Professor Grijalva presents at Northern Arizona University Native American Cultural Center

Northern Arizona University’s Native American Cultural Center and the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals invited Professor Grijalva to Flagstaff, Arizona for one of their many events for Native American month. Professor Grijalva discussed several regional examples of environmental injustice affecting indigenous peoples: allocation of shrinking Colorado River water without consideration of senior Indian tribal water rights; the continuing health risks from uranium mining waste left on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations in the 1950s; the use of treated human sewage effluent to make snow for a ski area on sacred land in Arizona; and the unpermitted switch of a former uranium mill near the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation to a current unregulated disposal site for radioactive waste from domestic and foreign sources. Professor Grijalva connected those southwestern environmental threats to a nationwide legacy of extractive activities affecting tribal reserved rights and indigenous culture, and discussed how tribal sovereignty can foster indigenous cultural resilience.