Photo by Catherine Landis. Image description: Tonawanda Chief Roger Hill dressed in traditional dress speaks into a microphone at a podium. Behind him is a large black flatscreen TV and in the foreground are the backs of the heads of people in the audience who are facing him.
The following is a sampling of testimonies presented orally during the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NY DEC) public hearing held on May 11, 2023 in Basom, New York. Over the course of several hours, 49 speakers presented testimony in opposition to project developer GCEDC's application for a "Part 182 Take Permit." No one spoke in support. Testimonies were limited to two minutes. The DEC estimates 185 people were in attendance, including 19 who submitted additional written comments.
The Tonawanda Seneca Nation Council of Chiefs also submitted this letter.
The Tonawanda Seneca Nation Council of Chiefs also submitted this letter.
My name is Scott Logan, and I am a proud member of the Tonawanda Band of Senecas, Sub-Chief of the Bear Clan, a Faith Keeper within our longhouse, a Seneca language teacher in the Akron Central School District, a husband, a father, and a grandfather. I stand here in great opposition to the STAMP Project and the Article 11, Part 182 Permit. If this permit were to be granted, it would be an immense injustice to Mother Earth.
As Indigenous People, we are connected to Mother Earth. Her power, her beauty lives within us. So for that reason, we always honor her and mention all of the natural elements that we respect and that we live with that. And that includes the birds, the animals, the people, the stars, the moon, the sun, and we usually go in order from the earth, and we go up. And we give thanks to all of these things. And I would like to point out that all of these things, the birds, the animals, the trees, the plants, the medicine plants that are all over in Big Woods, that are all over by the STAMP Project, all of those things, we need those things to survive, right, as human beings. We need those things to survive. But they don't need us. If we were to perish, they would flourish. We're the, what do you call it, yeah, we're expendable compared to, you know, if they would flourish without us, and we need to protect that.
And as a Haudenosaunee person, and all the Haudenosaunee People in here, that is our birthright. It is our, what we are here for, is to protect the earth. And the STAMP Project goes a hundred percent against what we are -- what we're all about.
- -Scott Logan, Tonawanda Seneca Nation, Sub-Chief of the Bear Clan (spoken testimony)
My name is Dr. Joe Stahlman. By training, I am a social, cultural, anthropologist. My specialty areas are Indigenous life ways, landscape studies, human-nature interactions, and so on. I am a research scientist at the University of Buffalo, and I am Seneca Nation's Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. My research experience, as well as many of my peers and colleagues, acknowledge the help of a community is based on the health of the environment around them. The loss of birds and all life threatens the health of the Tonawanda Community.
In a very broad stroke, the human-nature connectedness is associated with well-being of people. This means that individuals connected to Mother Earth report higher psychological well-being as well as social well-being.
The STAMP parcels are an ongoing source of trauma for the community. The presence of companies receiving benefits from local, regional, and State entities add a layer of harm to this community. Economic subsidies, as well as benefits, clearly demonstrate the value of Indigenous lives are not more valuable than economic return. Additionally, I do not see a community's benefits initiative to offset the effects on the human community. Further, the idea to offset the destruction of habitat with replacement of lands does not guarantee that species will go to the new site.
The connection of the United States to its lands is embedded in a violent dispossession of Mother Earth from Indigenous Peoples. For two centuries, in this area Euro-Americans displaced Seneca peoples and their guests from ancestral homelands. While Seneca lived on the land, Euro-Americans engaged in deliberate destruction of culturally important natural resources, along with cultural and economic significance of the Seneca. This serves as a framework of genocide against Indigenous peoples. This continuing legacy is indicative of the United States' repeated inability to live up to its responsibilities as pointed out by the 1794 and the 1797 Treaties.
In these Treaties, it says: The Nations have the right to access any of the natural resources that they see fit to meet their needs as a people. And this protects their sovereignty, their culture, and their economic well-being. And so biological diversity is directly linked to Indigenous and viable Mother Earth.
So do you guys really believe that by altering and destroying fragile parts of Mother Earth, companies will come to the region? I find this idea absurd. Destroying aspects of Mother Earth to protect her? In my professional opinion, the GCEDC plan is an ongoing example of misaligned thinking of placing a business model of development, and saying it's green development, which is supposed to benefit all of us and the natural world. But this will not be achieved because everyone involved does not have a fair stake in the outcomes.
