Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
significance to them. On multiple occasions, challenges from tribal groups
have been a major obstacle to renewable energy development in these areas.
Indigenous groups' objections to renewable energy projects are commonly
rooted in concerns that the project could harm sacred sites, artifacts, or
other cultural resources. In the United States and Australia, indigenous
peoples control far less land today than they did prior to colonization
and relocation. Often, the reservations or territories where tribes reside
constitute much smaller geographic areas than those that they occupied
and used for centuries before colonists arrived. Much of the land on which
these tribes once hunted, engaged in religious worship, and even buried
their deceased is no longer under their control. When a wind or solar energy
project proposed outside of Indian trust lands threatens to damage historic
elements of a tribe's ancestral areas or to disturb sacred sites, it is easy to
understand why the tribe might oppose such a plan.
Vast areas of remote land in the western United States that were occupied
by Indian tribes prior to colonization are increasingly being targeted
for renewable energy development. More than 650 million acres of U.S.
land—roughly 30 percent of the entire country's land mass—are desig-
nated as federal public lands. The federal government assumes primary
responsibility for managing and maintaining this land for the benefit of the
citizenry. In an attempt to aggressively promote renewable energy devel-
opment on public lands, the Obama administration adopted policies in
2011 designed to expedite the permitting and approval process for certain
selected projects. 26 As of August 2013, dozens of wind and solar energy
projects on lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
had received approval or were under consideration. 27 Some of these fast-
tracked projects are near Indian reservations or on lands that are culturally
significant to Indian groups.
Wind and solar energy development may be more environmentally
friendly on average than coal- or oil-based energy, but it can still cause
severe damage to cultural resources. The BLM itself concedes that utility-
scale solar energy projects can adversely affect “cultural resources, including
historic properties … regardless of the technology employed.” 28 Among
other things, the agency has noted that noise from solar energy projects can
potentially interfere with “spiritual, religious, and medical practices and
ceremonies [that] are ongoing within the desert southwest.” 29 The BLM has
similarly acknowledged the potential for wind farms to harm sacred Indian
sites or other cultural assets. Wind energy projects inevitably involve new
roads, transmission lines, and related disturbances to the natural terrain.
As the BLM has stated, these projects can have disruptive “[v]isual impacts
on … sacred landscapes, historic trails, and viewsheds from other types of
historic properties.” 30
Because of the potential for development on public lands to adversely
impact culturally significant tribal resources, laws in the United States
seek to minimize such harms by encouraging open discussion between
 
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