Palen Solar Project

Cultural Values and Sacred Sites Threatened by Project

December 1, 2017 - Our dear friend Mr. Alfredo Figueroa provided us with this comment letter opposing the Palen Solar Project and gave us permission to publish it here. There are significant Cultural Resources that will be harmed and destroyed if this energy sprawl project is built. We join with La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle in opposing this badly-sited project.

^Protest by local indigenous groups and desert activists opposing an earlier version of the Palen Solar Project--this has never been a good location to develop an energy sprawl project, when rooftops in the cities are begging to be covered by solar panels. The Cuauhtemoc Dancers.

 

La Cuna de Aztlan
Sacred Sites Protection Circle



Alfredo A. Figueroa                                                                                                                

Phone: (760) 922-6422                                                                  

424 N. Carlton Ave,  Blythe, Ca 92225                                                                                  

E-mail: lacunadeaztlan@aol.com           

           
November 27, 2017

County of Riverside
TLMA Planning Department
4080 Lemon Street 12th Floor
Riverside, California 92502-1409

Attention: Jay Olivas

RE: Opposition to the Proposed Palen Solar Electric Generating System

My name is Alfredo Acosta Figueroa and one of the Chemehuevi Tribal Monitors of the sacred sites, Elder, historian and coordinator of La Cuna de Aztlán Sacred Sites Protection Circle.

La Cuna de Aztlán Sacred Sites Protection Circle is comprised of 13 Indigenous and culturally aware individuals who mostly reside along the Colorado River from Needles down to Yuma and are dedicated to protecting these sacred sites.

In 2008, La Cuna de Aztlán Sacred Sites Protection Circle entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to be guardians of the sacred sites and to protect cultural resources including the world famous Blythe Giant Intaglios and several hundred sacred sites that are located along the Colorado River extending from Needles, California down to Yuma, Arizona.

We are fully cognizant of the urgency to gradually siphon off public demand for oil and push in renewable energy projects. We will be in favor of all mega solar power plants if they are built on disturbed land rather than pristine desert land. After these solar projects expire they will result in major super fund sites, (currently 94 in CA) throughout the desert.

We are totally perturbed by the continued actions by the solar power projects. We are flabbergasted at the disregard of the identified sacred sites located within the I-10 corridor that not only relate to the indigenous people but to all humans.

In Eastern Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, over 100,000 acres of pristine desert land have been approved for fast-track solar and wind projects by BLM. Within 35 miles of each other, there are already 4 solar power projects in Eastern Riverside County.  Genesis, Blythe, McCoy and First Solar are already in operation.

These projects have not only destroyed numerous sacred sites, but have already caused major changes in the atmosphere causing considerably aircraft flight damage and impacting avian flight over the projects.

Chuckawalla Valley is one of the main fly ways of the birds migrating to the Colorado River. The large solar company employees are ones picking up the burned dead birds. The agriculture next to these projects will also be destroyed.

Tragically, two Blythe men were killed flying over the First Solar Desert Center project in a single-engine aircraft that crashed near the site. They were employed by First Solar and were patrolling the area and checking for damage of the solar panels caused by the powerful storm that occurred the previous day. (Palo Verde Times Article, Aug 30, 2013, Marty Bachman)

In an article regarding the Jenko Solar Project in China, the Chinese are setting the example in leading the protesting against the large solar panel projects in their country due to water contamination and the impact on climate change ruining their agriculture industry. Apparently China is not benefitting from these thousands of solar panel projects. The Jenko Solar Project is an excellent example of why we do not need these mega projects near agriculture land much less near the Colorado River where its water reserve in Lake Mead is barely 1/3 of its capacity and all of its water has already been allocated.

As previously stated in our previous comments against the large solar projects being developed along the I-10 corridor in Eastern Riverside County, sacred sites are all tied together in the complexity of the human creation story and cannot be individually singled out. The solar projects cannot destroy just one sacred site without destroying the sacredness of the entire area.

The area along the Colorado River centered in the Palo Verde/Parker and Needles Valleys is the Axis-Mundi, the quincunx of the world. This is where human spirits descend from the cosmos; and when humans die, they go to the Topock Maze (Mictlan).

The factual evidence enclosed will substantiate why we are in opposition of the proposed Palen Solar Power project, including information about the Granite Mountain Peak (Tamoanchan) the location of the four corner geographical base sacred sites that include the Palen proposed project site.

