TRIBES DO NOT CONSENT TO NEVADA'S 270K MINING CLAIMS
by Takota Iron Eyes, Lakota Law Project
Over the last year, we've been sharing with you insights and updates from the frontlines of the Paiute and Shoshone Peoples' resistance in #Nevada. As many of you know, the fight is on at the massive Thacker Pass lithium mine in the northwestern part of the state. Despite the legitimate need to transition to renewable energy, under the guise of "innovation" and, increasingly, "green technology,"
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extractive industry continues to treat the #earth and her ancient precious #minerals as little more than profit-potential. Meanwhile, this self-dealing too often entails the wholesale #exploitation of #IndigenousPeoples and the destruction of the #SacredLands and #ecosystems upon which our communities depend.
Indigenous Peoples across northern Nevada are no strangers to this paradigm. In our newest video installment documenting the #OxSamCamp resistance,
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our team interviewed Elvida Crutcher, an #elder and citizen of the Fort McDermitt #Paiute and #Shoshone Tribe. She recounts how decades of open-pit mercury #mining has poisoned the air, water, lands, and health of her relatives.
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In our newest video installment documenting the Ox Sam Camp resistance, our team interviewed Elvida Crutcher, an elder and citizen of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe. She recounts how the decades of open-pit mercury mining has poisoned the air, water, and lands of her relatives, leaving a path of illness in its wake. ο»ΏOpen-pit mining, or any mining for that matter, has no place in or near our communities and sacred sites without full tribal consent.
Today, there are over 270,000 active mining claims in #NV. From the 1930s to the 1980s, Shoshone and Paiute communities faced a barrage of open-pit mercury mining. Two projects in particular, #CorderoMine and #FortMcDermittMine, both adjacent to Shoshone and Paiute reservations, left behind a path of #destruction β and they still haven't been cleaned up. While the Cordero and Fort McDermitt Mines closed in the 1980s,
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fifty years of surface mining tragically polluted the waters, air, and ecosystems of the #NorthwesternGreatBasin.
At PeeheeMu'huh (#ThackerPass) the tactics are the same: short-sighted extractive industry authorized by federal and state agencies, who collectively disregard the interests and wellbeing of #IndigenousPeoples. The Cordero Mine was built on lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (#BLM); the Thacker Pass lithium mine is similarly situated on BLM lands.
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One would expect that mining technology has improved to minimize extractive projects' negative impacts on the earth, people, and our animal relatives. Unfortunately, this isn't so. The Thacker Pass mine is a perfect illustration: to extract lithium at the open-pit site, the mining company plans to pump the earth full of #SulfuricAcid, a process that leaches #lithium out of clay and stone. Sulfuric acid is highly #toxic to all living beings. β£οΈβ’οΈβ οΈβ‘οΈ
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To put its toxicity into perspective, even one teaspoon is #fatal to humans.
Even worse, the mining company was approved to build a sulfuric acid processing plant at Peehee Mu'huh to convert molten sulfur into sulfuric acid. Molten sulfur is a principal waste byproduct of #oil refining. Ironically, #LithiumNevada plans to transport hundreds of tons of molten sulfur acquired from oil refineriesβ
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with, you guessed it, trucks and trains powered by #FossilFuelsβto process into sulfuric acid for its "green energy" uses.
Earlier this summer, just to the northeast in southern #Montana, a freight train transporting molten sulfur derailed, falling into the #YellowstoneRiver. If the Thacker Pass lithium mine and its sulfuric acid processing plant reach completion, these devastating incidents could increase in frequency.
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The simple truth is this: the current narrative pushed by industry and government is that #lithium mining is "green" and that it is justified in the name of innovation.
However, we can't allow innovation to come on the backs of Indigenous Peoples and at the expense of #UnciMaka (Grandmother Earth). "Green" energy is not green if it entails #EnvironmentalInjustice.
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Open-pit mining, or any #mining for that matter, has no place in or near our #communities and #SacredSites without full tribal consent.
#LandBack #EndFossilFuels #LakotaLaw
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anna_lillith πΊπ¦π±π
ex or current IDF unwelcome
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