From left: Vanessa Braided Hair, Waylon Roger and Paulee Small. NWF photo by Alexis Bonogofsky.

Cheyenne’s Speak Out

Otter Creek rally in Lame Deer, Montana. (r) Tom Mexican Cheyenne (c) Otto Braided Hair (l) Martin Braided Hair Photo credit: Alexis Bonogofsky

“We believe our community will bear the brunt of the negative impacts from the Otter Creek mine. Sacrificing the land, water, animal and plant life for mining and money is not worth what our ancestors fought and gave their life. Our group is worried about the crime, accidents, drugs and other social issues that come along with boomtowns that our Tribe is not equipped to handle. We are being asked to deal with this so that a transnational corporation can make billions of dollars shipping coal to Asia,” said Tom Mexican Cheyenne.

The proposed mine’s proximity to the border of the reservation is of particular concern to Northern Cheyenne tribal members. Otter Creek Valley, used for thousands of years by tribal peoples, contains cultural, historic and burial sites important to the Cheyenne people and many other Plains Tribes and serves as important habitat for hundreds of wildlife species.

“To preserve language culture and identity you must protect air, land, and water, that’s who we are.  Without language and land we are not who we say we are,” said Phillip Whiteman Jr., Northern Cheyenne Sweet Medicine Chief.

People have watched as North Dakota reservations have experienced dramatic increases in crime, traffic accidents and cultural conflict from nearby oil development. When coupled with environmental impacts of air pollution, water pollution and decreased wildlife populations, many tribal members now are opposing the development of the mine.

Tribal Renewable Energy Alternatives

Henry Red Cloud with Northern Cheyenne tribal members Jeff King and Kale Means at a solar photovoltaic training last month. Photo credit: Mark Andrew Boyer Photography

A couple of the trainees will then go on to work in Colorado on a large scale solar installation this summer with the goal of starting their own renewable energy business on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.

“We want a different future for our children. Coal is a dead end for us,” said Vanessa Braided Hair, Northern Cheyenne wildlands firefighter and community organizer. “We will fight this till the end.”

Otter Creek Valley region – Photo taken by Ecoflight.

Quick background

On March 8, 2010, Otter Creek Coal, LLC, a subsidiary of Arch Coal, the second largest U.S. coal producer, leased 572 million tons of coal from the State of Montana. On October 23, 2012, the Montana Supreme Court confirmed that the leasing of this coal does not authorize or permit any mining activity and does not authorize or permit any degradation of land or water.

In addition, the leases do not allow any significant surface disturbance prior to acquisition of all required permits from the State of Montana (Montana Supreme Court Decision, DA 12-0184 and DA 12-0185, 10/23/2012). And, according to both the District Court and Montana Supreme Court, Arch Coal, by leasing the Otter Creek tracts from the State, acquired “nothing more than the exclusive right to apply for permits from the State.” Under Montana law—section 82-4-221 of the Montana Code—Arch Coal must obtain an operating permit from the state before it can commence mining.

This permit must include detailed plans for mining, reclamation, revegetation and rehabilitation of the disturbed land. Furthermore, the mine operation and reclamation plan must be reviewed and approved by the State Land Board. On July 25, 2012, Otter Creek Coal, LLC submitted an application for a Strip Mining Permit to the Montana DEQ.

Location of Otter Creek Coal tracts and proposed Otter Creek Mine. Map by NWF.

Incomplete permit application

In the cover letter submitted with the permit application package, Arch itself admits that its permit application is incomplete, stating that over 10 required sections are not included “for various reasons” and will be supplied at a later date, including a certificate of insurance, cultural site testing, wildlife data, agricultural production, cultural sites, revegetation map, post-mining drainage plan, bond calculation, cultural resources mitigation and reclamation plans for Prime Farmlands.

Sufficient Information?

And yet, even though Arch Coal has left out critical environmental, agriculture, and wildlife data, they state that the Permit Application Package contains “sufficient information” to initiate the environmental review process. How can the State of Montana start an environmental review process for a region best known for its wildlife, agricultural values, and cultural sites if it doesn’t have any wildlife, agriculture and cultural site data?

Notice of deficiency

On October 25, the Montana DEQ stated the obvious and sent a Notice of Deficiency to Arch Coal because, well, its application was incomplete. As of today, we are still waiting on crucial information from Arch Coal, information that is necessary in order to begin an environmental review process.

In their initial application they stated they would submit the wildlife information by August. I called the DEQ yesterday to ask if they had submitted any additional information and the answer, unsurprisingly, was no. Arch Coal believes that they can submit a shoddy permit application and still proceed with their mine plans, and they would be right because the state of Montana is going along with them, no questions asked.

So, even though the company has not submitted the necessary data, it is moving forward with hiring a contractor to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. To paraphrase Walter in the film The Big Lebowski, “doesn’t anyone give a damn about the rules?” I think we all know the answer to that.

Join me in standing up for Mountain Heroes–add your photo to the petition.

Stand in Solidarity with Mountain Heroes

Join me today in standing in solidarity with Mountain Heroes — add your photo and words of support to the online photo petition hosted by our friends at Earthjustice.

The heroes fighting for the mountains they know and love are asking us to stand with them against mountaintop removal mining and for a better way forward by joining the Mountain Heroes petition.

Mountains & Wildlife Destroyed

As I stood with local activists in the Coal River Mountain Valley, they pointed to the nearest mountain ridge and explained that hidden just beyond it were vast expanses of destruction.

