Indigenous women are the embodiment of Mother Earth. There is a silent war going on against them in plain sight. Nobody in a position of "power" is doing much of anything, tribes have no authority to prosecute non-Native offenders, and there is hardly any funding for prevention or recovery. Most importantly for water protectors, resource extraction is not only endangering the land - But the lives of Indigenous women.
In the Canadian province of Alberta, Indigenous women are sent to the oil patch in Fort McMurray - To sell sex to the men working there. Calling the sexual exploitation of Indigenous women is "transactional" is comparable to First Nations land cessions - "Selling" real estate for less than 1% of its value - And the sex trafficking of Native women at man camps amounts to nothing more than slavery.
Fort McMurray #468 First Nation clings to cultural survival, as oil companies exploiting tarsands oil (bitumen) have replaced Indigenous people's traditional lands with mines - Stripping away forest, rerouting waterways, and covering an area larger than New York City with mines! Alberta's oil sands have the third-largest oil reserves in the world, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, spanning almost 55 thousand square miles in northern Alberta, running through the traditional territories of the Cree, Chipewyan, and Dene First Nations. Thousands of workers work to extract oil sands, and "man camps" to house workers were built next to the processing plants - For an Indigenous woman to be sent there is terrifying.
Photo by Brandi Morin/Al Jazeera
* Click here or on photo to watch April Eve Wiberg's speech at Take Back the Night 2019 in Edmonton
Those in Canada will know the oil and gas giant Suncor, which along with Exxon/Mobil, has transformed ancient forests and pure water from the Athabascan River - Treaty territory of the Indigenous peoples contained within in the upper Alberta province of Canada. Exxon/Mobil and Suncor in particular have built in the midst of culturally and sustaining woodlands and waterways, sprawling "waste water" ponds that leach heavy metals into groundwater - Tarsands processing plants spew nitrogen and sulfur oxides into the air, sending a sour stench for miles.
The ecological impacts of mines are so deep that Indigenous peoples in the area say the tarsands industry has challenged their very existence. "The basis of all our Indigenous culture is on the land," said Jean L'Hommecourt, a member of Fort McKay First Nation nearby where the tarsands mines were dug. The first tarsands mine was drilled in 1967, an open pit where the Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS) plant was built in Fort McMurray, owned and operated by the American parent company Sun - Suncor was Sun Company's Canadian subsidiary Suncor - Between 1991 - 1996 Sun divested all of its real estate and mining interests and ceased its international oil and gas operations - They changed their name to the present-day Sunoco, Inc. - Suncor became an independent company in 1991, integrated into the Canadian economy when the state-owned Petro-Canada became a Suncor subsidiary, and their revenue in 2019 was just a hair short of $39 billion - Suncor's assets now approach $90 BILLION!
Jean L'Hommecourt and her family would pass the Suncor mine in their boat when they traveled up the Athabasca River, the life-source for Indigenous Athabascan peoples, and the fumes from its processing plant stung their eyes and burned their throats - The wet cloths L'Hommecourt put over her face did nothing to help.
By the early 1990s when Sun decided to close up shop - After oil companies had leased most of the land where the Athabascan First Nations in northeastern Alberta - First Nations' treaty territory where they exercised hunting, fishing, and usury rights - "As long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the river flows" according to Treaty 6 - I guess if oil companies block off an area of First Nations' treaty territory the size of New York City, blot out the sun with smog, kill all of the plants, and contaminate the groundwater with "waste water" tailing ponds, which leech into the Athabasca River - Then treaties with First Nations don't apply in the Commonwealth of Canada anymore!
Photo of Jean L'Hommecourt by Michael Kodas/Inside Climate News
Fort McKay First Nation citizen Jean L'Hommecourt's family history of resistance began at their cabin on the Dénédé - Land of the People - "Where the Creator's Spirit flows through this Land". L'Hommecourt's mother was an advocate for the protection of Dénédé - "[My mother] wanted this place protected," said Jean L'Hommecourt in an interview with Inside Climate News. "She herself threw tires across the road and said: 'Enough's enough! I'm not gonna let no more trucks come by here'," and she did.
"It's getting to the point where people are going to start shooting at each other," Klamath Falls, Oregon resident and farmer Rodney Cheyne said to Al Jazeera. As a child, Cheyne was part of an angry coalition of farmers from Klamath Falls, when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation first cut off the farmers' water in 2001, violating a de facto "promise" the U.S. federal government made to Klamath Falls residents more than a century ago. However the Klamath Tribes - Klamath-Modoc-Yahooskin have an earlier agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior based on an 1864 treaty, promising them exclusive rights to hunt, fish, and trap in their traditional territory. Klamath Tribes Chairman Don Gentry paraphrased local white folks' sentiments: "The fish are worthless and the tribes are worthless because they care about the fish."
