“Shoshone lose court bid to protect Mount Tenabo

The Te-Moak Tribe of the Western Shoshone have lost another court bid to stop the expansion of the Cortez Hills mine project on their traditional territory. On June 18, 2010, the U.S. Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to rule against the Shoshone, reversing its previous ruling in December 2009 that ordered a temporarily [...]

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Land purchased for area’s Shoshone tribe

An international gold mining company has purchased more than 3,600 acres in Northern Nevada to be set aside for the Western Shoshone, who consider the land historic and sacred, the company said.
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Great Basin Gold Ltd. said it purchased the Rock Creek Canyon property in Lander County for $825,000 late last week from Colorado-based RLF Nevada Properties.

The company said it also is providing seed money for a planned conservancy fund and has retired the mineral rights.

Native Americans Ask Court to Stop Gold Mine on Sacred Mountain

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window. SAN FRANCISCO, California, June 6, 2009 (ENS) – The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Wednesday on whether the Canadian corporation Barrick Gold will be allowed to construct and operate an open pit gold mine on Mt. Tenabo in [...]

Closing mine part of bigger battle

This open pit gold mine is part of a complex operated by Newmont Mining Corp. near Carlin. The EPA alleges that one of the Carlin mines and another in Nevada improperly disposed of mercury, allowing it to leach into the ground from tailings ponds. The company says it sells, not disposes of, most mercury from the site.
A Northern Nevada gold mine that was recently allowed to reopen after being among the region’s worst emitters of airborne mercury had its roasting operations halted recently by state regulators.

The company had failed to install state-mandated mercury reduction equipment on time.

This open pit gold mine is part of a complex operated by Newmont Mining Corp. near Carlin. The EPA alleges that one of the Carlin mines and another in Nevada improperly disposed of mercury, allowing it to leach into the ground from tailings ponds. The company says it sells, not disposes of, most mercury from the site.
A Northern Nevada gold mine that was recently allowed to reopen after being among the region’s worst emitters of airborne mercury had its roasting operations halted recently by state regulators.

The company had failed to install state-mandated mercury reduction equipment on time.

Grants Available for Mining-Impacted Indigenous Communities

The Indigenous Environmental Network and Western Mining Action Network have grants available for mining-impacted Indigenous communities in North America.

Applications have to be in before June 1, 2009, so you’ll have to move quick if you want to apply. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until the next grant cycle in October, 2009.

Please see below for details, or visit: http://www.ienearth.org/mining.html
Grassroots Communities Mining Mini-Grant Program

The goal of the Mining Mini-grants Program is to support and enhance the capacity building efforts of mining-impacted communities in the U.S. and Canada to assure that mining projects do not adversely affect human, cultural, and the ecological health of communities.

The applicant must be a grassroots community program with limited funds that has demonstrated the capacity to successfully carry out the project. Individual grants will not exceed $3,000 U.S. and cannot be used for general programmatic or operating expenses.

Applications must be submitted by June 1, 2009, October 1, 2009 or February 1, 2010. Applicants will be notified of the funding decision within 3 weeks of the application deadline. There will be an “emergency” fund for extremely time-sensitive projects that fall between grant cycles (i.e., needs that could not have been anticipated at the time of the last cycle and cannot wait to be addressed until the next cycle). These grants will be very limited and awarded on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of the Mini-Grant Review Committee.

WMAN/IEN Indigenous Communities Mini-grants program criteria:

1. Grassroots community-based organizations, and Tribes or Tribal programs in the U.S. and Canada with any budget level may apply. However, if there are more applicants than funds available, priority will be given to organizations with an organizational or mining-specific project budget under $75,000 U.S.; priority will also be given to community-based grassroots groups affected by mining.
2. Requests must be project-specific for an immediate need such as legal assistance, organizing and outreach, development of campaign materials, media development, reports, travel, mailings, etc. to be fulfilled within the next four to six months on a specific mining campaign. Funds cannot be used for an organization’s general operating funds, staff salaries, rent or telephone bills.
3. Priority will be given to projects that build bridges and community across socio-economic and cultural lines.
4. Applicants who have received funds twice during the previous two grant cycles will be given lower priority than new organizations and programs. This will not apply to “emergency” grants.
5. Each grant issued will not exceed $3,000.
6. Funding recipients must submit a brief report detailing how funds were spent within 1 month of the project finishing. Recipients will not be eligible for additional funding until the project has been completed and a project report, or an extension request, is received and accepted by WMAN and IEN.

