Table I.
Sample Comments of Aleuts in Public Meetings Before and After the AISA
| Before the Independent Assessment from Elders (2003) |
| What about our foods here in Nikolski? |
| How can you test subsistence foods if you don’t have our hunters with you? |
| Are you going to collect Sea Lions and Seals? |
| Are you going to collect Halibut, Salmon, Pogies, Gumboots? |
| What about mercury? I’m more interested in mercury than radiation. |
| What about lead? |
| Who actually wrote the plan? |
| Do you work for DOE? |
| Who is paying you, and how do I know you won’t just say what they want? |
| How can we trust DOE to pay for the study? The don’t really want to know. |
| How can we trust DOE to let you do the study? |
| If you find radionuclides, will DOE let you tell us? |
| What happens when your project is done? |
| Why aren’t you collecting fish from Atka or Adak, that’s what we eat? |
| Who made up the plan, we didn’t approve it? |
| Who is paying you? |
| Before the Independent Assessment from Youth (2003) |
| What is radiation? |
| Can it hurt us here? |
| What about radiation in our Halibut? What about the Sea Urchins? |
| What radiation is in birds—I shoot a lot of ducks? |
| Is it safe to eat pogie eggs, I eat them raw? |
| Can I shoot the little birds on the beach? |
| What can the government do if it is leaking? Will it hurt us here? |
| Why did they do the tests here, we didn’t do anything? |
| Is the government out to get us again? |
| After the Assessment from Elders (2005) |
| What are the levels of radionuclides that cause health effects? |
| What are the bad [health] effects of radionuclides? |
| What about mercury? I’m still interested in that. |
| What are the bad [health] effects of mercury? |
| What levels of mercury are in our fish? |
| What should I avoid to have less mercury? |
| Why have our puffins and sea otters decreased? There used to be many more, especially when I was a kid. |
| What happened to our duck numbers? There used to be plenty Mallards to shoot. |
| What would happen if there was an earthquake? We have a lot out here. |
| How will we know if something changes? |
| Will you continue with this study? |
| How can we trust DOE to continue your work? |
| What about a volcano? |
| How can we trust DOE if you don’t come back? |
| What about razor clams and soft-shell clams. There aren’t as many as there used to be? |
| Where are all the ducks? When I was a kid there used to be a lot, now there are none. Mallards used to be all over the place, good eating too. |
| We are concerned about mercury, didn’t you do mercury? |
| What about mercury? Does my pregnant grand-daughter need to worry? |
| Should I tell my daughter to avoid some fish because of mercury even though she’s not pregnant yet? |
| How can I make it so I’m not affected by mercury? |
| What were the levels in gull eggs? Of course, we don’t eat many gull eggs from Unalaska, but we have relatives that do, out in the villages. What should we tell them? |
| After the Assessment from Youth (2005) |
| Where did you live out there? Were you cold? |
| What about Dan and Ron? What did they do? |
| Did you get sea sick? |
| Did you collect kelp? I eat them sometimes. |
| What did you eat? Did you fish or kill birds? |
| Does anyone live there? |
| Why did my people leave Amchitka? |
| Can we see pictures of fishing? of the hunt? |
| Are fish bad for me? |
| What is trophic level? |
| What predators are there? |
| Are radionuclides bad for me? |
| We heard about mercury, did you do that? |
| How many fish did you catch? |
| What’s a contaminant? |
| Do we have contaminants here? |
| How did they [contaminants] get here? |
| Will you come back? Maybe next summer? |
| If you don’t come, who will make sure our foods are safe? who will? |
| What happened to all the ducks, I used to shoot ducks, now they are all gone. |
Note: Meetings were held at Nikolski, Atka, and Unalaska.