New Mexico Looks To Navajo For Guidance - Foxwoods' Struggle To Survive

The Native Unity Digest Is Six Years Old, Today - August 30th, 2009

New Mexico Gets Guidance From Navajo EPA On Uranium Legacy
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup Independent
GALLUP – It isn't often that the state of New Mexico looks to the Navajo Nation for advice, but when dealing with the Cold War uranium legacy, nobody knows the issues better than Navajo.

The Uranium Policy Subcommittee of the New Mexico Indian Affairs Committee and the Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee met Monday at Red Rock State Park in Gallup and Tuesday in Grants to discuss the impact of New Mexico's uranium legacy and how the state could address the issues.

New Mexico is developing its own five-year cleanup plan similar to the one mandated for the Navajo Nation in 2007 by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif,, and the former Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The New Mexico Environment Department is working closely with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 and hopes to have a draft ready by the end of the year.

Stephen B. Etsitty, executive director of Navajo EPA, was asked to report on the progress of the five-year plan and also to tell the committee what he thinks might have been done differently. Etsitty said the plan is actually the culmination of about 25 years of work.

“We were in front of Congress in 1993 raising these issues before a subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee, so it's taken quite a bit of effort to martial attention and to lobby for support so that we can continue to receive the resources necessary to push toward the proper characterization and identification of the risks and begin devising a cleanup plan.”

While Navajo has benefited from the five-year plan and met with Waxman again in June, Etsitty said, “There is still a major portion of the resources that we had requested on Oct. 23, 2007, that have not come through.” Navajo had asked for $500 million to deal with land contamination and health impacts.

The agency has received some increase in its grants and now has one intergovernmental person from U.S. EPA helping out in Window Rock, he said, but, “We are seriously still in need of more resources to do this work.”

Community involvement and ensuring that sometimes highly technical information is translated down to the hogan level is also an issue. Additionally, “I know there are a growing number of community groups and grassroots organizations forming along these issues, and I think they deserve and will want to have a seat at the table,” he said.

Cleanup efforts are now beginning in the Eastern Agency Uranium Mining District of McKinley and San Juan counties and Etsitty said there is a lot of work to be done.

“One of the first activities that EPA decided they were going to work with us on was to eliminate the risk of people that have unknowingly brought in contaminants to their homes. We have a number of Navajo families that used mine waste collected from or very near to mines.

“Whether they were producing mines or whether they were exploratory mines, these waste piles were still left unattended and some folks used these materials in the mixing of their cement or the construction of their homes in leveling out the areas where they were going to build,” he said.

“The goal is basically to eliminate or substantially reduce the exposures that these people may have from radiation.” EPA committed to assessing 100 homes a year. In the first year 130 homes were assessed, 27 of which needed remediation.

Rep. Patricia A. Lundstrom (D) of Gallup, co-chair of the subcommittee, asked how the five-year plan addressed groundwater cleanup.

“My concern has always been when you look at these maps and you see everything within the Grants Mining Belt or the San Juan Basin, we're basically dealing with the same aquifer regardless of what the surface boundaries are. What does this plan do in terms of cleaning up these contaminated water sites?”

Etsitty said that while groundwater issues are on the table, the cleanup plan is primarily for surface and subsurface soils and that groundwater issues remain to be determined.

“I guess for me that's the fly in the ointment and the 800 pound gorilla, so to speak,” Lundstrom said. “Groundwater issues affect Navajo and affect everybody else outside of the Navajo boundary. We don't know what the level is. ... It's all one system under the ground regardless of what the surface boundaries are.”

She recommended the committee work with Navajo EPA and that U.S. EPA Regions 9 and 6 come together and at some point undertake a critical review of the contaminated water.

Etsitty told the committee there is one thing in the plan he would change. “I would place more emphasis on really initiating the human health component of the response. We've done a lot of work looking at engineering, soils, old mining plans, some of our water issues, but these have all been in the engineering and geotechnical arena,” he said.

“We've identified that some people have been living too long with high levels of exposure from these sites, but we haven't acted quickly enough to get into the home and to the people that have been living with these exposures and getting them the help that they need.”

Rep. John Heaton (D) of Carlsbad, vice chairman of the Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee, said, “So you're suggesting that direct exposure should be not only identified in the beginning of the plan but also directly remediated at the same time they're identified. It's unconscionable, I suppose, to identify a problem and then not try to solve it, and then subsequently look at the geotechnical and other issues that may be more complicated.”

Lundstrom disagreed. “I guess for me the legacy damage is comparable to winning the war by treating the wounded. ... I think it's systemic and it needs to be the whole system as opposed to focusing on the highest risk issues. I think it's all resources and it all has equal value.”

Heaton begged to differ. “I think it's about humans and how they are impacted and I think that high consequence and high-risk issues should be dealt with first. Obviously groundwater has a long-term consequence, but I don't think that you sacrifice all of the folks that right now would be impacted by exposures and let them go by the wayside for maybe cleaning up groundwater for 300 years from now.

“I think you've got to take care of the exposure to people immediately if you can, and I'm not sure I would equate it to a battlefield scene.”

Lundstrom told him, “That's because, senator, you don't live here. I think that's the difference. When you actually live in an area and you actually deal with it day to day, it's a little different.”

Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint, co-chair of the subcommittee, welcomed Lundstrom's and Heaton's exchange “because the public and the folks that are sitting here, it's important for them to know that just because we're a sitting committee doesn't mean we agree on everything. We agree to disagree.”

Foxwoods Seeks 'Mutually Beneficial Solution' To Debt Issues
Posted by: admin in Indian gaming, Mashantucket Western Pequot Tribal Nation

The Buffalo Post
The country’s largest Native-owned casino is backing away from early reports suggesting lenders may go unpaid as it works to restructure at least $1.45 billion in debt, according to this Bloomberg report.

“Like any other restructuring, the tribe is looking at all its options and there’s no plan at this time,” a spokesman for the Mashantucket Western Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut tells Bloomberg. “Through the process, the tribe will be pursuing a mutually beneficial resolution with its banks and bondholders. We’ve always had a favorable relationship with our lenders and we look forward to working with them on a solution that works for all.”

Like casinos around the country, Foxwoods is seeing a drop in revenues because of the recession. The problems at Foxwoods – which, except for Atlantic City, once had northeastern gaming all to itself – are exacerbated by recent competition from other tribal casinos and slot casinos in nearby states.

Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s both cut their ratings for the tribe this week.

Foxwoods is the country’s largest casino by size, with three hotels and six casinos. Just before the recession, it opened a new MGM Grand hotel.

“They borrowed a fair amount of capital to build the MGM Grand and the MGM Grand didn’t come close to what they were hoping for in returns on investment,” Dennis Farrell, a Wells Fargo Securities debt analyst tells Bloomberg. “With the weakness in the overall market when they have amortizing debt coming due, they need to handle that and they’re obviously going to have a difficult time.”
Gwen Florio

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'Justice Dept. Listening Conference'

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No Clean Water For Forgotten People - Foxwood's Casino Faces Possible Default

Forgotten People Continue Battle For Water 'State Of Emergency'
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup Independent
BOX SPRINGS, Ariz. – Dilkon ran out of water recently and a state of emergency was declared. A well at Sanostee became contaminated with petroleum products and an emergency was declared. Black Falls and Box Springs residents have been drinking uranium-contaminated water for years. They're still waiting for a state of emergency to be declared.

Phil Harrison, a Navajo Nation Council delegate and consultant with Killian and Davis of Grand Junction, Colo., traveled to Box Springs Aug. 8 with representatives of the law firm to do intakes for members of the Forgotten People and other residents who might qualify for compensation under the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

Harrison showed up late, with a truck bed full of water donated by Killian. Gauging by residents' smiles, it might as well have been Christmas.

“I was thinking about all the trouble people have been having with their pickups when we were hauling that load of water in and it was shifting around. Now I know how it feels to haul water on this washboard road,” he said. “We started at 8:30, getting ready. We ended up with a cut in the tire.

“I asked Sam's Club this morning in Flagstaff to give us a price break. 'No,' they said, even though it's going to a community that's dealing with contaminated water.”

On July 20, the first day of Council's summer session, Harrison said he made a speech after Vice President Ben Shelly spoke and he mentioned the people out in Black Falls. Since then, he said, “A state of emergency has not been done. How come nobody's out here doing follow-up? How come nobody's willing to help?

“I feel kind of guilty when I go home, having running water in my home and electricity, and you people out here don't have anything; and then all the heat you have to deal with on top of that.” With the flat tire, “I really felt the impact of what you are suffering. I can just imagine what you have done for all these years.”

