This book focuses on the toxic legacy of Native North America, which is pervasive but largely invisible to most non-Native peoples. Many toxic sites are located in out-of-the-way rural areas largely forgotten by the majority of America, but which nonetheless have supplied its industries with the rudiments of manufacturing for the better part of a century before being closed and cast aside. Thousands of contaminated sites exist in the United States due to dumped, left out, or otherwise improperly managed hazardous waste. These sites include manufacturing facilities, processing plants, landfills, and mining sites. Based on the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleans up these so-called Superfund sites, of which roughly 40 percent are located in Native country.
The book links present-day Native American cultural and economic revival to a fundamental struggle to restore the health of both Native peoples and their homelands. It links past and present with a sense of Native Americans’ perceptions of nature and the sacred land. By doing so, it also provides the majority society with an example to emulate as we emerge, by necessity, from the age of fossil fuels into a sustainable energy paradigm.
This makes the book a must-read for students, scholars, and researchers of Native American studies, US politics, environmental studies, public policy, as well as policy-makers interested in a better understanding of the environmental devastation of Native land and its consequences.
Author(s): Bruce E. Johansen
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 233
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
References
Chapter 2: Akwesasne: Land of the Toxic Turtles
References
Chapter 3: The Deadly Yellow Powder
3.1 The Human Price of Uranium among Native American Peoples
3.2 The Scope of Uranium Mining on Native Lands
3.3 Uranium from Russia: An Alarm for U.S. Native Peoples?
3.4 Navajo Uranium Fuels U.S. Arsenal
3.5 Radioactive from the Inside Out
3.6 Opposition to Uranium Mining
3.7 ``Original Instructions,´´ Uranium Mining, and Navajo Cultural Values
3.8 The Largest Uranium Spill in the United States
3.9 The Struggle for Compensation
3.10 Delays in Compensation
3.11 Cleanup Planned at a Few Spill Sites after Three Decades
3.12 ``Nobody Told Us It Was Unsafe´´
3.13 The Laguna Pueblo and Anaconda´s Jackpile Uranium Mine
3.14 A Child Nearly Burns to Death
3.15 Decades of Cleanup Plans
3.16 Dene Decimated by Uranium Mining and the ``Money Rock´´
3.17 ``The Incurable Disease´´
3.18 The Conflict Continues
3.19 Plans to Blast an Alaskan Harbor with Nuclear Bombs
3.20 The Point Hope Eskimos: An Atomic Harbor and a Nuclear Dump as a Neighbor
3.21 Nuclear Boosterism
3.22 An ``Overture to the New Era´´?
3.23 Radiation Tests´ Effects on Eskimos
3.24 Cancer Rates Rise
3.25 The Prairie Island Indian Community and Nuclear Waste
3.26 The Western Shoshone: ``The Most-Bombed Nation of Earth´´
3.27 More Tests on Indian Land
3.28 Washington State´s Yakamas and Hanford´s Radioactive Legacy
3.29 On the Road to Hell, the Most Toxic Lies Go Undisclosed
3.30 The Dene Extend Profound Condolences to the Victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
References
Chapter 4: Showers of Pig Feces: A Neighborly Stench
4.1 Money Oinks at the State Capitol
4.2 Wearing the Stench
4.3 A Stench that Smells like a Month-Old Decomposing Human Body
4.4 So Much for Free Speech
4.5 More Health Problems Related to Hog Waste
4.6 Pig Manure, Race, Class, and Corporate Control
4.7 ``When Pigs Fly´´
4.8 Now Comes a Stampede of Chickens and Turkeys
4.9 Hogs Now Run Second to Poultry
References
Chapter 5: An Ice World Melts
5.1 Sweating in Iqaluit
5.2 Warming in the Arctic and Antarctic: How High Is Spectacular?
5.3 When Is it ``Weather?´´ When Is It ``Climate?´´
5.4 Vast New Lakes Created
5.5 An Out-of-Season Swarm of Flies
5.6 Climate and Cultural Change
5.7 Sea Ice Is in Rapid Decline
5.8 Food Insecurity and Grocery Stores
