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href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/08/winnemem-wintu-tribe-sue-to-stop-waste-discharge-at-mt-shasta-water-bottling-facility/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/08/winnemem-wintu-tribe-sue-to-stop-waste-discharge-at-mt-shasta-water-bottling-facility/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Winnemem Wintu Tribe Sue to Stop Waste
Discharge at Mt. Shasta Water Bottling Facility</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/mrnhdyk111/"
rel="nofollow">Dan Bacher</a> - May 8, 2018</span></div>
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<p>It’s a gorgeous warm day in September 2015. Small
cascades of cold, pristine water rush out of the
hillside at Big Springs, the headwaters of the
Sacramento River, as they converge in a clear and
shallow pool located in the Mount Shasta City Park.</p>
<p>Adults and children fill their jugs and bottles with
the crystalline water that takes 50 years to make it
from snow and rain on Mount Shasta down through the
volcanic aquifer to where the torrents converge in the
park.</p>
<p>The icy water rushes from the hillside to make its way
to Lake Siskiyou, then Lake Shasta and then to the Delta
and the ocean. People from throughout the world walk
along the creek and hike along shaded trails and
footpaths that cross through hedges of horsetail fern
and willow and across small bridges.</p>
<p>As people hike to and relax besides Big Springs, Caleen
Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu
Tribe, and hundreds of environmentalists and activists
from all over California and Oregon hold a rally, the
“Water Every Drop Sacred” event, in this scenic park at
the Sacramento River headwaters. After the rally ends,
Sisk and tribal members lead a march and protest of 160
people to the plant.</p>
<p>The Tribe is opposed to the planned opening of the
plant, closed after it was operated by the Coca-Cola
Bottling Company and other corporations for years, in
accordance with its commitment to protect and preserve
the Headwaters of the river, the Mount Shasta watershed
and sacred tribal lands. Otsuka Holding Co, a Japanese
pharmaceutical conglomerate, owns Crystal Geyser.</p>
<p>Move forward to April 28, 2018 and the struggle by the
Tribe and local environmentalists to save the headwaters
of the Sacramento, the largest and longest river in
California, has entered a new stage, a lawsuit against
the City of Mount Shasta.</p>
<p>The Winnemem Wintu, who are now leading a campaign to
reintroduce winter-run Chinook now thriving in New
Zealand back to their home on the McCloud River, and We
Advocate Thorough Environmental Review (W.A.T.E.R.) have
petitioned the Superior Court of Siskiyou County for a
Writ of Mandate (Petition) against the City of Mt.
Shasta.</p>
<p>The litigation challenges the city’s March 26, 2018,
split-vote approval of the Industrial Waste Discharge
Permit for Crystal Geyser Water Company and the city’s
conclusion that the project was “adequately considered”
in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) prepared by
Siskiyou County, in violation of the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).</p>
<p>WATER and the tribe argue in the petition that when the
city approved the permit, it abused its discretionary
powers in violation of CEQA by relying upon an EIR that
“fails to include information necessary for informed
decision-making and informed public participation, and
in failing to adopt feasible mitigation measures within
its jurisdiction.”</p>
<p><span><i>Winnemem regard Mount Shasta water as a sacred
relative</i></span></p>
<p>“The Winnemem Wintu were born from the pristine water
of Mount Shasta and regard this water as a sacred
relative, a living being that is being exploited,
desecrated and polluted when it is put in a plastic
bottle and commoditized,” stated Winnemem Wintu Tribal
Representatives, Mark Miyoshi and Luisa Navejas.</p>
<p>“When we stand up for the life of the water from this
mountain that flows throughout the tribe’s traditional
territory and becomes the mighty Sacramento and McCloud
Rivers, we are defending the life of all free-flowing
streams and rivers and ultimately the precious life of
our great Mother Ocean. All voices matter as the value
of water is the value of life itself,” they said.</p>
<p>The validity of the EIR has been challenged in a
separate case filed against Siskiyou County.</p>
<p>“During the county’s administrative review process of
the Crystal Geyser operations and the EIR, the city
itself had submitted well-considered and detailed
