Lea Foushee: A Lifetime Committed to Confronting Environmental Injustices

The sun had gone down after several Zoom meetings, but we had one more to cap off the day. Typically, adding another virtual event to the end of a long day is anything but energizing, but an hour and a half of talking to Lea Foushee slipped by quickly, as we were drawn into her world of passion, excitement, and joy for life. Lea is a longtime environmental justice activist in the Midwest, whose work has touched the lives of many and has spanned farther than either of our lifetimes. Speaking to someone with so much experience and wisdom under their belt is a gift, and we are honored to have the opportunity to retell her story. We could not possibly touch on all the details of Lea’s experiences and accomplishments, however, we hope to illuminate some of the amazing work she is engaged in today, and the powerful story of how she got to where she is today.

We began our conversation with a background of Lea’s current work. She described various projects she has been working on lately, which are all centered around Indigenous people in the U.S., and shining light on their history and culture. Lea spoke passionately about a project where she replants wild fruits and berries across Minnesota’s Northern reservations. She says it is about “giving back what has been stolen or taken or not replaced.” Lea also discussed her involvement with Landscapes of Conflict, which is a 35 poster exhibition of indigenous life pre-contact and the subsequent invasion and colonization. Before COVID-19, visitors would “walk into this huge semicircle of all these images.” Lea worked with the University of Minnesota to curate this exhibition, and once pandemic-life hit, she created a digital version as a resource for education. Lea has also put together an educational curriculum, Sacred Water/Water for Life, with a co author, Renee Gurneau from Red Lake that features the teachings of a spiritual leader Eddie Benton-Benai and James Dumont. In the book there is a page titled Landscapes of Conflict where it “juxtaposes indigenous worldview with Western European world view” to “explain the two world views [which] resulted in this exhibition of images.” Lea also conveys the horrors of killing buffalo and people, demonstrating that genocide against Indigenous people has never stopped, and has been going on for over 500 years. Lea shared how her work that exposes the continued genocide and attempted elimination of Indigenous people can be really heavy, and said “that’s where the wild fruit comes in.”

We were really excited to interview Lea, not only because of the incredible work she engages in with Indigenous communities, but also because she was part of the groundbreaking resignation from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s (MPCA) Environmental Justice Advisory Group (EJAG) after Commissioner Laura Bishop approved Line 3’s final permits. When we eagerly began asking her questions about EJAG and the renowned resignation, there was an apparent shift in Lea’s tone, to one of irritation and frustration. Lea was invited to be one of the original members of EJAG under the previous commissioner. She rejoined the advisory group when the second commissioner filled the position. When we asked Lea what kind of decisions she helped make or advise Lea immediately said “none” and that “anything we had to say to them they ignored.” Lea told us about the hypocrisy of  Commissioner Bishop who “said that [her] premiere concern was doing things in a manner that didn’t worsen the carbon footprint of Minnesota. [So] what does she do, permits tar sands oil.” We asked Lea more about the duties of the committee and she said “they basically had us writing their papers, writing their language.” Lea elaborated on the way the committee was used by saying the committee basically would “tell them what environmental justice is in our language, and then they use it, as their language.” What really stuck with us is when Lea said “It was a con job, both commissioners. The best con job I’ve ever seen.” So Lea knew that there was nothing more she could achieve by remaining on the advisory group. Lea made clear the ways in which environmental injustices are deeply embedded, even into the institutions and organizations whose primary purpose is to create environmental justice. It was fascinating to hear from Lea that there had never been a point in her time with EJAG that she felt their recommendations were taken seriously. Her experience speaks to the many ways in which the government pays lip service to social and environmental justice and uses it as a way to advance an ongoing agenda of profit over people.

Our conversation with Lea meandered between her current and past work, and we were intrigued to hear a bigger picture of how she got to where she is now. Lea has been tirelessly working on environmental justice issues for decades, well before her involvement in EJAG. Originally from South Dakota, Lea moved to North Dakota (just north of the Standing Rock Reservation) in the early 1970s, as the Powerline Struggle was growing as a movement across North Dakota and Minnesota. In 1974, Lea became the Chair of the North Dakota Chapter of the Sierra Club, where she organized with ranchers, farmers, and Indigenous people against coal companies to stop the destruction of the prairies, ecosystems, and waterways that coal companies’ were destroying in order to sell electricity. Around this time, Lea met George Crocker, who was organizing with farmers across West-Central and South-Central Minnesota, known as the General Assembly to Stop the Powerline (GASP) and the Southern Landowners Alliance of Minnesota (SLAM), to confront the CU Project. The CU Project, owned and operated by United Power Association and Cooperative Power Association (now Great River Energy) , was made up of the Coal Creek Power Plant (located near Underwood, North Dakota), an 800+- kV DC power line, and the 345 kV Wilmarth Line. Additionally Lea graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1990. She made her own degree, titled Social and Cultural Factors Affecting Human and Natural Resource Management, through the Anthropology department because an Environmental Justice degree did not exist at the University at the time.

Lea described George as “what you would call dangerous,” because he was relentless in his efforts for justice. He was a Vietnam War resister after all, meaning that he chose to go to prison instead of kill on command overseas. Lea and George’s work was deeply intersected, and she was there in North Dakota when the Minnesota farmers that George was working with took down 20+something powerline towers in the night. Lea then began attending meetings with the West-Central and South-Central Minnesotan farmers and was encouraged to move out to Minnesota to continue organizing with them. Lea began to get very engaged in this movement to stop the powerlines. In our interview, she recounted how inspired she was that “people were actually standing up and doing something, they weren’t taking it.” Lea then got invited to a conference with GASP, attended by many Twin Cities activists, farmers, and members of the American Indian Movement that had formed a few years prior in Minneapolis. This conference was such a pivotal moment for Lea, that afterwards she packed her bags and moved to Minneapolis. She said in our interview, “the only reason I went home was to get my daughter, I had found my calling.”