The Chuckawalla Valley is the major prehistoric east and west ethnographic transportation corridor in the Western Hemisphere. It is where the major trail, east/west Coco-Maricopa trail passes, starting at the Blythe Giant Intaglios and ending at Point Dume (Malibu) on the Pacific Ocean. The McCoy Valley, Rice Valley, and Ward Valley areas are included in the Nahui-Ollin (swastika) 4 directions geographical area along with the Chuckawalla Valley. Together they form the base of where Sky meets Earth centered on Granite Peak that represents Tamoanchan.

For the past 60 years, we have been studying the place of origin of the Azteca/Mexica in the Palo Verde/Parker Valleys. The following are the names of the mountain ranges that relate to the Creation Story and their original Nahuatl (Uto-Aztecan) names, the center focus being the Big Maria Mountains (Coatepetl), Granite Mountain Peak (Tamoanchan)-where Sky meets Earth, Old Woman Mountain (Quilaztli/Cihautlampa), Eagle Mountain (Cuauhtepetl), Chuckawalla Mountain (Cuetzpalin), Mule Mountains (Calli-House), McCoy Mountains (Nonoalcatepetl), Palen Mountains (Huehuetlapallan), Riverside Mountains (Mixcoatl-Milky Way), Moon Mountains (Metzli), Dome Rock Mountains (Tonantzin-Beloved Grandmother), Little Riverside Mountains (Tochtli), Buckskin Mountains (Acatl), Kofa Mountain (Tecpatl) and Palo Verde Peak (Chapultepec). These are just a few of the mountains surrounding the lower Colorado River Valleys.


The I-10 Highway in Eastern Riverside County parallels some of the most sacred trails that connect many of the sacred sites that are located within the area. These trails lead from the Colorado River Mule Mountains to the Eagle Mountain range (at the Joshua Tree National Park) and from the Creator's Throne on Black Rock Peak (10 miles west of Blythe, CA) that leads to Corn Springs (Tulla) in the Chuckawalla Mountains. The trails that lead down from the Palen Mountains and merge with the trail from McCoy Well on the west side of the McCoy Mountains, meet at the Genesis solar power project and lead to Desert Center.


The lower Colorado River Basin Valleys have been the home of many different Indigenous Linguistic Families, which at one time or another, left for thousands of years and returned to the area creating a complete cycle. They went on their journey to the four directions. Their migration is symbolized by the Nahui-Ollin meaning four directions in the Nahuatl language. Some of the nations settled permanently in the area and others such as the Athapaskans left the Colorado River. Some went north to Alaska before the last Ice Age according to Chief Gary Harrison of the Athapaskan Tribe. Other nations such as the Azteca and the Olmeca went south thousands of years ago. The Chichimeca followed afterwards, then the Tolteca, Yaqui, and finally the Mexica in approximately 1067 AD.  Some of the nations have gone full circle returning to the Colorado River (Kroeber 1976).


There are five Native Reservations in the Lower Colorado River Basin Valleys which include Fort Mojave near Needles California to the north; Chemehuevi; Colorado River Indian Tribes; Quechan; and Cocopah south of Yuma.


Each Native Tribe has a unique identity and interpretation of the Creation Story given to them by the Creator.  Yet, all the Tribes relate to the same cosmic archetype cultural tradition of the Creation. The oral cosmic cultural traditional knowledge is still alive.


Thanks to the Native Mexica cultural tradition, the Uto-Aztecan still has a few Pre-Hispanic codices that relate to the Creation Story on the lower Colorado River Basin Valleys. We have been able to compare them with the surrounding mountain images, geoglyphs, petroglyphs, pictographs, cosmic events of equinoxes and solstices in the Palo Verde/Parker Valleys and the local Indigenous oral history that relate to the Creation Story in the area.
For the Mexica, all the authentic history is completely sustained by cosmic archetype. The visible part and the invisible of reality correspond mutually. The duality of the cosmos was created on earth through the depiction of the geoglyphs, petroglyphs, pictographs, solstices, equinoxes and sunrise and sunset events.


The majority of these sacred sites are within a very specific area which extends west to the San Jacinto Mountains where there is the human face and head of Copilli Quetzali, east to Tonopah/Aguila, Arizona; north to the Spirit Mountain (Avi-Kwamé-Tlalocan), northwest of Laughlin NV; and south to the Gulf of California to Puerto Peñasco, Sonora (Rocky Point-Chicana).


