Water Walks on #International Women's Day

Perhaps all of us should take a moment and remember that, were it not for women in our lives, we wouldn't be here. We want to acknowledge on International Women's Day the Water Walks led by Anishinaabe Grandmothers, especially the St. Louis River walk in 2014. The Grandmothers tell us:

In Anishinaabe religion prophecies were given before contact with light skinned people. The prophecies state that when the world has been befouled and the waters turned bitter by disrespect, human beings will have two options to choose from: materialism or spirituality. If they chose spirituality, they would survive, but if they chose materialism, that choice would be the end of humanity (“The Seven Fires Prophecy”). We choose spirituality and duality with all people who now live on Turtle Island, regardless of their ancestry. We unite with others and walk towards love and a better future for our grandchildren.

St. Louis River, downstream of proposed PolyMet project

Photo by J. Harrington

We are coming, more and more, to realize the truth of those prophecies. We will never be able to afford enough police, lawyers and judges to assure clean water for our survival if we only rely on people and legal persons doing what is legal rather than what is right. Legal requirements have been too little, too late, to keep aquatic invasive species out of the Great Lakes and many of Minnesota's fresh waters. Agriculture is mostly exempt from the legal requirements to treat water it pollutes, unlike manufacturers and cities. Many smaller cities claim they can't afford to provide higher levels of treatment needed to protect those who consume water daily. Mining companies in Minnesota continue to seek reduced water quality standards, especially for sulfate. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, on page 43 of their Fact Sheet for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit for the proposed PolyMet project, states:

Sulfate and Copper Internal Performance Evaluation Point
As described above, MPCA has determined that there is no reasonable potential for sulfate or copper to cause or contribute to a violation of a water quality standard, and is not establishing a WQBEL for either parameter. However, PolyMet has proposed using sulfate and copper as indicator parameters for ongoing evaluation of the performance of the WWTS tailings basin seepage treatment train as explained in more detail in Application Volume I, Appendix D. By meeting its treatment targets for sulfate and copper, PolyMet will be able to assure that the discharge will have no reasonable potential for any parameters of potential concern. [emphasis added, WQBEL = Water Quality Based Effluent Limit]]

The proposed draft permit approach is certainly one way to avoid difficulty in meeting discharge permit limits, don't have any. We don't think this is what the Water Walkers had in mind when they claimed to choose spirituality, nor do we believe a discharge permit lacking permit limits for the discharge is likely to result in "... a better future for our grandchildren." We believe we need both a legal and a spiritual approach, not a spiritual choice instead of a legal requirement.

If we've managed to raise your concerns about the proposed draft permits, you can find the rest of the discharge permit drafts here, and additional material from Water Legacy here.

A water woman has no body

Lisa Ciccarello

Emptiness is a blessing:

it can’t be owned if it doesn’t exist.

*

My father said to bloom but never fruit—

a small trickle 

eating its way through stone.

*

I am one kind of alive:

I see everything the water sees.

I told you a turn was going to come 

& turn the tower did.

What are the master’s tools 

but a way to dismantle him.

*

Who will replace the blood of my mother in me—

a cold spring rising.

She told me a woman made of water 

can never crack.

Of her defeat, she said

this is nothing.

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