Ka Honua Momona – a sustainable alternative from Moloka’i

Mahalo to Sparky Rodrigues of Malama Makua for sharing this inspiring vision from Moloka’i.  This is the “aloha ‘aina” alternative to militarization and exploitation.

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From: Sparky Rodrigues <srodrigues@olelo.org>
Date: August 26, 2009 3:08:13 PM HST
Cc: Sparky Rodrigues <srodrigues@olelo.org>
Subject: Sust ‘aina ble Molokai – IDEAs for Makua?

Check out the youtube videos – links below.

you can download conference brochure as well as the “future of a hawaiian island” document here:

http://www.kahonuamomona.org/conference.html

also, attached is the conference schedule.  malia akutagawa is the mastermind behind the conference.

Subject: Molokai Sustainability Conference on Youtube

aloha… for those who missed the recent “Molokai Sustainability Conference,” a highlight video is now showing on youtube.  please check it out and share with others.  i know there are some misconceptions about what the conference was about, so sharing this video can help add clarity within our community to what was really a positive and inspiring event.

here are the links (the video is in 4-parts):

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pbJ-oEcna0

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMHc9iEzfq8&feature=related

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxdGmlBCtSY&feature=related

Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ3XJA2rlSc&feature=related

mahalo!

Matt Yamashita
Matt Yamashita (808) 553-5011 PO Box 265 Kaunakakai, HI 96748

Molokai: Future of a Hawaiian Island – Sustainability plan

molokai-conference-schedule-final-071209

More on EPA response to illegal city dumping

Posted on: Friday, July 31, 2009

EPA orders Honolulu to clean stream after illegal city dumping

Order follows illegal placement of construction debris

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Staff Writer

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered the city to clean and restore Ma’ili’ili Stream after the illegal unloading of concrete rubble, metal debris, used asphalt and other construction debris by city employees.

Jeffrey Cudiamat, the city’s director of facility maintenance, said crews from his agency are responsible for the material in the stream and that an internal investigation is under way. Cudiamat and other city officials said the debris wasn’t dumped into the stream, but rather was placed along the bank to create a temporary access path.

The EPA order, issued yesterday, calls on the city to submit a removal and restoration plan, including the placement of erosion and sedimentation control measures, within 60 days. The city is also required to submit a final report when the work is done.

State Health Department inspectors first were alerted to the debris in the bed and bank of the stream in June by EnviroWatch, a nonprofit environmental watchdog group.

State and federal officials, with the cooperation of the city, later determined that the materials were put into an area estimated at 1.08 acres of the stream and along both banks between February 2008 and May 2009. EPA officials said the fill was about eight yards wide and stretched about 175 yards.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a notice of unauthorized activity to the city on June 18. The EPA has since taken jurisdiction over the matter.

Dean Higuchi, EPA spokesman, said the city violated the federal Clean Water Act, which prohibits the placement of dredged or fill material into waterways without a permit.

“Anytime you fill a stream, or alter it, you need to get permits from the Corps and in this case they didn’t even do that,” Higuchi said. A major concern for the EPA is the potential for the fill to wash downstream and into the ocean during a big rain, he said.

“That could impact not only water quality, it could also impact the ecosystems,” he said. “You basically could bury a coral reef with all that stuff.”

federal probe

A federal investigation is ongoing and the order does not preclude the EPA from taking other action, including issuing fines or penalties.

“We’re still looking into this situation and trying to figure out why this went on without them even asking the question,” Higuchi said.

Larry Lau, the Health Department’s deputy director for environmental health, said his agency considers the situation “serious” and that the Clean Water Branch is also investigating the matter.

Cudiamat said the city is cooperating with the EPA order.

“We are working to ensure full compliance with such requirements in the future, and have already taken affirmative steps to complete the action items set forth in the EPA’s order,” he said.

The city began removing the material about a month ago after being notified of the situation by regulators, but then was “advised to await further guidance,” Cudiamat said.

