue cornmeal from Navajo blue corn (a traditional crop also used in ceremonies); 2) building a solar-powered, portable coldstorage unit to reduce food waste and add value to harvested products; and 3) establishing a mobile market to increase its customer base.
“This is not just an opportunity for a new venture, it is an opportunity to utilize generations of traditional knowledge in farming and seasonal planning toward producing a product that is in demand in today’s business environment,” said mentor Jessica Stago of the Native American Business Incubator Network, who helped the farm apply for the USDA grant.
A Hand up rather than a Hand out
“Our farmers are feeding their families; if they have a little extra maybe they sell it at the side of the road, but a blue corn milling operation would take us to the next level, reducing the carbon footprint of the planet and bringing economic development to a population that needs a hand up rather than a hand out,” Jensen said. So far, Jensen and his collaborators have raised $4,620 in matching funds.
You Can Help
The Native American Business Incubator Network (NABIN), an initiative of the Grand Canyon Trust, has set up a donation page to help raise the remaining $8,514 cash match by the December 1, 2014 deadline. To make your tax-deductible donation, send a check to: North Leupp Family Farm Donation c/o Grand Canyon Trust, 2601 N. Ft. Valley Rd, Flagstaff, AZ 86001.
“Our region is constantly bombarded with economic development proposals that don’t align with the values of our communities and the region,” said Natasha K. Hale, Native America Program Manager for the Grand Canyon Trust. “But the farm is in a unique position to create a business model that helps strengthen both the regional food market and the local economy. This is a great social entrepreneurship model the community can support.”
Last week, Russell Begaye won a landslide victory in the Navajo Nation’s presidential election, putting an end to a tumultuous election cycle that left lame duck president Ben Shelly (who came in 7th in the primary) in office for months after his term should have expired. That means Shelly will finally be leaving office, taking his dreams of pushing the proposed Grand Canyon Escalade tramway resort through the approval process along with him. But even with Escalade’s champion out of play, the Confluence Partners have not yet backed down.
It’s time for another round of calling Escalade’s bluffs.
1.Opposition to the development is lessening
The election results suggest that the Navajo Nation is ready for a new style of leadership. The new president-elect, Russell Begaye, was the underdog candidate. He signed a petition opposing the Escalade development during his campaign. His opponent, Joe Shirley, remained neutral, at least publically (he was the sitting president in 2009 when the Escalade project was first introduced).
Begaye won resoundingly, capturing 62 percent of the votes.
When you talk about Escalade or any projects out there, we need to involve … the voice of the local people, rather than allowing big corporations to make those decisions. Yes, we’re trying to create jobs, but we’re doing it in the wrong places and in the wrong way, and (Escalade) is one of those.
– Russell Begaye, campaign statement
The Tribal Council doesn’t seem to be interested in the project either. During the four years the Confluence Partners have been trying to obtain the council’s necessary approval, not a single delegate has ever spoken in support of the project or sponsored the legislation required to approve it.
The political landscape on the Navajo Nation is still uncertain given the new administration, but the voices of Navajo residents who oppose the Escalade are being heard.
2. The park only offers a “drive-by wilderness experience.”
The Confluence Partners claim the tramway and river walk will give tourists a real wilderness experience. Yet, according to their own estimates, there will be as many as 1,350 people on the river walk at any given time. You don’t have to be a backcountry snob to realize that sharing a 1,500 ft long river walk with 1,350 people is not wilderness.
In fact, the Wilderness Act defines wilderness as, “an area possessing outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined types of recreation.” And the park service limits permits in wilderness areas to reduce the number of interactions hikers have with each other on the trail.
The Escalade’s continuous conveyor belt dumping people into the bottom of the Grand Canyon is no more “wild” than the domesticated squirrels that munch potato chips on the South Rim.
3. The tramway will give people an opportunity to see the bottom of the Grand Canyon who would otherwise not be able to get there.
River trips cost several thousand dollars, and helicopter rides several hundred. The price of those activities is prohibitive, but the cost of hiking down to the river is less than a ticket to the Grand Canyon Skywalk, and presumably less than the Escalade tramway ride (price not disclosed).
Hiking is the most economical way to experience the canyon. Even so, only five percent of park visitors spend a night in the backcountry and fewer than ten percent day-hike the corridor trails. Age, fitness levels, and physical disabilities are limitations to experiencing the canyon, and the tramway might help a small percentage of people. But if a blind kayaker can navigate 277 miles through the canyon’s raging whitewater, then the remaining 90 percent of us who are just a little out of shape could muster the energy to at least step foot below the rim.
4. Project organizers say the development will generate $350-450 million each year in revenue for the local economy.
The Confluence Partners don’t elaborate on the numbers they throw around, and while they might be using complex modeling to arrive at the figures, what they communicate to the public suggests the estimates come from thin air. Take for example the project generating $350-450 million for the local community each year. Where does that come from?
