Wednesday, July 17, 2002
©2002 Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is allowing mining companies to exploit sites sacred to American Indians, Indian leaders said Wednesday.
"The very idea of placing a cell phone tower at the Wailing Wall, making a parking lot out of Notre Dame, or putting an oil rig in the Blue Mosque or Westminster Abbey is preposterous," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., "And yet, there are numerous Native American sacred sites ... that are currently being ravaged and destroyed in these very ways."
Boxer is helping California's Quechan Tribe fight the effort by Glamis Gold Ltd. to develop a 1,600-acre open-pit gold mine on the banks of the Colorado River in Imperial County, Calif.
For generations, the tribe's ancestors gathered at the site to perform funeral rites and cremate their dead.
"This mine would rip the heart out of the tribe's religious center," Boxer said. Before leaving office in January 2001, the Clinton administration rejected the mine request because of cultural considerations. But in October, Interior Secretary Gale Norton rescinded the denial and is reconsidering the company's application.
"We thought we won a victory and it was taken away from us before we had a chance to celebrate," Quechan President Mike Jackson said. "Our elders just shake their heads knowing this has happened too many times in the past."
Norton has yet to meet with the tribe about the decision, Jackson said.
Interior Department official Christopher Kearney said there are policies in place requiring the department to consider the cultural or religious significance of a location when approving land use and other rules are in the development stage.
But when pressed by Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, Kearney could not give examples of cases where religious considerations affected the outcome of a mining petitions.
Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., challenged Kearney and the administration to do more than follow procedures, but to really do what is right.
"We get too bogged down in doing things by the book and by the rules that we don't do enough by the heart," said Campbell, the only Indian in the Senate.
Campbell said he and Inouye plan to add language to an upcoming Interior Department spending bill that would prohibit any action on the Glamis mine for at least a year while he works on a permanent solution.
The Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico and Hopi tribe in Arizona are embroiled in similar disputes with the Interior Department.
The Zunis are opposing plans for an 18,000 acre coal strip mine 10 miles from Zuni Salt Lake. The tribe fears the mining could affect the hydrology and damage the lake, which the tribe believes is home to Salt Woman, the tribe's central deity.
Historically, it has been a sacred gathering place for the Zunis and other southwestern tribes.
The Interior Department approved the mining plan on May 31 and construction could begin next spring. The Zunis have vowed to resist the project.
"This area would probably harbor ... thousands of human remains," said Malcolm Bowekaty, governor of the Zuni Pueblo. "That is an abomination to our tribe."
And in Arizona, Hopi leaders say the Interior Department has failed to protect the Navajo aquifer beneath Black Mesa by allowing Peabody Energy to take billions of gallons of groundwater and surface water for its mining operations.
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©2002 Associated Press