CALIFORNIA ALBUM : Indian Tribe Challenges Plan for Gold Mine : Venture in Panamint Valley has county and federal go-ahead, but Native Americans are trying to block it. They say that the ground is culturally significant, and that no one consulted them on the project.

In the late 1800s, the Panamint Valley in southern Inyo County metamorphosed from a barren desert into a bustling gold and silver mining region worked by thousands of miners. After the mines played out, the desert communities that had quickly sprouted turned into ghost towns.

In recent years, the remote, desolate valley just outside the western boundary of Death Valley National Park has been a haven mostly for transient desert rats and a handful of permanent residents.

Few in Inyo County objected when Canyon Resources Corp., a large international mining firm based in Colorado, proposed a major gold mining operation in the valley in 1992 using new technology that made it economically feasible once again.

Officials in the county seat of Independence saw the proposed operation--known as the Briggs mine--as a potentially valuable source of tax revenue and a boost to the economy in the sparsely populated southern end of the county.

But three years later, with governmental OKs mostly in place, the mine faces a new threat from an Indian tribe with roots in the Panamint Valley. Once largely ignored by federal officials, the small tribe was recognized by the federal government in 1983 and has no reservation.

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Newly empowered by provisions of the California Desert Protection Act, the Timbisha Shoshone are alarmed that the proposed mine is on culturally significant land that it is eyeing as part of a reservation. The tribe also says that government officials have never consulted with them about the mine project, and the officials are scrambling to respond.

The tribe charges that the county violated state law and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated federal law by failing to properly notify and consult with them about the project. The tribe also charges that the mine would damage an irreplaceable part of its ancestral homeland. It has threatened to appeal recent government decisions approving the project and file a federal lawsuit if those appeals are unsuccessful.

The 276 tribe members, 40 of whom live inside Death Valley National Park, only last year got help in finding land for a reservation. The California Desert Protection Act passed by Congress last year establishing Death Valley National Park provided for a study to find lands suitable for a reservation on the tribe’s ancestral homeland, which includes land inside the national park.

Frederick Marr, a California Indian Legal Services attorney representing the tribe, said that the land where the mine would be located is one of the areas most important to the tribe.

“As part of the Desert Protection Act, the tribe and the Department of Interior have initiated the study to identify lands to be restored to the tribe, and one of the 12 areas that they have designated as being important for restoration for spiritual and cultural reasons directly overlays the area where Canyon proposes to do its mining. In fact, of the 12 areas, this ranks second or third in importance.”

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Pauline Esteves, a Timbisha Tribal Council member and chairwoman of the tribe’s Historic Preservation Committee, said that a hot springs near the mining site was a traditional tribal healing place, and that there were also tribal burial sites in the area.

The tribe’s concerns were heightened when environmental groups contended that the mining project could cause permanent damage to the environment, and also pose hazards to the health and safety of those using the area.

Jane Williams of Rosamond, a member of the Desert Citizens Against Pollution, criticized the design of the project, which uses the relatively new cyanide heap leach process. She said the site was dangerous because it was only 100 feet from an active earthquake fault.

Malfunctions caused by design flaws or a major earthquake could cause cyanide to leak and poison the ground water underneath the valley, she said.

Williams also said that Canyon Resources, in its 1994 annual report, outlined plans to explore its claims across a 17,000-acre swath of the Panamint Valley for possible mining development, which she said was not made clear in its environmental documents. Marr said many of those claim sites are even closer to some of the key Timbisha areas.

The attorney for Williams’ group, Roger Flynn of the Western Mining Action Project, based in Boulder, Colo., said, “Canyon talks about this block of claims in the Panamint area in its annual report, yet the environmental impact statement says there is no long-term plan here. So the company is saying one thing to attract investors, and the environmental document is saying another thing, downplaying the long-term impacts of this type of mining in that area.”

A spokesman for the mining company declined to make any comment about the Timbisha claims, but said that the project was designed to withstand a major earthquake, and that other complaints about its design were erroneous.

“We believe that the great potential for leakage is somewhere up there with the great potential that a large meteor might strike the project,” said Conrad Parrish, manager of environmental affairs for Canyon Resources.

He said that although the company did intend to explore its other claims in the Panamint Range, that did not necessarily mean there would be mining operations in those areas.

“We believe the Panamint Range is an area of good potential, but the ore bodies that we are looking for may not exist,” he said.

Marr said the tribal government’s objections came late because it failed to receive proper notification about the project until this spring, when the environmental review process was nearly completed.

He contended that the county violated the California Environmental Quality Act and that the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to properly notify or consult with the Timbisha as a separate interested government.

Inyo County planning officials said that the environmental review process was conducted jointly with the BLM, and that the county relied on a registered notification letter sent to the tribe by the federal agency. Inyo County Planning Director Peter Chamberlin said that consulting with the tribe was a federal rather county responsibility.

However, Marr said the county had a separate responsibility under state law to consult with the Timbisha, and also that the letter sent by the BLM was never received by the tribal government.

Ahmed Mohsen, BLM environmental coordinator who worked on the Briggs project, insisted that the agency had made a diligent effort to contact the Timbisha, but acknowledged that the tribe might not have received proper notification or consultation.

“It was never our intention to overlook the tribe,” he said. “We’re learning from this process.”