Crutcher attempted to pressure Jimmy into deleting portions of the meeting. Dorece Sam said that was not going to happen because it was a live broadcast
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News
Video by Young Warrior
"A Fort McDermitt tribal leader attacked a minor and choked him. The youth was videotaping a public community meeting being held about financial benefits from lithium mining by Lithium Americas, now digging into the Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada.
"The incident was broadcast on #KPFK Los Angeles. It occurred during the quarterly meeting with Lithium Americas and #FortMcDermittTribalCouncil, on Monday, Jan. 8.
During the meeting, Arlo Crutcher, former chairman of Fort McDermitt #Paiute#Shoshone, walked across the conference room where tribal youth Jimmy, a minor, was videotaping."
Christina Dawa Kutsmana Thomas is on a mission to save her indigenous language from extinction. There are only eight people from her reservation in the state of Nevada who are fluent in Numu Yadooana - Northern Paiute, and they're aged 70+.
TRIBES DO NOT CONSENT TO MEVADA'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,"
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.
THACKER PASS AND THE UGLY TRADITION OF EXTRACTION WITHOUT INDIGENOUS PERMISSION
By Tokata Iron Eyes
Peehee mu'huh (or #ThackerPass, as it’s known in English), a sensitive wilderness area located in what is now called #HumboldtCounty, #Nevada, sits on the ancestral homelands of the #Paiute and #Shoshone peoples. Right now, these lands are threatened by a #lithium mining project being developed by a company called #LithiumNevada, a subsidiary of #LithiumAmericasCorp .
Since its inception, the project has faced opposition from environmental and Indigenous groups. These concerns relate mainly to #water usage, potential impact on local #ecosystems, and the preservation of #CulturalSites. At the very heart of the Thacker Pass issue is the safety and protection of this place as a #SacredSite, a resting place of #Paiute and #Shoshone#ancestors who were #massacred.
Our #NativeVoices just haven’t been heard, and that’s a big problem. The project has undergone several stages of permitting and regulatory processes before it can begin full-scale mining operations. These processes are essential to addressing environmental and societal impacts and complying with local regulations.
I've now seen three different articles about this posted to the #Oregon hashtag. None of them mentions the #Paiute people or any #Indigenous people at all. One of them uncritically frames the Bering Strait land bridge theory as fact, and another calls the revelation that people were here earlier than that a "discovery."
"Duck Valley Paiute-Shoshone Council Member Addie Parker appealed to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, describing the disastrous lithium mining and hydrocarbon plume her people suffer from in northern #Nevada. Parker said there has been extensive #mining here for over 150 years.
"The "new green gold rush" for lithium batteries has brought devastating lithium mining and 'green colonialism.' Currently, there are 70 lithium mining applications in Nevada alone. The so-called 'green' solution actually creates an #environmental nightmare, including the disposal of #batteries.
Parker said there must be a rights-based approach and pointed out that Nevada mining laws are archaic. Paiute Shoshone of #DuckValleyNation opposes more mining and Nevada's new law for increased revenues from mining.
"Since the signing of the Treaty of Ruby Valley in 1863, there has been no mechanism for tribes to share in the benefits of mining. The mining companies are multi-national #corporations and most are from #Canada. They are not required to compensate the people.
"'It violates our Indigenous rights,' Parker said, listing international law violations, including the fre prior, and informed consent as mandated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of #IndigenousPeoples.
President #Biden's order to consult with #tribes is also being violated.
"Describing the illegal exploration of their resources, she said Paiute-Shoshone children are suffering because of it. 'We can't even get money to build a new school,' Parker said, describing how children are forced to attend school on a #toxic site.
"More than 100 members of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Nation, on the Nevada #Idaho border, have died over the years due to #cancer. It is a large number for a tribe of about 3,00 people, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. There was one thing they had in common: they all attended the same school on the reservation.
"The 70-year-old Owyhee Combined School, where tribal members have been educated for generations, sits adjacent to hydrocarbon plumes that lie underneath the town, Chairman Brian Mason said. He thinks the school, where drinking water was once #contaminated by the plumes, is the root of the problem.'"
Over the past months, the #LakotaLaw team has spent many hours in #Nevada at Peehee Mu'Huh — #ThackerPass — where construction has begun on a mine to exploit the largest known lithium deposit on #TurtleIsland.
Find out more about the Indigenous-led #resistance, the total disregard by both government and mining interests for an historic #massacre site with great biological #diversity and sensitivity, and the police raid on and dismantling of the #OxSam prayer camp.
and enlisting local law enforcement to keep prayerful protests away. Meanwhile, the bulldozers keep running roughshod over sacred grounds where the bones of #Paiute, #Shoshone, and #Washoe ancestors lie.
It's that part — the failure to acknowledge the terrible things that happened at #PeeheeMu'Huh more than a century and a half ago and properly account for them in the mine's review process — which rests at the heart of the #lawsuit brought by three #NevadaTribes.
Construction begins on controversial #lithium mine in #Nevada
Opponents say the Thacker Pass lithium project was rushed in the name of the green transition.
by Gabriela Aoun Angueira, March 3, 2023
"'It’s an important place not only because a terrible massacre occurred, but also because it’s a place where people gather, it’s a place for ceremony, for hunting,' said Michon Eben, tribal historic preservation officer for the Reno Sparks Indian Colony, a government that includes members from the the #Paiute, #Shoshone and #Washoe tribes. The colony is advocating for Peehee Mu’huh to be on the National Register of Historic Places. 'It’s really hard to be a tribal member and see our homelands destroyed,' said Eben.
"#ThackerPass also comprises thousands of acres of #sagebrush and is a nesting ground for the sage grouse and a migration corridor for pronghorn #antelope. Environmental groups including the Great Basin Resource Watch and Western Watersheds Project say the mine would cause irreversible #ecological damage, and that the project’s impact was not adequately studied.
"'It got by the environmental impact statement process in just under a year and I would expect a project of this scale and complexity to take 3 to 5 years,' said John Hadder, director of Great Basin Resource Watch. 'That’s sloppy permitting on the side of the federal government.'
"Tribes, #environmental groups and a cattle rancher are all plaintiffs in a combined case against the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, and #LithiumNevada, a subsidiary of #LithiumAmericas. On February 6, a federal judge in Reno ruled that the BLM had complied with federal law in approving the mine, with the exception of one matter regarding waste disposal, which the judge ordered the BLM to revisit. The plaintiffs filed an appeal in the 9th Circuit and an emergency motion to block construction before the appeal hearing. The appeals court rejected the injunction and set the hearing date for June. "