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Douglas Fischer/Daily Climate
A climate solution that also lifts Indigenous rights.
Deep questions about justice run through these United Nations talks underway here in Bonn. Few run deeper than Indigenous rights.
BONN – Addressing climate change has always involved far more than simply trimming emissions or promoting renewable energy.
Deep questions about justice run through these United Nations negotiations underway here in Bonn. And few questions run deeper than what role the world's indigenous peoples need to play at these talks.
"Bigger than the climate crisis are the shocks to the social systems of indigenous people," said Cándido Mezúa Salazar, an Embera leader from Panama who represents indigenous and other traditional forest peoples from the Yucatan to Panama's Darien Forest.
"Governments are making decisions for people without consulting the people, even the people living in the forest."
Panama, for instance, sees hydropower as a way to ramp up development. But that means flooding valleys and displacing communities. "As you force people out of their homes," Salazar said through a translator, "there is a very real danger those people will go extinct as an indigenous people."
Three tribal members have died protesting the government's policies; many more have been blinded or injured. The strife —and risk—is global: 65 indigenous protestors were killed in Brazil last year; 35 died in Colombia, Salazar said. In the past 30 years, some 3,000 indigenous people fighting to hold on to their land and way of life have been killed. Thousands more have been harassed, incarcerated, injured.
Salazar spent time last year with the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota, protesting the Enbridge pipeline. But he didn't go to stand in solidarity. He went, he said, because the land and water called.
"The connection (the Sioux) have to the land is very similar to the connection we have to our land," he said. "It's a familiar story and lament: Talking to the grandfathers and grandmothers in Standing Rock, we hear the same sad story."
Every treaty renegotiation, Salazar said, stems from violence. "The whole arc is punctuated by conflict." Bathing and praying on the riverbank at Standing Rock, Salazar said, he looked across the water and saw tanks, guards, guns, armament—"very effective intimidation of the community."
How to break that arc? A study published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers with the InterAmerican Development Bank and Stanford University points to stronger indigenous rights as a way to not just strengthen communities, but also solve thorny issues around emissions and deforestation.
The researchers looked at what happens after indigenous people gain strong land rights over their forests. The results, based on satellite data, were almost immediate: Within two years of gaining title to the land, clear-cutting dropped by more than three quarters and forest disturbances by two thirds, on average.
"All we ask is that countries grant us rights over our forests, stop the criminalization of our leaders, invest in us as a climate solution and provide us with free, prior and informed consent before starting any development project," said Edwin Vazquez, an Amazon leader here in Bonn to meet with climate negotiators. "We can take care of the rest."
EHS director Douglas Fischer is in Bonn for the first week of the intersessional talks underway May 8 through 18. Follow him on Twitter @cptnclmt.
The Daily Climate is an independent, foundation-funded news service covering energy, the environment and climate change. Find us on Twitter @TheDailyClimate or email editor Brian Bienkowski at bbienkowski [at] EHN.org
Photos - Douglas Fischer/Daily Climate.
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Climate Reality
Critical condition: Health experts sound the climate alarm.
Experts paint a dire portrait of climate change’s public health impacts, but leave a little room for hope.
ATLANTA—In a gathering impacted by presidential politics, an all-star cast of public health experts largely stuck to their own bleak script: Climate change is poised to unleash an unprecedented, global public health crisis.
Not even former Vice President Al Gore, who served as the day's emcee, waded into the political swamp. He presented a half-hour, health-themed version of his much-lauded slide show.
While Gore summarized the gobsmacking array of climate impacts—heat stress, water supplies, food security, mental health, respiratory and infectious diseases, allergens, and weather disasters—he left room at the end for some more convenient truths: The world, he said, is more than able to shift to a clean energy economy, reduce CO2 emissions, and blunt the worst impacts of climate change.
Harvard internist Ashish Jha discussed the climate-related spread of pathogens, and provided one of the conference’s few direct political jabs: “Walls,” he said, “will not keep these pathogens out.”
Activist and philanthropist Laura Turner Seydel gave an impassioned pitch to participate in the April 22 Scientists’ March in Washington, and to resist the anticipated science and environmental rollbacks of the Trump Administration.
(Editor's note: The Turner Foundation supports both this website and this conference.)
But much of the day focused on overwhelmingly bad news for the world. Harvard’s Sam Myers presented potential impacts on the global food supply that go beyond the links between extreme weather and crop failure. Research shows that increased CO2 actually decreases nutrients in certain food crops, he said.
Rising temperatures, he added, encourage some forms of plant blight, and could also make the backbreaking outdoor work of food production impossible in regions like northern Africa.
Psychologist Lise Van Susteren introduced examples which she said illustrate climate change’s impacts not on the body, but on the mind. “Climate anxiety” and its sharper cousin, “climate trauma,” contribute to depression, substance abuse, violence, and more, she said.
“Destructive impacts from climate change,” she said, “will someday be treated as if they were child abuse.”
Sir Andy Haines of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tried gamely to provide an antidote to the barrage of negative news. ”Motivating people through fear, is often difficult, and can lead to cynicism,” he said. Instead, promoting the health benefits of a low-carbon economy can be a winning strategy.
"Destructive impacts from climate change will someday be treated as if they were child abuse."-Lise Van Susteren
The cost savings from those benefits will more than offset any financial hit occasioned by moving away from fossil fuels. Haines added the semi-obvious: Eschewing the car for a bike or a hike cuts emissions and increases health simultaneously.
Electric cars and bicycles, he said, cut both emissions and noise, while improved building efficiency can both reduce heating and cooling and indoor air pollution. Conversion from a heavily meat-reliant diet would provide twin benefits to health and climate.
Other panelists and speakers discussed the health impacts of adapting to a changing climate; the unique challenges of climate-related health issues in poor and minority communities; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s assistance to state and local governments on climate issues.
Healthcare advocate Gary Cohen tossed out a stat that was clearly intended to drive home the public health community’s role in climate issues: “Our addiction to fossil fuels…. is killing more people than AIDS, malaria and TB combined.”
Cohen added “In the 21st Century we can no longer support healthy people on a sick planet.”
The conference closed with a panel on climate communication. It was mostly a primer for solid climate communication by health professionals, but one of the panelists was hardly a “usual suspect” in all things climate. Jerry Taylor was a CATO Institute Vice President often booked onto TV talk shows to call climate science into question. For the past few years, he’s burned former political bridges by acknowledging climate change and advocating a carbon tax. “After 20 years of wrestling with the climate bear, I lost,” he said.
Taylor’s prescription for persuading conservatives and Republicans on climate change focused on talking about risk management, and avoiding discussions of the social cost of carbon or the massive restructure of the world’s economy.
