From Sovereignty to Superfund: The Onondaga Nation's Legal Battle for Land Rights, Environmental Justice, and the Remediation of Onondaga Lake

摘要

John Muir famously wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything in the Universe” (1988: 110). Such has been the case with Onondaga Lake that only through laws, legal entities, and the public functioning as a system, that the most polluted lake in the country has begun to regenerate. Cutting across the disciplines of history, environmental law and policy, environmental justice, and Federal Indian law, this research demonstrates how government efforts, community involvement, and Native American interests have been integrated into each stage of the remediation process to bring back this cultural and natural resource. The research addresses how the Onondaga Nation lost control of their territory as a result of interactions (some legitimate and some not) with state and federal governments and private citizens acting without authority. It illustrates how this loss, in combination with growing populations and industry, led to the degradation of the environment. Finally, it focuses on the legal actions taken by various stakeholders to address the Lake, specifically the Onondaga Nation’s land rights action and the impact of the Lake’s being named a Superfund site.