Featured image: Red Butte. Located just 6 miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, this sacred site is in danger because of the Canyon uranium mine that operates adjacent. Photo Garet Bleir
More than five million people visit the Grand Canyon each year. It’s one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, yet the public knows next to nothing about the indigenous nation living on its floor.
Geography has a lot to do with it: the territory of the Havasupai Tribe is only accessible by helicopter–or, for those more daring, through an arduous 10-mile walk to the canyon’s floor. But it’s also by choice: even though the Havasupai now survive on tourism, they don’t make most of their knowledge and customs available to the public.
Unfortunately, that isolation has failed to protect them from the threat of uranium mining. According to officials in the Sierra Club and USGS, the Canyon Mine has already contaminated millions of gallons of clean drinking water beneath the tribe’s sacred site of Red Butte and directly above the aquifer that feeds the tribe’s main source of water.
The uranium mine represents a major threat to the tribe’s cultural practices and the traditional ecological medicine knowledge held by the nation’s medicine people.
Historically, Havasupai medicine people served as an advisory council to the chief. “Any decisions that affected the entire tribe were sent through the medicine people for spiritual input before decisions were made,” Uqualla, a Havasupai medicine man and spiritual traditionalist, told IC. “There is no longer direct guidance over political decisions, but there is still a constant flow of spirituality held by individuals, which is reinforced, reignited, rejuvenated, and re-divined by a source.”
Uqualla, a Havasupai Medicine Man and Spiritual Traditionalist, stands in front of Red Butte. Photo Garet Bleir
Medicine people continue to serve as emissaries for the Mother Earth in their practices today, Uqualla said. The tribe seeks to protect the specifics of Havasupai medicinal collections and spiritual practices from the public to avoid misunderstandings and potential dangers that come from incorrect replication by non-spiritual practitioners. Unlike Western medical traditions, the Havasupai’s spiritual medicine practices do not solely focus on applying generic treatments for anyone that suffers from a specific ailment. Rather, in spiritual medicine, the individual “patient” informs these practices and use of medicines.
“There is an alchemy with the preparations of medicines,” Uqualla explained. “The alchemy is inclusive of the person in ailment. The collection and preparation of plants is directly connected to the person being healed. It is dependent on the patient’s openness and beliefs to what is coming in during the process. So, the key for spiritual medicine is that it come from a pure place, a pure collection method, and a pure intention.”
Havasupai horse grazing beneath Wigleeva, a sacred sandstone rock formation overlooking Supai village in the Havasupai Reservation. Photo: Garet Bleir
In sharing this wisdom, Uqualla hopes to benefit the broader, non-indigenous or non-spiritual population and to communicate how these lands continue to serve the indigenous peoples in the area.
Throughout his practices, Uqualla uses a variety of sage, juniper and pinon pine, as well as berries, acorns, talons, bones, feathers, cones, rocks, and plants that are found in the region of Red Butte, while incorporating the essence of these objects and other elements to bring strength to the healing process, he explained.
In Havasupai culture, the desire to safeguard stories and practices is also born from a concern that their practices will be appropriated and applied in an inappropriate manner. “When it comes to sharing information, you want to share elements that will bring clarity, illumination, healing, and well-being for people,” Uqualla said. “Because our practices are very individualized, it comes with risk when a major non-indigenous or non-spiritual demographic sees or reads something and [tries] to replicate, because they are likely to make an incorrect interpretation of it.”
Instead, Uqualla urges those searching for this kind of healing to locate an expert. “Every place in the Mother Earth has a medicine people, and it is important for those looking to benefit from these practices to be able to recognize them.”
Another reason the Havasupai guard their sacred places and practices is due to the greed of those who appropriate their culture.
The Havasupai have experienced their fair share, like most other Native American nations. For instance, the Havasupai now only have access to “traditional use sites”after being forced at gunpoint from their traditional grounds within the Grand Canyon National Park. In a broader context, Indigenous Peoples have been repeatedly subjected to acts of “biopiracy” at the hands of pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms and even universities.
Indian Gardens, Grand Canyon National Park. This land was a traditional area for farming and medicine collection until the Havasupai were forced out, twenty years after the Grand Canyon was declared a national monument. Photo: Garet Bleir
“We have found the only way we can protect a thing that we do not want disturbed is by being very, very silent,” said Rex Tilousi, former Havasupai Chairman. “Not speaking about that painting, that rock, what is behind that rock, because we know what is going to happen to these things if we talk about them. They are going to be destroyed.”Red Butte serves as a critical example of this appropriation, given that this unique and sacred space in Grand Canyon’s biocultural landscape, is now occupied by a uranium mine.
