THE WORLD IS KNOCKING AT OUR DOOR… WATER STUDY OR PRELIMINARY MINING EXPLORATION?

Guest Editorial By: Natalie Hand

Red Cloud Community, SD…A quiet storm is building on the reservation these days. There is a New York-based company called “Native American Energy Group” (N.A.E.G.) that has infiltrated the reservation and, most notably, the office of Oglala Sioux Tribal (OST) President John Yellow Bird Steele.

What is N.A.E.G.?
N.A.E.G. is a publicly traded company that bills itself as, “an independent energy resource development and management company”. N.A.E.G. was recently bonded in August, 2005 by the Department of the Interior (DOI) to acquire, develop and produce oil/gas/mining exploration on all federally recognized Indian reservations in the U.S. Their foremost endeavor into Indian Country is presently on and near the Ft. Peck Reservation in Montana, where there are conducting oil & gas exploration/production.

Meeting N.A.E.G.
I received a warm welcome when I visited the N.A.E.G. “Information Center Office” located in old I.H.S. housing in Pine Ridge Village. I.H.S. housing? According to I.H.S. sources, a representative of President Steele directed the I.H.S. Director to provide available housing to N.A.E.G. representatives. I was met there by Mr. Tony Johnson, Senior Geologist & Petroleum Engineer, and Eileen Janis, former OST Vice President and presently the chaperone and tribal liaison to N.A.E.G. officials. Ms. Janis informed me that she was no longer a tribal employee and she was working with N.A.E.G. as a favor to Leonard Peltier, political prisoner. According to Ms. Janis, it was Leonard who made first contact with N.A.E.G. and asked them to help the Oglala Lakota get housing.

According to their account, Mr. Johnson stated that initially his company did come to Pine Ridge with the intent to assist with the housing shortage here. They had a heady goal of up to 4,000 homes for needy families. A generous gift? Well, not quite. N.A.E.G. stated that they will seek grants and federal funding through the Housing & Urban Development program to get the houses built. Energy-efficient homes are costly to build and maintain and as N.A.E.G. put it, “We need to help the Lakota generate income to maintain these homes.”

N.A.E.G.’s webpage states, “…covering more than 50 million acres in the West, Indian Country encompasses large areas of oil and gas and other mineral production regions of current exploration activity and many vast areas yet to be investigated in detail.” Which would explain their immediate interest in the Pine Ridge Reservation. Billed as the second-largest reservation in the U.S., Pine Ridge also contains one of the largest mineral reserves in North America.

In April of this year, N.A.E.G.’s CEO Joseph D’Arrigo and CFO Raj Nanvaan (a.k.a. Tejbir Singh) met with Michael Catches The Enemy, Director of Natural Resources and the point of contact on mining and with other members of the OST Environmental Heath Technical Team. Team members informed me that N.A.E.G. executives had grand plans to relocate Lakota families out of uranium-rich lands in Jackson County and build them houses in another part of our treaty territory. N.A.E.G. indicated that in order to facilitate construction and relocation, they would need to partner with OST to “tap into the Tribe’s natural resources” to finance such a plan. According to Mr. Johnson, the language in the initial “Private Placement Presentation For The Project Financing of Exploration and Mining of Uranium on the Tribal Lands of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation” presented to the Tribe was “…just the hook to get the investors on board. We don’t actually have plans to mine anything on Pine Ridge…unless that is what the Tribal members want.” In this presentation packet, it states, “…Tribal Council President John Yellow Bird Steele has indicated preliminary support for exploration and mining of uranium on the Pine Ridge Reservation”.

It’s Just A Water & Soil Study…
By July, 2007, it had become increasingly apparent to N.A.E.G. that they were losing ground on their long-range “energy resource development” project. On July 13, 2007, under extreme scrutiny from concerned tribal members and unfavorable reports from the OST Environmental Health Technical Team, President Steele wrote a letter to N.A.E.G. executives canceling future meetings and directing them to cease all types of business ventures on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Tribal sources indicated that shortly after receiving the correspondence, N.A.E.G. executives contacted President Steele, at which time he informed them to ignore the letter and “just come on down anyway”; referring to a July 21-23rd meeting. When I presented a copy of this letter to Mr. Johnson and Ms. Janis, they informed me that they had no knowledge of it and were surprised because, as Mr. Johnson put it, “I see John regularly and he has never advised me to stop working here.“ Additionally, President Steele, along with his wife and N.A.E.G. tribal liaison Eileen Janis were treated to an all-expense paid trip to New York City to meet with N.A.E.G. executives and their investors.

What plans came out of that meeting remain a mystery, but all involved came away with a new strategy…a “comprehensive water and soil study/education campaign.” Mr. Johnson informed me that to create infrastructure on the reservation, we must first conduct a water study and educate the tribal membership on the results and what should be done with the water. The basis of this perspective is a 1992-97 U.S.G.S. water study conducted on Pine Ridge which showed maximum contamination levels in our ground and surface water. N.A.E.G. is utilizing this study to “educate” and win-over tribal members to get them to approve of their plan.

