CAPITOL WEEKLY: CEQA a tool to protect Native American heritage

Town Creek Indian Mound State Historic Site

By Samantha Gallegos | 06/27/13 2:00 PM PST

When California’s Environmental Quality Act captures public attention, it’s usually because of a struggle between developers and business interests on one side and environmentalists on the other.

But for the Native American community, CEQA has a deeper significance: It is viewed as a tool in maintaining the tribes’ cultural heritage when their land has been targeted for development, or disturbed otherwise, and the inevitable legal battle ensues.

A number of lawmakers and tribes are attempting to expand the 45-year-old CEQA statute specifically to include protections for Native Americans’ cultural heritage. On Thursday, legislation to do just that was approved by the Assembly 56-0 and sent to the Senate.

“My tribe was forced to pay over $20 million to preserve our one and only creation area, because of a broken CEQA,” attorney Laura Miranda  of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians testified during a hearing of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources.

Assemblyman Mike Gatto

Miranda was speaking about the importance of AB 52 by Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, which would extend CEQA’s environmental  protections to tribal resources. It would require agencies to consult with Native American tribes before officially declaring that a project passed environmental muster.

The inclusion to protect these resources in CEQA was originally addressed back in 2004, with a Senate bill that incorporated the input of Native American tribes into various layers of the local land-use planning process.

But clashes between tribes and developers and local agencies in recent years have proven the ineffectiveness of the earlier law, observers say.

According to Heather Baugh, assistant general counsel in the Resources Agency who specializes in CEQA, the lead agency involved in a project should consult with the tribes in instances when they may be intruding on a valued site. The lead agency could consider hiring an archeologist, or maybe tribal members, to survey the site to ensure said area is sacred.

“Tribes don’t have a role in the CEQA process,” said Miranda. “Right now CEQA has a section on archaeological resources, but those are all analyzed from a specifically archaeological perspective.” This scientific view doesn’t take into consideration other meaningful qualities of an area, such as the spiritual history.

Under CEQA, projects should say whether going forward would cause substantial adverse changes to the significance of a historical resource, an archaeological resource, or disturb any human remains like in the case of native burial grounds.

But this checklist doesn’t address to all areas of concern for California’s Native American tribes.

What is currently purported to protect Native American cultural resources does not explicitly require the involvement of tribes in the consultation process regarding projects affecting their cultural resources and sacred sites.

In some cases, this has led to areas of importance for tribes to fall between the cracks of development.

Pechanga Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro shows sacred site
where quarry was proposed. Riverside Press Enterprise, 11.19.2012

Sovereignty of the Luiseño people was threatened in recent years by plans to excavate a mining pit near an area spiritually equivalent for this culture to Eden or Bethlehem, because of failed protection by CEQA.

In 2011, Granite Construction Inc. was planning to effectively blow up an area considered by the Pechanga and Luiseño People to be the place where the “Earth and Sky came together and formed the World,” according to the tribes documentation opposing the project.

“Because CEQA didn’t work for bigger site protection, we ended up having to buy our creation area from a mining company for $20 million,” said Miranda. “Everything was there, on record… it was already on the national historic register. All of the evidence was there, but it was still going to be allowed.”

“AB 52 clarifies the role of the Native Americans within the CEQA process and it requires a more involved consultation with tribes for projects which affect tribal cultural resources and sacred sites,” Gatto said.

An area in the Volcanic Tableland in eastern California where thieves
attempted to carve out a petroglyph. They ultimately extracted six slabs
with the ancient images, and damaged many of the others.
Greg Haverstock/Bureau of Land Management

This was the legislation’s second committee hearing. Proponents have spent the year collaborating with most members of the opposition, making appropriate amendments to address certain concerns and ultimately find a balance that still preserves the bill’s sanctity.

But development and business interests are suspicious of Gatto’s bill.

Representatives for both California’s Chamber of Commerce and the state’s Building Industries Association appeared before committee hearings oppose the bill, saying they concerned the measure would give the tribes veto authority over projects within the state.

Lead agencies would, however, have the opportunity to impose a statement of overriding considerations., which basically allows the project to continue based on public interests, despite an adverse environmental impact.

This additional layer to an already extensive CEQA process may stress individuals and groups that desire to begin local land use projects, but this is arguably meager in comparison to the concerns of the tribes.

“Under current law, if a tribe wants to have input on a sacred site…. something that could be of profound religious significance for that tribe, that tribe is forced to go into negotiations as a member of the public,” said Assemblyman Gatto. Meaning tribes have no greater legal standing in these issues than someone completely unaffiliated with the culture.

