The Quechan Indian Reservation encompasses about 45,000 acres of land on both sides of the Colorado River west of Yuma. Under Tribal President Mike Jackson's leadership, the tribe lays claim to jurisdiction on "ancestral lands," a vast and ill-defined land area which encompasses substantial portions of southern California, Arizona and northern Mexico - more than a million acres.
 
He has successfully opposed essentially any industrial development on this "ancestral land" because it impacted tribal members "ability to practice their sacred traditions as a living part of their community life."
 
The Quechan tribe, under Jackson's leadership, is again trying to scuttle the proposed east county refinery on the same basis as before - that valuable tribal artifacts may be present on the site, even though a thorough search on the original site turned up no artifacts.
 
Jackson's concern for tribal artifacts is at odds with his leadership in building the new Quechan casino and hotel complex on a site that Quechan tribal elders have consistently maintained actually contains numerous tribal artifacts and sacred sites.
 
These tribal elders were shoved aside and the casino is going up. Jackson's hypocrisy in ignoring his own tribal elders yet attempting to impose those same tribal concerns on privately owned land 40 miles east of the reservation boundary is ludicrous.
 
Ludicrous, especially in the face of the fact that the tribe's aboriginal title claims (to lands beyond the reservation boundaries) were long ago held to be extinguished by rulings of the U.S. Indian Claims Commission, and the tribe was compensated by the United States for those aboriginal claims.
 
Jackson wants all of us to come to his new casino and spend lots of money. He ignores the fact that it takes gasoline to get there, gasoline that he is determined will never be produced. If you want to see our gasoline supplies increased and the price at the pump lowered, do as I will do, join me and my neighbors and don't patronize his new casino.

DICK TURLEY
Wellton