RE: Outreach to Tribes

[Delice Calcote <delice@chickaloon.org>]

Where can we read the PIP?  Is it available on the EPA website?  I looked and did not find anything.  As to the notice to the Tribes, Chickaloon Village did receive the email notice/invitation to participate.  Thank you.  I also sent the invitation to the Tribes I have to communicate with almost daily.  

[Moderator's Note: The Draft Public Involvement Policy and many other documents of relevance to the present discussion are contained in the Briefing Book section of this Web site.  Links to the Draft Public Involvement Policy are given on the page http://www.info-ren.org/network-democracy/epa-pip/bb/pi.shtml ]

I reviewed some of the comments/introductions.  I appreciate having people's email addresses to be able to communicate back to them after this forum.  

The Federal governmental agencies are to have policies to deal on a government to government basis with the Tribes.  I appreciate that EPA has working relationships with the Tribes but when it comes to the Clean Water Act we are minimized by such language that EPA will deal only with Tribes on Reservations.  There is only one reservation in Alaska, next to the Canadian border.  The Tribes/Villages in Alaska are forced to communicate with the state of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.  The ADEC provides waivers to the oil/gas industry to pollute on their EPA permits to explore/exploit/extract oil/gas from Cook Inlet.  These waivers are very damaging to Tribal governments in Cook Inlet. The villages have experienced pollution to the extent that a study on some of our subsistence foods of Cook Inlet have been damaged.  Yet the permitting of tons of pollution continues to this day.  Those heavy metals settle in the muds of Cook Inlet and Beluga use those muds to shed their skin every year.  Is this why some Beluga have sores?  The shipping industry uses the same mud channels that fish and beluga move in.  Is this why beluga have been seen chopped up and with sores on their back that resemble healed slashes from the propeller props of those huge ships?  Testing and studies need to be conducted with Tribal participation from approval of who will conduct the tests, to approval of documents written, especially when it comes to our traditional uses of resources, and involve the Tribal citizens in the research activities in their areas.  Don't have outsiders (even from other Villages) be interviewed on historical information, print it up, produce it worldwide as from a certain area without that Village government approval before the printing process.

Tribes/Villages are not at any "table" to be recognized and have MEANINGFUL PARTICIPATION IN ALL ASPECTS OF industry extractions. Clean Water is the most valuable commodity in the world and yet the G2G policies are a laugh in Alaska.  The united states/its agencies/state corporations reap billions in resource extractions, have left over 500 Superfund sites in Alaska alone -- and we(Tribal Governments/Villages) are excluded from any say-so in regards to the Clean Water Act.  

I would like to see all Tribal Governments/Villages in Coastal areas of Alaska create our own Coastal Zone/Watershed protection measures, develop codes and ordinances and develop cooperative agreements with US government/agencies to enforce.

Tribal Governments in Alaska have experienced law upon law forced upon us without our consent from statehood act to the present.  U.S. and state of Alaska apartheid laws/codes/ordinances are destroying the land and water and animals, clean-up takes forever to get funded, billions go to corporations here and across the united states, billions are in the stock market while we are experiencing animal populations diminishing and Alaska's First Peoples experience racism, ignorance, and subsistence foods being depleted and polluted. The commercial fishing extracts 98% of this resource and the subsistence take is 2% or less, while Alaska Natives make up 15/16% of the population base in Alaska.  

The Military held a workshop this Spring in Anchorage.  Only invited tribes were allowed .  A Military newsletter reported on this RAB workshop and diminished the Tribal Government involvement by stating that people from the bush areas of Alaska also attended. (I picked up a copy of a newsletter at a cafe near Elmendorf AFB--it wasn't sent to the Tribes/Villages.)

The united states and its corporations need to clean up their acts.  Otherwise this is genocide through apartheid laws/codes and ordinances.