1981-01-01 Char-Koosta News

              PABLO, MONTANA 59855 ISSN: 0528-8592
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NEW MOON OF THE WANDERING
January 1,1981
Air Quality Reclassification Aims at Keeping Pollution Status Qy d
If you're one of the people on the Flathead Reservation who suffers from breathing problems ~ and statistics say 35 Vi of every 1000 people here do (tobacco users aside, we assume) -you're no doubt very aware that the air hereabouts is getting noticeably dirty.
In an effort to keep it there - not better, not worse - the Tribes a have applied for federal permission to disallow any more pollutants to float around the immediate atmosphere than already exist as of sometime this month.
The goal is Class I "pristine" air, a designation that only the Northern
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Cheyenne Reservation in eastern Montana enjoys, along with various national parks and wilderness areas. Class I is the cleanest type of air an area can have under the Clean Air Act of 1970. What you're breathing now (unless there's a cigarette burning close by) is Class II air, what most places in the U.S. have.
The move for status quo clean air began over a year ago when the Tribes set up an Air Quality Department to start the long progress of researching the deteriorating air on the reservation. Under supervisor Tom "Bearhead" Swaney, an air quality team began an
18-month research effort that culminated in a 136-page report about the past and present of the Flathead Reservation, paying particular attention, of course, to air pollution and its effects on residents, Indian and non-Indian.
Two points that the report makes concern the economic health of the rez and the respiratory health of it residents.
Economically, the area's three major sources of income, agriculture (farming), forestry and tourism, depend on clean air. Health-wise, the report finds that while only 16 people out of every 1000 in the general population, on the
(Continued next page)
Sanchez Wins Lake
County Junior Miss
No, not Margaret, but younger sister Juanita, a senior at Arlee High School.
Juanita was the judges' choice at the 1980 Lake County
Junior Miss pageant held December 13 in Poison. Outfitted in traditional dress, Juanita performed Indian sign language as her talent, then proceeded to score highly in the other portions of the contest - poise, appearance, scholastic ability and physical fitness ~ to win the title from a field of twelve.
(Continued on page K))
Inside this issue
Coyote Story..................................Page 5
"Letters to the Editor"........................Page 8, 9
Health Corner................................page 10
LCEO: Save Energy, Save Tax $$................Page 11
SKCC: Winter Quarter Schedule..............Pages 13-16
January Calendar.............................Page 17
Council Minutes...........................Pages 22-25