Environment Archives - Page 25 of 107

Traces Of Fukushima Radioactivity Detected In West Coast Waters

An oceanography institute announced today (Monday) that trace amounts of radioactivity from Fukushima have been detected off the West Coast. This stems from the 2011 nuclear plant accident in Japan.

Radiation experts say the very low levels of radioactivity measured do not pose a health threat here.

The post-earthquake and tsunami nuke plant accident spilled a large amount of radioactive contamination into the Pacific three years ago. Oceanographers projected that it would take until this year for highly diluted traces to reach the West Coast of North America. And a recent research cruise from Dutch Harbor, Alaska to Eureka, California detected the front edge of the plume multiple times between 100 and 1,000 miles offshore. Ken Buesseler is a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

“The levels offshore still are quite low. So by that I mean they are a couple units of these Becquerels per cubic meter, something that is about a thousand times less than a drinking water standard,” he said.

Buesseler said he is reluctant to “trivialize” any amount of radiation, but says he personally has no concerns about swimming, boating or eating fish from local waters.

Since the start of this year, Buesseler’s lab has also tested about 50 seawater samples collected at the shore by concerned coastal residents from California to Alaska. All of those results have come up negative. This sampling was paid for through crowdfunding as part of an ongoing “citizen science” monitoring project initiated by Buesseler.

A parallel but independent monitoring effort run through the radiation health lab at Oregon State University found no detectable traces of Fukushima radiation in seawater samples collected earlier this year in near shore waters along the Pacific Northwest coast.

Scientists tracking the plume from Japan look for a short-lived cesium isotope, cesium-134, that serves as the “fingerprint” of Fukushima contamination.

For context, radioecologist Delvan Neville at OSU said it helps to know that the cesium-134 levels reported by the Woods Hole researcher are “much less than the natural background radiation in seawater.” In an interview, Neville was certain the low levels of Fukushima-derived isotopes detected in the northeastern Pacific do not pose an environmental or human health radiological threat.

Buesseler is scheduled to present his findings Thursday during the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Vancouver, Canada.

He is also responding to questions from the public on the “Ask Me Anything” forum on Reddit at 10 a.m. PST Monday.

The results Buesseler reported corroborate detections of cesium-134 in seawater far offshore from Vancouver Island starting last year. Scientists from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Health Canada and the University of Victoria are collaborating on a monitoring effort that also includes fish sampling.

None of the salmon, halibut, sablefish and spiny dogfish they have analyzed have contained detectable levels of radiation traceable to Fukushima.

This was first reported for the Northwest News Network.

A Salmon’s Journey Through Dams: Robotic Fish Tell All

Sensor fish are helping researchers figure out what it's like for juvenile salmon to pass through dams. After the newest version of the mechanical devices runs a test through a dam, it lights up so that researchers can find it in the water. — Sensor fish are helping researchers figure out what it’s like for juvenile salmon to pass through dams. After the newest version of the mechanical devices runs a test through a dam, it lights up so that researchers can find it in the water.

By Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Radio

It’s hard to know exactly what happens to young salmon as they swim out to sea – what sort of wild, sometimes fatal ride they experience when they plunge through a dam’s turbine.

A few robotic fish are helping researchers find answers.

They may lack fins, gills, and scales, but these fish are equipped with sensors that can detect pressure changes, water temperature, and the direction they’re facing.

Major pressure changes can make fish experience something akin to the bends in divers. Fish can also get whipped around by turbine blades.

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have worked with several iterations of robotic fish. Two years ago, EarthFix first covered the robo fish.

Back then, researcher Tom Carlson said it’s important to downsize the mechanical fish so that they can test what it’s like at dams smaller than those on the mainstem Columbia River.

“Everybody tries to imagine what it might be like to be a fish. I don’t think any of us do it very well,” said Carlson, who is now retired. “The experience of the fish may be quite different … They may not have the same sensation of water flow that we might imagine as humans when we’re swimming.”

This newest generation is even smaller than the models used two years ago, when testing found the sensors still worked well after facing up to 600 times the force of gravity – definitely something that’s hard to imagine.

The newest sensor fish are the same size as the juvenile salmon they’ll be sometimes be “swimming” alongside: about 3.5 inches long and 1 inch in diameter. (Researchers are developing other models to mimic more types of fish.)

