The Bureau of Land Management is asking for a two week extension to answer the appeal to shut down the Long Canyon Mine while the Goshute Tribe wants all work stopped immediately according to dueling motions filed last week.
Citing a heavy workload and the unexectedness of the appeal BLM Attorney Janet Fealk requested the two week extension to prepare the Bureau’s answer to the appeal filed by the Goshute tribe in Ibapah.
In a motion to halt all work on the mine filed by Goshute Attorney Paul Echo Hawk the Goshutes claim that the Long Canyon area contains hundreds if not thousands of Paleo Native American artifacts that would be destroyed by the construction and operation of the mine.
Full rtext of the Goshute motion is published in this edition.
Last week Ibapah’s Goshute Indian tribe filed an appeal with the Department of Interior that, if granted, would derail or at least delay the Long Canyon Mine project 30 miles west of Wendover.
Hiring began for the Long Canyon Mine less than one month ago after the final government okay to begin the mine’s construction.
The confederated Goshute Tribe of Ibapah appealed the Bureau of Land Management’s green light of the mine and also move to stop all construction now underway at the mine site until the appeal was heard in federal court.
“We think we have made a compelling case not only for a successful appeal but also for an immediate halt of construction,” said Goshute attorney Paul Echo Hawk.
According to a press release from the Goshutes the appeal asks the courts to reject the BLM finding that there are no significant archaeological finds within the project.
The massive open-pit mine would permanently destroy or remove thousands of Tribal cultural resources.
“The Long Canyon Mine area is a vitally important part of our cultural history and its destruction will erase a critical part of who we are as a people,” said Zelda Johnny, a Tribal Cultural Monitor and Tribal Council Vice-Chair.
The 45-page Tribal appeal is supported by documents showing the BLM refused to share known information about Tribal cultural items in the area and that the BLM insisted the Tribe waive legal claims in order to have access to the BLM’s Tribal information.
“How can our Tribe evaluate the impact of this proposed mine when the BLM would not give us access to the information about our historical ties to the site?” said Tribal Chairwoman Madeline Greymountain.
But although insisting that Long Canyon is almost holy Native American Land the Goshutes have brought very little evidence to support their claim.
While there could be an abundance of arrow heads and pottery shards and several ancient hearths there is little evidence to suggest that the Long Canyon was anything more than a place to get through for the nomadic ancient native peoples that became the Shoshone and the Goshutes.
According to Zelda Johnny so far no petroglyphs, signs of long term settlements or agriculture have been discovered.
The dearth of such artifacts helps the mining company and the BLM in two distinct ways. Bureacratically the lack of artistic artifacts supports the claim that the area was not spiritually important to the paleo Indians. The lack of such artifacts also means that the enthusiasm against the mine would be more difficult to generate and maintain.
It is one thing to seek to protect rock art created by an ancient Indian from the last ice age but it is impossible to feel the same emotional bond to a hearth dug in the ground no matter how old that hole is.
The Goshutes could however in their appeal against the BLM and that would be the BLM.
“The BLM is racist,” joked Foster Wilson whose potash mine just 20 miles east of Long Canyon was derailed by the BLM because it threatened wagon ruts supposedly left by the Donner Party and other pioneers less than 200 years ago.
“On one hand the BLM says wagon ruts from the 19th century are sacrosant but camp sites from 20,000 years ago are worthless,” Wilson explained. “The only difference besides the age is that the ruts were made by white people and the campsites were made by Indians.”
Already Wilson was cotemplating suing the BLM under the Equal Protection clause in the US constitution.
Otherwise know as the “sauce for the goose” clause, the Equal Protection Clause is part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the laws”.
“My lawyers think I have a pretty good case,” said Wilson President and CEO of Mesa Mining. The companies efforts to dig a potash mine about 30 miles north of Wendover was denied by the federal Bureau of Land management last year on the grounds that the mine would be located in the same general area of Hasting’s Cutoff
“One of the main reasons we were denied in Pilot Valley was because of the California Trail (CHT) – Hastings Cutoff,” wrote Wilson in an e-mail to the High Desert Advocate.
The Hastings Cutoff crosses the Long Canyon project in Elko County Nevada to the west of Pilot Valley and is designated a high-potential segment, just like at Pilot Valley.
According to Wilson the Utah office of the BLM buckled to the pressure of the Califonia and Oregon Trail preservationist while the Nevada office did not.
“It is the same trail,”Wilson said Wednesday. “Why is development not only be allowed in Nevada but imbrued but in Utah it is being stopped?”
The answer to Wilson’s question could be because the California Trails group has much more political pull in Utah than it does in Nevada.
The Oregon-California Trails Association is the nation’s largest and most influential organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of overland emigrant trails and the emigrant experience.
The Goshute administrative appeal is a required first step in the appeal process. “The Tribe is committed to forcing the BLM to follow the law and allow the Tribe a full and fair opportunity to participate in the federal review process before this special place and tribal artifacts are permanently destroyed forever. The BLM has failed its trust responsibility in this case,” said Echo Hawk.