File photo of landslide near Oso, Washington. credit: Washington Governor’s Office File photo of landslide near Oso, Washington. | credit: Washington Governor’s Office
A federal geologist doubts the cause of the deadly landslide near Oso, Washington will ever be fully pinned down.
During testimony in Olympia Monday, U.S. Geological Survey scientist Jonathan Godt said heavy rains in February and March certainly contributed to the slide. Geologists have also ruled out an earthquake as a trigger. But Godt says a big missing piece is groundwater flows, for which there’s no data.
“We didn’t have instruments in the ground at the time the landslide occurred and you can’t put the slide back up on the slope,” Godt said. “So from an observational standpoint, that opportunity is lost.”
Godt spoke to the Washington Forest Practices Board, a panel which is reexamining logging rules around landslide prone areas. A Washington state geologist and a private consulting geologist also presented there Monday. None would speculate if historic clear-cuts had anything to do with the March landslide.
Investigators are asking for more money from FEMA to probe why the Oso landslide traveled so far from its origin.
The death toll from the March 22 slide in Snohomish County stands at 41. Two additional people are still listed as missing.
File photo of Billy Frank Jr. in 2011 at a ceremony for the removal of dams on Washington state’s Elwha River. The well known fishing rights activist died Monday at the age of 83. | credit: Katie Campbell / Earthfix
Associated Press
SHELTON, Wash. (AP) — Thousands of people attended a funeral service for Billy Frank Jr., the Nisqually tribal elder who fought for Indian fishing rights in Washington state and was an advocate for salmon habitat.
Frank died May 5. He was 83.
Frank figured prominently in Northwest fish-in demonstrations of the 1960s and 1970s that eventually led to sweeping changes in how Washington manages salmon and other fish.
Among those at the service Sunday at the Little Creek Casino Resort’s Event Center were Gov. Jay Inslee and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. Inslee said Frank was a state and national leader and that when he spoke, “people listened.”
About 6,000 people attended the service, said Little Creek spokesman Greg Fritz. Crowds also watched the service on jumbo screens from a large tent and other areas of the resort.
The service featured traditional Indian Shaker Church prayers, a presentation of a folded U.S. flag for the family — Frank had served in the Marine Corps — and remarks from more than 20 tribal leaders and elected officials.
“I often said that no one cared more about salmon and the planet Earth than our friend Billy,” said former U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks.
Cantwell described him as “a legend that has walked among us,” comparing his legacy to those of Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
Frank was arrested more than 50 times for “illegal fishing” during the protests that came to be known as the fish wars. Patterned after the sit-ins of the civil rights movement, the campaign was part of larger nationwide movement in the 1960s for American Indian rights.
In 1992, Frank was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, whose winners include former President Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu.
Swinomish tribal chairman Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians, described Frank as a forceful teacher and a truth teller.
“Billy treated everyone with respect, even when we failed to live up to his expectations,” Cladoosby said.
His daughter, Kerri Kasem, thinks he may have “fled the country” or possibly be on “an Indian Reservation.”
A judge on Monday ordered an investigation into the whereabouts of the famed radio countdown host, 82. An attorney for Kasem’s wife, Jean, told the court that Casey Kasem, who became famous for his weekly American Top 40 radio show and as the voice of Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo cartoon, had been removed from Los Angeles without his children’s knowledge. He has advanced Parkinson’s and can no longer speak.
Superior Court Judge Daniel S. Murphy ordered a court investigator and adult protective services to find out where Kasem is being treated, reported AP. Kasem has been in various medical facilities chosen by his wife. Jean Kasem, and Kasem’s kids have long been battling over their father.
CNN reports that also on Monday, Kasem’s daughter, Kerri Kasem, was named as temporary conservator of her dad.
The conservatorship is in effect until June 20, when a hearing is scheduled on whether to make the conservatorship permanent, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court spokeswoman Patricia Kelly.
