Can a River Have Rights? Inside Oklahoma’s Water Fight — Full Documentary

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: She's a heart, she's our home, provides life, she's everything to who we are as people from this place and our connection runs through her. This is gonna have generational impacts. [00:00:19] Speaker 2: You have generations of ancestors that you may possibly be letting down to try to protect the kindness river. [00:00:41] Speaker 3: Oklahoma is hot. I'm talking 110 degrees and 80% humidity. But where I live there's lots of water, rivers and lakes to cool off in. In fact, there's more man-made lakes here than any other state. I grew up going to these lakes and every summer you can find me there. This is Grand Lake. The full name is Grand Lake or the Cherokees? Oh, the Cherokees? Grand Lake was one of the first man-made lakes in Oklahoma. It's a huge lake. They flooded the area to displace a ton of people. One time when I was a young adult, a friend was taking us around to all these little coves, just like this, and started saying all the names of the coves, such and such holler and such and such this. And he said, these are named after the communities that were here. Most of them were Cherokee. And when this lake was built in the early 1930s, their family had moved less than 100 years earlier from their ancestral lands. That's when I really started thinking about all of the people that had been displaced to create the lakes in Oklahoma. And I've been thinking about it ever since. Who was here? Whose land is this? Who had to move? Who already came from that history of displacement had to move? [00:02:44] Speaker 4: There was some good old people who lived in this valley. There wasn't nobody caught no trouble or nothing. Everybody just got along good. When they built the lake, they was going to move the cemetery. And people didn't want the cemetery moved, so inside they'd just be cheaper to leave and it would be moving. They moved all the stones off and built it up 15 foot and then put the stones back. And some people said they didn't put them back and in the right place. Just right down this way, just a little ways at the end of that is where the post office was. It was a pretty good little town one time. What gets me more than anything? Run all these people out. And a bunch of them, they just grieved herself to death because they go out. I was raised here and didn't want to leave here. [00:03:43] Speaker 5: They were getting by with the way they were living and doing all right. And yet they lost their home that they'd had. Maybe their parents had had the home before them. And they lost all that. To me, if I'd been in their place, it would not have been worth it. I don't think it would have been to you either to do that and take the land away from them for the government just to come in and do that. [00:04:26] Speaker 3: I never correlated when I was a kid going to the lake as my grandfather's work. And now that's all I think about. Treasure chests. It's literally Grandpa's treasure chest. [00:04:50] Speaker 6: This one is this. [00:04:51] Speaker 3: Okay. So this was, this was the Tulsa District of the Corps of Engineers. And this is Eastern Oklahoma. And all of these are man-made constructed lakes. This is the slide rule. Yeah. This is personal property, John E. Turnbull. Well, it's got a name on it three times. [00:05:24] Speaker 7: Okay. Who is this? This is my dad. John Turnbull. Jack. How old would he have been? 20, 19. His first job out of engineering school was for the Corps of Engineers and he retired from there. So what was his job? He was a civil engineer. He helped design the dams and he was in hydrology for a while. So hydroelectric dams? Well, most of them were flood control. Some of them are for producing electricity, but most of them just became recreational lakes. He worked on Keystone Dam. He did? Yes. And he was a whiz with a slide rule. Here he is smoking his pipe. [00:06:24] Speaker 3: See, that's what I remember. Grandpa being like quiet and calming and of course the pipe. Do you remember Keystone being built? I do, kind of. [00:06:37] Speaker 7: What I really remember is the sandbags along Riverside Drive, along the river, because they were afraid it was going to flood. I must have only been two or three years old. So yeah, I remember the hoopty-doo about this is going to keep Tulsa from flooding. So it was a big deal. It was a really big deal. I know that he felt good about it, to keep the city from flooding. [00:07:32] Speaker 3: I live in Tulsa, which was founded by the Muscogees on the banks of the Arkansas River, when the United States also forced them to these lands. My mom, like me, was born and raised here after her father moved here for his job with the Corps of Engineers. The Arkansas River is now dammed at Lake Keystone, which my grandfather helped build. Once called the oil capital of the world, Tulsa is a city built on extraction. The discovery of oil in the area resulted in the murders of dozens of Osage people a