Natural Resources: Chris Schroeder

Jimmy Jackson, an Ojibwe spiritual leader once said, "Plants, animals, grasses and flowers don't need us, but we need them" (Graves). This statement helps illustrate how nature has always, and continues to be, central in American Indian culture. While this is true, nature has also found it's way into the political sphere and become a central issue in many dealings between tribal lands and the U.S. state and federal governments. Nature and natural resources have been at the center of debates for tribes to maintain and even regain their inherent rights to hunt, fish, and gather on tribal lands, and have been restored based on court cases concerning the 1837 and 1854 treaties (Graves). Another issue that has arisen within the past 10 years is tribal relations with Xcel Energy. Pine Island and Buffalo Ridge are both homes of sort to an Xcel power plant, nuclear on Pine Island, and wind farms along Buffalo Ridge. On Pine Island, storage casks have been filled, and during a special session of legislation in 2003, additional dry casks were approved for the storage of nuclear waste that was originally supposed to be reprocessed (Graves). Down along Buffalo Ridge a permit was approved for the building of an additional 115 kV line, expansion of an existing substation, building of an additional substation and the rerouting of lines and the line structures (Xcel). According to the potential impact #63 of the Environmental Quality Board's findings, "...Five archaeological site locations were identified within one mile of the proposed Project, but no impacts to these sites are anticipated" (Xcel). This became untrue as an access road was built not around these sacred sites as proposed, but through them, forever displacing sacred sites. These examples just further illustrate the disregard to agreements made between American governments and American Indian peoples, and the disregard for the sovereignty bestowed upon Indian peoples by the same governments. Efforts to regain lands and restore the natural cycle of things have been made, and it's as one Indian leader said, "We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we rent it from our children" (Graves).



Graves, Kathy Davis and Elizabeth Ebbott. Indians in Minnesota. Fifth Edition.
University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, MN. 2006.


Xcel Energy's Application to the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board for a Route Permit for a Buffalo Ridge-White 115kV Transmission Line. Retrieved from: http://www.eqb.state.mn.us/pdf/FileRegister/04-84-TR-XCEL/finalfindings.pdf.