State oversight of tribal waters doesn’t bode well

If you’re looking for a real treat this fall, how about white-water rafting on Maine’s largest river, the Penobscot? And guess what … it’s safe to go in the Penobscot River again. What? You didn’t know that it wasn’t safe to go in the Penobscot River? Where do you get your information? The Maine Department of Environmental Protection?

Well, I’m more interested in what the Penobscot Indian Nation has to say about the river, and this weekend they gave the “all clear” sign. After all, just a couple of years ago the DEP had staff people writing regulations on paper company computers: regulations to regulate the paper companies!

If you’re up on the news then you know that this summer, Katahdin Paper Co. released phosphorous into the river. This resulted in a giant algae bloom that can make animals, plants and people sick – or worse.

It’s not the first time Katahdin Paper has done this; it’s just the first time since they promised it wouldn’t happen again.

The last time a big bloom like this happened, back in 2004, the state got a verbal agreement from the company that this river poisoning would cease. The state didn’t bother putting it in writing because, well, who knows why. But when it happened again this summer, Katahdin Paper said sorry but they weren’t in violation of their permit. Well, umm, yeah, why would they be? The state didn’t bother amending the permit.

I have to stop thinking about this; I’m getting a headache.

So anyway, do you know who holds the deed to the Penobscots’ land? If you said the Indians you’re as wrong as if you went swimming in the Penobscot River thinking it was safe. No, the United States Department of the Interior holds it in trust for the Indians. They negotiate treaties with the Indians for the use of the land.

Well – and now I’m quoting a very smart guy from the Penobscot tribe named John Banks, the director of the Penobscots’ Department of Natural Resources – part of this trust is “the sacred duty to protect our land which we’ve lived on for 10,000 years.” That’s a long time.

And for all those thousands of years, the Penobscots have carefully and painstakingly looked out for each other and protected the river.

So you can imagine the surprised looks on some of the tribal faces this week when an article came out in Indian Country Today, a national periodical dealing with Indian issues, bearing the headline “Maine denies tribe has sustenance fishing rights,” explaining a recent federal court ruling that the Penobscots no longer had jurisdiction over their 200 islands in the Penobscot River.

The Indians knew about the ruling, they didn’t know about the state’s arrogant attitude.

Indian Country Today quoted Andrew Fisk, DEP’s director of the Bureau of Land and Water Quality, as saying that because of an Aug. 9 ruling by a federal court giving Maine jurisdiction over tribal waters – for the first time in 10,000 years – the Indians’ sustenance fishing rights now fall under Maine guidelines. Fisk said the state will now take care of Penobscot Indian waters.

Banks says he intends to talk to DEP Commissioner David Littell and see if Fisk misspoke or was somehow misquoted. Banks can’t believe that the state would take this cavalier an attitude toward the sovereignty of the Penobscot Nation. Banks wants to give Commissioner Littell a chance to say that this just isn’t true.

But if it is true, Banks doesn’t welcome the news. He believes that “the issue of the Maine DEP being in bed with the paper industry has already sent the water quality spiraling downward. It doesn’t bode well for the river if the state doesn’t recognize the tribe’s fishing rights. What we’ve seen in history doesn’t give me any comfort at all that the state is going to protect the Penobscot River. None whatsoever.”

Who knows what Commissioner Littell will tell Banks about respecting their rights. Whatever he says, John better get it in writing.

Pat LaMarche of Yarmouth is the author of “Left Out In America: The State of Homelessness in the United States.” She can be contacted at PatLaMarche@

hotmail.com.