( – promoted by navajo)
Red Shirt Village — Residents of Red Shirt village on the northwest corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation have put up signs warning people of the high nuclear radiation levels found in the Cheyenne River.
Residents of the tiny community of Red Shirt on the south side of the Cheyenne River occupy a village site that is thousands of years old to the Oglala Tetuwan (Sioux) people. Many have lived here all of their lives, growing gardens with water taken from the Cheyenne River and fishing for catfish, bass, and turtles. In the summer months, the River is used for swimming and other recreational pursuits.
Earlier this summer Everitt Poor Thunder asked Defenders of the Black Hills, an environmental organization, whether the Cheyenne River water could be used to irrigate a community garden. A local well could not be used as it was found to be radioactive and warning signs surround that structure.
A water sample was taken, sent to a laboratory, and the results were found to be above the Environmental Protection Agency’s Maximum Contaminant Level for alpha radiation.
As alpha radiation can cause harm when ingested, the warning signs were placed to warn people of the dangers of nuclear radiation in the water.
Red Shirt village is located about 25 miles southeast of Hermosa, SD, on SD Highway 40.
For more information contact Charmaine White Face, Coordinator for Defenders of the Black Hills at 605-399-1868.
And so long as I am mentioning Charmaine:
PRESS RELEASE, 1 AUGUST 2007
From the Nuclear-Free Future Award, a project of the
Foundation for the Coming Generations, Munich, Germany
Email: info@nuclear-free.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Tel.: +49 89 28 65 97 14
Tel., Charmaine White Face: (605) 399-1868CHARMAINE WHITE FACE TO RECEIVE
NUCLEAR-FREE FUTURE RESISTANCE AWARD1 Aug. MUNICH-The Nuclear-Free Future Awards honors individuals, organizations and communities for their outstanding commitment towards creating a world freed from the threat of nuclear weapons and atomic energy. This year, the Award jury members – who include Johan Galtung (Norway), Val Kilmer (New Mexico), Chris Peters (California), Kirkpatrick Sale (Massachusetts), Galsan Tschinag (Ulan Bator), and Christine von Weizsäcker (Germany) – have selected Charmaine White Face to receive, endowed with a money purse of $10,000, the Nuclear-Free Future Award in the category of Resistance.
Educated as a biologist, Charmaine White Face is the moving spirit behind the Defenders of the Black Hills, an organization that monitors abandoned uranium mines on sacred Lakota Lands and seeks the remediation of hazardous waste ponds that contaminate the region with high levels of radium 226, arsenic, lead and iron. A central part of Ms White Face’s message is that not just the Lakota, but all of us are threatened: aquifers cover massive areas of the continent, rivers empty into one another, radioactive dust is carried by the wind, and toxic poisons in the soil nourish grass and feed crops that eventually work their way into the mainstream food chain.
Hosted by the Salzburg, Austria, state government, the 10th annual Awards ceremony will take place in the storied Salzburg Residenz on 18 October 2007. Based in Munich, the Nuclear-Free Future Award is a project of the Franz Moll Foundation for the Coming Generations. For more information, please visit www.nuclear-free.com.
Note: I received the information about the Cheyenne River from emails from Charmaine and the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center. An earlier, slightly different version can be found on the Defenders of the Black Hills website.
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