Their projections leave us speculating, but this is our best guess:
The Confluence Partners estimate they’ll capture 50 percent of park visitors (a lofty goal—Grand Canyon National Park receives roughly 4.5 million visitors each year). This month, the National Park Service issued a report that shows Grand Canyon National Park to have a cumulative benefit to the local economy of just over $700 million. Why not halve the park service’s financial calculations as well, since they anticipate attracting half its visitors? That puts Escalade’s benefit to the local economy right in their cited range of $350-450 million.
These community benefits include jobs and money spent in nearby towns, but are the Confluence Partners taking into account the Covenant Not to Compete clause they wrote into the master agreement that negates some of these so-called benefits? The non-compete clause would block artisans, jewelry makers, and fry-bread stands from setting up shop on a 40,000 acre area surrounding the proposed development. The developers would decide what, if any, competition to allow in their exclusive economic zone.
What if [the developers] decide that cattle and sheep are economic competition and they take them out of their exclusion zone?
Yes, the Navajo Nation needs jobs, but empty promises are not the answer. The Grand Canyon Trust’s Native America program is working with tribes on culturally-driven, locally-based alternative economic development initiatives.
by Stacie Tsingine, Native American Intertribal Gathering Associate
Here on the Colorado Plateau, water is life.
And in this arid climate, every drop counts. A few weeks ago, we held our first-ever workshop on Irrigation Systems at the Intertribal Learning Center to explore how traditional tribal methods can help modern farmers grow smarter and better.
Getting Creative
First, a little history. The Zuni, Tohono O’Odham, Hopi, Navajo, Havasupai and Hualapai have irrigated and planted across the plateau, when and where water was accessible to us, for centuries. We've used storm runoff, planted alongside streams and riverbeds, and diverted water using canal systems, similar to techniques employed in arid climates in India, Iran, and North Africa.
From water catchment to planting in alluvial fans (fan-shaped deposits of sediment built up by streams) to flood irrigation, in this climate it pays to be creative and resourceful when it comes to making the most of this precious resource.
The main source of water in the Moenkopi/Tuba City area, where the Learning Center is located, is the Moenkopi Wash and Pasture Canyon Springs, a small stream that flows with runoff from Black Mesa. Both Hopi and Navajo farmers use the stream, mainly for flood irrigation using a communal canal system to flood their fields and neighboring plots.
Communal Problem-Solving
Local farmers and community members weighed in on drip irrigation techniques, and the best ways to solve problems in their fields, such as what to do when one side of a field is full of water while the other stays bone dry, and what irrigation methods are popular now.
"How can I set up a drip irrigation system at home?" One Hopi elder wanted to know.
Traditional drip irrigation is simple. Farmers fill a bucket with water, and, using gravity, allow the water to descend the drip lines, saturating the soil slowly and giving the roots time to absorb the moisture, minimizing evaporation.
Join Us!
The Learning Center has a wealth of information to share with local farmers and community members, but most of all we want to create a forum for discussion. We want to learn and share the traditional knowledge that has enabled Native peoples to live productively for hundreds of years and figure out how best to keep it alive.
I for one truly enjoyed listening to the group and was impressed by the farmers' willingness to support each other, working to achieve common goals: growing strong crops, preserving Native languages, stories, and traditions, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Want to attend a workshop or arrange a class visit? Contact us ›
on
July 10 2014
Mary Williams
Update: CBS News also covered this story on July 14, 2014. Watch the video.
by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director
This week’s story in the Los Angeles Times spotlights ever-present threats to Grand Canyon National Park. “The Grand Canyon is Doomed” chimed in Outside online in response to developers’ plans to build a gondola ride to the canyon’s bottom and a mega-resort at the canyon’s most popular entrance.
According to the Times article, the National Park Service “worries those new developments will jeopardize some of the park’s most iconic vistas and push already-strained resources to the brink” and adds that this is the “most serious threat the park has faced in its 95-year history.”
Grand Canyon Trust was challenging these threats long before they reached national media.
In 2012, we accepted an invitation from Save the Confluence, an organized group of local families from the Bodaway/Gap Chapter of the Navajo Nation, to join their campaign to oppose the proposed Escalade development at the confluence of the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers.
While working in support of the Confluence families to stop the project, our team is also collaborating with community groups to help craft alternative economic development strategies that would bring much-needed jobs to this area of the Navajo Nation without threatening national park resources, sacred sites, or traditional culture.
Two years ago, Grand Canyon Trust intervened in water and sewer applications before the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) in a massive development proposed in Tusayan, at the southern entrance to Grand Canyon National Park.
Developers hope to build “3 million square feet of commercial space—with high-end stores, fancy hotels, condos, a concert pavilion, spa, dude ranch and Native American cultural fair—along with hundreds of homes, at a range of price-points, and some of it meant for local workers.” (Indian Country Today Media Network)
Under pressure from the Trust, developers withdrew their ACC permit application. The Trust, Havasupai Tribe, and other allies are continuing to fight to prevent the developer from sinking new wells that threaten Grand Canyon springs and to force compliance with all state and federal regulations.
