According to Lionel Lepine, who also met Dicaprio, the people are slowly being murdered by the effects of toxins from the tar sands. Lepine at one time worked as a Traditional Knowledge Facilitator at his home nation of Athabasca Chipewyan and said it didn’t take him long to understand the dire situation unfolding before him. “They (industry) want every single ounce of it (oil) at the cost of human lives. We believe they’re profiting off of our deaths.” Cancer rates there have been reported higher than usual and Lepine said members being diagnosed with the illness have started to become somewhat of a normalcy. He went on to reference Dr. John O’Connor, a physician that was stationed in Fort Chip from 2000 to 2006 when he reported to the media that he had discovered and diagnosed several cases of a rare form of cancer. He along with some community members said they believed the cancer was caused due to the contamination of the area related to the oil sands. He was soon removed from the practice and several charges formerly laid against him including raising “undue alarm” in the community. “When the community found out about that charge we were of course really upset because it didn’t cause any alarm in this town, because our elders knew about this 40 years ago,” said Lepine. Most residents no longer use the water from the Athabasca River for any sort of consumption because most believe it is tainted. And the wildlife is rarely hunted, because some animals have started to deform and become poisoned from consuming the polluted bounties of the land and water. - See more at: urbannativemag/leonardo-dicaprio-visits-fort-chipewyan/#sthash.LLtuOUEj.dpuf
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 06:00:19 +0000