Ross, Susan --- "Learning About Survival from Survivors: Mohawk Environmental Communicative Action" [1995] MurdochUeJlLaw 10; (1995) 2(1) Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law

LEARNING ABOUT SURVIVAL FROM SURVIVORS - MOHAWK ENVIRONMENTAL  COMMUNICATIVE ACTION

Author:	Susan Ross Technical Communications Department, Clarkson University
Issue:	Volume 2, Number 1 (April 1995)

The way we define goals sets parameters for what we can expect to achieve. To some of us, for example, it is unclear whether the term "justice" is adequate to convey what is being sought for Earth within the so-called "environmental justice" movement. Various studies (e.g., United Church of Christ, 1987; Hornstein, 1992) suggest that "environmental justice," means fairness (equity) in distributing the benefits and costs of environmental protection policy across our population. However, as Hornstein (1992) indicates, determining the "value" of environmental policy has been and remains a source of controversy. Near one pole of a continuum concerning how such cost/benefit analyses should be done are those who support quantitative "comparative risk analysis." Near the other pole are those who use "absolutist" qualitative criteria insisting that no life should be sacrificed for progress or other, abstract gain. As Hornstein observes, further, various positions along this continuum are reflected in our existing body of environmental law and complicate deliberations in decisionmaking fora.

Still, I believe it may be necessary to further complicate an already complicated debate. For, as various scholars, following Carol Gilligan (1982), have noted (e.g. Benhabib, 1989; Ross 1994) the term "justice" seems not to encapsulate all the human values desirable to secure through public policymaking. Other ethical values are better captured under the terms "care" or "responsibility." Gilligan (1987) notes that the core idea of "justice" is that society should treat everyone fairly, but the core idea of "care" is to abandon no one in need (20). Guided by that distinction, it is easy to envision environmental policy that would be arguably "just" but arguably "irresponsible."

For example, in one environmental controversy involving the Mohawks, a landfill site selection process, a St Lawrence County official in New York State used an "equity argument," saying:

     The Mohawks also generate waste and they should be      treated the same as the rest of the residents of the      county. We all produce waste....(Mende, 1993b, 13).

However, Mohawk sub-chief Hilda Smoke, viewed building the landfill as so potentially dangerous that it could be construed as an intentional act of attempted genocide. She said:

     All my great great grandchildren will die from it. I'll      be gone. How will I protect them? I think you're putting      the landfill next to us so you can genocide us again"      (Reagen, 1).

Any pursuit of environmental justice that subsumes within its value structure, however tacitly, the "responsibility perspective" needs to work for reform of environmental policymaking communicative processes and practices to more often bring value conflicts such as this one into open forums. Such reform will, however, not be easy to accomplish. On one hand, the complexity of qualitative criteria and unwillingness to totally subjugate choice or free will to protection can result in dilemmas that delay environmental policy making. On the other hand, while the option of reifying through enumeration promises managable simplicity, adequately complex modeling (if feasible) might achieve reification without simplification. (See Hornstein, 1992, page 617.)

Still, this difficult task is well worth our best efforts. Environmental justice is not just something dominant, privileged cultures should bestow upon oppressed and silenced cultures and co-cultures for altruistic reasons. Environmental justice can improve humanity's chances of survival. By welcoming to environmental policy making forums voices that are often silenced or disregarded in current practice, we can form mutually advantageous partnerships to develop responsible, sustainable policies for environmental protection.

In seeking to support those claims, this essay focuses on the ethical values of maintaining or restoring ecological balance that guide Mohawk attempts to influence environmental policy making in and around the Akwesasne reserve that borders on New York State. More specifically, it uses two cases in which Mohawks sought to influence policy making in public debates with their neighbors in St. Lawrence County, New York -- debates that were conducted under the authority of New York State and United States government agencies and, therefore, constrained by the regulations established by and for those agencies.

The first controversy, surrounded development of a plan to clean up a Superfund Site along the St. Lawrence River where hazardous industrial waste, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), had polluted a section of the river near a General Motors plant and bordering on the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve. The second controvery was over selection of a solid waste landfill site for St. Lawrence County, New York. Most Mohawks entered this debate only after the county's Solid Waste Disposal Authority designated a site less than one mile from Akwesasne as the "preferred site" for the landfill.