- -Dr. Joe Stahlman, Tuscarora Nation descent
Director of the Seneca Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Office (spoken testimony)
I'm Kirk Scirto, I am the family physician for the Tonawanda Seneca. I also have a Masters in Public Health. I am very concerned about the public health effects that should be very negative should further STAMP development go forward.
First of all, according to the recent SEQR, there will be traffic coming into and out of STAMP every one to two seconds. This will be an exponential increase all day long every day. So I would expect far more motor vehicle accidents on the Nation.
Also, all the emissions from these vehicles, as well as the emissions from the Edwards Vacuum Factory are expected to worsen flare-ups of asthma, allergies, and emphysema as well as heart disease.
I've looked at the safety data sheets for the chemicals. I see many of the Edwards Vacuum chemicals are flammable and explosive. And indeed, they've admitted that explosions have occurred in their factories and they were potentially fatal. The same could happen at the STAMP factory. So I am quite worried about the Nation and the health effects. Additionally, they could suffer from smoke-inhalation injuries as well as worsening respiratory disease.
The company is particularly worried, most worried, about three chemicals, refractory ceramic fibers, EDGME, and lead, which can cause respiratory irritation and cancer when inhaled, nausea, coma, intellectual, and developmental delay as well. So it is very concerning.
…Additionally, as a DEC within a food desert, many of the Nation are supplementing their food access by going to the Big Woods, and they're hunting and fishing. However, right at the edge of the Big Woods you have STAMP. If it's going to develop further, the noise, the light, the emissions are going to scare away the game. So this will be a threat to the food security of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation.
As an environmental justice area under CP-29, the Nation cannot suffer worse consequences due to STAMP compared with other folks. So I think we have to deny the Take Permits on the grounds of public health and environmental justice. Thank you.
- -Dr. Kirk Scirto, M.D.
Family Physician for the Tonawanda Seneca Nation (spoken testimony)
My name is Kathy Melissa Smith. I live at 782 Judge Road in Basom, New York. I'm a 63-year-old enrolled member of the Tonawanda Band of Senecas. I live approximately one mile from the STAMP site. My mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother and I have lived on the Tonawanda Nation our
whole lives.
This fact brings us back to at least 1857. Because the GCEDC had no consultation with the Nation, they present our history as ending in 1857. The female line in my family did not end in 1857. For the record, the Tonawanda Nation continues today.
GCEDC's intention was to ignore Tonawandas, a Nation of human people, just like the people who sit on the GCEDC. Just like they're doing to the Short-Eared Owl and the Northern Harrier. They're ignoring our voice.
I want the Tonawanda Nation's faces yet to come to grow up like I did with nature. The Great Law, the Code of Handsome Lake, both tell us to care for and protect everything in nature. We are to be thankful for every living thing on this earth. It's where the Tonawanda Nation people differ from the People of GCEDC. We care about every living thing. They only care about money. If the DEC permits the moving of the Short-Eared Owl and the Northern Harrier, how long before the GCEDC wants to expand and they need more land and more land? How long before they want Tonawanda's land? We find ourselves on 7500 tiny acres. Where can we go? You can't move us to Kansas anymore.
The GCEDC has already told farmers in the STAMP zone what they can and can't plant in their fields. They grow row crops that they have planted already and shown a decline in voles for this year. Since voles are the primary food that the Short-Eared Owl and the Northern Harrier eat, the permits have not been approved and signed. But GCEDC is already destroying habitat and an ecosystem. This is common knowledge that if you remove the food source of predators, you are forever changing an ecosystem.
Throughout my life I've always lived near the Big Woods. Before the age of five I lived on Meadville Road. My folks build a park started by lack of a different word, down by the Tonawanda Creek. My grandma would hold picnics there. Everyone brought food. The men would fish throughout the day. Kids would try to fall in the water and get wet. The ladies would take their shoes and dangle their feet in the water to beat the heat. It was beautiful back in the woods by the creek.
When I was five, we moved to 784 Judge Road. From then till my twenties, every spring my mom and my aunt would take me to the Big Woods to get wild onions. We would wash them in the creek water, come home, and make soup. My mom loved plants and flowers. She would always pick some sort of pine tree branches to bring home and make a tea.
I do not want industrialization. I want the life I lived in the Big Woods for my five great-grandchildren, who now live at 784 Judge Road. Please do not issue a permit that will end our way of life. Please do not issue a permit to eradicate the Short-Eared Owl or the Northern Harrier that might end up in their extinction. Who would want that on their conscience.