hundred years ago. At the same time, in 1921, the most prosperous black community in America, Greenwood, was massacred by white Tulsans. My neighborhood is adjacent to Greenwood, in the Cherokee Nation, where blood and oil mix together in the land. After the oil boom and the violence of the Greenwood massacre, settlers found another natural resource to extract and commodify. [00:08:39] Speaker 8: Here was the key to Oklahoma's becoming a vastly powerful economic giant within inland America, the state's 1,200 square miles of lakes, a sea of inland water spread across the face of the Oklahoma prairie. This industry arrives and population grows, so grows demand for water, and it must be met. The future does belong to Oklahoma, but it must be claimed. [00:09:17] Speaker 9: In southeastern Oklahoma, the fight to protect the Kayameshi River is heating up. Residents are headed back to court to try and stop outside entities from taking their water. [00:09:30] Speaker 10: The river feeds this whole valley. So this far ridge, mountain ridge, is the southern ridge of the Kayamesh Mountains. And then back along the ridge line, that's the Kayamesh River. This is where the hydroelectric plant's going to go in. It's going to drain every water well or affect every water well in this valley up to 500 feet. That's everywhere that you can see. This is the closest place to any major city. It's the closest place to Oklahoma City, to Tulsa, to Dallas, to Longview, to Texarkana, that has natural resources like this. It's the closest place, and they're being used by people that are not us. But it always seems to kind of happen. [00:10:50] Speaker 11: Good morning, everybody. We are here in a matter of the application of Taman Energy, LLC, for a permit to use stream water in the Pushmataha County, correct. [00:11:03] Speaker 12: The applicant, as the board and the court is aware, is required to publish notice in the two counties that are impacted by this application. And it's our position that notice. And Choctaw County has been defective under 82 OS 105.11. That publication is required to state a 30-day period of rejections and protests. [00:11:26] Speaker 6: It is our position that notice is proper, and it has served its goal of bringing all interested parties here today. [00:11:33] Speaker 13: May I add to this yard, what they're going to do affects the entire basin. The Kainichi River, if I'm not mistaken, begins up in the mountains that are in LaFleur County. It goes to LaFleur, Latimer, Pushmataha. Part of the basin is in Pittsburgh and Atoka Counties. There's Choctaw County. It should have been published in all of those counties because it affects all of those counties. The statute that says they have to publish in those counties. It's my interpretation of the statute that's been cited, Your Honor. I got you. Take 10-minute recess. [00:12:24] Speaker 3: So, Grandpa was instrumental in building these lakes that really changed the face of the state. If Grandpa was sitting here with us right now, and I was asking him, your work displaced a lot of people who often feel forgotten. Especially when like a lot of those people, they're Choctaw. Like, what do you think, purely speculating, what do you think Grandpa would say to me? [00:12:48] Speaker 7: You know, there's just all this stuff that you have to consider. [00:12:54] Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think there's a right or wrong. Yes, it did a lot of good. But you look at the people that were displaced, you know, they are the farmers. It's the lower income people. It's the rural people. Isn't it always that way? They're always the ones that are hurt. I mean, did he have any kind of like affect of it about it? Or was it just kind of matter of fact? No, that was the way it was. [00:13:19] Speaker 7: You know, hey, yeah, I don't want Farmer Jones to lose his land. But we have billions of dollars of infrastructure that is going to have to continue to be fixed if this river keeps flooding. And I think that's probably how he felt, how he would have felt. [00:13:46] Speaker 3: You told me one time that like you would take like road trips to go to dams. [00:13:50] Speaker 7: Well, no, when we were on a road trip, if there was a dam, then we went to see it. How many dams did you go see? I don't know. I was in the backseat. I didn't care. [00:14:03] Speaker 3: Did you think they were cool? [00:14:07] Speaker 7: No, I didn't think about it. [00:14:09] Speaker 3: Was grandpa like nerding out? Was he like, this is a such and such style dam? [00:14:12] Speaker 7: No. [00:14:13] Speaker 3: You know, grandpa wasn't like that. I don't know. [00:14:16] Speaker 7: I was four when he died. Well, I mean, I'm sure he was in his head. But, you know, we would, you know, drive by it and he'd look. [00:14:26] Speaker 3: My Choctaw grandpa embodied the quintessential American dream. He joined the U.S. military, fought in World War II. Then he was able to get an education and a good job with a pension. That job with the same federal government that