A giant shovel rests on exposed coal debris. Fine fragments small enough to be classified as dust would ride the air current and spread across the environment.

Natives of this neighboring area would come in contact by breathing in coal dust. Coal dust will cover the surface of the soil and when the rains came. The coal dust drained in to pools containing coal slush across the land. 

The recycled land is not successful at sustaining vegetation for Navajo sheep. The Vegetation looks like one's vision of the southwest. However the land does not function as it had in the past. The soil will not drain like the soil that was removed before open face mining. The slopes and natural carvings from weather on the surface of the land is also gone. Land adapting in harmony with nature is gone.

Coal dust minerals are not good for drinking water. Once the coal mineral get into the water table you change the delicate balance of what grew as food within the area. To survive in these areas your body runs the risk in failing to process what you consume off the land. As your body filters what you consume, the passing of minerals from coal will slowly block the kidney ducts. 

The need for bottled water becomes essential. 

Native Americans continue to exist here and suffer from the impact that modern man has made on their land from digging for coal as a supply of energy.

In the When mother earth trembled photo essay.