Tribes sue over the Ruby Pipeline

For more than two years the Northern Paiute including Nevada's Fort McDermot and Summit Lake Paiute tribes and the California's Fort Bidwell tribe have lobbied to divert the pipeline around their traditional lands in northwest Nevada. Dean Barlese, a cultural and spiritual guide at the Summit Lake Reservation, says, "We're not against the pipeline. It's just the route has taken it through some of the most pristine areas still left in Nevada." He says the BLM and other federal agencies conducted inadequate consultations with the tribes.

Aaron Townsend, vice chair of the Fort Bidwell tribal council, says a pipeline man camp has gone up just south of an area where the pipeline will bisect "house rings, burials, prayer sites – you name it, we've got everything – obsidian quarries, petroglyphs." He describes looting of cultural sites as people hear about archaeological resources along the pipeline corridor. The Fort Bidwell tribe recently filed a petition for review over the BLM's approved right-of-way for the pipeline.

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