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Native Americans
The national media's coverage of Indian hazardous waste issues has increased alarm by often distorting regulatory jurisdiction on the reservations and the willingness of tribes to accept the wastes. In nearly all cases, the normal, tribal political processes have worked effectively to kill recent proposals for importing hazardous wastes to reservations. In 1964, however, the Tulalip Tribe signed a contract with a private firm to haul wastes to 150 acres of wetlands on its reservation on Puget Sound. Today, that site ranks as one of the most seriously polluted in the nation and has been listed on the Superfund National Priorities List. Tribal industries, such as timber treating, have contributed to hazardous waste problems on a few other reservations. The nation as a whole was not aware of the serious environmental consequences of its waste practices until relatively recently. Congress only passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976. In most cases, reservation environments have been seriously degraded by uninvited wastes, some abandoned years ago by federal agencies and industry and others left more recently by so-called "midnight dumpers." Isolated lands within a couple off hundred miles of cities, whether managed by tribes or the Federal Bureau of Land Management, can be vulnerable. In a series on Indian environmental issues last fall, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported, for example, that the Gila River Reservation near Phoenix averaged 17 serious cases of dumping a year. The Inspector General of the Interior Department is now investigating how Interior agencies have responded to hazardous waste. A total of 11 sites affecting Indian lands are now included or proposed for EPA's National Priorities List, supposedly the worst hazardous waste sites in the country demanding clean-up under the Superfund law. The Superfund evaluation process discriminates against rural areas, however, since rural sites don't endanger as many people. In addition, unlisted Indian sites pose an unknown risk; with the exception of two EPA regions (V and VIII), no one has surveyed Indian lands as non-Indian lands were surveyed during the early 1980s. A total of 450 sites on Indian lands have been reported through the Superfund system where hazardous wastes allegedly have been disposed of improperly, according to Martin Topper of EPA. (This list of sites is not available to the public, according to Joe Tieger of EPA).
At least two other Indian sites are included on state Superfund lists—Champion International/Cass Lake (Leech Lake Chippewa) and Potlatch Landfill (Fond du Lac Chippewa). Contact:
TRIBAL GOVERNMENT CONCERNS The national network of environmental regulatory programs has, after more than twenty years of EPA funding, covered the entire United States, with the glaring exception of the nation's Indian reservations. Because of the unique legal and political status of Indian Tribes in the federal system, Indian reservations have been left without the protection of enforceable regulatory programs. This has created a severe condition of racially-based institutional discrimination against Indian people and has made their reservations into "free fire zones" for environmental polluters. EPA issued an Indian Policy in 1984, committing the Agency to work with Indian Tribes (much as it has worked with state governments since 1970) to develop regulatory programs to protect the reservation environment. In addition, the EPA Administrator has committed the Agency to protecting the reservation environment at least as well as it protects the environment of the rest of the nation. Yet EPA has made no significant progress towards funding or establishing regulatory programs, whether tribally or federally-managed, to protect reservations. In 1990, an EPA blue-ribbon task force addressed the problem of inequitable funding for reservation programs and concluded that a first step towards establishing reservation programs would require $35 million per year. True equity would require perhaps twice that amount in that EPA is now more than twenty years behind in establishing programs for Indian reservations. The new Administration should not allow the neglect of the old Administration to continue. Indian people who live on reservations deserve equitable program coverage, not the discriminatory treatment and low priority they have been given by the previous Administration. Native Americans face environmental equity problems in two capacities, as minority peoples and as governments. As minority peoples, Native Americans face all the problems of inequitable facility siting that the other minorities face. As governments, Indian Tribes and the reservations have been all but left out of the national network of environmental regulatory programs that EPA has worked since 1970 to establish. The latter problem, which is ultimately the more significant, can only be solved with equitable financial support, i.e. substantial increases in federal funding to develop reservation programs. Whether these programs are tribally-managed or federally-managed, Indian reservations and people should enjoy the full protection of the programs that the Federal Government has established to protect the off-reservation environment. These two points are discussed in more detail below. 1) Equity/Justice Issues re: Indian Tribes as Governments. The "Environmental Justice Act of 1992" will be the definitive piece of federal legislation responding to problems of environmental inequity and "equal protection of the public health". As such, it is important that the statue not overlook the twenty years of federal neglect in establishing regulatory programs for Indian reservations. The rest of the county is thoroughly covered with a network of regulatory programs funded by the Federal Government and administered by the Federal Government and/or the states. Indian reservations have only an insignificant scattering of such programs to protect the environment. The EPA annually devotes billions of dollars and the work of 17,000 people to support the national network of environmental programs. Indian reservations, however, have not benefited in any equitable manner from this effort. Reservations were recognized in a 1984 EPA policy document that dedicated the Federal Government to completing the network in order to provide cover for reservations, but no serious funding has been devoted to this task since that date, with the result that Indian Reservations are still largely "free fire zones" vulnerable to unregulated degradation. Indian people and tribes deserve equitable protection, even though that will require equitable federal funding. SEC. 2. PURPOSE AND POLICIES. This section should be amended to add a new subsection (5) between the present subsections (4) and (5), as follows: (5) to require that authorized Federal agencies ensure that environmental programs are established and maintained for Indian reservations and Indian lands to protect those environments at least as effectively as existing federally funded programs protect other environments. SEC. 7. FUNDING. The existing Section 7 and subsequent sections should be renumbered Section 8, etc., with a new Section 7 added as follows:
Within six months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall, in consultation with Indian tribes, complete a Plan for establishing environmental programs for the reservations of all federally recognized Indian tribes in the United States. The plan shall be consistent with the 1984 EPA Indian Policy and shall provide for the establishment on such reservations of all delegable and other appropriate, federally-funded environmental programs otherwise managed by federal and state governments. The Administrator, in carrying out this Plan, shall allocate sufficient funds from the annual appropriation to achieve substantial completion of this effort within five (5) years of the date of enactment of this Act. 2) Equity/Justice Issues re: Indian People as a Racial Group. The Bill uses the "county" as the unit of geographical area for determining "Environmental High Impact Areas". Reservations can be accommodated by defining "county" to include "counties, parishes, and Indian reservations that have been designated as counties for purposes of this Act by the senior executive of the tribal government." A further concern that should be addressed in future discussions is the fact that the trigger for the statute's mechanism is the determination that a "county" is one of the top 100 counties in terms of "highest total weight of toxic chemicals. While this standard has the merit of simplicity, it does not adequately respond to the disproportionate vulnerability of Indian peoples with subsistence and ceremonial needs. THE NAVAJO NATION
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