It's been at least 25 years since Pamela “Tina” McCabe lived in Box Springs, but economic times being what they are, the company she was working for in Phoenix cut back, she lost her job and recently returned home. “Nothing's changed. The roads are still the same, they're still having to haul water,” she said.

“When we were young, growing up out here, me and my sister used to go to the dug-out well to get water,” she said. Being kids, they came up with a game – seeing who could drink the most tadpoles out of the red water. “I drank four frogs, how many did you drink?” she said, recalling their playful banter.

But some residents are beyond seeing the humor in drinking tadpoles. They're tired of constantly ingesting arsenic and uranium from wells they've been drinking from most of their lives – wells they've recently learned are contaminated.

Of course, there are some who just love the water's taste and keep coming back for more. Harris Cody, for one. Cody grew up drinking Box Springs water, he said. “It tastes so good, I still come back to get some just so I can drink it. I really like the taste of it.”

Edmund Stayne, 45, lives about 5 miles from the spring. His grandmother, Alice Tso, is a cancer victim who had part of her intestine removed. She said recently that she had been drinking the water for 40 years and nobody ever knocked on her door to tell her it was dangerous.

Stayne, however, said there are seven people in his family ranging in age from 10 to 45 who use the water for bathing, drinking, and cooking. In fact, right after the meeting he headed down to Box Springs to fill his 120-gallon tank.

“This is the closest water source. We don't like any other water, like Leupp or bottled water. It don't satisfy us. We keep running back to Box Springs. You just can't compare the taste to the other water. It tastes so good, especially when it's really cold,” he said.

Ray Tsingine, project manager for Tuba City Abandoned Mine Lands program, says the Black Falls/Box Springs area located in the Cameron District, had a major impact from uranium mining. “You guys had well over 100 mines out here,” he told the audience, yet the uranium in Box Springs water is naturally occurring.

“In the Leupp area there are a couple of mines, but the majority of the cluster is about 5 miles down here on the other side of Black Falls. I think Milton Yazzie lives kind of close to this. It's right in his back yard.”

About three years ago Yazzie lost three family members. “September 10 my sister died of kidney cancer, then a month later my dad died of kidney failure, and then four months later my oldest brother died of the same deal,” he said. Yazzie had lost his grandmother to breast cancer several years prior.

“I know we did research on my sister's cancer. It turns out the type of cancer she had was related to arsenic. Arsenic was found in all the waters out here, especially the ones where we're at,” he said.

“Most of my siblings didn't want to come back to the reservation to live because of the ongoing health issues. It's not even isolated. When I started going around to neighbors, there was always somebody with different types of cancer or health issues related to kidneys or liver,” Yazzie said.

In addition to uranium mines and naturally occurring uranium, between 1951 and 1958 the wind was blowing radioactive fallout from Nevada Test Site over Coconino County. A number of residents qualify for RECA compensation as “downwinders.” But unlike Rolanda Tohannie, some don't have thyroid cancer yet; their thyroid has just stopped functioning. If it progresses to cancer, then they will qualify for $50,000, but no medical coverage.

Tsingine showed the audience a map of mines in the Cameron District. “People don't realize there are mines in their back yard. I think the ones that live real close to them, they're aware of them, but the general public is not,” he said.

When Abandoned Mine Lands reclaimed the mines, their goal was to get rid of the physical hazards – everything from high walls cut into a mountainside to vertical and horizontal mine shafts to surface pits where livestock drank and children swam. AML is now reassessing the reclaimed sites. “Basically, we're finding just a little bit of erosion; the structures themselves are holding,” Tsingine said.

AML did not address any of the contaminated water problems. That authority fell to the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. EPA. The agencies are working together to get five water-hauling trucks for Navajo, one of which would be dedicated to the Black Falls area.

Thomas Cody, Leupp Chapter president, said one of the drawbacks of the pilot project is that after three years the funding will dry up and residents will have to take on the project.

“We have a 2,500 gallon water truck from the chapter. The maintenance is high on it, the insurance is high on it. They're going to have to take on the responsibility and the only way is the cooperation the organization is built on.” Cody said his chapter will support residents in their request for a state of emergency declaration.

Robert Begay of Tuba City said the Navajo Nation has not claimed a drop of Navajo water in court. “Why? Because you people are not pushing it. We say we're thirsty, but we have water run through past us. Why are we not asking for it? What we're doing, the Black Falls project, it sounds like for temporary. We need to start thinking about long-term also.

“I'd like to make a motion that we put in a claim for the Navajos' share of the water rights from the Colorado, Little Colorado, San Juan, Rio Grande and the Navajo Aquifer. Let's claim our water. Our people buy their own water from the city of Page. It makes you shed tears to see somebody buying their own water from somebody that's a foreigner on the reservation,” he said. The motion passed 84-0-0.

Foxwood's Casino: Tribe's Leader Warns Of 'Dire Times'
The Buffalo Post
Fresh on the heels of yesterday’s stories about the money woes of tribal casinos comes this story, from the New York Times (and a variety of other places, too), about the Mashantucket Western Pequot Tribal Nation’s Foxwoods Resort Casino.

The tribe is seeking to restructure at least $1.45 billion in debt, Bloomberg reports here. Foxwoods could become the biggest tribal casino to default, that story says. Yesterday both Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s downgraded Foxwoods’ debt rating.

When Foxwoods, in Connecticut, first was built, the only other casinos in the northeastern United States were in Atlantic City. But now it faces competition from the Mohegan Sun casino, operated by the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, as well as slot casinos in Pennsylvania; Yonkers, New York; and Rhode Island. Foxwoods remains the country’s biggest casino, size-wise.

But its situation is so grim, reports this AP story, that the “dire financial times” threaten the tribe’s living standards, says tribal chairman Michael J. Thomas.

There’s no word on what the most recent developments will mean for the tribe’s bid to build a casino in Philadelphia, detailed in the Philadelphia Daily News, here.
Gwen Florio

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Mashantucket Pequot Want To Restructure $2.3 Billion In Debt'

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Nisqually To Clean Puget Sound - American Indian SAG Meeting

Tribe Helps Rid Puget Sound of Fishing Nets
Submitted by Ken Hughes
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: August 24, 2009
New York Times

SEATTLE — When contractors were bidding for federal stimulus money designated to help clean up Puget Sound, a few skeptical competitors asked Jeff Choke how much experience his dive team had in addressing pollution here.

“I’d say, ‘We’ve been doing it since the day the settlers first showed up,’ ” Mr. Choke said as he steered an aluminum skiff out of Shilshole Bay on an overcast afternoon recently.

Mr. Choke is a member of the Nisqually Indian tribe, one of many tribes that fished for salmon in Puget Sound for centuries before Europeans arrived and began aggressively fishing with large commercial nets that depleted populations of Chinook, sockeye and other kinds of salmon. Now the Nisqually tribe has a dive team that is part of a $4.6 million stimulus-financed effort to remove fishing nets that were often lost or discarded decades ago but can still kill fish, birds and other animals.

Mr. Choke said that although having Indians get involved in the project might make for compelling symbolism given the longstanding tensions over how their way of life was altered by settlers, what the project really offers is a chance for the storyline to move beyond old debates.

“We want to diversify,” Mr. Choke said, referring to the tribe’s expanding business interests, which range from casino gambling to the harvesting of geoduck clams in the Sound, a pursuit that first led the tribe to start its dive team.

“Everyone has had a part in this,” Mr. Choke said, “and to clean this up it takes both sides.”
The net-removal project is being organized by the Northwest Straits Initiative, a conservation agency authorized by Congress. The project is being held up by its supporters as an example of environmental restoration that creates jobs — about 40 in the next 18 months, many of them for divers — and has a measurable impact.

Before being awarded the stimulus money, the Initiative had spent seven years piecing together small grants to slowly remove nets that have been lost to rocky seafloors or man-made structures in the area’s historic fishing grounds.

“In many cases, it’s layer upon layer of net,” said Ginny Broadhurst, the director of the Initiative.

With more than 3,000 nets believed to be underwater, the project was expected to take many more years to complete. Now, however, Ms. Broadhurst said the group is getting four boats up and running at sites like the San Juan Islands in the north of the Sound to tribal fishing grounds in the south. The work should be finished by the end of 2010.

“The ocean faces lots of problems, from acidification, the ocean becoming more acidic, to the water temperature rising and a slew of other problems, but marine debris is something that we can do something about,” said Nir Barnea, a manager in the marine debris program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that distributed the stimulus money. “This project, for example, we can complete the removal of just about all nets in Puget Sound.”