At a seminar concerning current social justice concerns of indigenous women, the seminar leader, Rayna Green1, observed that European-Americans still look at indigenous peoples as "objects" for study, and become interested in indigenous traditional practices only when those practices look like ways to "fix" their own society.  Listening to Green, I thought she was implying "fix their own society and continue to oppress ours."

However, I believe my recent studies of the potential contribution of Mohawk environmental and communication ethics to just and responsible reform of environmental policy making are exceptions. Still, the mutually advantageous outcomes that such reform could produce would fail to come to fruition if reform were implemented in a discriminatory way (benefitting only communities inhabited mainly by members of the privileged, dominant culture).

This essay is better understood within the context of my program of Technical Communication research, related to environmental policy making, that began in the late 1980s. In 1990, with Bill Karis, I published the first essay resulting from this research, "Communicating in Public Policy Matters: Addressing the Problem of Non-Congruent Sites of Discourse."2 That essay: (a) formulated a construct, "non- congruent sites of discourse," to explain forums for public debate in which participants from a variety of professions (e.g. law, administrative government, engineering) -- as well as the general public -- bring conflicting values and expectations to the deliberations, and (b) analyzed cases of environmental policy making affected by such non-congruent sites. We concluded that field-specific conventions of specialists should give way to ethical argument in such situations and, therefore, specialists (such as engineers) need training in how to participate in ethical debate.

A second essay, "High Risk Technologies, Ethical Argument and Engineers in Training"3: (a) further refines our theoretical construct, "non-congruent sites of discourse;" (b) discusses, guided by Habermas, how and why our forums for public debate may have become non-congruent sites; and (c) speculates on an alternative vision for public deliberation of ethical issues, essentially Habermas' model of communicative action. This discussion is then used to make a case for including instruction in ethical argument in the undergraduate education of engineers-in-training who, as professional engineers, will participate in public debate related to the use of technologies, including high risk technologies.

Next, I monitored the two environmental controversies described above, primarily through reports in the local press. Those case studies have, in turn, resulted in several essays and presentations. For example, one published essay4, based on the Superfund site case: (a) explores how alternative world views affect environmental remediation efforts, (b) demonstrates how important it is for scholars and others who understand principles of intercultural communication to become involved in environmental policy making, and (c) develops a feminist perspective on how communicative practices in environmental policy making should be reformed. More specifically, I envision an alternative to current environmental policy making -- in which long term, ecologically responsible solutions that result from egalitarian debate would be favored over short term interventions that are imposed through bureaucratic mandate and predicated upon economically and politically shaped models of science.

Other works based on these case studies look at them in the light of risk communication literature, traditional Mohawk communication ethics and practices5, and most recently, in a study coauthored by Thomas R. Flynn6, a Burkean comparison and contrast between three approaches to environmental debate (Mohawk, Critical, and current EPA practice).

This essay seeks to demonstrate -- using examples from Mohawk contributions to both debates -- that Mohawk criteria for environmental policy making (maintenance or restoration of ecological balance through long-term responsible care) offer a valuable template in pursuit of a sustainable future for humanity on earth. To that end, I rely on three kinds of data: examples from my case studies, published work related to environmental justice, and explorations of related topics by indigenous scholar-activists7. First, however, in the following section, the two cases are summarized.

CASE ONE

REMEDIATION EFFORTS AT A ST LAWRENCE RIVER SUPERFUND SITE      

In 1990, a front page article in the Wall Street Journal read, in part:

     The building of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1950s      gouged out the [Mohawks' long-time] fishing grounds and      changed a way of life forever. The new channel and cheap      hydroelectric power induced GM, Reynolds and ... Canadian      companies to build shoreline factories [joining] Alcoa,      which had long had a plant on ... a St. Lawrence      Tributary.... With environmental law enforcement still      primitive, the Mohawks' corporate neighbors poured      industrial wastes into riverside lagoons and landfills      and sometimes the river itself (Tomsho, 1990, A1).