The rich forests and streams where my new friends grew up exploring, searching for ginseng, and fishing were gone–replaced with rubble that resembled a moonscape.

The forests and streams of central Appalachia are abundant with diverse plants and wildlife–bears, coyotes, foxes, owls, Wild Turkeys, salamanders, trout and colorful darters. But, coal companies are blasting vast mountain ranges and dumping the rubble into huge valleys, destroying forests and communities. Coal processing plants are spreading coal dust and endangering the lives of everyone living in the valleys below the massive toxic slurry ponds, built with earthen dams that have collapsed with deadly consequences.

Join the Struggle Against Mountaintop Removal

Seeing the contrast from rich wildlife habitat to wasteland while visiting the struggling communities kept poor by “King Coal” is unlike anything I’ve seen before or since. Yet, people fighting for their homes and mountains are undaunted. They continue the struggle against wealthy coal companies and their massive tools of destruction.

Show your solidarity with Mountain Heroes against mountaintop removal and for clean energy.

Deer Medicine Rocks

Yesterday, in the beautiful Rosebud valley in southeastern Montana, hundreds gathered to celebrate and honor an important and sacred place, Deer Medicine Rocks, as a National Historic Landmark. Northern Cheyenne, Oglala Lakota, ranchers, historians, and others came to this remote site, just north of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation to honor and recognize a place where Native Americans have carved their prophecies, their history and their dreams for thousands of years. I was honored to attend the celebration as a representative of NWF’s Tribal Lands Partnerships Program and as a proud Montanan. Deer Medicine Rocks demands your attention. It juts out into the never ending Montana sky amid other sandstone bluffs and prairie and sage brush flats. This region and the abundant wildlife that call it home, is one of the most special in all of Montana and the Nation. When you step foot in this country, you’ll never forget it.

Petroglyphs cover the walls of the sandstone face of the rocks, including a rock art inscription of the prophecy of a tribal victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn that was revealed Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man Sitting Bull during a Sun Dance held in the Rosebud Valley in June 1876. For those of you who may never make it out to southeastern Montana to see this amazing place, the National Park Service has described some of the petroglyphs that reveal themselves on the rocks.

“There are elk with tracks; buffalo bull sitting down (possibly Sitting Bull’s signature); buffalo tracks; bear tracks and a grizzly bear; mountain sheep; deer; birds; salamanders; a thunderbird; a coyote; the sacred Sun Dance of the Lakota people, with pole and piercing of the flesh; tepees; a man on horseback; war regalia in the form of bear claws, a mirror, and eagle bone whistles; a view of soldiers with grasshopper-like legs falling into camp; a medicine wheel with quadrants including a moon and a man smoking a pipe; and a human with a shield.

Lightning Strike on Deer Medicine Rocks

On the northeast side, a lightning bolt struck the rock creating a blue stripe that seared through the image of a deer and knocked away a piece of the stone thereby providing the site’s most common name, “Deer Medicine Rocks.” National Park Service

Even snowmen say Stop Global Warming! Photo credit: Patricia Tillmann

But There Is More To Be Done

Fight Coal Export

Here in the Pacific Northwest, coal companies would like to construct export terminals to transport coal from Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River Basin overseas. Not only would this fly in the face of the Pacific Northwest’s growing commitment to a clean energy future, but the transport of coal across the western U.S. would place people and wildlife at risk from breathing in coal dust, filling wetlands used by migrating birds and salmon, and increased noise in our towns along the way. Power Past Coal is working to prevent the construction and use of coal export terminals in the places we call home. Without these terminals, there is no point to transporting the coal to our ports, through our towns and wilderness, to destinations far overseas. Learn more about what you can do to help Power Past Coal.

Dust from open coal trains could coat our lands - and our lungs. Photo credit: Paul K. Anderson

Mounds of coal surround massive machinery. Photo credit: Paul K. Anderson

Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline

The Keystone XL Pipeline would cut through America’s agricultural heartland, across the precious Ogalalla Aquifer and through the homes of Midwestern families, sandhill cranes, sage grouse, and walleye.  National Wildlife Federation has worked tirelessly to stop this pipeline from being built and prevent the 2,000+ mile transport of dirty tar sands oil from northern Alberta to our Gulf Coast refineries. This November, the Obama Administration announced it will explore alternative routes for the pipeline, requiring much-needed additional environmental review and likely delaying a decision for at least another year. This decision was a victory for the campaign, but a new problem has surfaced in recent days: a proposed environmental rider in the end-of-year payroll tax-cut legislation package would effectively shortcut the environmental review process. Learn more about what you can do now to help stop the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Prepare now for the effects of climate change

Even as we battle for a clean energy future, the choices made in the past will require us to prepare for the effects of climate change in the present. Check out these easy tips for energy and water conservation, green purchasing, green gardening, and the three R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Here in the Seattle office, we are devoted to preparing for the effects of climate change now. Our work includes:

• Partnering with the North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative on their efforts to tackle climate change at the landscape scale.
• Adapting large-scale water management systems for current and future environmental conditions in theYakima River Basin and California Central Valley.
• Protecting Puget Sound floodplains by working to reform the National Flood Insurance Program, reconnect the vital floodplain habitats that reduce the negative impacts of flooding, and better protect people and wildlife in a changing climate.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author’s.

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