Native Americans Lose Land to Climate Change

  • Choctaw Chief Albert Naquin has watched his tribe's island - the Isle de Jean Charles - go from four miles across to a quarter mile across. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Over the next century, rising
sea levels will change coastlines
all over the world. But the impact
might be most dramatic in South
Louisiana. A study out last month
predicts the state will lose up to
5000 square miles in the next
century – a chunk of land the size
of Connecticut. If the report’s
authors are right, that means a
lot of people in Louisiana are
going to have to relocate – become
climate refugees. Samara Freemark has the story of one of
the first communities to be displaced:

Transcript

Over the next century, rising sea levels will change coastlines all over the world. But the impact might be most dramatic in South Louisiana. A study out last month predicts the state will lose up to 5000 square miles in the next century – a chunk of land the size of Connecticut. If the report’s authors are right, that means a lot of people in Louisiana are going to have to relocate – become climate refugees. Samara Freemark has the story of one of the first communities to be displaced:

It was sometime in the mid-1970s that Albert Naquin first realized that Isle de Jean Charles was sinking. Naquin had grown up on the island. He’s the chief of a group of Choctaws who have lived there since the 19th century – and when he was a kid, it was a pretty good community: it had stores, a couple of churches, horse pastures and fields. But those are all gone now.

“Salt water kept coming in, faster and faster, and now it’s basically just beach.”

Isle de Jean Charles is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico.

The list of reasons why is long. There’s subsidence- that’s the natural phenomenon where delta regions kind of settle down on themselves. There are the dams that block the sediment that used to wash down and build the land back up. There are oil company canals that slice through the wetlands, hurricanes that tear up the island’s coastline, and, of course, there’s rising sea levels.

All together they explain why Isle de Jean Charles used to be about 4 miles across and now has shrunk to a quarter mile.

“Now, we see the disaster that is Isle de Jean.”

We’re in Naquin’s pickup truck, and he’s driving me out to the island.

“See this little house moved across the way, this house. These 1, 2, 3 are deserted.”

Naquin himself moved off the island awhile ago. But for years he was happy to support families who chose to stay. In fact, when the US government came to him in 2002 and offered to pay to help people move off the island, he resisted.

“So, I said, ‘what they gonna do, tell us they’re gonna move us there and then next thing send us a bill for the house?’ You know, so I said, ‘no, that’s just a modern day Trail of Tears. We’re not moving.’”

But lately Naquin has just gotten tired. Tired of evacuating people before storms, tired of helping them rebuild after, tired of watching the sea nibble away at the island.

And so he decided – enough. For the past year he’s been on a mission to convince the 25 families still living on the island to abandon it.

“They’re not going to save the island. It’s going to be gone. Either we move now or we move later, ‘cause we will move.”

But not everyone is ready to leave.

(sound of greeting and talking)

Naquin pulls over to talk to Dominique Dardar.

Dardar’s house was leveled by Hurricane Gustav last summer. He’s rebuilding it with pieces of other houses he’s found blowing around the island- bits of roof and siding. Dardar says he’s not moving.

“I ain’t never gonna move. I’m gonna stay over here. That’s my territory.”

Across the street Wenselas Billiot lives in a house raised 13 feet in the air.

Billiot is Naquin’s brother in law. He’s in his 80s and has lived on the island his whole life. I ask him what he’ll do if the island shrinks any more.

“That’s going to be rough. But, as long as I can stay, I’ll stay. I was born and raised on the island. As long as I can stay here I’m going to stay.”

Albert Naquin hasn’t given up. He thinks if he can get everyone to agree, the government will help the tribe get a big piece of land where they can all relocate as a group. He’s already thinking of names for the new town.

“We could say, Island Number Two, or Isle de Jean Charles New Beginning, or something like that. But I think we just name it Isle de Jean Charles 2. I think that has a good sound to it.”

In short, Naquin is trying to figure out how to keep the idea of Isle de Jean Charles alive, even when the island itself no longer exists.