To CDC, or not to CDC
The meeting was originally announced in mid-2016 by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After Donald Trump’s election, the CDC abruptly pulled the plug on the three-day event, citing “uncertainty” in the agency’s direction under Trump.
Several non-government groups, universities and philanthropies teamed up to salvage a one-day conference on short notice. The Carter Center’s Chapel held a capacity crowd of 340, including 40 accredited journalists.
The short notice perhaps explains the adorably generic name for the meeting: “Climate & Health Meeting.” In a surprise appearance, host and former President Jimmy Carter gave the CDC a pass for cancelling its event.
“The CDC has to be a little more careful politically,” he said. “The Carter Center doesn’t.”
Politics loomed large in one other portion of the gathering: A physician scheduled to present in Atlanta ended up doing so remotely. According to American Public Health Association President Georges Benjamin, Dr. Nick Watts had recently visited hospitals in Iran, and was denied a visa to enter the U.S.
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UNICEF Ethiopia
Clean energy grows, but many of the poorest remain in the dark.
Energy access, efficiency and renewables are on the rise in many developing nations, but in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, the energy situation is still grim.
Energy access, efficiency and renewables are on the rise in many developing nations, but in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, the energy situation is still grim and hundreds of millions remain unconnected, according to a new World Bank report.
The report, an energy scorecard released today, found that 80 percent of the 111 countries studied have policies for more sustainable energy—meaning energy efficiency, access to energy and use of renewables—with 45 countries at advanced stages of policymaking.
"The world is in a race to secure a clean energy transition," said Rachel Kyte, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All, a sustainable energy initiative launched by the United Nations in 2011. "The underlying message is we must go further and faster."
The report offers "the most detailed information yet" on how level the playing field is and who’s embarking on that race, she added.
Denmark scored the highest marks, followed by the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany. While wealth tends to be associated with favorable clean energy policies, many developing nations—including Mexico, Chile, Thailand, Malaysia, Brazil and South Africa—had high scores as well.
But 24 countries are doing very little to support modern, accessible energy and the authors say these areas require a “call to action” from the international community. The bottom five performers were Somalia, Haiti, Mauritania, Chad and Sierra Leone.
"African countries on the whole scored very poorly, with as many as 40 percent barely beginning policy measures to accelerate access to energy," said Vivien Foster, energy economics global lead for the World Bank Group.
"African countries on the whole scored very poorly, with as many as 40 percent barely beginning policy measures to accelerate access to energy."-Vivien Foster, World Bank
The World Bank report is a snapshot in time of a fast moving world, Foster said. The data was collected in 2015 and some countries’ energy situations may have already changed quite a bit.
Foster and colleagues zeroed in on problems in Sub-Saharan Africa where roughly 600 million people live without electricity. This represents more than half of the people on the planet without electricity (approximately 1.1 billion globally are without electricity).
Ethiopia, Nigeria and Sudan alone have 116 million people without adequate electricity.
Access is, in part, a financial issue in these countries. In many Sub-Saharan Africa countries, people pay more than $500 to connect to the grid, while in another developing country, Bangladesh, that cost is as little as $22, according to the report.
"Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest fees … because customers have to pay for electrical equipment" such as circuit breakers, meters and cables, the authors wrote.
Africa has long been the least electrified, and power there cannot keep up with population growth. Those disparities won't disappear without policies encouraging both private and public investment, said Riccardo Puliti, senior director and head of energy and extractives at the World Bank.
A World Bank report released last year estimated that bringing energy to everyone on the continent, while doubling the rate of energy efficiency and the share of renewable energy use, would cost $50 billion to $80 billion annually.
Africa already gets roughly 70 percent of its energy from renewables because of heavy reliance on biomass such as wood and dung. However, it also gets 21 percent of its electricity from more modern renewables such as solar, wind and geothermal.
Home solar systems were offered as a key opportunity for countries to tackle inadequate access and the need for clean energy, however, "many countries… have done little to create a regulatory environment favorable to accelerate the diffusion of solar home systems," according to the report.
Those solar systems do not come cheap. The World Bank funneled more than $200 million to fund household solar in Ethiopia, which helped provide solar-powered lights and energy to about 3 million people.
Renewables at forefront; efficiency forgotten
For much of the world, however, renewables are growing fast: 93 percent of countries have renewable energy targets, and more than three-quarters have supporting legislation, according to the report.
This growth, however, needs more focus. Just 39 percent of countries have studied how to integrate renewables such as solar and wind power into their current electrical grids, the authors found.
There is a range of technical efficiency in getting renewables up and running too—setting up a grid-connected wind power farm takes about a month in Ukraine, while it takes about five years in Honduras.
In addition, most countries are bolstering renewable energy without putting forth as much investment and policy aimed at energy efficiency, such as adopting building codes, labeling appliances and mandating certain equipment and vehicle standards.
This is the “low hanging fruit” and often the most cost-effective way of bolstering clean energy, Foster said. "Forty percent of countries have barely begun to engage with the energy efficiency agenda," she added.
The barriers to efficiency are low. Foster pointed to Vietnam’s success in energy efficiency as a model. Electricity demand increased more than 20 percent per year throughout the 1990s, and 15 percent per year in the 2000s. Vietnam Electricity introduced tariffs to encourage electricity reduction at industries during peak hours. This program was then rolled out to other large consumers such as farmers.
The next report will come out in 2018.
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Brian Bienkowski
2016 and beyond: Justice jumping genres.
A historic year for environmental justice saw government failures in Flint, a resurgent Native voice, and a merging of movements. We're watching where it’s headed in the new year.
There I was in a mid-March snowstorm riding shotgun in a truck heading south through the Crow reservation in Montana. I made a stupid comment to break the silence: "Man, there is nothing out there."
Crow member and my guide for the day, Emery Three Irons, politely corrected me: “There's a lot out there."
I saw an empty vastness. Three Irons saw a landscape of history and culture, and all of the splendor and pain attached to both.
Reviewing the year's news, I was reminded of this. With partisan publications, herd journalism and narrow-minded newsfeeds, it's easy to miss big, important developments on environmental issues—both good and bad.
Many in Flint are still without safe drinking water. (Credit: USDA)
Let's avoid being like me in the foothills of the Pryor Mountains. Survey the landscape. Avoid the urge to break the silence until there's something worth saying.
The most poignant stories of solution and struggle in 2016 were from those who too often shoulder the largest share of environmental harm—poor and minority communities.
For 2017, expect the push for environmental justice to center more around the issue's intersections with racial, economic and environmental equality.It started with lead poisoning and government failure in Flint—a story that's still unfolding.
Flint prompted journalists from across the country to take a look at lead poisoning and water in their own communities—it turns out Flint is everywhere. St. Louis. East Chicago. Baltimore.
Poor, often minority, communities are still poisoned by a toxic directly linked to criminal behavior and reduced IQs.
