Testimony by
ROBERT SHIMEK
Special Projects Coordinator
Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)

USEPA Public Hearing on the Mercury Power Plant Rule 2mar04

[Proposed National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants; and, in the Alternative, Proposed Standards of Performance for New and Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Steam Generating Units; Proposed Rule: 40 CFR Parts 60 and 63 [OAR-2002-0056; FRL-7606-3]RIN 2060-AJ65

Chicago, Illinois

February 26, 2004

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts about the proposed rule for mercury emissions from coal burning power plants. I would like to begin by offering a story about an incident that happened to me on the White Earth Ojibwe reservation in Northern Minnesota in 1996. I was netting in the fall of the year with another reservation member, Winona LaDuke. We were fishing on Round Lake for tulibee, a fish commonly caught during that time of the year then smoked and consumed. Because of some problems associated with my fishing partner’s ability to keep up with the tremendous work-load involved with this kind of activity, I ended up firing her and getting a new fishing partner.

My new partner and I picked up my net and moved it to a new location on a different part of the lake. In this new location the tulibee fishing was good but in addition to the tulibees, we were catching anywhere from 1 – 3 large northern pike a day. We continued to fish in this location for about a week. When I say large northern pike, I’m talking about pike that were in the range of 12-20 lbs. in weight. As it turned out, my partner did not like northern pike, so I ended up with most of them. Now, its important to understand, I love fried northern pike! As we were getting all these fish, I was very jubilant and celebratory, knowing that I was going to be able to eat one of my favorite foods for an extended period of time.

So I proceeded to enjoy this fish 3 times a day for about the first week, week and a half after we started catching all these fish. I had fried northern pike for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I gave some of it away to other family members and people in the community, but I kept the biggest portion for myself. In retrospect, it is probably fortunate that my 2 young sons, ages 10 and 12, who were living with me at the time did not share my enthusiasm for fried northern pike.

After about a week and a half of eating this fish 3 times a day, I decided to cut down my allowance to one meal a day in the interest of making my supply last longer. Approximately 2 weeks after that, I decided to again reduce my allocation, this time down to several times a week. It was during this time that I first started experiencing some tingling sensations and some problems in my left hand and arm. Initially I didn’t think anything of it, I thought perhaps I had a little bit of a pinched nerve or muscle strain and that it would go away with time. As I kept eating this fish, the numbness and the tingling that started off in my left hand and arm, spread to my other arm and into my feet and legs and I also developed a speech impediment.

By this time I was beginning to wonder if I had some more serious health problems, it even crossed my mind that I’d had some kind of a small stroke. Because Winona LaDuke was my boss at the time and because I had recently fired her from fishing, I did not go to her and ask for some time off to see if I could recover or go see a doctor. It was also apparent that if I was very deliberate with all my actions, and all my words, I did appear to be fairly normal. But you have to understand that in order for me to have the appearance of being normal, I had to think through every action before moving. For me to pick up a cup of water was a very deliberate thought process, to walk was a very deliberate process and it was particularly difficult if the ground was uneven, because I had reduced sensation in my feet and legs. I could also speak quite normally, but again, I had to think through every word before I pronounced it, think through every sentence to make sure it was complete and that it conveyed the thought that I had intended. I also curtailed a lot of activity and conversation in the interest of covering up the problems I was experiencing.

Eventually, I finally ran out of northern pike. I had thoroughly enjoyed the entire fishing process as well as the consumption of some of the bounty of our beautiful land and waters and very much looked forward to doing it again next year. Approximately 1½ to 2 months after I finally ran out of northern pike, I began to see a decreased level of physical and speaking problems. By this time of course, I had thoroughly adopted the practice of deliberately thinking through my actions and my words so life was somewhat easier by then. Then I noticed that slowly, the numbness and the tingling in my arms and legs were going away. The diminishing of the symptoms went on for a couple of more months and eventually were almost completely gone. I thought how lucky I was, that the stroke, or whatever it was that had caused these problems, had gone away on its own and that I could resume living life as I had prior to this incident, with one exception, I still had a little bit of a speech impediment.

By the time the majority of the symptoms had dissipated it was late spring of 1997, it was during that time that I decided that I no longer wanted to work for my employer. I took about 4 months off and was still in the process of regrouping and reorganizing myself when I got a call from Tom Goldtooth, who is the Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, (IEN), headquartered in northern Minnesota. IEN was involved in a mercury education partnership project with the goal of providing education to Indigenous peoples in Minnesota on the hazards of fish consumption and the related mercury contamination. Because of my previous community organizing and experience, I was contacted and I agreed to finish this mercury education project though I knew relatively little about the specifics of mercury contamination in fish.

In order to educate myself, I read what was the equivalent of 2 bushels of printed information on mercury contamination, its sources and its human and ecological health effects. In the course of reviewing all this information, I came across one piece of literature that described in great detail the symptoms of mercury poisoning in humans. As I read through it, I stunned; many of the symptoms that I had experienced during and after I ate all those large Northern Pike out of Round Lake on the White Earth Reservation were in fact symptoms of mercury contamination. It was only then that I realized that I had overdosed on mercury contaminated fish on the home waters of my reservation. It was also then that I realized what a huge problem we had before us in trying to educate Indians about the dangers of eating fish from our lakes. Because of the work I was involved in, I thought I was pretty well informed on many of the social and environmental issues of the time and yet I knew very little about the dangers of mercury contamination. I knew many others shared my lack of information and were also unaware of the dangers facing them from mercury contamination.

I finished the mercury education project and went on to become involved in other projects with IEN and continue to do so today, as the Special Projects Coordinator. I learned that mercury pollution from coal burning power plants is the largest source of mercury pollution in the U.S. It is incumbent upon all of us to do our very best to ensure that what happened to me can never happen again. The currant proposal to reduce mercury emissions by 70% from its current level is not adequate. With the prospect of new coal burning power plants coming online, even with clean coal technology, mercury emissions would not be reduced from these new sources. In the long term, overall emissions will not be dramatically reduced. 90% cuts in mercury emissions all across the board are more realistic if we are ever going to get to a point where we can lift fish consumption advisories in Minnesota and elsewhere throughout the nation.

Where I live, on the White Earth Reservation, many Indian people fish because we have to. We do not fish recreationally or as a sport, we fish in order to stretch the food dollar, we fish for cultural and ceremonial purposes and we fish because it is our treaty reserved right. It is imperative that the U.S. EPA and the U.S. government live up to its trust responsibility to protect our land, to protect our water and to protect our resources, so that we can continue to enjoy the benefits that our ancestors envisioned, and that the United States of America promised to protect.

All across the nation, Indigenous peoples are confronted with this issue and this question: What good is a treaty reserved and protected resource if it is too toxic to consume? As a regulatory agency, the U.S. EPA can act now to begin the process of cleaning up this mess for the current and future generations of all citizens of this county.

Thank you, for this opportunity.

Robert Shimek
Special Projects Coordinator
Indigenous Environmental Network

Many thanks to Robert Shimek for sending his testimony to Mindfully.org !