Tribes oppose planned bioterror tests near Oklahoma graves
Source: Associated Press
Justin Juozapavicius, Associated Press
Updated 10:51 am, Saturday, December 16, 2017
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Five Native American tribes that own an Oklahoma site where the U.S. Department of Homeland Security intends to conduct bioterrorism drills next year now oppose the government's plan, saying the agency didn't inform them about chemicals it plans to release on grounds the tribes consider sacred because more than 100 children are buried there.
The Oklahoma-based Council of Confederated Chilocco Tribes is made up of five tribes that jointly own what's left of the former Chilocco Indian Agricultural School outside Newkirk where the testing would be conducted. The Chilocco school, which operated from the late 1800s until 1980, was one of several federally run boarding schools where the U.S. once sought to assimilate Native American children. The tribes say the federal agency is failing to protect a site with religious and cultural significance.
"Often when a child died at the school, the family didn't have the money to bring the body home, so they were buried at the school cemetery," said Heather Payne, a spokeswoman for the Otoe-Missouria Tribe.
Many of the graves are unmarked, she said. The site, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Tulsa, near Oklahoma's border with Kansas, also is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Tribes-oppose-planned-bioterror-tests-near-12435696.php
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