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Nov 7, 2024 | 
underscore.news | B. Oaster
This article was produced in partnership with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. I’m standing at an Indigenous sacred site, looking at something I’m not supposed to see. Signs of ceremony are all around: little animal skulls, ribbons, a stump of freshly burnt sage stems in ashes, tied together with red yarn. It looks like a ceremony happened in the last week.
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
underscore.news | B. Oaster
Overview: Every election year, Indigenous people grapple with whether and how to engage in electoral politics. In Indian Country, major election years bring a deluge of messaging that “voting is sacred,” as then-Congresswoman and current Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said during the 2020 Democratic National Convention. The push to get out the Native vote is strong; it’s sometimes credited for swinging the 2020 election for Joe Biden.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
propublica.org | B. Oaster |Miranda Green |Jennifer Smith Richards |Priyanjana Bengani
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with High Country News. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. I’m standing at an Indigenous sacred site, looking at something I’m not supposed to see. Signs of ceremony are all around: little animal skulls, ribbons, a stump of freshly burnt sage stems in ashes, tied together with red yarn. It looks like a ceremony happened in the last week.
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Sep 13, 2024 | 
underscore.news | B. Oaster
This story was originally published by High Country News. There was a time you could catch tons of salmon in a single day at Kettle Falls, a series of pools cascading into each other on the Columbia River in northern Washington. That was before the U.S. government built Grand Coulee Dam in 1942.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
pressreleasepoint.com | B. Oaster
Primary tabsView(active tab)Track Submitted by ProPublica on Tue, 08/13/2024 - 07:57 The decision comes after an investigation by High Country News and ProPublica found that a land survey funded by the developer omitted more than a dozen sites of archaeological or cultural significance.
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Aug 12, 2024 | 
propublica.org | B. Oaster |Mark Olalde |Lulu Ramadan |Sydney Brownstone
This article was produced in partnership with High Country News, which was a member of the Local Reporting Network in 2023-24. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. A company developing an industrial-scale solar panel array on Badger Mountain in Eastern Washington has paused permitting activities on the project amid concerns about impacts to Indigenous cultural sites.
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Jul 5, 2024 | 
newsbreak.com | B. Oaster
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments.
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Jul 5, 2024 | 
crosscut.com | B. Oaster
Problems arose when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency in charge of permitting hydro energy projects, offered the Yakama Nation what tribal leaders considered an impossible choice: disclose confidential ceremonial, archaeological and cultural knowledge, or waive the right to consult on whether and how the site is developed. This put the Yakama Nation in a bind. Disclosing exactly what made the land sacred risked revealing to outsiders what they treasured most about it.
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Jul 1, 2024 | 
energynews.us | B. Oaster
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with High Country News. When Yakama Nation leaders learned in 2017 of a plan to tunnel through some of their ancestral land for a green energy development, they were caught off guard.
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Jun 27, 2024 | 
rsn.org | B. Oaster
The Yakama Nation wanted to consult on the development of a project on sacred land. But when the tribal nation refused to disclose confidential information, the agency moved forward without tribal input. When Yakama Nation leaders learned in 2017 of a plan to tunnel through some of their ancestral land for a green energy development, they were caught off guard.
