Native Notes

We do quite a bit of work with think tanks and other “wonkish” groups. Here I’m with Ed Moreno of the Keystone Center at a February 2008 meeting to address the questions: “What are the major challenges to biodiversity conservation over the next 5 to 10 years and beyond and what might be the most significant opportunities for philanthropic impact?”.

Under a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Keystone Center is conducting a national survey to help identify future opportunities for philanthropic investments in habitat and biodiversity conservation. Click here to learn more about this project and to participate in an online survey and a discussion forum on habitat and biodiversity conservation.

The International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management brought together representatives of Indian tribes, federal agencies, and industry at a workshop in Denver, Colorado to take the first step in establishing a tribal definition of “sustainable” uranium production. Why, you may ask, is a tribal definition of sustainable uranium production needed when Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., signed the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005 which bans uranium mining and processing throughout Navajo Nation and the Oglala Sioux tribal council passed OST Resolution 07-0154, a resolution prohibiting any uranium operations on the reservation?

There are several reasons for tribes to define sustainability. First, nuclear generates approximately 17 percent of the electricity in the U.S. Second, China’s nuclear energy development plan, which had called for operating power capacity to hit 40 gigawatts (GW) by 2020, has been revised to a projected 60 GW. Third, now that concerns about climate change are part of the national energy policy equation, some experts believe nuclear power should be reconsidered since it does not emit greenhouse gases.  These points mean that uranium will be mined and processed—perhaps not on Indian reservations, but it will be mined and processed. Lastly are the map of major U.S. uranium reserves—the correlation between uranium reserves and Indian country and tribal interests is inescapable (a global map would show similar correlations between uranium with the lands of other indigenous peoples); and a Hawaiian proverb, ‘A’ohe ‘ulu e loa’a i ka pō kole o ka lou. No breadfruit can be reached when the picking stick is too short. (There is no success without preparation.)

Furthermore, no definition of sustainability in uranium production can be valid without addressing the environmental, human health, and other impacts uranium production has had on Indian tribes.

History is the memory of human experience. If it is forgotten or ignored, we cease in that measure to be human. Without history we have no knowledge of who we are or how we came to be, like victims of collective amnesia groping in the dark for our identity.

The push towards sustainable production of uranium is based in large measure on preventing the problems of the past. Of course avoiding the creation of “legacy” sites should play an important role in defining sustainability, but how should today’s definition of sustainability address legacy sites such as those on the lands of the Navajo Nation and Spokane Tribe? For example:

• What are, or should be, mining company strategies to build tribal capacity to deal with past impacts of mining?
• What role have federal agencies played in the past? What roles should they now be playing?
• How do local communities or their organizations involve themselves in capacity building, and how might partnership with mining companies, government, NGOs, and tribes facilitate this?
• Can enhanced tribal institutional capacity facilitate enhanced sustainable tribal and regional development? How?

On September 16-17, 2008 the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management is organizing the Roundtable on Climate, Tribal Energy Development, and Habitat Protection.  The roundtable will bring together high level tribal, NGO, industry, and government leaders and experts in the many fields of energy, environment, wildlife, science and technology, law, and policy in a series of facilitated dialogues to see if and how tribes can design energy development projects that support multiple purposes and multiple uses. 

Similarly, roundtable participants will see if and how tribes can use intertribal approaches to offset carbon emissions and other environmental impacts that will support multiple purposes including, among other things, enhancing fish and wildlife habitat. 

A final roundtable objective is to establish a framework for developing and harmonizing tribal energy and habitat protection/expansion policies and institutions.

Contact Mervyn Tano at: +1 303-733-0481 or mervtano@iiirm.org for more information.

“My knowledge of NEPA is fairly rudimentary but the level of instruction was both specific and conceptual enough to be meaningful and informative.”  “I have a much greater understanding of the importance of scoping and outreach to identify and respect stakeholders, especially those not typically represented or with advocates in the NEPA process.”  “Ray Clark and Merv Tano are knowledgeable and enthusiastic teachers.”  These are a few of the comments from participants at the January 10-11, 2008 International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management and National Tribal Environmental Council Workshop on Participating in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Process: From Scoping to the Record of Decision.

The Institute’s next NEPA workshop is The National Environmental Policy Act in Indian Country scheduled for March 24-25, 2008 in Denver, Colorado. Click here for program and registration information.

In a November 27, 2008 New York Times article, Randal C. Archibold reports that “on November 30, for millions of people here in Orange County, pulling the lever will be the start of a long, intense process to purify sewage into drinking water — after a hard scrubbing with filters, screens, chemicals and ultraviolet light and the passage of time underground.

On that Friday, the Orange County Water District will turn on what industry experts say is the world’s largest plant devoted to purifying sewer water to increase drinking water supplies. They and others hope it serves as a model for authorities worldwide facing persistent drought, predicted water shortages and projected growth.”