“The earlier sensor fish design helped us understand how intense pressure changes can harm fish as they pass through dam turbines,” said scientist Daniel Deng, now in charge of the sensor fish project.

“And the newly improved sensor fish will allow us to more accurately measure the forces that fish feel as they pass by turbines and other structures in both conventional dams and other hydro power facilities. As we’re increasingly turning to renewable energy, these measurements can help further reduce the environmental impact of hydropower,” Deng said.

The new devices will be tested at three small hydro projects in the U.S., two conventional hydroelectric dams in the U.S., irrigation structures in Australia and a dam on the Mekong River in Southeast Asia. They can be used with several types of turbines and pumped storage plants.

Election Shifts Oregon Closer To Carbon Tax, Not So For Washington

Smoke stacks during a night scene in Tacoma, Wash. Election-night shifts in the Oregon state Senate moved it closer to a carbon tax. Washington might have distanced itself further. | credit: Flickr/Tom Collins

By Ashley Ahearn, Earthfix

Environmentalists spent more than $1.5 million in Oregon and Washington in bids to secure Democratic majorities in state legislatures — majorities they wanted for approving clean-fuel standards and a tax on carbon emissions.

The plan worked in Oregon. It didn’t in Washington.

The Washington Conservation Voters, with money from California billionaire Tom Steyer, backed Democratic candidates in three conservative-leaning districts in an attempt to give their party control of the state Senate. All three lost to Republicans.

Environmentalists backed Tami Green against Sen. Steve O’Ban in the south Puget Sound area. Green lost.

They backed Matt Isenhower challenging Sen. Andy Hill in his East Side King County district. Isenhower lost.

They backed Seth Fleetwood trying to unseat Sen. Doug Ericksen in Whatcom County. Fleetwood lost.

That puts Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee in a challenging position for advancing his plans to institute a price on carbon and a low-carbon fuel standard. Environmental groups expected the Democratic challengers to vote for those policies.

At an energy conference Wednesday in Seattle, the governor spoke to reporters with a bit less enthusiasm than normal. He stressed the need for bipartisanship.

“All parties are going to have to accept what they consider imperfect solutions,” Inslee said. “It is the nature of bipartisanship. So I’m going to urge people to come to Olympia with that mindset and if they have that mindset I believe we will succeed.”

In Oregon, Democrats increased their majority in the Senate to at least 17 of the chamber’s 30 seats. They secured one seat and took another one from a Republican. Sen. Alan Bates, D-Medford, won reelection and Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, defeated Republican incumbent Betsy Close. Another Republican-held seat could flip to the Democrats. It’s held by Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, whose narrow lead against Democratic challenger Chuck Riley remained too close to call Wednesday.

Those results have conservation groups thinking the Oregon Senate is poised to reconsider environmental legislation on issues like clean fuels and disclosure of chemicals in children’s products.

Both of those failed previously after Democrat Betsy Johnson voted with Republicans.

“We don’t even know what we could have brought to the floor because it was just DOA: Dead on Arrival,” said Doug Moore, Executive Director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.

But now, Moore thinks they will have the votes in the Senate to offset that.

“Our ultimate objective here is to price carbon in Oregon. And maybe having 18 seats in the Senate gives us that opportunity,” Moore said.

JL Wilson, a lobbyist for groups opposed to the carbon tax, said he plans to appeal to democrats whose districts depend on industries that oppose the economic burdens of putting a price on carbon emissions.

“I would have a hard time believing you would have 16 senators just lined up to support these policy options,” Wilson said. “Is it more of a challenge than it was prior to last night? Yeah, of course it is. But it’s by no means a fait accompli.”

Public opposition has cost tar sands industry $17bn, says report

Protests helped stymie three major tar sands projects this year, as industry is beset with transportation problems

Protest against tar sands in Portland, Oregon, US. Photograph: Alex Milan Tracy/Demotix/Corbis

by: Arthur Nelsen, The Guardian

Anti-tar sands campaigns have cost the industry a staggering $17bn (£11bn) in lost revenues, and helped to push it onto the backfoot, according to a study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), and Oil Change International.

Another $13.8bn has been lost to transportation bottlenecks and the flood of cheap crude coming from shale oil fields, says the Material Risks report, which presents the first quantification of the impact that environmental campaigners have had on the unconventional energy business.