He and other city officials declined to answer specific questions about who was responsible for creating the road or failing to obtain the permits, citing a city investigation.

EnviroWatch president Carroll Cox said he doesn’t buy the city’s explanation about the building of a temporary pathway, noting that debris was being transferred there over a period of 15 months.

“There’s no such thing as a temporary road in a river bed,” he said.

taxpayers foot bill

Cox said he was tipped of by workers in the Department of Facilities Management who said the materials were originally from Honolulu-area roads and sidewalks and were being disposed of in the stream to avoid paying tipping fees at the privately owned PVT Landfill, the only O’ahu disposal facility allowed to accept construction waste.

City workers responsible should lose their jobs and criminal charges should be brought, Cox said.

What’s most disturbing is that the island’s taxpayers are going to end up footing the bill for cleaning the situation up, Cox said.

City Councilman Donovan Dela Cruz, who heads the council’s Public Safety & Services Committee, said he looks forward to reviewing Facility Maintenance’s cleanup plan “and evaluating the costs associated with the cleanup in order to restore Ma’ili’ili Stream to its previous condition.”

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090731/NEWS01/907310362/EPA+orders+Honolulu+to+clean+stream+after+illegal+city+dumping

EPA orders city to clear illegal fill from Mailiili Stream

Updated at 11:28 a.m., Thursday, July 30, 2009

EPA orders city to clear illegal fill from Mailiili Stream and restore stream bed

Advertiser Staff

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said today that it has ordered the city to remove illegal fill from Mailiili Stream in Maili and to restore the stream bed and banks.

The EPA said the city will be required to:

– Halt further placement of material into the stream.

– Submit a plan to remove the material and restore the stream within 60 days.

– Submit a final report to the EPA when the work is done.

In June, inspectors from the state Hawaii Department of Health inspected the stream after it received a complaint that the city had used equipment to place concrete and other material in the bed and bank of the stream.

Inspectors found the material and work reports that confirmed the city had placed it in the stream between February 2008 and May 2009.

On June 18, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a notice of unauthorized activity notifying the city of alleged violations for placing concrete slabs and other fill in the steam.

The city had filled an area of about 1.08 acres in Mailiili Stream. Along the stream’s north and south banks, the fill was about eight yards wide for a distance of about 175 yards. Fill extended across the entire 33-yard channel width for the uppermost 70 yards of the stream.

The Clean Water Act prohibits the placement of dredged or fill materials into wetlands, rivers, streams and other waters of the United States without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090730/BREAKING01/90730054/EPA+orders+city+to+clear+illegal+fill+from+Mailiili+Stream+and+restore+stream+bed

NOAA monitors munitions dumped off Wai’anae

NOAA to track munitions in sea

Monitors at weapons dumpsites will check environmental effects

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jul 22, 2009

Nine ocean current monitoring sensors will be placed off Pokai Bay at two World War II weapons dumpsites Friday as part of the Pentagon’s continuing assessment of the potential effects of sea-disposed munitions.

Tony Reyer, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said yesterday that four sensors will be located at the conventional weapons dumpsite a few miles off Waianae known as ordnance reef. Two will be placed in 300 feet of water, and another two at 50 feet.

Five others will be anchored with 3,000-pound weights in 8,000 feet of water at a deep-sea chemical weapons munition disposal site 10 miles west of Pokai Bay. A string of sensors will be linked at depths of 40, 492 and 1,476 feet.

Kekaula Hudson, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the Army hopes to begin recovering some of the conventional weapons dumped at ordnance reef as early as next summer using underwater robots.

“The plan is to use a barge system,” Hudson said, “and to treat the munitions on the barge and then take the scrap metal out of the state for disposal.”

All of the sensors will be battery operated and will be in place for a year.

The sensors will record speed and direction of ocean currents to determine where they would carry munitions materials if they were ever released.

“These sensors will collect data that has not been previously available and will give us a better understanding of the ocean conditions in the area,” said Jason Rolfe, co-leader of the $1.6 million NOAA project.

