John Doyle, Crow Tribal Elder, continued
About 2005, John and others heard of an opportunity to invite volunteers from various federal agencies to come teach community members how to conduct an environmental health assessment. Three volunteers spent a week in Crow, leading a dozen Tribal members and a Little Big Horn College faculty member through the assessment process. The local group concluded that there were “way more environmental health threats than we ever imagined,” but of all the issues, water contamination was the most serious and widespread of the threats identified. Several group participants including Myra Lefthand, Larry Kindness and Mari Eggers, subsequently teamed up with John Doyle, Urban Bear Don’t Walk, Sara Young and others to form the Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee (CEHSC). The Committee has been working together ever since to improve Tribal environmental health, with contributions from many different Tribal members over the years. Currently, younger generation Tribal members Emery Three Irons and Christine Martin have joined the team.
John initially became concerned about Tribal water and health many years ago, when he discovered sewage from the wastewater treatment system leaking into the Little Big Horn River. Determined to see this fixed, he asked countless people at responsible agencies what would be done and how this would be resolved. Getting nowhere, Doyle, Kindness, Bear Don’t Walk and Jimmy Real Bird decided they would have to take this on themselves and volunteered to become the Apsaalooke [Crow] Water and Wastewater Authority (AWWWA). AWWWA and the CEHSC collaborated to fund and conduct the research to document river contamination, and the AWWWA then used those data along with grantwriting expertise to secure and oversee more than 20 million dollars’ worth of improvements for Tribal water and wastewater systems.
John’s persistence and patience usually pays off. He and his colleagues on the CEHSC next area of concern was Crow Reservation home wells. Testing of some 300 home wells by this team has shown concerning levels of coliform bacteria, nitrate, arsenic, manganese, uranium and other toxic metals. The CEHSC has been able to provide free home water coolers to families with unsafe well water. Recently, they have been hearing of numbers of reasonably deep wells that have run dry on the reservation, a big, expensive problem for people in remote areas.
He and the CEHSC now share concern over climate change. He and elders before him have seen the changes. The winter season was traditionally referred to as “all-white,” as the ground was covered with snow winter-long. Older Tribal members recall being able to ice skate all winter, until the dramatic spring ice breakups on the Little Big Horn River, which cleansed the shores and riverbed of debris. The river ice has dramatically lessened through the decades and now melts quietly away in the spring. Brown prairies and mid-winter thaws are relatively new phenomena. As one step in addressing climate change, John has led the team in getting a new automated weather station installed in Crow Agency. Part of the Mesonet network, the station uploads data which can be checked in real time, online.
The tribe and its EPA office has applied for and been awarded a climate ready tribal grant. John notes that it is easy to pick up trash to beautify an area, but does not know the actions that his people can do to combat climate change. With his persistence and patience, though, John will probably find a way.
About 2005, John and others heard of an opportunity to invite volunteers from various federal agencies to come teach community members how to conduct an environmental health assessment. Three volunteers spent a week in Crow, leading a dozen Tribal members and a Little Big Horn College faculty member through the assessment process. The local group concluded that there were “way more environmental health threats than we ever imagined,” but of all the issues, water contamination was the most serious and widespread of the threats identified. Several group participants including Myra Lefthand, Larry Kindness and Mari Eggers, subsequently teamed up with John Doyle, Urban Bear Don’t Walk, Sara Young and others to form the Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee (CEHSC). The Committee has been working together ever since to improve Tribal environmental health, with contributions from many different Tribal members over the years. Currently, younger generation Tribal members Emery Three Irons and Christine Martin have joined the team.
John initially became concerned about Tribal water and health many years ago, when he discovered sewage from the wastewater treatment system leaking into the Little Big Horn River. Determined to see this fixed, he asked countless people at responsible agencies what would be done and how this would be resolved. Getting nowhere, Doyle, Kindness, Bear Don’t Walk and Jimmy Real Bird decided they would have to take this on themselves and volunteered to become the Apsaalooke [Crow] Water and Wastewater Authority (AWWWA). AWWWA and the CEHSC collaborated to fund and conduct the research to document river contamination, and the AWWWA then used those data along with grantwriting expertise to secure and oversee more than 20 million dollars’ worth of improvements for Tribal water and wastewater systems.
John’s persistence and patience usually pays off. He and his colleagues on the CEHSC next area of concern was Crow Reservation home wells. Testing of some 300 home wells by this team has shown concerning levels of coliform bacteria, nitrate, arsenic, manganese, uranium and other toxic metals. The CEHSC has been able to provide free home water coolers to families with unsafe well water. Recently, they have been hearing of numbers of reasonably deep wells that have run dry on the reservation, a big, expensive problem for people in remote areas.
He and the CEHSC now share concern over climate change. He and elders before him have seen the changes. The winter season was traditionally referred to as “all-white,” as the ground was covered with snow winter-long. Older Tribal members recall being able to ice skate all winter, until the dramatic spring ice breakups on the Little Big Horn River, which cleansed the shores and riverbed of debris. The river ice has dramatically lessened through the decades and now melts quietly away in the spring. Brown prairies and mid-winter thaws are relatively new phenomena. As one step in addressing climate change, John has led the team in getting a new automated weather station installed in Crow Agency. Part of the Mesonet network, the station uploads data which can be checked in real time, online.
The tribe and its EPA office has applied for and been awarded a climate ready tribal grant. John notes that it is easy to pick up trash to beautify an area, but does not know the actions that his people can do to combat climate change. With his persistence and patience, though, John will probably find a way.