North of Puerto Peñasco is La Sierra del Pinacate where there are over 400 craters, and where the first geoglyphs begin.


The Aztec Sun Stone is the monolith relic that has the most documented history of the world based on the cosmos. The Aztec Sun Stone Calendar is overlaid on the surrounding mountains along the Colorado River, centered in the Palo Verde/Parker Valleys. The Five Suns depicted in the Aztec Sunstone Calendar all have a beginning and an ending and are inter-related with Tamoanchan (Granite Mountain Peak), approximately 45 miles northwest of Blythe and approximately 30 miles north of the Palen Project proposed site. Granite Peak is where the Sky meets Earth. When you see Granite Peak from West Blythe (Acacitli -Jackrabbit in the Tullies), it looks like a pyramid that is between the Little Maria Mountains on the right and the McCoy Mountains on the left. In the Nahuatl language, it is called Tamoanchan. Deciphered, it is "Ta" that relates to Tata which means grandfather and it represents the cosmos. "Moan" means merging/meeting and "chan" relates to chante which means house. In other words, Tamoanchan relates to the spirit of the cosmos descending to its house, Mother Earth, manifested in the geoglyphs that are in the McCoy Valley where the first phase of the Blythe Solar Millennium and McCoy Solar Power projects have been constructed.


The following is an excerpt of the book, Tamoanchan/Tlalocan Places of Mist written by Alfredo Lopez Austin, one of Mexico's most recognized historians from the INAH, that relates to Tamoanchan:


"The Earth and the Sky were created, from the body of Cipactli, and with them was also established, along with the great division of the feminine and the masculine of the cosmos, the four posts, represented by trees or gods, or men, were converted into the roads of the gods. They were the roads of the gods because through their hollow trunks flowed the opposite divine essence (man/sun and woman/earth) they flowed between the two halves of Cipactli. Seeing the falling of the sky over the Earth, all four were ordered to make through its center of Earth, four roads to be able to enter and raise up the sky and to get help. Four men were created. One was called Cuauhtémoc; the other, Itzcoal; Izmalli; and the other, Tenexochilt." 


Cuauhtémoc represents the southwest corner of the Nahui-Ollin, the four directions (swastika image). Cuauhtémoc's Nahualli (animist, spiritual representation) is the eagle during the descending Sun. The translation of Cuauhtemoc is: Cuauhtli -Eagle and Temoc -descending. Cuauhtémoc means Descending Eagle (Sun) which is manifested by the sun descending on Eagle Mountain during the Summer Solstice on June 21st. Eagle Mountain represents the southwest corner of the swastika.


When the Descending Sun is seen from the Ripley Intaglio during the Summer Solstice (June 21) it sets on a large ‘v’ shaped part of the southeast side of the Eagle Mountain range inside of Joshua Tree National Park. The ‘v’ is the origin of Dragon Wash (the dragon represents Quetzalcoatl, the Plume Serpent). The Plume Serpent descends from the ‘v’ where the sun sets.


At the base of Eagle Mountain are the petroglyphs that depict the story of the Descending Sun and on the mountainside to the east and above the petroglyphs you can see the large dark image of Tezcatlipoca's (night) Big Nose that pursues and overtakes daylight at every sunset.


The four corners of the base of the Sky falling on Earth are shown in the Borgia Codex Plate 72. Earth's central cosmic duality geographical site is Granite Peak. This is where Sky meets Earth and gives the image of the X or hourglass appearance. The top V of the X represents the cosmos and the upside-down V of the X represents Granite Peak, Mother Earth. 


Other mountain ranges in the area have also kept their native names, such as the Chuckawalla Mountain Range located south of Eagle Mountain (Near Desert Center, California). Chuckawalla means “Cuetzpalin” in Nahuatl. In Spanish it means “Lagarto” or “Lagatijo” and in English it means lizard. Cuetzpalin is the fourth day on the 20-day Aztec Sun Stone Calendar. There is a small ridge outcropping in Desert Center which represents the lizard Chuckawalla (Hence the name of the mountains) but it is called “Alligator Ridge.”

South of Granite Mountain are the Palen Mountains and they are very sacred. In the Nahuatl language, they are called "HueHue-Tlapallan." Hue means ancient, and Tlapallan means reddish Earth. Altogether this means "the ancient, ancient reddish Earth.