You can read this article and more at the Capitol Weekly HERE

Mike Gatto is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the California State Assembly.  He represents the cities of Burbank, Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, and portions of the Hollywood Hills and East Hollywood.  www.asm.ca.gov/gatto

LISTEN IN: Assemblyman Gatto talks about the preservation of Native American Sacred Sites on KPFA 94.1

Indian Country Today: California Legislator Seeks Tribal Input on Sacred Sites Protection Bill

Eagle Rock, located in the McCloud River canyon in Northern California, is sacred to the Winnemem Wintu and has been desecrated with graffiti and carvings.

Marc Dadigan - February 19, 2013

This October, not far from Bishop, California five petroglyphs sacred to tribes in the area including the Paiute, Shoshone and Mono were stolen by vandals using chainsaws and ladders. Government officials compared the crime to cutting holes in the Wailing Wall.

On the other end of the state, about an hour from the Oregon border, the Winnemem Wintu’s sacred Eagle Rock, which is still a ceremonial place in use by the tribe, has long suffered desecrations by vandals carving initials into or spray-painting the rock.

Throughout the state, tribal leaders say sacred sites and burial sites are far too vulnerable to vandalism and destruction via development, and California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles) agrees.

Gatto recently introduced a “placeholder” for Assembly Bill 52, which states his intent to enact legislation to improve the protection of sacred and cultural sites by requiring developers to consult with the appropriate tribes “prior to project initiation.”

“I think the state of California has not been great custodians of our history,” Gatto said. “After everything we’ve put our Native people through, it would be really wrong and a travesty if we allowed sacred sites to disappear.”

Gatto said he expects his office will spend the next two months consulting with tribes around the state, including federally unrecognized tribes, about what language would make the bill most effective...


You can read this entire article at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/02/19/california-legislator-seeks-tribal-input-sacred-sites-protection-bill-147710

People who are interesting in providing input on the bill may contact legislative aide, Katerina Robinson at katerina.robinson@asm.ca.gov.

Mike Gatto is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the California State Assembly.  He represents Burbank, Glendale, La Canada-Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, and portions of the Hollywood Hills and East Hollywood.   www.asm.ca.gov/gatto

Op-Ed: State’s sacred sites should be preserved

My op-ed in the San Diego Union Tribune regarding preserving CA's Native American cultural heritage. (I know I love Roman references).

State’s sacred sites should be preserved

By Mike Gatto

Like everything else, protecting cultural treasures requires conscious effort. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than the story of the magnificent equestrian bronze of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, carved in 175 A.D. Now considered one of the world’s irreplaceable cultural treasures, it is hard to imagine that the statute was once merely one of many. Over the years, the other magnificent ancient equestrian bronzes were stolen, melted for coins, or destroyed by vandals. Such neglect seems criminal with the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of the magnitude of what was lost. Only the conscious efforts of Pope Sixtus IV and others saved the statue of Marcus Aurelius from the fate that awaited the statues of other emperors.

Might future generations lament our neglect in protecting and preserving California’s unique cultural heritage? Let’s face it: Our state has a habit of neglecting or paving over our history. Recently, thieves stole carvings from an unprotected sacred site on the Volcanic Tableland north of Bishop, stealing priceless rock art revered by the local Paiute people. And in the last few years, developers have sought to place things like dumps or granite mines near or on top of ancient sacred sites. This isn’t right. Native peoples deserve protections for sites that are parts of their ancient heritage. And California should treat these sites as historic resources too.

I have introduced AB 52, legislation that will protect California’s Native American cultural treasures and sacred sites. My proposal will include a process for California’s native peoples to weigh in on development that could affect a sacred site, and will feature increased protections for sites that might not necessarily face threats from development but which are nevertheless threatened. Even though some locations must be kept private to avoid crimes as the one committed against the Paiute, the effort to maintain them must be considered an essential activity in the preservation of our state’s historic resources.

This also fits into the larger effort to reform CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, which some people feel has been abused at the expense of economic development in California. Last year, the effort faced additional hurdles because of concerns by Native Americans that a streamlined CEQA would provide lesser protections for sacred sites. We should remove this sticking point from negotiations.

California’s Native American sacred sites should have their own set of protections, and reform efforts should not stall because of the absence of such a law.

Will future generations wonder what happened to California’s pre-Columbian heritage? Or will they thank us and appreciate our efforts for preserving the sacred sites and cultural treasures that still exist? I can’t imagine Rome without the grand statue of Marcus Aurelius. And I can’t imagine a Southwest without Native American petroglyphs, rock carvings and other sacred sites.

Gatto chairs the Appropriations Committee of the California Assembly. He represents Burbank, Glendale and some neighboring communities

This Opinion-Editorial originally appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune.  You can read this Opinion Editorial and more at the San Diego Union Tribune by clicking HERE