comments strongly objecting to numerous hazards of the
project including excessive noise, lighting, traffic,
improper wastewater disposal and possible inadequate
ground water supplies,” the Tribe and WATER said.</p>
<p>“Subsequently, the city decided to not challenge the
EIR in court, but<br>
nonetheless continued to maintain its objections raised
in its previous comments on the Draft EIR. These valid
issues raised by the city, and also by many other
citizens and experts, were barely addressed and never
resolved by the county,” the Tribe and WATER continued.</p>
<p>Despite the city’s knowledge that the EIR was
potentially insufficient, the city conducted minimal
reviews during its consideration of the wastewater
permit, and did not make formal “CEQA Findings” as
required by CEQA, they argue. Approval of the permit
without the required Responsible Agency findings thus
violated CEQA.</p>
<p>The tribe and WATER further argue that the approved
permit, a revision of the draft permit evaluated in the
EIR, includes additional waste streams that were not
evaluated in the EIR process.</p>
<p>“Although Crystal Geyser had informed the city of its
intention to seek the inclusion of additional waste
streams long before the completion of the Draft EIR by
the county, the city took no action as a responsible
agency to include these known potential waste streams
into the EIR’s analysis. In addition, the permit allows
for significant delay in requiring the necessary
improvements to the city’s wastewater system, and this
will result in impacts to the environment,” they said.</p>
<p>They said the city failed to evaluate these impacts and
failed to prepare supplemental CEQA documentation in
order to support its decision to approve the permit.</p>
<p>The tribe and WATER further allege that the EIR is
“faulty” because Siskiyou County failed to complete
required A.B. 52 consultation with the Winnemem Wintu
tribe. As a result, the EIR cannot support the city’s
conclusions in its role as a responsible agency.</p>
<p>Finally, the tribe and WATER assert in the petition the
city failed to make formal CEQA findings, and the
one-sentence statement in the resolution adopted to
approve the permit was insufficient to be considered the
“CEQA findings” to support the city’s approval.</p>
<p>W.A.T.E.R. representative Geneva Omann stated, “If this
bottling plant is going to be operating here, we want
ALL of its effluent to go to the city wastewater
treatment plant, but at the very least, the permitting
and operations of the bottling plant and the wastewater
treatment plant must be in compliance with CEQA.
Currently they are not.”</p>
<p>She also said, “We are challenging the permit approval
to ensure the wastewater treatment plant, the
environment, the Winnemem Wintu’s traditional cultural
resources, and city residents are all protected from
potential adverse effects of the bottling plant.”</p>
<p>“We are proud to stand with our brothers and sisters of
the Winnemem Wintu in defending Water and our
community,” she concluded.</p>
<p><i>Tribe, fishing groups have also filed lawsuit
against Delta Tunnels</i></p>
<p>This is not the only lawsuit that the Winnemem Wintu
has filed over the past year. ON August 17, 2017, the
Winnemem Wintu Tribe, North Coast Rivers Alliance
(NCRA), Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), Pacific
Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) and
the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association filed
suit against the California Department of Water
Resources (DWR) in Sacramento Superior Court to overturn
DWR’s approval of the Delta Tunnels, also know as the
California WaterFix Project.</p>
<p>”The Winnemem Wintu Tribe has lived on the banks of the
McCloud River for thousands of years and our culture is
centered on protection and careful, sustainable use of
its salmon,” said Caleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem
Wintu Tribe. “Our salmon were stolen from us when Shasta
Dam was built in 1944.”</p>
<p>”Since that dark time, we have worked tirelessly to
restore this vital salmon run through construction of a
fishway around Shasta Dam connecting the Sacramento
River to its upper tributaries including the McCloud
River. The Twin Tunnels and its companion proposal to
raise Shasta Dam by 18 feet would push the remaining
salmon runs toward extinction and inundate our ancestral
and sacred homeland along the McCloud River,” Chief Sisk
stated.</p>
<p>Chief Sisk is currently running for Assembly District 1
as a Democrat in the <span tabindex="0"
data-term="goog_1882980027"><span>June 5</span></span> election.
