2 OCTOBER 1, 2003
Smoke Signals 2003 water feature
Water: A Battle Fought On Many Fronts
Editor's Note With the importance of water resources growing globally, nationally,
region-wide and locally it becomes crystal clear that water is the new gold. If you
follow the news, and even if you don't, you know that water is one of Mother Earth's
most precious commodities. Last summer, the whole world watched as Klamath
Basin farmers and local Indians fought a modern-day war over water. At home,
prosperity means new construction. But, that construction has been delayed as we
do the water dance with the local water authority. Living in the great Northwest where
it rains almost everyday, it is easy to take for granted the importance of our water
resources. Here, we took a look at water from many perspectives locally and
state-wide and we invite you to look at your own views on water.
All stories by Ron Karten
The indigenous way of life
in America has long had a
romantic side to it. Not that
the romance was all that
romantic as it was being lived, but
a century of European culture has
certainly dropped in with a dose of
reality. A look at what's happen
ing to water, not only here in Grand
Ronde, but throughout the region,
across the country and around the
globe, provides a sobering update.
Twenty five hundred years ago,
the Chinese sage, Lao Tsu, wrote,
"A sound man, like water, serves as
he goes along." But as the saga of
the American West unfolded,
Sagoyewatha, Chief of the Seneca
People, discovered that serving like
water also meant the undoing of the
Native way of life.
Much of that way of life fell as the
dominant culture moved west across
the continent, but Indians never let
go of their connection to fishing and
theirrespect for the waterways that
provided for them for so many cen
turies. That connection to the riv
ers is proving itself to have been
superior to the stewardship we see
today. Untold challenges neverthe
less remain.
As Native peoples rise again
across America, many are working
to bring the waterways back to life.
They face a shrinking supply of
Your forefathers crossed the great water and landed on this is
land. Their numbers were small. We took pity on them and they
sat down among us. We gave them corn and meat. They gave us
poison in return.
-Sagoyewatha (Red Jacket), Seneca.
water. It is over-committed to elec
tricity and farming, often leaving
fish without. Increasingly, water
supplies are also falling into private
hands and sold for profit, even as
public needs remain unmet. Po
table reserves in many parts of the
world are literally unaffordable in
poor and indigenous communities.
In the face of all that, Tribal ef
forts here in Grand Ronde have se
cured enough water for the commu
nity today with room to grow. And
the Tribe is participating in plans to
develop a regional supply that will
provide enough water for the whole
area for the foreseeable future.
There is still much to be concerned
about. Hardly a day goes by that
we don't get another news report
about the abysmal state of the
world's water supply. A recent
BBC story reported that in the last
18 years, the Aral Sea in Central
Asia "has virtually split in two and
a great white expanse of salty
desert has claimed the seabed re
vealed by the contracting waters."
With fishing villages now miles
from shore, the story goes on to say,
"The independent states of Central
Asia are now joined in an associa
tion to manage the waters that feed
the Aral but in practice there is little
agreement among them on how
best to share the resource."
Too far from home? How about
a Reuters story that said, "Farmed
salmon, which Americans are scarf
ing down because it is supposed to
be healthy, may actually be carry
ing high levels of cancer-causing
chemicals called PCBs...." The fish
tested came from Washington, San
Francisco and Portland, Oregon.
It is at once frightening to see how
poorly we humans have managed this
resource, but also hopeful, when you
look at the long record of the indig
enous peoples of the world, and see
how many are rising again to adapt
the old ways to our new problems.
Filthy Habits
Local waterways and groundwater are at risk.
In Sheridan and at the
Portland Harbor, two
areas of interest to the
Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde, the Environmental Protec
tion Agency (EPA) has established
"Superfund" sites or those envi
sioned by President Carter in 1979
as "hazardous waste dump sites,
which threaten public health or the
environment."
Over the years, these sites have
been contaminated by companies
and even government agencies
dumping toxic substances right into
local rivers or into ground reposito
ries. As of July 2000, 60 percent of
1,238 sites across the country had
"all cleanup construction com
pleted," according to the agency.
The Taylor Lumber site in
Sheridan, which was added to the
Environmental Protection Agency's
(EPA) Superfund List in 2001, broke
its owners. They were spending mil
lions of dollars on the cleanup just
as the bottom fell out of the timber
market.
Testing showed that contami
nants including arsenic, creosote,
polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs) and pentachorophenol
(PCP), dioxin and mercury, accord
ing to the EPA were "found in
high concentrations in the soil,
groundwater, and drainage ditches
surrounding the facility."
Forty-two hundred tons of con
taminated soil was removed from the
property. "To prevent further move
ment of contaminated groundwater,
EPA also built a slurry wall and an
asphalt cap around the main treat
ment plant," an EPA fact sheet said.
A second asphalt cap was built in
the treated pole storage area.
"Both caps will limit airborne
dust, which contains contaminants
such as arsenic." In addition, the
walls, which extend down into im
permeable rock, are designed to
(though monitoring continues), but
in Portland, the Harbpf .ite still has
a long way to go, according to Rod
Thompson, Water Quality Special
ist, who monitors water issues for
the Tribe.
At the harbor, the EPA continues
to evaluate which companies are
responsible for which contami
nants, and what responsibility each
company holds in paying for the
cleanup, said Thompson.
The EPA recently selected 11 sites
nationwide to clean up for the com
ing year indicating that it was not
allocated the money to either select
more or clean up more of those pre
viously selected.
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In Your Backyard The Taylor Lumber and Treating Superfund site in Sheridan (above) is
now owned and operated by Pacific Wood Preserving Companies, a privately held company with
facilities also in California, Arizona and Nevada. The Environmental Protection Agency called
Pacific Wood Preserving "the largest treater of low-environmental-impact wood in the United
States."
keep the contaminants from mov
ing, possibly to the South Yamhill
River nearby, or into local sources
of ground water.
The Sheridan area was fortunate
that the Taylor Lumber and Treat
ing plant has its problem capped
Polluting industries used to be
taxed to pay for the cleanups that
offending companies either declined
to clean up or could not clean up be
cause they had gone bankrupt or
disappeared, but the tax on these
industries lapsed under heavy
pressure from industry lobbyists
in 1996, when the fund had
reached $3.8 billion.
Today, the fund is below $30 mil
lion, and the Bush administration
has explicitly declined to reinstate
the tax on industry to continue
funding the 30 percent of cleanups
that companies decline to handle.
That leaves fewer sites being named,
fewer being cleaned up and for those
that are named and cleaned, the tax
payer is picking up the tab.
An internal EPA study of the pe
riod from 1999 to 2001 found that
"about a quarter of the nation's larg
est industrial plants and water treat
ment facilities are in serious viola
tion of pollution standards
at any one time, yet only
a fraction of them face for
mal enforcement actions,"
according to the Washing
ton Post. Even when
fined, these companies
paid only about $6,000,
the newspaper reported.
Before laws were passed
in the early 1980s regard
ing the disposal of haz
ardous wastes, thousands
of companies routinely
and legally dumped these
problem substances into
the ground and water and
released them into the air.
There are now 11
Superfund sites in Oregon
and 81 others being
watched for potential list
ing. Three have been
cleaned up. Two have been
formally proposed for listing. Ten
have groundwater contamination and
44 percent of Oregonians rely on
groundwater for drinking, all accord
ing to information collected from the
EPA by the state Public Interest Re
search Groups and the Sierra Club.