UN Observer and International Report

November 15th, 2006

 For more information, contact:

Bradley Angel Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

EPA complicit in secret hazardous dump in O’odham territory

By Brenda Norrell

QUITOVAC, SONORA, Mexico – O’odham in Mexico are outraged that the US EPA is minimalizing the dangers of a hazardous waste dump planned near O’odham communities and continuing its pattern of assisting corporations to target Indigenous lands for toxic and hazardous dumping.

O’odham community members and Greenaction said the US EPA’s final environmental assessment of a planned hazardous waste dump here “is not only incomplete and inaccurate in many aspects, but is a blatant violation of EPA’s environmental justice and trust responsibilities to Native Nations and their people.”

Privately-owned CEGIR plans to build a hazardous waste dump near Quitovac, where O’odham hold annual spiritual ceremonies in the heart of O’odham territory, and where community members reside. The dump was kept secret from the O’odham until whistleblowers exposed it in February of 2006.

In secret last year, Mexico issued a federal permit for the dump in October. The US EPA was aware of this, according to documents now exposed. Pima County officials in Arizona said this violated an international agreement, the La Paz agreement, which required Mexico to inform Arizona officials of the dump, due to its proximity to the border. The site is 25 miles south of the international border and Arizona. Currently, the dump is halted for the lack of a municipal permit in nearby Sonoyta, Mexico.

The Tohono O’odham Nation in Sells, Ariz., passed a resolution opposing the dump in June of 2006, pointing out its concern for local water sources and hazardous and toxic pollution to O’odham in Mexico and the United States. Tohono O’odham tribal communities are dissected by the international border.

The US EPA’s final assessment, released Tues., Nov. 14, reveals the hidden agenda of the project and the Border 2012 Project.  The dump would be a hazardous waste disposal site for companies in northern Mexico, who are currently transporting this waste to the US for dumping. By international law, factories (maquiladores) in Mexico using raw materials from the US must return the resulting hazardous waste to the US for disposal.

O’odham say this reveals a typical act of government and corporate genocide: The governments of Mexico and the US want to dump hazardous waste in an Indigenous community, an O’odham community where sacred ceremonies are held each year.

“EPA’s environmental racism to Indigenous peoples must come to an end, and helping to protect Quitovac is a place to start,” said Ofelia Rivas, O’odham tribal member.

The US EPA’s assessment dramatically underestimates the potential impacts from possible accidents, explosions, toxic clouds and other air emissions associated with the proposed facility, O’odham and Greenaction said.

The O’odham community of Quitovac is only 12.9 miles from the proposed site, and any major accident or toxic pollution carried by the wind would have a strong potential for disastrous impacts on Quitovac and the O’odham. In its summary statement, the US EPA said impacts to surface and groundwater are “unlikely.” Although the US EPA said the impacts to air pose a risk of toxic and hazardous airborne pollution in the United States, the EPA said those could be mitigated by an emergency response plan.  However, in the final assessment, the US EPA states that it only considered water impacts in the US, not local water contamination in Sonora, Mexico.

The US EPA also admits that it did not evaluate the dangers posed by hazardous waste transportation through local communities in Sonora, since the US EPA was concerned only with US residents. The EPA’s assessment was prepared by Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.

Expressing outrage over the US EPA’s ongoing complicity in the corporate dumping of toxic and hazardous waste on Indigenous lands, a statement of opposition was immediately released by the O’odham Rights Cultural and Environmental Justice Coalition, a grassroots organization of O’odham peoples from the U.S. and Mexico, and Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice.

“The US government’s own Executive Order on Environmental Justice directs the US EPA to consider environmental justice impacts in its own actions. The US government also has an explicit trust responsibility to protect the interests and people of Native Nations within US borders,” said the statement released by O’odham Ofelia Rivas and Greenaction’s Bradley Angel.

“The US EPA’s assessment completely ignores the devastating impacts a hazardous waste landfill would have on the culture, traditions, health and spiritual-well being of O’odham people, including those who are US citizens, for whom Quitovac is an extremely important sacred site that is central to their beliefs and spirituality.”

In its opposition to the dump, the Tohono O’odham Nation questioned the impact on community water wells in Quitovac, Las Norias and other O’odham communities in Sonora and expressed concerns over design, processing and pollution.

The US EPA, in its final assessment, said the government of Mexico should mitigate concerns with the Tohono O’odham Nation.   The US EPA said Mexico should also consider the effect on migratory birds, especially storks that could be attracted to the hazardous waste dump ponds.

Although CEGIR’s plan does not allow for radioactive or nuclear waste to be dumped at the proposed site, O’odham point out that there is minimal, if any, actual federal inspection and control of hazardous waste dump sites in Mexico.

O’odham and Greenaction said, “Both the Tohono O’odham tribal government and grassroots tribal members including traditional and ceremony leaders have made it clear to the US EPA, verbally and in writing, that the building of a hazardous waste facility near the sacred site of Quitovac would be devastating and unacceptable.

“The US EPA has clearly ignored this information from the O’odham Nation and tribal members, as their assessment merely mentions that Quitovac has cultural importance. The EPA’s assessment fails to even mention that they have received significant information from representatives of the O’odham traditional and ceremony leaders, even though this information was given directly to the EPA by O’odham leaders.

“Impacts on Quitovac would impact O’odham who are US citizens in numerous horrible ways, and the US EPA’s assessment should have emphasized this and upheld this view. The negative impacts on the O’odham cannot be mitigated, and the proposed landfill must be sited in a different, safer and more appropriate location with improvements in its design and operational plan. The US EPA’s environmental justice and trust responsibilities have been violated once again,” O’odham and Greenaction said. 

“We call on the US EPA to amend its assessment to accurately reflect all the impacts on the U.S. from the proposed landfill in Mexico, including all the sacred site, cultural, spiritual, health and environmental impacts that have been brought to the EPA’s attention.”