East County Community Action Coalition

Native American

May 9th, 2009

The Powerlink will mar sacred landscapes that are known to be culturally significant to local tribes. The following are excerpts from the final EIR that only address the part of the Interstate 8 Alternative; this is just one example of the known unmitigible cost of the Powerlink.

There are 206 known cultural resources located within the 300-foot-wide survey corridor for the Interstate 8 Alternative.

C-4: Construction of the project would cause an adverse change to Traditional Cultural Properties (Class I or II)

Native American consultation has indicated that there are prehistoric rock art sites, springs, and sacred mountains in the vicinity of this alternative. Additionally, the Sacred Lands File search conducted for the alternatives noted that lands sacred to Native Americans are present in the vicinity of the alternatives, in undisclosed locations.

See link for more detail on this known impact: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/environment/info/aspen/sunrise/feir/E1_07%20Cultural.pdf

River of Tears on El Monte Valley

article by Laura Cyphert

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The El Monte Valley in Lakeside, is one of San Diego’s back-country gems. It’s most recognizable feature is El Cajon Mountain, (nicknamed “El Cap”) which is a 3,000 foot granite monolith jutting up from the river valley floor. An estimated 200,000 San Diegans visit this valley annually for a variety of recreational pursuits, including hiking, cycling, boating, fishing, paragliding, rock climbing and horse back riding.

While El Monte Valley is just 15 minutes from the City limits, this valley still retains the pristine views that were once gazed upon by the Kumeyaay people, whose ancestors lived on these lands. In fact, the area that is now known as El Capitan Reservoir and El Monte Park was formerly the location of a thriving Kumeyaay village.

In 1932, the City of San Diego built the El Capitan dam, and in the process forced out the Kumeyaay families that lived in the valley. To this day, the Kumeyaay people recount this tragedy as the “River of Tears.”

“I was six years old, and I can still remember watching the remnants of the Indian houses floating down the river,” recounts an 82 year old valley resident who has lived in the valley her entire life.

To this senior citizen and others who now reside in this valley, the pre-history of this region has not gone unnoticed. Most properties in the valley have numerous historic cultural sites, including remnants of the villages that once stood here.

The planned route of the Sunrise Powerlink blazes right through this historic valley, crossing over cultural sites and directly across the face of El Cajon Mountain.

When an SDG&E-hired archeologist was recently asked (last week) if SDG&E had surveyed this area for cultural sites, he said that his understanding is that this is planned for “sometime” in the future, though he was not sure when.

Surveys of cultural impacts are required as part of a complete environmental impact report, which means they should have been completed long before the route was even considered for approval.

The lack of consideration of cultural impacts is shocking to the people of this valley.

“If they had done the proper surveys and consultations before this route was approved, we would have raised these and other concerns,” said Milt Cyphert, valley resident.

SDG&E contends that there was public notification of the project, adding that it was only required to notify homeowners within 300 feet of the line.

Because the route runs through an undeveloped “designated scenic corridor”, there were few homeowners to notify. In addition, because there were no known on-site surveys until AFTER the approval, there were far less chances, risks, and opportunities for residents to discover that a project was in consideration.

“Cultural impacts are just one of the significant impacts they failed to consider,” adds Milt Cyphert.

“They also failed to consult with the local fire jurisdiction. Our local fire department is concerned because this project limits the ability of firefighters to fight fires in the valley, and it significantly increases the likelihood of a catastrophic wildfire.”

“If the proper procedures had been followed and they had still decided to plow over our cultural and natural resources, and subject us to renewable firestorms, that would have been unfortunate, but perhaps legal. However, the way they did this, bypassing our community and short-cutting the required process, is no different than what the City of San Diego did to the Kumeyaay people in 1932”.

“Not much has changed,” said Milt.

How Viejas Came To Be

Capitan Grande, about 35 miles east of San Diego, is the name of the canyon through which the San Diego River once ran. With abundant water, Kumeyaay Indians living there sustained themselves through farming.

In 1875, a presidential executive order withdrew lands from the federal domain, setting aside a number of small reservations, including the Capitan Grande Reservation from which the Viejas Band descended. Capitan Grande, patented in 1891, included portions of ancestral land of the Los Coñejos Band. In 1853, other Indians from Mission San Diego were given permission to locate on Capitan Grande by the federal Indian agent at the time. Over the years, other Indians were placed there, as well.

As the non-Indian population grew, demand for water increased. The city of San Diego built Lake Cuyamaca, laying its flume through the Capitan Grande Reservation and taking most of the San Diego River water originally used by the Kumeyaay. This left them only a small share from the city’s flume, resulting in crop losses on Indian farms. The city later decided to dam the river and take all of the water by creating El Capitan Reservoir. Though the Kumeyaay protested, Congress – at the wishes of land speculators and unknown to the Indians – granted the city permission to purchase the heart of the Capitan Grande Reservation, where many Kumeyaay had built homes. From the proceeds of this forced “sale” of lands, some of the valley’s inhabitants, the Coapan Band, or Capitan Grande, bought Barona Valley and are now known as the Barona Band of Mission Indians.

For more information on the history of the Kumeyaay, see this link.

Now the Sunrise Powerlink threatens this same valley and area of significant cultural significance.

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