"December 11, 2012, Kanietakeron (Larry V. Thompson) of Akwesasne, an area in Indian country also known as the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, made an appearance in St. Lawrence County New York criminal court for his actions on August 12, 2011 at the former General Motors Plant, located adjacent to the reservation. The industrial area, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund Cleanup site now administered and marketed by the Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response Trust (RACER), was already a flurry of activity that 2011 morning when Kanietakeron showed up with his backhoe and began to excavate a mound of piled earth. Kanietakeron entered a guilty plea to a reduced charge of criminal mischief for his deeds, a fourth-degree misdemeanor in New York. But, in reality he undertook a call to action to cleanse Turtle Island and challenge the system that had poisoned it with reckless disregard
Kanietakeron had grown up on the land that the General Motors plant had been built on. In speaking to me, he recalled as a youth picking through the constant dumping that took place there, for scraps of wood and metal. Little did he know at the time that the waste was all contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and so was the entire industrial complex."
Get the Story:
Charles Kader:
Inner Voice and Environmental Action
(Indian Country Today 12/18)
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