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A Canadian gold mining company wants to mine more than 1,600 acres of federal land sacred to the Quechan tribe in southern California.

Under the Mining Act of 1872, the Imperial Glamis Chemgold Mining Co., of British Columbia, plans to mine the area for gold through the year 2018. The mining company would use the cyanide heap leach-mining method and disturb more than 1,400 acres of land to get about 150 million tons of ore and 300 million tons of waste rock from three open pits.

"I believe that the project represents a grave threat to the religion and culture of the Quechan Indians-one of the seven Yuman tribes tracing their origin to Spirit Mountain near Laughlin," wrote Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in a letter to the Bureau of Land Management. "A sacred trail links the Quechan's original home to their current home near Yuma, one branch of which runs through the gold mine site."

That sacred trail, the Trail of Dreams, is still used by the tribe and would be destroyed if the mine were constructed. Glamis has offered to relocate one ore heap away from the trail, but the tribe remains opposed to the project.

"When our people traveled from around here to the area, they stayed there," said Pauline Owl, chairperson of the Quechan Cultural Committee. "This land has been traversed for hundreds of years." This clash between native religious beliefs and development has been cited as one of the first tests of President Bill Clinton's 1996 executive order to protect American Indian sacred sites on federal land.

According to the executive order, federal agencies should "to the extent practicable, permitted by law and not clearly inconsistent with essential agency functions ... avoid adversely affecting the physical integrity of such sacred sites."

Furthermore, opponents of the mine, including wildlife groups and other agencies, contend that the mine would also threaten endangered species of plants and animals, such as the desert tortoise, considered sacred by some area tribes.

To counteract these threats to wildlife, Glamis has offered to compensate by purchasing about 1,600 acres of land elsewhere for the Bureau of Land Management and to build three wildlife "guzzlers"-sunken tanks used to collect water for wildlife.

The company and the Bureau of Land Management have had to prepare two environmental-impact statements and reviews to address the strong public criticism. The public comment period for the second statement and review ended in April, and Quechan leaders are waiting to learn the latest status of the mining project.