Why Indian Country is becoming America’s waste dump

By Carter Camp

Country make our homelands the target of the purveyers of America’s waste. In my Ponca Tribe we have had to stop a waste well injection system, several toxic waste incinerators, low level radio active waste disposals, and landfills. But we are a small Tribe with a very small land base; the primary targets have been the large reservations like Rosebud with space to conceal these places and mitigate their harm to the people in large cities, those Americans who demand cheap goods but won't allow their waste to be kept close to home. Rosebud is the homeland of the Sicangu Lakota Nation which is the reluctant host to a mammoth pig factory, which (due to a recent Court victory over the Tribe and EPA), is set to become the largest in the world! - with at least 33! massive waste lakes which will cover hundreds of acres of clean earth with a horrible hodge-podge of toxic substances.

The prime reason we present good targets is the extreme poverty and joblessness on our reservations. Poverty creates within the populace a desperation for jobs which is then reflected in their leaders. After standing for election on a platform of economic development, elected officials quickly learn the near impossibility of creating any sizable number of jobs on reservations. Our people were once confined as far away from the American people as possible on as marginal lands as possible and until modern times, we were kept as "wards of the Government". Suddenly our Tribal leaders are charged with the responsibility of creating jobs for the people, without any financial infrastructure or tax base. Add to this the fact that the hungry people are their own relatives, and a vulnerability is created which waste companies are quick to exploit.

Our land base is another large attraction for a waste company. But even for them, our Reservations are usually the last choice of location, they have tried to use land closer to the source of the waste but they have been forced, by the rejection of the American people, to try to locate in Indian Country. The conjuncture of companies in dire need and elected officials desperate for "economic development" is what has put our lands in such jeopardy.

When Tribes fought for and gained their present limited Sovereignty, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was stripped of its previous iron-handed rule over Tribal Governments. As either a terroristic act of retaliation, or an ironic joke, a dying BIA recognized the old 1934 Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) Governments as legitimate governmental representatives of our Nations. These so-called Governments are in no way Indian governments of any Tribe; they were devised by white bureaucrats in the bowels of the BIA as instruments to carry out their Assimilation/Relocation/Termination policies of the decades 1930-70.

The phony IRA Constitutions typically give all governmental powers to a "Council" of from 4 - 20 members. All Governmental Powers is an awesome amount of power to invest in any small group of officials. One could ask which four Americans would be suitable to rule over America with exactly the same unchecked powers they have given the IRA Councils over our people? Corruption and abuse of power are inevitable and endemic to the IRA system. This too creates an opening for the waste companies to exploit. Sweetheart deals with no protections for the Tribe financially, or for the health and environment of the People, are all too common across Indian Country.

The latest and the very worst of the purveyors of filth has now joined the attack on our Homelands. Pig Factories!! On the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota a gigantic swine factory has begun operation. All the reasons I listed above have come into play to locate this pork and s*it producer in Indian Country. The fact that once again, a smart operator has been allowed to negotiate a business deal, wherein the Tribe is left holding an empty bag, is bad enough, but this particular type of business violates everything that is Sacred within our culture. We Indians have always pointed to certain values which have differentiated our societies from the Wasicu. Our concept of this Mother Earth as a living entity which must be respected, our understanding of Water as sacred to all living things, and our basic extending of respect to all life upon this land as our relatives, are all Tribal values violated by the ugly assault.

Pigs are intelligent and they are the long time companion of the European people, as Shunka (the dog) is to our people. In these factories pigs are penned to stand in one place, day and night as they are force-fed enormous quantities of feed, hormones and antibiotics. They never see the Sun, smell grass or touch the wind. They live short lives of never-ending torture. Thousands of pigs, standing side by side, in row after caged row (being force fed), produces enormous amounts of body waste and filth, which is washed out with enormous quantities of precious water (supplied free by the Tribe!) into large open sewage, sludge pits where the water either evaporates, flows downstream, or seeps down into the water table. The stink, which is now unbearable for miles around, is about to be multiplied times thirty! The hormone and antibiotic laden pigs are shipped in and out in rapid succession, leaving only their unnatural wastes on the Homeland.

Now a Federal Judge has given the filth factory the right to expand! They can even double or triple until it actually becomes the largest pig factory in the U.S.! The Tribe, (now opposed to the factory and facing an unaffordable breech of contract liability) is uncertain about how and if to proceed. Primary in their worry is that the previous administration "waived" the Tribes sovereign immunity from lawsuit. With the advent of spring, the pig factory is set to quickly build the "2nd phase" factory, which will double the existing factory!

Only grassroots organizing and activism can stop this sick project from proceeding. The Sicangu Lakota people have proven in a referendum vote that they want to halt the project. The EPA and the BIA have belatedly and ineffectively tried to assist in controlling the waste but have so far failed. Several organizations and many concerned individuals have voiced their opposition to the factory and their desire to help stop it. We now have the ingredients for a strong grassroots organization to stop this abomination.

Over the winter, the case was in Court and the matter seems to have been lain aside by most of our people. But now the spring thaw is upon us and we can be sure the pig factory has their expansion plans ready and waiting. It is time for grassroots Indian people to band together to protect this land, this water and our future generations.