While Flint—a majority-black city that never regained its footing after the recession—is text book environmental injustice, the problematic intersection of pollution, poverty and people of color can be much more complex and multi-faceted.
Food insecurity and toxics are combining to hamper development in poor children. Drought is crushing small farmers in developing countries, the food source and economic backbone of their communities. Fossil fuel reliance continues to touch every aspect of our lives: the health of our lungs and farms, the stability of our economy and international relations.
But there are Native Americans camping in snow, bucking development on sacred land by exercising sovereignty, however ill defined it may be. Communities are pushing for—and building—small-scale, resilient energy systems, connecting people to their power in new and exciting ways.
People are providing healthy, necessary amounts of food to those in need, taking aim at waste, and seeking agriculture done without corporate stranglehold.
Activists tackling racial, criminal and labor injustice realize that dirty air, tainted water and poverty cannot be disentangled from economic and political marginalization.
Every day we at Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate compile the day's top environmental health and climate change news (and distribute it via free daily and weekly newsletters. You can subscribe here).
We fill blanks in coverage with reporting of our own. Our small team aggregates around the clock, aggregating almost 30,000 stories this year alone.
We found more than 2,200 stories this year dealing with climate and environmental justice. While not an exhaustive collection of every environmental story, this represents a doubling of such stories from a year prior.
For 2017, experts say, expect the push for environmental justice to center more around the issue's intersections with racial, economic and environmental equality.
Merging movements
Campaigns for all three overlapped this year: As our economy stratified more starkly into haves and have-nots—and often ignores pollution and health costs in the name of progress—we've seen calls to restructure.
“Our failure to address environmental justice crosses many boundaries," said Sylvia Hood Washington, an environmental epidemiologist and editor of the Environmental Justice journal.
“Movements are merging and addressing multiple issues," she said. "Safe housing, police brutality, violence against children, inadequate housing, exposure to substances that cause learning disability.... All of these issues are important and must embrace environmental health science."
We began to see this in 2016. The Sierra Club came out in strong support of the Fight for Fifteen movement, a protest for low wage workers to make $15-an-hour. “Low wage jobs are some of the most environmentally hazardous jobs there are, especially when workers lack union representation. We need livable wages because we can't break a glass ceiling we can't reach," wrote Aaron Mair, president of the Sierra Club's board of directors.
Sen. Bernie Sanders made environmental and social justice a key platform in his presidential run. (Credit: Phil Roeder/flickr)
Groups such as National People's Action have made clean energy a key point of their agenda, which aims for a more just economy. The New Economy Coalition and Our Power Campaign are pushing clean energy and other green jobs in conjunction with job training and opportunities for people to live healthy, both physically and financially.
As Trump takes office and fills key cabinet posts with mostly men who disavow climate science and promote fossil fuel development, it's worth noting this movement is coming from the ground up.
Even the large environmental organizations aren't driving the agenda, said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, chief program officer with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“We're seeing a harkening back to an early time, fighting for environmental rights, not just in the hands of environmental organizations, but every community that cares about air and water and health," said Casey-Lefkowitz.
David Pellow, a professor of environmental studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, said the Black Lives Matter movement is a great example: “They haven't necessarily passed laws but they've changed the conversation."
The Movement for Black Lives, which includes more than 50 groups including Black Lives Matter, released a platform in August that called for divestment from fossil fuels within a broader demand to address disproportionate criminalization and incarceration.
The report also called for cleaning pollution in black neighborhoods as part of a path toward economic justice, and bolstering the financial support for black farmers.
A major reason for such a bright spotlight on environmental justice issues this year was Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential run, which included an entire platform on environmental justice—something rarely mentioned in presidential politics.
“These injustices are largely the product of political marginalization and institutional racism. The less political power a community of color possesses, the more likely they are to experience insidious environmental and human health threats," read Sanders' racial justice outline, which called for a clean energy transition, bolstered Superfund cleanups and more stringent permitting of polluting industries.
Sacred water, Standing Rock and sovereignty
The Standing Rock Sioux's opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline perfectly embodied the intersection of civil rights, human rights, and the environment, while also adding to the conversation important questions of indigenous sovereignty, Pellow said.
“People are really seeing and connecting what's happening with Native communities and the rest of planet," he said. “These are not just Native or oil pipeline issues. It affects us all."
Read our year-long investigation into Native water issues: Sacred WaterKyle Powys Whyte, Timnick Chair in the Humanities at Michigan State University and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Shawnee, Oklahoma, said the way Standing Rock happened was crucial to the attention it grabbed and ultimate success.
“It's an important idea, not just the protest that we can succeed at, but how we design protest," he said. Standing Rock camps became functional communities, with people supporting each other with food, water, prayer. The Standing Rock and ally tribes insisted that they were not protestors but water protectors.
Standing Rock is the visible tip of a tribal justice movement focused on race, political representation and the management of natural resources.
I saw much of this firsthand. For our yearlong series, Sacred Water, I visited reservations where tribes are fighting for clean water. While touring the Crow Reservation with Three Irons, I saw multiple streams and rivers tainted with bacteria and heavy metals, exacerbating tribal health problems and economic woes.
Along the Puget Sound, which has dwindling salmon populations due to development, pollution and climate change, tribes are fighting to bring back the cultural icon for traditional ceremonies and spiritual well-being, but also for financial security. Commercial fishing is suffering badly.
In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a proposed open-pit mine threatens the cultural headwaters of the Menominee Indians of Wisconsin. Ancient burial mounds sit nearby and the river is the center of their creation story.
Similar to Standing Rock, the call for environmental justice for the Menominee is based on a feeling of political marginalization and a system that doesn't take into account tribal values.
“Putting a mine on this location is just the same as if they were to put an open pit sulfide mine in the Garden of Eden for the Christians. Imagine what they would say when asking them to describe how it feels to see this mine polluting their sacred area," wrote Menominee Guy Reiter in an essay for our series.
This issue of sovereignty—which has long been a moving target—will continue to play out over the coming year. “We understand sovereignty as a way of life: autonomy, independence and community cohesion," Whyte said. “The U.S. government often understands sovereignty in a much more limited sense."
The highly visible fight over the Standing Rock pipeline has transformed the justice conversation in the U.S. and thrust Native Americans and grassroots organizing back into the mainstream consciousness. It worked in North Dakota: The Obama Administration rejected a crucial permit last month needed to complete the Dakota Access pipeline and gave, for now, a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux and allied tribes who have camped for months.
Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, a faith-based organization focused on environmental stewardship, said it is “truly the best of times, worst of times" for environmental justice.
That Standing Rock victory? That's the “best" part, Harper said. The other side, of course, is president-elect Donald Trump.
“The Trump Administration has already sent signals that it may further privatize indigenous lands for resource extraction," Whyte said. “We might be in for four to eight years of fighting for the bare right just to be consulted."