forced us off our homelands in an act of genocide. That job which enabled my mom to get a college education and has benefited his grandkids, my sister and I, as well. Grandpa was also one of those people that had both the scientific and the creative sides of his brain activated. He made stained glass and he filmed home movies. Did grandpa just always have the camera? [00:15:17] Speaker 7: Look, Colleen's doing the same exact thing that grandpa used to do. I know. Well, thank god we have a documentary. [00:15:23] Speaker 5: I want to do something on the camera. [00:15:28] Speaker 3: You want to do something on the camera? [00:15:30] Speaker 5: Yeah. [00:15:31] Speaker 3: What do you want to do on the camera, buddy? [00:15:32] Speaker 5: Push the button. [00:15:34] Speaker 3: Push some buttons. [00:15:45] Speaker 14: Push some buttons. [00:15:56] Speaker 3: Why did you want to come to Mississippi? I don't know. [00:16:00] Speaker 7: Sometimes, you know, you're just kind of... Some people are pulled to the place where their ancestors came from. [00:16:09] Speaker 14: I don't know. [00:16:27] Speaker 3: Choctaw came out of the earth in what's now called Mississippi. Aniwaya is the birthplace. [00:16:37] Speaker 15: Our mother mound. [00:16:51] Speaker 3: Not far away on Dancing Rabbit Creek, monuments mark the site where our removal treaty was signed. [00:16:57] Speaker 7: On September 27th, 1830, the Choctaw nation of Indians surrendered their lands to the U.S. and removed west of the Mississippi. [00:17:21] Speaker 5: That's it? That's what we did. [00:17:23] Speaker 3: That site is now a cemetery. [00:17:53] Speaker 16: I want to get to our good friend, the Tomlin hydropower project. I've got his application right here. I'll pass it around in a minute. He's going to build a 30-acre lake right on the banks of the river that's 60 foot deep. He's going to pump water out of that into this. This lake is going to be 200 acres. Then, going up the mountain, this lake is going to be 100 acres. This is a massive amount of shale and soil that he's going to dig out up there. Where is that going to go? He's not going to take it back to Dallas with him. Shale, rock dust is all going to wash down over time into the river. Well, these guys, they're investment managers out of Dallas. [00:19:04] Speaker 13: This is a water rights play. It's who controls water rights. I mean, they consider water the next goal. [00:19:10] Speaker 16: You know, we've got to get together and stop it. So, without further ado, Dr. Ken Roberts, our president, has something to say. [00:19:18] Speaker 17: What seems to be happening that I can't keep up with, and we've been trying at this for three years, is that we keep having people come along and propose things like this. And we get very short notices in the newspaper that we have to act on. So, but what makes me nervous about this is just things aren't seeming to be done right. They're definitely not done on the up and up. All of us are stakeholders. And how many of you were at the closed door meeting? So, we apparently don't count. This is going to kill a river. And for a lot of us, this isn't about money. It's to preserve a culture, a way of life, a heritage, that you just can't replace if you move to the city. [00:20:07] Speaker 10: It's not just Choctaw people that live here and are dependent on these natural resources. There's Choctaw people. There's Cherokee people. I'm both. I'm Cherokee and I'm Choctaw. There's Creek. There's people that have been living here for hundreds of years that are white people, that are white families that are affected by the decisions. It was one of those, there's no way that's happening, type of assumptions. [00:20:38] Speaker 3: Isn't that just the story though? I mean, I think all the time about before removal and like how many of us must have been like, there's no way. They're not taking all of our land. [00:20:49] Speaker ?: They're not taking all of our land. [00:20:49] Speaker 10: Right? They're not going to do this. [00:20:52] Speaker ?: Right? [00:20:53] Speaker 10: And then they do. The number one concern right now is how is this going to affect our drinking water in this valley and what are we going to have access to? But I don't think that we've really had an opportunity to study or see what type of effect that this is going to have on any of the animals or flora or anything here. You ask about grandchildren and it's concerning that I'm not going to be able to bring them here and show them the things that I was shown. It's so drastically changed just from when I was a child. If the change happened at the same rate, we're sitting in a dry river. It's pretty sad. [00:21:56] Speaker 6: I'd like to briefly walk through what the applicant, Tomlin Energy LLC, intends to prove during its case in chief in this matter. Stay your name for the record please, sir. Sorry. Daniel Otis Tomlin General. Pursue to section two of the application you completed, what type of permit is Tomlin seeking here? [00:22:16] Speaker 13: Term