The project follows earlier net removal efforts in Alaska, Hawaii and other states.

In Puget Sound, the removal of the nets follows reflect enormous changes; fish populations have declined, restrictions have increased and the fishing industry is a small fraction of what it was in the 1970s and 1980s.

Because the fishery is much smaller than it was, Ms. Broadhurst said, the number of nets that will be lost in the future “is going to be really minimal as compared with that historic high.”
Her group has spent years surveying the Sound to identify lost nets for removal. Jeff June, a field manager for the project, said the group has a database containing 584 locations of lost nets, with some locations containing several nets.

Divers have found skeletons of harbor seals and porpoises tangled in nets; more often they encounter countless crabs, starfish and small fish trapped in the monofilament, which became more common in the 1970s. Those nets do not degrade the way older nets of hemp and other materials do .

When the nets are lost, said Mr. Barnea of the federal agency, “they keep on doing what they were designed to do.”

Steve Sigo owns the boat that the Nisqually tribe’s dive team has been using for its recent dives off of Point Jefferson on the Kitsap Peninsula, across Puget Sound from Shilshole Bay in Seattle. Mr. Sigo, a member of the Squaxin Island tribe, said if he were not helping to remove nets he would probably be fishing for salmon, particularly given the strong runs reported this year. But Mr. Sigo, joined by his 12-year-old son, Andrew, said he planned to stick with the net-removal project as long as he could.

“My first year was ’74, fishing commercially, and so I’ve lost nets,” Mr. Sigo said. “I’ve fished up in this area, fished the San Juans, fished everything, so it’s kind of nice to be on the clean up end of it instead of the losing-the-net end of it. It’s kind of neat because it’s kind of full circle to get this opportunity.”

American Indian Membership Caucus
Submitted by Roscoe Pond
Hosted by the Screen Actors Guild President's National Task Force on American Indians

The event will feature a partial screening of the “Trail of Tears” episode from the critically acclaimed PBS series, “We Shall Remain.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/

When: 7 p.m.
Monday, September 28, 2009

Where: Screen Actors Guild Headquarters
James Cagney Board Room (main level)
5757 Wilshire Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Parking will be validated.

For information, please contact: SAG Affirmative Action & Diversity Department at diversity@sag.org or (323) 549-6644

SAG Native American Members (RSVP_PTAI@sag.org)

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'Nisqually Use Stimulus Funds To Clean Puget Sound'

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Radioactive Fallout 'Like Pink Pixie Dust' - 1st SMSC Scholarship Recipients

Inscription House Residents Feel Downwind Effects
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup Independent
INSCRIPTION HOUSE, Ariz. – Some describe it as “like pink pixie dust” falling from the sky. Larry Bennett remembers it as little pieces of shiny foil up in the atmosphere. Jim Begishe and Ruth Begay recall seeing piles of Christmas tree icicles while out herding sheep.

What none of them realized was that these seemingly innocent, sparkling particles actually were radioactive “fallout” that sprang from the desert floor during above-ground atomic testing at Nevada Test Site. Particles of sand and vaporized metal towers were sucked up into giant mushroom clouds and then were carried on the wind, leaving a poisonous trail across the continental United States.

Between 1951 and 1963, the United States conducted 119 nuclear tests at the site, located about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Of those, 97 were above ground and generated radioactive clouds that blew in an easterly direction. Though research later showed an increase in thyroid-related illnesses as far away as Albany, N.Y., only downwind residents in Arizona, Utah and Nevada can be compensated under the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act for specific types of cancer.

Bennett, 60, an Inscription House native, drove approximately 500 miles from his home in Layton, Utah, to attend an Aug. 9 meeting under an open-air shed next to the chapter house. He has been concerned for some time about the number of cancer cases in the Inscription House/Navajo Mountain/Kaibeto/Shonto area.

Working with the Forgotten People, they arranged a meeting with Phil Harrison and representatives of the Grand Junction, Colo., law firm of Killian and Davis, who provided information to residents about compensation available for downwinders and former uranium workers. They will be back at Inscription House in September to assist residents with RECA filings.

While at the meeting, Bennett – a victim of gallbladder cancer – learned that his illness is one of the compensable downwind diseases. But he's not the only one in his family to have cancer. His father, Fred, 83, is now undergoing cancer treatment. He has prostate and bone cancer. Bennett's mother died of lymph node cancer.

He remembers his mother had severe headaches. “Grandma was always trying to help her with it, maybe just putting a coffee can underneath her head and trying to massage her neck. She finally died on her way to Tuba City hospital.”

Bennett said his Aunt Irene died from leukemia. Her son Johnny is undergoing treatment for stomach cancer. Both are downwind compensable diseases. Bennett believes the majority of cancer victims in the area are downwinders.

“We used to go out on top of the knoll and you could see the mushroom clouds from here in the distance. We'd walk up on top because we would hear a 'boom, boom.' It wasn't quite a sonic boom, just a really low, distant noise, and then we would come up on top of the hill and see the mushroom cloud in the distance.

“About three hours later you could feel the percussion from the wind. You could see the wind picking up and you could almost tell where it was coming. And then about six hours later you'd see this little foil up in the atmosphere. It would kind of glitter. My grandma always said, 'What is that stuff?' It was almost like little tiny foil, like Christmas ornament foil. You would see some of it on the ground and grandma always said, 'Don't touch them. There might be something wrong with them.”

At one point, his family lost more than 150 head of livestock overnight. “It really devastated the family. They didn't know what was in the area, or what was going on. Even with my horses, one of them had a sore on his nose and that thing never, ever healed,” he said.

In Iron County, Utah, up to 20,000 sheep were exposed to large quantities of radiation from the Upshot-Knothole series conducted from March to June 1953. Some residents reported burns on their animals' faces and lips from eating radioactive grass. Ranchers lost up to a third of their herds, according to an article from “Utah History to Go.” The ranchers later filed suit against the government.

Jim Begishe, 90, told his grandson, Ernest, that when there was testing in Nevada, “He used to see the sparkles up in the air. He's got a sheep camp right across the canyon and another camp at Navajo Mountain. It's a little bit higher elevation.

“I grew up there in my younger years. There was hardly anyone around there, just me and my grandparents. You would see all those little foils up there – almost strips, and some in small pieces,” he said.

He asked Harrison, “Why are the people that worked inside the mines themselves getting paid a lot more than the people that were exposed to downwind? In the mines, when they're bringing out all the uranium ore, it's not really that radioactive until it's processed. It takes a whole lot of uranium ore to make the bomb.

“When they're testing that atomic weapon and it blows up, it's so concentrated that whatever it touches, it automatically turns it into radioactive materials. So when it comes down this way, wherever it sits, it's already radioactive because it's so concentrated. It's heavy metal. It rains with it too.”

Harrison said Navajo Nation lobbyists are trying to get the RECA law changed to increase the amount of compensation for downwinders to $150,000, plus medical benefits, which they currently do not receive.

Ruth Begay said she was about 8 years old when she and her sister were out herding sheep and saw a dark cloud pass over.

“We found all this stuff like Christmas tree icicles scattered all over the ground. We piled them up and took them home to play with,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration published a notice of intent July 24 in the Federal Register to prepare an environmental impact statement for continued operation of Nevada Test Site and off-site locations in Nevada.

Since a moratorium on nuclear testing began in 1992, the test site has been maintained in a state of readiness to conduct underground nuclear tests if directed by the president of the United States. NNSA had planned to conduct a large-scale open-air test of Divine Strake at Nevada Test Site in May 2006.

NNSA withdrew its Finding of No Significant Impact after controversy arose over the value of developing a nuclear “bunker buster,” and the possibility that the mushroom cloud that would be generated by the blast would distribute large amounts of radioactive dust from years of atomic testing.

DOE/NNSA will consider a no action alternative and three action alternatives including expanded operations, reduced operations and renewable energy operations. Direct and indirect, as well as unavoidable and irreversible and irretrievable impacts to the environment of Nevada Test Site and off-site locations will be analyzed.

The agencies plan to release an unclassified document with a classified appendix, which will not be available for public review. The draft is expected to be released in mid-2010.

Information: www.gc.energy.gov/nepa or to request a document, contact Linda M. Cohn, NNSA Nevada Site Office, SWEIS Document Manager, P.O. Box 98518, Las Vegas, Nev. 89193-8518; telephone (702) 295-0077; fax (702) 295-5300; or email nepa@nv.doe.gov

First SMSC Endowed Scholarship Recipients Announced
Prior Lake, MN – The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community announced the recipients of the first Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Endowed Scholarship at a special event at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium. The announcement of scholarship recipients came during the August 17th dedication ceremony for the new Minnesota Tribal Nations Plaza, which the SMSC helped fund with a $10 million grant.

