This open letter was read at each stop along the Lummi Nation's Totem Pole Journey in August 2014. This year, journey leaders took a stand against coal and oil export in our region. Many native and non-native communities concerned about fossil fuel export and the health of our air, our water and our climate will come together this weekend for the launching of the Nawtsamaat Alliance for Protecting the Salish Sea.
For generations, tribal people have witnessed the impact of faceless 'persons'--corporations--on the lands, water, air, and human and environmental health. Though at times consulted, we have not been heard as a real voice in defending our traditional homeland territories. Instead, we have seen the degradation of our land and water, our traditional foods and medicines, and the health of our people.
The Lummi and other members of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and the Coast Salish Gathering now face the battle of our lives: devastating proposals that would bring coal by rail from Montana and Wyoming to the West Coast for export overseas. Indeed, the Cherry Point (in our language, Xwe'chi'eXen) proposal poses an unprecedented ecological, cultural and socio-economic threat to Pacific Northwest Tribes.
Xwe'chi'eXen ("the place of the mink") is a 3,500 year-old village site where many of our ancestors lived and made their final resting places. Today, sixty percent of Lummis have direct ancestral ties to this site. Around it, the Salish Sea supports a Lummi fishing fleet that includes 450 vessels and 1,000 tribal members.
Coal exports threaten all of this. We fear the descecration of Xwe'chi'eXen, the first archaeological site to be placed on the Washington State Register of Historic Places. We wonder how Salish Sea fisheries, already impacted by decades of pollution and global warming, will respond to the toxic runoff from the water needed for coal piles stored on site. How will Bellingham's recreational and commerciam boaters navigate when more than 400 cape-sized ships, each 1,000 feet long, depart Cherry Point each year bearing individual loads of 287,000 tons of coal? what will happen to the region's air quality as coal trains bring dust and diesel pollution? And of course, any coal burned overseas will come home to our state as mercury pollution in our fish.
Already, coal export officials have shown breathtaking disrespect for our heritage. To save time and boost profits, Pacific International Terminals (PIT) bulldozed what they knew to be a registered archaeological site and drained our wetlands without a permit.
This proposal is not based on econommic necessity. The inflated number of jobs promised is an old, old story; one filled with promised made and broken. At the end of the day there will be far fewer jobs created and many sustainable ones lost or compromised. The defeat of this madness is our aboriginal duty as the First Americans, but it also speaks to the collective interest of all citizens and--most importantly--as members of the human family who are part of, not masters over, the creation. But this is a new day. To those who would sacrifice the way of life of all peoples of the Pacific Northwest, we say: take notice, you will not win this battle. Enough is enough!
This summer's proposed changes to the Gateway Pacific Terminal site design are beside the point and outside a larger truth. The impacts cannot be mitigated. We will stop the development of the export terminal and put in its place a plan that honors our shared responsibility to the land and waters of Xwe'chi'eXen and all our relations.
In late August, Lummi tribal members undertook a journey from South Dakota to the Salish Sea and north to Alberta, Canada, stopping with many of the tribal and non-tribal communities whose lives unwillingly intersect with the paths of coal exports and tar sands. We carried with us a 19-foot-tall totem that brings to mind our shared responsibility for the lands, the waters and the peoples who face environmental and cultural devastation from fossil fuel megaprojects. We travelled in honor of late elder, leader, and guiding light Billy Frank, Jr., who would remind us of the larger truth: that we are stewards placed here to live with respect for our shared, sacred obligation to the Creation, the plants and animals, the peoples and all our relations. He guides us, still. Our commitment to place, to each other, unites us as one people, one voice to call out to others who understand that our shared responsibility is to leave a better, more bountiful world for those to follow.
