After 16 years of study funded by polluting industries, the public comment period for the Willamette River cleanup is scheduled to end Sept. 6, 2016, with some officials hoping for a finalized plan by the end of the year.
As previously reported in Street Roots, the Yakama Nation has expressed deep disappointment with the EPA since its preferred plan was released in early June. After eight cleanup options were identified, with price tags ranging from $350 million to $9.5 billion, EPA announced its preference for Option I – a $745 million plan that would remove only 8 percent of the known contaminants in the river.
On July 25, the Yakama Nation’s tribal council flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. There, the council explained to McCarthy why the plan, as it currently stands, would violate Yakama Nation’s 1855 treaty with the federal government, and urged her to implement a more rigorous plan that would keep their traditional foods free of hazardous chemicals.
“The EPA’s plan puts people at risk and puts our treaty rights in jeopardy,” said Delano Saluskin, vice chairman of Yakama Tribal Council. “Their proposal simply relies too much on natural recovery and as such is not a solution to protect a healthy fishery. It will result in more contaminants traveling downstream to the Columbia River.”
Yakama’s EPA visit adds considerable weight to the concerns of community groups who are working closely with urban Native Americans and communities of color. The Portland Harbor Community Coalition, which represents several of these groups, has warned the city that ignoring outreach to these groups may constitute racial discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. PHCC has asked city officials to fund outreach to these groups, and to use their formal role in the Superfund process to request a longer public comment period that provides time to organize with their membership.
In a July 14 email, the PHCC also requested that the Bureau of Environmental Services work in partnership with the coalition to craft the city’s formal comments in alignment with social and environmental justice priorities.
“The City's cooperation in these areas is a Title VI Civil Rights issue,” the email states. “And given the weak cleanup plan released by the EPA, it is even more imperative that the city take the lead in doing what is right, legally and ethically. We are counting on the city – especially BES staff and leaders – to hold polluters and other government agencies accountable, on behalf of Tribes, communities of color, immigrant and refugee communities, and low/no-income Portlanders.”
Yakama Nation’s Superfund Coordinator Rose Longoria has previously told Street Roots that EPA’s weak plan represents a violation of Yakama’s civil rights, treaty rights and human rights. That position is also shared by Portland’s Native American Youth and Family Center, which serves thousands of urban Native Americans who hold rights to traditional foods.
FURTHER READING: The movement to restore native food sources
NAYA’s Donita Fry and Roben White described EPA’s clean-up plan as an immense disappointment and agreed with Longoria’s assessment that it represents a serious human rights violation. Fry is the organizer for the Portland Youth and Elders Council, while White is a veteran political organizer who joined NAYA’s Superfund team in June; his aunt, Helen White Peterson, was the first woman to serve as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians.
NAYA’s Community Engagement Manager Cary Watters said she also agrees “absolutely” with Longoria.
“We stand with the Yakama Nation in demanding a full, comprehensive cleanup of this river. Letting big polluters off the hook for 92 percent of their pollution is unacceptable, and is an absolute violation of our treaty rights and human rights," Watters said.
“We also have other first foods that are crucial to the livelihood of those that have lived here since time immemorial who we support – including Wapato just downstream surrounding Sauvie Island. It’s just a very important stretch of river for those that have historically known – and currently know – this land as their usual and accustomed grounds for hunting, fishing and gathering.”
On June 22 seven companies, representing half of the Lower Willamette Group, filed a legal dispute with the EPA, challenging the projected cost of their clean-up plan.
Since the plan was announced the Portland Business Alliance has also launched a website, “Healthy River Healthy Economy,” that warns “an overly expensive cleanup could hurt small businesses and cost hundreds of jobs each year,” based on a 2012 economic impact study.
However, an economic analysis by ECOnorthwest showed that fixing the Willamette would actually stimulate the local economy, as it would force giant companies like Exxon and Shell to spend millions of dollars in Portland that would not otherwise be spent here at all. According to that 2012 analysis, that money would also recirculate as Superfund employees and their suppliers spend their income in the local economy. On the whole, the study predicted that a $573 million cleanup would produce $980 million in spending in the Portland area, and would employ about 1,000 people over seven years.
The preferred alternative of Yakama Nation and its allies – a modified Option G – has a cost about three times as high, with commensurate benefits for job growth, local spending, and tax revenue.
Compared to other infrastructure projects, that cost does not seem extraordinarily high. In 2011, the city of Portland completed the Big Pipe Project, spending $1.4 billion on a sewer system upgrade so that less raw sewage would get dumped into the Willamette River. Option G, the one option that would protect the human rights of all river users, costs roughly the same amount.
Bob Sallinger of the Portland Audubon Society said city officials have simply gotten too cozy with the Lower Willamette Group and are not demanding that polluters pay for a clean river in the same way that taxpayers have paid for The Big Pipe project.
The city is a member of the Lower Willamette Group and has been identified as among the potentially responsible parties.
“The city has a very, very pivotal role to play in what kind of plan is adopted,” Sallinger said. “Part of the adoption criteria for the plan is the consideration of local acceptance, which includes both the community and the local government. So the city has a formal role to play in either agreeing or disagreeing with the plan.”
The city of Portland has a standing policy of consulting with local Native American tribes on a government-to-government basis before taking any action that could impact them – a policy implemented in 2012 through the Office of Healthy Working Rivers, which was eliminated when Charlie Hales took office as mayor. The mayor’s office is currently hiring a liaison to coordinate this consultation.
During last year’s conflict over a proposed propane export terminal at the Port of Portland, renowned indigenous legal scholar Walter Echo-Hawk spoke to members of the Planning and Sustainability Commission at PSU’s Native American Student Center about why and how the city should continue to consult with tribes.
Echo-Hawk’s 2013 book, “In The Light of Justice,” explains how these government duties dovetail with international human rights treaties like the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the 2007 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the U.S. has supported since 2010. This declaration, he writes, creates new legal obligations for states while clarifying the meaning and interpretation of treaty rights in a manner favorable to indigenous nations. For instance, Articles 20, 28 and 32 of the Indigenous Rights Declaration require that governments provide redress for “harm to subsistence rights, lands, territories and resources.” Specific provisions of this declaration, Echo-Hawk writes, “can be enforced by courts to the extent they reflect customary international law or existing treaty obligations.”
He concludes: “Just as modern nations have renounced torture, genocide, piracy, slavery, and cruel and unusual punishment in the world today, the human rights of indigenous peoples will be restored by nations primarily because it is the right thing to do in the post-colonial age.”
“Fishing isn’t just a right on paper for us, it’s a part of who we are and how we live” said Virgil Lewis, a member of the Yakama Tribal Council. “This plan does not go far enough to protect the waters and fish, and therefore violates the treaty that reserves our right to a meaningful fishery where we can harvest healthy fish that are safe to eat. Our expectation is that the EPA will revise this plan to protect our people, our fish and our way of life. In doing so, the general population of the region will also benefit as will the economy.”
NAYA’s Roben White argues that the city should formally request an additional 120 days of public comments so that NAYA and other communities have time to fully respond to the problems in the EPA’s plan and involve both youth and elders who want to be part of the river’s restoration.
“The city has an obligation to do what’s right here,” White said. “We’re just trying to live the American dream and eat food that doesn’t poison us.”
