Green Colonialism in Action: The Westwin Cobalt Refinery
The newest form of colonialism is spreading across Turtle Island, threatening Indigenous lands, waters, sovereignty, and the health of all communities. A proposed cobalt and nickel refinery in Lawton, Oklahoma on Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Caddo, Wichita, and Delaware lands is the latest example of Green Colonialism.
Many so-called “green” projects offer false solutions to the climate crisis. Instead of considering what sort of just and healthy world we deserve to live in, corporations present us with mines, refineries, and electric technologies which only serve corporate profits. These new projects involve rampant extraction of natural resources, land grabs, displacement of Indigenous Peoples, and imposition of colonial conservation without respecting Indigenous knowledge, needs, rights, sovereignty, or Free Prior and Informed Consent.
Start up company Westwin Elements is no exception. Their proposal is part of this wave of dangerous projects: the first ever cobalt and nickel refinery in the US. The refinery is slated for construction in a town in southwest Oklahoma called Lawton. Westwin, which incorporated as a business in 2022, has little in-house experience with complex technical projects and has struggled to maintain funding from larger corporations to support the project. Despite this, they have blazed ahead with their proposal, attempting to circumvent key permits and breaking ground at the site before completing the regulatory process.
The Westwin refinery is a perfect example of green colonialism. Because cobalt and nickel are metals that can be used in electric batteries and renewable energy technologies, the company claims they are playing a crucial role in the “renewable energy transition.” Although energy sources like solar and wind are renewable, the minerals needed to harness them are finite and very dangerous to mine and process. Allowing corporations to indiscriminately mine and refine these metals for profit, without clarifying what kind of energy transition humanity wants and deserves is a false solution to the climate crisis. Instead of championing a just energy transition for people and the planet, Westwin is just another company seeking to profit at the expense of land, water, and communities.
Refining metals like cobalt and nickel has notoriously detrimental public health and ecological impacts, from releasing carcinogenic pollution into the air to poisoning surrounding water bodies. The impacts of these refineries are extensive and well documented. The CDC published a public health statement on the toxicity of cobalt, naming refineries as one of the primary causes of human exposure to toxic pollution. Lung disease and heart failure are two of the many potential health impacts.
Indigenous communities across Turtle Island and around the world are being put on the frontline of these dangerous new projects. The Westwin refinery is planned in the homelands of the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Caddo, Wichita, and Delaware peoples just miles from the Wichita Mountains, which are sacred to communities in the region. Indigenous Peoples make up 5% of the global population and protect 80% of the worlds’ biodiversity. Instead of continuing to degrade land and water, and further displace Indigenous Peoples, we need to invest in Indigenous leadership and traditional knowledge to help steward a truly just transition to a sustainable future.
Indigenous communities are driving resistance to the Lawton refinery. A group called Westwin Resistance was formed in Lawton, Oklahoma by a coalition of community members concerned with the project. Oklahoma is a crucial site of struggle for Indigenous peoples asserting their sovereignty and resisting extractive industry. Oklahoma is home to the oil and gas Pipeline Crossroads of the World and the site the so-called United States planned to force all tribal communities under Andrew Jackson. While the colonial government wasn’t fully successful in forcibly removing and relocating all tribal nations, it did force many eastern tribes to Oklahoma with the promise this territory would remain free of colonizers “so long as the grass grows.” Because of this history of forced removal and relocation, alongside the history of broken treaties, broken promises, and resource extraction, Oklahoma is also a place where major fights for sovereignty are being fought and sometimes won, with decisions like the ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma.
Although the refinery in Lawton highlights their role as a “green” company, there are other reasons that the US is ramping up metal mining and processing. The US military and “defense” industry are heavily invested in these metals. Cobalt in particular has numerous military applications in munitions, aerospace technologies, and batteries for military vehicles. As the US supports violent military operations all over the world, particularly in Palestine, we must resist the expansion of the supply chain that fuels the war machine.
As the federal and state governments push for an energy transition from fossil fuel extraction to metal mining and refining, Oklahoma is once again on the frontline of a new frontier of extraction. Local resistance to the Westwin refinery represents the next era of Oklahoma’s fight against colonialism, militarism, and extractivism. This video is a recent overview of the fight against the Westwin refinery.
We can’t let the energy industry set the terms of an energy transition motivated solely by profit.
We must fight for the land, for the water, and for Indigenous sovereignty. We must steward a truly just transition to a different way of living that will sustain the world for future generations.
We must support the Westwin Resistance and We must stop green colonialism.