Owned by Energy Fuels, the Canyon Mine has already contaminated millions of gallons of once clean drinking water beneath the grounds surrounding Red Butte. Now, this contaminated water is being sprayed into the air, trickling into the nearby forest, according to the president of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter, Alicyn Gitlin. All of this is occurring upon traditional and current medicinal collection sites within the sacred land of Red Butte.
The destruction of this land has a history that dates to the late ‘70s, when the Canyon Mine was first being developed by Energy Fuels Resources (EFR). “Without letting us know, EFR had already scraped the ground, the sage, and underneath the dust they destroyed ancient grinding stones, baskets, the pottery work our people traded with other tribes, and even bones,” said Tilousi. “They had scraped away everything getting that place ready for mining.”
After being accused of desecrating sacred land and failing to communicate with the Havasupai before the company started working, EFR denied the sacred nature of the area.
Some 30 years later, Mark Chalmers, the President and COO of EFR, stands behind his company’s claim. When IC interviewed Chalmers last month he commented,
“You know it’s interesting…I built the mine in the ‘80s, and it was interesting because the Red Butte was never brought up as a cultural site back when they built it, but now it has emerged as a cultural site.”
Chalmers said he spoke with a local rancher who ran cattle in the area for 20 or 30 years. “He’s the one who said it.“And I’m not saying this to be derogatory against the Havasupais, because I do respect the Havasupais, but he had never seen Havasupai in that ground until the mine was approved.” [sic]
Chalmers went on to say that he had given some of the Havasupai their first rides to the Canyon Mine, because they had never seen it before. “I’m not saying that some Havasupais wouldn’t consider Red Butte sacred, but it received very little or no attention that I knew of.” [sic]
The Canyon uranium mine. Photo: Garet Bleir
Whether he was aware of it or not, Chalmers’ comment echoes back to a time when the legal doctrine of terra nullius became a popular tool to justify territorial conquest.
The doctrine, which eventually became international law, establishes that any land can be legally obtained if it is found to be unused or unoccupied. The doctrine has been used extensively by governments and companies seeking to take ownership of indigenous lands.
Chalmers’ comment also fails to acknowledge historical transgressions against the tribe. The Havasupai used to have easy access to Red Butte, but that changed when the Havasupai were forcibly removed to make way for the Grand Canyon National Park. Now, they must take a three-hour drive from their reservation to Red Butte…and that’s after a helicopter ride or 10-mile hike out of the canyon.
Regardless of outsider’s interpretations of their own cultural practices, the Havasupai maintain their spiritual connection to Red Butte.
“People complain that we have no documentation of being in the [area], and say such things like, ‘we have never seen them here,’ Uqualla observed. “But animals and plants are still a very profound part of the survival of the Havasupai people and we have been constantly utilizing these lands over generations.”
Due to the way that these collections take place, by one medicine man or woman and at various times of day or night, it is understandable why the rancher would not have noticed any Havasupai.
“Within our tradition and spirituality, these gatherings are not a show of being there to collect in grand ceremony,” Uqualla explained. “It is being there in those private moments to go in and have to communicate with Mother Earth to have permission to take, permission to use, permission to be able to bring in what it is meant for. The whole Grand Canyon rim is a giant apothecary of medicine and this is known by every spiritual group that is in the Colorado River Plateau region.”
The Havasupai still go into the Red Butte and Canyon Mine area too. “Individual medicine entities go out and collect what is needed at times when it is intimate for the Mother Earth and the harvester. This is done in such a subtle way that only an appropriate amount is taken. They wouldn’t see a whole field leveled or harvested,” Uqualla said.
The Canyon Mine could change everything. Even if contaminated water from the mine is somehow unable to make it into the deeper aquifer, several new studies have demonstrated that the mine can still have a negative ecological impact on local plant and animal life.
Medicine people have been in constant concern for the Mother Earth. They bring healing to her, which will bring healing to the people she watches over, Uqualla continued. But, according to many members of the tribe, these collections and practices are now in danger. “How can we get there? If we do get there, do we need special new ceremony? How can we be sure that our sacred spring water isn’t poisoned?”
Havasu Falls on the Havasupai Reservation. Areas such as these are fed by the aquifer directly beneath the Canyon Mine. Photo: Garet Bleir
Uqualla also told us that the Havasupai aren’t the only Native American tribe affected by the mine. The grounds in question are also sacred gathering lands for the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Nation, the Hualapai, and other tribes on the Colorado River Plateau.
