Split Rock divides LNG sides Opponents hold smudging ceremony, discuss tribal lawsuit

PLEASANT POINT – Minus the support of their tribal leaders, a handful of Passamaquoddy tribal elders who live at Pleasant Point called attention on Thursday to the stress and divisions that the tribe’s decision to pursue a liquefied natural gas facility on the Pleasant Point reservation has wrought within the community.

“We have one earth. We have one chance,” said Madonna Soctomah, a spokeswoman for Passamaquoddy members who are opposed to bringing LNG to tribal land.

She was speaking at a news conference at Split Rock, the proposed site where tribal leaders and an Oklahoma developer want to build an LNG terminal.

Gathered around her were other elders – as well as 11-year-old Kaniah Newell, a Passamaquoddy who also doesn’t care for what tribal, Washington County and state leaders are calling “economic development.”

The elders expressed their disappointment with the process that has so far divided their community. The latest turn is a federal lawsuit filed by six Passamaquoddy earlier this week – a move that could ultimately block the project.

“This has been about closed meetings and manipulation from the start,” said David Moses Bridges, one of the six behind the complaint now in U.S. District Court in Bangor.

The action is against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior. Those agencies’ roles in the BIA’s approval last summer of the tribe’s secretive land-lease agreement with Quoddy Bay LLC, the developer, are in question.

The six contend that four different federal laws were violated by the quick and furtive passage of the agreement.

Bridges joined the others at Split Rock to talk about the lawsuit, brought by a group who call themselves We Protect Our Homeland. Tribal members who cautioned others in the 18 months since LNG surfaced as a possible economic development project have been all but ignored, he and others said.

Before tribal members could read through the Tribal Council’s 86-page land-lease agreement last spring, the deal with the developer was signed on May 19. By request of the Tribal Council, the BIA expedited its approval of the agreement and signed off on the arrangement on June 1.

But the rest of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the public were not informed until 37 days later – and after a 30-day window for appeals to the BIA had technically closed.

The tribe’s lawyer, Craig Francis, said the 37-day delay was caused by the time it took to organize a news conference to announce the project’s official start.

The developer then projected that the LNG facility will provide about $6 million a year to the tribe, plus bring hundreds of construction jobs to the area. There would be about 80 “high-paying permanent jobs” starting in 2009, or when the facility has been targeted for completion.

“Even though it is not here yet materially,” Mary Bassett, another of the six behind the lawsuit, said Thursday, “LNG has already caused damage. There are fractures between the two Passamaquoddy communities [including Indian Township], and even families have been divided.”

Asked for a response to Thursday’s press conference, Dennis Bailey, spokesman for Quoddy Bay LLC, said, “This is an issue between the tribe and BIA. We think the process was appropriate.”

The developer’s public relations agency had noted on July 7 that the BIA’s land-lease approval had come “following a thorough review.”

Not so, the elders said on Thursday, and it’s not fair.

“They [the BIA] responded to this so quickly,” said Hilda Lewis, the mother of Bridges and a Tribal Council member who stands in the minority. “They didn’t even come up here to look at this area.”

The Passamaquoddy were joined on the chilly morning at Split Rock by other supporters who came from other places around Passamaquoddy Bay – Eastport, Perry, Robbinston and Campobello Island.

The gathering began with the smell of burning sage and the tossing of tobacco at a smudging ceremony by Gracie Davis. Porpoises surfaced in the bay as the Passamaquoddy drummed and sang in honor of the spot. Even the pair of loons listened.

It ended with the words of Linda Godfrey, the Eastport woman who has coordinated the opposition group Save Passamaquoddy Bay. She echoed the others.

“If you are from Augusta or Washington or Oklahoma and you haven’t been here to Split Rock, you don’t have a real understanding of what it is like,” Godfrey told those around her.

“This is a sacred place. Why would someone so callously and quickly think they have a right to take this all away? This is a courageous move to fight for Split Rock. We totally support the Passamaquoddy who are standing up.”