“In today’s society, an education is essential, but most especially for our Indian people. We need Indian doctors and dentists, lawyers and engineers. We need Indian teachers and counselors, managers and builders, and journalists. We need to educate our young people to be prepared to better meet the opportunities that will be available to them,” said SMSC Chairman Stanley R. Crooks.

The SMSC Endowed Scholarship was established in 2008 through a $2.5 million gift from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community into a matching endowment fund, creating a $5 million endowment to provide scholarships for American Indian students.

The SMSC scholarship program is designed to recruit and retain talented American Indian students with demonstrated financial need to the University of Minnesota. The SMSC scholarship program is administered by the University's Office for Equity and Diversity.

The primary goal of the SMSC scholarship program is to support incoming University of Minnesota freshmen and transfer students with demonstrated financial need. A smaller number of scholarships may also be awarded to newly-admitted graduate and professional students in specific disciplines.

Scholarships are renewable for up to four years or until graduation (whichever comes first) for undergraduates, contingent upon academic performance. For graduate and professional students, the length of funding is contingent upon academic performance, the school of enrollment, and degree program and will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

The 13 scholarship recipients come from across the country and from a number of different tribes. They come from as far as New Mexico and Idaho. Nine of them are from Minnesota. They have majors as diverse as Pre-Med to Global Studies to Sociology.

The 13 scholarship recipients are:

David Coveyou, Engineering,
Ottowa, IL
Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians

Andrew Kochen, UMD Undecided Major,
Saint Charles, MN
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe

Misha Laplante, Global Studies/International Relations,
Scandia, MN
Bay Mills Indian Community

Samantha Lupee, Pre-Med,
Zuni, NM
Zuni Tribe

Janelle White, Nursing,
Walker, MN
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe

Dolly Boswell, Nursing,
Minneapolis, MN
White Earth Band of Ojibwe

Camille Naslund, UMD Education Doctoral Program,
Cass Lake, MN
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe

Nicole White, Early Childhood Education,
St. Paul, Minnesota
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe

Monica Briggs, Sociology,
Minneapolis, MN
White Earth Mississippi Band of Ojibwe

Korina Barry, Social Work,
Minneapolis, MN
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe

Lovetta Mitchell, Psychology & English,
St. Paul, MN
Leech Lake Land of Ojibwe

Lacey Running Hawk, UMD Med School,
Sioux Falls, SD
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

Pamela Mills, UMD Med School,
Twin Falls, ID
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

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Peltier Denied Parole - Precedent For Foreign Waste Disposal - SMSC Donations - Native Voices At The Autry

American Indian Activist Denied Parole (edited August 21st)
LA Times/AP
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, imprisoned since 1977 for the deaths of two FBI agents, has been denied parole after authorities decided that releasing him would diminish the seriousness of his crime, a federal prosecutor said Friday.Peltier, who claims the FBI framed him, will not be eligible for parole again until July 2024, when he will be 79 years old.

U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley announced the decision of the U.S. Parole Commission.Peltier is serving two life sentences for the execution-style deaths of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams during a June 26, 1975, standoff on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was convicted in Fargo, N.D., in 1977.

He has said the FBI framed him, which the agency denies, and unsuccessfully appealed his conviction numerous times. He also was denied parole in 1993.

"Leonard Peltier is an unrepentant, cold-blooded murderer who executed FBI special agents Williams and Coler, and in doing that he tore them from their families and from their communities forever," Wrigley said. "Leonard Peltier is exactly where he belongs — federal prison, serving two life sentences."
Read more:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-peltier-parole,0,1411297.story

Decision Could Set Precedent For Foreign Nuclear Waste Disposal
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup Independent
WINDOW ROCK – A U.S. District Court ruling allowing low-level radioactive waste from Italy to be stored in Utah could set a precedent on the disposal of foreign waste in the United States, and New Mexico, which is part of the Rocky Mountain compact, could be affected by the decision.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Utah ruled that the Northwest Compact lacks authority to restrict EnergySolutions' receipt of waste generated outside the compact region.

The state of Utah and the Northwest and Rocky Mountain Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compacts have appealed the decision to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Opening briefs and amici briefs are due around mid-August.

“The ruling erodes the powers of low-level waste compacts to control waste entering compact states. Compacts may no longer be able to control the flow of out-of-region and foreign waste to disposal and management facilities,” said Ron Curry, chairman of the Rocky Mountain Low-Level Radioactive Waste Board and New Mexico Environment Department secretary.

Energy Solutions, a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Clive, Utah, sought to import radioactive waste from Italy, process the waste at its facility near Oak Ridge, Tenn., and dispose of the waste at its Utah facility.

Steve Creamer, CEO and chairman of EnergySolutions, stated in a May press release that the Clive, Utah, disposal facility has been safely disposing of low-level material for over 20 years and has been disposing of residuals from internationally generated material for more than eight years.

The company said the Northwest Compact had not voiced an objection to the Clive facility's disposal of the material until recently.

Nearly 15,000 drums of depleted uranium waste from the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site are slated to be shipped to the EnergySolutions facility beginning in October. Though considered low-level radioactive waste, depleted uranium becomes more radioactive over time.

Utah is a member of the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management, which does not allow waste from outside the region to be disposed of at the Utah facility without an arrangement from the Compact’s committee.

The ruling eliminates the control compact states have over waste and replaces it with “only the very narrow authority over disposal at a regional disposal facility mentioned in the 1985 act governing such compacts,” according to a notice of appeal by the Rocky Mountain Low-Level Radioactive Waste Board.

The board is an interstate government agency and administers a compact that provides for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste produced within the member states of New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. New Mexico's Curry has been the chairman of the board since 2007.

The board is responsible for deciding where low-level waste from outside the three-state compact region can be disposed.

On June 4, EnergySolutions announced that $84 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding had been allocated to the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action project to accelerate removal of uranium mill tailings away from the banks of the Colorado River. EnergySolutions was awarded the initial contract of $98.4 million in June 2007.

Sixteen million tons of uranium mill tailings will be relocated 30 miles north of Moab to a location designated by the U.S. Department of Energy. Currently 80 containers per day are transported by rail to the disposal site. The additional funding will allow EnergySolutions to dispose of an additional 2 million tons of mill tailings by 2011, accelerating cleanup by several years.

SMSC Donates More Than $420,000 To Support Education And Youth Programs
By Tessa Lehto
Tribal Communications Specialist
Prior Lake, MN – A school bus, a day care, a week-long learning enrichment program, summer camp, career services and job placement, transportation, a national education conference, and a summer feeding program are just some of the educational programs funded by recent grants from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.

An SMSC grant of $86,865 went to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota for a bus for the Head Start Program which provides services for children before they enter elementary school. The Standing Rock 0-5 Head Start Program is funded for 257 preschool children in a center-based program option; 22 Early Head Start infants and toddlers in a center-based option; 46 infants and toddlers and seven prenatal mothers in a home-based option.

The program operates eight Head Start centers and one Early Head Start center in seven communities on the reservation which straddles the North and South Dakota border. The program provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has 10,859 members and a reservation of 1,408,061 acres.

An SMSC grant of $75,000 went to the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC) of Minneapolis, Minnesota, to support the Cherish the Children Learning Center (CCLC). Offering childcare and Early Childhood Education primarily for women receiving services from the MIWRC, the Cherish the Children Learning Center at MIWRC is one of only a few culturally based early learning centers for Native children in Hennepin County.

The Center is currently licensed for up to 70 children and includes two infant rooms, a toddler room, a preschool room, and a latchkey room. The staff includes a Child Development Coordinator who assesses the children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development, provides follow-up screenings and documentation, develops individual learning plans in collaboration with classroom teachers, and schedules and implements education groups for special needs children. Although the center is open to all children, it is designed with an American Indian culturally appropriate atmosphere.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community announced $70,000 in donations over two years to support the Friends of Wolf Ridge. The first half of the donation was released in June 2009 for fiscal year 2009, with the second one after October 1, 2009, for fiscal year 2010. For more than 30 years, the fifth grade classes at all the Prior Lake Savage School District’s elementary schools have traveled to northern Minnesota for a week of classes at the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center facility.

