Pechanga Tribe Fights Proposed Quarry

Pechanga Indians are fighting to protect what they consider to be the birthplace of their tribe.

The Pechanga band of Luiseno Indians recently announced it is sponsoring a bipartisan bill with more than 30 co-authors in the state Legislature.

The goal is to protect the mountain that is considered the birthplace of creation for Pechanga and other Luiseno tribes, tribal spokesperson Jacob Mejia said.

After reviewing Liberty Quarry’s Draft Environmental Impact Report, the Pechanga Band determined the 414-acre mine would damage the land.

“Our tribe participated in the environmental review process and took extraordinary and unprecedented steps to provide Riverside County with ethnographic and other evidence detailing the significance of this area to Pechanga,” tribal Chairman Mark Macarro said.

Despite Granite Construction's own ethnographic experts acknowledging the site as significant to the tribe, the county disagreed with the May 2009 study, which states that county supervisors “disagree with the Tribe's characterization of the area in and around the proposed project site.” The county found the cultural impacts to be “less than significant” under the California Enviromental Quality Act.

Macarro is incensed that county planners deemed their tribe's place of creation insignificant.

“That county planners deemed our tribe’s place of creation ‘insignificant’ under CEQA despite overwhelming and independent evidence to the contrary is disgraceful,” Macarro said.

“Because county planners have failed to honor the spirit of the law designed to protect such areas, we are forced to seek additional legislation to protect our place of creation from destruction,” he added. 

Democratic assembly member Bonnie Lowenthal authrored the bill, AB 742.  This bill would amend the Public Resources Code to include aggregate operations on the list of mining activities restricted near Native American sacred sites.

“I believe respecting one another’s religious beliefs is key to a healthy society,” said Lowenthal.  “And there’s probably no better place to demonstrate this than on a mountain where some believe life itself began,” she said.   

The controversial Liberty Quarry is also opposed by the City of Temecula, the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve that is immediately adjacent to the proposed area, thousands of residents, hundreds of businesses, more than 150 physicians that live and work in the Temecula Valley, Southern California Indian Tribes, and every federally recognized Luiseño Tribe, Mejia explained.

The Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont Mckenna College analyzed Granite Construction's EIR.

Calculating all of the benefits and the costs associated with the proposed Liberty Quarry, the Rose Institute estimates that “the quarry will reduce property values by $540 million and cost the region an additional $80 million per year,” with an “estimated total cumulative net negative impact of $3.6 billion to the region.”