One Standard for All : A balancing act between sovereignty and ecology

When the Los Coyotes Band of Mission Indians rejected a tentative contract to build a landfill on its northern San Diego County reservation, it prevented what could have been a nasty showdown between the state’s responsibility to protect the environment and American Indian sovereignty.

The Los Coyotes arrangement with a waste-management company was a proposal for a waste facility in San Diego County. Sovereignty, the centuries-old but often trampled tradition that exempts reservations from most state laws, is a big part of what attracts waste companies. It translates into fewer regulations and fees. In turn, cash-poor tribes are attracted by the prospect of jobs.

But such proposals have stirred up strong environmental concerns among neighbors of the reservations, environmentalists and state officials, who don’t want to see 20 years of environmental protections, often more stringent than federal regulations, ignored.

Most American Indians share that environmental concern, but resist additional regulation as an erosion of sovereignty. Protecting both can only be accomplished by cooperation. No one wins if the sovereignty issue is pushed to the wall.

If the state loses the right to regulate, then American Indians and other Californians could suffer environmental and health consequences. In the Los Coyotes case, Chambers Development had pledged to meet or exceed state standards, yet the contractual arrangements failed to back that up.

Problems may have been worked out in the federal approval process; but there’s no guarantee. The Assembly is considering a bill that would require state regulation of waste facilities on reservations. All waste facilities in California should meet state standards. If the bill becomes law, a court battle over sovereignty is inevitable.

The opportunity exists right now for state and tribal representatives to work out an agreement that protects state standards and sovereignty. It can be done.