He maintains that, in the future, medicine people will have to be even more discerning as to what is collected and when it is collected. They will also have to consider alternate preparations and other options to eradicate any negative effects the mine might have on medicine in the area.
Looking toward the future, Uqualla left us with this final thought:
“Everyone that is birthed on this mother earth has dark and light, good and bad, masculine and feminine. Learn how to bring that into a magnificent balance. The Mother Earth stated at the beginning, ‘I will give you what it is that you ask for. Not what you ask for from the language or the voice, but what you put forth in your actions.’
“Everything about Mother Earth speaks in symbolism. Learn how to pull from the information given by the surroundings. The medicines of wind, the medicines of the water, the medicines of fire, the medicines of rock. The Mother Earth knows how to take care of itself. And it will take care of itself. It’s going to be the greatest teacher for all of us so go out to her daily and allow for yourself that connection in whatever way you wish that is comfortable for you do so. Even if it is just a step out there. That one moment of total blankness will allow for that infusion of Mother Earth to come through. Allow for yourself to make a connection with the Mother Earth and have her be a constant watcher, healer, teacher, and leader for you.
“We are the children of the Mother Earth and every single one of them walk and trash and abuse the earth beneath them. It’s a surface that gives us the ability to walk, talk, breath, sing, dance. And that is important for us to understand. Without that where would we be? We would not be.”
Arivaca, AZ—In temperatures surging over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the US Border Patrol raided the medical-aid camp of humanitarian organization No More Deaths and detained four individuals receiving medical care. Obstruction of humanitarian aid is an egregious abuse by the law-enforcement agency, a clear violation of international humanitarian law, and a violation of the organization’s agreement with the Tucson Sector Border Patrol.
This afternoon, in an unprecedented show of force, approximately 30 armed agents raided the camp with at least 15 trucks, two quads, and a helicopter to apprehend four patients receiving medical care.Agents from the Border Patrol began surveilling the No More Deaths camp on Tuesday, June 13 at around 4:30 p.m. Agents in vehicles, on foot, and on ATVs surrounded the aid facility and set up a temporary checkpoint at the property line to search those leaving and interrogate them about their citizenship status. The heavy presence of law enforcement has deterred people from accessing critical humanitarian assistance in this period of hot and deadly weather. These events also follow a pattern of increasing surveillance of humanitarian aid over the past few months under the Trump administration.
For the past 13 years, No More Deaths has provided food, water, and medical care for people crossing the Sonoran Desert on foot. The ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by border-enforcement policy has claimed the lives of over seven thousand people since 1998. Human remains are found on average once every three days in the desert of southern Arizona.
Kate Morgan, Abuse Documentation and Advocacy Coordinator for the organization, said, “No More Deaths has documented the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of migrants in the Arivaca corridor of the border. Today’s raid on the medical aid-station is unacceptable and a break in our good-faith agreements with Border Patrol to respect the critical work of No More Deaths.”
John Fife, one of the founders of No More Deaths, commented, “Since 2013 the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol has had a written agreement with No More Deaths (NMD) that they will respect the NMD camp as a medical facility under the International Red Cross standards, which prohibit government interference with humanitarian-aid centers. That agreement now has been violated by the Border Patrol under the most suspicious circumstances. The Border Patrol acknowledged that they tracked a group for 18 miles, but only after the migrants sought medical treatment did the Border Patrol seek to arrest them. The choice to interdict these people only after they entered the No More Deaths camp is direct evidence that this was a direct attack on humanitarian aid. At the same time, the weather forecast is for record-setting deadly temperatures.”
People crossing the deadly and remote regions of the US–Mexico border often avoid seeking urgent medical care for fear of deportation and incarceration. For this reason, a humanitarian-focused aid station in the desert is an essential tool for preserving life. The targeting of this critical medical aid is a shameful reflection of the current administration’s disregard for the lives of migrants and refugees, making an already dangerous journey even more deadly.
In spite of this, No More Deaths remains committed to our mission to end death and suffering in the desert and will continue to provide humanitarian aid, as we have for the past 13 years.
A Canadian company, Energy Fuels Inc., is about to begin mining high-grade uranium ore just 5 miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
If the project goes ahead, the Colorado River could be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, threatening the water supply for 40 million people downstream, including residents of Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
The Canyon Mine, which pre-dates a 2012 ban on uranium mining near the Canyon’s rim, would annually extract 109,500 tons of ore for use in US nuclear reactors. Post-extraction, 750 tonnes of radioactive ore would be transported daily from the Canyon Mine to the White Mesa Mill uranium processing facility in Utah, traversing Arizona in unmarked flatbed trucks covered only with tarpaulins.
