Mercury poisoning collapsed the Grassy Narrows fishing economy and tripled welfare dependence.

Evidence

It took a university student from Boston, Massachusetts, to uncover the scope of the mercury releases. On September 28, 1975, the Ontario Minister of Health publicly admitted that 20 to 30 of the Native people living on the Grassy Narrows reserve showed symptoms of mercury poisoning. … As a result, commercial fishing by area Anishinaabeg was closed down, and unemployment on the reserve rose to over 80 percent. Their attempt to procure rights to uncontaminated fish from a nearby lake was defeated by non-Native lodge owners who wanted to use the lake for sports fishing. Between 1969 and 1974, welfare tripled on the White Dog Reserve and quadrupled at Grassy Narrows. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 521

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the chapter-2 GM/Akwesasne pattern where an outside corporation poisons a river and the community absorbs the social costs. — connects to: Hydro dams and mercury dumping destroyed the Grassy Narrows river ecology. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 520