Public Health Professionals Add Their Support to Sáttítla Monument Campaign

Health experts stand with the Pit River Tribe and underscore the urgent need to protect this culturally significant landscape for the sake of community and regional health.

A group of more than 50 public health professionals, including 7 organizations, today sent a joint letter to President Joe Biden, expressing their support for the Pit River Tribe's call to use executive powers under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate Sáttítla, an area within the Medicine Lake Highlands region in northern California near Mount Shasta, as a National Monument. 

In the letter, doctors, nurses, mental health clinicians, and public health researchers underscored the urgency of protecting this region’s critical natural and cultural resources from ongoing threats of development that are known to cause adverse health effects for surrounding communities. 

“Since the beginning of time the Pit River people have maintained a strong connection with the lands of Sáttítla and the cultural resources it holds that continue to keep us healthy mentally, physically, and spiritually,” said Brandy McDaniels, lead for the Pit River Nation's Sáttítla National Monument campaign. “There are countless testimonials of those who have garnered strength, healing, and protection from Sáttítla. We unite with health professionals and call on President Biden to protect Sáttítla and the healing resources it provides for all future generations via a National Monument designation.”

The Pit River Nation has continuously defended these lands and waters, including fighting two dozen federally issued industrial geothermal development leases. The health implications of proposed developments raise high concern for local medical professionals, including Melissa Faber R.N., C.C.R.N., who said: “Geothermal development would involve the injection of harmful chemicals like hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids, as well as the release of arsenic, mercury, and other toxic substances into the air that are known to cause cancer and birth defects. We must safeguard this area from development now for the sake of future generations' health.”

Serving as critical headwaters for the state, the health consequences of water contamination in this region are magnified for local communities and downstream users. Health professionals recognize the severity of these threats and the need to protect this landscape for both community members’ physical and mental well-being. "Sáttítla is a place of rest and reset that I visit, and I know my colleagues do as well, regularly,” Faber said.  “We need to keep this pristine place intact not only for healthcare professionals, but for all people to have a place to recharge.”

Access to nature benefits health by reducing stress, improving sleep, encouraging physical activity, and strengthening social bonds. Public lands like the proposed Sáttítla National Monument provide these essential health benefits to surrounding communities.

In their letter, health professionals also highlighted how monument designation paves the way for conservation-minded management practices that promote community health. Healthy, well-managed forests are more resilient to wildfires, a growing threat to California’s public health. Monument designation provides pathways for co-stewardship and co-management of Sáttítla by the Pit River Nation and other local Tribes, supporting healthy lands and ensuring that Tribal members and leaders can take part in the administration of their ancestral lands.

"Given the climate and biodiversity crises, in part caused by a domination of nature mentality, it is timely that our larger populations listen to the elders among the descendants of genocide who counsel honoring water as life, protecting the sacred, and living in deep relation with Mother Earth. The time is now for permanent protection of Sáttítla through National Monument designation. This would benefit the well-being of all human communities and our non-human kin in the region,” said Dr. Andrew Deckert, M.D..

“The Pit River Nation seeks to permanently protect Sáttítla, the Medicine Lake Highlands, and remove it from development considerations. Permanent protection of Sáttítla through the designation of a national monument would address concerns about threats to public health and well-being, ensuring these unique and sacred lands and waters remain pristine for generations to come. For these and many more reasons, the undersigned medical and public health professionals strongly support the Pit River Nation’s request for the establishment of a national monument through the Antiquities Act to protect Sáttítla,” the letter concluded. 

To read the full letter, click here.