Any questions? We are happy to help. Please contact either Sarah Keeney, WMAN Network Coordinator at (503) 327-8625 ~ sarahekeeney@comcast.net or Simone Senogles, Indigenous Environmental Network, (218) 751-4967 ~ simone@ienearth.org.

The application below can be emailed to either Sarah Keeney or to Simone Senogles, or it can be sent by regular mail, postmarked by June 1, 2009, October 1, 2009 or February 1, 2010 respectively, to: IEN attn: Mining Mini-grants, PO Box 485, Bemidji, MN 56619. If you are mailing the application, please call Simone or Sarah to let us know to expect it. Thank you!

CLOSER LOOK AT THE KILLER DRONES

CLOSER LOOK AT THE KILLER DRONES By Kathy Kelly and Brian Terrall It’s one thing to study online articles describing the MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1 Predators. It’s quite another to identify these drones as they take off from runways at Nevada’s Creech Air Force base, where our “Ground the Drones…Lest We Reap the Whirlwind” campaign [...]

Longtime indigenous activists honored by IITC for their work to protect sacred sites

SAN FRANCISCO – On March 7, two longtime indigenous activists, Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone and Manny Pino, Acoma Pueblo, were honored by the International Indian Treaty Council for their lifelong work to protect sacred places. Both received the Human Rights Defenders award during the Indigenous Peoples Struggles to Defend Sacred Places training and symposium at San Francisco State University.

Dann and her sister Mary (now deceased) have been on the forefront to protect the traditional lands of the Western Shoshone for more than 40 years. She has worked diligently through litigation and civil disobedience to defend Western Shoshone lands, treaty rights and sacred places such as Mt. Tenabo from international gold mining corporations, the nuclear industry and the U.S. government. Both the United Nations and the Organization of American States have supported the Western Shoshone struggle and most recently the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination condemned the actions of the U.S.

Pino has worked many years to protect traditional indigenous lands and peoples from the destruction caused by uranium mining and defending sacred places such as Mt. Taylor and the San Francisco Peaks. Uranium mining has had a lasting effect on the indigenous peoples from the southwestern part of the U.S. where mines were opened to aid in the production of the world’s first nuclear weapons. Most of its victims, including Diné (Navajo) and Pueblo miners and their families, were unaware of the dangers of exposure. Pino has played a key role in raising awareness of this issue including the impacts of uranium and other types of mining on sacred sites.

Harry Reid, Gold Member

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window. in the back of goldie’s, a dive bar in Elko, Nevada, I was talking rocks with a miner with a steadily growing heap of beer bottles in front of him. He was about 50, with a sun-scorched face and a starched cowboy [...]

Western Shoshone activist urges attention to mining’s destruction of tribal heritage

BOULDER, Colo. – Carrie Dann, iconic voice for Western Shoshone traditionalists, told an audience that Mount Tenabo in northeast Nevada sits atop gold deposits worth $8 billion to the mining industry, but it is central to tribal religious practices and “a lot of our creation stories stem from there.”

A federal judge in Nevada denied tribal and environmentalists’ request for an injunction against Barrick Gold Corp.’s nearly 7,000-acre Cortez Hills Project that places a huge open-pit, cyanide heap-leach gold mine at Mount Tenabo. A notice of appeal from that ruling was filed in the 9th Circuit Court Feb. 9.

“We are the only ones the international corporations and the United States government can hear,” Dann said, explaining that while everything has life, human beings must be “a voice to protect those spirits that cannot speak for themselves.”