Final arguments scheduled today in Barrick Cortez Hills injunction hearing

A federal judge will decide whether to grant an injunction to stop Barrick's Cortez Hills gold project.

RENO, NV - 

A Native American family's right to pray on Mt. Tenabo and prevent even more pumping of underground water supplies in Nevada's Crescent Valley-which has been the home of generations of their forebearers-- is conflicting with state and local governments' critical need for revenue during one of the worst global economic crises in a generation.

Final arguments are scheduled today in a U.S. federal court in the efforts of environmental NGOs, the Western Shoshone Defense Project and Great Basin Resource Watch, and the South Fork Band of the Western Shoshone to get an injunction to stop construction of Barrick's Cortez Hills gold project.

In testimony before U.S. Federal Court Judge Larry Hicks, third-generation Nevada gold miner Shawn Collins said he wanted the court to give his relatives in the Crescent Valley the opportunity to practice their religion on the mountain they consider to be sacred and which their family has called home for generations.

"The project should be done respectfully and responsibly," Collins said, stressing that he was not opposed to mining. Nevertheless, Collins is among the members of the Western Shoshone who engage in the ritual of sweat lodges and gather sacred and medicinal plants along Mt. Tenabo. A number of Western Shoshone South Fork Band witnesses told the court that they believe all the canyons and waters which eminate from Mr. Tenabo are also sacred.

Witnesses also testified that they believe spirits reside throughout the area where the Cortez Hills mine dumps will be located.

However, members of other Western Shoshone bands told the court that they do not consider Mt. Tenabo important to their religious practices. Nevertheless, these tribal leaders also stressed that the decision as to what site or landmark is sacred depends on the individual's preference.

The Bureau of Land Management determined Mt. Tenabo wasn't important to Western Shoshone religious practices when it approved the mine plan of Barrick's million-ounce per year gold project, Cortez Hills. The agency also concluded that proposed mining facilities in the Cortez and Cortez Hills projects have been situated to avoid Mt. Tenabo and not interfere with religious practices.

The BLM also found that the mining project would not pose a substantial burden on any individual's religious practices.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department argues that the First Amendment does not always mandate the protection of sacred sites.

During cross-examined by Western Mining Action Project Director Roger Flynn, BLM Battle Mountain District Manager Gerald Smith admitted that his office hasn't rejected a single mining project that reached the environmental review stage in the past 13 years.

However economist John Dobra of the University of Nevada, Reno, and Nevada fiscal expert Mike Alasteuy of the Applied Analysis, financial advisory and economic consulting firm brought a dose of hard, cold fiscal reality to the court proceedings.

Alasteuy estimated that just a six-month delay in Cortez Hills construction would cost the State of Nevada and Lander County $14.7 million in taxation revenue.  The state is already reeling from a $1.8 billion shortfall in its biennial budget, which, Alasteuy noted, is having "catastrophic effects" at the local level. "I have never seen anything this rough" in Nevada, he declared.

Alasteuy told the court that it is "profoundly important" that the needs of local government be considered if Cortez Hills is delayed by an injunction. He estimated that the Lander County Hospital District would lose $1.2 million in taxation revenue if Cortez Hills were delayed six months. Lander County government would lose $4 million, while the Lander County School District could lose $2.8 million.

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