“Justice was finally served! I just won temporary conservatorship over my father’s healthcare. We have been vindicated by the court. Thank you for your prayers, well wishes and support through this entire ordeal,” Kasem’s daughter, Kerri Kasem, posted on her Facebook page soon after the order.
Later, she added: “I believe my father’s wife fled the country (or possibly went to an Indian Reservation) with my Dad because she knew I would win in court today. The judge ordered, Adult Protective Services, the PVP Attorney and the police to look for him. Please pray that he is safe.”
WASHINGTON, DC – Cliven Bundy’s group plans to ride roughshod through the Utah Canyon with a gang of all-terrain vehicles which would endanger places of cultural significance to Native peoples. Bundy thinks he is protecting his rights, but he is endangering the cultural integrity of the homelands of Native peoples.
Since well before the state of Nevada, the federal government, and farmers and ranchers occupied the area, tribal nations – including the Las Vegas Band of Paiute, Moapa Band of Paiute, and other tribes in the area – have respected and honored the Utah Canyon as a sacred place. Native peoples believe the canyon contains many markers from their ancestors. An action like this is no more appropriate than a similar activity at a church or other place of worship.
The NCAI strongly urges federal authorities to act – as part of its trust responsibility to tribal nations – to prevent this potential destruction of sacred places. We would oppose an action of this type not only by Mr. Bundy and his supporters, but by anyone with a disregard for Native peoples and cultures.
Native Americans have long had a close relationship with their lands and waters—sacred places and resources that define their lives. The disruptions wrought by a warming climate are forcing abrupt cultural changes on peoples with a long reliance on a once stable ecosystem.
Among the special issues affecting tribes, the 2013 Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwestern United States (SWCA) cited “cultural and religious impacts, impacts to sustainable livelihoods, population emigration, and threats to the feasibility of living conditions.”
The Hoh, Quinault, Quileute and Makah nations inhabit low-lying land along the west coast of Washington State, and face similar threats as rising sea levels and the other impacts of climate disruptions endanger their villages.
”The area is relatively vulnerable,” Patty Glick, senior global warming specialist and author of a 2007 National Wildlife Federation report, ”Sea Level Rise and Coastal Habitats in the Pacific Northwest,” told Indian Country Today Media Network in 2008. Higher wave action, wave force and destructive storm surges will increase in the coming decade, Glick said, and destructive storms such as the hurricanes will become more frequent.
The Hoh road to the beach has washed out, and the ocean has destroyed the homes that once lined their beach. In Quinault, a passing storm tossed gigantic logs onto the school grounds. These events intensified both tribes’ agenda to get higher ground returned from the Olympic National Park beyond their tiny reservation boundaries.
The Makah and the Quinault nations have large reservations, but their seaside villages are at risk, as evidenced by the recent state of emergency at Quinault headquarters in Taholah, which faced an increasingly dangerous situation with sea level rise and intensified storms, which breached a sea wall causing serious damage.
According to Climate Central, which uses data from NOAA and the USGS, there is a greater than one in six chance that sea level rise, plus storm surge, plus tides, will raise sea levels by more than one foot before 2020 along the coastline and in the Puget Sound region, where another eight tribes are situated. The Shoalwater Bay sits nearly out to sea in southwest Washington.
Rising sea levels will affect Washington’s shoreline habitat for vegetation, animals, birds and fish, according to Glick’s report. Marshes, swamps and tidal flats will be significantly affected, and salmon and shellfish habitat are expected to be significantly affected, Glick reported.
Along Alaska’s northwestern coast, melting sea ice has reduced natural coastal protection. Increased coastal erosion is causing some shorelines to retreat at rates averaging tens of feet per year. In Shishmaref and Kivalina, Alaska, severe erosion has caused homes to collapse into the sea, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, forcing these Alaska Native Village populations to relocate in order to protect lives and property.
Moving inland, “Climate change is slowly tipping the balance in favor of more frequent, longer lasting, and more intense droughts,” states the SWCA. The Navajo Nation is experiencing annual average temperatures warmer than the 1904-2011 average, cites a climate report released in March 2014. Latest figures show their drought continuing beyond 2010 studies into July 2013, indicating the drought continues.