A 2001 NYT article described C'Waam and Koptu as "all-but-inedible". Even in 1959 when the suckerfish were still valued for taste, they were still described as "trash fish", and there was NO limit on catching them - So racist fishermen twisted the story the moment their tongues forgot the taste of C'Waam and Koptu - Once both suckerfish were placed on the "Endangered Species List" in 1988. "They didn't watch us. They didn't educate themselves on how to cut these fish," Klamath Tribes member Perry Chocktoot - A self-described suckerfish enthusiast. "Trash" or "rough fish" is a common term used historically for a vast set of large and bony species prized by Indigenous peoples but with little "value" to white sport-fishermen. The willfully ignorant Anglo-European fishermen never "bothered" to educate themselves how the suckerfish, unlike trout, should be filleted from the back to avoid rupturing the gallbladder, which spills yellow bile and ruins the flesh. The reputation of "rough fish" was so bad that hundreds of miles of the Green River in Oregon was poisoned by the Department of Natural Resources in 1962 - To intentionally kill off suckerfish and clear the way for "introduced" rainbow trout. Each year Chocktoot oversees a ceremony in which a suckerfish is cremated - Before placing the C'Waam or Koptu into the fire, Chocktoot delicately removes the gallbladder, called beese in the Klamath language, and places it in the roaring Sprague River.
"One hundred and seventy years, and they still never came and asked - How do you make them good?" Not only are the suckerfish treated like "trash" - During the first major water shutoff in 2001, three men drove into the tribal town of Chiloquin, OR firing shotguns - Yelling "sucker-lovers!" Chockroot points out Klamath people have and continue to be treated by the white community just like suckerfish for more than a century and a half: "They just put a label on them and walk away from them - Discredited them." Senior biologist of Klamath Tribes Alex Gonyaw also said: "These fish are surrogates for how people feel about Native Americans."
Photo via Jefferson Public Radio
* Click here or on photo to read the Water Protector feature "Klamath Basin Water Wars"
"Our DNA is of earth and sky... The subjects and the citizens see the material religions through trauma and numb - Nothing is related - All the things of the earth and in the sky have energy that can be exploited - Even themselves - Mining their spirits into souls sold - Into nothing is sacred - Not even themselves."
- John Trudell
Anishinaabe elders held a treaty ceremony on behalf of the 1855 Treaty Authority at the site where the Line 3 pipeline was proposed to cross the Mississippi Headwaters. In addition to passing through the Fond du Lac reservations, Line 3 passes through 1842, 1854, and 1855 Anishinaabe treaty territories. The White Earth Band of Ojibwe requested a "nation-to-nation" dialogue with the Army Corps of Engineers, whom White Earth is suing in federal court, arguing they cannot issue a permit without tribal approval. The White Earth nation also sued the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) over a water crossing permit that was in the Minnesota Court of Appeals - Sadly in early June 2021 the Minnesota Court of Appeals reaffirmed state regulators' key approvals of Line 3 permits. The 2-1 ruling stated the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission "correctly" granted a certificate of need to Enbridge.
The demonstrations were part of the Treaty People Gathering, a mobilization planned by Indigenous-led groups, communities of faith, and climate justice organizations - Kicking off the beginning of what became a summer of resistance in Minnesota. What's at stake besides the obvious? Manoomin is the Anishinaabe word for "wild rice" - NOT that non-Native "crappy-paddy" rice you can buy on sale from the grocery store either! Manoomin is the "fourth sister" - The first three sisters being corn, beans, and squash - And the most important spiritual, sacred, and central part of Anishinaabe culture.
"This is part of the American Indian Religious Freedoms Act and our rights," said Frank Bibeau, tribal attorney for the White Earth Band. "Manoomin grows everywhere right now in northern Minnesota, and it's being starved out from water - It's being starved out for its nutrients." White Earth Band tribal council members spoke about a series of 19th-century treaties, beginning with the treaty of 1837, which was the first major land cession to the U.S. on behalf of the logging industry. The treaty of 1837 is notable for specifying the rights of the tribes to gather wild rice, hunt, and fish. An estimated 12 million acres of land in parts of present-day Minnesota and Wisconsin were stolen from the Anishinaabe in 1837 - "Sold" for less than six cents an acre! Despite losing their "real estate", the Anishinaabe retained their "usury" rights to hunt, fish, and gather, but their treaty territory have been threatened by industry many times before.
*Image via Unitarian Universalist Ministry of Earth
* Click here or on photo to read full feature-length article!
Instead of serving as a wake-up call, Enbridge has lobbied Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau, who also wrote: "In response to Michigan's efforts to shut down Line 5, Canada has raised its significance for Canadian economic and energy security at the highest levels of the U.S. federal government[...] implementing the international agreements that are in place between our two countries."
Environmental group 350 Canada slammed Garneau, stating "the lengths our government will go to prop up the fossil fuel industry, when they could be throwing down behind a just transition that puts people, our planet, and workers first." The Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people of Bay Mills say life began in the Straits of Mackinac - The waters where Lake Huron and Lake Erie meet is a sacred space - The area remains integral to the daily practice of their cultural lifeways. Since time immemorial Indigenous communities have been dependent on the abundant fish and wildlife in the Straits of Mackinac, with commercial and subsistence fishing and hunting providing vital economic influx for the Bay Mills Indian Community.
