[April 5, 2021– Sierra Wave received this Press Release from: Center for Biological Diversity; Conservation Lands Foundation; CNPS: Bristlecone Chapter; Friends of the Inyo; Sierra Club; Western Watersheds Project]
Conglomerate Mesa (Photo: Friends of Inyo)
On Wednesday, March 24th, Mojave Precious Metals and K2 Gold hosted a virtual “Community Town Hall” about their upcoming road construction and exploratory drilling at National Conservation Lands Site Conglomerate Mesa. With roughly 200 people in attendance, community members were eager to share their perspectives and ask company representatives questions about their exploration.
But when community members showed up, they quickly found that this Town Hall was anything but community oriented.
“When our local community joined the K2 Gold/Mojave Precious Metals Zoom Town Hall, we showed up to locked comment boxes and hidden screens. All you could see was the company. Everyone who attended the meeting was completely in the dark about who else was there and what questions were being asked,” said Jeremiah Joseph, Cultural Monitor for the Lone Pine Paiute Shoshone Tribe. “The community sat alone in their homes and listened to the company talk at us, rather than talk with us. We could not even see our neighbor’s faces on Zoom.”
“In the first half of the presentation, the company provided background on their staff and the drilling program at Conglomerate Mesa. In the final half of the meeting, the company began to answer questions, which were pre-screened through email submission. No information about submitting questions beforehand was provided in the promotional materials for the Town Hall.
In an attempt to make their voices heard, local leaders and community groups began adding comments and questions via Facebook, where the event was live-streamed. In total, the comment section amassed nearly 400 comments by the end of the presentation, almost all of which were squarely in opposition to exploration at Conglomerate Mesa.
Fifteen minutes after the presentation, the company deleted all records of the Facebook Live video and deleted all of the comments made during the presentation. Local groups recorded the entirety of the webinar and plan to share it online.
“People need to understand that this company is attempting to bury the voices of opposition to their project” said Wendy Schneider, Executive Director of Friends of the Inyo. “It seems these companies are not interested in actually addressing any of the concerns raised by the community. For example, locals are legitimately concerned about water, which is such a precious resource around here. The company would not answer questions about where it would legitimately obtain water for an expanded exploration, or for a mine. It seems they are willing to do and say anything to obtain the approval and resources necessary to forever alter this precious landscape for their exclusive financial benefit.”
When asked about jobs provided in their last drilling, K2 Gold shared that they have not employed a single local Inyo County resident. The drill team came from Canada, geologists were brought in from San Bernardino, the helicopter pilot and mechanic were not from Inyo County and they hired a consultant from Alabama.
“I’m not sure how the company can claim they’re bettering our economy by creating jobs when they’re not hiring locally. Let’s be clear – there’s a distinct difference between creating local jobs and importing employees to work in our county. Your neighbor down the street is not being hired by K2 Gold.” said Todd Vogel, Co-Owner of Eastside Sports.
Many are calling attention to the fact that the company does not have the formal support of local Tribal Nations. “The company claims to have great working relationships with the local tribes,” said Kathy Bancroft, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Lone Pine Paiute Shoshone Tribe. “My experience has been anything but great. The Lone Pine Tribe has a General Council form of government, meaning all tribal members vote on support or opposition to a project. The tokenizing of one or two voices within the tribe does not constitute support of the Lone Pine Tribe for their exploratory drilling”.
“I think what broke my heart the most about the presentation is that the landscape in question, Conglomerate Mesa, was not mentioned until 41 minutes into the webinar” continues Jeremiah Joseph. “We can’t lose sight of the landscape at stake with this mining work. Boxing people into debates or pro-mine or anti-mine or pro-jobs or anti-jobs is a disservice to the landscape. This is a site-specific issue. Why Conglomerate Mesa? For me, it’s the homeland of my people and it deserves our protection. Conglomerate Mesa is just too special.”
For ongoing updates on Conglomerate Mesa visit protectconglomeratemesa.com.
Background on the Conglomerate Mesa Coalition: The Conglomerate Mesa Coalition comprises a diverse group of organizations, tribal nations, and local businesses that support the immediate protection of Conglomerate Mesa for the land’s cultural, historical, conservation, and recreation values from extractive industries like mining. These entities also oppose all mining activities by K2 Gold on Conglomerate Mesa. For more information about the Conglomerate Mesa Coalition, click here.
Discover more from Sierra Wave: Eastern Sierra News - The Community's News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Excuse me but you need to reread the comments because I didnt say a dam thing about looting the native american history! Another person wrote that and I too was taken back by that post! All im concerned about is the propaganda being used to undermine the value and need for mineral extraction and its value to the local economy.
Furthermore, the exaggeration of the impact of mining to the viewshed and the environment is also shameful propaganda because Ive been there and I know that the mining standards in this country are the cleanest in the world! Yet activists would prefer to see mining exported to the corners of the world where no protections exist for the forests or atmosphere? Activists never like to hear that question and some resort to calling names like blowhard over it . Welcome to the cancel culture where debate is squashed by elitist activists.