Perhaps among the worst of those impacts are the runaway sand dunes it has unleashed, which extend over one-third the 27,000-square-mile reservation. During the 1996-2009 drought period the extent of dune fields increased by some 70%. These dunes are moving at rates of approximately 35 meters per year, covering houses, burying cars and snarling traffic, degrading grazing and agricultural lands, contributing to the loss of rare and endangered native plants, and when they occur contributing to poor air quality, a serious health concern for many of the reservation’s 173,667 residents.
Intertribal organizations around the U.S. are recognizing climate change and variability as a significant factor that can impact tribal resources, livelihoods, and cultures, cites the latest tribal climate report. The National Tribal Air Association notes that “perhaps no other community of people has experienced the adverse impacts of climate change more than the nation’s Indian tribes.”
The struggle will soon come to more tribes. Sea level rise projections do not bode well and may already be a cause of concern for the tribes along Louisiana’s Gulf of Mexico—the United Houma Nation, the Atakapa-Ishak Nation, Pointe-au-Chien Tribe, and the Biloxi-Chitimacha’s Isle de Jean Charles Band, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band and Bayou Lafourche Band. In Florida—the Miccosukee, and some locations of the Seminole Indian Reservations. Ocean residing tribal nations in California include the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla, Cahto, Chumash, Hoopa, Karok, Kumeyaay, Luiseño Bands of Indians, Maidu, Miwok, and some bands of the Pomo Nation. Some are more at risk than others.
Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee says Washington will likely adopt a California-style pollution limit on gasoline and other transportation fuels.
Inslee recently ordered a feasibility and cost study of a low-carbon fuel standard.
For months now, Washington Republicans have been predicting that Inslee will use his executive powers to enact a low-carbon fuel standard. Inslee acknowledges he’s looking at ways to do this without legislative approval. Either way he thinks Washington is poised to move forward.
“I think it’s a probability that we will be able to fashion a low-carbon fuel standard that will be effective for the state of Washington, both for carbon pollution and from a cost-containment standpoint,” Inslee said during an appearance on Seattle Channel’s “Civic Cocktail” program. “From what I know today, I think it’s a likelihood we will succeed in fashioning that, but I want reiterate we’re going to have a very sophisticated, thorough evaluation of that before I make that ultimate decision.”
A low-carbon fuel standard is basically a requirement that vehicle fuels be blended with less carbon-intensive alternative fuels. For instance, California’s standard requires a 10 percent reduction in carbon intensity of gas and diesel over 10 years.
Inslee has promised a “deliberative, public process” as he pursues carbon pollution reduction measures in Washington. Legislative Republicans oppose a fuel standard and say it could drive up the cost of gasoline.
It started with the discovery of long-forgotten gravestones in a thicket of bramble and alder. That set one author on the faint trail of a feisty Native American woman and oyster farmer who lived in 19th century western Washington.
Author LLyn De Danaan at home in Mason County, Washington.
Credit Mary Randlett
The biographer is using the resulting book to inspire other Northwesterners — particularly tribal members. She wants to bring out the stories of people who, in her words, have been “left out of our histories.”
The waterfront cottage that LLyn De Danaan calls home on Oyster Bay in Mason County, Washington, overlooks a cultural crossroads rich in history. So it is fortunate she is a cultural anthropologist by profession. Her eyes and ears are tuned to signs and stories of place. And at this place, waves of settlers came from the earliest times to reap shellfish.
De Danaan moved here in the early 1970s. In recent decades, she heard enough tales about one pioneer to start a file. The name was Katie Gale. This independent businesswoman owned property and tidelands in her own name in the late 1800s.
“That was all a little bit unusual from conventional wisdom and things I had heard about both people in the oyster business and Native American women,” says De Danaan.
Finding Katie Gale
The biographer was fascinated by how Gale straddled different worlds and stood up for herself and her mixed race children.