permit. [00:22:18] Speaker 6: And what is the proposed ending date for that term permit? [00:22:22] Speaker 13: December of 2070. [00:22:25] Speaker 6: Do you believe that your plant will benefitfully use the runoff water that it seeks approval for here today? Yes, sir. No further questions at this time. [00:22:33] Speaker 12: Have you called any of the downstream landowners to visit with them about your proposed use of the kind of each river water? No. You didn't ask them about how this would impact their domestic uses or existing appropriations? I didn't think it would. [00:22:47] Speaker 13: Let's talk about the construction of this. Where's the diversion we're going? There is none. You know, I'm real curious about that. If we could look at page five of exhibit one, would you read that whole paragraph into the record for us please? A small impoundment lake will be located near the Kaimichi River. There'll be a small diversion where that's wrong. Well, you're the one who signed this. That's right. Now, you also said you hadn't contacted downstream users, quote, "I didn't think it would impact them." What scientific basis led you to that conclusion? There wasn't a scientific basis. It was confirmed by what our consultant says. [00:23:43] Speaker 17: "This is exactly where I'm from. So I was literally born in this town of Kasoma in some lady's house on the way to the hospital. We're going to make sure that we're in the hospital. [00:24:08] Speaker ?: We're going to make sure that we don't know how to get out of the hospital. We're going to make sure that we don't know how to get out of the hospital. We're going to make sure that we don't know how to get out of the hospital. And we're going to make sure that we don't know how to get out of the hospital. We're going to make sure that we don't know how to get out of the hospital. [00:24:13] Speaker 17: A lot of times, without thinking much about the environmental consequence, we make big decisions that have everlasting changes to the environment. The only way that we're able to make a difference is through science, to go out and to try to get people to even notice. There's a whole list of issues with the river. Recently, the Oklahoma Water Resource Board gave Oklahoma City the permit to pump the water up to Oklahoma City from the Kimish River Basin. Whenever you decrease the water by that much, the water is not able to flow as well, and it gets dirtier, which makes it absorb more sunshine. All of this causes a temperature rise, which further kills fish and mussel species. Who cares? They're just mussels. But as they're often referred to, they are the river's liver. They can filter about 25 gallons a day per mussel. So they're providing water that's of quality to downstream users. If this water is diverted, the worst case scenario would be that this isn't enough water for any species to survive, especially the cleaners of the water. So what do you do if you're a downstream user and you have such low volume of such polluted water, is that you need tremendous money to treat it. None of these townships in the poorest counties of Oklahoma can afford to do that. Worst case scenario, the water becomes so unusable that people will have to relocate. [00:25:54] Speaker 11: "There's a boat going over in Tulsa, and I hope it's shining on me. Now it's getting colder in Cherokee County. I'm sorry about it." [00:26:24] Speaker 18: "You're the reason I'm made of a woman that you're missing you. I'm sure missing you." [00:26:54] Speaker 3: "They're under a boil order. June 9th. Emergency alert. At this time we are unable to estimate when we will get water again. We are under a mandatory boil order. Do not under any circumstances drink the water without first boiling it." "They built that lake so that people could use the water. I'm all charged up again now. This is just crazy." "Can you imagine how disheartening that is to have to update your community and just say still no water, still no water, still no water for six weeks in the middle of summer when it's 110 damn degrees outside?" "This is going to have generational impacts. It is. There's no way it's not. There's no way it's not. And I just sit here and I literally, like, I know we're doing this, like, we're doing it on camera, but I literally feel sick." "And I... [00:28:12] Speaker ?: "America has painted Oklahoma as this throwaway place. A place that the federal government said, 'The land's not worth anything, so we're going to move all of these tribes here.'" "And basically create giant, like, a place that the federal government said, 'The land's not worth anything, so we're going to move all of these tribes here.'" [00:28:24] Speaker 3: "And basically create giant reservation in what they called Indian Territory. It's not pretty, it's not worth anything, unless America and the extractive powers that be are going to be a place that the land's not worth anything." "Sandy, you've never been up here, right? I have not." "Sandy, you've never been up here, right?" "I have not." [00:29:02] Speaker 17: "I think that that is the first place. It looks a little bit spring-fed. This is the head of the Kymish River." [00:29:20] Speaker 19: "So this is the birthplace?" [00:29:22] Speaker 17: "This is the birthplace." [00:29:24] Speaker 1: "I've never seen it before, so this is the first time that I've seen the beginning of a river like this." "If you're looking at it as a birthplace, it looks like a canal, like a birth canal. It's the beginning of a river. And how often do you get to stand in the beginning of a river?" "So they would ceremonially bathe in water. You know, in some tribes they bathe at sacred times, but there's a cleansing that happens, so that's why I've wet my hair and my face, just to recognize that this water is special." [00:30:11] Speaker 17: "I'm going to do that. I think I did, but I'm going to do it again." [00:30:14] Speaker 1: "Yeah." "If you think of how amazing the Kymish she becomes after this place, our beginnings can be so small and insignificant, but as we grow and people join, our movement could become as significant. And how beautiful that is." [00:30:33] Speaker 3: "It looks like snow. I don't know that I've ever seen a cotton field before." "I think I have either." "Cotton capital of the world." "Greenwood, Mississippi." "Named for a Choctaw chief. Greenwood LaFleur." "Tallahatchie." "Named from the Choctaw words Tully meaning rock. Hacha meaning river. River of rocks." "I guess more people know it for the fictional Billy Joe McAllister, who jumped off its bridge in Bobby Gentry's country song. Or for the real-life 14-year-old Emmett Till, whose body his murderers threw in the Tallahatchie. There's monuments of violence everywhere here. The violence of our removal, our genocide, and the violence that came after. The U.S. government forced us off this land to open it up for white settlement, for agriculture. We were already farming the land. Some of us had even adopted the practice of chattel slavery from Europeans. And slave people traveled the Trail of Tears with us and established black communities all across Indian territory. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. The name marks both the prosperity and the violence on Indian land on both ends of the Trail of Tears. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:32:26] Speaker ?: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:32:40] Speaker 20: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:33:29] Speaker ?: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:33:35] Speaker 19: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:33:37] Speaker ?: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:33:43] Speaker 7: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:33:50] Speaker ?: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:33:52] Speaker 7: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:33:55] Speaker ?: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. [00:33:58] Speaker 3: Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. Greenwood, Tulsa, is named after this place. In 1830, the Choctaws had ceded over 23 million acres to the United States. Like, almost a million acres a year. Yeah. [00:34:10] Speaker 19: I don't think that I've ever been anywhere where so many things are named after one person. Like what? The Greenwood this, the LaFleur this. [00:34:21] Speaker 7: Oh, oh, yeah. [00:34:23] Speaker 3: Greenwood LaFleur was elected chief of the Choctaw Nation in 1822. And by 1830, he was signing the removal treaty. Hmm. [00:34:33] Speaker 7: He was a piece of work. [00:34:35] Speaker ?: Hmm. [00:34:36] Speaker 3: And by 1840, cotton production increases 60%. Yeah. So, by 10 years later, they've increased cotton 60%. On the land. On that land. Yeah. [00:34:48] Speaker 7: He was walking in high cotton. [00:34:51] Speaker 3: Oh, cool. Look at all these beads. Oh, yeah. 16th century glass beads. Oh, yeah. [00:34:59] Speaker ?: 16th century glass beads. [00:34:59] Speaker 7: This is what we were making our bling out of. Yeah. 1400 to 1700. Wow. A floorsite collection. Wow, look at all those little shells. [00:35:17] Speaker 3: Oh, wow. We would mix crushed up river mussel shells with clay to make pottery. Mussels were easily gathered in shallower streams, making them a readily available source of food and raw materials for native peoples for thousands of years. Unfortunately, many mussel species are endangered today due to human impacts on the environment, such as logging, farming, damming of rivers, and water pollution. Well, we know a little bit about that. [00:35:54] Speaker 17: I see it in the spiritual way. I don't know how to divide it out as being the river, this world. It's all intertwined. It's what we're doing. [00:36:04] Speaker 1: You know, this is part of the community work that, you know, the cleaning of the river, because that's part of the support of the river. And then the spirit is our prayers that will lead with the river when we walk away from today. This is where I came when my brother was passing, is I came here