The Environmental Crisis on Native American Lands

This past May, a crushing blow came to residents of Texas and environmentalists alike as the Lone Star state passed a law prohibiting towns and cities from locally banning fracking and oil harvesting practices. The impact of this legislation takes an especially hard toll for residents of Denton, Texas who last year voted to locally ban the practice of hydraulic fracking.

“The state of Texas has failed to stop Big Oil from polluting our air and water, causing earthquakes, and putting our families at risk from leaks, spills and explosions,” said Director of Environment Texas, Luke Metzger.

In June, Maryland effectively placed a two and a half year ban on fracking while New York has banned the practice altogether. Yet despite these efforts to curtail the practice of fracking, legislation like Texas’s recent law continues to put more and more Americans at risk. For residents of large oil producing states like the Native American residents of the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota, every additional fracking well makes them ever more vulnerable to the negative environmental and health effects associated with fracking. Unless, larger oil producing states takes steps to regulate the industry, very little seems to stands in the way of Big Oil from further contributing to the landscape of oil wells across Texas, Oklahoma, and North Dakota.

Over the past two months, the 3 Generations team has taken steps to spread awareness of the dangers of fracking. In June, we finished filming for our latest endeavor, The Dakota Project. On the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, the tribes act as a sovereign nation, controlling their decision to frack. In April our production team was able to see those fracking impacts firsthand. Over the course of filming, the production team worked with Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes of North Dakota to uncover the personal stories of those affected by the oil industry. In the coming months, 3 Generations' Executive Director Jane Wells be making her way to France to join the film’s editors in putting together this gripping chronicle of the lives and lands affected by fracking.

3 Generations is continually working to play a larger role in protecting the lands of the MHA Nation. In April, the team joined the Fort Berthold reservation's boys and girls club in a tree planting initiative in honor of Earth Day. We continue to make bigger strides in sharing the stories of those affected by the ever invasive oil industry. Join us as we work to amplify the voices of the Native Americans and bring awareness to the effects hidden behind the growing number of oil wells.

Links:

• Hear Their Stories here