The Lummi Nation has named Whidbey Telecom, Whatcom County, the USDA and U.S. Department of Commerce in the lawsuit.
LUMMI NATION, Wash. — The Lummi Nation filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing multiple groups of cutting through ancestral burial grounds during construction projects.
The filing names Whidbey Telecom and Whatcom County, Washington, as defendants. The Lummi Nation also named the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Commerce, alleging the construction projects carried out by Whidbey Telecom and Whatcom County were federally funded and repeatedly “cut through” and “disturbed” burial grounds and remains at Point Roberts. The projects were tied to the burial of fiber lines, according to the filing.
According to the Lummi Nation, the disturbances were not isolated. The Lummi Nation alleges a pattern of construction that consistently occurred and, at times, operated in secret.
“This wasn’t an accident. It was a series of decisions,” said Greg Werkheiser, the Lummi Nation’s counsel from Cultural Heritage Partners PLLC. “At every critical moment — when consultation was required, when human remains were uncovered, when work should have stopped — the defendants chose to proceed.”
In the complaint, the Lummi Nation accuses all four named defendants of approving and carrying out construction on known burial grounds without consulting the tribe, failing to notify the nation when burial grounds were trenched in various projects, losing human remains and denying the Lummi Nation access to recover disturbed remains for reburial, among other allegations.
“These protections are not optional,” said Lena Tso, tribal historic preservation officer for the Lummi Nation. “They are the minimum required to ensure that development does not come at the cost of erasing a people’s history. Here, those safeguards were treated as obstacles instead of obligations.”
According to the filing, the Lummi Nation is seeking a court order requiring those named in the suit to allow tribal officials to document damage and recover disturbed and uncovered remains.
Whidbey Telecom, Whatcom County, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Commerce could not immediately be reached for comment.
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