It’s a challenge many Louisiana communities could soon face.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Saving Salmon From Sea Lions

  • Bobby Begay has been patrolling the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam for the past three years, hazing sea lions. (Photo by Sadie Babits)

The Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest historically has been a super highway for salmon. But dams, development, and pollution have taken their toll on salmon. The fish have declined to the point that several species are endangered. Now the salmon face another threat, sea lions. As Sadie Babits reports wildlife managers are trying to get rid of the sea lions to protect the salmon:

Transcript

The Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest historically has been a super highway for salmon. But dams, development, and pollution have taken their toll on salmon. The fish have declined to the point that several species are endangered. Now the salmon face another threat, sea lions. As Sadie Babits reports wildlife managers are trying to get rid of the sea lions to protect the salmon:

Bobby Begay steers his small boat up the Columbia River. He knows this river, and he
knows the salmon. His ties to the salmon go back generations.

As a member of the Yakima Tribe, he comes out here to tribal fishing sites to catch
salmon. It’s something Indians along the Columbia River have been doing for thousands
of years. He says the salmon are considered sacred food.

“It’s part of our livelihood. It’s part of our health and well being.”

They use the salmon to feed everyone from the tribal elders to the children. Tribal
fishermen tell stories of seeing so many salmon in the Columbia River that you could
walk across their backs. Those days are gone.

A series of dams on the river make it hard for fish to get from the Pacific Ocean to fresh
water and back again. The salmon have fallen victim to over-fishing, agricultural
pollution, and habitat destruction. Pacific salmon are now listed as endangered. And they
face yet another threat on the Columbia River – sea lions.

“Sea lions have probably always been in the Columbia but not to this extent and have
done damage to salmon populations like it has and all of it is due because of a man-made
structure, which is Bonneville Dam.”

Sea lion numbers have exploded along the Pacific Coast. And more than a thousand of
them travel up the Columbia River looking for food. Some of them have figured out that
if they gather at the base of Bonneville Dam, they can easily catch salmon that are trying
to pass by.

Biologists estimate that every year sea lions eat some 13,000 salmon. This year, the
federal government gave state wildlife agencies in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, the go
ahead to kill up to 85 sea lions.

Begay won’t really talk about whether he thinks this is right. He’s torn.

“Well, ah, sea lion is a spiritual animal not only to us but to coastal tribes and we respect
the animal as it is, but also the salmon is a scared food to us as Columbia River Indians.”

So Begay works to protect the salmon without killing the sea lions. He works for the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

That’s why he’s out here in this boat. He patrols the river most days using fireworks to
scare sea lions away from the salmon.

Crew: “There he is 1 o’clock, 50 yards.”

(sound of gun shots and boat)

Begay’s crew shoots firecrackers over the sea lion.

“And hopefully we’ll get them into the main stem of the river and start hazing them down
stream.”

“The hazing really is not highly effective. The animals are really quick to learn.”

Robin Brown is a marine mammal researcher for the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife.

Brown says they’ve euthanized seven sea lions this year. He says the decision to kill a sea
lion is made after everything else has failed.

“We have to have observed them killing salmon and steelhead, and they have to have
been exposed to all the non-lethal methods of harassment that you’ve observed here
today and shown that that isn’t detouring them from being here and feeding.”

The Humane Society opposes killing the sea lions. It’s asked the courts to put a stop to it.
While this legal battle plays out, Bobby Begay will keep hazing the sea lions until the end
of May.

That’s when the sea lions leave the dam and head back down the Columbia River to the
Pacific Coast to breed.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

Related Links

Tribes Talk Climate Change

Many Native American tribes say
they want to be part of the national debate
over climate change legislation. The
tribes at least have the attention of the
US EPA. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Many Native American tribes say
they want to be part of the national debate
over climate change legislation. The
tribes at least have the attention of the
US EPA. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

The tribes are worried about climate change. They think it might be affecting natural resources
like wild rice beds, fish habitat and animals they hunt to feed their people.


The tribes got some provisions into a major climate change bill that recently failed in Congress.
They’re now preparing their arguments for the next go-round on Capitol Hill.

Stephen Hartsfield is with the National Tribal Air Association. He says one thing the Native
communities want is more incentives to produce cleaner energy – such as solar power in the
Southwest US.

“ We have 300 days of sunshine a year – so it just makes logical sense for tribes and states and
communities in the Southwest to look at those opportunities.”

