In its 2008 List of Endangered, Lost and Saved Sacred Sites, the Berkeley, California-based Sacred Sites International Foundation, a non-profit preservation advocacy organization, selected the upper, middle and lower sections of the McCloud River of northern California for each of the list’s three categories. The McCloud River Watershed is the traditional home of the Winnemem Wintu people, with whom we have been working for two decades to protect their remaining undisturbed sacred land below Mt. Shasta and above Shasta Dam.

This year, the list recognizes natural and built sacred sites that are threatened by industrial and civic development projects, mismanagement, neglect and age, while it also highlights two outstanding sacred site preservation and restoration efforts. Sacred Sites International Board members, including co-founder Nancy and Leonard Becker, Becky Urbano, a historic preservation manager with the architectural firm of Garavaglia Architecture, and Steven Post, founder of the Geomancy Education Project, selected the sites for the 2008 list with aid from various nominating organizations, including the Sacred Land Film Project.

This year Sacred Sites International listed the McCloud Watershed (ranging from Mount Shasta down to Shasta Lake) as threatened. According to their website:

The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation has proposed a plan to raise the Shasta Dam from between 6 feet to 200 feet. Any expansion would flood many of the Winnemem’s last remaining sacred sites, as well as much of the McCloud River. This would force the Winnemem to dig up the remains of their ancestors and rebury them elsewhere, just as they did when the dam was originally constructed. Ceremonial sites such as Puberty Rock would be entirely submerged. The government is expected to release an Environmental Impact Report in the Spring of 2009.

The Upper McCloud River (above Shasta Dam) including Mt.Shasta and the Winnemem’s sacred Panther Spring, all within the boundaries of the National Forest Service, is listed as saved. On the other hand, the lower McCloud River is listed as lost due to the tragic inundation of Winnemem lands and burial grounds (and forced exhumation of remains) at the time of Shasta Dam’s construction.

For more information, see the 2008 list.