The Canyon mine, located 5 miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Photo: Garet Bleir
The toxic material would pass through several towns, Navajo communities and the city of Flagstaff en route to the processing facility, which is only three miles from the White Mountain Ute tribal community.
From extraction to transport and processing, every stage of the uranium project could expose this iconic landscape, its watershed and inhabitants to high levels of radiation.
There’s more. With President Trump’s recent cuts to the EPA, and the Koch Brothers’ campaign to remove the uranium mining ban, the entire Grand Canyon region faces an unprecedented threat.
The Havasupai Nation, whose only water source is threatened by the Canyon Mine, has teamed up with several environmental organizations to ask federal judges to intervene before the mine causes any harm.
Meanwhile, members of the Navajo Nation are working to establish a ban on the transport of uranium ore through their reservation and the White Mesa Ute are leading protests against the processing facility.
The Navajo Nation has already been devastated by 523 abandoned uranium mines and 22 wells that have been closed by the EPA due to high levels of radioactive pollution. According to the EPA, “Approximately 30 percent of the Navajo population does not have access to a public drinking water system and may be using unregulated water sources with uranium contamination.” A disproportionate number of the 54,000 Navajo living on the reservation now suffer from organ failure, kidney disease, loss of lung function, and cancer.
The Canyon mine could have a similar impact on the Havasupai Nation and millions of Americans who depend on water from the Colorado River.
IC will be onsite for the next four weeks, investigating the risks and impacts of the Canyon Mine and bringing you exclusive updates from the emerging resistance movement.
We will look at the history of the Energy Fuels processing mill and cover the outcome of the Havasupai lawsuit. We will collect expert testimony, conduct interviews with key players and introduce you to some of the people affected by uranium mining.
We’re launching a crowdfunding campaign later this month to let us complete this vital investigative journalism project.
To build momentum for this fundraising campaign, we need 100 people to join us on Thunderclap and help us send a message that the Grand Canyon has allies!
TUCSON, AZ— President Trump’s border wall threatens 93 endangered and threatened species, including jaguars, ocelots, Mexican gray wolves and cactus ferruginous pygmy owls, according to a new study by the Center for Biological Diversity.
The study also found that 25 threatened or endangered species have designated “critical habitat” on the border, including more than 2 million acres within 50 miles of the border.
“Trump’s border wall is a disaster for people and wildlife alike,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center. “It could drive magnificent species like the jaguar and ocelot to extinction in the United States.”
The new study identified all threatened, endangered and “candidate” species (those being considered for protection) that have ranges near or crossing the border. These include 57 endangered species, 24 threatened species, 10 species under consideration for protection and two species of concern, golden and bald eagles. Construction of Trump’s 1,200-mile wall — along with related infrastructure and enforcement — will have far-reaching consequences for wildlife, including cutting off migration corridors, reducing genetic diversity, destroying habitat, and adding vehicles, noise and lights to vast stretches of the wild borderlands.
“The border wall won’t be effective at stopping people seeking a better life from getting to this country, but it will destroy habitat and divide wildlife populations,” Greenwald said. “Building a wall across the entirety of the border would cause massive damage to one of the most biologically diverse regions in North America and would be a boondoggle of the highest order.”
The sections of border wall that have already been built have had a range of negative effects on wildlife, including direct destruction of thousands of acres of habitat, indirect impacts from noise and light pollution, and division of cross-border wildlife populations like bighorn sheep and jaguars. The border wall would cut through the Cabeza Prieta, Buenos Aires and several other national wildlife refuges, along with Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Big Bend National Park and many other natural areas that, besides acting as corridors for wildlife, are national treasures.
Last month the Center and Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, sued the Trump administration over the proposed border wall and other border security measures, calling on federal agencies to conduct an in-depth investigation of the proposal’s environmental impacts.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, is the first targeting the Trump administration’s plan to vastly expand and militarize the U.S.-Mexico border, including construction of a “great wall.”
Featured image: The Serapo Gate is one of three port of entries located on the Tohono O’odham Nation that tribal members can use to travel into Mexico. By Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan
TUCSON, ARIZONA—The Tohono O’odham Nation Executive Branch is firm on their stance against a border wall being built.
“[It’s] not going to happen,” said Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Edward Manual. “It is not feasible to put a wall on the Tohono O’odham Nation…it is going to cost way too much money, way more than they are projecting.”
TON Chairman Manuel went on to say, “It is going to cut off our people, our members that come [from Mexico] and use our services. Not only that we have ceremonies in Mexico that many of our members attend. Members also make pilgrimages to Mexico and a border wall would cut that off as well.”