Oppose—and build
Speak to those concerned about environmental justice about President-elect Donald Trump and there's bound to be silence, sighs, swearing or all of the above.
Trump's campaign was filled with racially charged rhetoric and calls to double down on polluting fossil fuels. He's mentioned wanting to exit the Paris Climate Agreement and has denied the existence of man-made climate change. His Cabinet is a who's who of climate change deniers and fossil fuel friends.
For more on what a Trump Administration could mean for the environment check out weekend editor Peter Dykstra's critiquePerhaps most concerning is the unknown of a Trump Environmental Protection Agency. If his pick to run the agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, is any indication it will be a sharp departure from what has been an increasing recognition of and focus on environmental justice.
This year the EPA released a report outlining their environmental justice through 2020. “By 2020, we envision an EPA that integrates environmental justice into everything we do," said the report, which laid out three major goals — improving the health and environment of overburdened communities, expanding partnerships within those communities, and showing documented progress on disparities in lead exposure, drinking water, air quality and proximity to hazardous waste sites.
Pruitt is a climate change skeptic and has shown disdain for the very agency he will head, taking part in a multi-state lawsuit against the EPA over proposed regulations to curb the potent greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations. It remains to be seen what he makes of the environmental justice initiatives at the agency.
Optimism and opportunity remain and the refrain is consistent: the movement will have to thrive at the local, county and state level. “I think a lot of [environmental justice] organizations will get stronger as more people realize they can't sit on their hands," said J. Timmons Roberts, a professor of environmental studies and sociology at Brown University.
States have long been leaders on progressive environmental justice policies, Roberts said. In his home state of Rhode Island, for example, the 2014 Resilient Rhode Island Act seeks to mitigate climate change impacts while also looking for ways to boost the economy and lift up low-income residents.
California this year extended its cap and trade program, tilting the revenue spending toward urban, poor communities. Gov. Jerry Brown has made no secret that he's willing to spar with Trump when it comes to the environment.
“We have a lot of firepower! We've got the scientists. We've got the universities. We have the national labs. We have a lot of political clout and sophistication for the battle. And we will persevere!" Gov. Brown said in a fiery speech at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union last month.
Such progressiveness in spite of federal action or inaction could be vital during the Trump tenure, Pellow said.
“We need to stop imagining the EPA or federal government will be the source of solutions for environmental justice," Pellow said.
Part of the local approach means moving beyond simple opposition—protesting a polluting power plant, for example—and building local resiliency, such as energy cooperatives, land trusts, urban gardens, Pellow added.
“We need to be building something positive, not just opposing something bad."
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From the Sioux to the Sault: Standing Rock spirit spreads to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
A 63-year-old pipeline runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac. Great Lakes tribes—tapping into the Standing Rock spirit—want it stopped.
SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich.—Two blocks south of the St. Mary's River and passing freighters, children from JKL Bahweting tribal school poured off buses, carrying drums, dancing and chanting.
“Protect the water!" a young girl chanted. “Protect it!" her classmates answered.
The children were encouraged to raise a ruckus last week as gray clouds hung low and the last brittle rust-colored leaves blew off trees in Michigan's far north. They were joined by other adult members of the Sault (pronounced “Soo") Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, various First Nation communities in nearby Canada, the Bay Mills Indian Community and other locals in protest of a pipeline that's been sending oil through the region since shortly after World War II.
Line 5, a 645-mile pipeline owned by Enbridge, carries oil and propane from Superior, Wisc., through Michigan's Upper Peninsula down into the Lower Peninsula and eventually into Sarnia, Canada.
It runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac, the waters separating Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas about 45 minutes south of Sault Ste. Marie down Interstate I-75. These are precious waters to Michiganders, the meeting place of lakes Michigan and Huron. Might Mac (the Mackinac Bridge) spans the five miles over the Straits offering vistas of Mackinac Island, passing ships and miles upon miles of freshwater.
"Our fishery is threatened."-Aaron Payment, Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians The pipes—Line 5 splits into two 20-inch diameter pipes as it crosses the Straits—are more than six decades old and located in an abundant fishery and area crucial for drinking water. The Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world's surface freshwater. Safety protocol and inspections remain nebulous at best, stoking concern, frustration and anxiety among those on the left and right side of the political spectrum throughout the state.
“This is risking one of the planet's greatest resources," said Liz Kirkwood, executive director of FLOW (For Love of Water), a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Great Lakes, in a phone interview.
Michigan tribes see more than postcard views and the connecting of two peninsulas—they see treaty rights.
“To exercise a treaty right to fish, there have to be fish in the waters," said Aaron Payment, chairperson of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians, to the crowd of about 50. “Our fishery is threatened."
The small Michigan gathering in a parking lot between an auto parts store and tattoo parlor was far from North Dakota and the Standing Rock Sioux's continued fight over the proposed Dakota Access pipeline. But the power of what's happening out on the plains has emboldened tribes across the country to resist the stomping on treaty rights and preying upon natural resources.
“These are our resources, they don't belong to Michigan or Enbridge," said Phil Bellfy, a retired Michigan State University professor and member of the White Earth Band of Minnesota Chippewa.
Songs and reminders of past spills
The Healing Lodge Sisters of Ontario—four women from First Nations tribes in Canada—sang traditional songs before speakers launched into pipeline talk. Eyes closed, with a steady beat tapped out on individual hand drums, they sang softly through their song, “A message to save the land."
“We are taking land for granted and we have almost used her up," they sang as cars passed, honking in response to the protest. The song came to one of the Sisters in a dream.
The lyrics were fitting—people here know Enbridge and the destruction they've caused to the land. The company spilled more than a million gallons of heavy crude oil in the Kalamazoo River in 2010. The spill, which occurred downstate near Marshall, Mich., was the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history. While a settlement was reached this summer—totaling $177 million—cleanup continues.
Line 5 carries almost 23 million gallons of oil per day across the Straits. A University of Michigan Water Center study estimated that more than 700 miles of Great Lakes shoreline would be at risk if there were a Straits' spill.
“The Straits are such valuable waters, and delicate ecosystems, that we know that no one would be allowed to place such a pipeline there today," Payment said. “The pipeline is an accident waiting to happen."
Kirkwood said Line 5 is not just risky, but illegal. FLOW this past summer alleged eight Line 5 violations of state easement and law, including Enbridge concealing information about cracks and rusts on the pipes, pipelines not being thick enough, and failing to have adequate insurance.
This summer the state found that Enbridge had four sections of pipeline without proper supports, which, according to the easement, means areas greater than 75 feet without support. Attorney General Bill Schuette wrote a letter to Enbridge saying there weren't enough ground supports per the 1953 easement between the state and company.