The current data also will be used in other projects, Reyer added, such as coastal zone management, pollution control, tourism and search and rescue operations.

Sensors will be deployed from the 68-foot NOAA research ship Hi’ialakai, commanded by Cmdr. John Caskey, and the UH research vessel Klaus Wyrtki.

Sixty years ago, the military dumped munitions off the coast of Waianae and now the NOAA is launching a study to learn more about the potential impacts from those sites.

Reyer, who was involved in NOAA’s 2006 sampling of sediment, water and fish at ordnance reef, said the dumpsites have not caused any health problems. No explosives or related compounds were detected in the fish samples taken during the two-week survey. Most munitions are covered with coral growth.

No similar tests were done at the deep-water dumpsite, Reyer said.

Hudson said a follow-up screening at ordnance reef will take place next month.

Tad Davis, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for the environment, safety and occupational health, said the Army will spend $3 million to remove or destroy in place up to 1,500 conventional munitions using remote underwater drones and other robotic techniques perfected by oil companies.

The weapons range from .50-caliber or smaller ammunition to 50- to 100-pound bombs and 105 mm projectiles. Many of the munitions have been in the water so long that they have been become part of the reef.

The Army’s goal is to clear the water from the shoreline to 120 feet offshore.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090722_NOAA_to_track_munitions_in_sea.html

Army to resume assault on Makua

Updated at 12:04 p.m., Thursday, July 16, 2009

Army to resume Makua Valley exercises, but restrict weapons

Advertiser Staff

The Army said today it will resume live-fire exercises in Makua Valley but reduce the number of drills and restrict use of certain munitions.

The Army said an environmental impact statement had suggested 50 company-sized combined arms live-fire exercises and 200 convoy live-fire exercises.

The Army said it will conduct 32 combined arms live-fire exercises 150 convoy live-fire exercises with minimal weapons restrictions.

The Army said the exercises would be conducted without use of tracer ammunition, TOW missiles, anti-tank and 2.75-caliber rockets, shoulder-launched Javelin missiles or illumination munitions of any kind.

The elimination of these weapon systems greatly reduces the risk of range fires and environmental threats to endangered species and cultural sites, yet allows Hawaii-based units to train locally without the costly burden of additional deployments, the Army said.

“This MMR Environmental Impact Statement was a very thorough and publicly open process,” said Maj. Gen. Raymond V. Mason, commander, Army Hawaii and the deciding official.

“We’ve reached the best decision that allows our soldiers and small units to train locally and reduces their time away from families, all while ensuring the Army continues to protect the precious environment entrusted to us.”

The Makua record of decision is available online at: http:/www.garrison.hawaii.army.mil/makuaeis

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090716/BREAKING01/90716059/-1/RSS01?source=rss_breaking

Wai’anae Community Forum on Environmental Justice

Why is everyone dumping their ‘opala on Wai’anae?

What is being done to address these problems?

What can we do as a community?

Please come to our

Community Forum on Environmental Justice

Friday July 17
Thursday, 2009

Wai’anae Library

(85-625 Farrington Highway)

6 to 8 p.m.

Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae will be sharing and discussing their findings with the community.

This forum is sponsored by: Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae & The Wai’anae Environmental Justice Working Group.

For more information contact: Lucy Gay (808) 696-6378 or Kyle Kajihiro (808) 542-3668

Illegal landfill yields clues

July 12, 2009

Illegal landfill yields clues

Years-old dump in Wai’anae filled with hazardous waste

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Wai’anae Coast Writer

The state Department of Health is trying unravel the mystery of who’s behind a large illegal landfill in a remote region in Wai’anae. For years, the site has been the end point of hundreds of tons of buried hazardous waste materials, officials suspect.

On Thursday, the state got an assist from a group of educators, students and residents who inspected the dump site on their own and uncovered documents that could lead to those who’ve been getting rid of commercial waste on the sly.