At a meeting with Great Lakes area tribes in Milwaukee, an EPA official said it’ll be up to
Congress and the Obama Administration to determine how much clout the tribes will have in the
debate.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

New Coal Plants on the Drawing Board

  • Members of Dooda Desert Rock. From left, Alice Gilmore, Elouise Brown, her son JC, her brother-in-law and her grandfather, Julius Gilmore. Her grandparents Alice and Julius lived their whole lives just down the hill from here. They would have to be relocated if the power plant is built. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)

To meet the country’s growing demand for
energy, there are about 150 new
coal-burning power plants on the drawing board.
But not everyone is thrilled about relying on
coal as a future energy source. Daniel Kraker
takes us to a place where people have
lived next to these power plants for decades.
And now they’re fighting plans to build another
one:

Transcript

There’s been a lot of talk about developing clean energy sources, like wind and solar
power. But coal is still king. And to meet the country’s growing energy demand there are
about 150 new coal fired power plants on the drawing board. But not everyone is thrilled
about relying on coal as a significant future energy source. Daniel Kraker takes us to a
place where people have lived next to these power plants for decades. And now they’re
fighting plans to build another one:


In northwest New Mexico, the Navajo Indian reservation is a spectacular other-worldly
landscape of mesas and giant sandstone rock formations jutting out of the red earth.
Underneath the ground are huge reserves of coal. This is where the Navajo government
and a company called Sithe Global Power want to build a 1500-megawatt power plant
called Desert Rock, and it’s here where a small group of Navajos who oppose the project
have set up their base of resistance.


“It’s called Dooda Desert Rock, Dooda means ‘no’ in Navajo.”


That’s Elouise Brown. She’s president of a group of Navajos who live near the proposed
construction site. They’ve been camped out there since December, in a small plywood
shack attached to a trailer. Brown says she’s quit her day job to protest the project full-time:


“I think this whole coal plant is just, people are just looking at dollar signs. They don’t
care about their people, they don’t care about their mother earth, global warming…And I
think it’s about time that we be heard, we’re going to stand here and stay here until
somebody listens to us.”


Brown walks outside the shack with her son and grandfather, Julius Gilmore. He points
out in Navajo where the power plant would go.


“You see the drill down there? It’s just northeast of there…”


“And that’s your grandfather’s house right there?”


“Yes.”


Her grandparents have spent their entire life there. They’ll have to be relocated if the plant
is built.


From the protestors’ camp the tips of two giant smokestacks are visible. The Four Corners
and San Juan Generating Stations were built in the 1970s during the last big construction
wave of coal fired plants. Desert Rock would be the third power plant in this area. Frank
Maisano is a spokesman for Desert Rock:


“Already in the region there is 2300 megawatts of new requests for power, and that is just to
satisfy massive growth in the region right now. Those who say that, ‘Oh we just won’t use
coal.’ They’re not looking at the larger picture, which says we really do have to have a
balanced approach, not just that we don’t like this one little carbon dioxide emission that
comes from this plant.”


Maisano says Desert Rock would be one of the cleanest coal fired plants in the country.
He says scrubbers would remove many of the harmful chemicals that can lead to health
problems and smog. And it would cough up less carbon dioxide than the older generation
of coal-fired plants.


“It’s a higher heat rate so that the coal is heated up so it combusts more completely,
basically what you’re doing is, you’re getting more efficiency, you’re getting more
megawatts out of less coal.”


Still, Desert Rock would emit about 10 million tons of CO2 every year. That’s only about
15% less than older plants. There are 150 coal fired plants like this one on the
drawing board across the country, and 40 of those are likely to start up in the next five
years.


Many environmentalists worry if Desert Rock and other coal plants are built, we’ll be
saddling the country with growing greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come.
Roger Clark is Air and Energy Director with the Grand Canyon Trust:


“As a nation we should consider a ban on all new coal plants. We’re at a point now where
we need to start reversing the amount of greenhouse gasses that we’re putting into the
atmosphere. It’s 19th century technology here in the 21st century that is something that we
don’t need.”


The country’s population is growing, and our thirst for energy is growing right along with
it. Roger Clark and others believe we can meet that growing demand through energy
efficiency improvements, combined with investments in renewables.


Here in the southwest, the Navajo Nation is in the early stages of developing a wind farm.
But that would only produce 200 megawatts of electricity; Desert Rock would be seven
times that size.


The tribe’s primary focus in this debate isn’t CO2 emissions, or climate change, it’s
revenue. Desert Rock would generate an estimated 50 million dollars annually for the
impoverished tribe. If the plant gets its final environmental approvals, and it isn’t taken to
court, that money could start flowing as early as 2012.


