INBOX.Sent_Items&aEml...

Transcription

1 INBOX.Sent_Items&aEml... 4/1/ Web-Based FERC PDF :: Print (Unofficial) 4/2/2010 2:58:30 AM Page 1 of 3 Print Close Window Subject: Comment on FERC's Final EIS on Ruby Pipeline relative to Pollution Concerns From: chairman@summitlaketribe.org Date: Thu, Apr 01, :17 pm To: blmruby@blm.gov Dear Mr. Mackiewicz, On behalf of the Summit Lake Paiute Council, governing body of the federally recognized Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, and a Ruby Pipeline affected Tribe, I submit this Comment on the FERC Final EIS and BLM's Record of Decision on the Ruby Pipeline Project, FERC Docket CP as instructed in the Cover Letter to the Final EIS at page 3, and by your letter, extending the Comment period to today. A copy of this will be electronically filed with FERC. The Summit Lake Paiute Council (Council) represents and speaks for 120 members of the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe. The Final EIS is incomplete and should be rejected by BLM, and BLM should initiate its own Environmental Impact Statement. Moreover, no Record of Decision should be issued until after the Tribe has its Site Visit. Because of poor jeep trail conditions caused by deep snow, BLM was not able to complete its March 27, 2010 Site Visit which the Council had long requested. At the February 20, 2010 Council Meeting, BLM officials finally agreed to give the Council the Ruby Pipeline Site Visit it had long sought in accordance with federal rules. The proposed March 13, 2010 BLM Site Visit had to be cancelled on March 12, 2010 because the roads leading to the Summit Lake Reservation and the Proposed Route of the Ruby Pipeline north, northwest and northeast of the Summit Lake Reservation were blocked by ice and snow. On March 12, or employee could only drive one half-mile into the Reservation from the Gerlach Road before inclement weather and poor road and jeep trail conditions forced him to stop and turn around and leave the area. FERC has inadequately addressed the pollution concerns of the Tribe, and the environmental injustice that will be once again imposed on the members of the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe by the federal government. What FERC proposes to permit by way of dust, light, noise, vibration, and other forms of pollution, as well as the very possible damage to the water quality and flow of our sacred One Mile Spring, whose waters filter down from the rock formations (where Ruby Pipeline plans to dynamite parts of the rock formation and construct its pipeline) onto the Reservation, is no different, and not that long ago in our memory, than what the U.S. Army subjected our ancestors to by way of their dust, light, noise, vibration, and other forms of pollution prior to, during, and after the construction of Camp McGerry whose structures, dumps, and other features that still stand, polluting, the Summit Lake Reservation not but a short distance from our beloved Mahogany Creek. Ruby Pipeline causes the same injury and hurt to our members and relatives of our ancestors of several generations ago that the federal government inflicted on our ancestors but several generations ago when the U.S. stole our lands for public use, which according to Omer C. Stewart and the Indian Claims Commission were at least 2,800 square miles around the current Summit Lake Reservation. Despite our past Councils efforts to regain a small portion

2 INBOX.Sent_Items&aEml... 4/1/ Web-Based FERC PDF :: Print (Unofficial) 4/2/2010 2:58:30 AM Page 2 of 3 of what was stolen from us, including the short space of land between the Reservation and the Sheldon NWR where Ruby now plans to construction its pipeline, the land we hold sacred and so dear will be raped by Ruby Pipeline. This pipeline project has never been about one pipeline. Within a relatively short period, Ruby will be back to rape the land again to bury another pipeline or another company will use the right-of-way for another purpose thus forever destroying the beautiful view we have of our sacred sites and objects. In the attachment to this , is Council Resolution SL which explains what this Tribe holds sacred. These sacred items have great meaning to us, however, they are polluted and stolen and thus treated disrespectfully by many people who travel through our territory. Other federal agencies, like the March 22, 2010 Comment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the Final EIS are so contradictory that it would be laughable if the pollution impacts of the pipeline's construction were not so devastating to the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe and other Ruby Pipeline affected Tribes. In their March 22, 2010 Comment, EPA, like FERC and others, have expressed the view like EPA that the "overall footprint of the Black Rock alternative [and thus use] would have created a larger environmental footprint...." (see EPA Comment at page 2). However, what EPA and other fail to realize is that west of the Summit Lake Reservation the Proposed Route becomes the Black Rock alternative. Thus selection of the Proposed Route is selection of the richest areas of habitat and species of the Black Rock alternative. Also in their March 22, 2010 Comment, EPA, like FERC and others, have expressed the view like EPA, without any demonstration of legal analysis, and only conclusory statements, that "the proposed is the least environmentally damaging alternative under the legal constraints presented by the NWR's statutory mandate...." (See EPA Comment at page 2. Because EPA failed to address FERC's directive to Ruby to provide the Highway 140 easement or right-of-way documents and failed to analyze the new route that FERC directed Ruby to draft entirely within the Highway 140 easement or right-of-way, EPA's Comment, immediately above, which stands NEPA on its head, should be rejected. As BLM's Mile-by-Mile Analysis proved, and given NWR's failure, and Ruby's refusal, to do any similar environmental studies along Highway 140, which only cuts across the NWR's northeast corner, not the entire NWR, proving that the Highway 140 Route is the least environmentally damaging route for the Ruby Pipeline, BLM should refuse to issue a Record of Decision supporting the Proposed Route. The Tribe would also like to again voice concern over the lack of any environmental studies of the Jungo-Tuscarora Route. The Tribe continues to believe that Ruby somehow, unfairly, exerts some influence over the NEPA process. The Tribe believes that the reasons the State of California fined El Paso $1.7 Billion dollars in 2001, and possible settlement terms for that fine, fail to give the Tribe a fair opportunity to have that route studied as required by NEPA. Clearly that route, like the Highway 140 Route, is also least environmentally damaging. Thank you for affording me this opportunity to comment on behalf of the Council and members of the Tribe. Sincerely, Warner Barlese