“Katie Gale: A Coast Salish Woman’s Life on Oyster Bay” was published last fall.
Credit University of Nebraska Press
“I suppose there just were too many things about that that intrigued me that I couldn’t let go of it,” she says. “I literally couldn’t let go of it for years!”
A turning point came when De Danaan and several friends from the historical society discovered an overgrown little homestead graveyard a mile from her house. One of the headstones belonged to Katie Gale.
“I was so amazed, excited, enthralled that I began beating on Stan’s shoulders as he was kneeling in front of me holding this stone.”
Her friend had to plead with her to contain her excitement and stop it.
“I literally said, ‘I know who this is,’ as if she were an acquaintance of mine. But it almost felt that way,” recalls De Danaan. “I would say that was a moment of calling. I have to tell this woman’s story. I have to know her.”
But here’s the problem: the long-dead Katie Gale left no letters, no journals. De Danaan could find no photographs of her, no living descendants. The best source material was a divorce case file. It took almost a decade to accumulate corroborating details, context and enough educated guesses to write a biography. “Katie Gale: A Coast Salish Woman’s Life on Oyster Bay” was published last fall.
“So many stories not told”
But the tale doesn’t stop there.
“There are so many stories not told,” says De Danaan. “There are so many histories and people left out of our histories. That is what my work has to be now. I feel that it is my obligation to do that.”
At a writing class at the Evergreen State College Longhouse in Olympia, De Danaan is a guest speaker.
De Danaan exhorts the seminar to bring forth stories before they’re lost, perhaps starting with family history. This is a message De Danaan returns to again and again in regular public talks and one-on-one mentoring.
“You’re able to find out a lot more than you think,” she says.
All of the students in the circle facing the author this day are Native American. It takes awhile, but eventually sensitivities come out.
Keeping tradition and culture alive
Author LLyn De Danaan (right) discussed her biography of Katie Gale with students at The Evergreen State College.
Credit Tom Banse / Northwest News Network
One student says she was hesitant about taking the class. Her grandmothers warned against exposing too much of their Spokane tribal heritage to outsiders who might twist it or exploit it.
Makah tribal member Vince Cook heard that from his elders too.
“That’s a tough one,” he says. “Because when I was younger we were told not to record, not to videotape.”
Cook says attitudes are changing now as people see tradition and culture slipping away. He feels spurred to write about his great grandmother and all the things she taught him.
“I think it is important to continue on not only for myself, but for my family and for others to know about the Makah culture and to keep it alive,” says Cook.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much it meant to me when you’d wake up early to make us muffins in the winter. It’s one of my favorite childhood memories. Thank you and I love you.
Huckleberries are an important and much loved berry of the Pacific Northwest. They’re “in season” for only one or two weeks of the late summer and they don’t grow just anywhere. In fact, part of their appeal is that they refuse to be domesticated. Scientists/botanists have tried to domestic the plant to no avail. Thus, if you want to enjoy the ruddy purple berry you have little choice but to pack a picnic, pack the kids, and head to the mountains to find a good patch.
In the late summers my own family would spend an afternoon picking in our own carefully scouted secret patch. Mom would pack a picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while dad clumsily lathered his three daughters in sunscreen. Then we headed up Vulcan Mountain in search of treasure. The car carefully wound up the dusty dirt road as we climbed out of the Curlew Valley to over 5,000 feet above sea level. We’d eat at least as many berries as we picked but somehow we’d still manage to come home with two or three gallons of huckleberries. Some of the berries were used immediately as topping for shortcake or ice cream. The rest were placed in the freezer to be made into jam or to be carefully rationed out over the winter.
Because, you see, winter in the Northwest kind of sucks. And huckleberries were my mother’s secret winter-morning weapon.
Six-thirty in the morning never comes easily when daylight is still an hour away and at a time of year when daylight doesn’t guarantee sunlight—for days. Toss in a school morning and you have a recipe for three little girls who will fight to stay in bed under the warm covers. Mom usually had to threaten us out of bed on such mornings, but on the occasional Northwest winter morning—we never had advanced warning—my sisters and I would wake up to the smell of something glorious baking.