In the 1980s, Lea got really involved in the Black Hills Alliance (BHA), a coalition of Lakota people, environmental activists, Black Hills residents, and ranchers and farmers opposing the plans of 27 multinational corporations that were set to extract the Black Hills of South Dakota for energy and other resources, such as uranium mining. Lea recalled to us the powerful organizing that she took part in with BHA, including the National Gathering of the People in 1979, where six or seven thousand people marched through the hills to stop corporate extraction. The next year, in 1980, Lea participated in the Black Hills International Survival Gathering, where 11,000 people camped out in the shadow of the Ellsworth Airforce Base for 11 days. Lea recalled that this multi-day direct action was a huge opportunity for many activists (including herself) to learn skills for organizing. People were skilled in a variety of areas such as media, fundraising, renewable energy work, etc. and every one had the chance to teach and learn from each other. This gathering also was successful in securing a 30-year moratorium on new uranium mining in the Black Hills.

Lea and George continued organizing together against the infringement of the coal industry on Indigenous people, in particular. They worked to draw attention to the contamination of fLea told the stories of these formative years of her life with passion and nostalgia, for they created the platform that propelled her into a lifelong journey of working in community with others to bring justice to the Earth and its most marginalized communities.ish and other aquatic life by Methyl-mercury, and other heavy metals released from burning coal, and how this posed a disproportionate threat to Indigenous communities. In 1982, they formed the North American Water Office as a 501 (c) 3 organization in order to “connect energy development with economic democracy, our environment, public health, and social justice” (NAWO website). Lea described NAWO as a continuation of her organizing with George and a “trifecta of three different movements”; the Black Hills Alliance, The No Nukes Movement, and the West Central Minnesota Power Line Fight. The No Nukes Movement opposed production of nuclear weapons and the generation of electricity from nuclear power plants especially following the Three Mile Island accident. Lea fondly recalled how The Black Hills Alliance, West Central Minnesota Power Line, and the No Nukes Movement “coalesced into us,” by which she means, NAWO.

Lea told the stories of these formative years of her life with passion and nostalgia, for they created the platform that propelled her into a lifelong journey of working in community with others to bring justice to the Earth and its most marginalized communities.

After hearing the details of Lea’s path in environmental justice work, we were both very amazed by Lea’s capabilities to remain so engaged in issues that can be so devastating to see up close. Lea worked for years on the frontlines to stop powerful corporations from stripping the land and Indigenous communities of their precious resources, and today she continues her work against these corporations in tandem with Indigenous communities to bring life back into their reservations through planting wild berries and fruits, among other projects. Being so intimately connected to these issues can be heartbreaking, and can lead to a loss of hope. “Well, I love the Earth… that’s simply what many people don’t do.”Lea voiced her feelings of hopelessness in our interview when she said that she fears that “we are backing ourselves into a shit-out-of-luck place.” She spoke to her concerns that we are on a path moving forward as a society where people and corporations can’t seem to stop consuming, but that she tries to counter this by living a simple, non-materialistic lifestyle. After hearing Lea express this sense of hopelessness, we were curious how she keeps herself going in this tireless work for environmental justice. When we asked her, Lea paused, took a deep breath, and said, “Well, I love the Earth… that’s simply what many people don’t do.” Lea’s relationship to the Earth and the communities that she works with fuel her work and allow her to continue her decades long legacy of environmental justice activism.

With years of experience organizing on the frontlines and behind the scenes and working with countless activists to further environmental justice, we were eager to hear what advice Lea has for young people like ourselves who want to get more involved in environmental justice efforts. Environmental justice is, of course, a huge umbrella term that encompasses so many issues and movements. Lea recognizes this, and the stress that comes with knowing that you cannot possibly fix all the environmental injustices as one activist. Thus, Lea urged us to just pick a cause that we’re passionate about, that we can get really inspired by, that we want to support, and that we can get other people to support because of our passion. She explained that “it almost doesn’t matter which [cause] we pick because every movement out there needs more help and needs more people that want to do something.”

After an hour and a half of conversation effortlessly flew by with Lea, we realized it was time to say goodbye. Whenever you close a zoom call, there’s this sudden feeling of emptiness in the room, as the people you were just speaking to disappear in the blink of an eye. However, Lea’s stories and wisdom did not disappear into the void, in fact, they have lingered in our minds and left us eager to engage in the environmental injustices that we are facing today. Lea had the ability to speak bluntly and honestly about the condition of our world today and the myriad of injustices that are occurring all around us. Sometimes this bluntness can be mistaken for pessimism, but with Lea, it is clear that she sees things for how they really are, and understands the deep commitments we must make in order to generate meaningful change. Lea was willing to speak to us, as young people, as though we were equals. She did not shy away from describing the harsh realities we face today and the intense work that lies ahead of us, but she also showed us the kinds of powerful changes that are possible when you commit yourself to a life of activism and justice. Lea’s decades-long legacy of environmental justice activism is an example to young people of how we can engage with the injustices all around us, and work to create the kind of justice that seems unimaginable.