3 INBOX.Sent_Items&aEml... 4/1/ Web-Based FERC PDF :: Print (Unofficial) 4/2/2010 2:58:30 AM Page 3 of 3 Warner Barlese, Chairman Summit Lake Paiute Council SUMMIT LAKE PAIUTE TRIBE 1708 H Street Sparks, NV (775) (775) fax Copyright All rights reserved.

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 INBOX.Sent_Items&aEml... 4/1/ Web-Based FERC PDF :: Print (Unofficial) 4/2/2010 2:58:30 AM Page 1 of 2 Print Close Window Subject: Comment on FERC's Final EIS on Ruby Pipeline relative to Cultural Resource Concerns From: chairman@summitlaketribe.org Date: Thu, Apr 01, :46 pm To: blmruby@blm.gov Dear Mr. Mackiewicz, On behalf of the Summit Lake Paiute Council, governing body of the federally recognized Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, and a Ruby Pipeline affected Tribe, I submit this Comment on the FERC Final EIS on the Ruby Pipeline Project, FERC Docket CP as instructed in the Cover Letter to the Final EIS at page 3, and by your letter, extending the Comment period to today. A copy of this will be electronically filed with FERC. The Summit Lake Paiute Council (Council) represents and speaks for 120 members of the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe. The Final EIS is incomplete and should be rejected by BLM, and BLM should initiate its own Environmental Impact Statement. Moreover, because the BLM Site Visit of March 27, 2010 was not completed the Record of Decision should not be issued. Because of poor jeep trail conditions caused by deep snow, BLM was not able to complete its March 27, 2010 Site Visit which the Council had long requested. At the February 20, 2010 Council Meeting, BLM officials finally agreed to give the Council the Ruby Pipeline Site Visit it had long sought in accordance with federal rules. The proposed March 13, 2010 BLM Site Visit had to be cancelled on March 12, 2010 because the roads leading to the Summit Lake Reservation and the Proposed Route of the Ruby Pipeline north, northwest and northeast of the Summit Lake Reservation were blocked by ice and snow. On March 12, or employee could only drive one half-mile into the Reservation from the Gerlach Road before inclement weather and poor road and jeep trail conditions forced him to stop and turn around and leave the area. FERC and Ruby Pipeline and Ruby's archaeological contractor and firms have inadequately addressed, as numerous BLM Field and other Offices have stated (see e.g., Attachment 1 (BLM's Elko District Office letter, dated February 5, 2010), Attachment 2 (BLM's Winnemucca District Office letter, dated February 5, 2010), and Attachment 3 (BLM's Surprise Field Office letter, dated February 3, 2010) to the Letter, J. Rich McGuire, Chief, FERC Gas Branch 1, Division of Gas - Environmental and Engineering, to Ronald James, SHPO, Attn: Rebecca Palmer, Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, dated March 19, 2010; see also Letter, BLM Klamath Falls Resource Area Office (on file with FERC) (advising that EPG, Ruby contractor, did nothing it promised prior to a date in December 2009 and has not done since what it promised). As the partially completed March 27, 2010 BLM Site Visit north and northeast of the Summit Lake Reservation identified, there are significant, important, historical, cultural and other resources, that the Ruby Pipeline archaeological firms did not identify. If the BLM Site Visit to the northeast of the Summit Lake Reservation had been completed many more significant, important, historical, cultural and other resources would have been identified.

11 INBOX.Sent_Items&aEml... 4/1/ Web-Based FERC PDF :: Print (Unofficial) 4/2/2010 2:58:30 AM Page 2 of 2 As Maps (see Appendix B: Maps, Ruby Pipeline Final Interim Survey and Evaluation Report, Elko, Humboldt and Washoe Counties, Nevada (by William Hildebrandt, et al., March 2010, Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc.) demonstrate, the construction of the Ruby Pipeline on the Proposed Route would damage or destroy thousands of sacred objects and sites. See Summit Lake Paiute Council Resolution Sl (attached). For all these reasons and those BLM officials observed during the partial Site Visit, the Record of Decision should not be issued and the Highway 1240 Route should be selected. Thank you for affording me this opportunity to comment on behalf of the Council and members of the Tribe. Sincerely, Warner Barlese Warner Barlese, Chairman Summit Lake Paiute Council SUMMIT LAKE PAIUTE TRIBE 1708 H Street Sparks, NV (775) (775) fax Copyright All rights reserved.

12

13

14

15

16

17

18 FERC PDF (Unofficial) 4/2/2010 2:58:30 AM Document Content(s) Comment 1 FERC Final EIS Docket CP PDF Comment 2 FERC Final EIS Docket CP PDF