“Industry officials never anticipated the level and intensity of public opposition to their massive build-out plans,” said Steve Kretzmann, Oil Change International’s executive director. “Legal and other challenges are raising new issues related to environmental protection, indigenous rights and the disruptive impact of new pipeline proposals. Business as usual for Big Oil – particularly in the tar sands – is over.”

The industry is currently facing a decline in increased capital expenditure on new tar sands projects, due to problems in transporting the crude, which the study links to public campaigns.

While industry profits continue to fall, the report says that lack of market access helped to stymie three major tar sands enterprises in 2014 alone – Shell’s Pierre River, Total’s Joslyn North and Statoil’s Corner project – which together would have emitted 2.8bn tonnes of CO2.

Protests by environmentalists have been swollen by the presence of first nations communities, angry at the environmental damage they fear the industry could wreak on their ancestral lands.

“The taking of resources has left many lands and waters poisoned – the animals and plants are dying in many areas in Canada,” says the Idle No More manifesto. “We have laws older than this colonial government about how to live with the land.”

“Tar sands producers face a new kind of risk from growing public opposition,” said Tom Sanzillo, director of finance at IEEFA, and one of the lead authors on the report. “This opposition has achieved a permanent presence as public sentiment evolves and as the influence of organisations opposed to tar sands production continues to grow.”

Mining trucks carry loads of oil laden sand at the Albian Sands oils project in Ft. McMurray, Alberta, Canada. — Mining trucks carry loads of oil laden sand at the Albian Sands’ oil sands project in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. Photograph: Jeff McIntosh/Associated Press

Canada has staked its energy future on a massive expansion of tar sands, which hold the world’s third largest reserve of crude after Saudia Arabia and Venezuela.

But the huge amounts of water and solvents needed to extract oil from bitumen dramatically boost greenhouse gas output and, on latest production forecasts, will increase Canada’s CO2 emissions by 56 megatonnes by 2020.

The tar sands production process involves steam injection, strip mining and refining, and leaves environmental scars ranging from clear-cut forests to toxic tailing ponds and destroyed farmland.

This has pushed the focus of environmental and indigenous land rights protests onto export pipelines, such as the stalled Keystone XL project to send tar sands crude to the US.

According to the new paper, the industry’s current inability to build new pipelines has the potential to cancel most, if not all, planned new projects.

It says that the 6.9bn barrels of tar sands this could still leave underground by 2030 would be the equivalent of an additional 4.1bn tonnes of CO2 emissions – or the same as 54m average passenger vehicles, over the same period.

Lower Elwha Tribe studies wood movement in Elwha River

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe is tagging large woody debris to follow it as it moves through the newly restored Elwha River system.

“We’re tracking over 2,000 logs and tree stumps with silver tree tags, from the upstream end of Lake Mills to the river mouth,” said Vivian Leung, a doctoral student of geomorphology at University of Washington.

She’s been working with the tribe since 2012 to study how large wood debris (LWD) has affected the river during and after the removal of the river’s two-fish blocking dams.

“Not only did the dams completely block the supply of sediment downstream, but they also altered the transportation of large wood,” said Mike McHenry, the tribe’s habitat manager. “Both elements are critical for habitat forming processes not only in the river but in the nearshore. The fate of wood is relevant to the recovery of the river and its aquatic resources, especially salmon.”

Silver tags are attached to log and stumps throughout the Elwha River so scientists can track their movements as the river changes during restoration.

As the dams came down, the lake Aldwell and Mills reservoirs were drained, leaving behind thousands of logs and tree stumps that had been buried under sediment and water for the past century. The natural action of the river is transporting the logs and stumps throughout the new riverbed, changing the dynamics of the river and creating better salmon habitat.

Leung is interested in how logjams form and affect channel patterns, how wood is transported through rivers and how the pools they create provide places for salmon to rest, feed and spawn.

“Surprisingly, there’s still a lot of research to be done to understand how large wood debris interacts with river systems,” she said. “So far we have found that logjams and salmon habitat are forming significantly faster in Aldwell than we expected.”

The large logs and rootwads also are aiding revegetation efforts of the lakebeds. The tribe hired a heavy-lift helicopter recently to relocate 500 unmarked logs around Mills. The logs were moved from the former reservoir pool elevation to terraces along the river’s floodplain.

These logs are expected to help stabilize steep slopes and provide sheltered areas for young plants to survive during planned revegetation efforts in the coming years, McHenry said. During 2014-2015, 100,000 woody plants will be planted into the former Mills reservoir surface.

