The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin has passed a resolution recognizing the inherent rights of the Menominee River to naturally exist and flourish — including the rights to natural groundwater and surface water recharge, the right to carry out its natural ecosystem function, and the right to abundant, pure, unpolluted water.
The January 16 resolution affirms the Tribe’s continued commitment to recognizing and responding to the significant threats to the river from climate change, pollution, mining, global warming and the failure of environmental laws to protect the Menominee River and Mother Earth.
The proposed “Back Forty Project” — a deep open pit metallic sulfide mine that would be located 50 yards from the Menominee River — is poised to cause harmful impacts to water, humans, wildlife, animals, environment, and cultural properties as demonstrated with other mines of similar nature, the resolution emphasizes.
The Menominee people are indigenous to Wisconsin — their place of origin was at the mouth of the Menominee River where the five clans of the Menominee were created. The river is historically and culturally significant to the Menominee people due to the existence of cultural properties by way of raised agricultural fields, funerary objects, multiple mounds, burial sites, and villages which constitute a cultural landscape of historic significance.
Resolution No.19-52 signed by Tribal Chairman Douglas Cox of the Menominee Tribal Legislature is posted here.
Menominee Tribe Resolution 19-52 Recognition of the rights of the Menominee River 16 Jan 2020