- -Kathy Melissa Smith, Tonawanda Seneca Nation (spoken testimony)
My name is Grandell Logan of the Snipe Clan of the Tonawanda Band of Senecas. In the language I am called Hayondas. I am here to express my opposition to the STAMP site as well as Article Part 182 Permit application.
The Tonawanda Senecas are but one Nation of Six gathered under a law of peace, power, and the good mind. And this Haudenosaunee Confederacy still exists today. Our Peoples are still guided by our ancient principles.
Our customs say that the Peoples' original instructions are to keep this good mind, to be thankful for our Mother, the earth, and to care for our environment so that the next seven generations can live well. The way we see it, humankind does not exist outside of the natural world, however, we live within her. This doesn't apply only to the Haudenosaunee people. So, mark our hurt and disgust to learn of the impacts STAMP will bring. The development of that very site threatens our way of life and our duty as stewards of this land.
However, today we still make use of these plant medicines. This knowledge has been passed through the generations to us and it's our responsibility to make sure that this knowledge can continue for the next seven generations. The Big Woods is rich with these plant medicines which shares a border with the STAMP site, and there is no way to determine the long-term effects on these plants. Many people from around the Confederacy rely on the medicines in Tonawanda, as these plants are hard to find in their home territories.
Many Nations hunt within Tonawanda's borders. Our population of deer is healthy, but with the industrialization of this land so close to your territory, what effect will this have? What might the runoff or potential spills do to these medicinal plants? This permit paves the way for further degradation of our lands, customs, and usage. It is my deepest hope that the GCEDC is denied this permit. Nyaweh.
- -Grandell Logan, Tonawanda Seneca Nation (spoken testimony)
Watkwanonweratons, greetings from me to all of you. My name is David Arquette, and I come from the Mohawk Nation Territory of Ahkwesansne. We are here to protect the rights of the natural world. We are here to speak to those -- to those who cannot speak for themselves.
Our natural world is fragile, sensitive, and a delicate ecosystem. It's like a spider's web, you break one strand on it, then the rest will fall and never cease to exist. This is why our Creator gave us the Thanksgiving address. It is our duty as human beings to give thanks, respect, gratitude, appreciation, and honor to protect and preserve all of creation for the future generations. If we neglect our duties, then all life will perish here on earth.
We never want to go against the natural world. If you do, then the future generations will bear the brunt of the decisions we make today. The traditional leadership of the Haudenosaunee understand this. Why they have the -- this is why they have the last old-growth forest that exists
today on the Tonawanda Seneca Nation Territory. Many scientists, ecologists, botanists, and ornithologists and other professions that the universities have created, have come to this area called the Big Woods to admire and document the rich diversity of the flora and fauna. They can't find these plants here -- they can find these plants here that do not exist any other place else because their habitat remains intact.
The STAMP Project will impact the threatened, endangered species of the Short-Eared Owl and the Northern Harrier. These birds are sacred to our people. When the men wear these feathers on their Gustowas, the headdresses that you see here today, some of these men wearing these feathers on their heads and in our ceremonies, they have a spiritual connection to the birds. It is our way of honoring them for all they do here on earth. We wear their feathers in ceremonies so they can still be part of the ceremonies, and their spirit lives on. the owls. They send us messages from the spiritual world. They warn us of any harm that comes to our people. They are already warning us of the harm this project will have on our world – have on us.
In conclusion, the Big Woods is a sacred site of the Haudenosaunee, and should be protected as such. We request that DEC deny this Sitewide Incidental Take Permit application for the STAMP Project. This is on the minds and the spirits of the birds, animals, and spirits of this site. Danehtho. That's all.
- -David Arquette, Mohawk Nation
Director of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force (spoken testimony)
I am Rockee Poodry, and I am ten-years-old. I oppose the STAMP Project because we won't have food, berries, and medicines. If the water disappears we won't have these things, these resources to survive. Most of us use wells to wash our dishes and shower. And the animals will
migrate, so that means we won't have food. We won't have water to cook our food or drink, and we won't have any food to live off the earth. And the land is very important to us. We go fishing there and swimming and kayaking and hunting. Thank you for listening.