to pray. And it was a beautiful day. Specifically at this part of the river? This place is where I came. [00:36:30] Speaker 17: I spent two months on the river after some really deeply personal losses and pain, and it's got some tremendous healing properties, as you just talked about. It's really hard to convey sometimes, you know, until you've done it. The intangibles always are. [00:36:46] Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, but it's the intangibles that keep our souls alive. [00:36:50] Speaker 17: It just goes to show you how important rivers are. [00:36:54] Speaker 1: Well, that goes back to that prayer and those intangible things and the scientific aspects. If we can meld those together, you know, how powerful that can be. It's like any battle, there's more than one front. I can't do what you guys do, but I can come and pray, or I can do something. And it can be that little that keeps people going, or that great. You know, that prayer can be that great. I'm doing geochemical analyses on heavy metals that are present in the Kayamichi River basin. [00:37:34] Speaker 21: I'm studying the sediments down there, the water, muscle shell, and muscle tissue. So these are all the impaired waters. I just made it red. The basins like Hugo and Sardis are impaired. They're polluted to the point where they exceed an EPA limit, so they're not safe for like recreation or human consumption or even for aquatic life. Most of these are impaired due to like some type of metal. This is the state of Oklahoma. Pretty much every water system in Oklahoma has some sort of impairment to it. But the EPA also doesn't measure mercury in a lake, so any river system, they don't test for mercury. [00:38:37] Speaker 11: So we're back on the record. Ms. Lauren Haygood is intending to testify. [00:38:42] Speaker 21: Reservoir water is stagnant, and this allows bacteria to thrive. The bacteria that is thriving in these reservoirs are excellent at converting mercury into methylmercury. And for those of you who don't know, methylmercury is very harmful to human health. It's considered a neurotoxin. [00:39:00] Speaker 6: We rely on these reports citing about some of the terrible things that are going to happen in the river. Yes. [00:39:07] Speaker 21: Because even taking the runoff water, that's still reducing the amount of water that's available to flow downstream. [00:39:11] Speaker 6: Have you reviewed the processes or any of the construction plans of any of the following facilities? The Guangdong Pump Storage Power Station in China? [00:39:21] Speaker ?: No. [00:39:22] Speaker 6: A rule of an hour, a rule. What about the Okutataragi Station in Japan? [00:39:31] Speaker 21: No. [00:39:32] Speaker 6: So there's a lot of hydroelectric facilities in the world that are currently operating that you have of those data. [00:39:38] Speaker 21: Correct. However, these are scientific studies that have been done. And consistently after the hydroelectric reservoir has been constructed, there are environmental negative impacts that have been seen. [00:39:59] Speaker 10: This is kind of what we would have considered bottoms. Bottom land close to the river. Stays fairly wet. Not as much anymore as it used to. Bite it. [00:40:13] Speaker ?: It's fine. It's like baby asparagus, right? Very tender. Right? [00:40:14] Speaker 10: Bite it. It's like baby asparagus, right? But very tender, right? You know what that is? That's a native Greenbrier. We can't get a grocery store. We don't have access to normal things that larger communities do. If people are giving the information, you can be food sovereign here. I can support myself and my family without any help directly from the earth. But it's not like that's public knowledge. You know, people will buy a container of blackberries for six bucks, eight bucks, and they can stop at any county road and pick to their heart's content. And I don't think it even crosses people's minds. [00:41:32] Speaker 3: Or they don't know. And I think that's kind of like the erasure of knowledge, you know? [00:41:39] Speaker 10: Right. [00:41:40] Speaker 3: That was systemic. Right. That was on purpose. [00:41:45] Speaker 10: Right. And it's really crazy that you say that because I really hadn't thought about what really caused that gap. That gap is when the federal government took us away from our culture. That's when our grandparents could no longer teach us these things. They couldn't teach their children, which couldn't teach us, and it stopped. [00:42:10] Speaker 3: I also think about, like, what was lost when, you know, after removal of life. [00:42:18] Speaker 10: But, I mean, on that note, can you imagine our people, you know, the Cherokee people or the Choctaw people, being used to a certain environment and living in that environment as part of that environment, just like we were walking out here today and being totally dependent on it. And then all of a sudden, they take you somewhere, and the climate is different, and the ground is different, and the plants are different. What