Request for Support Letters in Litigation of Indian Tribes v. Caltrans, State, & Federal Authorities

Fred Short, Spiritual Leader with the American Indian Movement, takes part in a ceremony held on a former village site located on Willits Bypass Project Mitigation Lands, July 2015. Photo by Steve Eberhard – The Willits News.

From: Save Our Little Lake Valley (SOLLV)
In solidarity with the United Pomo Nations Council

September 29th, 2016

We are writing to share an opportunity to build alliances with Native communities. We are asking you to write in support of our efforts to protect the numerous ancestral village and cultural sites that both Caltrans and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) failed to adequately, survey, identify and protect.

Click on this link to access a form letter that you can modify and send through email or postal service to state and federal agencies.

As you may be aware, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Round Valley Indian Tribes are suing Caltrans and FHWA for their failure to engage in good faith, open and transparent consultations with the Tribes and due to both agencies’ failure to ensure that adequate surveys were conducted for the over 32 sites discovered, largely by bulldozer, in the project area and mitigation lands of the Caltrans Willits Bypass project. Caltrans recklessly destroyed an ancient village site and continued to fail to adequately protect discovered sites throughout the construction of the Willits Bypass.

Just recently, the Justice Department, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior responded to the efforts of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, North Dakota, and have called for nationwide government-to-government consultation with Indian Tribes regarding how current policies and regulations fail to afford adequate protection for Native American cultural resources negatively impacted by infrastructure development projects. The desecration caused during the construction of the Willits Bypass Project is an example of how state and federal agencies failed to properly consult with local tribes regarding their ancestral lands.

Formal letter request from Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians: request-for-support-letters

Letter to FHWA from Coyote Valley: fhwa-letter-final-signed

Sample letter than can be downloaded and filled in with your organizations information: sample-support-letter

Support for Tribal Lawsuit Needed

You have probably heard of the recent efforts of the collaboration between First Nations’ Idle No More and environmental and community groups that stopped the Keystone XL pipeline.

First Nations people lived for many thousands of years in relative balance with the natural world, due in large part to cultures that respected natural law, understood ecological balance and held populations to carrying capacity or below. It is no surprise that the descendants of these First Peoples should want to preserve their ancestral cultures and that other peoples should want to support this endeavor, partly because most non-native cultures have moved so far from balance and respect for the natural world as to overuse and in fact decimate landscapes and render many species extinct.

This kind of collaboration is not as new as it might seem. Maybe you know the story of the Northern California InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council (ITSWC); an alliance between 10 Federally recognized Tribes and many environmental groups from Trust for Public Lands to EPIC and Earth First! that resulted in the creation of the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness.

Today there is a rare opportunity to support several smaller tribes in Northern California in their effort to uphold and strengthen the few laws that were created to stop what we now call “Cultural Genocide.” It is bad enough that First Peoples were victims of brutal genocide and forcefully removed from their lands, but boarding schools, kidnapping of children for slave labor and burying of all traces of their former civilization has also decimated their culture. Destruction of archaeological sites that hold spiritual connections and actual physical connections to living Tribal peoples is Cultural Genocide.

You may have heard of the Willits Bypass, a grossly overbuilt project consisting of a 6-mile stretch of new freeway that bypasses a town of 5000 people with a price tag of over $300 million for just the first 2-lane phase of construction. Many cultural sites have been destroyed; most significantly an entire ancestral village skewered by wick drains and buried under 30 feet of fill. Details of the misdeeds of Caltrans are painfully described in letters from local Tribes here and here.

Two of the affected Tribes, Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians and Round Valley Indian Tribes, have filed suit in federal court against Caltrans, Federal Highways and others. These are not Tribes with big casinos, and they expend their casino revenues in providing services to their members. The well-respected law firms of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy and Sharon Duggan, who have together foiled Caltrans before, have stepped up and are willing to argue the case without pay.

There are still court costs that must be paid, like securing expert witnesses, buying administrative records and possibly securing a bond. The current estimate is that $10,000 to $20,000 will be needed to meet Coyote Valley’s costs. Click here to contribute financially to the lawsuit expenses. To donate online to financially support the tribal lawsuit click here.

In addition to sending in letters of support, we are asking that you join your organization’s name to the growing list of supporters by adding your name to a form located below this letter, and by giving financially in whatever your capacity is — and know that your organization will be recognized and remembered across Indian Country and the Environmental Advocacy Community as having supported First Nation peoples in their effort to reclaim their ancestral culture and stop the Cultural Genocide that continues to this day. Even if you do not have the resources to contribute financially, we would like to add your organizations’ name to the list of our supporters and keep you informed as the lawsuit progresses.

Click here and here for more information.

Please share this letter with your contacts. Join our growing list of supporters including:

500-mile American Indian Spiritual Marathon team
Friends of the Earth- US
Senate Select community Committee on California’s Correctional System
Kwekaeke band of Shasta Indians
Indigenous Cultural EducatIon Center
Childrens Nature Club Ribbe de Bie Belgium
Esselne Chumash
Samson Cree Nation
American Indian Movement (AIM)
Chiricahua Apache
Menominee Indian Nation
United American Indian Involvement
Project Indigenous
Berrycreek Rancheria Tyme Maidu Tribe
San Pasqual Kumeyaay Indians
Polish American Indian Friends Movement
MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians
Kern Valley Indian Community
AIM and Idle No More
The Black Cottonwood Collective
Colfax Todds Valley Consolidated Tribe
Sacred Sites Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSPRIT)
Plaintiff in Richardson Grove State Park vs Caltrans
Caltrans Watch (CBD)
Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities (CRTP)
South Coast People for Peace and Justice
Mendocino Environmental Center
KMEC 105.1fm
Willits Environmental Center
Redwood Nation Earth First!
Save Our Little Lake Valley (SOLLV)
A.C.O.R.N. Action Council for Oak and Redwood Nation
Center for Biological Diversity