One member of the group phoned in a complaint from the scene. But it wasn’t the first time state officials had heard complaints about the landfill.

Steven Chang, chief of the Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch for the DOH, said the materials appear to be construction demolition debris dumped illegally on Department of Hawaiian Home Lands property.

He said his branch had previously sent letters to DHHL alerting them to the situation.

“We are going to be meeting with Hawaiian Home Lands people next week at the site, probably, to take a look at what’s going on,” Chang said. “Apparently, this has been going on a long time.”

Chang said investigators would be trying to determine who’s responsible. He said the massive amount of waste dwarfs the state’s definition for illegal dumping – which is anything more than one cubic yard.

The previously secret landfill is on the north side of of Highway 782 about a quarter of a mile east of where it intersects Wai’anae Valley Road. Access to the dirt road leading to the dump site is blocked by a pipe fence latched with a combination paddle lock and a “No Trespassing” sign.

Carroll Cox, an environmental activist and president of EnviroWatch Inc., was with the group that inspected and photographed the landfill on Thursday.

He described the site as a years-old “active landfill” about two acres in size and filled with “hundreds and hundreds of tons of hazardous solid waste and potentially toxic materials” dumped inside a gated and locked setting.

The materials include concrete blocks, old painted wood, asphalt, rebar, cast iron, hollow tile bricks, roofing materials and green matter. While much of the debris is covered with dirt, several recent mountains of rubble also decorate the canyon landscape.

“What’s happened is that they buried the stuff and spread the dirt over it,” Cox said.

“You can see where they’ve graded this. I mean, whoever’s doing this is pretty bold. They are going in there with heavy equipment after they’ve dumped, and then bury it – smash it down and spread it out and put dirt on it.”

Lucy Gay, director of Continuing Education & Training at Leeward Community College in Wai’anae, learned about the landfill from a colleague who hiked the isolated area over the July Fourth weekend and stumbled across huge debris piles.

Gay and area Hawaiian activist Alice Greenwood investigated the site on their own and contacted Cox. The three returned on Thursday, along with the students.

“We want to know who are the guys who are dumping all this stuff on the land,” Gay said. “This is a big dump.”

Gay, Greenwood and Cox uncovered documents among the materials that they think will help investigators locate the trash haulers.

“This is one of those difficult-to-find dumps that the Wai’anae Coast has been plagued with for years,” Cox said. “Every canyon has played host to illegal dumping of this type. But this is one of the most clandestine examples I’ve ever seen.”

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009907120363

Wai’anae Aunties Expose Illegal Dump site

The Concerned Elders of Wai’anae, one of the core groups of the Wai’anae Environmental Justice Working Group, discovered and reported an illegal dump site in Wai’anae.  It appears that construction and demolition debris has been dumped in a remote corner of land near the Lualualei Naval Magazine on Department of Hawaiian Home Lands land.  Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae, the summer youth environmental justice project of the American Friends Service Committee was there to support the Elders.

Here’s the story on KITV news from June 10, 2009:  http://www.kitv.com/video/20022567/

And the first story on KITV from June 9, 2009: http://www.kitv.com/video/20011403/index.html

Camp Lejeune male breast cancer epidemic

This article reveals a shocking epidemic of male breast cancer among veterans and other men connected to Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base.  The main culprits suspected are Trichloroethylene (TCE) and Perchloroethylene (PCE) in the base drinking water.   These are the same contaminants found in ‘Aiea and Wahiawa groundwater from military bases.   The article mentions a website by survivors of Camp Lejeune contamination: http://tftptf.com/5801.html.  It contains lots of good information.

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http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/veterans/article1015699.ece

More vets report cancer

By William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer

Published Friday, July 3, 2009

Scientists studying drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune were startled when 11 men with breast cancer and ties to the North Carolina base were identified over the last two years.

Six more have been found in one week.