Ryan Duffy, an Enbridge spokesperson, said in an emailed response that the company finished installing the four new anchor supports earlier this month.
"We are planning on adding an additional 18 supports proactively as soon as we receive permitting from the State," he added, saying the need for new anchors reflects the dynamic currents of the Straits.
These currents add to opponents' concern, as they say it could complicate oil cleanup. “The first 12 hours are the most critical to save lakes in a spill," said Vince Lumetta, a pipeline opponent and retired engineer from Cheboygan, Michigan, to the crowd in Sault Ste. Marie. “These lakes are never at rest, the currents are always changing."
Two to three months of ice coverage is common to the lakes in a normal winter, which would render cleanup almost impossible, Lumetta added.
Duffy said they can shut off flow to the pipeline in 2 to 3 minutes and that they're prepared for any winter spills with equipment such as ice augers and drills, remote operated vehicles, and "Arctic boom", which are floating barriers designed for sub-zero spills.
But fears remain given Enbridge's track record and recent water troubles in Michigan.
Champ Syrette, a member of the Batchewana Fist Nation of Ojibways located across the St. Mary's River in Canada, said Line 5 is a symptom of a larger problem of losing touch with water. He pointed to the Flint water crisis as further evidence that Michigan officials aren't respecting the need for healthy water for all.
“The Creator gave us rivers, lakes to drink from," he said. “We're out buying water nowadays."
International stage
Two days after the rally Payment is in his office in downtown Sault Ste. Marie. The office sits on the second floor of the tribe's administration building and is adorned with plants, pictures, treaties and a large quilt with a colorful turtle outline.
Payment points to a picture of an unsmiling, gruff face on the wall. “That's Big Abe," he said.
In 1971 Albert “Big Abe" LeBlanc, of the Bay Mills Indian Community, challenged the state of Michigan's increasing limits on tribal fishing by placing nets in Lakes Superior's Whitefish Bay. This act of defiance spurred a court case that reaffirmed tribal fishing rights free from state regulation.
Payment, whose father was a commercial fisherman, said Line 5 is a direct threat to the fishing rights of tribes throughout the state of Michigan. These are ceded waters, areas that the tribe handed over with the idea that they would retain the right to all traditional uses.
This has been a flashpoint from Sault Ste. Marie to Standing Rock to the Bears Ears National Monument fight: protecting areas that aren't on tribal land but on ceded or sacred areas. Development, whether a pipeline in North Dakota or an open pit mine near the Wisconsin border with Michigan, alters the landscape and potentially sullies water, air and land that is still used by Native Americans for fishing, hunting, drinking or simply offering respect.
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, along with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, this summer joined the National Wildlife Federation lawsuit claiming that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Agency failed to fully assess environmental and potential endangered species' impacts from Line 5 when they approved Enbridge's emergency spill plans in 2013.
The tribes say that not only should the resources be protected to honor treaty obligations but the tribes should have been consulted.
Payment and other tribal leaders through the National Congress of American Indians are also pushing President Obama to pass an executive order requiring tribal consultation on any development on tribal land, ceded territory, or that could impact treaty rights.
While such an extension of tribal consult wouldn't undo potential harm from existing infrastructure like Line 5, it would prevent the continued chipping away of Native treaty rights, Payment said.
Before the Donald Trump takes over, and with the continuing Standing Rock protests, Payment said it's the perfect time for President Obama to further bolster an already Native-friendly legacy.
Standing Rock “is one of the biggest mobilizing events since Wounded Knee," he said. “Tribes are on the international stage on this issue right now."
From Superior to Standing Rock
Wayne Carrick went to Standing Rock twice and spoke to the Sault Ste. Marie protesters about how things are changing in the Dakotas. “The first time I went it was like how we used to live 150 years ago, if you had nothing and went to these camps, they take care of you," said Carrick, a member of the Bay Mills Indian Community, which is located a half hour west of Sault Ste. Marie on the shores of Lake Superior
“People are going there having faith the Creator will take care of them, and it's working," said Carrick, holding a pair of crumbled sheets of loose-leaf paper for notes, pacing in circles.
"People are going [to Standing Rock] having faith the Creator will take care of them, and it's working."-Wayne Carrick, Bay Mills Indian CommunityThat community-feel persists but the atmosphere changed on his second visit, he said. Hundreds of police rolling through camps. Clashes and fights with cops. Choppers. Airplanes. Drones. “At night they fly with no lights on," he said, adding that he sent his children home because he didn't want them to see their people get “beat down like that".
Regional indigenous leaders say younger tribal members like Carrick seem to grasp the need to cling to their culture in the face of environmental insults. “It's good to see the young ones drumming," Syrette said of the Bahweting performers. “Back in our day it was few and far between … people were picking up and leaving those teachings."
Opposition to Line 5 is swelling. During the election “No Oil in the Straits" signs were staked in the ground at both Trump and Clinton supporting homes through the Upper Peninsula.
Line 5 is “a bi-partisan issue," Kirkwood says. “Our common love is of the Great Lakes." More than 200 Michigan businesses have pledged support for Line 5 shutdown, in addition to 22 cities, 14 counties and 24 townships.
“It's a critical juncture for the environmental movement, the Indigenous movement," she said, referring to our energy future. “As a nation we're at crossroads, what do we value and who do we want be?"
Despite what seems an oil-friendly president-elect and constant threats to treaty rights, tribes will persist, Payment said.
“We survived Andrew Jackson. We'll survive anything that comes at us."
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Dwindling salmon and treaty rights in the Puget Sound.
Pacific Northwest tribes are fighting crowds, pavement and pollution to protect the centerpiece of their culture: The region's fabled salmon runs.
Editor's Note: This story is part of "Sacred Water," EHN's ongoing investigation into Native American struggles—and successes—to protect culturally significant water sources on and off the reservation.
TULALIP, Wash.— The flat-bottom boat weaves across bends in the broad, mud-colored Qwuloolt Estuary, scaring up squawking blue herons and geese along the sloping banks of muck. Scattered log booms poke out.
“A little more than a year ago we were driving cars out here," says Francesca Hillery, a Tulalip Tribes spokeswoman, tucked tightly in a raincoat and baseball cap to protect against the early autumn drizzle blowing in from the Sound as the skiff glides across the water.
In August 2015, the U.S. Army Corps cut the levee, and water from the Ebey Slough poured in, flooding 375 acres of farmland. The breach marked an end to centuries of diked-up farming. The estuary is part of the Snohomish River flood plain and about three miles from where it empties into the Puget Sound.
This spot is the crown jewel of the Tulalip Tribes' effort to restore salmon habitat.
“The whole premise of salmon recovery is returning things to a natural state," says the boat's pilot, Todd Zackey, Tulalip Tribes' marine and near-shore program manager.
