"Gods and Monsters: Bulldozer Rips Into Ancient Sacred Site"

"A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the Te-Moak Band of Western Shoshone’s request for an emergency injunction to stop the destruction of an ancient trail in the Tosawihi Quarries, a 10,000-year-old sacred site. Though a legal appeal and an over-arching lawsuit concerning the entire project are still pending, an international gold-mining consortium’s bulldozer is already at work constructing a power line along the doctoring trail, said the Band’s attorney, Rollie Wilson, of the law firm Fredericks Peebles & Morgan.

The construction equipment was fired up within days of the court’s June 8 order, according to Wilson. The one-page decision did not detail the court’s reasoning.

Destruction of the doctoring trail, which connects healing places, means irreparable harm to the culture and identity of the Western Shoshone, said Joe Holley, a member of the Band’s council and a former chairman. The Band is now asking for a rehearing by the full court, a legal process that may take several months. Unless the rehearing is granted on an emergency basis, construction is likely to continue, and the trail may well be obliterated, said Wilson."

Stephanie Woodard reports for Indian Country Today Media Network June 18, 2016.