Tribal Perspective
N.A.E.G.’s argument is that there has been no recent comprehensive heavy metals/minerals study conducted and studies done by the OST Environmental Protection Program and OST Rural Water Department are only bacterial tests, a claim that is vigorously disputed by both offices. According to the OST Rural Water Department, the minerals found to be present in their studies of the public water system are “naturally occurring” and do not pose a health threat at this time. However, they stressed the fact that they have no control over private-owned wells.

Bob Pille, Director of OST Environmental Protection Program, stated, “The U.S.G.S. water study was, which is what N.A.E.G. is basing their argument on, is irrelevant. We disproved that report sometime ago by conducting our own study. The contamination levels were significantly lower than what U.S.G.S. was reporting. We believe that their study had inconsistencies because they used a mobile lab which may have been contaminated.” While Mr. Pille and his co-workers agree that a comprehensive water study would be welcomed, they believe that N.A.E.G. has ulterior motives, based on their proposed “Master Consulting Agreement“. In that initial agreement, N.A.E.G. wanted exclusive rights and first right-of-refusal to “…minimize and ultimately eliminate the health threats to members of the Tribe” and “…remove contaminating minerals to be sold for commercial uses…” (I.e. In-Situ Leach Mining).

According to literature distributed by OST Natural Resources, once in-situ leach mining has ceased at a mine site, it takes decades to restore the water source and “…no aquifer in the United States has ever been returned to it’s pre-mined state.” Radioactive wastewater from the mine is often stored in an evaporation pond, releasing radon gas (usually associated with lung disease) into the atmosphere.

In a recent education campaign flier distributed by Owe Aku’s (Bring Back The Way) Debra White Plume, it is noted that there is in-situ leach mining presently happening within our treaty territory in Crawford, Nebraska. The “Crow Butte Uranium Mine” sits atop the High Plains Aquifer that flows into the Eastern portion of the Pine Ridge Reservation. The report states, “…Crow Butte Uranium Mine has spilled or leaked thousands of gallons of contaminated water into our land, air and ground water.” Mrs. White Plume stated, “Our tribal leaders and Environmental Health Technical Team need to be visionaries in their jobs and enact legislation to protect us from future energy companies that will be coming behind N.A.E.G. If we do our job today to protect our natural resources, our grandchildren will not have to take up this fight in the future.” Mrs. White Plume is organizing the “Crying Earth Rise Up! Uranium Summit” to take place on Pine Ridge in October to further educate the Tribe on the irreversible effects of uranium mining. She is hopeful that the OST Environmental Health Technical Team will co-sponsor the summit.

In a recent Red Shirt Village Community Meeting, a known “hot spot” full of uranium and other minerals, residents overwhelming voted to support OST Council Resolution #07-154, which supports the decision to cease business with N.A.E.G. for uranium mining. It is imperative to note that the OST Council passed historic legislation, voting unanimously to declare the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation a nuclear-free zone.

N.A.E.G. and Ms. Janis insist that there are no plans to pursue mining on Pine Ridge and that N.A.E.G. is not in the mining business. However, Mr. Johnson stated that once the Tribe sees the result of their water/soil study, N.A.E.G. wishes to have first rights to “clean up the water” (mining). But he concedes, “…a referendum vote would be required to approve that”.

Exercising The Treaty
On September 9th, 2007, the Oglala Band of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council issued a position statement to the Oglala Sioux Tribal Court declaring their opposition to N.A.E.G. and called for their removal from the reservation based on Article 1 of the 1851/1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty. Article 1 states, “If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington City, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also re-imburse the injured person for the loss sustained.”

Importantly, the Treaty Council stated, “…any future impact of the environment and/or the people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation regarding exploration, drilling, testing, and/or mining of any kind for any type of mineral/metal/resource must be thoroughly scrutinized and investigated by the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council Oglala Band representatives in conjunction with the Oglala Sioux Tribal Environmental Health Technical Team…” Bring Back The Way, represented by Debra White Plume, joined the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council in this action.

OST Chief Judge Lisa Adams held a preliminary hearing later that day and, upon hearing testimony, granted a “show cause hearing” to be scheduled on September 24, 2007. At that time, if they so choose, N.A.E.G. representatives can make their case.

Final Thoughts
If N.A.E.G. was true to their word and only wanted to help the Oglala Lakota Oyate, then there wouldn’t be “strings attached” to their partnership. Importantly, the Oyate need to remember that there are unscrupulous individuals that would sell out their homeland and their own people to make a fast buck. At press time, President Steele still had not returned calls to issue a statement for this article.

In the words of noted scientist Dr. David Suzuki, “…the world is at your doorstep. Nowhere can you go on this planet to escape this global economy. This monster that is coming on to your lands has no limit to its appetites, because it believes it can grow forever.”