Lead Poisoning for All! It's Not Just Flint Anymore

This article was published by Rural America In These Times in 2017. For more on topics like this, see my book, American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle....
Bullets fragmenting in National Park Service test.
Once politicians promised a chicken in every pot. Not anymore. The Trump administration is promising Americans lead poisoning in every bloodstream—human and animal. This is despite the nation long banning lead in paint, water pipes and gasoline. Lead poisoning created tragic damage to human health and a national scandal in Flint, Michigan. How soon we forget.

As I recently reported in Rural America In These Times, on Ryan Zinke’s first day in office as Secretary of the Interior, he rescinded restrictions on use of lead-based ammunition and fishing-line sinkers on lands managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Though the restriction was limited (phasing out the toxin on just certain federal lands by 2022), the NRA predictably described it as “an attack on our hunting heritage.” It was also first put into effect by President Obama, all of whose legacy is under attack by the current administration—just because.

Each year, hunters and fishermen pump tens of thousands of tons of lead into the ecosystem and food chain, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. You read that right: tons, not pounds. As a result, as many as 20 million birds and other animals die each year from subsequent lead poisoning, according to the Center.

Golden eagle eating carrion in San Benito Cty, CA.
Tribes work to remedy the problems created. At the Zuni Pueblo eagle sanctuary, an ER for eagles in the New Mexico desert, some of the birds cared for there have lead-related nervous-system damage. This is a consequence of consuming the carcasses of animals that have been shot with lead pellets, as seen at left, or of being shot themselves. In August 2017, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, in South Dakota, celebrated the release into the wild of an eagle that a zoo had rehabilitated with the help of lead-testing equipment donated by the tribe.

Humans are at risk as well. The toxin is on the menu when hunters, fishermen and their friends and families eat game shot with lead-based ammunition or consume fish from contaminated waters. “[Lead] can degrade a person’s vascular, renal, nervous and reproductive systems,” with children especially vulnerable to the effects, say wildlife biologists at the Yurok Tribe. They say the heavy metal can’t be entirely eliminated when cleaning the game, because lead-based bullets explode into fragments as small as a mote of dust when they strike a target (see ballistic-test photo above). 

What if scientists discover that lead isn’t so bad? the NRA asks in a press release. Top scientists scoffed at this, calling lead “one of the most-well-studied” of poisons, “with toxic effects…in humans and wildlife, even at very low exposure levels.”

With tens of thousands of tons of lead bombarding the environment each year, we all have a shot at lead poisoning.

C. Stephanie Woodard; photos courtesy National Park Service. More damage from lead-based ammunition can be seen here. 

Popular Posts

Wham! Pow! The CDC goes to Comic-Con

Image
P ublis hed by the Huffington Post in 2010.  For more on topics like this, see my book,  American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle.... C hances are, disease control was not top-of-mind for the tens of thousands of wildly costumed attendees at the coolest event in the universe last week —  Comic-Con 's 3-day New York City extravaganza. Nevertheless, many visitors, garbed as superheroes, Manga figures, Star Wars characters, and more, stopped by the  U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 's booth there for a look at the agency's cheerful exhibit of diabetes-prevention  books and other health-education products  for Native American children.           "Patrick got us into this. Most of us are boring scientists," laughed writer Teresa Lofton over the din. A public-health specialist, she collaborates on the books — part of the CDC's Eagle Books brand — with artist Patrick Rolo, from the  Bad River Band of Ojibway . A longtime penciller (the per
Keep reading

Dancing from the Heart: A Rehearsal at Zuni Pueblo

Image
Published in  Indian Country Today  in 2013.  For more on topics like this, please see my book,  American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle.. .  T he late afternoon sun slanted through puffy clouds and played over the surface of Zuni Pueblo’s sacred Corn Mountain. Small golden heads of wild sunflowers dappled the field at the base of the mesa, which rises 1,000 feet over the pueblo’s western New Mexico village. Against this imposing high-desert backdrop, a dance rehearsal got underway. Seven-member Soaring Eagle, the first of two groups to run through their paces that day, adjusted their headdresses and other regalia. Meanwhile, Tammy Weebothee, a dancer and organizer of the rehearsal, pointed out a tall spire, nearly the height of the mesa and just south of it. It appeared to represent two figures, one taller than the other, wrapped in a blanket. “They’re a brother and sister who died to save the community when flood waters rose.” She noted pale striations across the
Keep reading

Create a Medicine-Wheel Garden

Image
Published in Indian Country Today in 2005.  For more Native  gardening  ideas, go to  Enhance Your Food Supply  on this blog .  For more on topics like this, look for my book,  American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle for Self-Determination and Inclusion.  M edicine-wheel gardens build on the radiating energy of circles — ever on the move,” said E. Barrie Kavasch, ethnobotanist, herbalist and author of many books on plants and healing. Kavasch, who has Cherokee, Creek and Powhatan ancestry, has visited ancient medicine wheels around the world and made gardens inspired by their patterns for more than a decade. On the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota this summer, Aubrey Skye, Lakota, will consult Kavasch’s informative book — “The Medicine Wheel Garden: Creating Sacred Space for Healing, Celebration, and Tranquility” (Bantam Books, 2002) — to create one that will serve as a nursery for endangered prairie plants. Whether you’re growing rare or common plan
Keep reading