Wolf Ridge offers 57 units of curricula focused on environmental and natural sciences, cultural history, personal growth, team-building, and outdoor recreation skills. Funding for the program at Wolf Ridge was cut from the district budget a few years ago and since then the Friends of Wolf Ridge and the Prior Lake Savage Area Educational Foundation have raised funds for the trip.

Indian kids from urban and reservation areas had the opportunity to attend summer camp, many for the first time, due in part to a donation of $65,000 from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community to Indian Youth of America (IYA). IYA, of Sioux City, Iowa, has helped thousands of Indian youth from over 186 tribes and 31 states enjoy a positive summer camp experience since 1976.

IYA takes children ages ten to fourteen years old to camps in Arizona and South Dakota. The children spend time outdoors canoeing, swimming, hiking, and making crafts. They do creative writing, perform skits, practice archery, erect tipis, and learn songs, dances, and stories. Life skills and leadership development are incorporated into the activities.

Each year about 150 children attend IYA camps. Indian Youth of America improves the quality of life for Indian children through summer camps and activities throughout the year including holiday programs, scholarships, and child welfare services. The SMSC grant also helped fund the purchase of computers.

A $50,000 SMSC grant went to the American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center (AIOIC) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for support of their Career Center and job placement services. Working primarily with American Indian students, AIOIC is an educational institution that prepares students, mostly adults, for their first jobs or for better jobs.

“In a time of economic downturn and government cuts, your contribution is especially important to us and those we support. We take pride in helping our participants exit poverty. Every year, we see approximately 1,600 people in programs and nearly 7,000 in our Career Center who are living in deep poverty.

Out of hope and our reputation, our clients voluntarily come here to get the skills they need to build a new life for themselves and their families. Your contribution allows us to continue to support all of those who seek help and avoid turning anyone away.

Your generous support has made a substantial difference in the lives of many in this community by helping them gain an education, improve their employment credentials, gain independence, and create a more stable and satisfying future,” said Dr. Lee Antell, AIOIC President and Chief Executive Officer.

A $35,000 grant to the Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Cheyenne Nation helped defray transportation costs for after school programming for 600 youth ages 5-18. The Club used the funds to purchase a passenger van and other transportation costs. The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, located in southeastern Montana, consists of approximately 444,000 acres in size with 99% tribal ownership.

They have approximately 9,496 enrolled tribal members with about 4,135 residing on the reservation. The current unemployment rate is 71% and the average household income on the reservation is $11,000.

The SMSC made a grant of $25,000 to Tiospa Zina for a summer feeding program. Tiospa Zina is a tribal school on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota which serves children in grades kindergarten through 12. The summer feeding program provides daily breakfast and lunch to as many as 200 children for eight weeks.

The SMSC made a grant of $5,000 to the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) for sponsorship of their annual 2009 convention held this year in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Incorporated in 1970, NIEA is the oldest and largest Indian education organization representing American Indian, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiian educators and students.

NIEA is a membership based organization committed to increasing educational opportunities and resources for American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students while protecting cultural and linguistic traditions.

A $5,000 SMSC grant to the Main Street School of Performing Arts in Hopkins, Minnesota, helped pay for supplies for classrooms and programs. The tuition-free, four-year charter high school opened in 2004. Stages Theatre Company was one of the main driving forces behind its development. A place of inspiration and imagination, the high school offers students an arts-centered education, wrapped in a rigorous academic curriculum. The school focuses on dance, theater, and music performance.

An SMSC grant of $4,000 went to St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Jordan, Minnesota, to help update their information technology at their school, which offers an education to 113 kindergarten through sixth grade students and 24 preschool students.
http://www.shakopeedakota.org/

Native Voices At The Autry 2010 Call For Scripts
Deadline September 15Based on all work received by this deadline, up to ten playwrights will be invited to submit Formal Proposals in order to apply to the Playwrights Retreat and Festival of New Plays.

Application to this event is by invitation only; invitations will be sent mid-October. Scripts will then be sent to a committee of nationally recognized theatre artists for further evaluation. Selected playwrights will receive an honorarium, round trip airfare to San Diego, plus lodging in San Diego. Selected playwrights will be notified by December 11, 2009.For more information:
http://www.autrynationalcenter.org/nativevoices/index/php

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Declare Entire States 'Downwind' - Feds Withheld Negative Yucca Data

(Tonight August 17th, my prayers are with Leonard Peltier. May he be released tomorrow)

Proposed RECA Change: Declare Entire States "Downwind"
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup Independent
WINDOW ROCK – When you've jumped through all the federal hoops in an attempt to obtain compensation for Navajo radiation exposure victims and achieved limited success, the only thing left to do is change the law.

Earlier this month, Keith Killian and Jennifer McCall of Killian & Davis, P.C., of Grand Junction, Colo., along with Navajo Nation Council Delegate Phil Harrison and others went to Washington to lobby congressional members for changes in the federal Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act.

“I've been traipsing to Washington since 2004, as I recall, and talking about these issues,” before being hired to represent Navajo, Killian said. “Everybody is always open to the idea.”

But the U.S. Department of Justice's position is, “We just interpret the rules and the statutes, and without a change in the statutes, the rules are certainly not going to change, therefore, we have our hands tied absent change in legislation,” he said.

The delegation visited the offices of three senators and five congressional representatives during its recent trip. “We went down there specifically on behalf of the Navajo Nation, but everything we're looking for helps all uranium workers and all those who are exposed, because the kinds of things that the Navajos want are going to be helpful to all people,” he added.

One of the major changes they and senators from Idaho and Montana are seeking is to have the entire states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho and Montana covered as downwind states so that individuals who contracted radiation-related illnesses linked to above-ground nuclear weapons testing – “downwinders” – would be eligible for federal compensation.

As the coverage area now stands, radioactive fallout from the nearly 200 atmospheric tests at Nevada Test Site appears to have traveled across the state of Arizona and a portion of Utah before hitting a wall and dropping at the borders of Colorado and New Mexico.

“All of the Four Corner states were exposed and there's legislation also to include Idaho and Montana,” Killian said. Idaho Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, and Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester introduced Senate Bill 1342 on June 25.

“This is the third time we have introduced this legislation. It is of national importance and we hope we can expand the scope of the program because there are literally victims throughout the country,” Crapo said upon introducing the bill.

Killian and Harrison said it is hoped that congressional members from the impacted states can work together to craft legislation that would benefit all radiation victims.

“But the state, I think, that makes the most logical sense to include would be New Mexico because there's another nuclear test that took place near Alamogordo, the Trinity Test Site, and right now New Mexico is not a downwind state. First and foremost, I think New Mexico ought to be included,” Killian said.

Another key change is to include “Post-71” uranium workers – individuals employed in the uranium industry after 1971 – among those eligible for RECA compensation. “It ought to be to at least 1990, we figure, because there are a lot of people that have gotten illnesses from working with uranium after 1971. Many have died and many are ill,” Killian said.

“Although the government wasn't the exclusive purchaser of uranium and its products after 1971, it was still the exclusive regulator of said substances, so in our mind, there's no logic to stop that.”

Additionally, the group wants the law changed to make it easier to prove claims by use of affidavits and to make the same diseases compensable for uranium miners that are compensable for uranium millers and ore haulers.

“Right now, there's a difference. For instance, miners can use affidavits and millers and ore haulers can't; and on the other hand, millers and ore haulers are covered with kidney diseases whereas miners are not. Neither of those make sense. I mean, radiation is radiation is radiation,” Killian said. “Why not make all the diseases compensable regardless of how you were irradiated?”

Harrison said he believes the July 7-9 lobbying trip was one of their most successful. “Right now, the way it looks with all the people we met, there is tremendous support. They said they're going to do this right once and for all.”

Also discussed was the $2-an-hour presumptive wage uranium workers are held to in order to qualify for compensation. “They are terribly wrong on thinking and assuming that the Navajo Nation workers were making over $2 an hour,” he said. “We have people that made like 50 cents an hour to start, 75 cents, 90 cents, $1.10, $1.25, $1.50. We told them we do have exhibits that we can show.”

Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act on Oct. 5, 1990, and later broadened the scope of coverage with a July 10, 2000, amendment. The federal RECA program established within the Department of Justice began operations in April 1992. As of March, 29,760 claims had been received and nearly $1.4 billion awarded in compensation.

The Department of Justice is requesting a $32 million reduction in its Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposal based on statistical projections for downwinders and on-site participants.

The U.S. Department of Labor, which administers the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act as well as Parts B and E of RECA, announced Monday that it has paid more than $5 billion in compensation and medical benefits to more than 52,600 claimants nationwide.

