Stamp Industrial Site in WNY Threatens Seneca Nation’s Way of Life (Your Letters)
June 26, 2023 | syracuse.com
Photo: Valerie Parker-Campbell, a Tonawanda Seneca woman, said STAMP jeopardizes sacred medicines and practices of the community.
REPOST from syracuse.com – To the Editor:
Central New Yorkers who care about land justice should pay heed to an industrial development taking shape in Western New York. Known as Science Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park, or STAMP, the facility would occupy over 1,200 acres of land along the boundary of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation in Genesee County. Nation citizens point to site industrialization as a threat to their way of life and to their hunting, fishing and plant-gathering sites. Meanwhile the state development agency, Empire State Development, has sunk millions of taxpayer dollars in the project (with little public consultation).
Nearly 200 people attended a May 11, 2023, public hearing focused on endangered and threatened raptors at STAMP, speaking in opposition to the developer’s request for a permit to destroy habitat. The area, known as the “Alabama Swamp,” forms one of the largest wetland complexes in the state and a treasure for wildlife. Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and three state Wildlife Management Areas are part of this system. STAMP would destroy one of the last opportunities for large-scale conservation in Western New York.
Joe Stahlman, Seneca Nation’s Tribal Historic Preservation officer, observed that “the STAMP parcels are an ongoing source of trauma for the community.” Destruction of these lands continues the legacy of land theft from the Senecas, who bear the cultural and economic effects of forced removal from their homelands.
“The CLCPA [Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act] acknowledges the responsibility to avoid harm to disadvantaged communities … and yet this project would inflict damage on the homelands of a sovereign Indigenous Nation,” said Dr. Robin Kimmerer, SUNY ESF Professor.
To Indigenous peoples, environmental justice is land justice. Land justice for the Tonawanda Seneca Nation means prohibiting heavy industry at STAMP. New Yorkers who wonder whether the state is serious about environmental justice should watch what happens at STAMP.
~ Catherine Landis, Syracuse
