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09

Feb

solitaryforager: Photo of Coming of Age Ceremony, Bałas Chonas, courtesy of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. Winnemem Wintu Tribe slams federal plan to raise Shasta Dam The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on February 6 issued a controversial draft report claiming that a $1.07 billion plan to raise Shasta Dam by 18-1/2 feet is “feasible” and “economically justified,” a contention that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe strongly challenged.  The dam raise would increase Lake Shasta’s storage about 14 percent, supposedly benefitting municipal and agribusiness water users throughout California, according to the “Shasta Lake Water Resources Investigation” draft feasibility report.  Raising the dam would also “increase the survival” of chinook salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish populations in the Sacramento River by increasing the cold water pool in Lake Shasta, the report stated.  […] The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, which conducted a historic war dance at the base of Shasta Dam in September 2004 to protest the plan to raise the dam, blasted the report for a multitude of reasons.  “How do they justify flooding the Winnemem Wintu people out twice?” asked Caleen Sisk,Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “They still haven’t fulfilled the 1941 Act of Congress that said they are to provide like lands and pay for all the allotment and communal lands. They still haven’t fixed the cemetery problems as it’s still illegal for us to bury our people in the cemetery they set up, because it is held by the Bureau Land Management instead of the Bureau of Indian Affair like the Act called for. And the Shasta Dam is still not paid for by the public.”  She emphasized that the EIS is a “dehumanizing document – it takes our beautiful culture and summarizes it into a couple paragraphs, and just names a couple sites.”  “It doesn’t describe the importance of the sites to our people or the heartache and psychological destruction it would cause to us if these places were submerged,” Sisk said. “They don’t talk about us as the people most impacted, or the fact we have nowhere else to go to practice our religion. We can only teach our distinctive lifeway to be Winnemem here. It will be extremely hard to teach the tribal youth when you can’t go to the sacred site, see it and feel it and develop a relationship with it to be Winnemem.”  I don’t understand why anyone would think it’s a good idea to raise this dam.

solitaryforager:

Photo of Coming of Age Ceremony, Bałas Chonas, courtesy of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.

Winnemem Wintu Tribe slams federal plan to raise Shasta Dam

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on February 6 issued a controversial draft report claiming that a $1.07 billion plan to raise Shasta Dam by 18-1/2 feet is “feasible” and “economically justified,” a contention that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe strongly challenged. 

The dam raise would increase Lake Shasta’s storage about 14 percent, supposedly benefitting municipal and agribusiness water users throughout California, according to the “Shasta Lake Water Resources Investigation” draft feasibility report. 

Raising the dam would also “increase the survival” of chinook salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish populations in the Sacramento River by increasing the cold water pool in Lake Shasta, the report stated. 

[…]

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, which conducted a historic war dance at the base of Shasta Dam in September 2004 to protest the plan to raise the dam, blasted the report for a multitude of reasons. 

“How do they justify flooding the Winnemem Wintu people out twice?” asked Caleen Sisk,Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “They still haven’t fulfilled the 1941 Act of Congress that said they are to provide like lands and pay for all the allotment and communal lands. They still haven’t fixed the cemetery problems as it’s still illegal for us to bury our people in the cemetery they set up, because it is held by the Bureau Land Management instead of the Bureau of Indian Affair like the Act called for. And the Shasta Dam is still not paid for by the public.” 

She emphasized that the EIS is a “dehumanizing document – it takes our beautiful culture and summarizes it into a couple paragraphs, and just names a couple sites.” 

“It doesn’t describe the importance of the sites to our people or the heartache and psychological destruction it would cause to us if these places were submerged,” Sisk said. “They don’t talk about us as the people most impacted, or the fact we have nowhere else to go to practice our religion. We can only teach our distinctive lifeway to be Winnemem here. It will be extremely hard to teach the tribal youth when you can’t go to the sacred site, see it and feel it and develop a relationship with it to be Winnemem.” 

I don’t understand why anyone would think it’s a good idea to raise this dam.

(Source: socialuprooting)

3 months ago Short URL 21 notes

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