The Grand Canyon is not doomed. The Trust remains vigilant in opposing these developments, as well as uranium mining in Grand Canyon watersheds. But we need your help.
“Every 15 or 20 years, it seems, the canyon forces us to undergo a kind of national character exam. If we cannot muster the resources and the resolve to preserve this, perhaps our greatest natural treasure, what, if anything, are we willing to protect?”
-Kevin Fedarko
Kevin Fedarko’s “A Cathedral Under Siege” is a clarion call. Published on the front page of the New York Times’ Sunday Review, it reminds us that Grand Canyon is “precariously vulnerable” to developments that “would desecrate one of the country’s most beloved wilderness shrines.”
Voice your opposition to developments that would irreparably damage the Grand Canyon.
Grand Canyon Trust was conceived on river trip in 1981. The “menace of Interior Secretary James Watt’s anti-environmental fervor” meant that a handful of visionaries, floating through the Grand Canyon, felt an urgent need to do more to protect it.
Massive development
While we’ve made remarkable progress in stemming the tide of threats, the canyon remains under siege. Fedarko writes that a massive development at the canyon’s southern gateway “requires water, and tapping new wells would deplete the aquifer that drives many of the springs deep inside the canyon—delicate oases with names like Elves Chasm and Mystic Spring.”
Tourist tramway
A second threat consists of a “1.4-mile tramway” that “would take more than 4,000 visitors a day in eight-person gondolas to a spot on the floor of the canyon known as the Confluence, where the turquoise waters of the Little Colorado River merge with the emerald green current of the Colorado. The area, which is sacred to many in the Hopi and Zuni Tribes, as well as the Navajo people, would feature an elevated walkway, a restaurant and an amphitheater.”
Local opposition
For more than two years, the Trust has been supporting opposition, which Fedarko calls “furious,” by a group of local Navajo families who live in the Confluence area. This summer,
Save the Confluence families and an escalating coalition of allies thwarted developers’ bid to win final approval by the Navajo Nation Council.
Despite recent reports to the contrary, the Grand Canyon is not doomed. But, as Fedarko’s call to action reminds us:
“Whenever a developer is defeated, nothing prevents other developers from stepping forward, again and again.”
With your help, the Grand Canyon Trust will remain vigilant in opposing these developments, as well as uranium mining in Grand Canyon watersheds.
Renae Yellowhorse rose before dawn last week to make the long journey from her home near Tuba City, on the Navajo reservation, to the studios of KNAU radio in Flagstaff, Arizona, where she and nationally acclaimed author Kevin Fedarko confronted Grand Canyon tramway advocate Deswood Tome on Tom Ashbrook’s popular Boston-based National Public Radio show “On Point.”
“The notion that delivering 10,000 people per day to the bottom of the Grand Canyon not having an effect on it is absurd.”
-Kevin Fedarko
A lame-duck president
Tome is an outgoing advisor to lame-duck Navajo Nation president Ben Shelly, who has been the sole official supporter of a contentious plan to build a mega-resort on the canyon’s rim and a gondola ride down to the bottom, where the turquoise waters of the Little Colorado River join the main-stem Colorado in the heart of the Grand Canyon. Shelly failed to qualify for reelection after coming in sixth in the August primary.
Local opposition
For more than two years, Ms. Yellowhorse and members of Save the Confluence, a coalition of local Navajo families, have vocally opposed the plan and the Scottsdale-based developer’s divide-and-conquer tactics to gain approval from local officials.
“What kind of job is he going to offer my three 70 and 80-year-old aunties?” Yellowhorse asked Tome, challenging the developer’s claim that the project will bring jobs to the Navajo Nation. Yellowhorse’s aunts, like many traditional Navajos on the reservation, have raised sheep in the area all their lives and consider themselves gainfully employed.
Tome sidestepped Yellowhorse’s challenge, arguing that the tram to an elevated walkway and a hot-dog stand along the river would have no impact on the Grand Canyon’s natural integrity or nearby areas held holy by Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni religions. Fedarko, whose recent New York Times editorial on the development plan sparked a national outcry, responded, capturing the public outrage: “The notion that delivering 10,000 people per day to the bottom of the Grand Canyon not having an effect on it is absurd.”
Public uproar
Radio listeners from across the country phoned in to echo this sentiment. “It would be a travesty to open that Pandora’s box for profit,” said one caller from Detroit.
“There are some things that are so grand, so special, that they should not be marred by commercial development,” host Tom Ashbrook added.
Renae Yellowhorse, whose opposition to the plan has made her the target of criticism, reiterated the importance of Navajo voices in the debate: “My hope is that it will be stopped—that the world outcry to desecration of such a holy place will be heard….and that… my people, the people that are going to be directly affected, my family, my aunties, that their voices can be heard…and that they won’t fall on deaf ears….”