‘We were not consulted’: #NativeAmericans fight #lithium mine on site of 1865 massacre

by Michael Sainato
Fri 13 Oct 2023

"[T]he process for mining lithium is rife with #environmental impacts. Production of a ton of lithium carbonate produces three times the emissions of producing a ton of steel on average, and uses a huge amount of #water. The #ThackerPass lithium project is expected to use 1.7bn gallons of water annually to produce 60,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate a year.

"A lawsuit filed by the #RenoSparks Indian Colony and the #SummerLake #Paiute Tribe is still pending in court against the project to recognize Thacker Pass as a cultural district. Another lawsuit filed by a rancher, four environmental groups, and two other Native American tribes was ruled in favor of the project and an appeal was lost in July 2023.

"Michon Eben, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, said she submitted the petition report to the #BureauOfLandManagement in February but has not heard any movement on it from the agency.

"She said the regional office still has not turned it into the National Park Service to review, respond, and put it on the national register. She also criticized the federal agency for not addressing these issues in the environmental impact statement for the mining project.

"'That’s upsetting, because while they’re holding the report, the traditional cultural district has been destroyed. Because #LithiumAmericas is out there, they’re doing ground-disturbing activities in the area, which we state is a traditional cultural district,' said Eben. 'So, if any tribes or anybody wanted to mitigate that destruction, what are we going to mitigate?'

"Between 1864 to 1868, there were concerted efforts by the federal government to massacre Native Americans in the Great Basin area, a part of history not taught in schools and often ignored, Eben said.

“'The world needs to know that an important historical event occurred there, and that the Bureau of Land Management is not following the National Historic Preservation Act, one of the federal laws that has to be followed during a project like this. They failed to conduct an ethnography with Paiute and #Shoshone people,' added Eben."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/13/native-americans-1865-massacre-lithium-mine-thacker-pass

#NativeAmericanHistory #WaterIsLife #LithiumNevada #LithiumMining #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #WaterProtectors #EnvironmentalJustice #ClimateJustice

Spent the day counting Trumpeter swans in this absolutely magical place.

#Oregon #SummerLake #Conservation