State Rep. Debra Lekanoff, a Democrat representing the San Juans who also works for the Swinomish tribe, said the plan endangers the area’s ecological and cultural treasures.
A Tlingit from Alaska, Lekanoff says that in not yet inventorying all the culturally significant sites within the monument, BLM has already reneged on a promise.
“There are places within the San Juans that are embedded in the bloodlines of the Coast Salish people, and it’s so important for us who called the place ours to honor that,” Lekanoff said. “It is a complete disregard by this administration to not put practices in place that honor what their own federal government has agreed to.”
In tribal circles, news spread of islands littered with trash and human waste, said Lekanoff. A burial ground on one island, she added, was plundered.
“If we can’t take care of that now,” she said, “we’re not going to be able to take care of that in the future.”
Read more in Crosscut.