Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Roca Honda Mine

Chapter 3. Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences
Mt. Taylor TCP retains integrity of location, setting, and association. These aspects of integrity
address the character and presence of the physical features that convey the significance of the
property. Despite some modern intrusions onto the TCP or within the viewshed, the TCP retains
the essential physical features that convey its significance.
In evaluating properties like the Mt. Taylor TCP that possess traditional cultural significance, it is
particularly important to consider the integrity of relationship and condition. The Mt. Taylor TCP
possesses both integrity of relationship and condition, even though some development has
occurred on the mountain that requires the tribes to modify their traditional activities to ensure
privacy and solitude.
The TCP retains integrity of relationship because there is an integral relationship between the
property and its resources and American Indian traditional beliefs and practices. “If the property
is known or likely to be regarded by a traditional cultural group as important in the retention or
transmittal of a belief, or to the performance of a practice, the property can be taken to have an
integral relationship with the belief or practice, and vice versa” (Parker and King, 1998:11). The
tribes that ascribe cultural significance to the mountain have stated that the mountain is essential
to their cultural practices and is critical to the continuity of their beliefs and traditional cultural
practices. The involved tribes consulted still engage in traditional cultural and religious activities
on Mt. Taylor. They regard the mountain with deep reverence and consider it a vital entity in their
lives and the continuance of their cultural practices and beliefs.
The TCP also retains integrity of condition because it retains the essential physical features that
define the relationship with the traditional beliefs and practices. With regard to integrity of
condition, NPS guidance (Parker and King, 1998) addresses a property’s significance through
physical alteration of its location, setting, design, or materials. The mountain, from whichever
direction it is viewed, appears largely as it always has through time. There have been alterations
and development within the TCP; however, based on information provided by the tribes, it is
evident that Mt. Taylor continues to have integrity of condition.
Tribal Significance
Following is a brief discussion of some of the tribes’ uses of Mt. Taylor and the role it plays in
their culture and history. This information is taken from the Forest Service’s TCP eligibility
determination (Benedict and Hudson, 2008), the tribes’ nomination of the Mt. Taylor Cultural
Property to the SRCP (Chestnut Law Offices, 2009), and the ethnographic assessments conducted
by four tribes specifically for this EIS (Anschuetz, 2012; Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson,
2012a and 2012b; Koyiyumptewa, 2012). Those documents provide a more comprehensive
discussion of the role that Mt. Taylor plays in the beliefs and cultural practices of the tribes. It
bears repeating that the tribes that conducted ethnographic assessments for this EIS do not
differentiate between Mt. Taylor and cultural and natural resources found in the proposed project
area. In their view, the resources contained within the proposed project area are all associated
with, or are considered a part of, the Mt. Taylor TCP. The TCP and the individual resources are all
interconnected to form a sacred landscape, all of which has traditional cultural significance to the
tribes.
The following discussion also incorporates information that was shared by the tribes with the
Forest Service during government-to-government consultations between 2007 and 2012 regarding
this undertaking and uranium development in general. Thus information on the mountain’s
significance to the Pueblos of Jemez and Isleta, and the Jicarilla Apache Nation, is presented here
330 DEIS for Roca Honda Mine, Cibola National Forest