Support Long Term Protections for Minidoka National Historic Site
Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome, Idaho, tells the painful stories of the unconstitutional forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Minidoka is a place to heal deep emotional trauma, educate the public about racial injustice, and commemorate our ancestors. When visiting the site, visitors experience a sense of isolation and remoteness due to the sweeping vistas of surrounding lands and distant mountains.
The proposed Lava Ridge wind project will forever alter Minidoka’s somber landscape and fails to honor the significance of the events that occurred at Minidoka as a place of reflection, healing, and education for the survivors, descendants, and public. The proposed project places 340 towers in the Minidoka NHS viewshed with 12 of those towers on the historic Minidoka footprint. The Minidoka community of survivors and descendants deserve the respect and acknowledgment of this gross violation of civil liberties by our nation’s government through the preservation of the site. The Minidoka story must be recognized and treated in an honorable and somber manner as other painful events in our nation’s history. The proposed Lava Ridge project minimizes the trauma, loss, and humiliation suffered by American citizens based solely on racial discrimination.
National Environmental Protection Act
BLM’s Environmental Impact Statement Process
For the past two years, Friends of Minidoka has been participating in the public process — attending meetings, submitting comments, commissioning cultural resource reports — in order to project Minidoka National Historic Site’s solemn and reflective immersive experience from this massive commercial wind project.
To read about the Bureau of Land Management’s Lava Ridge Project, visit the project website.
Read Friends of Minidoka’s responses to BLM
Coalition Letter Sent to the BLM, July 2022
Friends of Minidoka Scoping Letter, October 2021
Long Term Protections
Friends of Minidoka asks the Bureau of Land Management to abandon the Lava Ridge project and create long term protections by designating the Minidoka view shed as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). Read more below about our ACEC nomination.
Friends of Minidoka commissioned a Traditional Cultural Property Study from Algonquin Consultants, Inc. and submitted it to the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) in December 2022. In February 2023, we received a letter of determination from the Idaho SHPO explaining that the Greater Minidoka viewshed is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. SHPO’s determination is significant because the BLM’s General Management Plan states that “Should the site be determined to be of significant value; eligible for or on the National Register of Historic Places; and/or the above mentioned methods are not considered adequate, the project will be abandoned” (page 42).
Friends of Minidoka submits Supplemental Report to its Traditional Cultural Property Report to Idaho State Historic Preservation Office.
Click here to read The Boundary of the Oppressor: Challenging the Use of the Historic Footprint as an Appropriate Property Boundary for the Minidoka TCP.