A face image in the center of the Palen Mountains can be seen when looking north from I-10. It has a large image of a wrinkled reddish face looking towards the west. At the base, on the east side of the Palen Mountains there is a large arroyo that has a large rectangular 20x40 foot wall which has petroglyphs called Mural Wash. It is facing west and among the petroglyphs is the image of the Creator descending together with Xolotl "the dog." This is the place where the Creator’s image of Huemac (Big Hand) goes to the underworld during the ending of one of the suns.

The trail that leads to and from the petroglyphs of the Palen Wash meets with the trail that comes from the petroglyphs of the McCoy Well Springs from the east and they meet at the Genesis site. It is part of the Salt Song Trail that is part of the Chemehuevi (Nuwuvi) Ancestral sites. The junction of the two trails lead to Desert Center and 4.7 miles west of Desert Center is where 13 Monuments are located. They represent "13 Acatl" which is the top section of the Aztec Sunstone Calendar that relates to the overall knowledge of Quetzalcoatl.

The Chuckawalla Mountains for the Chemehuevi and other tribes are considered very sacred and they still go to get their stones, carved for their “molcajetes” and “metates” (Mortar grinding stones).

According to Francis J. and Patricia H. Johnston’s highly recognized research of the University of California Berkeley, Archaeological Survey No. 37 dated April 1, 1957 gives excellent reference and general description of the 13 Monuments that are shown on top of the Aztec Calendar and its sacred trails that lead all the way from the Blythe Giant Intaglios to the Coachella Valley.

Along with the sacredness of the area, the area is home to the Poorwill Bird which uses the washes and Chuckawalla Mountains to hibernate during the winter. The Poorwill bird is regarded as sacred for the Hopi and other tribes. Dr. Edmund C. Jaeger, Desert Naturalist, researched the area and published several books and articles about the Poorwill bird.

Ten miles west of Blythe, the Creator’s Throne is located on Black Rock Peak. The throne is directly east of Corn Springs (Tulla) in the Chuckawalla Mountains. This is where during equinoxes, Quetzalcoatl sitting on the throne is asked by his followers “Where are you going?” and he answers, “To see my father.” He leaves to the sunset after he is being pursued by Tezcatlipoca (night). (Florentine Codex)

There is no doubt that the Palen Solar Project will drain the wells of Corn Springs and Aztec Well plus the current wells that have been providing water for the orchards and date tree farms that are currently adjacent to the proposed Palen Project site. The wells that support the Jojoba farms have already been drained considerably. Those wells lead to the aquifers that lead to the Colorado River. The Colorado River Board of Directors of California has stipulated that all aquifers within 50 miles go to the Colorado River and any water taken from these aquifers must be approved by the Board of Directors.

The U.S. Government does not need to continue its Manifest Destiny Policy of the 1850s. The Native American cultural archetype cosmic tradition is still alive despite its 500 years of domination by Spain, the United States and Canada. One of the worst catastrophes in the world committed against a nation was when Hernan Cortes invaded Mexico/Tenochtitlan in 1521. Mexico/Tenochtitlan was completely razed and leveled off. The Spanish Invaders built a new city on top of the old one to completely destroy the Natives' cosmic archetype cultural traditions. With the soldiers came the Catholic priests and what wasn't destroyed by the soldiers was to be destroyed by the priests. This is when they implemented the notorious Spanish Inquisition of the Holy Catholic Roman Church. They even built churches on top of the pyramids and other sacred sites like the cathedral in downtown Mexico City which was built on top of the Templo Mayor Twin pyramids.  The pyramids built by the Natives in Mexico/Tenochtitlan were built to duplicate the original mountain peak of Granite Mountain, Tamoanchan. This duplication is called Tlachihualtepetl (meaning not original in Nahautl). The Inquisition was in operation for over 300 years until the Mexica ousted the Spanish in 1821 and the Spanish Inquisition in 1834.

The Natives of the southwest United States especially from California were finally free to practice their cosmic archetype cultural tradition when Governor Jose Figueroa secularized all the Catholic Mission lands in 1836 and gave them back to the natives. This freedom was short lived and only lasted 12 years until the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. This ended the war with the United States. This is when the Manifest Destiny policy was in full swing. All the land from sea to shining sea belonged to the United States and ruthless citizens and foreign land grabbers from the east coast and Europe were determined to take it regardless of laws broken or lives lost.  

Despite all the government's efforts to destroy the Native American's cosmic archetype cultural traditions, the knowledge has survived the policy of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man".

