Native American Mother Being Sued by a Mining Company

“I’m just a Native mother who disagrees with open pit mining on my ancestral homeland.”

This is the second in a series of articles introducing the Thacker Pass Six, a group of traditional indigenous people and grassroots activists who are being sued by a Canadian mining company called Lithium Nevada Corporation. Bhie-Cie was interviewed by Max Wilbert.

This is Bhie-Cie Zahn-Nahtzu, a member of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Te-Moak Shoshone and Washoe by blood. She is a mother of 4, artist, and small-business owner. She is multi-talented as a seamstress who also does design and graphic arts.

Much of her art reflects her love for her cultures and Native plants. She has a one-acre allotment on the Hungry Valley Indian Reservation and has turned it into a micro-certified wildlife habitat. She tends her flock of chickens and composts family food scraps to support her organic gardening efforts. She loves to spend her time with her hands in the earth, gathering and sharing seeds in an effort to give the precious pollinators a safe and beautiful place to exist.

Bhie-Cie first came to Peehee Mu’huh in 2021, visiting the land defense camp with her children and walking all across the land to visit with plant relatives and taking in the night sky without other light pollution. When asked why she joined the action to defend Peehee Mu’huh, Bhie-Cie says, “I’m just a Native mother who disagrees with the open pit mining. It’s not that I really wanted to go out there and be uncomfortable and worry about losing my freedom every day. But I was in a unique position, being self-employed, that I was able to go. I understand most people have to keep their job, they don’t have the freedom to pursue something that they believe in.”

Now, Bhie-Cie is being sued by Lithium Nevada Corporation, a fully-owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas. The suit is a civil case, which means that the company is seeking to get money from Bhie-Cie and her co-defendants.

Here’s Bhie-Cie’s full statement, in her own words:

“I grew up with my traditional grandparents who were boarding school survivors. They gave me a strong background in being Native and loving the land and the concept that we are all related. I love being here on the Earth with the plants, animals, art, beauty, colors, and sunshine.

When I was out there [at Peehee Mu’huh / Thacker Pass] I was uplifted by a lot of people. I had neighbors and friends sending me five or ten dollars, saying ‘Hey, I support you,’ or showing up in my driveway and dropping off wood, water and supplies to take out to the other land defenders. We were there in a representative role. There were a lot of people who were out there in spirit but only a few of us were lucky enough to be able to coordinate our lives to physically be out there.

I’m not a materialistic person so the lithium mine can’t take a lot of things away from me. And as I understand a SLAPP lawsuit is trying to bring me embarrassment. But I have a pretty good sense of humor and I embarrass myself on purpose all the time; so I guess they can’t even shame me.

I’m not capable of engaging the legal fight, wading through stacks of paperwork full of legal jargon. I consider it a blessing that I’m slapped with a major multi-million dollar lawsuit and able to just toss it in a drawer and decide I’m not going to let that touch my everyday life. Supporters can help by contributing to our legal fund, sign the petition, learning how mining harms communities, and becoming more aware of environmental injustices everywhere. I appreciate all of our supporters so I can do my art, take care of my home and children, be in my garden, and connect back to the things that I love.

For more information visit Protectthackerpass.org.”

Bethany Sam’s statement is forthcoming.

Meet the Pro-Democracy Organizer Being Sued by a Mining Company

“We the People have the Constitutional authority to dismantle corporate control of our society”

This is the third in a series of articles introducing the Thacker Pass Six, a group of traditional indigenous people and grassroots activists who are being sued by a Canadian mining company called Lithium Nevada Corporation. Paul was interviewed by Max Wilbert.

This is Paul Cienfuegos, a longtime community organizer and teacher based in Portland, Oregon. Now in his sixties, Paul has worked on numerous issues including nuclear power, nuclear disarmament, ancient forest protection, bioregionalism, Native sovereignty, and local economic development.

I first met Paul back in 2010, when he led a workshop about corporate personhood and other Constitutional rights in the small rural town of Mount Vernon, Washington. At the workshop, Paul taught us about how business corporations were illegitimately granted constitutional “rights” by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing them to exercise free speech, donate to and lobby politicians, own property, and so on.

