‘Going green now for who?’ Yakama protest clean energy project on sacred site to power data center

Mounting evidence shows that a clean energy project along the Columbia River in Washington near a Yakama sacred site would in large part power a data center

by Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle, May 28. 2026

GOLDENDALE, Wash. – "High up on the Washington side of the Columbia River near the John Day hydroelectric dam, members of the #YakamaNation gathered to protest a clean energy storage project slated to be built on a #SacredTribalSite.

'Supporters of the #Goldendale pumped-hydro energy storage project have said it will help meet growing regional energy demand, and the project developers tout its potential to one day power up to half a million homes without sending harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But mounting evidence shows a large #Datacenter campus could be among the main beneficiaries of that power.

"At the event earlier this month, Yakama leaders and a handful of nonprofits fighting the project in federal court, including Hood-River based #ColumbiaRiverkeeper, called on Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson to intervene after state and federal agencies issued key permits to the project developers, a process 10 years in the making. This was despite a state review finding that it would have 'significant and unavoidable adverse impacts' on Yakama historic sites and culturally significant plants.

"The 700-acre hydrostorage project is slated to be built on the contaminated grounds of an abandoned aluminum smelter formerly owned by #LockheedMartin, and, more broadly, a site that has long encroached on a sacred Yakama site called #Pushpum, meaning the 'Mother of all roots.'

"It’s home to #Yakama #ArchaeologicalSites and dozens of seeds, roots, flowers and shrubs harvested and protected by the tribe, some of which are endemic only to the area.

" 'I know we’re in a time when we need renewable energy, but why on our #RootGrounds? Why on critical #MigratoryCorridors for #hawks, for #SageGrouse and the deers?' asked #ElaineHarvey, a watershed manager at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and a member of the #Yakama’s #KamíłpaBand.

" 'And I say: For who are we building? We’re going green now for data centers,' she said. 'We’re not going green for Washington and Oregon state mandates. We’re going green for data centers.' "

"The project’s owners, the Danish investment firm #CopenhagenInfrastructurePartners, have not disclosed details about who would buy the energy."

Read more:
https://ictnews.org/uncategorized/going-green-now-for-who-yakama-protest-clean-energy-project-on-sacred-site-to-power-data-center/

#NoDatacenters #IndigenousNews #NativeAmericanNews #WashingtonState #Oregon #SacredPlants #ProtectTheSacred #CorporateGreed #RenewablesForPeopleNotCorporations

A holiday lodge--Yakima 1910, c1910.
Curtis, Edward S., 1868-1952
1 photographic print. | Two large canvas-covered tepees joined together.

#Yakima #Curtis #EdwardS #NorthAmerica #AHolidayLodge— #Yakama #EdwardSCurtis #American #NativeAmerican #Dwellings #Tipis #Washington(State) #YakamaIndians #undefined

https://www.loc.gov/item/90708843/

New Artist announced for Reeperbahn Festival 2025: 🔥 Yakama 🔥

🎶 Listen to the current LineUp on YouTube and Spotify: https://fyrefestivals.co
🎟️ Get your Tickets now: https://prf.hn/l/EJnYMdO

#Reeperbahn_Festival_2025 #Yakama #fyre_festivals #livemusic #youtube #spotify #music #musicfestivals #playlist #tickets #announcement

Tribe successfully sued the city of Toppenish -- whose red tape and evil colonizer ways of white supremacy -- tried to shut down an inclusive, humanitarian effort to keep people warm at a warming shelter.

""The Yakama Nation was likely to succeed on the "merits of its 1855 Treaty claim," said the The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington;

and the State of Washington issued the restraining order against Toppenish yesterday.

This is a public reminder to all my indigenous kin that tribal treaty rights like the fact that a building in Toppenish that the clinic owns and which was reserved in the Treaty of 1855 was specifically designated for the use and benefit of the Yakama Nation, according to court documents.

Fair warning if you are someone who link dives

🏊🏽‍♀️ 🏊🏽‍♂️

journalist in this article made a mistake and is trying to link the readers to their

`C:/Users/` drive instead of to the link where the court docs docs were found.