During World War II, the United States enforced laws to protect sacred sites in Europe. Not even Nazi Germany under Hitler, nor Fascist Italy under Mussolini, destroyed the sacred sites such as the Vatican, cathedrals in Europe except some Jewish synagogues, despite the fact that millions of people were killed.

On June 23, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in war areas. The commission drew up lists of cultural treasures with the hope that military action would avoid harming them. Dwight D. Eisenhower understood the importance of the protection and preservation of these sacred sites. Eisenhower stated, "If we have to choose between destroying a famous building and sacrificing our own men, then our men's lives count infinitely more, and the building must go." He prefaced the proclamation by saying, "Shortly we will be fighting our way across the Continent of Europe in battles designed to preserve our civilization..." His order made clear that destruction of everything in an army's path was not justifiable, that a people's long-established culture and the most beautiful manifestations of what it believes in and values matter and we, when we enter and defend it, are duty-bound to respect those things.”

A movie directed by George Clooney, and based on the book by Robert M. Edsel called "Monuments Men" is a story of how strongly Eisenhower felt about saving these cultural sites and artistic monuments. Cathedrals, historic structures, famous paintings, sculptures and more were saved for the preservation of the culture of our civilization.

In the Smithsonian magazine of March 2009, the featured article related to the must-see 10 endangered cultural treasures that included many of the sacred sites that should be preserved from all over the world. In the United States, they included Route Hwy 66 but no indigenous sacred sites. According to Kaisa Barthuli, the program manager of the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, stated, "If we lose these stories, we're really losing a sense of ourselves."

During the Iraq war, in 2003 and 2004, the United States caused damage to ancient sites with their heavy vehicles and machinery. Military forces built a helipad, carved out parking areas and trenches destroying these sites. Babylon, Iraq was damaged by war and by looters. The U.S. has said it will help rehabilitate Babylon, funding an effort by the World Monuments Fund and Iraq's State Board of Antiquities. This site is tremendously important according to Gaetano Palumbo of the World Monuments Fund, yet in its present state, Babylon is "hardly understandable" as a place where so much happened in history".

It took the Taliban only days to destroy 1,500 years of history when they destroyed the two Bamiyan Buddha Twins carved into a sandstone cliff near the provincial capital in Central Afghanistan. They stood 165 feet and 114 feet tall. They were built around the 2nd century. Appeals came from all over the world such as the World Monument Fund and the United Nations Secretary General for the Taliban government of Afghanistan to preserve these sacred sites of the Buddha creation story in Afghanistan. W.L. Rathje, an archaeologist at Stanford University described the destruction of the statues as a crime against humanity. Afghanistan was later invaded by the United States after they destroyed the statues that the world considered to be masterpieces. The United States Government fought to save these foreign religious sacred sites but is not willing to preserve sacred sites in its own country.

On July 22, 2012, columnist Victor Davis Hanson said, "sometimes post-modern, politically correct westerners can be every bit as zealous and as potentially destructive of the past as pre-modern Islamics.”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had called for the USDA and the U.S. Forest Service to work more closely with tribal governments in the protection, respectful interpretation and appropriate access to Indigenous Cultural sacred sites. Vilsack said, "American Indian and Alaska Native values and culture have spirit and deserve to be honored and respected. By honoring and protecting sacred sites on national forests and grasslands, we foster improved tribal relationships and a better understanding of the Native people's deep reverence for natural resources and contributions to society."

During President Barack Obama's speech of January 28, 2014, he stated that "And while we are at it, I'll use my authority to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations." Also, 109 House Democratic members urged President Obama to protect National Monuments using the Antiquities Act.

Supporting our facts of opposition to the solar projects is California Energy Commission's Docket # 09-AFC-8 Cultural Resources report by Elizabeth A. Bagwell & Beverly E. Bastian supporting research stipulates that:

“Staff finds that the GSEP construction impacts, when combined with impacts from past, present, and reasonably foreseeable projects, contribute in a small but significant way to the cumulatively considerable adverse impacts for cultural resources at both local I-10 Corridor and regional levels. This analysis estimates that more than 800 sites within the I-10 Corridor, and 17,000 sites within the Southern California Desert Region, will potentially be destroyed. Mitigation can reduce the impact of this destruction, but not to a less-than-significant level.”

The emission control laws in California are currently being met and cities where energy is needed are promoting rooftop solar panels in new construction.  The former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on February 27, 2013 that he wants to end investor perceptions that the largest U.S. financial institutions will be given taxpayer bailouts to prevent a collapse. We need to stop too-big-to-fail".

