U.S. should return native lands- The U.N.,

• guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 May 2012 18.46 EDT
• Article history  Chris McGreal. 

A Native American at his home on Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, which has some of the US's poorest living conditions. Photograph: Jennifer Brown/Star Ledger/Corbis

A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination.

James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes.

Anaya said that in nearly two weeks of visiting Indian reservations, indigenous communities in Alaska and Hawaii, and Native Americans now living in cities, he encountered people who suffered a history of dispossession of their lands and resources, the breakdown of their societies and "numerous instances of outright brutality, all grounded on racial discrimination".

"It's a racial discrimination that they feel is both systemic and also specific instances of ongoing discrimination that is felt at the individual level," he said.
Anaya said racism extended from the broad relationship between federal or state governments and tribes down to local issues such as education.

"For example, with the treatment of children in schools both by their peers and by teachers as well as the educational system itself; the way native Americans and indigenous peoples are reflected in the school curriculum and teaching," he said.

Winnemum Wintu Tribe slams plan to raise Shasta Dam

by Dan Bacher 

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on February 6 issued a controversial draft report claiming that a $1.07 billion plan to raise Shasta Dam by 18-1/2 feet is "feasible" and "economically justified," a contention that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe strongly challenged. 

The dam raise would increase Lake Shasta's storage about 14 percent, supposedly benefitting municipal and agribusiness water users throughout California, according to the "Shasta Lake Water Resources Investigation" draft feasibility report. 

Raising the dam would also "increase the survival" of chinook salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish populations in the Sacramento River by increasing the cold water pool in Lake Shasta, the report claimed.

"Based on analyses to date, all comprehensive plans to enlarge Shasta Dam and Reservoir appear to be technically and environmentally feasible for implementation by the Federal Government," according to the report. "Based on analyses to date, all 18.5 foot dam raise alternatives appear to be economically justified for implementation by the Federal Government. The 6.5 foot dam raise alternative is marginally justified."