Because hazardous industrial waste, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), had polluted a section of the river near a General Motors plant, in 1983 the Environmental Protection Agency added the GM site to its Superfund cleanup list, a list of sites where the danger to public health from pollution warranted highest priority in developing and implementing clean-up plans. According to a draft report of a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation study of wildlife contamination (done as a part of the Health Risk Assessment [HRA] for this project):

     Since the fall of 1958, General Motors      Corporation/Central Foundry Division has operated an      aluminum casting plant for production of auto parts on      the shores of the St. Lawrence River east of Massena, New      York. Die-casting machines installed in 1968 initially      utilized hydraulic fluids containing polychlorinated      biphenyls (PCBs); these fluids were replaced with non-PCB      fluids in 1973, but residual PCB contamination (>50 ppm)      remained until 1980 when the hydraulic fluid reservoirs      were twice flushed and refilled (Stone, Jock, and      Gradoni, 1991, 3).       These activities were implicated, through studies of spatial relationships between the plant and especially high contamination levels of sampled fish and wildlife, in causing contamination of the Mohawks' traditional food supply, also described in the HRA draft, cited above. For example, PCBs in excess of the 2.0 ppm tolerance established by the U.S. FDA for edible fish flesh led to health advisories and regulation of interstate commerce. (Stone, Jock, and Gradoni, 4)       Mohawks who lived on the Akwesasne ("land where the partridge drums") reserve along the river, lost access to both dietary staples and a means of livelihood (commercial fishing) because of the pollution. Women of childbearing age and children were advised to stop eating the fish.  Akwesasne residents were warned to avoid tomatos and lettuce from their own gardens. Interstate markets were closed to Mohawk commercial fisheries (Tomsho, 1990, A1).

Furthermore, when a snapping turtle was found on the reservation with 835 parts per million PCBs in its fat it represented a blasphemous outrage to the Mohawk, in light of the Iroquois tradition that the entire earth is built on the back of a turtle.  However, as a colleague and I have noted elsewhere (Ross and Karis, 1991, 250) while this could be recorded in official reports as "bioconcentration," there was no place to acknowledge the deep cultural outrage. (The "turtle island" tradition is discussed in detail in Bruchac, 1991 and its relationship to this case in Ross, 1994).

As noted earlier, Mohawks lost access to dietary staples and because of the pollution.  The potential danger to unborn and infant children if pregnant or nursing mothers ate PCB- contaminated fish was of particular concern to the Mohawks, under the leadership of Katsi Cook, a traditional midwife who is also described (Martin, 1992, 1) a scientist at the State University of New York. Previous studies indicated that high levels of PCBs in mothers "can cause subtle neurological problems at the time of birth [and] babies who are born with less muscle tone than expected for newborns" (Martin, 1992, p. 1-2).  Therefore, Cook initiated (and is listed as an author of) a breast milk study. As discussed in the introduction to a draft report of that study:

     This study to investigate levels of PCBs and other      chemicals in the milk of Mohawk women from      Akwesasne....was initiated at the request of Katsi Cook,      a Mohawk Midwife. She was concerned that breast-fed      infants at Akwesasne may be at high risk of exposure to      these chemicals, since such compounds are present in      relatively high concentrations in environmental, fish,      and wildlife samples [gathered in conjunction with other      parts of this health risk assessment] (Fitzgerald, Hwang      Brix, Bush, Quinn, and Cook, 1992, v).       The study involved analyzing: a) a sample of breast milk and b) answers to interview questions concerning demographic characteristics, lifestyle factors, and reproductive and dietary histories. The first results of that study indicate that the Native American mothers' levels of PCBs were not higher than the levels of mothers in a control group. Researchers also discovered that local fish consumption had declined significantly since the community had been warned about the dangers to babies from PCB-contaminated fish.

When the breast milk study was released to the press, participants issued a statement that stressed the dietary change they had made:

     Our traditional lifestyle has been completely disrupted      and we have been forced to make choices to protect our      future generations. We feel anger at not being able to      eat the fish.  Although we are relieved that our      responsible choices at present protect our babies, this      does not preclude corporate responsibility [of industries      along the river] to clean up the site (Martin, 1992, 2).