Response from commenter, FranklySpeaking, was removed as “misattribution.” Mr. Weirick was correct noting that “Another person wrote that and I too was taken back by that post,” as were several others.
Extractive technologies has a long history going back to humankind’s beginnings and one reputable source is found on Wiley Online Library, which gives an overview of the topic in the scientific article, Mining industry and sustainable development: time for change. The pros and cons of various extractive technologies are analyzed, including gold. More importantly, it is a scientifically peer-reviewed article. It’s not perfect, but it gives what appears to be an intelligent overview of the topic, including on gold, without the strong advocacy of one view over another that colors much of the debate on the topic.
Even if there were no Paiute Shoshone peoples or their ancestors, these sacred high desert lands lands would deserve protection and reverence just as any cathedral. How have we foolish humans managed to fail to give them legal standing! We should not have to talk about their value in relation to human economic interests. They deserve to be respected and unmolested in their own right. Since that is not happening , I can only express great gratitude to those who can find. Cultural and legal routes to attempt to prevent their desecration.
Jeremiah, thank you for speaking up for the land, the Paiute-Shoshone, the old ones who came before the Paiute Shoshone, and all who have the vision to see the big picture beyond the short term economic greed.
All due respect, todays enviros are the blowhards, perpetuating lies about projects such as this. The footprint of this mine would be a mere 12 acres and not be visible to the traveling public. This mesa was named by previous miners who built roads thru it so to pretend that it is pristine is a lie. The irony here is that in spite of previous mining, the land has recovered just as it will after mandated rehabilitation is complete. In fact the Forest service acknowledges that land 150 feet from a road functions as if it were wilderness, so to claim mining will destroy it is ludicrous! If there were a relevant archeological site there, the BLM would have never allowed them to proceed!
So because another obviously biased news outlet also puts out this anti mining propaganda, I cant criticize it? Stifle free speech much?
Obviously you can indeed actually exercise your free speech rights cuz you just did and no one stifled you at all as far as I can see…
Really there actually are more important things than the almighty dollar. And in any case It’s not all about mining jobs. If the bayou Cajun folks can figure out how to reinvent themselves and make a living in the ecotourism business instead of killing Alligators for shoes and purses (ugh), I’m betting we desert rats can rise to the occasion and find a way to survive without destruction of the environs . Also, see excellent comment by Jeremiah Joseph in response to Manzanar committee stance on the issue.
The real tokenization is the enviros claiming to represent the majority in the Owens Valley when in reality the large enviro groups drum up involvement nationwide . They flooded the meeting with responses to overload the system. The local employment obviously wont happen until a mine goes into operation which James conveniently ignores in his biased reporting. He continues in that vein with statements that the land is sacred homeland for the Indians. I challenge anyone to reveal the Indian villages or even camps in there because with the lack of water, there is very little game to hunt! They smartly stayed near water sources, but James shows his bias by not adding balance to this editorial disguised as reporting!
It was clearly labeled as a “press release.” Sierra Wave received a communication from the company just today with a press release giving their view of the meeting, with their characterization of the meeting, which we will also post as given to us. Greg, please at least make an attempt to learn the difference between a press release and reporting before you make unfounded accusations of bias…as you have often done in the past without foundation. Thank you.
Okay Greg, me and you. I’ll show you the natural hunting blinds, caves, the shattered used bi-face fragments, house floors….well maybe not everything, that might only encourage looting… cause we’ve seen and know instances of looting! But really, shake off the shackles of common perceptions, and hear what I’m saying. I’m saying my ancestors didn’t live to aquire and attain, they utilized only what was needed. Also, it’s known that there’s a area up there where only the men would go to ceremony. And really, how many times have YOU been up there?
Would “looting” include local Paiutes taking the history, art and tools of the first people?
“According to Bertha P. Dutton in American Indians of the Southwest, the Southern Paiutes moved into the Southwestern region of what is now the United States around the year 1000 A.D”.
From Wikipedia “It’s believed that the Coso Rock Art District in the Mojave Desert was inhabited by early Indigenous people as long as 13,500 years ago, rendering this arid region one of the earliest settlements on the North American continent”.
12,000 years of history of the first Indigenous people should not be stolen by the people that came after them. You don’t want people to steal your history, so please don’t do the same to the people that came before you.
Sandy,
Looting, let’s start there. First let’s shake off the shackles of common perceptions…as I understand it, the local tribes “utilized” the tools and respected the rock art of those before them, as if you could say they saw eye to eye on how they look at each other and the land… you know. How else would the reminisce still be here today?
When I say local tribes I mean Paiute-Shoshone, my affiliations. So I’m just going to finish my train of thought on the rest of what you have added…you mentioned alot of years back, and yes I take pride that the people go back that far, we live in a special place. But you forgot to mention how when the civil war was going on, we were still traditional here. After the metal miners and water miners have been here and had their way, I’m skipping many environmental and cultural injustices just to talk about “looting”.. we have all been forced fed how we must think and learn, and the local tribes didn’t know of such things as “looting” until the pioneers made it a thing… Mainly it’s about respect for those before and after. And we just rarely see that nowadays to where we just can’t recognize it.