Tribes Struggle to Protect Sacred Lake from Energy Company

July 17, 2002

Source: Los Angeles Times

On July 17, 2002 the Los Angeles Times featured the article "A Power Struggle: Electric vs. Spiritual" on the struggle between a big energy company and California Native American tribes over the company's plans for a sacred lake in California. The company, "Calpine Corp., hopes to harvest megawatts from generating plants only a few miles from the sacred lake. Exploratory drilling is to begin this week... Tribal lore has it that the Creator bathed in Medicine Lake, and it remains a place of raw spiritual power... Tribal elders question whether the relatively meager energy to be drawn from the Earth justifies wounding... a place of deep spiritual value to its first inhabitants."