Zackey drives the boat up onto the soft mud shore. Sitting in the bow I start taking pictures—not exactly sure of what. The landscape looks like a giant flood plain bordering a suburban neighborhood.
Zackey helps me out. “Now that's what we want," he tells me, directing my lens to a spot where replanted Sitka spruce have taken hold.
The value of estuaries takes some explaining to me, a lifelong Midwesterner. I was here in the rain and the muck as part of my investigation into water, injustice and rebirth.
Struggles are easy to find across the United States. On the Crow reservation in Montana I spoke to a mother who couldn't give her daughter tap water for fear it'd make her sick. I visited Chief Plenty Coups spring, a sacred source for drinking and spiritual rejuvenation after traditional sun dances. Today it's so full of poop bacteria it can't be used.
I also traveled to northeast Wisconsin to meet Menominee tribe members fighting a proposed open pit mine that would sit next to buried ancestors and potentially poison their namesake river. I stood on the banks of that industrial river as Menominee Indian children—in colorful dresses, flanked by mothers and grandmothers—clutched copper jugs of river water in ceremony to protect it.
"The whole premise of salmon recovery is returning things to a natural state."-Todd Zackey, Tulalip TribesAll the while a battle rages in North Dakota as the Standing Rock Sioux and ally tribes—including both the Crow and the Menominee—protest the Dakota Access pipeline.
The Puget Sound tribes were supposed to be my success story—a strong, united band of tribes here in the Northwest using legal muscle, science and culture to protect the salmon runs so crucial to their people.
But tribal water conflicts are more nuanced than convenient bins of “solution" or “struggle."
The Tulalip are one of dozens of Pacific Northwest tribes—both in Washington state and British Columbia— intertwined by their reliance on and reverence for salmon. This cultural icon is under assault from development, pavement, pollution, farming and a changing climate.
There are about 624 populations of salmon in Washington state, grouped by where the fish spawn. Each river and watershed—19 major watersheds drain into Puget Sound alone—has a different trend. But the overarching theme is constant and ominous: Salmon populations have declined roughly 90 percent over the past three decades, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In response to this, since 1985, tribes have reduced salmon harvests by an estimated 80 percent. And that loss has rippled through the region's Native American culture.
This is the "struggle" part of the story.
Traditional foods are “spiritual foods also," says Larry Campbell, tribal historic preservation officer and elder at the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. More than physical health is at stake when resources are sullied or disappear: Without salmon, members cannot teach harvest practices to children, and the connection to the rivers and bays where harvests take place thins and breaks.
The tribe, says Campbell, is losing the ability to “feed the spirit."
And that's what I saw across the nation. Tribes are in a constant struggle to retain tradition, culture and rights in the face of development, pollution and climate change. The Menominee Indians of Wisconsin are entrenched in battle over a proposed open pit mine near burial grounds along the Menominee River, where their creation story begins. The Crow Nation in Montana cannot drink water from their taps due to bacteria and heavy metals; the solution—a reservation-wide water treatment system—is still a decade out. In North Dakota, the Standing Rock Sioux and allies continue to camp near, pray over and protest the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline carrying Bakken oil to market near their reservation.
For much of the past year, Environmental Health News has investigated these Native American efforts to reclaim their culture by, in part, fighting to preserve important cultural touchstones like water and salmon. Here in the Pacific Northwest, this sacred water once held strong runs of salmon. But the health of the streams, sloughs, estuaries and sea no longer proves adequate for the fish or the tribes.
“Collapsing fisheries are mirroring collapsing habitat," says Fran Wilshusen, director of habitat services for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission based in Washington state.
"Collapsing fisheries are mirroring collapsing habitat."-Fran Wilshusen, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Estuaries are not sexy. They smell. They suck your boots off. They get used as dumping grounds. But they are crucial refuges for salmon.
If such estuaries aren't available, juvenile fish will sometimes go straight from the river to the ocean, where they confront predators and other threats—fishing pressure, temperature swings—prematurely, while still developing. The estuary is like middle school for the fish before they head off to the big high school of the Pacific Ocean—that is, if in high school the seniors ate the freshmen.
Just 17 percent of original estuary area remains in the Snohomish River delta, due largely to stream diversions such as diking and tidal gates. Qwuloolt—meaning “marsh" in the Lushootseed language of several Native American tribes along the Puget Sound—is one small piece in a massive restoration puzzle.
The Tulalip are one of 20 Washington state tribes grouped together as Coast Salish peoples who, along some First Nation Canadian counterparts, share a common history along the interconnected coastal waterways from Olympia, Wash., up to West Vancouver, Canada. The waterways, together referred to as the Salish Sea, have long provided physical and spiritual nourishment for the tribes along its coasts.
By treaty, Washington state tribes are entitled to half the harvestable fish each year. When it comes to decision-making, their science—on fish abundance, habitat, degradation—stands equal to data compiled by the state and feds. They've unified, largely through an annual Coast Salish Gathering and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, to integrate and amplify their voice. Along the Puget Sound alone there are 17 recognized tribes.
“There is no place on the Puget Sound not under some tribes' authority," Wilshusen says.
A landmark 1974 court decision, which spurred development of well-run and influential natural resource departments within the tribes, has propelled the tribes to a level of standing in state natural resource management largely unprecedented in the United States.
And this is where the solution part of the story starts.
Tribal restoration projects dot the Sound's western edge and on inland rivers. Before Qwuloolt, the face of this effort was on the Lower Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula—the largest dam removal in U.S history. The dam blocked salmon migration and denied the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's fishing rights for more than 100 years.
Tribes also flex legal muscle—most recently the "culvert case" forcing the state to remove salmon-hampering culverts. Their victory is emblematic of the evolving nature of fishing treaty rights.
I've been overwhelmed by the often amorphous history of U.S. treaties and Native sovereignty. Tribes have consistently ceded land and rights. Each treaty forces an adjustment to their lives and ways based on the whims and demands of the majority white society and our current government.
Take the Tulalip. Today the tribe counts about 4,000 members. It was officially formed in response to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Forced to give up large swaths of land, the tribes told treaty negotiators they wanted the reservation to be at Tulalip Bay because it had plenty of timber, creeks and fish. It was full of healthy salmon populations.
"Whether it's funerals, weddings, the birth of new children, we eat salmon."-Debra Lekanoff, Swinomish Indian Tribal CommunitySalmon populations ebb and flow for a variety of reasons. However, recent trends are concerning. In the Snoqualmie and Skokomish rivers, which converge to form the Snohomish River just south of the Tulalip reservation, wild spawning chinook are down 45 percent and 53 percent, respectively, compared to 1990 numbers.
Some of the slack has been taken up by hatchery fish, in an effort to continue living as “salmon people."
“Whether it's funerals, weddings, the birth of new children, we eat salmon," says Debra Lekanoff, intergovernmental affairs liaison with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. “We signed treaties to keep living the lives that make us who we are as Native people."
