Comanche Nation Town Hall Educates Community on Refinery Plant
On Monday, March 18, Comanche Nation leaders and community members, as well as other organizations, gathered at the Dorothy Lorentino Education Center in Lawton, Oklahoma, for a Town Hall.
The meeting educated the community on nickel and cobalt in the environment, according to Comanche Nation Vice Chairman Cornel Pewewardy.
“We have the opportunity to provide an environment that is caring for our people,” he said. “And if we look at that through the economic lens, then we can look at not only the environmental but the mental, spiritual, and emotional health of our nation. Particularly now in this day and age, as we come out of COVID-19, we're just hit by all kinds of other types of pandemics. One includes racism, and this is the part I believe is environmental racism that has impacted our environment.”
Pewewardy said it was also a time to create allies and make initiatives.
“To me, impact means consultation. It's an opportunity to come meet and become allies and initiatives to live together,” he said. “But in this day and age, because we belong to various sovereign nations like the Comanche Nation, we need to exert our own self-determination. We can live on our own terms, and we can live with our settler colonial brothers and sisters, but we can live very differently. But I think we can have the same space and support one another, and that, to me, is where we're at. The opportunity to express ourselves sovereignly, in a sovereign way, but we can live together, but differently.”
Environmental activist Earl Hatley, Archeologist Mary Motah and Brandon Parker were guest presenters at the meeting.
“Mary talked about the trepidations of impact of environmental hazards,” he said. “I think she talked more about the movie called ‘Oppenheimer.’ Still, we see its impact today, and not just indigenous people but all the people living in the state of New Mexico are still impacted by uranium and mining. And Earl Hatley had much to do with the national network and looking at the prevention of mining and what he's able to do in bringing in an entire national network. And then locally, Brandon Parker talking about the impact to our local community, not just Comanches, but KCA. And so wonderful speakers that were bringing together their voice and just really giving us caution just to go into this relationship in a good conscious way for the spirit of belonging and to be who we are and to remain indigenous is really what this is about.”
One of the main issues brought up was the lack of air pollution regulations especially near tribal land.
“They'll look at air, they'll look at water, they'll look at the land and how it shifts over time,” Pewewardy said. “And particularly here in southwest Oklahoma, I mean, we have tornadoes all the time. We have twisters. We have wind gusts. The air just consumes much of the particles. It should be particularly talked about waste, wasteland. And then we have the water, of course, even though this element is not on tribal land, it's adjacent to tribal land. So, you have these water tributaries that are all going to be shared through the soil. So, it seeps between, you know, underneath various soil and land. And that water changes over time. And then, you know, if it's not treated right, it can be contaminated because of all the stories that we've been told about not having environmental impact studies done immediately in a serious way.”
Pewewardy said due to all of the issues of the land, air and water; the community lacks confidence that Westwin is safe for the environment, especially for mineral transportation.
“More importantly is our humanness and how many of us cross many tracts of land, which is not just Comanche land, but KCA land, and how we get, you know, export and import through airplane, through trains,” he said. “They have to come through KCA land. And what about the waste? Where is that going to go?”
Pewewardy said this is also a national issue for Native tribes, as they need to protect their land and territories.