Five additional men with breast cancer and a sixth who had a double mastectomy after doctors found precancerous tumors contacted the St. Petersburg Times last week after reading a story about the 11 men with the rare disease.

“This male breast cancer cluster is a smoking gun,” breast cancer survivor Mike Partain said on Friday. “You just can’t ignore it. You don’t need science to tell you something is wrong. It’s common sense. It begs to be studied.”

Partain, 41, of Tallahassee, was born at the Marine Corps base and diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. He has worked for two years to find other men with breast cancer who lived at Camp Lejeune.

He found the first nine men before the Times profiled his search in a story on June 28, a story that noted the newspaper had found another man not on Partain’s list.

In the days after that story, other male breast cancer survivors called or e-mailed the Times.

Scientists studying what some call the worst public-drinking water contamination in the nation’s history said the numbers are unsettling.

“My gut tells me this is unusual and needs to be looked into,” said Richard Clapp, a Boston University epidemiologist who has studied Camp Lejeune water. “I’m sure there are still more out there in other states.”

Camp Lejeune’s drinking water was contaminated for 30 years ending in 1987 with high levels of industrial degreasers called trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). Clapp said both have been linked to other suspicious male breast cancer clusters elsewhere.

The chemicals were dumped there by the Marine Corps and a private dry-cleaning business, according to investigators.

Congress, which has dubbed ill Marines “poisoned patriots,” ordered the Marines last year to notify those who might have been exposed. Some estimates put the number at up to 1 million people.

Many Marines, however, are still unaware.

One who didn’t have a clue about the contamination is South Florida resident Jim Morris.

Morris said he was astonished when he was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000 at the age of 54. His family had no history of breast cancer. He didn’t realize men could get the disease.

Few do.

Male breast cancer is exceedingly rare. Just 1,900 men are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year compared with nearly 200,000 women, the American Cancer Society says.

A man has a 1-in-1,000 lifetime chance of getting the disease.

Men who get it are often over 70, though it is rare even in older males. Of the 17 men identified by Partain and the Times, just three are over 70 – the youngest was Partain at 39 – and many have no family history of breast cancer, male or female, according to interviews.

Morris said his sister lives in Pasco County and saw the Times article about Partain. She immediately called her brother.

“It was almost a relief to find out my cancer actually came from somewhere,” said Morris, who has worked as a surveyor. “I’m not just some idiot who got breast cancer for no reason. I never expected to find out. It was going to be one of those lifetime puzzles you never figure out.”

Scientists, however, are careful to say that it is extremely difficult to prove a link between pollution and a disease. The Marine Corps declined to comment for this story.

Two federal studies are expected to be completed in coming years that will look at the incidence of all disease among those who lived at Camp Lejeune. The stakes are enormous, with potentially billions of dollars in health claims by more than 1,500 people who say the water made them ill.

University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center epidemiologist Devra Davis also is preparing a case report on the breast cancer cluster.

Partain is among those who believe Camp Lejeune’s water may have caused a variety of cancers and other ailments. A growing community of Camp Lejeune veterans, including many who say they are ill, have connected on the Web, many at a popular Internet site called tftptf.com.

More than 10,000 Floridians with Lejeune ties have signed up for a health survey, the most from any state except North Carolina.

Joe Moser, 69, of Riverview was diagnosed with breast and thyroid cancer in February 2008. He was stationed at Camp Lejeune from 1957 to 1960. He said he didn’t know about water problems at the base and was stunned to read about the breast cancer link.

“This is too weird,” Moser said. “All these men with breast cancer? Come on. There’s got to be a lot more of us out there. God, so many of the guys I served with were from Trenton or Philadelphia, all over the place. Who knows if they’re sick, too.”

William R. Levesque can be reached at levesque@sptimes.com or (813) 269-5306.

Dahr Jamail: Destroying Indigenous Populations

Truthout Original

Destroying Indigenous Populations

Saturday 20 June 2009

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

The Fort Laramie Treaty once guaranteed the Sioux Nation the right to a large area of their original land, which spanned several states and included their sacred Black Hills, where they were to have “the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the land.

However, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, President Ulysses S. Grant told the army to look the other way in order to allow gold miners to enter the territory. After repeated violations of the exclusive rights to the land by gold prospectors and by migrant workers crossing the reservation borders, the US government seized the Black Hills land in 1877.

Charmaine White Face, an Oglala Tetuwan who lives on the Pine Ridge Reservation, is the spokesperson for the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council (TSNTC), established in 1893 to uphold the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. She is also coordinator of the voluntary group, Defenders of the Black Hills, that works to preserve and protect the environment where they live.

“We call gold the metal which makes men crazy,” White Face told Truthout while in New York to attend the annual Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations in late May. “Knowing they could not conquer us like they wanted to … because when you are fighting for your life, or the life of your family, you will do anything you can … or fighting for someplace sacred like the Black Hills you will do whatever you can … so they had to put us in prisoner of war camps. I come from POW camp 344, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. We want our treaties upheld, we want our land back.”

Most of the Sioux’s land has been taken, and what remains has been laid waste by radioactive pollution.

“Nothing grows in these areas – nothing can grow. They are too radioactive,” White Face said.

Although the Black Hills and adjoining areas are sacred to the indigenous peoples and nations of the region, their attempts at reclamation are not based on religious claims but on the provisions of the Constitution. The occupation of indigenous land by the US government is in direct violation of its own law, according to White Face.

She references Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

The spokesperson for the TSNTC declares, “We need our treaty upheld. We want it back. Without it we are disappearing. They might have made us into brown Americans who speak the English language and eat a different kind of food, and are not able to live with the buffalo like we are supposed to, but that is like a lion in a cage. You can feed it and it will reproduce, but it is only a real lion when it gets its freedom and can be who it’s supposed to be. That’s how we are. We are like that lion in a cage. We are not free right now. We need to be able to govern ourselves the way we did before.”

Delegations from the TSNTC began their efforts in the United Nations in 1984 after exhausting all strategies for solution within the United States.

Homeland Contamination

There is uranium all around the Black Hills, South and North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Mining companies came in and dug large holes through these lands to extract uranium in the 1950’s and 1960’s prior to any prohibitive regulations. Abandoned uranium mines in southwestern South Dakota number 142. In the Cave Hills area, another sacred place in South Dakota used for vision quests and burial sites, there are 89 abandoned uranium mines.

In an essay called “Native North America: The Political Economy of Radioactive Colonialism,” political activists Ward Churchill and Winona LaDuke state that former US President Richard Nixon declared the 1868 Treaty Territory a “National Sacrifice Area,” implying that the territory, and its people, were being sacrificed to uranium and nuclear radiation.

The worst part, according to White Face, is that, “None of these abandoned mines have been marked. They never filled them up, they never capped them. There are no warning signs … nothing. The Forest Service even advertises the Picnic Springs Campground as a tourist place. It’s about a mile away from the Cave Hills uranium mines.”

The region is honeycombed with exploratory wells that have been dug as far down as six to eight hundred feet. In the southwestern Black Hills area, there are more than 4,000 uranium exploratory wells. On the Wyoming side of the Black Hills, there are 3,000 wells. Further north into North Dakota, there are more than a thousand wells.

The Black Hills and its surroundings are the recharge area for several major aquifers in the South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming regions. The crisis can be gauged from the simple description that White Face gives: “When the winds come, they pick up the [uranium] dust and carry it; when it rains or snows, it washes it down into the aquifers and groundwater. Much of this radioactive contamination then finds its way into the Missouri River.”

She informs us that twelve residents out of about 600 of the sparsely populated county of Cave Hills have developed brain tumors. A nuclear physicist has declared one mine in the area to be as radioactively “hot” as ground zero of Hiroshima.

Red Shirt, a village along the Cheyenne River on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, has had its water tested high for radiation and local animals have died after consuming fish from the river.