During the 1950s - Without tribal consultation nor public input - The State of Michigan granted Enbridge a lease and permission to build the original Line 5 dual pipeline. During 2021 Enbridge has been seeking to build a tunnel to house a new segment of Line 5. The pipeline will continue transporting non-consumer oil and gas products with little to no financial benefit to local residents. By violating Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's cancellation of the easement that permits the dual pipeline to cross the Straits of Mackinac, Enbridge is trespassing as it continues to operate Line 5 in violation of the termination notice.
Native Hawaiians have been warning about the EXTREMELY high risk of a leak at Red Hill for several decades. More than 200 MILLION gallons of jet fuel are stored in the fuel tanks at the Navy’s Red Hill facility. The tanks are buried just 100 feet above the Red Hill well, which is the largest aquifer in O'ahu, and the facility has secretly been leaking fuel regularly for decades, with no attempts at prevention or remediation, and now jet fuel levels found in tap water are 350 times the "safe limit" - That's a 35,000% increase! Most people outside the U.S. military don't know that the Navy has more fighter jets in their military division than the Air Force. What the U.S. Navy is conveying through its actions is that keeping their fighter jets in the air is more valuable to them than to provide clean drinking water to the citizens of O’ahu, even for the 400 military families who have been evacuated from the iconic military base at Pearl Harbor!
Needless to say the tap water from the Red Hill well is undrinkable at the moment. More than 400,000 residents of O'ahu had their water from the Red Hill well cut off in December 2021, nearly one month after the initial jet fuel pipeline burst and spilled an estimated 21 THOUSAND gallons of jet fuel into an area of the Red Hill facility not equipped to contain a spill of such magnitude. According to the U.S. Navy, less than 2,000 gallons of jet fuel was actually cleaned up, and the first estimate of exactly how much jet fuel escaped was incredibly low compared to how much the investigation detected. Essentially the Navy has so much jet fuel that it doesn’t even know how much it actually has, so when 21,000 gallons of it went “missing” in May 2021, nobody actually noticed until the fuel pipe erupted six months later in November or that at least 20,000 gallons of jet fuel was unaccounted for, until water began running out of the taps at Pearl Harbor military base reeking of jet fuel after it had seeped into the water system.
Instead of being in a State of Emergency, and immediately responding, Navy officials are dragging their feet and saying “we’ll get to it by the end of 2024”. Now in a state already experiencing below-average rainfall from the man-made climate disaster, the amount of water available to the ONE MILLION Kama'aina, the human beings, living in O’ahu has now been reduced to less than half of what it was before December 2021. Remember there were 400 THOUSAND Hawaiians in the Honolulu area who lost their drinking water from the Red Hill well contaminated by jet fuel, as if any amount of jet fuel in the water is “safe”, for over a month before the well was shut down, but only the 400 military families unfortunately affected by the spill got minimal media attention, as the Pentagon did its best to keep the Red Hill disaster hush-hush. There are thousands of Native Hawaiians who need to haul their water, and they cannot afford bottled water, nor do they want to leave their Home, their Island, their 'Āina!
The Hawaiian Islands are military-occupied colonies of the United States of America. Despite being added as the 50th state in 1959, Native Hawaiians never signed a treaty with the U.S. government, nor ceded their motherland 'Āina. Hawaiian islands, atolls, and the entire archipelago have been used for explosive, chemical, and nuclear weapons testing for many decades. In many ways the U.S. military has been carrying out genocidal warfare and against Native Hawaiian people since 1893. This war of attrition against Native Hawaiians, now in its second century, continues because of their refusal to surrender to the federal government and U.S. military. Native Hawaiians don’t want to become a "domestic dependent" nation and a ward of the U.S. Department of the Interior, with their sovereignty and territorial integrity compromised, reduced to so-called “reservations”, which are in reality Prisoner of War (P.O.W.) camps for Indigenous people, within the illegally-occupied continental United States - Native Hawaiians don’t even want to be American! An act of Congress may have legally recognized Native Hawaiian ‘homelands’, and granted a unique tribal sovereignty status, but they are just fancy words on a piece of paper.
Native Hawaiian ko’a or spiritual, physical, and mental power is strong, and they never actually lost a battle - Just ask Captain James Cook! Not only that, but the market value of real estate properties within Hawai’i has skyrocketed, and since Native Hawaiians can’t seek federal recognition under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A.), or funding from the federal government to house them, thousands of Native Hawaiians have been rendered homeless in O’ahu, forcing them to live in makeshift camps without electricity, running water, and proper sanitation. As if there weren't enough problems for Native Hawaiians related to the land theft by the U.S. government for private property, military bases, and bombing ranges, now a jet fuel spill of at LEAST 20,000 gallons by the U.S. Navy in November 2021 has poisoned the drinking water of 400,000 people on O’ahu, who relied on the Red Hill well until the water was cut off in December 2021.
Image via Oah'u Water Protectors
* Click here or on photo for Water Protector feature "Battle for Native Hawai'i"!
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