Indigenous Environmental Network at UN: The Right to Water and Indigenous Peoples http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/05/indigenous-environmental-network-at-un_25.html

In North America, we have been witnessing the accelerated development of the Tar Sands megaproject, with devastating effects on Indigenous communities and the water sources they rely upon.Primarily, the water used in the extraction and processing of the Tar Sands into oil requires between three and five barrels of water per barrel of oil. Much of this water must be then kept in giant toxic pools, called ‘tailings ponds’, which kill many birds and animals, and have been found to leak back into the waterways and traditional lands of Indigenous Peoples.

Mining-Moving to the subject of mining, we note that for sixty years, the United States has failed to address widespread contamination of Navajo water and land from uranium mining and milling. Despite this tragic history, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has licensed a uranium project in the middle of two Navajo communities it concedes will contaminate those communities' drinking water sources. Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium mining has filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to stop this project because it will violate the rights to life, health and cultural integrity guaranteed under international law.

Seneca to Obama at UN 2011: Adopt the UN Indigenous Rights Declaration http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/05/seneca-to-obama-at-un-2011-adopt-un.html

Seneca Nation points out that the US has not adopted the UN Indigenous Rights Declaration -- which President Obama earlier gave lip service to