Introduction Mercury Water Air Habitat   More Communities 2002 Report This Community at Risk report is part of an exciting new Sierra Club campaign in Minnesota. Learn more and sign up to help in Minneapolis!   Lea Foushee, North American Water Office and Indigenous Women’s Mercury Investigation, testifies before the U.S. EPA to clean up mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants "The Bush administration’s mercury rule does not have an environmental justice analysis. EPA has not looked at the health impacts of eating mercury contaminated fish on Indigenous Peoples, other People of Color, or the economically disadvantaged. This has been a problem for thirty (30) years and still nothing has been done, and the problem is getting worse. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that you do not care. When we have ceremonies and celebrate, you have the catch distributed to all. Catch comes in, and we share among all: young, and old alike. We don’t ask EPA if this fish can be served safely to our mothers and children, everyone eats. As Indigenous Peoples, in order to care for Mother Earth we use the wisdom and knowledge of our elders from seven generations in the past to protect the next seven generations into the future. I cannot say that the EPA is doing that when you continuously listen to the coal industry’s bottom line instead of the health of the People." — Lea Foushee, February 26th, Chicago public hearing on mercury rule for coal plants.

There Is a Better Way to Protect Minnesota’s Families and Communities Print this report! (pdf file) Minnesota is rich and abundant with waters, farmland, and wildlife. Regardless of the season or region, we Minnesotans enjoy a special relationship with our natural inheritance. We know that protecting our state’s natural resources and beauty makes Minnesota’s economy stronger and our families healthier. From the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to the prairies in southwestern Minnesota, from the trout streams in the southeast to the headwaters of the Mississippi River, natural resources have always been important to our residents and civic leaders. Today, however, our state’s treasured environment has been put at risk. Bush administration policies that weaken and ignore federal environmental safeguards are already harming our communities’ health and our natural heritage. The Bush administration is allowing the electric companies, chemical companies, coal companies, and other industries to weaken the laws and regulations that protect the health and safety of Minnesota’s families, enabling corporations to benefit at our expense. The administration has allowed electric companies to invest in more outdated, polluting coal-fired power plants instead of requiring them to use modern technology to cut pollution or encouraging them to build cleaner facilities relying on renewable power generation. The administration has also opened up millions of acres of public land to environmentally destructive activities, blocked plans to protect the last wild areas of our national forests from development, put wetlands and other water bodies at risk of pollution, and increased the risk of mercury poisoning for Minnesota’s women and children. The administration’s undermining of our nation’s most basic environmental protections leaves the people of Minnesota exposed and vulnerable to increased amounts of asthma-triggering smog, development-retarding mercury, disease-ridden sewage, and other contaminants. Encouraging the creation of more coal-fired power plants instead of cleaner energy alternatives puts our citizens-especially children and the elderly-at risk. This report documents the consequences of Bush administration actions-and lack of action-on the health and safety of families in communities across Minnesota. It also serves to remind us what we have learned over the last thirty years-that there is a better way; that we have the know-how and a successful track record cleaning up the pollution in our air and water and the poisons in our soil. But know-how, effective laws, and proven technological solutions are clearly not enough when the Bush administration is determined to let corporations off the hook, weaken the regulations that reduce pollution, and strip funding from the agencies responsible for enforcing environmental laws and the programs that encourage environmentally-sound improvement. Only public pressure on lawmakers will ensure that the last three decades’ of progress are not lost, and that we instead continue to keep our communities safe, protecting our children’s legacy of clean air, water, and still-wild lands. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use