Subject: Medicine Lake Tribal Lands Threatened
The following is an article from the Winter 1998 issue of Native Americas, published by the Akwe:kon Press at Cornell University. For more information on how to stay informed of emerging trends that impact Native peoples throughout the hemisphere visit our website at http://nativeamericas.aip.cornell.edu.
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Geothermal Facilities Threaten Medicine Lake Tribal Lands
By Lydia Fernandez
A plan to open two geothermal energy plants on either side of Medicine
Lake in California is drawing opposition from local tribes, the Modoc,
Pit River and Shasta, who claim that the facilities would not only ruin
ceremonial and hunting lands, but produce dangerous toxic wastes and
destroy the environment. By Lydia Fernandez
"It's one of the few places we can still go to and use that is sacred," said Betty Hall (Shasta).
The Medicine Lake highlands of Mount Shasta serve as hunting and meeting grounds for the three neighboring tribes. The area, home of a dormant volcano, is historically significant because, Hall said, it is the site of a massacre of Shasta Indians in the mid-1800s after the tribe had signed a peace treaty.
In October, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management issued a final environmental impact statement on one of the projects-the Fourmile Hill site-that evaluated the proposals. The report stated that there would be severe and unavoidable adverse impacts on the sacred lands of these tribes, and that there was no means to mitigate those impacts.
Opponents contend that the Forest Service had not evaluated the area for eligibility under the National Historic Preservation Act, the American Indian Freedom of Religion Act, the Executive Orders on Sacred Sites and Environmental Justice or Federal Trust Responsibility to the Tribes.
"It's just being pushed aside," Hall said.
Geothermal plants such as these proposed by CalPine, a California utility company, produce energy by using the extreme heat and steam produced deep below the Earth's surface. The companies drill into the Earth to release the heat and steam, which then power generators to produce electricity.
Although the Fourmile Hill plant would be able to produce about 50 megawatts of what has been called "green energy," the facilities would require extensive clear-cutting in order to run 300-megawatt transmission lines out of Fourmile Hill. There are also indications the state has interests in drilling beneath Medicine Lake to tap additional energy.
The outcome of the environmental impact process remains to be seen.
Native Americas Journal
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