The announcement coincided with Labor's eighth anniversary of administering the program which provides compensation and medical benefits to employees who became ill as a result of working in the nuclear weapons industry. In its FY2010 budget proposal, Labor is requesting a $1.5 million increase over FY2009 for Part B, or $51.1 million, and $1.4 million more for Part E, or $60 million.

Killian said the $32 million budget reduction requested by DOJ is probably their pragmatic approach to the fact that there are fewer claims out there that are going to be compensable than there were last year.

“As the laws change, they're obviously going to have to increase that budget,” he added. “I guess I'm less concerned about that than I would be next year because next year I'm hoping the legislation has passed and they're going to have to fund additional claims.”

McCall, a paralegal with the law firm, said there are still claimants who have not been compensated. “We run into pockets of places. You get one person that calls and all the sudden you've got 15 to 20 people from that area that didn't have a clue this program even existed.”

One of her concerns is that when they get the RECA amendments through, DOJ will not have the staff to work on them. “We're going to be back like we were before, where it took over a year to get a claim through.”

Feds Withheld Negative Yucca Data, Say Nevada Officials
Data Shows Proposed Nuclear Waste Facility Would Fail, Says State Agency
Las Vegas Sun
By Mary Manning (contact)
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009

Nevada officials say they have found evidence that the Energy Department withheld data in a licensing request that would prove a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain would fail.

The Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects discovered two documents in a computerized database not included in a licensing application sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that show how unsafe buried nuclear waste would be at Yucca Mountain, said Bruce Breslow, executive director of the state agency.

In May and in July the state agency sent its concerns to the NRC about the repository operating without titanium drip shields to protect buried containers of high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel from the nation's reactors, Breslow said.

In the 1990s, Energy Department and state studies showed that water ran through Yucca's layers of volcanic ash much faster than scientists had calculated. Special metal was needed for the containers, as well as sheets of titanium that would be installed after the repository closed, to prevent water from corroding the containers and releasing radiation to the environment.

Among the millions of pages of Energy Department documents posted on a shared computer data bank, two indicated that the containers would fail much sooner than 10,000 years, disqualifying Yucca Mountain as a repository.

"We don't think this is a safe scenario," Breslow said today. "This was left out of the license application."

The NRC responded in a one-paragraph letter on July 23 that the staff review "will include careful consideration of the items you mention."

That wasn't the answer the state was seeking, Breslow said. "It doesn't mean that the NRC staff will require the DOE to run the models without drip shields in it and provide that information for a license application," he said.

"It certainly wasn't meant to be a brush-off of the state's concerns," said David McIntyre, an NRC spokesman.

Last month Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that he had negotiated an agreement with President Barrack Obama's administration and the Energy Department to stop all funding in the FY 2011 budget for proceeding with the NRC license application review. The commission is now chaired by former Reid staffer Greg Jaczko.

The NRC has also signaled it could delay the final version of the Safety Evaluation Review, the key to determining whether Yucca is considered safe enough for a license, based on funds provided by Congress.

By failing to include the worst-case scenario inside Yucca without drip shields, the state has a major argument against further licensing proceedings, Breslow said.

The state found documents dating back to 2004 asking the Energy Department for a review of the drip-shield scenario, Breslow said. The results contained in the department's own documents would have disqualified the site before the license application was submitted.

The license application proposes to install such drip shields after the repository is closed, both too full of nuclear waste and too hot for human workers to install them, Breslow said.

To install 11,000 drip shields inside the repository, the Energy Department plans to use robots. The state challenged that assumption.

"In 75 years they would have to go back to Congress and try to get some money," he said.
The state contends that the Environmental Protection Agency's 15 millirem per year limit on radiation leaking into the environment would be violated long before 10,000 years, disqualifying Yucca.

The Energy Department did not respond for requests for comment by deadline.

U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., called the scheme to use robots inside a Yucca repository "straight out of a bad science fiction plot."

Berkley said the nuclear industry needs to start over again on a policy to store and dispose the radioactive wastes safe and secure.

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Forgotten People & Contaminated Water - SMSC And Minn. Tribal Nations Plaza

Forgotten People Seek State Of Emergency Over Contaminated Water
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup Independent
BLACK FALLS, Ariz. -- Some residents in the Black Falls/Box Springs area have been drinking uranium- and arsenic-contaminated water for nearly 40 years. Another month or two, while they wait on the Navajo Nation to declare a state of emergency, probably won't kill them. Then again, maybe it will.

During a July 11 meeting at the Box Springs home of Rolanda and Larry Tohannie, more than 80 people – many of them cancer victims – traveled miles of washboard roads in the summer heat to meet with representatives of the Navajo Nation and voice concerns about their illnesses, their need for safe drinking water, and what they view as a lack of assistance by Window Rock.

The Forgotten People, a non-profit grassroots group which hosted the meeting, called for a state of emergency to be declared in the Black Falls/Box Springs/Grand Falls area, where wells and springs are contaminated and water has to be trucked in on substandard roads that amount to little more than wagon trails in some areas. To date, there has been no such declaration.

Navajo Nation Council Delegate Phil Harrison, a member of the Resources Committee; Cora Maxx-Phillips, director of the Division of Social Services; and Earl Saltwater Jr. of Shiprock area, a former uranium miner and radiation victim who has received compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, attended the meeting and voiced support.

“A state of emergency should be declared in Box Springs and Black Falls,” Harrison said. “As a member of the Resources Committee I will speak with (Chairman) George Arthur and President Joe Shirley to issue a state of emergency and have the Resources Committee out here.”

Harrison, who updated the audience on RECA and described how they might qualify for benefits, said he testified in front of U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman's committee in 2007 on contaminated water. “I think it is right for me to contact Congressman Waxman's office and I'm going to make sure this is brought to his attention, because there is no excuse to be drinking contaminated water when we're getting people diagnosed with cancer.”

Phillips also voiced her support. “I stand with the grassroots and support the work and efforts of Forgotten People and what you are trying to accomplish for your communities. I want to join Forgotten People as an official member and will do everything I can to support your efforts,” she said.

Marsha Monestersky of the Forgotten People told the group that an estimated 17 families – more than 100 people – are still knowingly drinking uranium- and arsenic-contaminated water from Box Springs. “They're drinking it because they have no choice. If you see how remote this area is, there's no public drinking water source in the vicinity.”

Alice Tso, 74, of Box Springs, was diagnosed with intestinal cancer and had part of her intestine removed. Her daughter, Linda Begay, said they are still hauling the contaminated water for use by the family.

“I have been drinking water from Box Springs for about 40 years,” Tso said. “I am here as a concerned water user that wants to learn, now that I have cancer and this is reality. I want to understand why I was never informed and educated about the danger of drinking contaminated water.

“Why was this information not coming from the authorities so the general public living here was informed?” Tso asked. “Who is next in line for cancer and who else has cancer?”

Eleanor Peshlakai of Black Falls said her brother, James, a former Cameron Chapter official, told her several decades ago that the area was contaminated. She questioned why nothing had been done.

“This information was received by the people as a rumor. When you hear of a report of contamination but no action is taken in the field by the experts, no one posting signs, coming around and telling us we were drinking contaminated water, it just made us think someone just started a rumor without being substantiated by fact. As a result we continued hauling water from contaminated sources until Forgotten People gave us some hard facts,” she said.

Florabell Paddock of Black Falls is one of two residents who is having 20 gallons of bottled water delivered to her residence every two weeks, compliments of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program. But the water delivery is scheduled to end in September.

Since May, Paddock has learned that she, too, has cancer. “I would rather have my health back than any kind of government compensation that is available,” she said. “I have been contaminated, drinking water from Tohatchi Springs all my life. I did not know it was contaminated. I am angry and frustrated we were not informed.

“No one did outreach, no follow-up, no one was going door to door to tell us the water we are drinking is contaminated.” She worries what will happen when the Superfund water delivery ends.

The Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency has applied for a $2.5 million grant to fund five water-hauling trucks for areas with contaminated water sources. If the grant is awarded one of the tankers is supposed to be earmarked for Black Falls and Box Springs, according to Monestersky. However, it is not expected to be available before October.

Rex Kontz of Navajo Tribal Utility Authority said Tuesday that if the area does receive a tanker for water hauling, the big question is where will the water come from. “Our systems are not really sized for water-hauling programs, so they have to identify potable water so they can get water to haul out,” he said.

During the Box Springs meeting, Saltwater told the audience, “This is a very dangerous situation here in Box Springs. Uranium is not something you want to mess around with and take lightly. It will kill you or do some serious harm to your health.

“I am mind-boggled you have to resort to drinking this water. Something has to be done to provide you with an alternative source of safe drinking water.”

