former Governor Mark Mitchell thank you for being here today you're here on behalf of Governor Herrera as his design so I appreciate that that's correct thank you for having us or having me so we're going to start uh basic nerd level first what is you know under federal law what is government to government tribal consultation and how are tribes supposed to be um consulted for important projects so in our opinion um tribal consultation should start at the very beginning of a project I've been harping on the feds and everybody else in between that when a project is happening at the very moment somebody thinks of or brings forward a project that's when the tribe should be at the table if it's true government to government then that's when we should be at the table and not thought of seven to 10 steps after the fact but in a little bit more detail um consultation should be a comprehensive and transparent type of meeting uh government to government um it should also um have on our end or on the tribes end that um those tribes that are impacted by a project should be there through and through um because because we've always felt that if they haven't or if they're not a part of and thought of after the fact we ask questions like okay so you've done your arch clearances your archaeological clearances and what have you how many tribes are involved with you guys usually the answer is we did it on our own right okay well we have to go back and redo it again and so it has to be transparent it has to be a comprehensive uh um meeting the objective is to have a win-win situation um one is to protect the landscape um so archaeologists are trained in One Direction while the actual indigenous people that have lived off the land know a little bit more and so it's kind of awkward when you point out a professional archaeologist say you missed this and you missed that and they're like they know that say yeah well so so in the nutshell that's kind of how how we look at it and then most importantly is the federal trust responsibility that they have um they had to adhere to it um you know if if they don't then where is our um Avenue to pursue the in the wrong to making sure that they they correct the wrong um and most likely um their process usually is um follow our policies so yeah it's been there done that it's kind of awkward where um I know in the past I've questioned that as a sitting Governor um and the answer on the opposite site was well Governor um these are our policies doesn't say that we take into consideration what you all have and what you say it's our policies and we've met them and now we're moving forward right often a checklist correct um so with this um proposed power line to Los Alamos was the PUO of tsuk consulted in this government to government way yes and no um it's two-part answer I guess um I know excuse me me I know they were were already working on it before 21 2021 yeah and that's the term I was governor and so the project manager reached out and this is how we found out hey we're headed out to the kahar Rio and um we want your input on this this and this so we said okay well we'll meet you out there and so that's how we found out and and um after that we started discussing the details as I mentioned earlier um how come we weren't called earlier well we sent Letters Out okay how come you just didn't pick up the phone and say hey um this is a project coming up you know we like your input we want to sit down with you guys so we ended up going out on boots on the ground um my team uh the peblo team and um the team from the labs and so we discuss out out in the field we discuss the lay of the landine we discuss um the direction of this power line that was supposed to go through they they informed us their length of time they're looking at um having actual um Vehicles out on the ground to you know start working on the construction part so we started our our our discussions at that point and um I want to say we've probably went back and forth uh back and forth meaning um we've met at the tribal Administration we met up on the hill maybe about four times and then thereafter it kind of slowed down a little bit and um I don't recall if um during the years of 22 and 23 there was actual meetings cuz um I was serving as the uh then chairman of the all public Council so I had to kind of step into this other Arena before going back to that one so yeah that's what I remember BR in kind of late so I was also hoping to talk a little bit just about the lab and the area in general so prior to construction of a nuclear weapons lab in the HZ mountains um what kind of relationship did the people of the PUO of tusuk have with the lands Waters and animals there so prior to that um it's before my time but um uh our elders would say yeah there there's place names um the relationship up there was um you know it was free to for them to access the area without nobody stopping them um like um going hunting and harvesting animals up there or um going Pino and picking or medicinal plant picking or actually just going out to U pilgrimage MH and I believe in when when the lamps were created up there it did not only impact the public Tu but the rest of the pblos and I can't speak for them they they would have to speak on their own but for us there t um now there's off fense now there are rules um what used to be is no longer and how do we cope with that how do we how do we how do we really look at how we how we can enter on to the land that was already there with different sites and locations now we have to seek permission from somebody else the analogy I use is um if your religion is say Catholic and the state or the FED say you can't enter this church no more let us know when you're coming I'm pretty sure people will be up in arms for that but because it's a landscape and because people don't understand how the indigenous peoples are tied into the land is I believe is part of the issue so it has impacted us in a negative way by way of not being able to get up there and practice our religion um hunt fish and gather as our our ancestors used to do we still do um inform our our uh people and youth about place names what used to be and we've learned off that and say it shouldn't be that way we should just still go out there and do what we need to do yeah I feel like in New Mexico we talk a lot about the economic impacts of the lab there's you know a lot of conversations about National Security but I don't feel like we have a lot of public conversations about the moral implications of building nuclear weapons weapons of mass destruction um for a community like tusuk how does that really powerful entity doing you know really questionable ethically questionable practices how does that affect the the culture the how does that affect us yeah um the lab being in our back door so to say and some in some pblos in their front door um it does have impacts to us um on and I would explain in ways like um the impacts to harvesting the wildlife for um traditional uses um or for one's own um food on the table so to say um don't know we don't know what particulates are floating in the air and where it lands the and being um Outdoors men and women you know you don't know what's in the river um and we harvest the fish we harvest the plant life and the animal life and we consumed them so we don't know is that where the sickness of um cancers come from and what have you drinking the water what have you so yeah it has um impacted us and not only tsuki but I'm pretty sure our sister Pueblo's around around the lab but um it's important for us to wrap our minds around not only this area because we're we're talking about the R but generally uh the entire landscape throughout the entire state of New Mexico the four corner State the Southwest is considered um sacred it's considered already being in use by way of our ancestors and we've known of all this by place names and so it it has impacted us um our worry is what about the future what are our impacts to the Future after this um you hinted a little bit about um the plutonium pit project and processes that are happening up there 84285 is the whip R mhm that splits our reservation right in half okay and so we have concerns about that um there's other issues when when they leave point a and arrive at point B Carl's Bad um they're putting these things under the Earth that's a concern you know um how is that going to impact us in the future let alone the wildlife the plant life the surface life the water flow um I wonder if anybody ever thought about that and you know again um harvesting these animals for uh food to put food on the table to feed the family and those are some of the things we talk about and we wonder you know um how does that impact or how's it going to impact us in the future right right very important question governor former Governor thank you so much for being here I appreciate it thank you for having me