After three daughters of a family and their mother died of cancer, a family requested White Face to have the municipal water tested. The radiation levels were found to be equal to those inside an x-ray machine. Little wonder then that the surviving sons and their father are afflicted with the disease. People procuring their grain and cattle from the region are advised to be extra cautious.

One cannot but feel the desperation of her people when White Face bemoans, “It’s pure genocide for us. We are all dying from cancer. We are trying not to become extinct, not to let the Great Sioux Nation become extinct.”

The Ogala Sioux are engaged in ongoing legal battles with the pro-uranium state of South Dakota. They are aware of the unequal nature of their battle, but they cannot afford to give up. White Face explains how “… Our last court case was lost before learning that the judge was a former lawyer for one of the mining companies. Also, the governor’s sister and brother-in-law work for mining companies [Powertech] and a professor, hired by the Forest Service to test water run-off for contamination, is on contract with a company that works for the mining company. When I found out the judge was a lawyer for the mining company I knew we would lose, but we went ahead with the case for the publicity, because we have to keep waking people up.”

Other tribes, such as the Navajo and Hopi in New Mexico, have been exposed to radioactive material as well. Furthermore, the July 16, 1979, spill of 100 million gallons of radioactive water containing uranium tailings from a tailing pond into the north arm of the Rio Puerco, near the small town of Church Rock, New Mexico, also affected indigenous peoples in Arizona.

Her rage and grief are evident as White Face laments, “When we have our prayer gatherings we ask that no young people come to attend. If you want to have children don’t come to Cave Hills because it’s too radioactive.”

The exploitative approach to the planet’s resources and peoples that led to these environmental and health disasters collides with White Face’s values: “I always say that you have to learn to live with the earth, and not in domination of the earth.”

Nuking the Colonies

The US government practices another approach. In occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, the uranium that has caused genocide of sorts at home has proceeded to wreak new havoc.

Two Iraqi NGO’s, the Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI) and the Conservation Center of Environment and Reserves in Fallujah (CCERF) have extensively documented the effects of restricted weapons, such as depleted uranium (DU) munitions, against the people of Fallujah during two massive US military assaults on the city in 2004.

In March 2008, the NGO’s were to present a report titled “Prohibited Weapons Crisis: The effects of pollution on the public health in Fallujah” to the 7th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council

Muhammad al-Darraji, director, MHRI and president, CCERF, was to present the report with an appeal, “We are kindly asking the High Commissioner for Human Rights to look at the content of the report in accordance with the General Assembly’s resolution 48/ 141 (paragraph 4) of 20 December 1993, to investigate the serious threat (to the) health right in Fallujah and Iraq, and to relay the results of this investigation to the Commission on Human Rights to take the suitable decisions.”

Attached to the aforementioned is another report co-authored by Dr. Najim Askouri, a nuclear physicist trained in Britain and a leading Iraqi nuclear researcher and Dr. Assad al-Janabi, director of the Pathology Department at the 400-bed public hospital in Najaf. Their report includes a section on the “Depleted Uranium Crisis” from Najaf, 180 miles from where DU was used in the First Gulf War.

Dr. Najim begins the report by noting that Coalition Forces, mostly US, used 350 tons of DU weapons in about 45 days in 1991, primarily in the stretch of Iraq northwest of Kuwait where Iraqi troops were on their retreat. Then, in 2003, during the Shock and Awe bombing of Baghdad, the US used another 150 tons of DU. He says that cancer is spreading from the conflict area as a health epidemic and will only get worse. The cancer rate has more than tripled over the last 16 years in Najaf.

According to Dr. Najim, “When DU hits a target, it aerosolizes and oxidizes, forming a uranium oxide that is two parts UO3 and one part UO2. The first is water soluble and filters down into the water aquifers and also becomes part of the food chain as plants take up the UO3 dissolved in water. The UO2 is insoluble and settles as dust on the surface of the earth and is blown by the winds to other locations. As aerosolized dust, it can enter the lungs and begin to cause problems as it can cross cell walls and even impact the genetic system.”