Midwife-scientist Cook also spoke to the local daily newspaper when the study was released. She commented:

     The [Mohawk] mothers were relieved to hear our levels      were not higher than the control group. But they did send      a strong message that we need remediation to protect our      future generations (2).       She explained that women have had to change their diets and native lifestyles to protect their infants and then said:

They expressed anger at always being the one to have to make adaptations. We have a human right to have access to our environment and the natural resources within it (2).

Later in the article these mothers, as well one of the scientists who conducted the study and a tribal environmentalist, reiterated their concern that the results of the study would be interpreted as showing that there is no need for the polluting companies to clean up the river because the mothers' "voluntary" dietary changes prevented potential harm.  And, indeed, the final remedy selected by the EPA to clean up the site was less than the Mohawks wanted.

The EPA split the clean up into two parts. The first part of the clean up was consistent with the Mohawk's wishes, but the second part fell significantly short of what they wanted.

In a December 1990 decision, the EPA decided that the first part of the cleanup should involve excavating and permanently treating contaminated sediments in the St. Lawrence River, contaminated sediments and soils on the Mohawk reserve, and contaminated soils in a disposal area on the site of the contaminating industry. The polluting company would be responsible for this cleanup.

However, on April 6, 1992, the EPA announced that the company would not have to excavate and de-contaminate the remainder of the site but could cover [the area] with five feet of soil and build an underground wall around it to separate it from the river (reportedly less than 30 feet away) and the native reserve. Homes on the reserve are reportedly within 1000 feet of the site (Akwesasne Task Force 1992, p. 8).

In reporting the decision, a Mohawk newsletter wrote, in an article entitled "EPA Sells Out Mother Earth:"

     Our traditional values teach us that we must respect      Mother Earth. As her youngest children we have a      responsibility not only to her but of caring for our      elder brothers and sisters, the animal and plant life. We      have a duty to look seven generations into the future to      ensure that our decisions will have no negative effects      on the seventh generation (p. 1).

After describing Mohawk obligations to Mother Earth, the article describes the EPA approach to studying a hazardous waste site and deciding what remedial action to take at the site as follows:

     When EPA studies a hazardous waste site, they examine the      health impacts on people (Health Risk Assessments),      determine how the contamination is impacting the      bloodlines (groundwater and surface water) of Mother      Earth, and how our brothers and sisters (animal and plant      life) are being impacted through fish and wildlife      studies (p. 1).

    However, when it comes time to make a decision on      cleaning up a hazardous waste site, cost becomes more      important than the environment. Risk is calculated, not      on the future, but on the number of cancer deaths. Animal      and plant life are considered expendable as long as      society progresses.... (1).

The report goes on to argue, using the literal criterion of "cancer risk" in a poignant metaphorical way:

     Covering up these contaminated areas means we are willing      to leave a cancer on our Mother Earth.... A permanent      cleanup brings short term risks during the actual      cleanup. However, once the cancerous lumps are removed,      Mother Earth will become healthy again and the plant and      animal life will recover from the poisoning that they      have been subjected to for the past thirty years. The      seventh generation can look back on their ancestors and      recognize that they have fulfilled their obligations as      set out by the Creator.

    The Creator made people physically the weakest of      Mother Earth's children. However, we have been given an      intellectual capacity to compensate for this weakness.      When we don't use it or don't use it wisely, then we are      selling out Mother Earth and ourselves. EPA isn't using      it wisely (p.1).

In November 1994, I received updated information on this case during a presentation made by Katsi Cook during a campus Convocation entitled Indigenous Peoples, Ecology, and Development.9 Reportedly (Cook, 1994) the EPA cleanup attempt has been halted because "the silt nets broke" and the future of the cleanup is in doubt until the Superfund legislation is reauthorized. Her interpretation was that Congress concentrated on health care reform rather than Superfund this past session. She expressed hope that Superfund, in some [improved] form would be reauthorized this coming year but was unsure of the impact the November, 1994 Congressional elections would have upon the legislation.