5.9 ``We Have Never Seen Anything Like This. It´s Scary, Very Scary´´
5.10 Worst Fears Realized
5.11 Land of Melting Ice and Burning Tundra
5.12 Warming´s Pervasive Effects
5.13 A Winter Without Walrus
5.14 An Oral History of a Melting World
5.15 The Inuit World Turned Upside down
5.16 The Arctic Ocean Is Acidifying
5.17 Alaskan Villages Fall to Encroaching Seas
5.18 Moving Beyond a Point of No Return
5.19 Salmon Decline in Warming Waters
5.20 Climate Change and Industrial Development
References
Chapter 6: The Inuit (and Others): If it Swims, It´s Probably Poisonous
6.1 ``We Feel Like an Endangered Species´´
6.2 A Poisoned World
6.3 How Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Work
6.4 Inuit Infants: ``A Living Test Tube for Immunologists´´
6.5 Socioeconomic Changes in Nunavut
6.6 Toxic Pollution of Inuit Land by the Military
6.7 Toxic Contamination of Traditional Inuit Foods in Alaska and Russia
6.8 Seward, Alaska: Don´t Eat the Reindeer
6.9 Deformed Babies, Mercury, and the Grassy Narrows First Nation in Ontario
6.10 Too Few Infant Boys? Blame Estrogen-Blocking Chemicals
6.11 The Ouje-Bougoumou Cree Endure Severe Metal Contamination
6.12 Colville Tribes Resist Pollution of the Columbia River
6.13 The Penobscots Endure Organochlorine Contamination
6.14 Oregon Tribes Fight Pollution in and near Portland
6.15 Coeur d´Alene Demand Cleanup of Mining Waste in Idaho
6.16 The Ramapough: Suffering Ford Motor´s PCBs, Heavy Metals, Freon, Arsenic, and Lead
6.17 The Yaquis´ Borders Don´t Stop Pesticide Contamination
6.18 The Huicholes Live with Pesticides Around the Clock
6.19 Pregnant Inuit Women more Exposed to ``the New PCBs´´ than Other Canadians
6.20 How PCBs Move
6.21 The Scope of Knowledge About Effects of Contamination Grows
6.22 ``Do we Become Farmers?´´
6.23 Bad News on Whales near the Faroe Islands
6.24 Mercury Also Damages Childrens´ IQ
References
Untitled
Chapter 7: Alberta´s Moonscape: If This Sounds Apocalyptic, It Is
7.1 Many Pipelines, Not Much Publicity
7.2 The Land Is Sacred, but Also a Battlefield
7.3 A Perpetual Battle
7.4 Tar Sands´ Devastation in Northern Alberta
7.5 Promotion and Erosion of Support for Tar Sands Oil
7.6 Tar Sands and Strip Mining
7.7 Tar Sands Mining as the ``Fuse to the Biggest Carbon Bomb on the Planet´´
7.8 A Signature Environmental Issue
7.9 Tar Sands as Junk Energy
7.10 Strip Mining a Moonscape
7.11 Tar Sands and Climate Change: ``If This Sounds Apocalyptic, It Is´´
7.12 Tar Sands and Oil Spills
7.13 On the Ground in Tar Sands Country
7.14 Oil on the Water Table
7.15 Tribes and Nations Forge Alliances
7.16 Native Peoples Unite against the Keystone XL
7.17 A Blockade at Pine Ridge
7.18 Another Blockade by the Nez Perce
7.19 Protests Spread
7.20 More Protests, More Arrests
7.21 Invoking the Fort Laramie Treaties
7.22 Shipping Oil: And Spilling It-By Rail
7.23 The Quinault Resist Oil Transport
7.24 More Resistance to Fracking
7.25 Fracking and Earthquakes
7.26 Fracking Linked to Water Pollution
7.27 Oil at Fort Berthold: ``The Water is Dead and It Is Lethal´´
7.28 Protests of Pipelines across Canada
References
Chapter 8: Mining: Tearing at Mother´s Breast
8.1 The World´s Largest Salmon Run Vs. the World´s Biggest Gold and Copper Mine
8.2 Common Cause at Standing Rock
8.3 Oil Ports, Pipelines, Salmon, Dams, Native Peoples: And Greenhouse Gases
8.4 Reorientation Respecting Humans´ Relationship Toward the Natural World
8.5 Quapaw: Too Toxic to Clean up
8.6 Coal: Pacific Northwest Tribes Protest Transport
8.7 Coal Transport and the Global Greenhouse Gas Load
8.8 The Lubicon Cree: Land Rights and Resource Exploitation
8.9 Logging on Lubicon Land
8.10 Conflicts over Resources Continue
8.11 The Moapa Paiute: Goodbye Toxic Ash: Solar in, Coal Power out
8.12 Montana´s Gros Ventre and Assiniboine: Gold Mining and Cyanide Poisoning
8.13 ``Like Watching Our Ancestors Die´´
8.14 The Mine Leaks, and Expands
8.15 Streams Smell of Rotten Eggs
8.16 The Huichol (Wixritari), a Sacred Site, and Silver Mining
References