Harrison said last week that the Resources Committee has not yet scheduled a meeting for the Black Falls/Box Springs area, but added, “It's a major health threat. It's a state of emergency. They ought to have two or three trucks running down there, with their road graded, and get people good clean water. What's 20 gallons going to do? We use an average of about 100 gallons a day for domestic use at home.

“I just could not believe what I have heard – people still drinking contaminated water and making coffee and using contaminated water for everyday use. Just imagine what is really taking place down there. They are really the Forgotten People.”

SMSC Announces Dedication of Minnesota Tribal Nations Plaza
U of M’s TCF Football Stadium to Host Special Event August 17th
By Tessa Lehto

Prior Lake, MN – The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community and the University of Minnesota invite all Minnesota Tribes and their members as well as the general public to a dedication ceremony for the Minnesota Tribal Nations Plaza on Monday, August 17, 2009, at 1:00 p.m. The ceremony will feature American Indian elements such as a Dakota prayer, a traditional blessing of the sky markers, and songs by a traditional drum group.

The SMSC made a charitable donation of $10 million for construction of the plaza and $2.5 million for a matching endowment fund, creating an endowment to provide scholarships for American Indian and other students. The plaza exhibits and celebrates the rich history, presence, and cultural contributions of all of the eleven Indian tribes in Minnesota.

SMSC Chairman Stanley R. Crooks will speak, as will Chair of the University’s Board of Regents Clyde Allen and President Robert Bruininks. Fellow Business Council members SMSC Vice-Chairman Glynn A. Crooks and SMSC Secretary/Treasurer Keith B. Anderson will also attend.

Chairman Crooks and President Bruininks will be available for the media following the event.

The Minnesota Tribal Nations Plaza is located at the entrance on the west side of TCF Bank Stadium. The architecturally innovative design includes eleven, 18-foot tall sky markers, each of which incorporates information about one of Minnesota’s 11 Tribal Nations. Tribal flags, images, and important facts are incorporated on the soaring glass sky markers.

“We feel it is very important to tell the story of American Indians in Minnesota through this plaza. We all know that the history books haven’t always told our true story so we commend the University for their efforts to include us. We hope that the Minnesota Tribal Nations Plaza will help others better appreciate the unique historic and ongoing contributions made to the state of Minnesota by the sovereign Tribal Nations who call Minnesota home,” said SMSC Chairman Stanley R. Crooks.

TCF Bank Stadium, which will open in the fall of 2009, is being funded in part by $86 million in private gifts and sponsorships.

The eleven tribal nations in Minnesota are the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Grand Portage Band of Chippewa Indians, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, the White Earth Band of Chippewa Indians, the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, the Lower Sioux Indian Community, the Prairie Island Dakota Community, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, and the Upper Sioux Community.

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The Deal: Mine Uranium For Gas & Groceries - Renounce Doctrine Of Discovery

Father Of Navajo Neuropathy Victims Worked For Groceries
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup independent
BLACK FALLS, Ariz. -- Helen Nez was a teenager when the uranium companies first started blasting their way through Blue Gap to reach their mining claims. Her father, John Bill, ended up working for one of the mines. Through him, Helen met her future husband, Leonard Nez.

Helen, now 70, and Leonard, 75, lived just down the hill from one of the mines. Like most young Navajo couples, they looked forward to a long life together with many children and grandchildren. But it was not to be.

Out of 11 children, they lost six to Navajo neuropathy, believed to be caused by maternal exposure to uranium from waters contaminated by old mines. Helen miscarried with another child.

During a recent meeting with the Forgotten People in Black Falls near Flagstaff, the couple talked about the mining years that began in the mid-1950s in Blue Gap. Leonard worked at the uranium mines for two years but never received any cash, he said. Instead, he was paid with a voucher for gasoline and groceries. Their son, Chris – one of four surviving children – translated the story for his parents.

“First the roads were blasted out of the rocks through the canyons. When the blasting was going on, the whole canyon was full of dust. You could see the access roads to the mines and the mine clearings for them to start digging,” Helen said. “The uranium was already being blasted right out in the open.”

Now, when she thinks back, it seems that the favorite time for blasting was when the workers were on lunch break. Their house was about a half mile from the mine. “You would have coffee and Kool-Aid where it's just all dust. The bowls and the soup were just full of dust,” she said.

According to a report from a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission employee who worked on the Navajo Reservation from 1954 to 1968, 16,779.90 tons of uranium ore, 55,739.44 pounds of uranium oxide, and thousands of pounds of vanadium were produced from 13 properties in the Toreva Formation of Black Mesa. Ore was mined by shallow open pits, rim cuts, and in four places by underground methods.

All prospectors, Navajos and non-Navajos, had to have a prospecting permit. Once a discovery was made, only a Navajo could apply for a mining permit. The permit holder then could assign his mining rights to a company or individual under tribal regulations. The permits, for up to 960 acres, were good for two years, then subject to renewal. Non-Navajos could apply for a 10-year mining lease.

In May 1956, the Navajo Minerals Department held a lease sale, with the sealed bids opened May 31, 1956. Uranium Industries Inc., of Grand Junction, won the bid for Tract 1, which drew the attention of Ampet Corp. of Denver. Ampet was issued a drilling permit in summer 1957 and drilled approximately 127 holes on Claim 28, which belonged to Helen's family.

Ampet discovered a significant ore body behind the mineralized exposure on the rim and between 1957 and 58, removed 4,181 tons of ore, 17,327 pounds of uranium oxide, and 13,400 pounds of vanadium from Claim 28.

“At that time, nobody understood English, so a lot of the people that supposedly knew what was going on were the workers that the trading post owners had employed. They were the interpreters. So more or less, the prospectors were the trading post owners at that time,” Chris said.

The family has documentation of some of the permits. “John Bill's mother had one mine claim, and her husband had a claim. And then a trading post worker that we had no knowledge of – not a relative – had a claim on my grandfather's mother's claim area. We don't know how that happened at that time because nobody could really understand what was going on.

“I often wonder what would have happened if only someone had known a little bit of English at the time – because they obviously didn't know what they were getting into.”

Though Helen's father and husband worked at the mines, neither spoke nor understood English. But Leonard was one of the few people that had a vehicle, so the miners used him to haul tools and work crews around to four different mine sites. Both men used to bring home uranium ore samples to show the family what they were looking for up in the mountains. “Our claim had the highest tonnage of uranium taken,” Chris said.

Around 1956, according to Helen, an airstrip was built and planes were seen periodically flying in and out. “It's been rumored that (U.S. President Barry) Goldwater was often flying in. That's what the people were saying,” she said.

Claim 28 was located right above the Nez's home, Chris said. “That's where my dad said there was an open pit mine on the side of the mountain, and they had little holes at the top. They used a front-end loader to go to the entrance of the hole of the cave and they would bring out the ore with wheelbarrows and load them up onto the loader and then when the loader bucket got filled up, they would haul it down to the bottom and drop it off.”

Leonard was a laborer and worked at the mines for two years, during which time he would break the ore up into smaller pieces inside the mine tunnel, put the ore rocks in the wheelbarrow, trot it out and dump it in the loader.

“Nobody ever told him that it was dangerous,” Chris said. “He was never given money. They would give him a piece of paper, like a ticket, and tell him to take it to the trading post. It was good for gas and groceries. He said he would get a variety of groceries along with a sack of potatoes” and take it home to his family.

Leonard's voucher was worth between $15 and $20 a week, Helen said, adding that he used to take his papers over to Black Mountain Trading Post, run by Wallace Anderson, or to Salina Trading Post near Cottonwood, run by Art Lee, both of Colorado.

Nine years ago, the Nez family lost their home to fire. “All the papers, everything they had went up in smoke,” Chris said. An attorney in Tuba City had been given copies before the fire, but she passed away. The family has appealed to her husband to return the documents, so far without success.

Though the couple lost six children to Navajo neuropathy, it is not a compensable disease under the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. But even if he or his family developed one of RECA's compensable diseases, they would not be eligible for compensation under current law because he was not paid in cash so he is an undocumented worker.

The only possible record would be through log books kept by the two trading posts where he took his vouchers, assuming family members of the original owners could be found and still had the books.

Last year, Helen's liver and one of her inside organs fused together. She was hospitalized in Phoenix for surgery. Leonard, too, has begun to have health problems. “He doesn't know what's going on with him. He's losing his balance,” Chris said.

“From one of those mines they gave him a trailer, one of those old metal ones from the '60s. We used to find little brass things in it. I've been in construction 25 years and now I know what those brass things were. Those were things to weigh stuff and to take samples. A lot of them were little canisters.

