Letter to the editor:

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

This letter is in response to Brian David’s letter to the editor in last week’s edition of Indian Time.

Thank you, Brian for verifying the fact that Ontario Power Generation (OPG) had offered to remediate the islands (Toussaint and Presquile). The estimated cost of 15 million to remediate was given for what year? What would the cost of remediation be today with the rising cost of fuel, equipment and labor?

In Section 7.0 Conclusions of the Four St. Lawrence River Islands, Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment, it states that there might be designated and hazardous substances. These substances are arsenic, lead, PCB’S and mercury that were produced prior to 1957 from industry and agricultural activities upstream. Some of these contaminants may potentially migrate back into the St. Lawrence River and affect downstream receptors.

Considerable excavation and landscaping will be involved when there is development on these islands. There are no trees growing on these islands at the present time and there were a variety of species prior to the dredging.

According to the Documents Towards the Final Settlement Agreement the environmental assessment was done in 1998. The agreement was signed in 2008. Was the community aware of the offer of remediation by OPG? Were they given all of the information and possible options to make a proper decision?

OPG should have been the one to remediate the islands. If there were no contractors in the territory, then the territory could have used sub-contractors for the remediation.

After the agreement was signed, I did attend a presentation by OPG for contractors for the territory. It was held to fulfill the requirements that OPG had with the settlement. The requirements and criteria for bidding for OPG contracts was out of the scope of 99% of the businesses that attended the session. This should have been held during the negotiations not after so that our contractors could prepare to meet their requirements.

On several occasions, I met with former Grand Chief Tim Thompson to discuss possible remediation for these islands. He arranged to have a meeting with you and other representatives of the negotiating team. You did not attend, but Elvera Sargent did attend. Another meeting was called for and Chief Larry King did attend that one.

The discussion with Chief King centered on remediation of the islands using land that OPG owned that is in close proximity to the islands. A map that was obtained from Queen’s Park was shown to him that delineated the lots that OPG owned.

At this time the islands are virtually useless, so what has Akwesasne gained?

A request for shoreline protection was submitted to the government and it was declined. The response was that you accepted the OPG settlement. Is the community aware of this?

I have complete respect for the elders that participated in the process. One of the elders was my uncle.

My letter concerning fiduciary responsibility mentioned other land claims, but you focused your response to the OPG settlement. I wrote the letter to get the community to think about the leadership and are they working for the people or are they working for themselves and their families.

Beverly Pyke