Something extraordinary to start an ordinary, cold, dark, and harsh winter morning.
And in the place of threats, negotiations, mumbles and grumbles, in the place of cold cereal or oatmeal, the cold and dark morning would become punctuated with the sound of three sets of excited little feet racing to the kitchen, shouting: “Get up! Get up! Mom’s making muffins!”
And there was never any doubt as to what kind of muffins they’d be, for there was only one kind: Huckleberry.
And 6:30 a.m. would become easy. Treasured. Magical. Nothing could go wrong, the weather be too cold, the morning too dark, on huckleberry muffin mornings.
To me, early morning batches of huckleberry muffins are still an ultimate expression of love, devotion, and solidarity in that, hey, sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed. And they’re one of my most treasured childhood memories. So if I happen to get up extra early, no matter the season, and if I happen to offer you a cup of my precious winter stash of huckleberries in a batch of muffins, then you should know that I love you. Dearly.
And I want your day to be extraordinary.
Bonnie’s Huckleberry Muffins
Make these for your mom as the perfect breakfast-in-bed treat! Makes 12 muffins
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
1 c. oatmeal
1 c. milk
1 egg
¼ c. oil
1 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
1 c. huckleberries (or blueberries/raspberries/strawberries)
Combine oatmeal, milk, egg, and oil. Set aside for 15 minutes.
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients. Add oat/milk mix until moist, mix will be lumpy.
Bake 18-20 minutes.
Darla Antoine is an enrolled member of the Okanagan Indian Band in British Columbia and grew up in Eastern Washington State. For three years, she worked as a newspaper reporter in the Midwest, reporting on issues relevant to the Native and Hispanic communities, and most recently served as a producer for Native America Calling. In 2011, she moved to Costa Rica, where she currently lives with her husband and their infant son. She lives on an organic and sustainable farm in the “cloud forest”—the highlands of Costa Rica, 9,000 feet above sea level. Due to the high elevation, the conditions for farming and gardening are similar to that of the Pacific Northwest—cold and rainy for most of the year with a short growing season. Antoine has an herb garden, green house, a bee hive, cows, a goat, and two trout ponds stocked with hundreds of rainbow trout.
Indian rights lawyers argue that a Sandpiper spill could endanger their rights to gather wild rice.
By David Shaffer, Star Tribune
In a new battlefront over energy policy, American Indian rights attorneys argued Wednesday before a Minnesota judge that historic treaties give tribes a say in where to build crude oil pipelines across land ceded by the Chippewa in the 19th century.
“Everybody has kind of forgotten what our rights are, and that is why we are here,” Frank Bibeau, an attorney for the Indian nonprofit group Honor the Earth, told an administrative law judge at a hearing in St. Paul.
Honor the Earth says the proposed $2.6 billion Sandpiper crude oil pipeline across northern Minnesota will produce “inevitable oil spills and environmental degradation” on ceded lands. Spills could endanger Rice Lake near McGregor and Sandy Lake in Aitkin County where Indians gather wild rice, the group says.
For the first time in Minnesota, Indian rights attorneys are arguing that the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) lacks unilateral authority to approve pipelines. They want the state to reject the proposed route of the Sandpiper pipeline from North Dakota, and have offered an alternative path.
Enbridge Energy’s preferred pipeline route goes southeast from Clearbrook, Minn., passing west of Park Rapids and then heading east to Superior, Wis. It avoids Indian reservations, but passes through ceded lands on which Chippewa bands retain the right to fish, hunt and gather rice.
Attorneys for the company contend that the commission has no business deciding the meaning of federal treaties. Even so, much of the two-hour discussion before Judge Eric Lipman focused on 10 treaties signed between 1825 and 1864 by Minnesota Indian tribes.
“It would represent a dramatic departure from the commission’s precedent and would significantly impact not just pipeline projects but all large energy projects sited in northern Minnesota,” said Christine Brusven, an attorney for the Calgary-based pipeline company that’s proposing to build the 610-mile pipeline to carry North Dakota oil.