“We have to end this ongoing legal attack on our society,” Paul told us. “We the People have the Constitutional authority to dismantle corporate control of our society”

Paul first visited the Protect Thacker Pass land defense camp in the spring of 2021, when he spent several days camping, exploring the area, and meeting with local people. During that time, he came to see the importance of the land and the greenwashing behind the lithium mine.

This led Paul to a deeper level of commitment, and in the spring of 2023 he joined Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone elders on-site for the prayer actions that interrupted Lithium Nevada’s destruction of the land.

Now, Paul is being sued by Lithium Nevada Corporation, a fully-owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas Corporation. The suit is a civil case, which means that the company is seeking to get money from Paul and his co-defendants.

Here’s Paul’s statement, in his own words:

“My name is Paul Cienfuegos. I have been a life-long grassroots community organizer and workshop leader. I’m now 65 and semi-retiring, although social change work is in my blood, and the Thacker Pass mine outrage has boiled that blood sufficiently to get me involved as best as I could from afar. I live in Portland, Oregon.

For the past 28 years, I have been a leader in the Community Rights movement (www.CommunityRights.US), which works to dismantle the insanity of granting “personhood” and other so-called constitutional “rights” to business corporations. We help local communities to pass legally groundbreaking ordinances (local laws) that ban these very corporations from causing (entirely legal) harm in these communities, and that enshrine new rights of self-governing authority at the local government level. Since 1999, our movement has assisted more than 200 communities in a dozen states in passing such laws to reign in out-of-control mega-corporations. I am not aware of any other movement in the US that has such an impressive track record.

I spent most of my childhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico, growing up in an endless white suburb. A kind of dead zone for my soul. It was a rough childhood, even though my family was reasonably functional. Even then, as a teenager, I would tell my friends that we were living “in an endtime.” I could already see with my own eyes the collapse of society and nature, way back in the 1970’s. No one around me had any clue what I was talking about.

My first love, since my youth, has been wild nature. I am an avid backpacker and kayaker. Deep nature is where I go to connect to spirit. And these past five years (at least) every time I go backpacking, I notice the death throes of yet another sacred landscape. Miles of wild berry bushes that didn’t get pollinated that Spring. An utter lack of scat on the trails. The dawn and dusk chorus of songbirds growing ever more faint with every year. And this is happening in deep nature, miles from any direct civilizational impact at all.

We are witnessing the slow-motion collapse of the living world. It’s downright terrifying. So when I heard about Protect Thacker Pass’s impressive grassroots mobilization to try to stop the massacre of this high desert sagebrush wilderness, I jumped at the opportunity to participate.

Sadly but unsurprisingly, the corporate state that we live in has no honest mechanisms for acknowledging and responding to Native and non-Native demands / pleas regarding the protection of wild lands. Our US system of governance is designed to APPEAR to be a functioning democratic republic, but is in actuality just the reverse. Rule by corporations and the 1%. Elected leaders who serve that constituency. Our legal structures and our Constitution itself are DESIGNED that way. It’s not an anomaly. So the fact that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ran roughshod over concerns of locals, that the courts rubber stamped the BLM’s violation of its own regulations, that even the local indigenous communities had ultimately no say at all as they now watch their sacred lands destroyed. None of this surprises me at all, because I understand the structures of law, hidden in plain sight, that are functioning at every level of governance in the US.

I was proud to participate in two different nonviolent direct actions last year at Thacker Pass, and so was not at all surprised when I became one of seven defendants being charged with a whole myriad of quite ridiculous charges. It is scary to be in such a vulnerable position with a legal system that ALWAYS defends property and corporate constitutional “rights” over the rights of local indigenous peoples, and the wildlife that occupies these gorgeous landscapes. Of course, we all hope for the best regarding the legal outcome of this ridiculous lawsuit. And I couldn’t be prouder of the group of folks I participated with at the mine site. All of them brave and articulate and passionate.

