Cherry Point, Washington State

The Lummi Nation fought against a proposed coal shipping terminal on their traditional land from 2011 until the Nation’s victory over the terminal in 2016. Their victory came after fierce advocacy of their treaty rights to the land and waters around Cherry Point near Bellingham, Washington State. While this case does deal in Cherry Point’s sacredness to the Lummi people, the central point of this issue is the Lummi Nation ensuring that the United States government holds up its treaty agreement.

The Lummi Nation, or Lhaq-temish – the “Lummi People,” is the third-largest Native nation in Washington State and has a reservation located northwest of Bellingham, Washington. The Lummi Nation has been living on these coastal lands and throughout the Puget Sound lowlands for more than 3,000 years. The land of Cherry Point north of the Lummi Reservation and the waters of the Puget Sound and Salish Sea have cultivated their culture, defining their schelangen, or way of life.¹

The Lummi Nation Reservation is located in the very northwest corner of Washington State. Puget Sound waters sit to the south of the reservation, the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the southwest, and the Strait of Georgia to the north. These waters are collectively known as the Salish Sea (Map: Nikater, Demis)

Cherry Point, the site of the proposed and denied Gateway Pacific Terminal, is located north of the Lummi Reservation but is land entitled to the Lummi Nation in the Treaty of Point Elliot (Map: Mark Nowlin).

A 2011 proposal to build the Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) sparked controversy over the legal rights to Cherry Point and the uses of the land. Pacific International Terminals, Inc. (PIT) a subsidiary of SSA Marine, proposed to build the GPT, a deep-water marine terminal, at Cherry Point. The terminal would export up to 54 million tons of dry bulk commodities to Asia every year with a main export of coal. This coal would be transported by rail to Cherry Point from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, one of the ten largest coal mines in the country.²

The Lummi Nation took the fight against the GPT into their hands, claiming that this terminal would interfere with their sacred burial lands and ability to fish while violating the nation’s treaty rights. Non-Native locals concerned with increased coal trains, vessel traffic, and coal pollution also opposed the GPT. SSA and PIT claimed that the GPT would create sustainable and vital jobs in the area.³

This instance of Indigenous resistance ended in victory for the Lummi Nation when the American Corps of Engineers ruled in 2016 that they could not approve PIT’s proposal because it would infringe upon Lummi Nation’s treaty rights.⁴