Qualla: Elem Indian Colony: Poisoned Homeland https://qualla.com/elem-indian-colony en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/v/elem-indian-colony-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Elem Indian Colony: Poisoned Homeland https://qualla.com/elem-indian-colony Elem Indian Colony: Poisoned Homeland: Introduction https://qualla.com/elem-indian-colony/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The mercury is in the fish. It is in the soil beneath the houses, in the sediment along the lakeshore, in the blood of the people who have lived here for thousands of years. The Elem Indian Colony occupies 50 acres on the eastern shore of Clear Lake in Lake County, California -- a reservation that the federal government carved out for the Elem Pomo in 1949 from land nobody else wanted, because an abandoned mercury mine had already poisoned it. The Sulphur Bank Mercury Mine operated from 1867 to 1957, and when the miners left, they left behind 2.5 million cubic yards of waste stretching along 1,300 feet of shoreline. The Elem Pomo, whose ancestors had fished and gathered along this lake for millennia, received the contaminated parcel as their designated homeland. It is one of the crueler ironies in a history that has no shortage of them.

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/v/elem-indian-colony-wp/9qbv-elem-indian-colony-poisoned-homeland-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Elem Indian Colony: Poisoned Homeland: People of the Lake https://qualla.com/elem-indian-colony/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Elem Pomo are one of several bands of Pomo people indigenous to the Clear Lake basin, the largest natural freshwater lake entirely within California. For at least 6,000 years -- and possibly as long as 14,000, based on artifacts found on nearby Rattlesnake Island -- the Elem ...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/v/elem-indian-colony-wp/9qbv-elem-indian-colony-poisoned-homeland-people-of-the-lake.mp3 0:06 2 full Elem Indian Colony: Poisoned Homeland: A Toxic Inheritance https://qualla.com/elem-indian-colony/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Sulphur Bank Mine began as a sulfur operation in the 1860s before transitioning to mercury extraction. For nine decades, it produced mercury from cinnabar ore, leaving behind open pits, waste rock piles, and contaminated tailings that leached heavy metals into the surrounding...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/v/elem-indian-colony-wp/9qbv-elem-indian-colony-poisoned-homeland-a-toxic-inheritance.mp3 0:06 3 full Elem Indian Colony: Poisoned Homeland: Living with Mercury https://qualla.com/elem-indian-colony/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The contamination reshaped daily life on the reservation in ways that outsiders rarely see. Fish advisories, first issued in 1987 and updated repeatedly, warned against eating species that the Elem had consumed for generations. Tribal members who continued traditional fishing pra...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/v/elem-indian-colony-wp/9qbv-elem-indian-colony-poisoned-homeland-living-with-mercury.mp3 0:06 4 full Elem Indian Colony: Poisoned Homeland: Endurance at the Shoreline https://qualla.com/elem-indian-colony/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Elem Indian Colony was formally organized as a tribe in 1936 and received its reservation -- originally called the Sulfur Bank Rancheria -- in 1949. Today, tribal headquarters are in Lower Lake, California. The colony sits between the small towns of Clearlake Oaks to the nort...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/v/elem-indian-colony-wp/9qbv-elem-indian-colony-poisoned-homeland-endurance-at-the-shoreline.mp3 0:06 5 full