One of Dr. Najim’s grandsons was born with congenital heart problems, Down Syndrome, an underdeveloped liver and leukemia. He believes that the problems are related to the child’s parents having been exposed to DU.

Detailing a skyrocketing rate of cancer and other pollution-related illnesses among the population of Fallujah since the two sieges, the report states, “Starting in 2004 when the political situation and devastation of the health care infrastructure were at their worst, there were 251 reported cases of cancer. By 2006, when the numbers more accurately reflected the real situation, that figure had risen to 688. Already in 2007, 801 cancer cases have been reported. Those figures portray an incidence rate of 28.21 [per 100,000] by 2006, even after screening out cases that came into the Najaf Hospital from outside the governorate, a number which contrasts with the normal rate of 8-12 cases of cancer per 100,000 people.

“Two observations are striking. One, there has been a dramatic increase in the cancers that are related to radiation exposure, especially the very rare soft tissue sarcoma and leukemia. Two, the age at which cancer begins in an individual has been dropping rapidly, with incidents of breast cancer at 16 (years of age), colon cancer at 8 (years of age), and liposarcoma at 1.5 years (of age).” Dr. Assad noted that 6 percent of the cancers reported occurred in the 11-20 age range and another 18 percent in ages 21-30.

“The importance of this information confirms there is a big disaster in this city…. The main civilian victims of most illnesses were the children, and the rate of them represents 72 percent of total illness cases of 2006, most of them between the ages of 1 month and 12 years…. Many new types and terrible amounts of illnesses started to appear [from] 2006 until now, such as Congenital Spinal cord abnormalities, Congenital Renal abnormalities, Septicemia, Meningitis, Thalassemia, as well as a significant number of undiagnosed cases at different ages. The speed of the appearance these signals of pollution after one year of military operations refers to the use of a great amount of prohibited weapons used in 2004 battles. The continued pollution maybe will lead to a genetic drift, starting to appear with many abnormalities in children, because the problems were related to exposure of the child’s parents to pollution sources and this may lead to more new abnormalities in the f uture. According to the security situation with many checkpoints and irregular cards to allow the civilians to enter or exit the city until now, all this helps to continue the terrible situation for this time. Therefore, we think that all these data is only 50 percent of the real numbers of illnesses.”

The Sioux tell their youth to avoid their radioactive native lands if they wish to procreate and prosper. Those in Iraq have no option but to lead maimed lives in their native land.

On February 4, 2009, Muhammad al-Darraji sent President Barack Obama a letter, along with the aforementioned report. A few excerpts are presented here:

“We have the honor to submit with this letter our report on the effects on public health of prohibited weapons used by the United States during its military operations in Fallujah (March-November 2004). It was our intention to present the report to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations on 4 March 2008, but both security and political reasons played a significant role in making this task impossible. The report, now in your hands, contains vast evidence and documentation on the catastrophic and continuous pollution in Iraq (to prevent) which nobody has taken any real action to help the victims or clean up polluted places. Some months ago, and in June 2008, I sent this report directly to some US congressmen. Two of them went to my town, Fallujah, and visited the general hospital to investigate the claims contained in our report. No substantial result came out of this visit. In February 2009 one of my colleagues, who worked in the hospital’s statistical office and helped gather information about the pollution, was killed by unknown individuals. The blood of my friend is the driving force that led me to write to you directly in order for you to release the facts for which my friend paid with his life. Therefore, we are kindly asking you to look at the content of the attached report and to investigate the serious threats to the right to life of the inhabitants of Fallujah and other polluted places in Iraq, as well as to publicly release the results of this investigation under right of information about what really happened in Iraq.”

The president has yet to respond.

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Jason Coppola and Bhaswati Sengupta contributed to this article.

Source: http://www.truthout.org/062009Y?print