NATIVE AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

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NATIVE AMERICANENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Dr. Zoltán Grossman (Geography/Native American
Studies) The Evergreen State College, Olympia,
Washington http//academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossma
z
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Environmental Injustices

• Placement of toxic wastes
• in communities of color
• Disproportionate burdens of
• siting industries in or near
• communities of color
• White racial advantages to
• avoid or move away from
• environmental contamination

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Environmental Justice (E.J.)

• Linking environmental issues
• to racial/economic justice
• Linking racial/socioeconomic
• justice to environmental issues
• Media spotlight after 1982
• African American rallies vs.
• toxic waste dumps in the South

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1982 Founding of E.J. Movement?

• If focus on toxic wastes.
• On radar screens of media, EPA, mainstream
  enviros.
• Coalesced 1960s-70s movements
• Chicano farmworkers vs. pesticides
• African Americans vs. lead paint
• Native Americans vs. mines, dams
• Links between environmental issues and
  social/ethnic issues have been a concern since
  1492

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Native Environmental Justice concerns

• Racial discrimination
• Economic well-being
• Cultural survival
• Control over land/resources
• Political sovereignty

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Disproportionate Burdens on Native America

• Reservations do have resources
• Were assumed to be wastelands, but have minerals,
  etc.
• Tribal governments under economic pressure.
• Live in sparsely populated areas
• National Sacrifice Areas (NAS 1973), Military
  projects

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More Disproportionate Burdens

• Traditional lifestyle / diet
• Contaminated plants,
• mercury in fish, scarce game
• Cultural vulnerability
• Sacred sites, language gap,
• small and threatened cultures
• Historic ties to homeland
• Less mobility to avoid
• environmental threats

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Poisoned Walleye
Advisories Mercury in speared fish unsafe for
kids and pregnant women
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Buffalo killing at Yellowstone

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Buffalo killing at Yellowstone
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Native EJ History

• 1492 Spanish gold mining
• 1500s-1700s Cultural genocide,
• environmental destruction
• 1850s Forests
• 1870s Buffalo, prairie
• 1920s Fish quantity
• 1950s Dams (NY, ND)

Iroquois protest NY dams, 1958
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Native EJ History

• 1960s Water quality/mercury
• 1970s Mineral/energy resources,
• hydropower dams
• 1980s Nuclear, logging, military
• 1990s Toxic wastes, oil/gas drilling,
• POPs, recreation
• 2000s Agribiz, biotech, water
• quantity, fiber optics

Occupation of Winter Dam, Lac Courte Oreilles WI,
1971
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Similarities with Environmentalists

• Respect for the
• land/natural resources
• Traditional cultures/
• small scale
• Mistrust of companies,
• government agencies
• Future sustainability/
• seven generations

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Buffalo Commons proposal
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Proposed 7th Generation Amendment
"The right of the people to use and enjoy air,
water, sunlight, and other natural resources
determined by the Legislature or Congress to be
common property, shall not be impaired, nor
shall such use impair their availability for
future generations."
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Differences with Environmentalists

• E.J. blindspots / misrepresentation
• Wilderness concept/human interaction
• Nature for weekend park/preserve, not living,
  working, harvesting
• View tribes as succumbing to money.
• (or) View tribes in romanticized light.
• Misunderstanding of differences within tribes.

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Myth of the Ecological Indian

• Perception of wasteful harvesting/hunting
• But Native Americans not have same value
• of wilderness (without human presence)
• Binary view of good vs. evil
• Indians not accepted as fully human
• Postmodernist view that Native Americans
• copying environmentalists since 1960s

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Recent environmental gains

• Gaming resources
• Technical, legal, P.R., land purchases
• Buffalo restoration
• Sacred site/burial protection
• EPA Treatment-As-State (TAS)
• Court recognition of treaty rights
• Renewable energies

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Recent environmental gains
Environmental alliances between tribes, and
with non-Indian neighbors
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Native E.J. Hotspots

• TOXICS
• DAMS
• LOGGING
• BOMBING/JETS
• OIL
• MINING
• NUCLEAR WASTE

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Toxic wastes
Toxic waste dumps stopped on OK, SD,
CA reservations Large factory farms
also controversial (Rosebud SD)
St. Lawrence River at Akwesasne (St. Regis)
Mohawk Reservation, NY/ON. Fish, turtles, people
poisoned by PCBs
http//www.cnie.org/NAE/toxics.html
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Dams
Dams on Columbia and Snake Rivers block salmon
migration, affect fish habitat Tribes use treaty
rights, alliances To call for breaching
dams www.critfc.org
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Columbia River Tribal Fishing
Celilo Falls destroyed by Dalles dam, 1957
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Hydropower dams on Quebec Cree lands
Huge diversions of rivers Hunting lands
flooded Mercury contamination of
fish Shorelines inaccessible NY, VT consumers
objected, delayed
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Hydroelectric dams on Manitoba Cree lands
Link to proposed MN- WI transmission line
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Logging

• Tribal opposition to corporate
• timber operations, MN, WA, CA.
• First Nations road blockades
• injunctions in BC see both
• companies environmentalists
• as intruders

