A Call to Support Indigenous Oregonians
By Liz Stepp of the Advocacy Team, Interfaith Alliance on Poverty
The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is suffering an on-going water crisis since a water main broke in May 2019. Today, after more system damage, about 60% of the reservation is without running water. Others experience intermittent service, or have to boil tap water, or have no water and rely on being supplied.
OPB reported in June 2020 that this water crisis affects “…thousands of people, a rural health clinic, businesses, and senior housing are without safe tap water, while some places don’t have running water at all.” See: https://www.opb.org/news/article/water-crisis-returns-to-warm-springs-as-virus- cases-rise/ . In the U.S., poverty is determined through economic measures.
Access to safe water is usually used by the United Nations or WHO to apply to less developed parts of the world. Regardless of place, water is life. A lack of safe water threatens public and environmental health, impacts economic wellbeing and exacerbates or creates poverty.
Created in 1855, Warm Springs is the largest tribal reservation in Oregon and is drastically less than the traditional tribal area of the Paiute, Wasco and Warm Springs tribal territories. The Wasco and Warm Springs tribes traditionally fished for Salmon, including at the former Celilo Falls on the Columbia, and the Paiute came from far SE Oregon. Together, enrolled members total about 4,000.
To start to understand why some say this crisis is ‘years in the making,’ learning a bit about the complex, unique world of sovereign tribal nations and the U.S.
Governments’ laws and regulations they must abide by is helpful. These nations are legally “sovereign” and "domestic dependent nations under the umbrella of
U.S. government protection." (Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, circa 1829; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Gaming_Regulatory_Act ). Chronically underfunded infrastructure funding and multi-Federal agency permitting processes is one example. In 2017, after the former President declared a new national infrastructure policy initiative, the National Congress of American Indians published a comprehensive report to the administration and to Congress, “Tribal Infrastructure: Investing in Indian Country for a Stronger America.” The policy declaration and report received no follow-through.
Oregon’s Senators have introduced a bill to help address this crisis and other possible future ones, but to date Congress has not acted. See: https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-senators-western-tribal-water- infrastructure-act/ . With the attention of most understandably focused on the urgent and rising need at emergency food banks and other hardships faced by Oregonians, this water crisis has gotten little media attention or traction with philanthropic or other giving-centered organizations.
Last fall the MRG Foundation (aka McKenzie River Gathering) launched the Chuush Fund to collect donations to support the health and welfare of the people of the Warm Springs Reservation in this water crisis. See: https://mrgfoundation.org/the-chuush-fund-water-for-warm-springs/ . The Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility’s website supports the Chuush Fund, as does the Nature Conservancy of Oregon and other organizations. The OPSR’s website directs people to the MRG Foundation’s website to make donations to the Chuush Fund:
https://www.oregonpsr.org/help_the_confederated_tribes_of_warm_springs .
Giving to this fund supports racial and social justice for indigenous people in Oregon during this pandemic. With the painful history and intergenerational trauma caused by Indian Boarding Schools that were sponsored or run by representatives from various Christian denominations in the past, supporting this fund could be one small way to help make amends for past injustices and maltreatment done by Christians to Indigenous people, including in Oregon.
Please help support our indigenous neighbors during this water crisis by giving what you can to the Chuush Fund.