do you do? You don't have Google, you know, and your grandma don't know. Where does that information come from? [00:43:03] Speaker 7: I think the trailhead's right over here. [00:43:06] Speaker 14: Okay. [00:43:12] Speaker 3: Oh, it feels fitting that we're here now, which is, this is when they did it. At least 21,000 Choctaw passed through Arkansas during the 1830s. This is like the most accurate language I've heard. Really? Like, like, there was a threat. The United States government threatened us, and that's why we signed it. Usually, it's just like, they were removed. They signed the treaty, and they left. They moved. They moved to India. We walked a section of the trail that had been worn down so low that the tree roots were now level with our heads. . . . [00:45:36] Speaker ?: . . . [00:46:04] Speaker 6: . . . Approved the permit as presented. [00:46:08] Speaker 2: I'll second. Mr. Allen? [00:46:12] Speaker 6: Yes. [00:46:13] Speaker 2: Mr. Landis? Yes. Mr. Smaller? Yes. [00:46:18] Speaker 22: Mr. Warming? [00:46:20] Speaker 19: Yes. [00:46:21] Speaker 22: Mr. Drake? [00:46:23] Speaker 1: Yes. [00:46:24] Speaker 22: Mr. Darby? [00:46:26] Speaker ?: No. [00:46:27] Speaker 1: Mr. Scholar? [00:46:28] Speaker 22: Yes. No. [00:46:30] Speaker ?: Stop it. [00:46:31] Speaker 6: Yes. The motion is approved. [00:46:35] Speaker 22: And so a vigorous modern culture replaces that of a bygone age. The exploitation of resources by modern industry. The rising crescendo of the conquest of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:46:48] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:46:49] Speaker 22: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:46:50] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:46:52] Speaker 18: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:46:55] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:47:10] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:47:30] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:47:31] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:47:35] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:47:36] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:47:38] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:47:47] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:00] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:01] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:03] Speaker 2: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:05] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:06] Speaker 2: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:09] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:13] Speaker 2: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:16] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:30] Speaker 2: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:40] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:41] Speaker 2: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:49] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:48:59] Speaker 1: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:17] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:18] Speaker 1: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:26] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:28] Speaker 3: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:44] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:52] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:53] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:56] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:49:58] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:50:10] Speaker 1: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:50:44] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:50:56] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:51:01] Speaker 14: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:51:02] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:51:13] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:51:59] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:52:14] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:52:15] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:52:26] Speaker ?: The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:52:27] Speaker 10: The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. The rising crescendo of a continent. [00:52:39] Speaker 3: The Kiyomishi River and my grandpa. Brought me to this story. It's clear that his legacy. Is more than a string of dams. Across our landscape. His work flows together with mine. My family has been buried. In the Oklahoma earth. For seven generations. Our cemetery. Is the final resting place. Of survivors. Of the Trail of Tears. And there's an oil pipeline. That runs on the land. Parallel to the cemetery. Monuments of displacement. Monuments of extraction. [00:53:38] Speaker 14: Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. [00:55:08] Speaker 18: Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. [00:56:04] Speaker ?: Thank you.