Many tribes involved in logging Some
historically sustainable (Menominee) and some
criticized by tribal environmentalists (Navajo)
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Menominee Sustainable Forestry
Chief Oshkosh of Menominee Nation secured
reservation in 1854
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Bombing ranges low-level jet flights
Practice for flying under radar. Effect on
cattle, wildlife, horses, human stress
Driven out of Europe. Went to Nevada, Canada,
etc.
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Low-level flights in Canada
Innu in Labrador protest disruption of
their hunting culture Wisconsin plan shot down,
1995.
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Oil drilling
Oklahoma Native lands stolen for oil Tribes saw
little profit Sea exploration off Nova Scotia,
etc.
Gwichin (Athabascan) tribe fears for Caribou
calving area in Alaska http//www.alaska.net/gwic
hin
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Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
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Mining
Zortman cyanide heap-leach gold mine at Ft.
Belknap Res., MT Similar mine stopped at
Colville, WA
Black Mesa coal mine in Navajo Res.
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Wisconsin Anti-Mining Alliance
Mining companies threatened fish, wild rice
Sportfishing groups joined with tribes
to fight Crandon mine Two tribes defeated
plan by buying mine site, 2003 Continuing
Native traditions sovereignty benefited
non-Indians too
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Nuclear Hotspots

• Nuclear waste dumps
• WA, NM, MN
• Manitoba
• Proposed nuclear dumps
• NM, UT, NV, CA
• Ontario, Alberta
• Uranium mining
• AZ, NM, SD, WA
• Sask., Ontario, NWT
• Nuclear weapons testing
• NV, AK, Marshall Is.

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Uranium mining
Most mining of uranium for nuclear weapons,
nuclear power on Native lands Tailing (leftover
waste) radioactive radon gas
Uranium waste spill inChurchrock, NM, largest
in history, 1979.7,000 Navajo evacuated.
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Deaths ofNative miners
Navajo Pueblo miners in AZ/NM, Dene uranium
haulers in NWT since 1950s
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Project Chariot in Alaska
1957 proposal for nuclear weaponsexcavation near
Inuitcommunity at Point HopeRadioactive soil,
healtheffects left behindNuclear bomb tests
were conducted inAleutian island(Aleut lands)
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Nuclear fallout fromNevada Test Site (Western
Shoshone treaty lands)
Reassuring government leaflet
Atmospheric nuclear tests halted in
1963 continued underground to 1996
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Atomic VeteransandDownwinders
17,000 cancer cases in the U.S. alone
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Military nuclear waste at Hanford, Washington
Leaking tanks contaminated Columbia River, salmon
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Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS)
Dept of Energy asked impoverished tribes to
consider high-level civilian waste, but most
said no. Leaders of Mescalero Apache in NM
accepted, but tribal members later rejected.
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Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS)
Skull Valley Goshute in UT leaders
accepted. Area already poisoned by chemical
weapons, want to relocate. State,
environmentalists, many tribal members object
(but question sovereignty?)
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Ward Valley plan in California
Low-level nuclear waste dump plan defeated
by Tribes, environmentalists, locals, 2002
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Yucca Mountain(Western Shoshone treaty lands)
Shoshone opponent Corbin Harney Prairie
Island wastes would be shipped to NV
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Prairie IslandMdewakanton Dakota (Sioux)
Community, MN(Next to Mississippi River and
Wisconsin)

• http//prairieisland.org

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Mdewakanton Dakota imprisoned, removed from
Minnesota after 1862 uprising some returned in
1880s. 534-acre reservation recognized, 1936.
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• Plant built 1968 on City of Red Wing land
• a half-mile from tiny reservation

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• Opened 1973 by Northern States Power (NSP).
• Tribe never consulted or compensated
• Promised jobs never fulfilled.
• Members had little awareness of radiation,
• until 1979 radioactive release.
• Tribal members fear link to recent diseases.

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• Evacuation route through reservation
• often blocked by river, train in
• Mississippi River floodplain

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High-voltage transmission lines next to
neighborhoods
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Plant and radioactive waste storage near daycare
center and former school
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• Spent fuel rods first kept
• in indoor pool storage.

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Tribe built Treasure Island Casino for economic
development, 1996
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• To store accumulating spent nuclear fuel
• rods (high-level radioactive waste),
• NSP requested 48 dry casks.

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• MN Legislature approved
• 17 dry casks to store waste, 1994.
• Casks now surrounded by
• 18-foot-high concrete berm (wall)
• to block radiation

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• New security concerns and
• road blockages since 9/11

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• Boulders to block truck bombs
• from reaching dry casks

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• Large restricted areas
• around plant and 17
• dry casks

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• Suspicious-looking characters have been
• spotted trespassing on the plant site

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• Current casks will run out of capacity by 2007.
• To avoid closure of plant,
• MN Legislature in 2003 approved
• 10 more years of waste storage (to 2013).

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NSP (Now Xcel) gave the Tribe a new evacuation
plan, a health study, and funds for land
purchases to relocate tribal members.

• Will the Prairie
• Island Dakota
• be moved again?