Awful news.
Here.
Petroglyphs Stolen and Vandalized at Bishop Colony
Awful news.
Here.
Bureau of Land Management
Update in Ruby Pipeline Case
Guess the big win wasn’t all that big. Here are two unpublished opinions from the Ninth Circuit in related cases that are not so excellent for the tribes.
Ninth Circuit Hands Summit Lake Paiute Tribe & Fort Bidwell Indian Community Big Win in Challenge to BLM Approval of Ruby Pipeline
Here is the opinion in Center for Biological Diversity v. BLM.
An excerpt:
Our case concerns a decision by the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) to authorize the Ruby Pipeline Project (“Project”). The Project involves the construction, operation, and maintenance of a 42-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline extending from Wyoming to Oregon, over 678 miles. The right-of-way for the pipeline encompasses approximately 2,291 acres of federal lands and crosses 209 rivers and streams that support federally endangered and threatened fish species. According to a Biological Opinion (“the Biological Opinion” or “the Opinion”) formulated by the Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”), the project “would adversely affect” nine of those species and five designated critical habitats. The FWS nonetheless concluded that the project “would not jeopardize these species or adversely modify their critical habitat.” The propriety of the FWS’s “no jeopardy” conclusion, and the BLM’s reliance on that conclusion in issuing its Record of Decision, are at the heart of this case. This opinion addresses those challenges to the Project that petitioners Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife et al., and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe have raised under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”), 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq. Specifically, we resolve petitioners’ claims that the Biological Opinion and its accompanying Incidental Take Statement were arbitrary and capricious because: (1) the Biological Opinion’s “no jeopardy” and “no adverse modification” determinations relied on protective measures set forth in a conservation plan not enforceable under the ESA; (2) the Biological Opinion did not take into account the potential impacts of withdrawing 337.8 million gallons of groundwater from sixty-four wells along the pipeline; (3) the Incidental Take Statement miscalculated the number of fish to be killed, by using a “dry-ditch construction method” for water crossings; and (4) the Incidental Take Statement placed no limit on the number of “eggs and fry” of threatened Lahontan cutthroat
trout to be taken during construction. We agree with the first two contentions and so set aside the Biological Opinion as arbitrary and capricious. We also set aside the Record of Decision, as it relied on the invalid Biological Opinion.
Briefs here.
Congrats to Colette Routel and the tribes.
Department of Interior Approves Wind Project Despite Objection of Tribes
From U~T San Diego here:
Native American tribal officials remain concerned about artifacts as well as the basic visual intrusion on a landscape tied to the creation stories of several nearby tribes.
“That’s part of these people’s spiritual identity, and yet they want to put up turbines and destroy and interfere with that reverence and the serenity of what the creator gave them,” said John Bathke, a historic preservation officer for the Quechan Indian Tribe.
And
“We understand that they have those concerns with regard to consultation,” said Erin Curtis, a spokeswoman for the BLM in Sacramento. Federal policy on tribal consultation, she said, “doesn’t necessarily require agreement all of the time.”
The Bureau of Land Management Press Release is here.
The Record of Decision, Final EIS, and other information from the BLM can be found here.
New Scholarship by Tom Fredericks and Andrea Aseff Arguing BLM Should Not Have Jurisdiction over Indian Lands
Tom Fredericks and Andrea Aseff have published “When Did Congress Deem Indian Lands Public Lands?: The Problem of BLM Exercising Oil ad Gas Regulatory Jurisdiction in Indian Country” in the Energy Law Journal.
From the synopsis:
While the BLM has been asserting regulatory jurisdiction over oil and gas development on Indian lands for approximately twenty years, it should not be. Congress charged the BLM with regulating oil and gas and other activities on public lands, specifically for multiple use and sustained yield in accordance with land use plans the agency develops. Indian lands are not public lands. This article seeks to address whether Congress charged the BLM with regulating oil and gas development on Indian lands. After an exhaustive legal analysis, the authors found that the BLM likely lacks statutory authority to regulate oil and gas on Indian lands. This is significant because the BLM’s congressional mandate and implementing regulations to manage public lands contain restrictive management standards and requirements that Congress did not intend to apply to Indian lands, while adding another layer of regulatory requirements to an already complicated and extensive regime.
Coquille Tribe’s Forest Management Seeks Balance
An excerpt from the Register-Guard:
Logging practices on the Coquille Tribe’s forest are drawing attention locally and nationally as the tribe’s foresters work to balance ecological concerns with timber production.
The tribe, working with the Bureau of Land Management on an experimental logging project, has been recognized for stewardship on its own 5,000-acre forest, and is being sought for collaborative management by Coos County commissioners.
and
Rules that govern management on BLM’s 2.2 million acres of Western Oregon forests have been swatted around by lawsuits in recent years, with environmentalists calling for less logging and the timber industry demanding more.
Last year, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called for pilot projects from well-respected forestry researchers on ways to harvest timberland that leave bigger trees behind while giving managers a little more freedom in figuring out which trees to cut.
Ninth Circuit Reinstates Native Alaskan Allottee’s Claims against BLM
Here are the materials in Jachetta v. United States:
Federal Appellee Brief in Jachetta
State of Alaska Appellee Brief
Jachetta Reply to Federal Brief
An excerpt:
In 1971, William Carlo Jachetta applied for a 160-acre Native allotment comprised of two parcels (Parcel A and Parcel B) but, because of an error of the United States government, his application was initially processed only as a request for Parcel A, which the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) issued to Jachetta in 1986. In 2004, after long and complicated administrative proceedings, the BLM finally issued Jachetta his allotment for Parcel B. By this time, however, Parcel B had been used as a “material site” by the State of Alaska Department of Transportation (“Alaska” or the “State”) and by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (“Alyeska”) who, among other things, had extracted over 700,000 cubic yards of gravel from the allotment. Dissatisfied with the physical condition of Parcel B, Jachetta sued the BLM, Alaska, and Alyeska in federal court, alleging causes of action for inverse condemnation, injunctive relief, nuisance, breach of fiduciary duties, and civil rights violations. The district court dismissed Jachetta’s action against the BLM and Alaska on the basis of sovereign immunity, and Jachetta appeals the dismissal to this court. We hold that sovereign immunity bars Jachetta’s entire action against Alaska but, at this point, only part of his action against the BLM.
NYT’s: Energy Exploration Threatens Indian Artifacts
From the NYTs:
DOLORES, Colo. — The dusty documentation of the Anasazi Indians a thousand years ago, from their pit houses and kivas to the observatories from which they charted the heavens, lies thick in the ground near here at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.
Or so archaeologists believe. Less than a fifth of the park has been surveyed for artifacts because of limited federal money.
Much more definite is that a giant new project to drill for carbon dioxide is gathering steam on the park’s eastern flank. Miles of green pipe snake along the roadways, as trucks ply the dirt roads from a big gas compressor station. About 80 percent of the monument’s 164,000 acres is leased for energy development.
The consequences of energy exploration for wildlife and air quality have long been contentious in unspoiled corners of the West. But now with the urgent push for even more energy, there are new worries that history and prehistory — much of it still unexplored or unknown — could be lost.
Turtle Talk 