- -Rockee Poodry, Tonawanda Seneca Nation (spoken testimony)
My name is Christine Abrams, Tonawanda Citizen, Beaver Clan, mother, grandmother, and aunt. I oppose the Sitewide Part 182 Take Permit application.
Take is a word, as we as Indigenous people, are all too familiar with. Take our land, take our water, take our medicines, take our children.
This take of the Short-Eared Owl and the Northern Harrier will only lead to more taking beyond the boundaries of the STAMP site.
The Big Woods that is adjacent to the STAMP site, provides so much to not only our people, the people of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation Territory, from people from other Haudenosaunee Territories. They come to hunt, fish, and gather because it is a vibrant, plentiful woods.
It is our tradition and culture to share. A teaching of a dish with one spoon. A teaching, opposite of taking. The Short-Eared Owl and Northern Harrier are threatened, endangered species, but that does not seem to matter. The Sitewide Part 182 Take Permit permits further reduction of their numbers, their existence. Such will be the same for the Tonawanda Seneca Nation Territory. My home, my habitat.
Whatever development comes to the STAMP site, it will forever change the lives of those on the Territory and all that the Creator provides for us to live as Haudenosaunee. As a Short-Eared Owl and Northern Harrier, we are the threatened, endangered species.
Take my word, we will continue our duty to protect the land, the waters, the plant life, the people, but most importantly to protect and preserve our future generations. There is one thing you cannot take, my voice.
- -Christine Abrams, Tonawanda Seneca Nation (spoken testimony)
I am a citizen of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and have lived on the Territory my entire life. I live about a quarter of a mile from the STAMP site. I live a subsistence lifestyle. I harvest all my meat mostly from the Territory and do not purchase meat at a grocery store. I heat my house with wood harvested from the Territory. I hunt deer, turkey, squirrel, pheasants, raccoons, rabbits, and frogs. I also fish on the Territory. I do most of my fishing and hunting activities in the area adjacent to the Western New York Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (“STAMP”), known as the Big Woods. I also gather medicine plants from the Big Woods area and am continuing to learn the knowledge from the elders regarding plant medicines. One of the main medicines that our people use is located in the Big Woods. I do not know of another location where that medicine is located. We have relied on this medicine for thousands of years… I have serious concerns if [STAMP] goes forward. I believe that the project would have a significant impact on the Traditional Cultural Property of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation. If [STAMP] moves forward and is eventually constructed, I would no longer harvest meat or gather traditional medicines in the Big Woods and in other areas impacted by the development on the Tonawanda Territory as I would no longer feel comfortable consuming resources from this impacted area. If I could no longer harvest meat from the Big Woods area, I would have no alternate location to harvest meat… I am not aware of any other place to harvest my traditional medicines other than the Big Woods, so if I am unable to continue to harvest there due to [STAMP], I will not be able to continue that part of our traditions.
- -Levi Winnie, Tonawanda Seneca Nation (Affidavit excerpt, May 27, 2021)
I am a biologist by education and currently serve as Assistant Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment located at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. In 2019, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation requested a short-term biological survey of the Territory. I was part of the team that conducted the survey and found that the area, particularly the area that is adjacent to the Western New York Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (“STAMP”), contains an unusually high quality and diversity of plants and animals, including many species of conservation concern at both State and Federal levels; a remarkably low incidence of invasive plant species, along with robust populations of forest floor herbs; and a significant complement of trees with old-growth or mature forest characteristics, along with vertebrate species dependent on this uncommon forest type. We concluded that the Tonawanda Territory serves as a habitat island in the middle of a landscape modified for agriculture, as well as urban and suburban development…
I believe that natural and cultural resources are inseparable, such that impacts to any of the natural resources of the Territory are also impacts to the cultural resources of all Haudenosaunee. There is an ongoing and deep cultural connection to the places that benefit all Haudenosaunee, so that if the Tonawanda Territory is impacted, it will have an impact on all Haudenosaunee…
I have serious concerns if [STAMP] goes forward. I believe that the project would have a significant impact on the Traditional Cultural Property of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and on all Haudenosaunee. The area adjacent to the STAMP site serves as a wildlife corridor in an area fragmented by agricultural land and suburban and urban development. I’m concerned that increased pressure on the species that inhabit the Big Woods from [STAMP] could cause a tipping point from which certain species might not be able to return.
-Neil Patterson, Jr., Tuscarora Nation (Affidavit excerpt, May 27, 2021)