goldmine blocked in northeast nevada

Good news for mother earth

"A federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily blocked construction of a massive gold mine project in northeast Nevada that critics say would harm the environment and ruin a mountain that several tribes consider sacred.

In a rare legal setback for the mining industry in the nation's largest gold-producing state, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted an injunction to force Barrick Gold Corp. to postpone digging a 2,000-foot deep open pit at the Cortez Hills mine.

Nevada trails only China, South Africa and Australia in terms of worldwide gold production."

hang on guys we are trying to catch up

"The appellate judges concluded BLM's review was inadequate under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires a thorough examination of large-scale projects on federal land. They said the agency didn't fully consider the air quality impacts resulting from transporting ore to an off-site processing facility 70 miles away.

The judges also said the review didn't do enough to examine the likelihood that pumping water out of the pit would cause the groundwater level to drop and potentially dry up more than a dozen streams and springs."

Water and air - are we going fold to big business interests and the unholy dollar to descetrate our land and water?

"In the ruling, the appellate court upheld a federal judge's finding that opponents of the mine failed to prove they were likely to prevail on claims the mine would cause visual harm to Mount Tenabo and create a substantial burden on the tribes' ability to exercise their religion.

Several Native American tribes say their people have been worshipping at Tenabo for centuries."

How many maori live on their sacred land? How much is 'protected' for the nation. Where are our places of worship?

"John Hadder, executive director of the Reno-based environmental watchdog group the Great Basin Mine Watch, said the court rightly concluded BLM had failed in its legal responsibility to "protect the air, water and ecological values of the area as well as the religious freedom of Western Shoshone" tribe."

Are we going to leave the protection of maori sacred places to pakeha? No - didn't think so. What can we do to coordinate our response to the mad bad and sad rush to mine our places?

A good update here

and here is the indigenous response summed up by this statement and photo off the no dirty gold website

"It's important to understand the indigenous perspective of the world around us and our holistic way of thinking. All elements of the world, animate and inanimate, are functionally integrated. The water, air, rocks, plants, animals and people are connected. The change in one element changes the other elements. The significance of a sacred site cannot be reduced to just the rock cliff with petroglyphs. Its significance is interrelated with the creek within the canyon, the Bonneville cutthroat trout in the creek, the pinyon pine trees, the juniper, the big horn sheep, the birds and so on." Virginia Sanchez, Western Shoshone