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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Equal Protection for All of Peak's Cultural Landscape

By Jim Scarantino
For the Journal
      Look carefully at Mount Taylor and you'll notice it's missing its top. The original summit was blown off eons ago in an earth-shaking explosion. Look carefully at the proposal to designate Mount Taylor as a protected cultural site, and you'll also notice something missing: every culture with ties to the mountain that isn't Native American.
       Native American history with Mount Taylor dates back over a millennium. They have used the mountain's bounty in every aspect of their lives. Archeological sites are scattered across its diverse topography. It figures prominently in several creation stories. The mountain, by some accounts, is a spiritual being.
       Native Americans are hardly alone in utilizing the mountain's resources. Just as the beams in the church at Acoma Pueblo came from the slopes of Mount Taylor, so did the timbers in the little land grant sanctuary at Cebolleta. Sheep and cattle owned by Spanish and Anglo, as well as Native American, ranchers have grazed the mountain's grasses. Native Americans are not the only hunters chasing Mount Taylor's deer and elk. Everyone in the area, regardless of culture or race, has drawn from the massif's streams and springs.
       That other cultures make similar uses of Mount Taylor does not diminish the mountain's importance to Native American religion and culture. Their beliefs are sincerely and deeply held and deserve respect. But we live in a culture of many religions, and of many people with no religion at all. Moreover, Mount Taylor's public lands are owned equally by all of us.
       A group of tribes and pueblos seek the cultural property designation because it will give them rights shared by no one else. They insist they would be accorded no veto power. But a cultural property designation, they believe, will require they be consulted in how others enjoy Mount Taylor's resources.
       Like much else in this unprecedented adventure in cultural cartography, the nature of this consultative process remains undefined. At a minimum it is a right to stick one's nose into others' business. In a society that honors equal treatment under the law, it would seem that Native American uses should be subject to reciprocal oversight. So far, that isn't part of the plan.
       Land grant and local business leaders worry that the designation could restrict a resurgent uranium mining industry. I want to believe Native American activists who deny this to be their design. But they don't speak for everyone. The Sierra Club boasted last year how a temporary cultural designation delayed exploratory drilling, even though that activity had been slated for private land. Whether it would be again used as a weapon against uranium mining, no one can say for sure, precisely because designating an entire mountain has never before been attempted.
       Ironically, an accurate cultural designation should accommodate mining. Native Americans dig minerals from Mount Taylor for religious and secular purposes. Coal has been mined since the nineteenth century, in mines worked by every ethnic and racial group, including Native Americans. Coal pried by hand from a shaft in the Juan Tafoya Land Grant was once sold out of a Model T to nearby pueblos. Coal today generates half the electricity in New Mexico's Indian casinos.
       For decades, Grants was America's uranium capital. Laguna Pueblo, local governments and land grants made tons of money. Uranium shaped the area's identity. It will continue to be a part of the culture for the simple reason that beneath Mount Taylor lies the nation's largest deposit of an ore that can safely power our cities without adding carbon to the atmosphere. And unless poverty is to be enshrined as a cultural icon, the uranium industry represents the area's brightest hope for the future.
       If all of Mount Taylor is to be formally designated a cultural landmark, then its entire human landscape must be plotted. That requires equal respect for all interested parties and historical uses. There's no rush in getting it right. The mountain isn't going anywhere.
       Jim Scarantino spent 25 years practicing law, including time as a prosecutor in Philadelphia and New Mexico. He concluded his legal career as the ACLU-New Mexico's lawyer of the year in 2006. Scarantino also served as executive director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and Republicans for Environmental Protection. He writes a monthly report for the Rio Grande Foundation. E-mail: jimscarantino@gmail.com.
       

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