Please consider making a donation of any size to help us with our considerable legal expenses. Please copy and share what I have written here with your own friends, co-workers and family members. Do your best to break out of the conventional environmentalist mindset that insists that we have no choice but to continue to dig up and poison Mother Earth for the so-called sustainable society that we’re being promised, if only we will go along with the latest mega-mine or mega-solar-farm or mega ocean-based wind turbine nightmare. On the one planet we call home. Nowhere else to go. So let’s all do everything we can to keep it habitable for all living beings, into the distant future. Thank you!”

This Poet and Tribal Attorney is Being Sued by a Mining Company

“Protecting Peehee Mu’huh is an act of love and gratitude.”

This is the fifth in a series of articles introducing the Thacker Pass Six, a group of traditional indigenous people and grassroots activists who are being sued by a Canadian mining company called Lithium Nevada Corporation. Will was interviewed by Max Wilbert.

This is Will Falk, a poet, attorney, and community organizer who currently lives in Colorado.

For the last decade, Will has dedicated his life to protecting our planet. In 2014, he moved to Canada to support an indigenous-led pipeline blockade at the Unist’ot’en Camp, in northern British Columbia. In 2015, he shivered near the summit of Mauna Kea for weeks, supporting Hawaiian people defending their sacred site from planned construction.

In 2017, traveled much of the length of the Colorado River, reporting on the threats to the ecosystem. Later that year, he was part of the first ever lawsuit filed on behalf of a major ecosystem in the United States, in a case called Colorado River vs. The State of Colorado. And in 2019, he traveled along the Ohio River, along whose banks he was born, to do the same.

Will has openly and bravely documented his journey from attempting suicide twice to representing Native American Tribes in Federal Court litigation at Thacker Pass. When I decided to setup the Protect Thacker Pass protest camp in late 2020, the first person I called was Will. He was with me throughout the entire campaign.

In April 2023, Will was at Thacker Pass as a legal observer. However, when Dean Barlese (who was in a wheelchair) needed someone to move him across an invisible legal boundary, Will volunteered. For that simple action, Lithium Nevada Corporation is suing him.

Here’s Will’s statement, in his own words.

“My name is Will Falk. I’m 37 years old, and I’m a poet, activist, and attorney.

I was born in Evansville, IN. My family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah when I was 11. I went to college at the University of Dayton and law school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I’ve lived all over North America in my adult life. I currently live in Castle Rock, CO.

I’m in love with the natural world. I love the smell of spring rain on sagebrush. I love western meadowlarks singing from sagebrush tops. I love listening to the conversations shared by crows. I love letting golden eagle flight patterns hypnotize me. I love the peace that remains after Great Basin blizzards. I love dancing to the music of greater sage grouse drumming. I love Mormon cricket migrations. I love wondering who painted Jerusalem crickets in their vibrant colors. I love the natural world who gives me and everyone I love life.

I want to protect Peehee Mu’huh because she is my friend and I love her. I lived with Peehee Mu’huh for most of 2021. She showed me all her moods: her cold, pristine calm in winter, her swelling, blooming joy in spring, her blazing heat and the sweetness of her shade under stone outcrops in summer, her golden hope in flowering rabbit brush in fall. She showed me all of my kin whom she provides a home for. She showed me pronghorn antelope yearlings sprinting for the pure joy in being fast. She showed me coyotes playing pranks on cattle. She showed me the mesmerizing patterns on rattlesnake skin. She dazzled me with every sunrise and sunset. She whispered her wisdom in the ever-present wind. She offered me peace. She quieted my mind. She soothed my spirit.

I love her and all the creatures whom she provides a home for. Protecting Peehee Mu’huh is, for me, an act of love and gratitude.

Facing this lawsuit is scary. We face potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for peacefully protesting and praying at Peehee Mu’huh. Lithium Nevada Corporation has successfully gained an injunction from the court which means we cannot return to Peehee Mu’huh. It’s heartbreaking not to be able to return. The court process takes a long time and is slow-moving. Not knowing what is going to happen to us in court is deeply-anxiety provoking.