However, Cook also described the mandate that various federal agencies have to fund work in pursuit of environmental justice. She, herself, is project director and principal researcher for one of three major grants awarded under that mandate this year by the National Institute of Health Sciences. Her work will focus primarily upon the Akwesasne community and extend the work begun with the breast milk study discussed earlier. Entitled, I believe, "The First Environment Akwesasne Community Communication Project," it seeks to improve health care on the reserve, focusing especially upon maternal and infant health through training primary caregivers and conducting community health information campaigns. First, however, needs assessment is being conducted using focus group methodology. Four years of funding has been granted, although year-to-year authorization for disbursement will be needed.

In reporting her award to the campus audience, Cook pointed with pride and some surprise to that fact that two of the three grants awarded were to Native American projects. However, as I will discuss later, while exploring the relationship between these cases and classic literature in the environmental justice movement, I think indigenous people are uniquely positioned to take leadership roles in the movement. (See page 27.)

Still, not only Native Americans but all other so-called "racial and ethnic residents" of the United States, the study found, were significantly more likely to live in communities with commercial hazardous waste facilities and their children, consequently, more at risk.

One criticism I have of the United Church of Christ study -- which remains extremely valuable, overall -- is its implied "ignorance defense" of "Americans" as recently as "a decade" before the study. Knowledge of harm was available to the people from several sources prior to the 1980's. Certainly Rachel Carson's 1962 book, Silent Spring (which I was assigned in high school in 1965) was a source of such knowledge. Indeed, in the Vermont village to which I moved from a similar sized village in New York in 1963, there was a river known to my teenaged friends and my sister's pre-teen friends as the "Polluted Passumpsic." When my sister and I, as newcomers to the community, were observed to be fishing in the river, we were quickly "filled in" by age-mates concerning the river's status. We were told that no one fished, swam, or even waded in the river because of the "pollution."

Even more significant to this essay, local ecological knowledge was available to Americans from various "millenial indigenous communities" (Barriero, 1994) that still dot (and often claim sovereignty) within the United States. Disregard for this knowledge, and the world view it represents, has been a source of frustration among indigenous peoples and this frustration has sometimes lead to strongly stated verbal confrontation, as in Russell Means' 1980 speech at the Black Hills International Survival Gathering, entitled (upon its publication in Mother Jones magazine) "For the World to Live, 'Europe' must die."       In that speech, after depicting the "European materialist tradition," with its central motive of "gain," Means said:

 There is another way.... It is the way that knows

that humans do not have the right to degrade Mother

 Earth, that there are forces beyond anything the

 European mind has conceived that humans must be in

 harmony with [--] all relations [--] or the

 relations will eventually eliminate the

 disharmony....

It is the role of American Indian peoples, the

 role of all natural beings, to survive. A part of

 our survival is to resist. We resist.... because it

 is natural to resist extermination, to survive.

 (Means, 1980, as reprinted in Burke, 1992, 60-61,

 emphasis added).

I use this speech to introduce a second criticism I have of the UCC study, its "victimization defense" of "racial and ethnic persons" for "marginal involvement" in "efforts to address hazardous wastes and the environment"(6).  That "defense" notes that "rising unemployment, increasing poverty, worsening housing and declining education and health status" as well as the civil rights movement have not given "racial and ethnic communities....the luxury about the quality of their environment...."(6).

My point is not to deny that these problems exist but to note that, from the perspective of at least some peoples indigenous to this continent, they are "environmental" problems. In addition, I am concerned about the lumping together of all "racial and ethnic communities" and depicting "survival" from the perspective of the "materialist" or "gain" culture. Unassimilated indigenous peoples, while still oppressed, are in some ways quite different from other "racial and ethnic communities." Those still ecosystemically related to their traditional home lands, for example, are different from African-Americans uprooted from their home continents to serve the gain-motive of the market economy. Their rootedness and ecological world view places them in an unusual position to take leadership roles in pursuit of environmental justice -- if they want to ally with that movement.