“We used to play inside that trailer because they gave it to him to take home. We would leave our food in it and during the summer we would all sleep in it sometimes. That was at our house for many years. My uncle still has it. Sometimes I wonder if that trailer was used for samples or to weigh things,” he said.

Renounce Doctrine Of Discovery
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Onondaga Chief Calls on Pope to Renounce Doctrine of Discovery
Onondaga Nation Chief Oren Lyons is calling on Pope Benedict XVI to renounce the Doctrine of Discovery "as a critical step on the road to right historic wrongs visited upon indigenous peoples here and elsewhere around the world where it was similarly applied."

In an article in Sunday's Albany Times-Union, Lyons argues that the doctrine, known as Inter Cetera, forms the basis of Indian law in United States and has been cited as recently as 2005 by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a case denying sovereign status to land purchased by the Oneida Nation.

Lyons is a traditional Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, and a Member of the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, or the Haudenosaunee ("People of the Long House").

Posted by Falmouth Institute
Labels: Doctrine of Discovery, Iroquois Confederacy, Oneida Nationa of New York, Onondaga Nation, Oren Lyons

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Uranium Resources Job Applications - Maliseet Take Control Of Hydro Dam

URI Taking Applications For Future Employment
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup Independent
CROWNPOINT – Uranium Resources, Inc. is distributing job applications for area residents. The applications are available at the Gallup/McKinley County Chamber of Commerce and the Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce, as well as URI’s Crownpoint Office.

“Although we are not hiring immediately and are several years away from actual production, URI needs to start educating potential employees and provide mentoring so we can begin preparing for operations immediately after the regulatory agencies approve our permits” said Rick Van Horn, executive vice president and chief operating officer.

“Many positions will be available including engineers, geologists, heavy equipment operators, welders, electricians, mechanics, truck operators, plus administrative support. These will be good-paying jobs and great opportunities for residents to be able to work near the communities in which they live,” he said.

URI currently manages more than 183,000 acres and has more than 101 million pounds of uranium in New Mexico. The company recently announced plans to purchase an additional 35 million pounds and over 100,000 acres in the Crownpoint area, giving URI a third of the known uranium in the Grants Mineral Belt.

There has been no decision yet from the 10th Circuit Court on a petition filed by its subsidiary, Hydro Resources' Inc., for a full court review of an April 17 opinion that the company's Section 8 mine is in Indian Country. URI filed the petition in June.

Van Horn said recently that he still does not understand why the price of uranium is where it's at – basically hovering around $65 for long term prices and even less for short term prices.

“There's a need for nuclear power in this country and in order for nuclear power to be successful you have to have the fuel to burn in the reactors, and this is one of the two main ore deposits in the United States, the Grants Mineral Belt.

“We only produce 5 percent of what we use on a yearly basis. Most of the rest of it comes from Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. If we're worried about having domestic sources of energy, I think we'd better be worried about uranium, because uranium is the one thing that can really put a shot in the arm to the economy of northwest New Mexico,” he said.

“If we're really serious about cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, if we're really serious about global warming, if we're really serious about the environment, we need to get on the nuclear bandwagon,” he said.

“It has an impeccable safety record. Three Mile Island was the last incident here, and no one was irradiated there. Everything worked the way it was supposed to. The reactor shut down. There was no problem. We're not running experiments like over in Russia. It's safe.”

Van Horn said nuclear workers and the people around nuclear power plants get less radiation than the general public living in Albuquerque or Gallup. “That's mostly from cosmic radiation and natural radiation in the ground. Then you hop on an airplane, take a transcontinental airline flight, and you really get zapped,” he said.

URI is committed to New Mexico, but the company understands that there is still a lot of work to do before uranium mining returns to the state, Van Horn said. “Our recruitment process will focus on the ways we protect workers and the natural environment. That includes educating the community on the technological advances in uranium mining that address the legacy issues of the past. In-situ recovery, which is the method of mining we have proposed in the region, has proven to be safe and effective.”

The job applications are for future employment with URI. Once completed, applications can be mailed to URI’s Crownpoint office.

Information: email careers@uraniumresources.com or call (877) 874-6603.

Pack Up & Get Out: Maliseet Take Control Of Hydro Dam
Submitted by Kahentinetha Horn
Mohawk Nation News

MNN. Aug. 8, 2009. In the 1960s some Mohawks used to visit the Maliseet community of Tobique in New Brunswick. They visited us in Kahnawake to exchange ideas about the Great Law of Peace and how to resist colonialism. We looked up to our elder, Louis Karonhiaktajeh Hall for guidance. He designed the Unity flag, which became known as the warrior flag, and wrote books on indigenous history and revitalization. These people broke free of the capitalist system of exploitation:

"On Monday, June 8, 2009, some Maliseet walked peacefully into the New Brunswick Power Corporation [NB Power] hydro station. Stephen Red Feather Perley approached the employees and said, "You guys have fifteen minutes to pack up and get out." They left. The Maliseets wrapped a chain around the gate and locked it. The dam was now the property of the Maliseet Nation of Tobique.

Tobique, the largest Maliseet community in New Brunswick, first rejected a developer's bid to build a hydro dam there in 1844. Another was rejected in 1895. At that time, the Tobique River was "one of the greatest salmon river systems in the world," (along with the St. John River and its other tributaries) with hundreds of thousands of fish swimming upstream to spawn each year. This defined them and their way of life.

By 1945, provincial and federal agencies started development. In 1950 New Brunswick's Premier approved construction of a dam at Tobique without consulting the Maliseet. By year end construction began.

Tobique's chief wrote to Indian Affairs, "If the dam cannot be stopped, we demand compensation." He wanted "free electricity for all their domestic and business uses". When the power lines were installed, they were billed. The Council paid for Elders and those on social assistance.

Today, barely any wild salmon make their way up the Tobique river. Tobique has high rates of cancer, due partly to the power lines over the community and to the toxic chemicals dumped and sprayed on their land by NB Power. The dam has eroded the community's riverbanks. Trees being washed away and homes are in danger of falling into the river". Many of the edible and medicinal plants are gone. The islands they grew on are underwater. Tobique residents are charged among the highest electricity rates in New Brunswick.

In the spring of 2008, Canada's Indian Affairs Department put Tobique's finances under third party management; the Council was purportedly $20 million in debt. They stopped paying the power bills. In April 2008 the elders and welfare recipients received bills for thousands of dollars. When NB Power threatened to cut off an Elder's electricity, the community stepped in.

In May 2008, some Tobique activists set up a blockade denying NB Power access to the community and to the dam. Almost all Maliseet stopped paying their power bills.

In July 2008, the Maliseet began allowing NB Power access to the dam to do repairs and maintenance only. The employee had to check in with them and be escorted into the dam or community.

That month, NB Power forgave over $200,000 worth of hydro bills. In 2008 Paul Durelle, of Baie-Ste-Anne, NB died when NB Power cut his electricity because of non-payment during the winter. The Maliseet women sat at the blockade every day until New Brunswick's no-disconnect policy came into effect.

In May 2009, an NB Power employee was caught sneaking around the community reading meters. [After kicking off the peeping Tom] on June 8th, the Maliseet took over the generating station. The blockade went by the highway in front of the dam.

On June 26, 2009 tensions escalated. A truck rolled by the blockade and into the station. The driver was talking on his cell phone. Stephen Perley told him to hang up and seized his truck. The flustered driver was escorted to the blockade and given food and water. His employer refused to pick him up. The RCMP drove him home.

Today Maliseet women sit at the blockade every day playing cards and watching for NB Power trucks. Cars drive by, many honking in support. The dam continues to operate. NB Power continues to profit off from Tobique's land and water. On June 30th, 2009, the NB Minister of Aboriginal Affairs committed some money to restore eroded riverbanks and to clean up toxic and other wastes dumped at and around the dam. Ottawa's Department of Justice recently validated Tobique's specific land claim, the largest in Atlantic Canada. Talks are underway.

The electricity being made on their land belongs to the Maliseet. The imperialists have been hit in the once bulging pocketbook that they refused to share with the Indigenous land and resource owners. Also, they are fraudulently putting up Maliseet unsurrendered land as collateral to raise money on the stock exchange. Maliseets could soon learn to run these operations. So, New Brunswick and NB Power, stop panicking! Don't do anything stupid or desperate! Contact: Shawn franky777@gmail.com

Posted by MNN Mohawk Nation News kahentinetha2@yahoo.com www.mohawknationnews.com Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada

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