Quechans fight for causes, even off the reservation

For centuries, American Indians have roamed the stretches of the Colorado River, drawing physical and spiritual sustenance from their surroundings and leaving behind traces of their existence.

Today, the Quechan Tribe sees itself as a leader in the fight to preserve the historic and cultural legacy of their ancestors and to protect the land, river and air, even off the reservation.

Major cases include:

OIL REFINERY

The Quechan Tribe has mounted a legal battle to stop development of an oil refinery in eastern Yuma County by Arizona Clean Fuels. The tribe claims that an environmental assessment of the land transfer for the project inadequately addressed its potential impact on the environment and the tribe's historic and cultural resources in the area.

The site is outside the tribe's reservation boundaries. But Mike Jackson, tribal president, has said it contains sites that are historically important to the tribe, which had inhabited that area in the past.

In the most recent development, the Quechans filed an appeal in late July seeking to overturn an earlier court ruling denying the tribe's application to stop the project until its concerns were addressed.

Arizona Clean Fuels has countered that a careful analysis was conducted of the site, all of which is disturbed land because it was farmed for several years.

GLAMIS GOLD MINE

The Quechan Tribe blocked a proposed open-pit gold mine on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land called Indian Pass in the early 1990s. The tribe condemned the planned mining activity, saying the land was religiously significant to the Quechans, who had occupied it for thousands of years until the gold rush.

In 2003, California lawmakers enacted legislation requiring that the site of a surface mine be completely backfilled and returned to its original state. Glamis Gold abandoned its plans, saying the requirement was too costly.

The Canadian-based company then filed a $50 million lawsuit against BLM, arguing that the legislation is a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement governing foreign mining in the U.S. The case is still pending.

WARD VALLEY

In 1998, a fight against a nuclear waste dump near the Colorado River culminated in a 113-day occupation of the site by a coalition of five Native American tribes, including the Quechan, as well as environmental allies. The site at Ward Valley, Calif., is west of Needles and 18 miles from the river above an aquifer to the Colorado that opponents feared would carry radioactive pollution from the unlined landfill trenches to the river.

The occupation ended in victory when the U.S. Department of the Interior rescinded an eviction notice and canceled the test drilling. In 1999, the Interior Department terminated all its actions regarding the Ward Valley dump proposal, officially ending the long battle.

SLEEPY HOLLOW

In 1979, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made a decision to return Sleepy Hollow, an area near the international border at Los Algodones, Baja Calif., to the Quechan Tribe. The action restored land to the Quechans that was inside the boundaries of the Fort Yuma Reservation established in a 1883 treaty with the tribe.

Over the years, leases and permits were issued to outside groups for use of the land, including construction of the All American Canal and the Southern Pacific Railroad. Sand and gravel also was taken out of the area.

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Joyce Lobeck can be reached at

jlobeck@yumasun.com or 539-6853.