For the Environment Report, I’m Daniel Kraker

Related Links

Battle Over the Right to Grow Rice

  • Roger LaBine winnows the wild rice. (Photo by Michael Loukinen, Up North Films)

Since European settlers first came to this country they have had serious conflicts with Native Americans. The GLRC’s Sandy Hausman reports on one modern-day dispute between a Native American tribe and communities in the upper Midwest:

Transcript

Since European settlers first came to this country they have had serious conflicts with
Native Americans. The GLRC’s Sandy Hausman reports on one modern-day dispute
between a Native American tribe and communities in the upper Midwest:


(Sound of Ojibwe music)


The Ojibwe tribe first came to the north woods of Michigan and Wisconsin hundreds of
years ago. They say their migration from the east coast was guided by prophets. Those
prophets told them to keep moving until they came to a place where food grows on the
water. Roger Labine is a spiritual leader with the tribe. He says that food was wild rice:


“This was a gift to us. This is something that is very, very sacred to us. This is very
important, just as our language. This is part of who we are.”


For hundreds of years, wild rice was a staple of the tribe’s diet, but starting in the 1930s,
private construction of hydroelectric dams pushed water levels in rice growing areas up.
High water killed most of the plants and took a toll on wildlife. Bob Evans is a biologist
with the U.S. Forest Service. He says fish, bird and insect populations dropped
dramatically:


“Black tern is a declining, threatened species that is known to use wild rice beds,
Trumpeter swans. They’re a big user of rice beds. Um, just a whole lot of plants and
animals. It’s really a whole ecosystem in itself.”


So in 1995, the tribe, the U.S. Forest Service and several other government agencies
demanded a change. A year later, the federal government ordered dam operators to drop
their maximum water levels by 9 inches. The dam owners appealed that decision, but in
2001 a federal court ruled against them.


That fall, the Ojibwe who live on Lac Vieux
Desert harvested nearly 16 acres of wild rice and this summer, the tribe is tending more than 55 acres.
But the resurgence of rice beds comes at a price. Lower lake levels have left docks in this
boating community high and dry, created muddy shorelines and made long-time residents
and summer boaters angry:


“I used to come here and dock all the time. We picnicked here. I had to walk in 50 feet,
because there wasn’t enough water to float a pontoon, and it’s that way all around the
lake.”


Ken Lacount is president of the Lac Vieux Desert homeowners association. He first
came here in the 1940s and doesn’t see why his cultural traditions should take a backseat
to those of the Ojibwe:


“My grandfather built one of the first resorts. I fished in Rice Bay my entire life. That
was his favorite place to take me.”


Lacount is bitter. He and his neighbors feel powerless to change the situation, since a
federal court has ruled for the Ojibwa. Defenders of that decision say water levels are
especially low because of a prolonged drought in region. When that ends, they predict
lake levels will rise, and homeowners on Lac Vieux Desert will be happier.


(Sound of paddling)


Such conflicts are nothing new. Ron Seeley is a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal. He’s covered Native American issues for more than 20 years. Paddling through the rice beds, he recalls an earlier battle
over fishing rights. In the late 80s, a court ruled the Ojibwe were entitled by treaty to
spear fish each spring. Local fishermen worried the practice would destroy their industry:


“Sometimes thousands of people would show up at the landings on a spring night. Tribal
members from all over the upper Midwest would come to support the spearers and drum
and chant. The anti-Indian forces were arrested for using wrist rockets or real powerful
sling shots to shoot pellets at the tribal members while they were out spearing. It was a
violent time up here.”


As court after court upheld the rights of native spear fishermen, and as commercial
fishermen continue to prosper, hostilities subsided and now, as the Native Americans prepare for
their biggest rice harvest in more than 50 years, the Ojibwe hope that the controversy over water levels
will also die down. Tribal leader Roger Labine says wild rice is a symbol of the Ojibwe’s survival:


“This is an endangered species. It’s something that we’re fighting to save, just like the
eagle, just like the wolf. We were put here to care for Mother Earth and all the gifts that
the creator gave us.”


And having won the first battle to restore rice beds, Labine is hoping to secure even
greater protection for these wetlands by asking the federal government to declare the rice
beds historic.


For the GLRC, I’m Sandy Hausman.

