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Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment
PO Box 992
via Hogansburg, New York 13655
Telephone: 518-358-9607
The Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment will be having their Annual Seed and Tree Giveaway,
Saturday, April 25, 2009 9:00am to 1:00pm @ SRMT Environment Division, 449 Frogtown Road adjacent to Akwesasne Business Center A variety of vegetable seeds and trees will be given away to Akwesasne community members free!! |
| 2009 Annual Roadside Cleanup to be held May 2, 2009 The Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment (ATFE) would like to announce the Annual Roadside Cleanup Day is scheduled for Saturday, May 2. All residents are encouraged to cleanup the ditches in front of their homes.
ATFE St. Regis Mohawk Tribe Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Mohawk Nation Council Honoring Our Mother Earth For More Information Contact: Craig Arquette 358-5937 Margaret George 936-1548 |
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Pictures from Craig Arquette, Strawberry picking at Howard David's Strawberry field.
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The Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment (ATFE), a community based, grass-roots organization, was formed in 1987 to address the environmental problems facing the Mohawk Nation community of Akwesasne. The mission of the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment is to conserve, preserve, protect and restore the environment, natural and cultural resources within the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne (see map) in order to promote the health and survival of the sacred web of life for future generations and to fulfill our responsibilities to the natural world as our Creator has instructed. ATFE is composed of members of the Mohawk community and staff of environmental agencies, Mohawk governments, and organizations within Akwesasne who share a common concern for the environment and the effects of various toxic substances on human and ecosystem health. Because the Mohawk Nation is part of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, ATFE works in conjunction with other Haudenosaunee communities with organizations such as the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force
Kaniatarowanen'neh Research Institute
(Under Construction: Please Bear With Us As We Finish This Site )
The Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment has many goals to improve environmental quality in the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. These goals include developing training, education and advocacy programs; addressing community concerns about industrial pollution from nearby ALCOA, General Motors and Reynolds Aluminum; implementing strategies to restore environmental and community health; supporting culturally appropriate sustainable development projects; conducting and supporting scientific research including sampling and testing for toxicants; and networking with other Native communities, environmental and legal professionals. Click here for a complete list of ATFE goals.
ATFE founded the Kaniatarowanen'neh (Big River) Research Institute as part of its continuing efforts to conduct environmental research and develop programs to protect and restore the environmental and cultural resources within Akwesasne. In creating this research insitution, ATFE hopes to support and expand upon more than 10 years of successful research, restoration and educational projects that have been conducted to date in the community of Akwesasne.
The Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment (ATFE) has been actively advocating the permanent clean-up of toxic waste sites bordering the community. We have worked to educate the community about the impacts of toxic substances on the environment and human health and have sought the assistance of technical experts from surrounding universities.
The ATFE works to develop sustainable economic alternatives so that the culture and environment of Akwesasne can be preserved. Ongoing projects include such things as developing small and large scale aquaculture projects, establishing black ash, fruit and nut tree plantations and utilizing greenhouses to safely grow food in a polluted environment.
An increased number of universities have proposed conducting research at Akwesasne. However, projects do not always have the best interest of the community in mind and researchers are not always culturally competent or sensitive. In response to this situation, the ATFE became incorporated in 1995 to be able to apply for our own grants, to conduct our own research, to have control over the use of our own data and to ensure that money which is received on behalf of Akwesasne is spent to benefit the community. Protocols for Review of Scientific and Environmental Research were developed so that research at Akwesasne was done only with the input and consent of the community. ATFE, Inc. is the corporate body responsible for administering funds and is overseen by a Board of Directors.
Over the past forty years, General Motors, Reynolds Metals Company, and the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), on the American banks, have economically thrived from the low-cost electricity produced by the hydro-electric project. In the process, Akwesasne, the first community down-river from them, has born a disproportionate share of environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts resulting from pollution from these industries. Many toxic substances including PAHs, PCBs, dioxins, dibenzofurans, metals, cyanide and styrene have been discharged into the air, land or water in and around Akwesasne. All three companies used polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), human-made chemicals that were ideal for industrial purposes, in their plants. PCBs would eventually be banned by the EPA in 1978 as the chemical was found to be toxic to both human health and the environment. The PCBs at these three plants eventually ended up in the environment through industrial wastewater discharges, spills, and illegal dumping into the Racquette, Grasse, and St. Lawrence Rivers. In addition, emissions of pollutants such as fluoride, PAHs and other toxic substances from ALCOA and Reynolds contaminated the air in and around Akwesasne. Mercury and mirex were discharged by Domtar, a pulp and paper mill located on the Canadian side of the river.
Within five to ten years of the construction of the hydroelectric project, Mohawks began noticing impacts to their environment. By the early 1970s, cattle began showing signs of flurosis, brittle teeth and bones, birth defects, low milk production and shortened life spans. By the mid-1980s, the Mohawk community had issued a fishing advisory limiting fish consumption in the community and warning women of childbearing age, infants, and children under the age of fifteen eat no fish from the St. Lawrence Rive due to the PCB contamination of the fishery.