Headed for the courts?
Lipman, who is overseeing the regulatory review of the pipeline, is expected to rule on the treaty rights question, but the final decision rests with the Public Utilities Commission. The issue ultimately could land in federal court.
Before the hearing, about 45 Honor the Earth supporters, led by the group’s leader Winona LaDuke, demonstrated outside the PUC’s office.
Some Minnesota tribes have successfully asserted off-reservation rights under 19th century treaties. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1999 affirmed that the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa and seven other Chippewa bands retained hunting, fishing and gathering rights under an 1837 treaty on lands and lakes ceded by the tribes in central Minnesota, including Lake Mille Lacs.
Similar rights have been recognized under other treaties, and state and tribal governments share responsibility for game management in some ceded areas. This year, the Fond du Lac Band of Chippewa is exercising rights under an 1854 treaty to spear walleyes in several lakes in northeastern Minnesota’s Arrowhead region.
Honor the Earth attorneys contend that the 19th century treaties and early 20th century court rulings about wild rice reserves give the Ojibwe a present-day right to help make decisions affecting treaty-related resources.
“We are not saying we have an absolute veto,” Bibeau said in an interview.
Cooperation sought
Prof. Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law, who also represents Honor the Earth, said various treaties “need to be accommodated by state regulatory activities.” He said the state and tribes need to find a way to cooperate on pipeline siting.
But Enbridge attorney Randy Thompson, who represented Lake Mille Lacs landowners in the 1999 case, said Honor the Earth overstates the reach of the landmark decision.
“It is a nonexclusive right to hunt and fish,” Thompson said. “It gives bands the ability to self-regulate hunting and fishing by band members. It doesn’t give bands co-management authority. It doesn’t give the bands the ability to regulate nonmembers.”
Legal experts say protection of natural resources under 19th century Indian treaties is an emerging area of law.
“We have very little idea where it is going to go,” said James Coleman, an assistant professor of energy law at the University of Calgary and Haskayne School of Business.
In the state of Washington, a tribe with rights to fish for migrating salmon has successfully argued that the state Transportation Department must repair hundreds of culverts that block the passage of fish. Federal judges, most recently in 2013, have ruled that the barrier culverts violate treaty promises. Another federal judge in that state upheld in 1996 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ right to deny a permit for a fish farm because it conflicted with the Lummi Nation’s treaty fishing rights.
Most treaty cases have been decided in federal court. Honor the Earth’s legal battle is unusual because it’s in a state regulatory proceeding. Bibeau said he reserves the right to take the case to tribal or federal court later.
Two precedents
In two previous Minnesota utility cases, tribes tried unsuccessfully to assert tribal authority over proposed pipelines or power lines. In 2011, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe objected to a proposed transmission line that skirted tribal lands, but lost in federal court. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa objected to another pipeline in 2007. That project, like the transmission line, eventually won approval of the PUC.
Coleman, who grew up in the Twin Cities, said Indian activists face a difficult legal battle in the pipeline case. Unlike the Washington cases, he said, where judges saw actual harm to treaty-protected resources, the Minnesota concerns are about a potential situation, and depending on how bad the disaster was, maybe at some point it could eliminate those treaty rights.
OLYMPIA – Sen. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, has been named to a new Joint Select Task Force on Nuclear Energy.
McCoy, the ranking member on the Senate Energy, Environment & Telecommunications Committee, will be one of eight legislators tasked with studying the viability of increased nuclear power production as a tool in reducing the state’s use of carbon-emitting fossil fuels.
“It’s crucial we take a close look at all potential renewable resources, including nuclear energy,” McCoy said. “At the same time, it’s also important that we gather all the facts and make informed decisions about our state’s clean energy future.”
The task force is expected to hold up to four meetings, including two in Richland. The task force is composed of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats from the state House and Senate and will report their findings to the Legislature by Dec. 1.
