On March 11, the Onondaga filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern New York against eight defendants, including Governor George Pataki, the City of Syracuse, and the State of New York.
The Onondaga seek a declaratory judgment recognizing that their ancestral lands still belong to them. The Onondaga Nation alleges that the State of New York violated not only the U.S. Constitution and federal laws in its appropriation of Onondaga land between 1788 and 1822, but also broke its own state laws. Such a ruling would give them equal footing with the state in negotiations regarding the cleanup of nearly 100 contaminated Superfund sites on their lands.
The Onondaga say that they are not interested in using court recognition of their land rights to open a casino or evict current landowners.
"Why would we want to put others through that eviction trauma when that is what happened to us?" said Freida Jacques, an Onondaga Turtle clan member. She said that the Onondaga Nation would like the court to rule in its favor and prove that Onondaga lands were stolen two centuries ago.
"That will get us a long way in giving us a voice," she said.
Superfund sites are lands that have been contaminated by hazardous waste to the point that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has deemed them dangerous to human and environmental health and has called for their cleanup. Among the sites is Onondaga Lake, considered sacred by the Onondaga, which was placed on the EPA’s list of the most contaminated sites in the United States in 1994. According to Joseph Heath, the lawyer for the Onondaga Nation, 46 different types of toxic chemicals pollute Onondaga Lake.
Tadodaho Sidney Hill, the only chief who belongs to all six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, said he has tried to involve Native representatives in planning the cleanup of Onondaga Lake for years. But the State of New York, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the companies liable for the cleanup did not acknowledge the Onondaga in the proposals that have already been submitted for the cleanup process, Hill said.
Victoria Streitfeld, a spokesperson for Honeywell International, a defendant in the suit, said the company agrees with an earlier statement by U.S. Representative James Walsh and Onondaga County Executive Nicholas Pirro that "great progress has been made on Onondaga Lake cleanup and that there should not be any disruption of the State’s plans." In 1999 Honeywell merged with Allied Chemicals, which was responsible for a large amount of the lake pollution due to its soda ash, organic chemicals, and chlorine production operations between 1884 and 1986.
The Onondaga say the current proposal to dredge the most contaminated sediment and cap the rest at the lake bottom is inadequate.
"We are just trying to bring up issues of the environment—and that affects everybody," Hill said.
The Post-Standard of Syracuse, New York, reported on March 27 that EPA officials have requested that the DEC give the Onondaga Nation and other stakeholders more time to voice their concerns before cleanup begins. The DEC had planned to announce the final cleanup proposal on April 1.
The Onondaga land rights action asserts that the tract of land from the St. Lawrence River along the east side of Lake Ontario and stretching south through Syracuse to the Pennsylvania border, roughly 3,100 square miles, is the aboriginal property of the Onondaga.
Varying between 10 and 40 miles in width, the area has been the homeland of the Onondaga Nation since "the dawn of time," the complaint asserts.
The Onondaga suit alleges that the State of New York illegally acquired Onondaga land on five separate occasions. The treaty between New York and the Onondaga Nation in 1788 was not completed until 1813, by which time treaty negotiations between the state and Onondaga representatives had been barred by the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790. This act mandated that any land transaction involving Indian lands had to be approved by the U.S. Congress. The act was meant to protect American Indians from losing their lands through private sale.
"People from the [neighboring] communities have been supportive," Hill said. "Some have reported other environmental damage in the land rights action area."
Even though the Onondaga know the case could take years to move through the courts, many hope its resolution will bring healing to the region’s Native and non-Native communities.
"The Onondaga Nation brings this action on behalf of its people," reads
the opening of the complaint, "in the hope that it may hasten the process
of reconciliation and bring lasting justice, peace, and respect among all who
inhabit this area."
