To the editor:

The “Take a Stand” supporter of the South Lawrence Trafficway fails to see or acknowledge the importance of obeying the law. He should’ve read the Environmental or Supplemental Environmental Impact Study more attentively.

The National Environmental Policy Act states that minority communities affected by projects must be consulted. The documentation comments by the people hired to complete the EIS and SEIS were inconclusive at best, due in part to the Kansas Department of Transportation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ desires for approval of a predetermined outcome in favor of the 32nd Street SLT route. I question if the hired people had any regard for the indigenous history and culture of the wetlands.

Had this writer read the contents of the Federal Indian School Surplus Lands Act of 1962 (Title 25, Chapter 7, Section 293a), he’d realize that Baker’s title to the wetlands is nefarious at best, legally. The land should revert back to Haskell property to prevent any more exploitation and development.

This pro-development writer fails to admit that the Haskell Wetlands were always wetlands. In the early 1900s, the white-run BIA ordered tiles to be installed to drain the wetlands for farming purposes. In essence, this manmade wetlands bit is a fallacy, borne out of the racist denial of cultural genocide at BIA boarding schools 100 years ago.

Native people have heard words like statesmanship before. We know what it’s a euphemism for. Those people who break the law should acquiesce, not the people who look for the laws to mean something.

Mike Ford,

Bonner Springs