Wild spawning chinook of the Skagit River, which empties into the Skagit Bay just south of the Swinomish reservation, are down 40 percent since 1990.
Four decades ago widespread, conspicuous civil disobedience rocked the region as the Coast Salish fought to protect treaty rights. The tribes tussled with police and state natural resource officials in the "Fish Wars" of that era. Native Americans refused to adhere to state-imposed fish regulations and continued harvesting salmon off-reservation with fishing nets. In the most dramatic example, police raided a camp along the Puyallup River in 1970 with tear gas and arrested about 60 people.
This culminated with a landmark court decision called the Boldt Decision—named after the judge, George Hugo Boldt. The finding reasserted the rights of Washington tribes to co-manage fish with the state and continue traditional harvesting. The Boldt Decision not only protected fishing rights but mandated the tribes get their “fair share," which Boldt interpreted as 50 percent of the harvestable fish.
“That was a really important moment for the tribes," says Julia Cantzler, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of San Diego. "They'd been fighting for recognition of treaty rights, and had been systemically marginalized because of state law."
Related: Tribal commissions fight for fishing rightsYou don't see the public clashes on the scale of the Fish Wars anymore. But the undercurrent of anger and friction is once again upwelling.
This year the tribes and the state of Washington couldn't come to an agreement for salmon harvesting—the first such dispute in 40 years—because the tribes wanted more stringent protections for coho and chinook. The state and many non-tribal angling groups disagreed.
As talks dragged this spring, tribes and the state closed almost all fisheries to coho because of their languishing numbers.
This was the first year that a “zero option"—meaning no fishing—was discussed, says Tony Meyer, division manager at the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
In early summer the parties eventually came to a compromise, one that included closing salmon fisheries early in a number of rivers and on Puget Sound piers.
This may be the new normal—and sign of strife to come.
“This is a clear denial of treaty rights," says Jim Peters, a habitat policy analyst with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and a member of the Squaxin Island Tribe.
Commercial salmon fishing: "An expensive hobby"
Jason Gobin—tall, broad-chested, heavily bearded—has lived on Tulalip land “since he was a baby." He's seen both sides of the salmon issue—not only as the fish and wildlife director for the Tulalip, but also as owner of two commercial fishing boats.
He's weathered back-to-back coho runs with "lows we haven't seen since the 1950s, at least in the Snohomish [River]," he says. “I've started to say commercial salmon fishing is just an expensive hobby."
One of the many Qwuloolt Estuary herons.
Gobin laughs and shakes his head, but the smile fades quickly. In the Snohomish watershed wild spawning coho were down a whopping 95 percent last year compared to 15 years ago.
"If Tulalip didn't have a hatchery raising fish, we simply wouldn't have a ceremony."-Jason Gobin, Tulalip TribesThe Tulalip have a salmon ceremony every June—cedar fires, drumming, singing. The celebration is to honor the first King, or chinook, salmon to return to local waters to spawn. Tribal elders bless Tulalip fishermen and share a traditional meal with friends and guests.
Planning starts months before—families start sharing meals and stories of salmon, singing songs, teaching dances. The ceremony was revived in the mid-'70s.
This annual cultural event is now entirely dependent on hatchery-raised fish. “If Tulalip didn't have a hatchery raising fish, we simply wouldn't have a ceremony," Gobin says. About 75 percent of the salmon caught in the Puget Sound are hatchery fish, according to the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Coho and chinook salmon are two of the most popular species, but there are also chum salmon, pink salmon and sockeye salmon (as well the close salmonid cousins steelhead, bull trout and coastal cutthroat trout). Puget Sound chinook are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act, as are steelhead.
“One big issue is armoring the shorelines" says Jeanette Dorner, salmon ecosystem recovery director with the Puget Sound Partnership, a state agency central hub of hundreds of organizations, groups and tribes invested in the Sound.
“People love shoreline property, once they own those properties, and get too close to shoreline, they worry about erosion," Dorner says. “So they armor it … this does significant damage to shoreline habitat for salmon and fish that salmon eat."
Deforestation is another huge driver. Between 2006 and 2011 forest cover in the Puget Sound watershed declined by about 153 square miles, a footprint larger than the city of Seattle. Forests along streams, which help keep water cool and clean for salmon, declined 2 percent over the same time. A lot of this is driven by population growth.
In addition to habitat concerns, pollution—legacy and ongoing—is contaminating water and the fish. Banned polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), still plague salmon, especially chinook that remain in the Sound their whole life, which leaves them with higher loads of the chemical. Earlier this year scientists also reported that Puget Sound salmon were full of drugs such as Prozac, Advil, Benadryl, Lipitor and even some cocaine thanks to wastewater discharge.
“Turn on any televised sporting event here like Monday Night Football, they show Pike Place [Market] in Seattle, and people throwing around fish," Peters, of the Squaxin Island Tribe, says. “It looks beautiful, but that doesn't show what's going on, fish are full of poisons."
And climate change is compounding these impacts. Seawater was not only warmer than average in 2015, but some water temperatures were the warmest on record, according to Puget Sound 2015 report released by the Puget Sound Partnership.
But progress and restoration exist. The feds, state, tribes and organizations spent more than a billion dollars on salmon recovery across Washington state over the past 15 years. Hundreds of organizations in the region focus on salmon recovery.
In the Snohomish River Basin, for example, the Tulalip Tribes and partners restored roughly 860 acres of estuary tidal marsh over the past decade along with 240 acres of riparian habitat.
The Swinomish Tribe this year reported restoration of 33 acres of pocket estuaries over the past decade in the Skagit River Basin, and removal of 179 of 209 culverts on private and state owned forest roads. Also, 80 percent of private and state owned forest roads were repaired or abandoned over that time. Such roads increase erosion and can foment landslides, both of which wreak havoc on salmon habitat.
Such efforts got a boost in October when the Obama Administration, along with the state and tribal leaders, announced that the White House would throw more federal weight behind Puget Sound restoration. The announcement earmarks about $800 million via the state, feds and tribes, which will largely go to restoring estuaries and improve fish passage on rivers where there are dams.
Culture in one hand, lawsuits in the other
Money and partnerships are good, but Washington state tribes long ago realized a need to take their fight to the courtroom.
“We come to the table with our culture in one hand and our legal, policy knowledge in the other," says Lekanoff, of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. And they've clocked some victories.
One of the most important treaty rights decisions in years came this summer. A federal appeals court ruled that the state of Washington must repair culverts, pipes under roads that block salmon from getting to their spawning grounds. Tribes filed the original lawsuit in 2001.
They won a summary judgment on the case in 2007 and again in 2013, which mandated the state spend more than $1 billion repairing culverts and restoring 1,000 miles of salmon habitat.
