For two decades, the FAA and Modoc County, California, have sought to build a massive, 3-mile long, barbed-wire topped 8-foot high airport security fence in the middle of the Tule Lake concentration camp and Segregation Center.  An airfield operating in this American site of shame is inappropriate and demeans the memory of more than 27,000 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in Tule Lake during WWII. The fence would erase remembrance of this civil and human rights tragedy, and will destroy the integrity of a rare social justice site that the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed on its 2026 list of 11 Most Endangered Historic Sites. The proposed fence will eliminate opportunities for Japanese Americans and others to visit this sacred site, to reflect, to mourn and to heal.  It will be the permanent legacy of Modoc County’s and the FAA's failure to comprehend the traumatic injustice of a mass incarceration created by racism, fed by wartime greed and hysteria and failed political leadership. 

The Tule Lake site has not yet been comprehensively surveyed to document surface and subsurface historic WWII resources. Consequently, it should be a priority to identify structures and artifacts before irreparable damage to the site takes place.  In July 2014, the Tule Lake Committee sought legally-mandated environmental review of the entire Tulelake airfield, which occupies two-thirds of the former Tule Lake site.  However, instead of conducting careful examination of the historic site, including subsurface review, the County and the FAA argue their responsibility is limited to having monitors observe the bulldozers and trenchers as they destroy cultural and historic resources along the 3-mile long fence line.  

Over the past 12 years, the Tule Lake Committee participated in talks with Modoc County, the FAA, other state and federal agencies and local representatives, hoping to promote understanding of the historic site’s significance, urging it be protected, not desecrated. 

Seeking a long-term solution to the problem of preserving an irreplaceable historic site, we urged that the Tulelake airport be relocated to a less sensitive property nearby.  It was clear to all interested parties that a small airport can be moved.  It is not possible to move a historic site.

Thank you for signing our petition! We are grateful for your support.

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