Dear Secretary Haaland,

Congratulations on your historic appointment as Secretary of the Interior and guardian of our public lands and the sovereignty of Native American nations.

I am writing about the decades-old Bureau of Reclamation proposal to raise the height of the Shasta Dam by 18.5 feet. This would flood the homelands of the Winnemem Wintu for the second time, permanently destroying sacred ceremonial sites and ancestral burial grounds.

Raising Shasta Dam is not only illegal under state law, but would cost tax payers $1.4 billion dollars. It would violate the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act that protects the McCloud River from dam building. In addition to the already suffering salmon population, three state threatened and one federally endangered species could be harmed by the proposed project.

The Central Valley Project Indian Lands Acquisition Act (55 Stat 612), passed in 1941, left the Winnemem Wintu with no land, no homes, no salmon and no means of subsistence. Although many have Bureau of Indian Affairs roll numbers, the Federal Government denies that the Winnemem Wintu exist.

As Chief Caleen Sisk says: “The Winnemem Wintu are the undisputed indigenous people of the McCloud River watershed. Yet, we have to continually battle the discriminatory policies associated with being ‘unrecognized without rights of tribal status.’ We now have to fight to have our ceremonies on the river. Raising the height of Shasta Dam will not only be a flood of sacred places, it is also a continuation of the genocidal effort to wipe the Winnemem Wintu from existence. Like the salmon, we are determined to prevail and thrive.”

Please do the right thing and stop this harmful project once and for all. I urge the Department to complete a swift review of the proposed Shasta Dam raise, fully consider and expose its injustice and illegality. Kill this project for good and issue a public determination that the project is infeasible and economically unjustifiable and publish a Record of Decision that clearly states this project is illegal in California under the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,