During the Ivanpah Solar construction, the NRG CEO, David Crane called the trend toward the larger solar projects as idiotic. (KCET, Chris Clarke)

For these reasons, and the following Indigenous, State, Federal and United Nation laws, we are opposed to the Palen Solar Power project because of their gross violation to the following:

 ·        Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona: Resolution 0212, opposing the Department of Interior Fast-Track Polices of Renewable Energy Projects on Ancestral Homelands, June 29, 2012. The Resolution specifies that whereas over 40 proposed solar and wind renewable energy projects are to be undertaken within a 50-mile radius of the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation which puts tens of thousands of acres of land within the ancestral territory homelands of CRIT as well as other Yuman tribes, at further risk of destruction.

 ·        National Congress of American Indians: Resolution #LNK-12-036, opposing the Department of Interior Fast-Track Polices of Renewable Energy Projects on Ancestral Homelands, June 17, 2012.

·        Colorado River Indian Tribes Resolution and Letter to President Barack Obama: opposing the construction of Solar Power Projects within 50-miles from the CRIT Reservation boundary of February 27, 2012.

·        United Nations Declaration on the Right of Indigenous People Resolution of 2007: was adopted by the General Assembly during the 107th plenary meeting and was signed by President Barack Obama on December 15, 2010.

·        Native American Sacred Places, March 6, 2003(S.B. 18)

·        Native American Sacred Lands Act, June 11, 2003 (H.R. 2419)

·        The Sacred Land Protection Act, July 18, 2002 (H.R. 5155)

·        The Native American Sacred Sites Protection Act, February 22, 2002 (S.B. 1828)

·        Accommodations of Sacred Sites and Federal Land, Signed by President Bill Clinton on May 24, 1996 (Executive Order 13007)

·        Native American Graves Protection & Repatriation Act of 1990

·        Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979

·        American Indian Religious Freedom Act, August 11, 1978

·        The Civil Right Act of 1968

·        Antiquities Act of 1906

The solar companies in their court response to the Colorado River Indian Tribes filing of a Temporary Restraining Order stipulated that there is more public interest to approve the solar sites than supporting the cultural resources. This statement shows the companies' total disregard for the above-mentioned laws and discrimination against Native culture and tradition of the indigenous people.

We all know what happened at the Genesis Solar Site after Judge George H. Wu of the 9th District Federal Court denied the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to stop the Genesis construction on June 28, 2012. During the construction of Genesis, they committed some of the worst destruction of sacred sites, burials and thousands of artifacts that were found just as the CRIT Elders and our group, La Cuna de Aztlán Sacred Sites Protection Circle had stated in the lawsuits filed. 

Irreplaceable damage within the I-10 Eastern Riverside corridor has already been done by the current solar power projects especially at the Genesis and Desert Harvest. We are experiencing one of the most heinous crimes against humanity by the destruction of part of the world-renowned Giant Kokopilli/Cicimitl geoglyph group by the current construction of the Blythe Solar/McCoy Solar projects, 10 miles west of Blythe. These twin geoglyphs represent the same as the Bamiyan Buddha Twins.

Renowned Mexican archaeologist Ignacio Bernal states "I consider that the inscriptions on the rocks are the most genuine source of knowledge in the manner of the thinking of the ancient Natives. Likewise, are the paintings that in reality are very few that have been discovered on the monuments. In both cases they are absolutely authentic data that shows the thinking of the Indigenous. You can incur an error by the writing interpretation of the inscriptions or because the scribe was mistaken."

"Sometimes it takes a jolt or shock to open your eyes to reality and the Solstice Project has been high amperage: stated by Stephen Lekson.

We are determined to continue our struggle to maintain a harmonious balance with Mother Earth and must preserve what has not yet been destroyed by these solar power projects.

See this PDF for Attachments related to the comment letter.

Sincerely,

       
Alfredo Acosta Figueroa                                                             Patricia F. Robles
Founder/Historian/Sacred Sites Monitor                                    Chairperson-LCDASSPC
424 North Carlton Ave.                                                             paticuna@msn.com
Blythe, CA 92225
(760) 922-6422
lacunadeaztlan@aol.com

 

^The beautiful and culturally rich proposed Palen Solar Project site should be preserved and not destroyed by development.

 

HOME.....Palen Solar Project Updates.....Protest by local indigenous groups and desert activists