NATIVE AMERICAN
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Dr. Zoltán Grossman
(Geography/Native American Studies)
The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz
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
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
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
Native Environmental Justice concerns
• Racial discrimination
• Economic well-being
• Cultural survival
• Control over land/resources
• Political sovereignty
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
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
Poisoned Walleye
Advisories:
Mercury in
speared fish unsafe
for kids and
pregnant women
Buffalo killing at Yellowstone
`
Buffalo killing at Yellowstone
Native EJ History
• 1492 Spanish gold mining
• 1500s-1700s Cultural genocide,
environmental destruction
• 1850s Forests
• 1870s Buffalo, prairie
• 1920s Fish quantity
Iroquois protest NY dams, 1958
• 1950s Dams (NY, ND)
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
Occupation of Winter Dam, • 2000s Agribiz, biotech, water
Lac Courte Oreilles WI, 1971
quantity, fiber optics
Similarities with Environmentalists
• Respect for the
land/natural resources
• Traditional cultures/
small scale
• Mistrust of companies,
government agencies
• Future sustainability/
seven generations
“Buffalo Commons” proposal
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."
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.
“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
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
Recent environmental gains
Environmental alliances between tribes,
and with non-Indian neighbors
Native E.J. Hotspots
• TOXICS
• DAMS
• LOGGING
• BOMBING/JETS
• OIL
• MINING
• NUCLEAR WASTE
Toxic wastes
Toxic waste dumps
stopped on OK, SD, CA
reservations
St. Lawrence River at
Akwesasne (St. Regis) Mohawk
Reservation, NY/ON.
Fish, turtles, people poisoned by PCBs
http://www.cnie.org/NAE/toxics.html
Large factory farms also
controversial (Rosebud SD)
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
Columbia River Tribal Fishing
Celilo Falls destroyed
by Dalles dam, 1957
Hydropower dams on
Quebec Cree lands
Huge diversions of rivers
Hunting lands flooded
Mercury contamination of fish
Shorelines inaccessible
NY, VT consumers objected, delayed
Hydroelectric dams on
Manitoba Cree lands
Link to proposed MNWI transmission line
Tribal opposition to corporate
timber operations, MN, WA, CA.
First Nations road blockades &
injunctions in BC; see both
companies & environmentalists
as intruders
Logging
Many tribes
involved in logging:
Some historically
sustainable
(Menominee)
and some criticized by
tribal environmentalists
(Navajo)
Menominee Sustainable Forestry
Chief Oshkosh of
Menominee Nation;
secured reservation
in 1854
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.
Low-level flights
in Canada
Innu in Labrador protest
disruption of their
hunting culture
Wisconsin plan
shot down, 1995.
Oil drilling
Oklahoma Native lands
stolen for oil; Tribes
saw little profit
Sea exploration off
Nova Scotia, etc.
Gwich’in (Athabascan) tribe fears
for Caribou calving area in Alaska
http://www.alaska.net/~gwichin
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
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.
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
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.
Uranium mining
Most mining of uranium
for nuclear weapons,
nuclear power
on Native lands
Tailing (leftover waste)
& radioactive radon gas
Uranium waste spill in
Churchrock, NM,
largest in history, 1979.
7,000 Navajo evacuated.
Deaths of
Native miners
Navajo & Pueblo miners in AZ/NM,
Dene uranium haulers in NWT
since 1950s
Project Chariot in
Alaska
1957 proposal for nuclear weapons
excavation near Inuit
community at Point Hope
Radioactive soil, health
effects left behind
Nuclear bomb tests
were conducted in
Aleutian island
(Aleut lands)
Nuclear fallout from
Nevada Test Site
(Western Shoshone treaty lands)
Reassuring government leaflet
Atmospheric nuclear
tests halted in 1963;
continued underground
to 1996
Atomic Veterans
and
“Downwinders”
17,000 cancer cases
in the U.S. alone
Military nuclear waste at Hanford, Washington
Leaking tanks contaminated
Columbia River, salmon
Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS)
Dep’t 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.
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?)
Ward Valley plan in California
Low-level nuclear waste dump plan defeated by
Tribes, environmentalists, locals, 2002
Yucca Mountain
(Western Shoshone
treaty lands)
Shoshone opponent
Corbin Harney
Prairie Island
wastes would be
shipped to NV
Prairie Island
Mdewakanton Dakota (Sioux) Community, MN
xxxx
(Next to Mississippi River and Wisconsin)
http://prairieisland.org
Mdewakanton Dakota imprisoned,
removed from Minnesota
xxxx
after 1862
uprising;
some returned in 1880s.
534-acre reservation recognized, 1936.
xxxx
Plant built 1968 on City of Red Wing land
a half-mile from tiny reservation
xxxx
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.
Evacuation route through reservation
often blocked by river, train in
Mississippi River
xxxx floodplain
High-voltage transmission lines
next to neighborhoods
xxxx
xxxx
Plant and radioactive waste storage
near daycare center and former school
xxxx
Spent fuel rods first kept
in indoor pool storage.
Tribe built Treasure Island Casino
for economic development, 1996
xxxx
xxxx
To store accumulating spent nuclear fuel
rods (high-level radioactive waste),
NSP requested 48 “dry casks.”
MN Legislature approved
17 “dry casks” to store waste, 1994.
Casks now surrounded by
18-foot-high concrete berm (wall)
to block radiation
xxxx
New security concerns and
road blockages since 9/11
Boulders to block truck bombs
from reaching dry casks
xxxx
Large restricted areas
around plant and 17
“dry casks”xxxx
Suspicious-looking characters have been
spotted trespassing on the plant site
xxxx
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).
NSP (Now Xcel) gave the Tribe a new
evacuation plan, a health study, and funds for
xxxx tribal members.
land purchases to relocate
Will the Prairie
Island Dakota
be moved again?