Energy bill is omnicide, slow death for Indian people
Voices from the earth, filibuster
By Brenda Norrell, Correspondent
Indian Country Today
December 03, 2003
ALBUQUERQUE - American Indian stewards of the earth - Northern Cheyenne, Western Shoshone, Navajo, Zuni, Yankton Sioux and Gwich’in - gathered to oppose the U.S. Energy bill 2003, in a press conference adjacent to the National Congress of American Indians’ 60th Annual Convention.
Norman Patrick Brown, Navajo, said "the uranium monster must be prevented from coming through the door." Navajos have suffered from 65 years of Cold War uranium mining, with a trail of cancer and death.
"Nowhere in the world have people suffered as much as my grassroots people," said Brown, Navajo from Shiprock, representing thousands of grassroots Navajo.
"I’ve heard from my people that Sen. Pete Domenici is a friend of the Navajo, but friends of the Navajo do not introduce legislation that can destroy us."
Cora Phillips, Navajo, said the energy bill is omnicide - the ultimate taking of life. It is the slow death of Navajo from uranium poisoning, damaging their life support system and their gene pool. It damages human cells and unborn children.
The energy bill, Section 631, authorizes up to $30 million in grants to uranium mining companies for demonstration projects using the in situ leach mining method, which would contaminate the groundwater, she said.
Speaking on behalf of Navajo President Joe Shirley, Phillips said four uranium in situ mines are proposed for the Navajo communities of Church Rock and Crownpoint, N.M., where a deadly spill has already left a trail of death.
"A cry has to come from all parts of the world," Phillips said, pointing out there has been 16 million deaths as a result of uranium mining worldwide.
The federal government’s message is: "We will find a way to exterminate you."
Urging a filibuster in the Senate, Gwich’in Evon Peter, 27, said Alaskan Natives have been "enslaved and marginalized" by multi-national corporations and the people separated from the land.
He said the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act created for-profit corporations to exploit the land and use the people, leading to the loss of Native land.
Peter said that putting for-profit corporations in control of Native lands would be the same as placing Enron in charge of federal lands.
Ian Zabarte, secretary of state and spokesperson for the Western Shoshone National Council, said for the past 50 years, weapons of mass destruction have been created on ancestral Western Shoshone land in Nevada.
"It is unacceptable that we are bearing the burden for nuclear development," said Zabarte, who postponed law school to carry on this struggle.
The United States’ plan to store nuclear waste on Western Shoshone land at Yucca Mountain would create streams of nuclear waste traveling across America and ending up as a river of waste on Yucca Mountain.
Zabarte said geothermal is not a renewal energy source. "It is the lifeblood of Mother Earth."
Northern Cheyenne Councilman William Walks Along from Montana opposed the federal energy bill and coal bed methane development.
"Our Native people are not 'crazy trouble-maker extremists.' They are protecting their homeland."
Northern Cheyenne are surrounded by methane development and the salty water is being pumped into rivers and streams.
Urging Congress to reconsider the legislation, he said, "Listen to our voice from the Mother Earth."
Zuni Pueblo Gov. Arlen P. Quetawki said federal officials come to Native leaders at the National Congress of American Indians, in the pretense of consultation. But there is no consultation.
"They have already made up their minds."
Gov. Quetawki said Indian leaders are "reacting rather than being proactive."
Zuni have learned lessons from their victory of protecting their sacred Zuni Salt Lake from the proposed coal mine of the Salt River Project. He said one week after it was announced that SRP would not mine at Fence Lake, the Bureau of Land Management began the process of leasing lands for oil and gas development.
Gov. Quetawki said if emissions from power plants destroy the purity of the air, no amount of money would help Indian people. "There is going to be generations and generations of illnesses."
Yankton Sioux Faith Spotted Eagle showed a video of Lakota facing off with federal officials to protect sacred places, burial sites and the environment of the Missouri River Basin.
On the Native-produced video of the struggle, Alma Mentz confronts federal officials. "Water is a source of life, without it you and I will die, without it we can not live."
"Leave our water alone. We have been taken for a ride too many years," Mentz said.
Meanwhile, Jodie White, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nations, from Fort Berthold Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota, released a statement of opposition to development of oil on her tribe’s lands.
White said oil refineries are the single largest source of benzene emissions and one of the largest sources of air pollution. The emissions cause cancer, reproductive toxicity, respiratory disease and premature death.
Already coal and lignite energy industries have increased rates of asthma and cancer and an alert issued on high levels of mercury in local fish.
White said air is the breath of the Creator and water sustains life, adding that the refinery would "poison and kill our children, people, future generations and destroy our Mother Earth."
During the annual convention, Picuris Pueblo Gov. Gerald Nailor said the mining of mica clays between Osha and Borrego canyons, N.M. must be halted. Oglebay Norton Specialty Minerals of Cleveland, Ohio, has expanded mining operations and destroyed the Pueblo’s traditional micaceous clay gathering area.
Gov. Nailor said the U.S. Mining Law of 1872 sold sacred places for $5 an acre to corporations and must be changed to protect sacred places.
Sayokla Kindness, Oneida staff member of the Indigenous Environmental Network which organized the press conference, said the federal energy bill places sacred places in danger. It seeks to stimulate domestic energy production by providing $16 billion in tax breaks to increase oil, coal, nuclear and electricity production.
The bill also allows energy-resource tribes to enter into resource agreements that would undermine crucial federal laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historical Protection Act, she said.
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