I am sure if you care enough to research them on your own they can be found from where he downloaded them.

https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/restraining-order-will-allow-yakama-nation-to-run-cold-weather-shelter-in-toppenish/article_d85804e8-ad07-11ef-844a-4b655b991dd3.html

#Indigenous #MutualAid #Washington #Yakama #Treaty #HonorTheTreaties

#WashingtonState #wildfires threaten animals, homes, #crops

Story by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, July 27, 2023

"A wildfire that started in #Klickitat County, Washington, on Friday afternoon destroyed more than 30,000 acres in less than a day and continues to grow as it feeds on brush, grass and forest vegetation.

"Fire crews are working to extinguish the #NewellRoadWildfire near #Bickleton, which has resulted in the evacuation of residents in the rural area, and is threatening #farms, #livestock, #homes and #wind and #SolarFarms, reported KOMO News.

"'It's very difficult terrain to fight fire,' said Allen Lebovitz, a spokesperson for the state's Department of Natural Resources, as Reuters reported. 'We are under a red flag warning. That's a #firefighter's worst nightmare because the #humidity is dropping precipitously. The winds are picking up. And so the fire carries extremely fast.'

"The wildfire is burning just to the north of where the #Oregon-Washington border is represented by the #ColumbiaRiver. It has destroyed several structures and is threatening a #NaturalGas #pipeline.

"Lebovitz said the fire was heading in the direction of the #Yakama Indian Reservation."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/washington-state-wildfires-threaten-animals-homes-crops/ar-AA1er4ah?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=981bee14b02942c4bb3675d430fab3a1&ei=9

WA Lawmakers Work on Issue of Missing and Murdered #Indigenous Women

https://www.chronline.com/stories/washington-lawmakers-work-further-on-issue-of-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women,307874

Nationwide, more than 80% of #AmericanIndian and #Alaskan #Native women reported experiencing violence in their lifetimes, and those populations made up a disproportionate percentage of missing people in the U.S., according to a 2022 report prepared for Congress.

Lekanoff is sponsoring House Bill 1177 to create a cold case investigations unit in the state Attorney General's Office focused on missing and murdered Indigenous people. Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, is sponsoring the companion Senate Bill 5137.

Annie Forsman-Adams, policy analyst for the attorney general's task force and a member of the #Suquamish #Tribe, said unresolved homicide or missing people cases have a large cultural effect on #tribal communities, since it can be difficult to perform ceremonies when the remains of loved ones have not been identified or recovered.

In Washington, one of the earliest recorded cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women took place in 1855, when miners murdered a #Yakama woman, her daughter and baby, igniting the Yakama War, according to some accounts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_handprint

For decades, the U.S. government has failed to test for chemicals and metals in fish.

So, ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting did.

What we found was alarming for tribes.

New from Tony Schick, OPB, and Maya Miller, ProPublica

#salmon #pollution #oregon #fishing #washington #Yakama #PacificNorthwest #BritishColumbia

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-us-broke-promise-to-protect-fish-for-tribes?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

"What our nuclear history means for indigenous food: Two stories about the loss of land and the persistence of hope"

Excellent #podcast episode of Things that Go Boom, by @laicie

Available now on apps and online: https://shrtm.nu/vLn2

Guests include: Robert Franklin, Associate Director of the #Hanford History Project; Marlene Jones, Marylee Jones, and Patsy Whitefoot, #Yakama Nation members; Kali Robson, Trina Sherwood, and McClure Tosch, Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration/Waste Management Program; Togzhan Kassenova, Senior Fellow at the Center for Policy Research, SUNY-Albany; Sarah Cameron, University of Maryland

#indigenous #nuclear #radiation #histodons @histodons #STS #food

Not-so-great-news; update[1] on the #Hanford nuclear site on land belonging to Cheyenne, Sioux, Crow, Arapaho, Assinibione, Mandan, Gros Ventre and Arikara tribes ... Ecosteader wrote about the situation here[2] two springs ago.

[1] https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2021/10/hanford-nuclear-sites-contamination-growing-risks-to-entire-northwest-region-detailed-in-new-journal-article.html

[2] https://ecosteader.com/@indie/103786985102632195

[3] https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/civilian-displacement-hanford-wa

#Nuclear #Bioremediation #Yakama #Yakima #NezPerce #Arapaho