NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Saturday, November 20, 2021
Tribes ask feds to restore sacred site destroyed by U.S. 26
By CATALINA GAITÁN
The Oregonian
MOUNT HOOD — The
Federal Highway Adminis-
tration and U.S. Bureau of
Land Management should
restore a sacred site and
burial ground near Mount
Hood that was destroyed to
make room for a left-turn
lane on the U.S. Highway 26,
an attorney argued this week
before the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals.
The agencies should
replant trees and medicinal
plants and remove a grass
embankment that now covers
an ancient burial site, said
Joe Davis, an attorney repre-
senting tribal elders and two
nonprofi t groups.
Justice Department attor-
ney Joan Pepin said the site
already had been destroyed
by the time the plaintiff s fi led
suit, so their arguments are
moot.
“These features that they
claim made their site sacred
are irretrievably gone before
the suit was even brought
and there’s no relief that can
bring it back,” Pepin said.
Pepin also said the respon-
sibility for handling several
of the plaintiff ’s requests —
including removing guard-
rails from the highway
near the site and replanting
trees — would fall upon
the Oregon Department of
Barb Gonzalez/Bend Bulletin, File
This 2014 photo shows Mount Hood looming over U.S. Highway 26 east of Sandy. The 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding on a case that could restore a sacred site and burial ground
near Mount Hood that was destroyed to make room for a left-turn lane on the highway.
Transportation, which oper-
ates the highway, not the
federal government.
Attorneys for both sides
appeared Tuesday, Nov. 16,
in a virtual hearing before
three 9th Circuit judges in
San Francisco.
Elders of the Confeder-
ated Tribes of Grande Ronde
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and the Klickitat Tribe of
the Yakama Nation, along
with nonprofits Cascade
Geographic Society and
Mount Hood Sacred Lands
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cise their religion had been
“substantially burdened.”
You also said the site is not
the only area where the
plaintiff s can practice their
religion, as the entire Mount
Hood and Willamette Valley
is sacred to them, and that
they are still able to access
the site through the East
Wemme Trail Road.
Tribal elder Carol Logan
of the Confederated Tribes
of Grande Ronde, Wilbur
Slockish, hereditary chief
of the Klickitat Tribe of the
Yakama Nation, and the two
nonprofi ts appealed in May.
“We have been waiting for
over a decade for this injus-
tice to be set right,” Logan
said in a statement Nov. 17.
“It is past time for the court
to recognize that without our
sacred land, our religious
traditions will be lost.”
Davis said he expects
the court to return a deci-
sion by the spring. He said
the impacts of this decision
would have consequences for
people of all religious faiths.
“It would mean that the
federal government has
a blank check to destroy
sacred sites on its prop-
erty and that it can’t be held
accountable for it, and that
would be profound injus-
tice,” he said. “That would
also be thoroughly inconsis-
tent with our nation’s protec-
tions for religious freedom.”
Expert sees gains in war on hornets
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Morning fog;
partly sunny
Preservation Alliance, sued
the federal government in
2008 over the mile-long
construction project west of
Government Camp.
The highway expansion
began that same year after
community outcry over
increasing car accidents,
including one fatality, due to
a lack of a left-turn lane. It
was completed by July 2009.
The plaintiff s contend the
highway expansion felled a
cluster of old-growth Doug-
las Fir trees and turned part
of the sacred site into a grass
embankment. The site is
traditionally known as Ana
Kwna Nchi nchi Patat, mean-
ing “The Place of Big Big
Trees.” It was where Native
Americans camped while
on the way to trade at Celilo
Falls or picked camas in the
Willamette Valley, court
records show. Native Amer-
icans also used the site as a
burial ground and a place
for vision quests, prayer,
tobacco off erings, medicine
gathering, fi shing and hunt-
ing.
Tribal elders contended
the government had violated
a section of the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act by
destroying the site.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge
Youlee Yim You dismissed
the lawsuit in March 2018,
saying the elders did not
show that their right to exer-
WHATCOM COUNTY,
Wash. — A Washington agri-
culture department entomol-
ogist said Tuesday, Nov. 17, he
was hopeful that Asian giants
hornets have been contained
in Whatcom County and will
be eradicated.
Sven Spichiger told the
Senate agriculture commit-
tee that all four nests found
in the past two years were
grouped near the U.S.-Can-
ada border, about 110 miles
north of Seattle.
One hornet was trapped
less than a mile away in Brit-
ish Columbia in October,
but was probably a straggler
from one of the nests erad-
icated earlier in the U.S.,
Spichiger said.
No other hornet was
confi rmed on either side of
the border this summer or
fall, though the department,
other agencies and volunteers
put up more than 1,600 traps.
“We are very cautiously
optimistic that we still have
a very contained event,”
Spichiger told senators at a
pre-legislative session work-
shop.
“As long as we keep-
ing working on it and get
NATIONAL EXTREMES
the awesome support we’ve
gotten from everybody, we
can hopefully wrap this one
up,” he said. “We don’t often
get to say that with invasive
insects.”
Asian giant hornets are the
world’s largest hornets and
have a painful and occasion-
ally fatal sting to humans.
They prey on other insects,
including pollinators such as
honey bees.
T h e h o r n e t s we r e
unknown in North Amer-
ica until appearing in Brit-
ish Columbia and Whatcom
County in 2019. No nest has
been found in B.C., and sight-
ings have been rarer.
The Washington agricul-
ture department destroyed
one nest in October 2020 and
three more this year. The
nests were all within an area
about 3 miles long.
The department suspects
that unmated queens had
left the nest last year by the
time it was destroyed and
survived to form the three
nests eradicated this August
and September.
Nests this year were found
early enough to prevent
them from being the source
of more unmated queens,
department spokeswoman
Karla Salp said.
The department can’t
rule out that Asian giant
hornets have spread beyond
the immediate area of the
destroyed nests.
The department received
a photo Sept. 6 of a fl ying
insect near Mount Sumas,
farther east in Whatcom
County.
The insect resembled
an Asian giant hornet. The
department said the report
was concerning, but it could
not positively identify the
species.
Some Asian giant hornets
were trapped last year in
Whatcom County and Brit-
ish Columbia outside the area
where the nests were found.
One dead specimen was
found in June near Marys-
ville, about 80 miles south
of the eradicated nests. Ento-
mologists don’t know how
the hornet get there, but
believe it was from the previ-
ous year.
Salp said the department
probably will conduct a trap-
ping campaign in 2022 simi-
lar to the one this year.
Asian giant hornets have
shown they can survive
Northwest winters, she said.
Specimens put on ice in cool-
ers and even stored in freez-
ers have revived.
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 86° in Fort Myers, Fla. Low -3° in Lake George, Colo.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
Wallowa County nonprofi ts
win Umpqua Bank grants
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ENTERPRISE — Two Wallowa County
nonprofi ts were among the 77 recipients of
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The Josephy Center for Arts and Culture
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the grant application.
The latest round of community grant fund-
ing totaled $305,500 to local nonprofi ts across
fi ve states.
In total, the three rounds of community
grants contributed $1 million to community
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