Kivalina sues 24 companies for contributing to global warming

TAMAR BEN-YOSEF

March 07, 2008 at 9:27AM AKST

The city of Kivalina and the Native Village of Kivalina have taken their struggle for funding village relocation to the courts.

On Feb. 26 they sued ExxonMobil Corp., eight other oil companies, 14 power companies and one coal company in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco for causing global warming and ultimately destroying the ground under their eroding village by emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases.

Kivalina, with a population estimated at 399 and an Inupiat majority of 97 percent, is located on the tip of a six-mile barrier island between the Chukchi Sea and the Kivalina River on the Northwest Arctic coast.

Warmer temperatures are causing the sea ice in the area to melt earlier and form later, leaving the village exposed to harsh weather conditions and causing severe erosion.

Last fall, residents of the village were temporarily evacuated to Kotzebue and the Red Dog Mine in anticipation of a storm they feared would flood the village.

The storm was not as strong as anticipated, and residents returned safely.

However it did take a toll on the sea wall, erected to protect the village from the waves.

"We are seeing accelerated erosion because of the loss of sea ice," City Administrator Janet Mitchell said in a statement.

"We normally have ice starting in October, but now we have open water even into December, so our island is not protected from the storms."

Costs for relocating the village are estimated at $400 million.

This is not the first lawsuit filed against companies invoking the federal common law of public nuisance.

In November 1999, a lawsuit was filed against American Electric Co. and six power plants for causing pollution in the Northeast. This case was dismissed and is currently in the second court of appeals.

A second lawsuit against five major car manufacturers in California demanding damages was also dismissed by district court judges, who felt global warming should be dealt with on the legislative level. This case is also in the process of appeal in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

"In both the previous cases, the courts could really look at all the actors (consumers of energy) and say, ‘You guys are all contributing to global warming,’ but people in Kivalina contribute the least," said attorney Luke Cole of the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.

The Kivalina lawsuit was filed on behalf of Kivalina by the center and a second nonprofit legal organization, the Native American Rights Fund, plus six law firms.

To discourage the judges of the U.S. Northern California District Court from dismissing Kivalina’s case as a politic move, the plaintiffs’ attorneys are also saying the defendants took an active part in a conspiracy to hide the existence of global warming and its effects, according to Cole.

According to the claim, there has been a long campaign by the companies sued to mislead the public about the science of global warming.

The suit alleges that the companies used front groups, fake citizen organizations, bogus scientific bodies and the use of "global warming skeptics" to deny the existence of the rising temperatures.

"The campaign of deception and denial about global warming must stop," said Colleen Swan, tribal administrator of the Native Village of Kivalina.

"Global warming and its effects are a reality we have to deal with. People’s lives are in danger because of it," she said.

The other oil companies named were BP, BP American, BP Products North America, Chevron, Chevron USA, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell and Shell Oil Co.

Also named were Peabody Energy Corp., a major coal producer, and power companies AES Corp., American Electric Power Co., American Electric Power Services Corp., DTE Energy Co., Duke Energy Corp., Dynegy Holdings, Edison International, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., Mirant Corp., NRG Energy, Pinnacle West Capital Corp., Reliant Energy, The Southern Co. and Xcel Energy.

Tamar Ben-Yosef can be reached at (907) 348-2419 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 419.