<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="container content-width3" style="--font-size:20px;">
<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://intercontinentalcry.org/pit-river-tribe-proclaims-victory-in-the-fight-to-protect-medicine-lake-highlands/">https://intercontinentalcry.org/pit-river-tribe-proclaims-victory-in-the-fight-to-protect-medicine-lake-highlands/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Pit River Tribe proclaims victory in
the fight to protect Medicine Lake Highlands</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Pit River Tribe - September
26, 2019</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div class="moz-reader-content line-height4 reader-show-element">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div id="content-font2">
<p>The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared a
victorious win for the Pit River Tribe and Indigenous
Nations in a decades fought dispute over geothermal
leasing on federal land within California’s sacred
Medicine Lake Highlands.</p>
<p>On Thursday, the court issued a summary judgment by the
panel ruling in favor of Indigenous Nations and
environmental groups in their action against federal
agencies responsible for administering twenty-six
geothermal leases located in California’s Medicine Lake
Highlands, which threatened to desecrate and
industrialize the pristine and rugged sacred landscape.
This is especially egregious due to the lack of
scientific evidence of the effectiveness of this method
of geothermal steam extraction to produce energy.</p>
<p>The historic win for California tribes is part of a
long struggle for basic recognition and protection of
tribal territories. The Medicine Lake Highlands are held
sacred by the Pit River Nation as well as many other
Tribal Nations which include the Wintu, Karuk, Shasta,
Klamath, Yana, and Modoc peoples.</p>
<p>At a time when the Trump administration is accelerating
attacks against Indigenous sovereignty and ecosystems,
the Pit River Nation and its allies have scored a
historic victory in its long court battle to protect the
Medicine Lake Highlands from industrial geothermal
power. “Our sacred lands are all that remain keeping us
connected to our place on Mother Earth, to our
spirituality, our heritage and our lands; what’s left of
them,” said Bill George, Atsugewi band elder of the Pit
River Nation. “If they take it all away, what will
remain except a vague memory of a past so forgotten?”</p>
<p>The Pit River Nation alleged that the Bureau of Land
Management’s decision to continue the terms of the
leases for up to forty years violated the Geothermal
Steam Act (“GSA”). The Ninth Circuit panel of judges
affirmed a previous decision from the district court in
a legal battle that has focused on violations of the
Geothermal Steam Act, the National Environmental Policy
Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and the Indian
fiduciary trust doctrine. Plaintiffs in the case
included the Pit River Nation, Native Coalition for
Medicine Lake Highlands Defense, Mount Shasta
Bioregional Ecology Center, Save Medicine Lake
Coalition, Medicine Lake Citizens for Quality
Environment.</p>
<p>For thousands of years before European arrival to the
Americas, the Indigenous people of Northern California
have made pilgrimages to the Highlands for healing,
religious ceremony, and tribal gatherings.</p>
<p>The late Willard Rhodes, Itsatawi Tribal Council
Member, Cultural Representative and Elder said of
Medicine Lake, “When creating the world, when it was
moist, the maker of life stopped here to rest and drink
and wash and imparted himself in the water. That’s why
we respect this place deep in our hearts.”</p>
<p>25 years ago, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
issued 26 geothermal leases, with only cursory
environmental review and no tribal consultation in the
Highlands. This has posed a grave threat of desecration
and total destruction to a precious place of deep
religious significance, in the name of five proposed
geothermal power projects that would increase geothermal
extraction to a total of 500 megawatts.</p>
<p>“We are gratified by the Court’s affirmation of the
plain text, logical reading of the statute. The decision
means that if the Bureau of Land Management wants to
revive or reissue the leases, it will have to engage in
meaningful government-to-government consultation with
the Tribe and conduct adequate environmental review,”
Deborah A. Sivas, Stanford Environmental Law School, who
represents the Plaintiffs long-standing challenge to
Calpine Corporation. “Of course, our fervent hope is
that the agency and the lessee will see the wisdom of
walking away from development in this sacred landscape”</p>
<p>The fight for the protection of Medicine Lake has
mobilized tribal and intertribal communities and
historic coalitions, and it is a significant victory
among the many Indigenous movements to protect pristine
sacred places and systems of life, said Andrea Carmen,
Executive Director of the International Indian Treaty
Council.</p>
<p>“The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) has
stood by Pit River Nation in the many years of effort to
achieve this important victory. Despite the US Human
Rights obligations to protect sacred sites and freedom
of religion for Indigenous Peoples the decisions of the
US courts have not always upheld these obligations,”
Carmen said. “The International Indian Treaty
Council has presented the case of Medicine Lake as an
important struggle to various treaty bodies, such as UN
Committee on Racial Discrimination and Human Rights
Committee. These bodies have consistently upheld US
obligations to comply with these UN Conventions as well
as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples. So this is an important victory for
not only Pit River but all Indigenous Peoples all over
the world.”</p>
<p>Cecilia Silvas, Ilmawi Band Elder, explains “Medicine
Lake is our church. It is there we heal our bodies and
our spirits.” For California Native people that are
descendants of the survivors of many waves of genocidal
violence that aimed to eradicate their nations from the
lands they have inhabited for millennia, the ecological
protection of Medicine Lake is one and the same as the
protection of Native people, knowledge, and spirit.
Native science, spirituality and worldview has long
understood that the health of the lake would protect the
health of the people. In the words of Floyd Buckskin,
Headman of the Ajumawi Band “The lake, the mountains
around it, the springs, hunting grounds, and gathering
areas are an interconnected whole – whose parts that are
tied together through the Creator’s power or the spirit
that inhabits them.” If approved, industrial-scale
geothermal development would desecrate the Medicine Lake
Highlands, threaten the underlying aquifer and result in
the injection of toxins into the atmosphere and waters
that people, animals, and all beings need to survive.</p>
<p>Pit River Tribal Chairwoman Agnes Gonzalez proclaimed:
“The Bureau of Land Management’s mission is to sustain
the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands
for the use and enjoyment of present and future
generations. If the Bureau of Land Management followed
their mission, they would not continue to use United
States government resources to support corporate
interests over that of the public they claim to serve.
And by doing so, putting our public health and safety at
risk and destroying these lands so future generations
will not be able to enjoy them. No new leases in the
Medicine Lake Highlands!” Geothermal development will
leave devastating impacts on deeply-held religious views
and practices, traditional cultural values, pristine
environmental resources, and rare opportunities for safe
and responsible recreation and peaceful enjoyment of
this most sacred of places in our lifetimes and for
future generations to which we owe its protection.
Following the announcement, Native American Heritage
Commissioner for the State of California Merri Lopez
Keifer affirmed, “Today has shown us that justice has
prevailed.”</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>