Earlier this month, we posted about the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board voting to table a request for funds by the Fond du Lac band of Ojibwe in Water is life: Iron Range board legislators table new water system for Fond du Lac band.
The excuse? The band is "anti-mining." Senator Tom Bakk had already cancelled a campaign fundraiser at the band's casino.
The Duluth News Tribune has published Deb Manion's local column about the decision in Local View: IRRRB snub of Fond du Lac funding a part of our 'white-supremacy problem':
The response of the IRRRB to the Fond du Lac Band’s request for help in getting clean water was nothing less than shocking (“IRRRB tables Fond du Lac funding over band's 'anti-mining' stances,” June 11). It clearly reflected the current mining industry’s position of bullying and hostage-taking in the face of disagreement.
The band has a duty to protect the health and welfare of its members. It opposes pollution.
According to the band’s Rita Aspinwall, “Mining, the way it currently operates and is regulated in Minnesota, has destroyed wild rice, worsened the mercury in fish problem, and fundamentally destroyed and degraded thousands of acres of important natural and cultural resources.”
Is the band supposed to ignore the above in order to please the various mining companies as well as the IRRRB?
The arrogance of the members of the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, who presumably vote on behalf of us who benefit from taxes on mining, defied belief. Are they happy to deny clean water to Native Americans who, presumably, had sufficient clean water before colonization of and industrialization close to their land? . . .
It is hard to understand how IRRRB Board members Sen. Tom Bakk, Rep. Dale Lueck, and Rep. Dave Lislegard somehow seemed to imagine they weren’t part of the white-supremacy problem that has caused the country to explode recently. It seems as if these board members have put pandering to the mining industry above the band’s proposal, which was in compliance with the IRRRB’s requirements and scored well. Perhaps there should be an examination of the role of board members of the IRRRB and their obligation to represent constituents rather than their personal agendas.
Read the complete column at the Duluth News Tribune.
Photo: People harvesting wild rice.
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