I think participation of boundary-spanning leaders such as Katsi Cook is a hopeful sign that such alliance is possible. However, as noted earlier, there is a deep suspicion within the indigenous population that European- Americans only turn to "Indians" to "fix" problems experienced by the dominant culture. In its extreme form, this suspicion becomes confrontational, as in Russell Means' already-cited speech, when he said: "We don't want power over white institutions; we want white institutions to disappear" (61).

It is possible, given the current and growing human population of Earth, that an industrial market economy is entirely incompatible with survival. I suspect, though, that alliances of scientific ingenuity and indigenous wisdom could be synergistic. Still, such alliances are likely to be resisted by unassimilated indigenous communities who see no benefit from contact with the dominant culture. That is why I think that any environmental justice movement that would benefit from indigenous wisdom will have to at least tacitly -- and preferably explicitly -- incorporate the ethics of responsible care and ecological balance into its value system. And why I think current environmental policy making should be reformed to foster potentially synergistic alliances rather than perpetuating exclusion, suspicion, and animosity.

The latter argument is, I think, at least indirectly supported by Donald Hornstein's analysis of problems in environmental law, discussed in the following section. "Reclaiming Environmental Law"

n reading Hornstein's study, I came across a claim that captures the essence of my approach to just and responsible environmental policy and choice: "Environmental law... must be able to reflect and define our values and not simply count how many of us will suffer" (593).

Others, from diverse traditions critical of mainstream U.S. administrative law, have pointed out the potentially reifying (treating living beings the same as inanimate objects) effects of privileging quantitatively based science (e.g. Jurgen Habermas, Russell Means, Jose Barriero). Colleagues and I have commented upon the works of Habermas elsewhere (Ross, 1992; Flynn and Ross, 1993; Ross, 1994; Ross and Flynn, 1994). Here, I will juxtapose Hornstein's analysis with that of indigenous voices -- again, using my case studies as templates.

In the speech by Russell Means, cited earlier, he said that Newton, Descartes, John Locke and Adam Smith "each .... took a piece of the spirituality of human existence and converted it into a code, an abstraction" (55).

A similar argument was recently made at a campus convocation by Jose Barriero, a writer and the editor of the Akwe:kon Press ("all of us") press at Cornell University. He referred to indigenous people as "ecosystemic" in world view and the dominant "industrial-world market" economy as biospheric. The former term, as he used it, connotes "being" (in the sense Means used it) in a balanced relationship with all life on Earth; the latter, using the earth's resources to progress and to "gain" in the industrial-world market economy. Gain is measured quantitatively.

Essentially, as I think my indigenous guides and Hornstein would agree, when rich social and natural relationships begin to be reduced to numbers, a slippery slope effect may ensue whereby only that which may be counted (quantified) "counts" (is taken into consideration). This is seen in the Superfund Case example in which EPA criteria allowed recording of bioconcentration of PCBs in a turtle but not of the spiritual-cultural outrage that contamination represented.       In the landfill case, an ally of the Mohawks, Joyce Ensinger, a woman of European-American origins, put the argument powerfully. She said that she understands the task- orientation of county officials (in attempting to find a landfill site) but argues that people's value-related arguments shouldn't be reduced to mere "statistics:"

     We're not a statistic. I understand this site was the      result of a methodical investigation. SWDA [Solid Waste      Disposal Authority] was set up to find a ... landfill. I      understand their position.  They are doing their job.      (Martin 1993, 1).

But, as the same newspaper article reported:

     [Ensinger] remains convinced that human factors should      play a role in the legislature's decision.  The      legislators should make an effort to come out [and] look      at the site and walk around. I don't think we should be      just a statistic (Martin 1993, 1).       However, one "benefit" of statistical modelling is its cloak of objectivity. Public opposition becomes just another "factor" to consider or disregard. However, this kind of "objectivity" on the part of the mainstream dominant culture tends to trigger strong resistance from indigenous peoples -- resistance that can be expected to undermine the potential for forming synergistic, intercultural, problem-solving alliances. For, "objectivity" is seen as "objectification." Russell Means (1980) expressed this sentiment in observing that the same process is used to mentally dehumanize the enemy in war ("body count" mentality) or to despiritualize the universe (56). In either case, an arrogant "domination" attitude toward a false-other emerges, an imbalance intolerable to the powers of nature, as perceived in American Indian cosmology.

