The site of the Haudenosaunee founding peace treaty is now a Superfund site

Evidence

So was born the great Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the oldest living democracy on the planet. It was here, at Onondaga Lake, where this Great Law was born. For its pivotal role, the Onondaga Nation became the central fire of the Confederacy and from that time forward, the name Tadodaho has been carried by the spiritual leader of the Confederacy. As a final measure, the Peacemaker placed the far-seeing eagle atop the Great Tree to warn the people of approaching danger. For the many centuries that followed, the eagle did its work and the Haudenosaunee people lived in peace and prosperity. But then another danger—a different kind of violence—came to their homelands. The great bird must have called and called, but its voice was lost in the maelstrom winds of change. Today, the ground where the Peacemaker walked is a Superfund site. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1143

Categorization

• XREF: Ties the origin-story-as-instructions theme (ch3) and land-as-gift vs property (ch4) to present-day environmental racism: sacred constitutional ground reduced to toxic waste. — connects to: Strict joint-and-several liability made most Superfund sites effectively indivisible — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 486
• QUESTION: The pairing of ‘oldest living democracy’ with ‘Superfund site’ begs the causal question of why settler law never protected this ground — a thread worth chasing into environmental-justice scholarship on Superfund siting.
• ADDENDUM: Supports the land-rights and ‘Complaints’ article’s thread on how law encodes who and what is protected: the Great Law protected right relations with land; settler law did not.