space Press Releases, News Stories

Greenpeace Press Release

TALEQUAK, Okla., 25 September 2001  -- A task force of concerned Cherokee Nation citizens, community residents and tribal representatives from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians is forming in opposition to a deal in the works between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and contractors for the infamous “Haiti ash barge”, which has floated the globe for nearly seventeen years looking for a burial place.

“This trash has sailed the whole of Earth and has been rejected by even the most impoverished and corrupt of nations. It has been tied to drug dealers and corrupt military leaders in Haiti and organized crime in the U.S. How is this going to look if the enrolled membership of the Cherokee Nation allows it to be buried here?” said JoKay Dowell, a native American of Quapaw, Peoria and Cherokee descent and longtime community organizer living near Tahlequah, where the federally recognized Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is headquartered.

During the 1980’s the city of Philadelphia burned its municipal waste in large incinerators but soon realized that incinerating trash causes more problems like where to dispose of the ash that routinely contains toxic heavy metals and dioxins.

In 1986 Philadelphia contracted with a company to remove some 14,000 tons of incinerator ash that was loaded onto a ship called the Khian Sea and headed to the Bahamas but was turned away by the Bahamian government. It also sailed to, and was turned away from Puerto Rico, Bermuda, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and the Netherlands before it was mislabeled as topsoil fertilizer and allowed to dock in Haiti in December of 1987.

All along the way Greenpeace took note off the ship’s activities and alerted the citizenship of those countries as to what the cargo really was.

Once in Haiti, almost 4,000 tons of the ash was unloaded before the Haitian government stepped in. The ship fled in the middle of the night with 10,000 tons of the Philadelphia ash that was eventually illegally dumped into the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Back in Haiti testing was done on the 4,000 tons left behind by the Khian Sea and was found to contain lead, cadmium and other heavy metals as well as dioxins. Fearing the U.S wanted to use their tiny island country for a trash dump the Haitian government had the ash dug up and returned to the U.S. after ten years.

Once its waste was back in the U.S. Philadelphia still refused to accept responsibility for it. Waste Management a huge company that operates landfills in the south has refused to bury it in one of their facilities permitted to receive incinerator ash.

Most recently, January of this year, a plan to re-incinerate and dispose of the ash in a Broward County, Florida landfill met with massive community opposition and was cancelled. The ash barge now sits in a Florida canal awaiting a final resting place.

Dowell, a former employee of the international environmental organization Greenpeace found out about the proposed deal with Cherokee Nation after Greenpeace was contacted by a representative of the Cherokee Nation landfill to inquire about any organized opposition.

Dowell then contacted Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith to find out if he was aware of the negotiations for the controversial incinerated ash.

“To my disbelief, he told me he did know about it. I asked him how they [CNO] could uphold themselves as stewards of the environment and even think of bringing in this waste. I tried to make a case for community input but he said it wasn’t open for community input. That it was a business deal of Cherokee Nation Industries and nobody’s business.” said Dowell.

Since then Dowell has notified residents living near the landfill and Cherokee citizens. She is organizing a committee called Don’t Waste Indian Lands to alert Cherokee citizens about the proposed deal to bury the waste in the tribal landfill and to organize opposition to allowing the waste to come into Oklahoma.

The committee will also distribute information to interested community members and is urging Cherokee citizens and community residents and other Native Americans to join in the effort by calling the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah or Oklahoma legislators. Dowell said the committee will be working in alliance with the Indigenous Environmental Network, Greenpeace and other area citizen groups.

According to Jamie Clinton, Cherokee Nation landfill manager, the tribe went to Florida where the ash barge has been docked for almost two years and spent $5,000 to test the waste, which he says in comparison to other municipal waste landfills, exceeds standards for safety.

“Nevermind that.”says Dowell. “What is considered ‘safe’ is controversial in and of itself. It wasn’t safe enough for Waste Management to keep it even though they have landfills throughout the south. It’s not safe enough for other states like Louisiana, Georgia or Florida to take it. I wonder is it safe enough for Chief Smith to bury next door to his home in Sapulpa?”

“This is an issue of environmental justice or maybe I should say injustice in this case.” According to Dowell, Cherokee people and others living near her already share a disproportionate burden of potential health risk from living near hazardous sites.

“To the south of us is the contaminated site of the former Kerr McGee uranium processing facility. To the west is Fansteel a thorium-contaminated site. Then Cherokee Nation owns a landfill to the east that has caused changes in the nearby creek water according to area residents. All they think about is money not the people,” she continued. “While Chief Smith is proposing to change Sequoyah Indians’ sports team logo because it is racist, he also proposes to us that it is acceptable for Indian people to become the big cities’ dumping grounds. We won’t buy it.”

“Indian land is not a trash dump for the rest of society. Our tribal leaders cannot build tribal economies by turning Indian lands into society’s dumping grounds. It’s Philadelphia’s trash. Let Philadelphia take responsibility for it. ”

For more information or to join Don’t Waste Indian Lands committee call 918-457-5542.