AKWESASNE — Reversal of damage, stewardship and a return to traditional Indian activities are priorities to environmental professionals on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation.
Tony David, program manager for water resources in the Environmental Division of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, spoke during Raquette River Awareness Week, which promotes cleanup, protection and increased recreational use of the 174-mile-long river.
Activities listed on www.raquetteriver.com continue throughout the week in Tupper Lake, Long Lake, Colton and Potsdam and are sponsored by the Raquette River Blueway Corridor Committee.
SENSITIVE RIVER USE
David said his agency has the authority to enforce the federal Clean Water Act regulations and water-quality standards to business, commercial and private sites on the reservation.
Much of the time that the 30 to 35 Environmental Division staff members log involves permitting for water discharge at construction sites, erosion control and storm-water runoff, all of which relate to improving the rivers and restoring sensitive and sensible river use.
"Our main concern is making sure they are not impacting the surroundings and their neighbors," David said. "Our next goal is to monitor nutrients and to control those."
That includes runoff from farms using chemicals and other potentially harmful practices.
"Sedimentation is a pollutant, too," he said.
INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION
The largest problem has been the converging environmental risks from the former General Motor plant, the former Reynolds Metals plant and Alcoa.
They threaten not only the Raquette River but the St. Regis, the Salmon and the Grasse rivers, all of which flow into Indian territory and St. Lawrence River.
GM used polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) in its die-casting operations from 1959 to 1980 and agreed to clean up the contaminated soil and lagoons in 1990 and again in 1992.
An unlined underground landfill remains on the GM site, David said.
DREDGING
A pilot project to cap the PCB-laden sites failed after two years, which led the Tribal Council to select dredging as the best way to eliminate the contamination.
"There persists bio-cumulative toxins of concern," David said. "PCBs don't degrade, so the tribe chose removal to a properly permitted landfill."
He said PBCs are stirred up and resurface during the dredging, "but a cap is not a permanent solution."
Even though GM has closed its plant and Alcoa has purchased the Reynolds factory, the companies have signed executive orders agreeing to clean up the contaminated sites, David said.
E-mail Denise A. Raymo at: draymo@pressrepublican.com
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