[CPEO-MEF] NATIVE PEOPLE, HEALTH: "Leaders from Alaska's St. Lawrence Island take contamination claims to U.N."

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Leaders from Alaska's St. Lawrence Island take contamination claims to U.N.

By Liz Ruskin
Alaska Public Media 
March 14, 2025

The tribal governments of Alaska's St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea say they’re living with the toxic legacy of Cold War military installations on their land, and this week they took their complaint to the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights.

About 4,000 miles from home, at a press conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C., tribal leaders spoke about troubling health problems on the island.

Vi Waghiyi works with the Alaska Community Action on Toxics. She said her family lived at the most contaminated location on St. Lawrence, the Northeast Cape, for five years when she was growing up.
“I’m a cancer survivor. I’ve had three miscarriages. I’m 66,” she said. “My mother had a … stillborn child after me. Heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer. Her name was Della Waghiyi. I want to say their name.”

…

For the entire article, see
https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/washington-d-c/2025-03-14/alaskas-st-lawrence-island-tribes-take-contamination-claims-to-u-n

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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