NB: The item below lists at least part of the price that must be paid
if battery-based electric power is to replace fossil fuel electric
power, including battery-based electric vehicles.
https://news.yahoo.com/indigenous-tribes-tried-block-car-100026526.html
The Guardian
Indigenous tribes tried to block a car battery mine. But the courts
stood in the way
Hallie Golden
Fri, October 15, 2021, 3:00 AM
In this article:
<span>Photograph: Jason Bean/AP</span>
Photograph: Jason Bean/AP
Growing up on the Duck Valley Reservation, Gary McKinney said he
remembers hearing the stories of his ancestors’ brutal murders at
Thacker Pass in northern Nevada.
Tribal oral history depicts US soldiers killing dozens of Indigenous
people in the late 1800s, including women and children, and leaving
behind a burial ground with deep spiritual significance. The generations
that followed have honored the expansive site with ceremonies while
continuing to hunt and forage for traditional foods and medicines.
But despite their centuries-long connection to the land, the Paiute and
Shoshone people may soon see their traditions and cultural history
uprooted: a multinational company plans to break ground on a new
1,000-acre lithium mine that would destroy sacred land in order to
extract a central component for electric car batteries.
“We’re just protecting our elders, their grandparents, the integrity of
the things that they had,” said McKinney, 32, a member of the
Shoshone-Paiute Tribes. “There was life back there, there was death back
there.”
Indigenous communities across the US face difficult legal battles when
trying to protect sacred spaces outside their jurisdictions. The sites’
religious significance is often misunderstood or treated with blatant
disregard. And because there are no overarching legal protections for
sacred Indigenous spaces, tribes have limited options in the courtroom.
A site where exploration drilling has begun for the Thacker Pass lithium
mine. Photograph: Suzanne Featherston/AP
Legal efforts to stop the Thacker Pass lithium project, including a
lawsuit by local tribes, ranchers and environmental groups, have so far
failed. Last month, their attempt to temporarily block an archeological
survey needed to begin construction, was denied.
It isn’t the only sacred site embroiled in the courts. Last month, the
Canadian company Enbridge announced that its Line 3 oil pipeline upgrade
in Minnesota was “substantially completed” despite strong pushback from
Indigenous and environmental groups who have detailed the devastating
impact of drilling on sacred grounds. The Gila River Indian Community
also recently lost its years-long legal fight to stop the construction
of the South Mountain freeway, which will run through their sacred site.
These cases, while distinct, stand in sharp contrast to the ideals of a
country firmly founded on religious freedom. For many Indigenous
peoples, they represent yet another painful example of the historic and
institutionalized inequities that they encounter.
For months, tribal communities surrounding Thacker Pass have been
working to protect this sacred site from a similar fate.
The project, which was approved by the Trump administration in January,
is expected to produce lithium, a crucial component of electric vehicle
batteries, and could play an important role as the country shifts from
fossil fuels. Lithium Americas, the corporation behind the project, said
it expects this mine “to meet most or all of the projected demand for
lithium in the United States”.
But some in the Native and environmental communities say the project is
not worth the devastating cost it would have on the environment, on
including sage grouse and other wildlife, and on the sacred land.
In ruling against the tribes, Chief Judge Miranda Du said that the
National Historic Preservation Act, which includes the protection of
Native cultural and religious sites, doesn’t give them “the right to
prevent all digging in the entire project area”.
The People of Red Mountain, a group opposed to the mine, described the
project as akin to building over Pearl Harbor or the Arlington National
Cemetery.
“We would never desecrate these places and we ask that our sacred sites
be afforded the same respect,” the group said in a statement.
Legal experts say many factors help explain why Indigenous communities
so often lose out against big corporations and their own federal
government when trying to protect sacred spaces. Some believe a lack of
understanding of Native religious practices is at play; others see an
overt double standard.
These legal systems are not set up for Indigenous people at all
Daranda Hinkey
Suzan Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute, a national Native
American rights organization, and former executive director of the
National Congress of American Indians, pointed to the long and painful
history of religious persecution.
In the late 1800s, she explained, officials outlawed Indigenous
ceremonies and visiting sacred spaces outside designated reservations.
In more recent decades, despite the 1978 American Indian Religious
Freedom Act, which was meant to protect spiritual rights, Indigenous
people have continued to lose access to these lands.
Harjo said a supreme court decision in 1988 set a fairly destructive
tone for the future of protecting sacred spaces. The court approved the
construction of a road through a section of a national forest considered
sacred. The court stated that the first amendment’s protection of
citizens’ right to practice their religion does not prohibit such an action.
For Native people whose spiritual practices are woven tightly with sites
throughout the natural world, such a decision was extremely significant.
The Silver Peak lithium mine near Tonopah, Nevada. Opponents of the
Thacker Pass project fear the sacred landscape could look something like
this.
The Silver Peak lithium mine near Tonopah, Nevada. Opponents of the
Thacker Pass project fear the sacred landscape could look something like
this. Photograph: Steve Marcus/AP
“It becomes something that can be used as something to beat everyone up
with, although that’s not necessarily what it is,” she said of the high
court’s ruling. “It’s just a convenient weapon to use against the
available target.”
The Indigenous movement to protect ancestral lands is not just about
securing the longevity of sacred traditions. It has a clear
environmental impact, too.
A coalition from an Indigenous environmental group and clean energy
advocacy organization released a report in August that found successful
efforts to curb fossil fuel development in the US and Canada over the
past decade was the “carbon equivalent of 12% of annual US and Canadian
pollution, or 779m metric tons CO2e”.
But as the Thacker Pass lithium mine project shows, tensions over land
use aren’t unique to fossil fuel extraction. Even the transition to more
renewable energy sources comes with its own pitfalls.
Daranda Hinkey, an organizer with People of Red Mountain, said the court
ruling last month showed a complete lack of understanding of tribal oral
histories, burial grounds and Indigenous spiritual practices.
“These court systems, these legal systems, everything like that, is not
set up for Indigenous people at all,” she said.
For McKinney, the 32-year-old member of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, the
fight isn’t over.
After learning about the mine, he quit his job and helped to set up a
protest camp at the site to try to safeguard the sacred traditional
lands. McKinney said he has been there on and off since July and will
continue to try to protect the space from future development from
Lithium Americas.
“We feel that they’re dishonorable people for taking advantage of the
elders and disrespecting the land that means so much to a people that
they have no knowledge about,” he said.