In the 2013 decision, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez referenced the treaty implications of such development: “Governor Stevens (Washington's first territorial governor) assured the Tribes that even after they ceded huge quantities of land, they would still be able to feed themselves and their families forever."
The “Culvert Case," as the lawsuit has been dubbed, may seem a small step, but Lekanoff says these victories will keep salmon and tribal traditions alive. It's the latest evolution of a new legal and regulatory framework—embodied by the Boldt Decision—that equates habitat protection with treaty rights.
Just months before the culvert ruling, Pacific Northwest tribes, led by the Lummi, prevailed in a bid to halt the Cherry Point coal terminal because it would impact their treaty-protected fishing rights. In May, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied the permit for the new terminal, killing the idea.
And Washington state's Supreme Court in October started hearings on a lawsuit by the Quinault Tribe, which is suing the City of Hoquiam and the state over a proposed oil transportation and storage hub at the Port of Grays Harbor, which the tribe argues could harm tribal commercial fishing in the area.
“It's always tug of war, how to make our cultural foundations adapt to today's problems," says Campbell, of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. “These foundations were put in place when the population was only tribal people."
Standing Rock and a mother's hug
In late August, Lekanoff is zipping around the tribal offices. “I'm so sorry, I have to take this," she says repeatedly as the office phone rang during an interview. She's helping organize the day of Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby, whose office is decorated wall-to-wall with photos and commemorative memorabilia, including a traditional drum and a picture of him with President Barack Obama.
Lekanoff is also coordinating with folks from Standing Rock—the scene of an ongoing protest led by North Dakota's Standing Rock Sioux tribe over a proposed oil pipeline near their reservation. She had just returned from the camp, and talking with her a few days later, the meaning and feel of the movement clearly still resonated profoundly.
Hundreds of tribes—including the Swinomish—have pledged their support to the Standing Rock Sioux. It's been a national story for months— a fight for sovereignty, a voice, resistance in the face of development.
These are old, constant battlefronts for Native Americans. But the amount of attention from the government and mainstream media is new.
Lekanoff is coordinating with others on getting canoes to Standing Rock to join the protests. When she snaps back to the interview, she talks about what it means to feel home for both Natives and non-Natives.
“Standing Rock felt like a place of being," she says. “You know that feeling of mom hugging you?"
I put aside my notebook and tell her I'm moving to Sault Ste. Marie, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, soon.
She smiles broadly, holds up one finger, vanishes behind a cubicle wall, and returns with two cans of Swinomish salmon and a heavy wool hat with a whale design made in her native Yakutat, Alaska.
“Where you're going it's cold," she says, patting my hands. “This is for your new home."
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Minnesota Solar Challenge/flickr
Rethinking energy and justice in the Trump era.
The same communities that have been losers in the fossil fuel economy need to be the spots where small-scale clean energy takes hold, said experts on Thursday.
The same communities that have been losers in the fossil fuel economy—think West Virginia coal towns and inner cities in refinery shadows—need to be the spots where small-scale clean energy takes hold, said experts on Thursday.
Renewable energy development has long been cast as key to slowing climate change. But there's another way to look at it: the best lever to lift the heavy burden of pollution that fossil fuels impose on communities, often heavily minority, in energy country.
Because the coal jobs aren't coming back. And refineries tend to import pollution and export cash.
The election "doesn't change the long-term course of where we need to go. We need to remake our economy around clean energy."-Timothy DenHerder Thomas, Cooperative Energy Futures
That's the gist from a group of energy and social justice experts tackling "energy justice" in a suddenly transformed political climate. The issue, much like social justice, frames energy as a currently helping the haves, and harming the have-nots.
These places are “overburdened by pollution and have been excluded from economic benefits and are at the deep end of growing inequality in our country. That level of inequality is not good for anyone,” said Miya Yoshitani, executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) based in Oakland, Calif.
Hosted by the Post Carbon Institute think tank, a group dedicated to sustainable and resilient communities, the event was shadowed by looming cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, President Obama's Clean Power Plan and other efforts to curb both emissions and fossil fuel development in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's surprising win Tuesday.
Nonetheless the election "doesn’t change the long-term course of where we need to go. We need to remake our economy around clean energy … who wins who loses, put those decisions back into the communities,” said Timothy DenHerder Thomas, general manager of Cooperative Energy Futures in Minneapolis.
APEN's Yoshitani said local, community-based leadership is needed now more than ever to build the next economy—one that doesn’t pollute poor people, and send the money to rich people elsewhere.
“Digging fossil fuels out of the ground, processing them, refining them and burning them, every piece of that … low income communities, communities of color, are at the brunt of that pollution,” she said.
Richmond, Calif.’s, Chevron refinery is a prime example of energy injustice along racial lines. The 115-year-old refinery looms over a historically black community that also has vibrant populations of Laotians and other immigrants.
The child asthma rate in Richmond is more than double the national average. A 2012 refinery fire sent 15,000 people to the hospital.
It’s not just health: Richmond also gets the short end of the economic stick too, Yoshitani said. “The local economy is stuck in dependency on the major refinery, which is also displacing other, more sustainable economic opportunities for that community,” she said.
Thomas said the first step to breaking this cycle is a rethinking of what effective economic progress looks like.
For decades “scale meant doing each thing bigger and bigger – that’s how you got cost effectiveness … power plants, as well as highways, corporations,” he said.
Some of this thinking is present in the current renewable energy landscape, he said. Much renewable energy development today happens "through large centralized, corporate ownership. It wastes a huge amount of the potential of the transition.”
For instance, federal and state policies encourage renewable energy development largely via tax credits that primarily benefit large investors with large incomes. >
Small, community focused energy projects—solar gardens, cooperatives, microgrids—offer a better way forward but can't capture important credits, Thomas and Yoshitani said.
With community ownership “energy is no longer this one way street—energy is pumped in, money is pumped out,” Thomas said. Real cost effectiveness, he added, will come when every community is building clean energy infrastructure and projects. While each project may be small, together the impact can be “massive,” he said.
Examples of local, grassroots movement abound, they said. Local tribes in Arizona formed the Black Mesa Water Coalition more than a decade ago in response to coal mining in the Black Mesa Mountains. Not only did the Navajo-led nonprofit help close down one of coal company Peabody’s coal fired plants, they’re now organizing and developing community-owned solar and looking at ways to reuse old coal infrastructure, Yoshitani said.
In the short term, they’re aiming for a one- to five-megawatt project on the Black Mesa. Some of the local Navajo have never had electricity.
Plus the scale is such, Yoshitani said, that everyone can have a hand in building a new energy economy.
“Support key fights where there are conflicts of communities coming into the ending of the extractive fossil fuel system,” Yoshitani said. “Supporting Standing Rock and the water protectors there, supporting their vision.”
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