Charmaine White Face
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Charmaine White Face, or Zumila Wobaga, is an Oglala Tituwan Oceti Sakowin great-grandmother, scientist, writer, organizer, activist, and environmentalist. She lives near Mt. Rushmore. Unfortunately, Mt. Rushmore and the indigenous lands around it are surrounded by more than 169 abandoned uranium mines—and open extraction pits. The radioactive pollution from these sites is dangerous, and she's been doing everything she can to bring attention to and remedy the situation. It was due to her tireless efforts that she was named a Giraffe Hero by the Giraffe Heroes Project, a nonprofit organization that encourages people to "stick their necks out for the common good."
Throughout her life, White Face has gotten used to being threatened for speaking out. She even formed Defenders of the Black Hills, an organization committed to educating the Lakota people about their treaty rights; that did not automatically win her friends.
What has been at the forefront of White Face's work is air and water pollution from uranium and thorium (another radioactive metal): "Native American nations of North America," she says, "are the miners' canaries for the United States, trying to awaken the people of the world to the dangers of radioactive pollution." The AUMs—three quarters of which are located on federal and Tribal lands—could affect the health of more than 50 million people who live near these sites.
"This is an invisible national crisis. Millions of people in the United States are being exposed as nuclear radiation victims on a daily basis. Exposure to radioactive pollution has been linked to cancer, genetic defects, 'Navajo Neuropathy,' and increases in mortality. We . . . believe that as more Americans become aware of this homegrown radioactive pollution, then something can be done to protect all peoples and the environment."
Excerpt from the Rapid City Journal (2016):
"I'm a biologist and a physical scientist," White Face said. "I'm an environmentalist from way back. I learned about these abandoned uranium mines and the active uranium mines, and I wanted to find out how this was affecting the people."
White Face founded the environmental and social justice organization Defenders of the Black Hills in 2003. The organization advocates for the protection, preservation and restoration of the environment of the 1951 and 1868 territory treaties. The organization won the Nuclear Free Future Award (described as "the Nobel Prize for Environmentalists") in 2007.
It was 2003 when she first started learning the extent of the uranium problems. White Face says that there's a major radioactive policing problem, with pollutants in the air, water and "probably the food."
"One thing we've found from studies done by the Indian Health Services is that Native Americans in the Northern Plains regions have the highest cancer rates in the country," White Face said.