 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPNPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

This essay represents my first attempt to reframe my environmental communication research program in terms of environmental justice literature. As a result of the juxtaposition of my descriptive and theoretical work with two important environmental justice studies, I think some of my work, especially that involving of non-congruent sites of discourse and the affects of alternative worldviews on environmental policymaking promise to help fill needs of the movement. In addition, I have gleaned from the literature several insights that can provide guidance for future work, for example:

1. Quantitative and Qualitative need not be in opposition but    can be complementary. Quantitative analysis can uncover    inequities, as did the United Church of Christ study;    qualitative analysis, however, is more useful in    understanding cultural bases for inequities.

2. As aggregating risks in comparative risk analysis can set    up the illusion of meaningful choice and perpetuate a bias    against fundamental change (Hornstein), so can ethnocentric    qualitative definitions of environmental norms.

3. We are approaching a critical moment of choice in terms of    United States environmental justice. Just as environmental    equity mandates are benefitting us by making it possible to    act upon some of the recommendations of the United Church    of Christ study, the Superfund reauthorization process may    result in the loss of recent gains participatory    decisionmaking -- if legislators are convinced to put their    faith in the statistical methods and computer modelling    used in Comparative Risk Analysis to the exclusion of human    value judgements concerning just and responsible    environmental policy.

 NOTES

1 Rayna Green (Cherokee) has a Ph.D. in Folklore and American Studies from Indiana University and has served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, Project Director for the National Native American Science Resource Center, and as a consultant to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

2 "Communicating in Public Policy Matters: Addressing the Problem of Non-congruent Sites of Discourse." (Susan M. Ross and Bill Karis) IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 34, 4, 1991, 247-254.

3 "High Risk Technologies, Ethical Argument, and Engineers- in-Training;" In Discussion Group Proceedings of Second National Communication Ethics Conference. Compiler: Jim Jaksa. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan U., 1992. Also revised for forthcoming edited book : Also revised for forthcoming edited book: Ethical Issues in Business, Industry and the Professions; Jim Jaksa and Michael Pritchard, editors; Hampton Press: In press.

4 "A Feminist Perspective on Technical Communicative Action: Exploring How Alternative Worldviews Affect Environmental Remediation Efforts." Technical Communication Quarterly, 3 (1994): 325-342.

5 Mothers' Milk, Sacred Turtles, and the Seventh Generation: Mohawk Rhetoric and an EPA Remedial Action Plan. Presented at the Eastern Communication Association Convention, New Haven, April, 1993. Revised and expanded as: "Two Rivers, Two Vessels; Environmental Problem Solving in an Intercultural Context." (The revised version is under consideration for an edited volume.)

6 Three Approaches to Environmental Debate: Summary and Analysis (Susan Mallon Ross and Thomas R. Flynn). Presented at the New York State Speech Communication Association Convention, Syracuse, New York, October, 1994.

7  Among my main indigenous sources -- whose assistance I wish to acknowledge in a special way-- are Jose Barriero and Katsi Cook, of Cornell University and the First Environment Project, respectively, who visited my university in early November for a convocation on indigeous peoples, ecology and development.

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Lanphear, M. (1993b, April 9). Mohawks to battle landfill at       session.  Watertown Daily Times, 25.

Lanphear, M. (1993c, June 22). Tribal council's attorney says       county violated state rules.  Watertown Daily Times, 27.

Martin, R. (1992, May 14). Mohawk breast milk said safe. Daily      Courier-Observer, 1-2.

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Mende, S. (1993c, June 17) Director: Deal is "win-win" situation.      Daily Courier-Observer, 2.

Mende, S. (1993d, July 21 ) County landfill cheaper than Rodman.      Daily Courier-Observer, 1.

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Webb, S. (1993b, July 18). Estimates from St. Lawrence using DANC landfill unchanged. Watertown Daily Times, B2.