Nisqually Tribe counting prawns in South Sound

Margaret Homerding, shellfish biologist for the Nisqually Tribe, measures a prawn during the tribes shellfish surveys of South Sound.

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

A long-term study by the Nisqually Tribe is providing a better understanding of shrimp in South Sound.

“What shrimp populations are in the area is not well documented,” said Margaret Homerding, shellfish biologist for the Nisqually Tribe. “The state conducted surveys a decade ago, but did not catch any spot prawns.”

The tribe is dropping three shrimp pots every few months in various locations from the Nisqually Reach to lower Carr Inlet. Each pot location is tracked on GPS and any catch is recorded.

“We started surveying when we saw our crabbers pulling up spot prawns from their deeper pots,” Homerding said. “We are looking for all species of shrimp, but we’re focusing our efforts on spot prawns, which are the commercially valuable species.” So far, spot prawns and dock shrimp have been the most abundant species in the tribal surveys.

“The end result of the study should be a decision on whether there is a commercially viable fishery for the tribe on shrimp,” Homerding said. The research will help guide the tribe in creating an accurate harvest regime for co-managing shrimp with the state in South Sound.

Currently, the tribe splits a combined 3,000 pound quota for all shrimp species with non-tribal harvester, including 1,000 pounds for spot prawns. “There isn’t any commercial harvest by the tribe right now,” Homerding said. “Even with the few shrimp caught incidentally in crab fisheries, the tribe doesn’t come anywhere close to actually accessing those pounds.”

Part of the surveys include tracking the sizes at which shrimp change from male to female. Because shrimp change sex during their life cycle, the relative sizes of male and female shrimp can tell biologists a lot about the health of the local population. “If a population of shrimp is shrinking, we will see individuals changing sex earlier,” Homerding said.

Shellfish managers can consider the data the tribe is collecting now as a baseline for a healthy stock with little harvest pressure. “But, if we see smaller females in later years, we can assume they’re feeling the pressure to switch earlier, and we should reduce our fishing pressure,” she said.

The tribe is also tracking when shrimp are spawning. Usually, shrimp fisheries close when female shrimp are carrying eggs, protecting them from harvest. “There’s no reason to fish for shrimp when the next generation is at its most vulnerable,” Homerding said.

“Basic information that we’re collecting now will help guide harvest in the future,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe. “The Nisqually Tribe is committed to smart management that benefits both tribal and non-tribal communities.”

Honoring Nations Announces 2014 Awards in American Indian Tribal Governance

Swinomish stands with Harvard representatives for a group photo after being awarded at the 2014 NCAI Conference in Atlanta, GA. Photo courtesy Brian Cladoosby. #SalishSeaOilFree

Source: Harvard Kennedy School

CAMBRIDGE, MASS, OCT 29 – From more than 60 applicants, six tribal governance programs have been selected as 2014 Awardees by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development’s Honoring Nations program. The Honoring Nations awards identify, celebrate, and share excellence in American Indian tribal governance. At the heart of Honoring Nations is the principle that tribes themselves hold the key to generating social, political, cultural, and economic prosperity and that self-governance plays a crucial role in building and sustaining strong, healthy Indian nations.

Calling them trailblazers, Chairman of the Honoring Nations Board of Governors Chief Oren Lyons (Onondaga) says, “the 2014 Honoring Nations awardees look down the long road and don’t get lost in the demands of the moment. They are about our future, and the children coming, and the responsibilities of all leaders to their nations.”

Administered by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, Honoring Nations is a member of a worldwide family of “governmental best practices” awards programs that share a commitment to the core idea that government can be improved through the identification and dissemination of examples of effective solutions to common governmental concerns. At each stage of the selection process, applications are evaluated on the criteria of effectiveness, significance to sovereignty, cultural relevance, transferability, and sustainability. Since its inception in 1998, 118 tribal government programs and three All-Stars programs have been recognized from more than 80 tribal nations.

Honoring Nation’s Program Director Megan Minoka Hill (Oneida Nation WI) states, “Honoring Nations shines a light on success in Indian Country to share valuable lessons that all local governments, Native and non-Native, can learn from to better serve their citizens.”

Presentations and dissemination of the work of the 2014 awardees will include exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution, a web platform through Google Cultural Institutes, written and video reports and case studies, executive education curriculum, and national presentations.

