Lummi Nation suing telecom company, government agencies over trenching tribal members say unearthed ancestral remains
A hearing is scheduled July 14 in U.S. District Court in Seattle regarding the Lummi Nation’s lawsuit against a telecommunications company that allegedly disturbed ancestral remains when it trenched for a broadband project in Point Roberts, which the Lummi know as Chelhtenem.
Whidbey Telecom has denied the allegations. Whatcom County and the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Commerce are co-defendants because they issued permits and/or funded the project.
In its 52-page lawsuit, the Lummi Nation details how Whidbey Telecom allegedly trenched through 5,000-year-old ancestral burial grounds in Point Roberts, a peninsula that extends from Canada south into U.S. waters and is part of the United States. Several sets of remains are still exposed, the lawsuit states, and a fragment from a human skull is missing.
“The disturbance itself imposes spiritual injury on the ancestors and on the living members of the nation, and it requires the nation to undertake additional ceremonial work to address what has been done,” Lummi Nation attorneys wrote in the lawsuit about the effects of burial disturbances. “That ceremonial work imposes its own emotional and cultural costs on tribal members, elders, and ceremonial practitioners.”
The harms, they wrote, “are felt not only by Lummi Nation as a sovereign government, but by individual tribal members whose ancestors lie at Point Roberts and whose cultural and spiritual obligations to those ancestors are ongoing.”
According to Whidbey Telecom, all that remains for the project to be completed is connection to homes and businesses. All work is halted by a stop work order issued by USDA. The Lummi Nation is asking the U.S. District Court to stop the project, allow the Lummi Nation access to the site to assess the damage, and allow for exposed ancestral remains to be recovered and reinterred. It is also seeking undetermined compensatory and punitive damages.
Lummi Nation Chair Anthony Hillaire did not respond to a request for comment. The Lummi Nation is a signatory to the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855 and has a government-to-government relationship with the United States.
Different takes
In her response to the lawsuit, Whidbey Telecom CEO Donna Hilty said the three-phase project received its first permits in January 2021. Part of the project involved approximately 300 feet of boring and 7,000 feet of open trenching. That’s an estimated 128.6 cubic yards of disturbed soil – enough to fill 9-13 standard dump trucks, according to calculations based on National Electrical Code standards.
The company made “an inadvertent discovery of a shell midden” — a collection of discarded mollusk shells that serve as evidence of pre-contact human occupation of a site — on April 27, 2023, Hilty wrote. A state archaeologist was present at the time, all excavation was stopped and the area was secured with temporary fencing “to prevent unauthorized access and further disturbance.”
The USDA, one of the project-funding agencies, issued a stop work order on May 1, 2023 on that phase of the project. A private firm conducted a damage assessment and “the affected areas were backfilled using hand tools,” Hilty wrote. “No additional cultural resources, including cultural artifacts or potential human remains, were encountered or identified.”
Hilty said the company consulted with the state, Lummi Nation and USDA following the damage assessment.
A human skull fragment was found on Nov. 6, 2025, during a cultural resources survey for another phase of the project — Hilty said the skull fragment was found on a pedestrian trail and was not related to excavation work — and relevant agencies and authorities were informed, she said. However, the fragment was subsequently lost, she said.
According to the Lummi Nation’s version of events:
Whidbey Telecom began construction in March 2021 within the boundaries of an archaeological site known to contain Lummi burial grounds. “Whidbey Telecom dug at least 2,100 feet of trenches, potentially creating vast amounts of damage to Lummi ancestral remains,” Lummi Nation alleges.
Whidbey Telecom damaged Lummi burial grounds in March 2023 and, “upon discovery of the archaeological deposits, Whidbey Telecom did not halt construction; instead, it willfully continued work, digging a trench at least 1,000 feet long, carrying out at least 300 feet of directional boring and creating at least five exploratory ‘hand hole’ or ‘pot hole’ trenches,” Lummi Nation alleges. “Whidbey Telecom disturbed human remains in four of the hand hole exploratory trenches and disbursed additional human remains in all removed soil piles.”
Lummi Nation was notified by a Point Roberts resident of the destruction between April and July 2023 and “began repeatedly warning Whidbey Telecom that its projects were damaging Lummi burial grounds.” But the company “willfully chose to commence project activities” on Nov. 6, 2025, Lummi Nation alleges. “Once again, the company disturbed human remains, including some that are now permanently lost and cannot be reinterred.”
The Lummi Nation states that Whidbey Telecom “knew or should have known” of the nation’s cultural resources and burial grounds at Point Roberts because the company has operated there for about 40 years and employs a tribal affairs liaison.
Wayne Lyle, a real estate broker for ReMAX and president of the Point Roberts Chamber of Commerce, said he hadn’t read the lawsuit and couldn’t comment on the merits. But he said it’s generally known on the peninsula that the area is culturally sensitive.
“Absolutely.” he said June 8. “Parts of Point Roberts, particularly Maple Beach, is likely one of the most culturally concentrated areas anywhere in Washington state. Anywhere close to the waterfront is likely going to be an archeologically sensitive area. Anything within 500 feet of a known archeological location you have to do an archeological survey in order to stir up the land, like build a home or add a garage. It’s become more upfront now with everything going on, so on the positive side people understand better what the rules are.”
Lyle said the Whidbey Telecom project was expected to give Point Roberts the internet speeds found in Seattle or Vancouver. “Our internet is adequate, but it’s not high speed. It’s not optimum,” he said.
Past desecrations
The Lummi, or Lhaq’temish, people are Indigenous to the San Juan Islands. The tribe’s historical territory spans the ancestral lands and coastal waters of Washington’s northernmost coast and southern British Columbia. “This vast traditional expanse includes the San Juan Islands, Bellingham Bay, the Fraser River and the Puget Sound,” according to the Lummi Nation website.
The Lummi Nation maintains cultural protection rights throughout its historical territory, and its treaty relationship with the United States requires federal, state and local governments to consult with them on development that could affect cultural and natural resources.
Still, the Lummi Nation has had to go to court — and has done so with great success — to protect its cultural sites.
Construction of a wastewater treatment plant in 1999 at Semiahmoo Spit, which the Lummi know as Tsi-li-tch, disturbed the remains of approximately 44 Lummi ancestors before work was halted. The City of Blaine formally apologized, transferred land to the Lummi Nation and paid a $1.2 million settlement. The archeological consultant paid a $4.25 million settlement to cover the costs for recovering and reburying remains and to compensate the affected families.
The Lummi Nation closed Madrona Point, which the Lummi know as Ts’el-xwi-sen, in 2007 after it determined visitors to the 30-acre forested promontory with walking trails had been misused and burials disturbed.
And in 2016, the Lummi Nation succeeded in stopping the proposed development of a coal export terminal at Cherry Point, which the Lummi know as Xwe’chi’eXen. Developer SSA Marine disturbed burials when it bulldozed roads and drilled soil boreholes without required permits or consultation with the Lummi Nation. In addition to abandoning the project, SSA Marine paid a $1.6 million environmental settlement.
.—By Richard Arlin Walker