Regulators in Michigan thought few people would notice on the first day of the three-day Labor Day holiday weekend that the state began formally moving to approve an environmentally and culturally destructive open-pit mine at the water-rich Michigan-Wisconsin border on land sacred to the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin:
You can't help but notice the repetitive larger context: the defeated iron mine nearly blasted into the Bad River, WI tribal watershed (Mike Wiggins, Jr. photo)
and rice-growing estuaries (now threatened anew by a 26,000-hog farm and manure factory,) and the proposed Kohler golf course near Sheboygan on wooded wetlands and rare dunes strewn with Native American artifacts, and, of course, the ugly incursion on Native American land right now in North Dakota by pipeline builders and their literal attack-dogs.
Take four minutes and a few seconds to listen a summation of these atrocities by MSNBC's evening host Lawrence O'Donnell.
The State of Michigan on Friday announced its intention to approve, over tribal protests, an open pit mine near burial and other culturally important sites in the Upper Peninsula...
...within the broader footprint of the mining site are burial grounds and former raised garden beds from the Menominee tribe, who used to live in the region before an 1856 treaty forced them onto their current reservation, 60 miles southwest of the proposed mine site. The mouth of the Menominee River is the center of their creation story.I had posted news about this possibility in January.
You can't help but notice the repetitive larger context: the defeated iron mine nearly blasted into the Bad River, WI tribal watershed (Mike Wiggins, Jr. photo)
and rice-growing estuaries (now threatened anew by a 26,000-hog farm and manure factory,) and the proposed Kohler golf course near Sheboygan on wooded wetlands and rare dunes strewn with Native American artifacts, and, of course, the ugly incursion on Native American land right now in North Dakota by pipeline builders and their literal attack-dogs.
Take four minutes and a few seconds to listen a summation of these atrocities by MSNBC's evening host Lawrence O'Donnell.
ReplyDeleteThousands upon thousands of transitory chemical toxins pollute our national and international waterways and the municipal water systems providing our drinking water. Dangerous man-made pathogens poison our water, our rivers and lakes and our food, including the fish and deer we eat...these new pathogens are in our soil; in CAFO animal feeds and animal manure and many of these chemicals accumulate in our (surviving) fish resources.
Even the air spreads animal viruses in dust particles from CAFO's.
What we humans need are obviously a ban on CAFO's, on manure spreading, on glyphosate, on pipelines and on the proposed AQUILA RESOURCES ACID GOLD MINE.
Yet most Americans remain unaware of these dangers, so the corporate assault has accelerated.
We have sturgeon -- and sturgeon spawning is affected bychemicals in Water:
http://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2016/8/saskatchewan-first-nation-says-oil-husky-spill-affecting-sturgeon-spawning/
For 10 years Anishinaabeg and other tribal women have concentrated on praying and doing ceremonies and walking to protect the sacred Water of the Great Lakes that is our home. Iit is time to stand with the women and stop the Aquila Resources illegal mine at the border of WI and the UP --
https://keweenawnow.blogspot.com
-- and stop Enbridge pipelines snaking into Wisconsin and the Dakotas:
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/292-unreported-oil-pipeline-leaks-in-north-dakota-in-less-than-2-years-131027?news=851496 .
Are we ready, Badgers?
Does a bi-state river present an opening for EPA-federal challenge, if not from WDNR, then from other stakeholders? A mine likely to pollute across state lines might be subject to review in some form.
ReplyDeleterdf