The 2014 Honoring Nations awardees are:

The Lummi Nation’s Wetland and Habitat Mitigation Bank: A bank of tribal wetlands habitat set aside and preserved to sell as “credits” to offset the impact of on- and off-reservation development projects that impact wetlands habitat.
Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s Child Welfare Program: Tribal child welfare services provider that administers Social Security Act programs to provide culturally reflective programs and services and keeps S’Klallam children in S’Klallam homes.
Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo’s Owe’neh Bupingeh Rehabilitation Project: A complex project to rehabilitate and restore homes in the “Pueblo core” of the community, preserving the core’s 700+ year-old structures while modernizing homes for 29 families.
The Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Potawatomi Leadership Program: A six-week summer internship program for college-student Potawatomi citizens to work in the tribal government offices and gain a more thorough knowledge of tribal organization, thereby increasing their capacity as future tribal leaders.
The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s Role in the Scott County Association for Leadership and Efficiency (SCALE): A local collaborative association of tribal and municipal governments to increase efficiency and cooperation among agencies and governments in Scott County, Minnesota.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s Climate Change Initiative: A thorough initiative that incorporates assessment of current and forecast climate change impacts on the tribal community and resources, and a plan with tools for establishing mitigation strategies.

South Dakotans fight TransCanada on their own turf

Photo of crowd yesterday at hearing, posted on DRA’s Twitter feed

By Sara Sullivan, Climate Connections

Pierre, SD – The fight to stop TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline can add one more state to its battleground: South Dakota. A powerful coalition of local allies intervened in the certification of the pipeline permit at the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, and the battle for the open US Senate seat in South Dakota could be decided by voters strongly opposed to Keystone XL.

Four tribal nations and a number of grassroots Native groups, each belonging to the Oceti Sakowin, have petitioned to intervene. Those tribes are the Cheyenne River, Rosebud, Standing Rock, and Yankton Sioux Tribes. Dakota Rural Action, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and several South Dakota landowners have also petitioned to intervene. This coalition, called No KXL Dakota, is comprised of tribal nations, non-profit organizations, individual tribal citizens and non-tribal landowners, each dedicated to the protection of Mother Earth and the natural resources of South Dakota.

TransCanada opposed the intervention of several applicants to party status, including the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Utility Commission Office, both Native entities dealing with energy issues in South Dakota.

This high-profile pipeline battle has intensified with the South Dakota congressional race. Republican candidate Mike Rounds is the only candidate fully endorsing the pipeline, while Democratic opponent Rick Weiland has gained local support because of his opposition to Keystone XL and Independent Larry Pressler has also courted the Native vote.

Lewis Grassrope of Wiconi Un Tipi: “We are here to ensure that this committee [the PUC] hears our voice on this opposition to the pipeline or any pipeline through these lands.”

Joye Braun of Pte Ospaye Spirit Camp: “Pte Ospaye Spiritual Camp mission is stand in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline and the social evils that come with Big Oil, to educate the people about the KXL Pipeline, fracking, and the pollution that occurs with oil production. Pte Ospaye Spiritual Camp is located just outside of the Bridger Community on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation and 2.2 miles from where the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline proposes to go through. It is a hugely historic area known for centuries as a crossroads for Natives Peoples to travel through on their way to the Black Hills. It is ground zero for the Lakota people fighting this pipeline as it would have to pass through this area first to try and get to the other camps and Nebraska.”

No KXL Dakota allies have pledged to stand their ground and not back down in the now local battle over property, land, water, human trafficking, and treaty rights.

Oregon Divers Find Hope In Thousands Of Baby Sea Stars

Divers measured as many as 200 juvenile sea stars in a square meter at a site on the North Jetty in Florence. | credit: Courtesy of Oregon Coast Aquarium

By Cassandra Profita, OPB

Divers at the Oregon Coast Aquarium say they have new hope that sea stars will recover from the widespread wasting syndrome that’s wiping them out all along the Pacific coast.

This month they found thousands of thumbnail-sized juvenile sea stars, commonly called starfish, on the North Jetty in Florence.

Diver Jenna Walker said her team didn’t recognize them as sea stars at first because there were so many, and they were so small.

