A delegation of Sivuqaq (also known as St. Lawrence Island) Yupik residents plan to lobby in Washington, D.C. the week of March 10-14 for removal of toxic wastes left by military installations that have caused serious harm to people and wildlife on their island home.
The Alaska Sivuqaq Yupik delegation of tribal and community leaders, youth, and elders – with staff of Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) – said they would be calling on policymakers in Washington, D.C. to hold the military and chemical industry accountable for violations of human rights. They said they will urge policy makers to assist in their community-based research and advocacy efforts to protect lands, water, and the health of present and future generations.
The delegation also had scheduled a news conference for March 12 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The speaker list includes Pam Miller, executive director of ACAT; Vi Waghiyi, environmental health and justice program director of ACAT; United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Juman Rights Marcos Orellana; and others.
“Arctic Indigenous peoples are suffering some of the highest exposures to toxic chemicals from military and long-range industrial sources,” said Waghiyi, a Yupik grandmother from Sivuqaq. “We continue to be harmed by the military contamination on our island and the accumulation of toxic chemicals in the arctic.”
Waghiyi was appointed by former President Joe Biden in April of 2021 to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council as a leader of the Global Indigenous Peoples Caucus, which advises the United Nation’s international delegates for treaties concerning persistent organic pollutants. Waghiyi frequently speaks locally, nationally and internationally on these issues.
Chemicals concentrating in the Arctic from long-range transport include pesticides such as aschlorpyrifos, industrial flame-retardant chemicals, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – known as PFAS, or forever chemicals.
Such chemicals are highly persistent and are carried north on atmospheric and oceanic currents from more southerly latitudes where they are manufactured, used, and disposed of.
“These chemicals are contaminating our traditional foods and affecting our health and the health of our children and future generations,” Waghiyi said.
Back in April 1951, the Savoonga Tribal Council on St. Lawrence Island granted the U.S. Air Force a land withdrawal for military use at Northeast Cape with clear conditions – including a provision that no refuse or garbage be dumped in streams or near the beach within the proposed area, since it would prove detrimental to the seal breeding grounds.
The delegation said that the Air Force and Army Corps of Engineers have violated this agreement, causing and perpetuating extensive hazardous contamination. Sivuqaq residents intend to re-establish the village at Northeast Cape but must first ensure the health and safety of the lands, waters, and traditional food sources prior to relocation, they said.
The military installed and later abandoned major facilities at Northeast Cape and Gambell with little or no consideration of the impact of their operations on the environment and health of the people, according to the delegation. Toxic contaminants were left uncontained by the Defense Department at these sites and continue to be released into the environment, they contend.
Research conducted by ACAT in collaboration with residents of the island has shown that the Yupik people of Sivuqaq have elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in blood serum that are six to nine times higher than the average levels of people living in the contiguous United States, due to global transport of PCBs into the Arctic. Those PCB levels are discernibly higher among the people who lived or worked at the military base at Northeast Cape, including cancers, thyroid diseases, miscarriages, low birth weight babies, and other reproductive health problems.
The delegation said they would request that the federal government re-open records of decision regarding these toxic materials and work to ensure health-protective cleanup and a comprehensive health study of the impacts of pollution on Sivuqaq residents. They also want the federal government to ensure that residents of the Northeast Cape currently displaced in Savoonga can return to the Northeast Cape and restore a thriving year-round community.
The delegation said they would urge the federal government to take swift measures to reduce fossil fuel production, chemicals and plastics manufacturing, and associated greenhouse gas emissions to protect communities of the Arctic from further harm associated with global warming.
They also plan to seek agreement for the federal government to ensure the implementation of legislation for ratification of the Stockholm Convention – the international, legally binding treaty on persistent organic pollutants.
U.S. participation and leadership are critical to the success of international efforts to eliminate the world’s most dangerous substances that threaten the north and Arctic, the delegation said.