The best way people can support us is financially. I am not licensed in Nevada. So, we have to conduct our legal defense through a local Nevada attorney. Attorney fees are expensive and our ability to defend ourselves depends on being able to pay our local Nevada attorney.”

This Uncle, Author, and Community Organizer is Being Sued by a Mining Company

“I keep fighting to make a better world, because I love my family, my community, and our world.”

This is the last in a series of articles introducing the Thacker Pass Six, a group of traditional indigenous people and grassroots activists who are being sued by a Canadian mining company called Lithium Nevada Corporation. This piece is guest authored by Will Falk.

This is Max Wilbert.

I first met Max in 2014 at a small gathering of biophilic activists in Moab, Utah. Over the last ten years, Max has become one of my dearest friends. So, when he called me in 2020 and asked me to join him in trying to stop a lithium mine, I was immediately interested. Here we are, four years later, and the fight continues.

I am constantly in awe of Max’s skills as a community organizer and the way he shows up to do the difficult work of grassroots environmental activism day in and day out.

Max explained to me:

“I’m 36 years old. I work part-time on a bunch of different projects. I work as a wilderness guide taking middle-school kids into National Parks on backpacking expeditions. I’m also the co-author of a book called “Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It,” and I write a newsletter on Substack called Biocentric. I also run an educational mentorship for activists, and I have a part-time job as a Publicist for a small non-profit organization called the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

I grew up in Seattle, Washington. We didn’t have much money, but my parents prioritized taking us camping and hiking as much as possible, so I came to love nature and animals. I started guiding people into nature when I was in high school through a student-led outdoor program, and never stopped.

I was 11 years old when the World Trade Organization held their conference in Seattle. In response, a major protest movement formed which brought together unions, environmentalists, indigenous people, anti-imperialists, and normal people from every walk of life. We all had a shared understanding that more power for corporations and the wealthy meant bad outcomes for the rest of us and the planet.

This had a huge influence on me, even though I was young. To me, the transition from loving nature to defend it was simple. I started writing papers on the destruction of the planet and the need for people’s movements to resist and build alternatives by the time I was fourteen.

A big reason for me to do this work is my family. I don’t have any kids of my own yet, but I have two young nephews, age seven and four. I’m really worried about their future. Our planet is being destroyed. Between global warming, chemical pollution, biodiversity collapse, and all the other issues, the future is scary.

But I keep fighting to make a better world, because I love my family, my community, and our world. There is so much worth fighting for. Clean water, clean air. Healthy habitat and wildlife populations. I’m a hunter, so I feed myself and my loved ones from intact habitat that can support healthy herds.

The first time I visited Thacker Pass, I completely fell in love with the place. The land is so incredibly beautiful and vibrant. I still remember the first sunset, wild bees pollinating the blooming rabbitbrush, and the stars coming out as night fell. The sky up there is so incredibly dark. At least, it was before Lithium Nevada Corporation started bulldozing the land and building the industrial facilities in 2023.

Being sued by a mining company is awful. It’s stressful and I’m facing the reality that they could take every penny that I have. This intimidation tactic is being used to keep us away from the land, and if we go back, we’ll get changed with a felony for violating a court order.

But even if Lithium Nevada Corporation takes every dollar and every possession I have, I’ll still be better off than the people who were slaughtered at Thacker Pass in 1865, the child slaves laboring in Congolese mines for cobalt to go alongside lithium in electric car batteries, and the wildlife being driven to extinction by this mine.

I have friends who are involved in environmental protection work in places like the Philippines, where they’re risking their lives by simply speaking out. So my feeling is that the least I can do here is risk my money. The least I can is risk arrest and do all the other things that we have done to defend the land. We’re going to have to make sacrifices if we want to make the world a better place — just like folks did during the Civil Rights Movement, during the struggle to abolish slavery, during the struggle for women’s suffrage.

But we still need support. We need people to donate to our Legal Defense Fund. We need people to sign up to our email list and follow our story. We need people to write and tell their friends and help amplify this issue. We need people to tell the truth about lithium mining and greenwashing. We need people to prevent and fight the next mining projects. And we need people to take action in their own communities all over the world. That’s what’s most inspiring to me.”