ALASKA'S BIG VILLAGE NETWORK is a proud member of
Change Oil Spill Response Global Alliance
http://protectmarinelifenow.org/alaska-alliance
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http://protectmarinelifenow.org/alaska-alliance
The
Alaska Regional Response Team (ARRT),
consisting of federal and state agency officials responsible for
protecting and safeguarding Alaskan lands and waters, is ready to give
the green light to chemical dispersant preauthorization plans that were
presented at their May 22 meeting in Valdez, Alaska.
Fearing the ARRT’s dispersant plan approval, Alaskan groups and tribes led by the
Alaska Inter-Tribal Council (AITC)
have begun enacting statewide, legally binding tribal resolutions
opposing the use of chemical dispersant substances in oil spill
contingency planning throughout Alaska. With more than 200 indigenous
tribes living in remote wilderness, many without grocery stores, and,
who have no direct representation at the ARRT table, a decision to
apply
chemical dispersants to mitigate oil spills has untenable trade-offs
impacting their fisheries and polluting their food and water sources.
While this tribal feud with
federal agencies has been going on for years, the AITC has joined forces with the
Lawrence Anthony Earth Organization. This coalition is a newly-formed regional partnership for Alaska and part of LAEO’s
Change Oil Spill Response (COSR) Global Alliance initiative.
The AITC coalition of Alaskan tribal representatives and groups now formed as the Change Oil Spill Response Global Alliance Delegation
prepared documentation and scientific studies supporting the complete
elimination of chemical dispersants in Alaskan spill response. They have
delivered 18 Tribal Council resolutions currently in hand to the
committee co-chairs: Mr. Mark Everett, U.S. Coast Guard, and Chris
Field, EPA Coordinator.
Chief Michael Stickman of Nulato, International Chair of the
Arctic Athabascan Council and a leading member of a newly established
Arctic Council Task Force working to substantially improve procedures for combating oil spills in the Arctic, endorsed the Alliance formation stating:
“Committing
to clean up oil spills after they happen is insufficient. Precaution
and nation-to-nation Tribal Government Consultation and free, prior,
informed consent must be enacted before hasty implementation of a policy
of pre-authorizing toxic chemical dispersants substances in oil spill contingency planning.
Why have less toxic bioremediation methods with a 20-year track record
of effectiveness been ignored by the Alaska inter-agency Regional
Response Team?”
Consolidated Alaskan Tribes have a straightforward demand — they require
clean water
and healthy fisheries, which are critical to their survival as people
living in an arctic environment. Tribes have treaty rights as sovereign
nations and have considerable authority over what affects their ability
to hunt, fish and sustain their lifestyles as Native Americans.
LAEO’s Science and
Technology Advisory Board released a 44-page position paper last month
outlining an entirely new approach to oil spill problems associated with
drilling, transport, pipelines, and storage mishaps, entitled A Call for a Twenty-First-Century SOLUTION in Oil Spill Response.
The Alaska Inter-Tribal Council requested LAEO’s assistance and are
now using their materials to educate tribal governments and communities
on the chemical dispersant issue throughout Alaska. Many tribes are in
remote locations, not connected to broadband and have little to no
representation for protecting fishing, hunting, gathering and bartering
interests. Tribes and Coastal communities are disproportionately
impacted by federal, and state decision makers who gift to outside
multi-national corporations large entitlements and easy access to
Alaska’s waters, land, air and salmon streams often ignoring
pre-existing rights of indigenous Alaskans and other citizens.
Read and Download Documentation from the Alaska Alliance.
http://protectmarinelifenow.org/alaska-alliance
http://protectmarinelifenow.org/
Please send this
communication to anyone you know who is able to reach Oil & Gas Industry
Leaders, EPA and other agency officials at Fed, State levels responsible for
Environmental Health, Quality and Protection.
Outdated
science and bureaucracy is standing in the way of a clean Gulf of Mexico,
Alaska and thousands of other toxic spill sites throughout Earth’s lands and
waters. Many members of the US EPA,
interagency response community and industry professionals do care and are
looking for a better way forward, we want to help.
The
Science & Technology Advisory Board of the Lawrence Anthony Earth
Organization (LAEO) has just published a significant position paper entitled A Call for a Twenty-First-Century Solution in Oil Spill
Response.
The goal of this effort is to get safe, non-toxic, cost-effective, oil-spill response plans
adopted for all future incidents in U.S. navigable waters and around the world.
The
material contained in this analysis and guide is a constructive offering for oil
and energy industry professionals and every oil-producing nation in the world to
better manage potentially contaminated ecosystems. The work brings a new
analysis and assessment of oil-spill response and offers effective alternative technologies for replacing dispersant
chemical application in an oil spill or deep-water drilling crisis like the
2010 BP blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It contains
guidelines for the selection process for cleanup agents, along with an
evaluation process (evaluating toxicity, effectiveness, speed, and cost) that
can be used to grade potential effectiveness of cleanup agents being considered
for removing spilled oil from the environment.
Alongside
publishing this paper, LAEO has launched a government and public education
awareness campaign. The campaign, headquartered at www.protectmarinelifenow.org seeks to bring critically important reforms to oil spill
cleanup guidelines to improve response methodology for protecting marine and
wildlife, sensitive habitats and human health.
Tax
payers, oil companies and their shareholders and many other stakeholders stand
to save billions of dollars in cleanup costs as well as irreparable damages of
natural resources, secondary remediation and litigation costs.
We recommend that your first step in the education process
would be for you to read the Overview.
If you
agree with the position we lay out in these documents please contact me to join
the Change Oil Spill Response Global
Alliance to help in this effort to open
the worldwide industry discussion and build a consensus for safe, non-toxic, efficient,
lower-cost, oil-spill response methods.
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What can you do?
Help educate others, forward these links.
Thank
you!
http://protectmarinelifenow.org/alaska-alliance