On January 25, President Donald Trump signed executive actions to begin construction of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Seventy-five miles of the U.S.-Mexico border runs through the Tohono O’odham Nation (TON).
On January 26, the TON’s Executive Branch sent out a press release stating that they do not support the building of a border wall and invited President Donald Trump to the Tohono O’odham Nation.
“We have been working with other law enforcement agencies any way we can because we are limited on funding and we are using our monies for border enforcements and helping out Customs and Border Patrol,” said Manuel. “We spend our own monies on them and helping migrants that are sick.”
Furthermore, the TON pays $2,500 per autopsy for bodies found on the reservation. Richard Saunders, TON Executive Director of Public Safety, said they found 85 bodies last year, ranging from recently deceased to completely decomposed.
“We spend about $3 million a year and we never get fully reimbursed on those costs,” Manuel said.
On February 8, the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council (TOLC) passed Resolution 17-053 which states, “…while the Nation coordinates closely with CBP and ICE and has supported the construction of vehicle barriers, the Nation opposes the construction of a wall on its southern boundary with Mexico…”
The resolution went on to list what would be affected from a border wall which included: deny tribal members to cultural sites; injure endangered species such as the jaguar and militarize the land on the TON’s southern boundary.
On February 10, the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona passed Resolution 0117, supporting the TON by opposing the construction of a border wall and “the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 Section 102(c) waivers of federal and other laws on tribal lands.”
Manuel and TON Vice Chairman Verlon Jose took a trip to Washington, D.C. from February 11-16 to attend the National Congress of American Indians Executive Council Winter Session and to meet with individuals.
Jose said they met with a lot of people during their time in D.C. which included Department of Homeland Security, the Congressional delegates from Arizona, the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and New Mexico State Senator Tom Udall.
Looking west, the U.S.-Mexico Border is visible for miles as well as the access road Border Patrol Agents use to monitor activity. Mexico is on the left side of the fence and the Tohono O’odham reservation is on the right side. By Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan
Jose said the TON gave a formal presentation at NCAI and made another formal invitation to President Trump to come to the Tohono O’odham Nation.
“We are a sovereign nation so they have to come talk to us before they make a decision, that is what we told the Congressional people,” Manuel said. “We want to sit at the table if there is going to be any discussion on a wall along the international boundaries because it is going to impact us directly.”
Jose said they received an overwhelming amount of support in D.C. especially from tribal leaders.
So much so, that NCAI passed Resolution ECWS-17-002, supporting the Tohono O’odham Nation and opposing a border wall.
“The NCAI resolution is a clear statement from our Native American brothers and sisters across the country that they will not see their land seized or their rights trampled by this administration. Trump may have bullied his way into the White House by spreading delusions of a border wall, but if he expects to bully the tribes whose land the wall would cut across, he is gravely mistaken. Native Americans will not give legal consent to any entity determining what happens with their sovereign lands, and will in every way possible oppose the Trump Administration’s plans to build a wall on tribal land,” stated a press release from Arizona Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva and New Mexico Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham.
On February 17, the day after they came back from Washington D.C., Manuel and Jose were part of a border wall panel discussion organized by tribal members. The panel was held in the TOLC Chambers in Sells, Arizona. Almost every seat was filled that Friday evening.
The other panelists included Billman Lopez the Domestic Affairs Chairman for the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council, Lucinda Allen TOLC Vice Chairwoman, Adam Andrews a graduate of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona’s James E. Roger College of Law and James Diamond, Director of Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Tribal Justice Clinic at UA.
Each panelist had five minutes to address Border Safety, Narcotics and Smuggling, Environmental Impacts, Cultural Aspects and Solutions, what is the next step. Afterwards audience members had the chance to ask questions.
On February 20, Shining Soul released a music video for their song “All Day.”
“In light of Trump’s proposed wall, Shining Soul decided to highlight the faces and voices of those who would be negatively impacted by it; Borderland communities such as the Tohono O’odham Nation, Tucson, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora,” according to a press release.
On February 21, the TON Executive Branch released a video called “There is No O’odham Word for Wall.” The six-minute video highlights the TON Executive Branch’s opposition against a border wall while offering background information about the TON.
On February 28, the Native American Student Affairs at the University of Arizona held a discussion about the border wall as part of their Social Injustice Series. There were over 50 people who attended the talk.
“A border wall would not work right now because all the right parties are not at the table,” Jose said. “Take a look at other countries that have built walls, have they worked? There is a lot of other things that come with building a wall, we don’t know if they are looking at that and this border has already cut our home in half.”