In a couple respects, the article reports nothing new. The debates on water reuse Archibald reports continue to focus on the science and the economics of the issue. Politicians and water managers appear to be convinced that good science and sound economics will engender public acceptance.

I don’t deny the role of science and economics but remain convinced that discussions on the ethical, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of the issue need to be pursued. Moreover, I am convinced that native peoples should lead these discussions.

Here’s the gist of some conversations I’ve been having with some colleagues on the proposed Desert Rock Energy Project.

Earlier this year the folks at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory issued an update to the earlier Estimating Freshwater Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric Generation Requirements. I think the report findings, i.e., that water is a significant emerging factor in economic development, especially at local and regional levels, support my unrealized preference that a programmatic analysis of energy resource development precede the site- and project-specific Desert Rock proposal.

A typical 500-MW coal-fired power plant uses over 12 million gallons per hour of water for cooling steam turbine exhaust. On the plus side, according to the Draft EIS, the Desert Rock technology uses a lot less water—168,000 gallons of water per hour—for a much larger power output. To my way of thinking however, this represents an opportunity cost—all that water is no longer available for other economic development efforts. Which is why the DOE report emphasizes that water resources must be included in planning efforts to ensure that water supplies are not only currently available, but also on hand for all future water-use sectors over the long term, including thermoelectric generation.

The Department of Energy is conducting research directed at advanced cooling, water recovery and reuse, use of non-traditional (impaired) water, and wastewater treatment technologies. The program goal is to ensure that, by 2015, technologies are available for initial commercial deployment that can reduce power plant freshwater withdrawal and consumption and minimize the impacts of power plant operation on water quality. This is good but I think we still need to do some research on the socio-cultural aspects of water recover and reuse. This is why I suggested earlier that the San Francisco Peaks case should trigger some tribal discussion on water reuse. The Policy and Environmental Institutes at the Diné College seem perfectly situated do that work.

Since the dust-up between the U.S. and its “old” European allies that preceded the war in Iraq, there has been a fundamental shift in U.S. strategy towards what the Bush administration considers to be its more reliable allies in the “new” Europe. This process has been accompanied by a redistribution of U.S. foreign military bases in what some military analysts are suggesting will be the biggest realignment of American overseas forces since 1945.

After the fall of the Soviet Union the U.S. sought to establish its authority in East Europe and the Balkans at the expense of Russia and the European Union, partly by encouraging the former Soviet satellites to join NATO but also through the development of bilateral economic and security arrangements. An aspect of these economic and security arrangements has been “forward deployments” or new, relatively small military posts on former Warsaw Pact bases from Poland to Romania. Similar deployments have occurred throughout the Middle East and Africa.

Claire Laura Evans, a second year law student at the University of Denver Law School is interning with the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management this semester. She will be looking at these forward deployments to identify: the extent to which any bi-lateral agreements and operational orders that authorize these deployments require the U.S. to address environmental effects and the extent to which they require consideration of the impacts of such deployments on the lands, environment, resources and rights of indigenous peoples, ethnic and religious minorities.

Anyone wanting to intern with the Institute to work on similar projects should contact Mervyn L. Tano at mervtano@iiirm.org.

In June 2007, the Government Accountability Office and the National Academy of Sciences convened a forum to discuss developing environmental accounts in the United States. Participants included U.S. federal agency officials and national and international statistical, energy, environment, and natural resource experts. The GAO published the Forum highlights last month.

National environmental accounts provide a framework for organizing information on the status, use, and value of natural resources and environmental assets, as well as on expenditures on environmental protection and resource management.

At the start of the Clinton administration, the Bureau of Economic Analysis made a foray into environmental accounting in the minerals sector, but this preliminary attempt became embroiled in political controversy and faced opposition from the minerals industry.

At about the same time, the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management broached the notion of introducing tribal cultural values to environmental accounting through a series of roundtables on risk assessment, cultural risk, and sustainable development.  We did this because we were concerned that the prevailing paradigms were ignoring such values.  The United Nations Handbook of National Accounting: Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting 2003 is explicit about the role of such values.

Although human and social capital are important topics and are currently the subject of considerable debate and research, they clearly do not fall within the rubric of integrated environmental and economic accounting.

Suffice it to say we were spectacularly unsuccessful in our attempts to rally tribal support for the idea of including tribal cultural values in any environmental accounting scheme mainly because the Institute was perceived as supporting the translation of cultural values into dollars and cents. Our concern was how to account for assets that were at once environmental and cultural because it is unfortunate but in such accounting systems, “priceless” equates to “zero.”

But as Joy Hecht stated in her 1999 Resources for the Future Report, “the idea that nations might integrate the economic role of the environment into their income accounts is neither a quick sell nor a quick process. Similarly, integrating tribal cultural values will not be easy, but if the GAO-NAS forum is the first step in some serious discussions about establishing a national system of environmental accounts, tribes need to be prepared to weigh in.

