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."
Group outraged as controversial mining project breaks ground on site of massacre: ‘[We] were not consulted’
Rick Kazmer
Sun, November 19, 2023
"A lithium mine is being constructed on #Nevada land that’s culturally important to #NativeAmericans. The project by #LithiumAmericas is at #ThackerPass, where on Sept. 12, 1865, United States soldiers massacred Native Americans, killing up to 50 people, according to the Guardian.
"Now, 158 years later, the Thacker Pass area has been identified as having the country’s largest #lithium lode. But members of tribal communities who consider the land sacred told the Guardian that they have been left out of the discussion as the operation moves forward, a point contested by the company on its website.
“'All the people here on the reservation were not consulted when this mine was approved,' Dorece Sam, a descendant of one of three survivors of the massacre, told the newspaper.
Why is lithium important?
"Lithium is a key part of #batteries that power electric vehicles #EVs and other tech. Much of it is refined on the other side of the world, with Australia and China among the leaders. The U.S., however, is among the global leaders in underground lithium reserves, with more than 13 million tons, according to Visual Capitalist, an online data collector.
"Proponents of mining the untapped U.S. reserve cite the need to gain independence from China for lithium and other metals, a goal marked at the highest level of our government.
"LithiumMining, however, can be invasive. Native Americans interviewed by the Guardian said that since it’s happening on sacred land, it’s an invasion of the highest order.
"'You can’t blow up a mountain and call it green,' Max Wilbert of Protect Thacker Pass said in a press release quoted on the Sacred Land Film Project website.
What’s the impact?
"Mining at Thacker Pass is projected to use about 1.7 billion gallons of #water, producing more than 66,000 tons of lithium a year, per the Guardian.
"Company officials claim on their website that the project has been planned for a decade with input from tribal leaders. They plan to permanently employ 500 people for at least 40 years, generating $8 billion in tax payments during the mine’s lifetime.
"At least two tribes have lawsuits filed against the project. However, tribal historic preservation officer Michon Eben told the Guardian that activity on the land is already disturbing.
"'So, if any tribes or anybody wanted to mitigate that destruction, what are we going to mitigate?' Eben said to the newspaper, noting frustration with the court system.
What’s being done to help?
"#Noninvasive lithium mining, or alternatives to the metal for use in batteries, is in the works in labs worldwide. The right solution could eliminate the need for #mining, or lithium, altogether.
"To help Native Americans protect Thacker Pass, you can research their story. The #SacredLandFilmProject has several ways to help, including #fundraising, calling #media and #officials, and sharing the story on #SocialMedia to highlight the cause."
"#Cree Journalist Brandi Morin said, 'We are taking back the narrative and this story about North America’s largest lithium mine being constructed while violating sacred Indigenous territories is told from the Native perspective. The 'green' energy revolution isn’t what you think it is!'
IndigiNews Media and The Real News, September 12, 2023
Go watch! @IndigiNewsMedia@TheRealNews@ricochet_en
"Follow Native journalist Brandi Morin, who came from Canada, and covered this powerful story.
"In Nevada’s remote Thacker Pass, a fight for our future is playing out between local #Indigenous tribes and powerful state and #corporate entities hellbent on mining the lithium beneath their land. Vancouver-based Lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine at Thacker Pass, but for more than two years several local tribes and #environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action.
"The Thacker Pass Project is backed by the Biden administration, and companies like General Motors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the project, looking to capitalize on the transition to a 'green energy economy,' for which lithium is essential. While it is a vital component in the manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries, though, there’s nothing “green” about mining lithium. Ending our addiction to fossil fuels is urgently necessary, but the struggle of the local tribes around Thacker Pass reveals the dark side of a 'green revolution' that prioritizes profit and consumption over everything (and everyone) else."
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,"
fifty years of surface mining tragically polluted the waters, air, and ecosystems of the #NorthwesternGreatBasin.
At #PeeheeMu'huh (#ThackerPass) the tactics are the same: short-sighted extractive industry authorized by federal and state agencies, who collectively disregard the interests and wellbeing of #IndigenousPeoples. The Cordero Mine was built on lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (#BLM); the Thacker Pass lithium mine is similarly situated on BLM lands.
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 .
Once operational, the Thacker Pass mine would become one of the largest lithium operations on #TurtleIsland, potentially providing up to 25 percent of worldwide demand for a mineral expected to power the global transition to cleaner energy. But the mine’s approval was fast-tracked over the protest of nearby #IndigenousCommunities.
The #ThackerPass#mining project, located within an area known for its rich lithium deposits, aims to extract this valuable metal used in rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, smartphones, laptops, and renewable energy storage systems. The project plans to use an open-pit mining method to extract lithium-bearing clay resources, using unholy amounts of #water.
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.
In July of 2022, the #BLM acknowledged that the 1865 massacre site was within the mine's project area for purposes of #NationalHistoricPreservationAct review.
Nevertheless, the BLM allowed construction at #ThackerPass under permits that should have been terminated. If this all sounds familiar, maybe that's because it's eerily similar to what happened with #StandingRock and the #DakotaAccessPipeline.
Good piece on #Vaping. It’s definitely widespread at #UK schools. Many children start in Year 7, when they are 11 or 12, and by Year 8 “everyone does it”.
Disposable vapes are bad for children and for environment too. The #Lithium in them makes them a waste hazard, and Lithium mining has high environmental and social costs - if at all, it should be used for #EVs and medicine, not vaping. Typical of our shitty government that they were given go-ahead 1/4
#Indigenous leaders told me #ThackerPass is the site of 2 massacres: one by another tribe who spread the entrails of Paiute people across the sagebrush. The place is called "Rotten Moon" in memorium.
Then in 1865, as the people were duck hunting, the US cavalry murdered dozens of men, women and children. According to the story I heard, only a man and 2 children escaped.
Victims of both these massacres are said to be buried in the construction zone.
URGENT REQUEST: Looking for a lawyer in Nevada by May 29th to support Land / Water Defenders opposing the Thacker Pass mine. Details below — contact @oxsamcamp on Twitter/FB if you can support.
@cldc — can you help connect Ox Sam Camp with a lawyer in Nevada, or pass this on / amplify the request?
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. "