“It was overwhelming,” she said. “When we first got down there it looked like the rocks were covered with barnacles. We soon realized those white spots were thousands and thousands of stars. I have never seen them in numbers like that. It was pretty incredible.”

The divers counted as many as 200 juvenile sea stars in a square meter. They were too small for the divers to identify their species. Adult sea stars were completely absent from the site.

It’s difficult to determine where the new sea stars originated, according to Stuart Clausen, assistant curator of fishes and invertebrates for the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

“Sea stars start out as plankton and drift wherever currents will carry them,” he said.

Clausen said the juveniles in Florence may be the first sign of sea star recovery in Oregon.

“We are not out of the woods yet, but it is encouraging,” he said. “It means some adults survived or at least put viable gametes in the water before being affected.”

Divers with the aquarium plan to monitor the juvenile sea stars in Florence with regular trips to the site in the coming months.

U.S. Tribes Unite to Testify Against New Tar Sands Oil Pipeline in Canada

Richard J. Seward of Sto:lo First Nation and Pilalt Tribes welcomed the Washington Tribes with songs and ceremony. Chilliwack is the traditional lands of the Sto:lo people.

New pipeline threatens way of life of Coast Salish tribes

Brad Angerman, Pyramid Communications

CHILLIWACK, British Columbia—Tribal representatives from four U.S. tribes spoke in unified opposition today against oil giant Kinder Morgan’s new proposed tar sands oil pipeline. The announcement took place in Chilliwack, a rural town of 80,000 about 50 miles (86 kilometers) east of Vancouver, B.C. Tribal elders, fishers, leaders and youth presented testimony opposing the project to Canada’s National Energy Board, which will make a recommendation on the future of the pipeline to Canada’s federal government, the ultimate decision-making body for the project.

Swinomish Chairman and NCAI President Brian Cladoosby with Cultural Coordinator of the Swinomish Tribe and members of First Nations.

“We can no longer allow the Salish Sea to be used as a dumping ground,” said Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby. “For more than 150 years we have lived in a pollution-based economy, and today face increased threat of an oil spill in our traditional fishing grounds on the Salish Sea—an event that would very likely lead to irreparable damage to salmon and shellfish habitat, and destroy our way of life along with it.”

The Kinder Morgan proposed oil pipeline would roughly triple the capacity of the existing pipeline, from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 per day. It would run alongside an existing pipeline that stretches from the Alberta tar sands oil fields to an oil shipping terminal in Burnaby, B.C., a suburb of Vancouver, greatly increasing the traffic of oil tankers carrying diluted tar sands bitumen through Canadian and U.S. waters.

“The proposed pipeline, if approved, will increase the risk of oil spills and cause more disruption of our fishing fleet. The Suquamish Tribe has a duty to stand up to further threats to our Salish Sea fishing grounds, which have sustained our people since time immemorial,” said Suquamish Chairman Leonard Forsman.

Glen Gobin, Tulalip Tribal Member and Tulalip Tribe Board of Directors Treasurer along the shores of the Fraser River after the ceremony.

“If the pipeline is approved, there will be a massive increase in tanker loadings,” said Tulalip Board of Director Glen Gobin. “This increased traffic will directly interfere with access to traditional and treaty-protected fishing areas, and put the safety of tribal fishers at risk—not to mention drastically increase the chance of a catastrophic oil spill,” he said. “My father, Bernie Gobin, fought side by side with leaders such as Billy Frank Jr. to ensure that salmon, the very essence of who we are as Coast Salish peoples, live on from generation to generation. We fight for our past and our future.“

Canada’s Coast Salish First Nations also oppose the oil pipeline, and testified before the National Energy Board last week. Those tribes included Shxw’owhámel First Nation, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, Kwantlen First Nation, Musqueam Indian Band, Peters Band. Katzie First Nation and Hwlitsum First Nation also provided testimony.

“Like the sea, Coast Salish people acknowledge no boundaries. We are united to protect the Salish Sea,” said Chemainus First Nation member Ray Harris. “It’s a danger to the environment, a violation of aboriginal fishing rights, and a threat to all people who call this unique place home,” he said.

Coast Salish peoples are the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest, and have traditionally lived along the coasts of Oregon and Washington in the United States, and in British Columbia, Canada. The Salish Sea is a network of waterways between the southwestern tip of British Columbia and the northwestern tip of Washington State, and includes the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Haro Strait, the Strait of Georgia and the Puget Sound.