For more information, go to: <a
href="http://www.caleen4assembly.com/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener"
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.caleen4assembly.com&source=gmail&ust=1525740034673000&usg=AFQjCNGLArSz23iIB82fbJfY8NPyKhfcEQ">http://www.<wbr>caleen4assembly.com</a></p>
<p>The Trump and Brown administrations and project
proponents claim the tunnels would fulfill the “coequal
goals” of water supply reliability and ecosystem
restoration, but opponents point out that project would
create no new water while hastening the extinction of
winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead,
Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other
imperiled fish species</p>
<p>The project would also imperil the salmon and steelhead
populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers that have
played a central role in the culture, religion and
livelihood of the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley Tribes
for thousands of years.</p>
<p>The tunnels would divert 9,000 cubic feet per second of
water from the Sacramento River near Clarksburg and
transport it 35 miles via two tunnels 40-feet in
diameter for export to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness
interests and Southern California, according to lawsuit
documents. The project would divert approximately 6.5
million acre-feet of water per year, a quantity
sufficient to flood the entire state of Rhode Island
under nearly 7 feet of water.</p>
<p><span><i>Run4Salmon Set for <span tabindex="0"
data-term="goog_1882980028"><span>September 15 to
September 30</span></span></i></span></p>
<p>Then coming up from <span tabindex="0"
data-term="goog_1882980029"><span>September 15 to
September 30</span></span>, the Winnemen Wintu will
be sponsoring their <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/run4salmon?source=feed_text"
target="_blank" rel="noopener"
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/run4salmon?source%3Dfeed_text&source=gmail&ust=1525740034673000&usg=AFQjCNF2-6hjU3aD4sizSBqzSeG9e6xw_g">#Run4Salmon</a>2018.</p>
<p>”This will be the third year of our prayerful journey
upstream to walk, ride, run, and paddle as we continue
the work to bring our salmon home,” according to the
Tribe. “We just got back from Aotearoa (New Zealand)
from releasing our salmon fingerlings into the streams
there and we are excited to return to Aotearoa this
summer to work on collecting DNA samples from the
Chinook returning home to spawn and move forward with
our historical restoration project! We are all in this
together. The journey continues until our salmon are
restored and our sacred sites are protected!”</p>
<p>For more information about the Run4Salmon, go to: <a
href="http://www.run4salmon.org/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener"
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.run4salmon.org&source=gmail&ust=1525740034673000&usg=AFQjCNEMyXyiaoO66nu8BcTIWKqCIapu1g">http://www.run4salmon.org</a></p>
<p>For more information about the Delta Tunnels Lawsuit,
go to: <a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/22/winnemem-wintu-fishing-groups-sue-to-block-ecosystem-killing-delta-tunnels/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener"
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/22/winnemem-wintu-fishing-groups-sue-to-block-ecosystem-killing-delta-tunnels/&source=gmail&ust=1525740034673000&usg=AFQjCNHr7InZtaknCXMNXImF7ueSqJnRhQ">www.counterpunch.org/…</a></p>
<p>For more information about the lawsuit against Mt.
Shasta City, contact:</p>
<p>Geneva Omann, Secretary, Board of Directors<br>
We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review,<br>
530-918-8805, <a
href="mailto:mountshastawater@gmail.com"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">mountshastawater@gmail.com</a></p>
<p>Mark Miyoshi, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer<br>
Luisa Navejas, Mt. Shasta District Representative and
Water Advisor<br>
WInnemem Wintu Tribe<br>
530-926-4408</p>
</div>
<p> <em><strong>Dan Bacher</strong> is an environmental
journalist in Sacramento. He can be reached at: Dan
Bacher <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:danielbacher@fishsniffer.com">danielbacher@fishsniffer.com</a>.</em> </p>
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