Related Links

Tribe Sues for Fishing Rights

The Ottawa tribe of Oklahoma has filed suit in federal court, claiming it still owns fishing rights in Lake Erie… but that’s prompting natural resources officials to worry about the prospect of over-fishing in the lake. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:

Transcript

The Ottawa tribe of Oklahoma has filed suit in federal court,
claiming it still owns fishing rights in Lake Erie, but that’s
prompting natural resources officials to worry about the prospect of
over-fishing in the lake. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill
Cohen reports.


Members of the Ottawa tribe say a 200-year-old treaty gave them fishing
rights, but Ohio officials who regulate fishing are hoping the tribe
doesn’t win its lawsuit.


They say, since the tribe is a sovereign nation,
the Native Americans would not have to abide by state limits on fish
catches, and that could ruin the business of the commercial fishing
companies that rely on the lake.


The Ottawa’s lawyer, Dick Rogovin, says the state could compensate.


“If these tribes take a lot of fish out of the water, I think the state’s
got to put fish back in. That’s their obligation: to supply fish for
everybody else.”


Some Native American tribes do have fishing rights in other parts of the
Great Lakes, but court agreements between the tribes and the states put
limits on the catch of fish in those areas.


For the GLRC, I’m Bill Cohen.

Related Links

Congressman Skeptical of Great Lakes Planning Effort

  • The Great Lakes Restoration and Protection Strategy is being drafted, but some worry that the meetings being held are more conducive to talking than actual planning. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

Last year, President George W. Bush ordered federal agencies to work with Great Lakes states, towns, and tribes to design a strategy to restore and protect the Great Lakes. An inter-agency task force is planning a summit this summer to release its plan. But some members of Congress are skeptical. They see the regional collaboration meetings as another chance for government to talk about a problem rather than do something about the problem. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Last year, President George W. Bush ordered federal agencies to work with
Great Lakes states, towns, and tribes to design a strategy to restore and
protect the Great Lakes. An inter-agency task force is planning a summit
this summer to release its plan. But some members of Congress are
skeptical. They see the regional collaboration meetings as another chance
for government to talk about a problem rather than do something about the
problem. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


All the different agencies and people are working on the draft of the Great
Lakes Restoration and Protection Strategy right now. It’s scheduled to be
released in July.


When the former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Mike Leavitt
first started talking about the regional plan last summer, he outlined it as
a way to spend tax dollars better.


“We have 140 different programs right now and I’m interested to make certain
we know how those dollars are being spent and that using to them to the maximum
efficiency, then we’ll have a plan, I hope, regionally, as to how to move
forward.”


But, in the meantime, major funding for some projects has been put on hold. Rahm Emanuel is, to say the least, skeptical of the process. Emanuel is a Member of Congress, a Democrat, from Chicago. He wonders what good this task force ordered by the President will do.


“Well, look. At least there’s an acknowledgement that the Great Lakes, Lake
Michigan and the other Great Lakes, need a focus and a strategy. But, we
know today everything that has to be done and it’s going to require
resources.”


But President Bush says he wants to coordinate the efforts of the federal
agencies so there’s less duplication and conflict between agencies, the
states, the cities and the tribes. Congressman Emanuel says that’s fine,
but there have already been lots of meetings, lots of studies and strategies
mapped out.


“My flashing yellow light here is I don’t want to waste more time on more
studies, more time on more talk when Michigan knows what it needs to do,
Wisconsin knows what it needs to do its part, and Illinois and Indiana know
what they got to do.”


Emanuel says everybody pretty much knows the job at hand. The problem is
money. And that’s where he thinks the Bush Administration is playing games.


“Are we doing this to stall, and not as a way of avoiding the hard, hard job
of putting resources toward proven strategies?”


Environmentalists are gearing up to make sure than the strategy to protect
and restore the Lakes isn’t just another piece of paper. They want the
federal, state, and local governments to draft a real plan, then
follow through, including finding the money that can actually make
something happen in the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Capturing Chippewa History

New technology is being used to expose students in the
Great Lakes states to the history and ways of the six Chippewa
tribes of the Lake Superior region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Mike Simonson reports … the C-D ROM, created with the help from tribal
leaders, has been six years in the making:

Annual Sturgeon Spawn

Northeast Wisconsin is home to one of North America’s largest sturgeon populations. Every Spring, those sturgeon swim north from Lake Winnebago to spawn. The fish are huge, prehistoric-looking creatures. Some of them are more than six feet long and weigh a hundred pounds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nick Van Der Puy was there and has this report: