Following is forwarded from an environmental list serve.
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ACTION ALERT
SIGN-ON LETTER TO PROTECT ENOLA HILL
Folks in Oregon have been fighting a battle to save Enola Hill for many
years. With passage of the "logging without laws" rider, the Forest
Service is poised to cut Enola Hill at any time. As the background
information points out, we may have a lever to protect this area in
spite of "logging without laws" because Enola Hill is a "traditional
cultural property".
We have been asked by the folks at the Cultural & Natural Heritage
Project and ONRC (Oregon Natural Resources Council) to circulate the
following resolution to you.
If you or your group wish to sign on to this resolution, please reply
via e-mail to me at [log in to unmask] Give us your name, group (if any),
and location.
The deadline for this resolution is COB April 5, 1996.
Thank you,
Roger Featherstone
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RESOLUTION AND DIRECTIVE TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
TO PRESERVE ENOLA HILL
April 5, 1996
WHEREAS, Enola Hill is a geographic feature and area within the Mt. Hood
National Forest in Oregon, USA, and bounded on the NW, N, and NE by the
Mt. Hood Wilderness Area; and
WHEREAS, Enola Hill is a traditional spiritual, religious and cultural
property of the indigenous Native American peoples of the Mid-Columbia
River Basin and Willamette River
Basin; and
WHEREAS, the treaty tribes of the 1855 treaties of the Oregon and
Washington Territories reserved their rights to gather, hunt and fish at
their usual and accustomed places; and
WHEREAS, the Yakama Indian Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Reservation on behalf of the Cayuse peoples publicly declared
in 1990 that Enola Hill is a usual and accustomed place for gathering
foods, pure water and medicines, and for the exercise of fundamental
religious, spiritual and cultural purposes; and
WHEREAS, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians affirmed in their
Resolution #90-41, duly passed at their annual convention in Warm
Springs, Oregon on October 2-5 1990, that Enola Hill has been a sacred
mountain to the Yakama peoples since time immemorial and must be
preserved; and
WHEREAS, the Secretary of the Interior, by and through the Keeper of the
National Register, at the request of the President's Advisory Council on
Historic Preservation on behalf of the Yakama Indian Nation , is
presently identifying the full extent of the outer boundary of the area
involving Enola Hill and Zig Zag Mountain to be officially determined to
be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in
accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act as a Native
American traditional cultural property; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. Forest Service has deliberately disregarded all bona
fide information demonstrating that Enola Hill is irrefutably a
traditional cultural property of the highest order to the Native
American peoples of the region; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. Forest Service manages the Enola Hill area as part of
the commercial timber base, and has proceeded with logging plans under
section 318 of the 1990 Interior Appropriations Act and the 1995 salvage
rider (PL 104-19); and
WHEREAS, the 1995 salvage rider does not abrogate Indian treaty rights
nor abrogate the U.S. government's trust responsibility to the members
of the 1855 treaty tribes; and
WHEREAS, the Enola Hill Timber Sale contract, Item C6.24#, expressly
reserves the right of the Forest Service to, "unilaterally modify or
cancel this contract to protect an area...which is or may be entitled to
protection under [the National Historic Preservation Act, etc.]
regardless of when the area...is discovered or identified."; and
WHEREAS, the President is our duly elected chief executive officer; and
WHEREAS, on April 29, 1994, President Clinton met with some 200 leaders
of American Indian tribes at the White House and made the following
statements and commitment:
I promise to continue my efforts to protect your right to fully
exercise your religion as you wish. Let me talk a minute about
the issue of religious freedom because I feel strongly about it.
For many of you, traditional religions and ceremonies are the
essence of your culture and existence. Last year I was very
pleased to sign a law that restored certain Constitutional
protections for those who want to express their faith [Religious
Freedom Restoration Act of 1993].
No agenda for religious freedom will be complete until traditional
Native American religious practices have received the protections
that they deserve.
IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED THAT the undersigned demand that the President of
the United States immediately and forever cancel the Enola Hill Timber
Sale in fulfillment of the trust responsibility and treaty rights of the
1855 treaty tribes and the people of the United States as their
executive on their behalf; and
IT IS HEREBY FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the undersigned demand that the
President of the United States completely fulfill his fiduciary duties
to the Native Americans of the Mid- Columbia Basin region as the
executive trustee on behalf of the people of the United States, by
immediately ordering that the Enola Hill area be immediately removed
from the commercial timber base and be managed as a Native American
Traditional Cultural Property Preserve in partnership with those 1855
treaty tribes whose traditional cultural property it is.
Signed,
you and/or your group
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Background on Enola Hill
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SAVE ENOLA HILL
There is a place called Enola Hill, on the other side of Mt. Hood,
that we've been trying to save because they want to cut down all the
trees. That's one of the places where we used to take the children to
stay for five days. A spirit animal would come and become a part of
that child and live with them throughout their life. That child might
one day become a medicine person and heal with that spirit.
--Sylvia Walulatuma, Warm Springs elder, Simnasho, Oregon, 1994.
Enola Hill rises steeply to an elevation of 3,200 feet from the
eastern edge of the town of Rhododendron, Oregon. A prominent arm of
Zig Zag Mountain, Enola Hill is bounded along its northern side by the
Mt. Hood Wilderness Area. The peak of Mt. Hood ("Wy'east") is visible
to the northeast whenever Enola is not enveloped in its seasonal mists.
Lurching plans by the U.S. Forest Service to log Enola Hill over the
past two decades have been a matter of great alarm to Native Americans,
environmentalists, historic preservationists and ordinary citizens in
Oregon and across the country for many years. There have been three
lawsuits filed to protect Enola since 1990. Enola Hill III is currently
on appeal in the 9th Circuit, combatting the 1995 salvage rider on
treaty rights, trust responsibility and constitutional grounds..
After initial legal success by a grassroots coalition of Native
Americans and environmentalists in 1991, the Enola Hill Timber Sale is
the last remaining 318 sale in the Mt. Hood N.F. and the logging could
begin any day. The clean air, the pure water, and the isolation
available on Enola Hill (Enola was named by the Oregon Trail pioneer
Elsie Creighton--"Enola" is Alone spelled backwards) are some of the
outstanding attributes listed by Native Americans and locals alike.
o In 1992, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) publicly declared: "Enola Hill
is a national treasure that must be preserved."
o Some of the few remaining Lower Columbia wild coho salmon still return
to spawn in the waters that flow off of the hill into the Zigzag and
Sandy Rivers.
o Cougars roam Enola Hill's steep cliffs and overlooks year-round. In
fact, the western overlook is called Cougar Lookout.
o In 1989, a nesting pair of spotted owls was located just over a mile
away.
o Since time immemorial, Enola Hill has been host to a panoply of Native
American traditional cultural activities ranging from hunting to food
and medicine gathering to vision questing.
o Dozens of homes in the community of Rhododendron receive their
drinking water from Henry Creek which flows from the top of Enola Hill.
o In 1987, a Forest Service timber staff employee publicly stated that
with all of the outstanding natural and cultural resources present on
Enola Hill: "if we can log there, we can log anywhere."
o The USFS' own hand-picked Citizen's Task Force on Enola Hill voted 10-
2 against any logging ever on Enola Hill and wrote to Zigzag District
Ranger Donna Lamb on May 4, 1988: "If the USFS persists in its efforts
to log Enola Hill, the undersigned group will do all in its power to
stop that process."
o The Yakama Indian Nation has made it clear that Enola Hill "is a
sacred site to the Yakama Indian Nation." (Sept. 11, 1990 letter to the
Secretary of the Interior).
As Walter Speedis, Cascades Klickitat elder and Senior Cultural
Assistant, Yakama Indian Nation, later testified on December 16, 1992 in
Enola Hill II:
Because I was born in a beautiful environment: clean air, clean
water, clean land, with rivers flowing--where there is fish on
both sides of the Columbia River and salmon and different species
on each side...and in order to, with the beautiful world that was
created on this earth, to be a part of that land, I must seek
assistance, spiritual assistance--so I seek Enola Hill with that
spiritual quest.
o The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have told
the USFS that the Enola Hill area has "traditional cultural values" to
tribal members, especially the Cayuse peoples. (Nov. 16, 1990 letter to
Mt. Hood NF Supervisor).
o The Clackamas County Board of Commissioners, noting that Enola Hill
"sits in an area which is rich in history and pioneer and Indian
culture," has "serious questions regarding the wisdom of logging this
area."
o The Western Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
recently identified Enola Hill as the most threatened historical site in
Oregon.
The late, great Dr. David French, former Professor of Anthropology
at Reed College and long regarded by scientists and Indians alike as one
of the greatest anthropologists and experts on Indian life in Oregon,
has described what is at stake:
Enola Hill is a highly unusual place, like Mecca, towards which
people came for pilgrimage. As time went on, this place indeed
became unique. There's no place in Oregon or in the Northwest--
Idaho, Washington, Western Montana included--in which so many
representatives of various populations of villages and groups came
to know the place and have continued to go back. They went there
because they were headed for the berry fields, they were crossing
the mountains to see relatives; but in due course, word got around
that this place had collectively a number of sacred sites, so that
the mountain itself began to acquire an overall sacred aura.
There is no place in the Northwest which is such a great source
and place of spiritual power. No place is more suitable for the
National Register than this in terms of Indian life.
Enola Hill must be preserved for all time.
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