Some very real consequences of rapid climate change will be increased environmental degradation, competition for access to natural resources, especially water, and population shifts triggered by water scarcity. These consequences may be of a magnitude that compel action by the U.S. Congress. In the past, the results of legislatively mandated land and natural resources allocation schemes have generally not favored Indian tribes.

Ongoing disputes and disagreements over the management of natural resources shared by tribes and states will certainly deepen as changes in climate further stress these resources. However, it may be that early collaborative efforts to address common problems regarding the use and allocation of natural resources can bring tribes and states together in a positive manner. Tribes and states can build trust and confidence with each other through early collaborative efforts to identify and plan for climate-induced stresses on the environment and natural resources. Such efforts can be an important tool for avoiding tribal-state conflicts and the resultant litigation or legislative remedies.

We’d like to see a tribal college together with the National Tribal Environmental Council and the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management initiate a process to identify and assess environmental and natural resources management problems which will be exacerbated by climate change and will accordingly heighten tribal-state tensions and threaten tribal sovereignty. This partnership should then facilitate regional consultations and multi-stakeholder participation to:

1. Identify and assess potential environment and natural resources conflict hotspots;

2. Present the results of the assessments in graphically rich maps, reports and websites to draw the attention of decision-makers, NGOs, and other publics to situations and hot spots where risks of tribal-state conflict are high;

3. Help tribes deal with priority issues by building capacities and strengthening institutions; and

4. Establish tribal-state collaborative environment and natural resources planning demonstration projects.

Contact me at mervtano@iiirm.org if anyone’s interested in pursuing this idea.

In an October 18, 2007 article, Indianz.com reports that a federal appeals court dealt a setback to a coalition of tribes on Wednesday when it agreed to rehear a sacred site case.

In March, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a ski resort from
using treated sewage to make snow in the sacred San Francisco Peaks.  The ruling said the Bush administration violated the religious rights of tribes by approving the project.

But the victory is in doubt now that a full panel of the appeals court will hear the case all over again. The U.S. Forest Service and the Arizona Snowbowl resort asked for a rehearing, which was granted in a short order yesterday.

There are a couple of things we find bothersome about this case.

First of all, we didn’t like what appeared to us to be the wholesale buy-off of what to us was obviously the Arizona Snowbowl’s version of the Environmental Impact Statement.

To our way of thinking, there was nothing Forest Service-like, “quality land management under the sustainable multiple-use management concept” in the EIS’s Purpose and Need Statement.

The Purpose and Need Statement of the EIS does not even pay lip service to the sustainable multiple-use management concept.  Purpose #1 is [t]o ensure a consistent and reliable operating season, thereby maintaining the economic viability of the Snowbowl, and stabilizing employment levels and winter tourism within the local community. Purpose #2 is [t]o improve safety, skiing conditions, and recreational opportunities, bringing terrain and infrastructure into balance with current use levels.  We thought the whole effort was just as much about water and water reuse as it was about skiing.

Also, we thought the absence of any discussion of the long-term effects of climate change, including extended periods and increasing severity of drought, made for an incomplete basis for decision-making.

However, what we found most troubling is what appears to be the blanket rejection of water reuse by the tribes.  An extended and more severe drought will almost certainly require the federal government, states, municipalities and tribes to consider water reuse.  The EIS included a brief but useful summary of water treatment and a less useful discussion of water reuse.

This issue reminds me of a discussion on water quality standards I had several years back with Tikitu Tutua Nathan and his class at a marae in Whakatane in Aotearoa.  Tikitu, at that time, was a lecturer at the University of Waikato.  The issue being discussed was the “acceptable” level of fecal coliform for a water body when any such contamination would be considered spiritually unacceptable.

For Maori all water is tapu.  However, there are different levels and forms of tapu depending on the source of the water, its form and its level of sacredness. Whatever use is made of water, the proper state is one of balance, harmony and respect. But achieving that balance, harmony and respect also requires an understanding of how water relates to other elements or realms. To Maori, water is one strand in the environmental family and water and its characteristics, such as flow, colour and taste, must be woven together with the other strands (land, air, oceans, etc.) to understand the interconnectedness of each of the strands and to ensure that all processes work in harmony. See, Regional Fresh Water Plan for Taranaki.

An example of the use of treated waste water to restore harmony is taking place in Louisiana where officials plan to use millions of gallons of treated wastewater to restore the swamps around New Orleans. The treated water will push out saltwater that has drained into the swamp. This will allow the native cypress trees to again flourish and the swamps to again serve as a natural barrier to hurricanes. See, New Orleans Puts Its Faith in Recycled Water.

The water situation in the West is not good and will probably get worse. We are already experiencing a steady decrease in mountain snowpack, the source of most of the West’s water. Even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. For us, this case was always about balancing economics, science and religion to bring harmony and respect to water use and reuse in the West. This not a discussion federal, tribal, state, and municipal governments can avoid, at least not for long.

Perhaps the rehearing will encourage more thinking and more conversation about bringing balance, harmony and respect to water reuse in the West.