By the late 1980s, the amount of PCBs found in fish and wildlife at Akwesasne was astounding. Snapping turtles (the Haudenosaunee consider the turtle to be the foundation of the earth), frogs, shrews, and fish were all found to be contaminated, some with levels that would make them hazardous waste. Backyard gardens were abandoned as residents in the Racquette Point area (the closest to the contamination) feared the airborne contamination of their vegetables.
As fear grew into rage and rage into action, the battle to confront the polluters, enlist the help of the EPA and the NYSDEC, and mobilize support from the community strengthened in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. It has resulted in stricter environmental controls, cleanup, and scientific studies. The battle continues today as Mohawks find more than just the environment is being impacted by the pollution. Cultural and traditional practices that require healthy, unpolluted natural resources have been impacted as well. Recognizing this, the Mohawks have embarked on a courageous path to rejuvenate the environment and support cultural practices to ensure there will be a seventh generation.
Under construction: Please Bear With Us As We Finish This Site
Local industries including General Motors, ALCOA and Reynolds Metals have begun remediating superfund sites on their properties. Although the river contamination is currently being addressed in the St. Lawrence and Raquette Rivers, the Mohawks continue to fight for dredging and adequate remediation in the Grasse River. Air discharges are being reduced, although some toxicants such as styrene continue to be a concern. Although an industrial landfill at General Motors was closed, toxic substances in it have yet to be fully characterized or remediated and the Mohawk community continues to fight for adequate clean-up of the landfill. In spite of the remediation that has occurred to date, injured natural resources have yet to be restored to their former function. It will be many, many years before concentrations of toxic substances are eliminated so that Mohawks can again fully interact with the natural world in a healthy and positive way.
Update on:
Under construction: Please Bear With Us As We Finish This Site
The Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne has been forced to bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental impacts that have resulted from the operation of neighboring industries . For this reason, environmental problems at Akwesasne are very much environmental justice issues. Because of environmental pollution, the traditional economies of the Mohawk people have been all but destroyed.
Under construction: Please Bear With Us As We Finish This Site
Under construction: Please Bear With Us As We Finish This Site
The Mohawks who settled and occupied Akwesasne are descendants of the Iroquoian people who have always lived along the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes Basin. In fact, archaeological evidence indicates settlement patterns at Akwesasne dating to the recession of the glacier around 8,000 years ago. Ancient campsites were used as hunting, fishing and gathering sites, and continued to be used throughout the Mohawks wide settlement pattern, which included the Mohawk valley of New York State. The earliest Christian records indicate a Mohawk settlement dating to 1746, when Jesuit priests from Montreal traveled downriver with a group of Mohawk people and together formed the present day site of Akwesasne. In 1753, a church was built and that site still is present today as the St. Regis Mission, named in honor of Saint Francis Regis.
The historical name of Akwesasne referred to the rapids of the St. Lawrence and the pounding of the grouse (partridge) on logs during mating season, hence the term Akwesasne: Land where the Partridge drums. The river, known by the Mohawks as "Kaniataraowanneneh," which means big river, provide the people of Akwesasne with abundant resources from the depths of its cool bottom to its shallow marshes. The mouths of the Grasse, Racquette, St. Regis and Salmon rivers represented spawning grounds and provided cyclical harvests of salmon, bass, sturgeon, walleye, northern pike, white fish, eel, and perch. The confluence of the four rivers provided an ecosystem that propagated basketmaking- and pottery- materials, and many varieties of fruit- and nut bearing trees pertaining to the culture. The fertile river valley sprouted vegetables, fruits and nuts that supplemented a healthy diet of fish and wild game. The valley was also replete with birch and maple trees that were used to make containers and produced annual spring flows of sap. Strips of cedar bark were used in medicinal ways. In between, the lowlands flourished with sweet grass and numerous varieties of medicinal plants indigenous to the area. Although hunting, fishing and trapping continued to be an important part of the economy and culture of the Mohawks of Akwesasne, agricultural and sweet grass basketmaking became increasingly important activities as the Mohawks were confined to the borders of the community and as their hunting areas were increasingly diminished.
The Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs remains to this day, the only council
in Akwesasne which recognizes and utilizes a traditional form of government
led by clanmothers, faithkeepers, and chiefs who are guided by the principles
found in the oral tradition of the Haudenosaunee, including the
Great Law of Peace, through a system of consensus, clan (extended family)
titles and matrilineal goverance. After the War of 1812, the community
was split by the international boundary, which served to define the Canadian
and the United States border along the 46th parallel. Our oral tradition
indicates the border was not to affect our people and the border was to
go over our heads, of the tallest person as far as his/her arms can reach.
Since then, the political entities established to govern the community
have been attempting to overcome differences associated with the artificial
boundary. In the early 1900s, the St. Regis Band Council (now called the
Mohawk Council of Akwesasne4) and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council were
forcibly put in place by the Canadian and New York State governments, respectively,
in an attempt to replace the traditional system of political representation.
The Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment (ATFE) exists as the result of tax exempt donations and grants. Please consider contributing to our efforts. ATFE, Inc. has 501 (c)(3) non-profit status.
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correspondence to:
Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment
PO Box 992
via Hogansburg, New York 13655
Telephone: 518-358-9607
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This page was last updated Onerahtokha / April 20, 2009 by Daniel Benedict
