Environment Archives - Page 30 of 106

Fish migrate into upper Elwha River for first time in century

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Fish have migrated into the upper Elwha River for the first time in a century.

Olympic National Park biologists confirmed last week that two radio-tagged bull trout had migrated from the lower river through the former area of Glines Canyon Dam and reached at least as far as Rica Canyon above the former Lake Mills, some 15½ miles from the mouth of the Elwha River.

Four bull trout had been detected earlier as they passed a telemetry station upriver from the former Glines dam.

Thursday’s walk along the river with handheld radio receivers confirmed it wasn’t a faulty signal, at least for Fish 167 and Fish 200.

“The fish have made it” for the first time in 100 years, spokeswoman Barb Maynes said Friday.

Clearing the river for migratory fish passage was the point behind the $325 million Elwha River restoration project that began in 2011.

Both Elwha Dam, built in 1912 about 5 miles from the river’s mouth, and Glines Canyon Dam, constructed in 1927 some 13 miles from the mouth, were made without fish ladders and so blocked migrating salmonid passage from a river once known for legendary salmon runs.

The 108-foot Elwha Dam was demolished by March 2012.

The last 30 feet of the once-210-foot-tall Glines Canyon Dam came down Aug. 26.

The passage of four radio-tagged bull trout was detected even before that final blast, Maynes said.

That was possible because the 30-foot stub of the dam did not extend all the way across the river channel.

Park biologists know a great deal about those two fish — and hope to know more soon.

Fish 167 was captured and radio-tagged May 7 about 3.5 miles above the river’s mouth. It was 19 inches long.

This bull trout swam through the old Elwha dam site in late July before being noted again 8 miles upriver in early August.

Fish 200, measuring 20.5 inches, was radio-tagged June 25 about a mile and a half upstream of the river’s mouth.

It swam past the Elwha Dam site July 20 and swam through Glines Canyon on Aug. 24, just before the final blast.

Did the bull trout originate in the Elwha River?

Researchers don’t know yet, Maynes said, but they plan to perform genetic tests on fin clips taken when the fish were radio-tagged.

Those tests, which so far as Maynes knows haven’t been scheduled yet, would tell biologists the origin for the fish, she said.

Bull trout in the Olympics often get around, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Bull trout, which were listed in 1999 as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, may live near areas where they were spawned or migrate from small streams to larger streams and rivers or from streams to lakes, reservoirs or salt water, according to the agency.

In a May 2004 draft recovery plan, the agency said bull trout populations within the Olympic Peninsula Management Unit “exhibit all known migratory life history forms of this species, including fluvial [fish that migrate from tributaries to larger rivers to mature], adfluvial [fish that migrate from tributaries to lakes or reservoirs to mature], and anadromous [fish born in fresh water that migrate to the ocean to grow and live as an adult, returning to fresh water to spawn] populations.”

Biologists will continue to look for signs of migrating fish in the upper parts of the 42-mile river, which with its tributaries offers more than 70 miles of fish habitat.

Eighty-seven fish have been radio-tagged so far, Maynes said.

Of that, 13 bull trout, two winter steelhead, five chinook and one sockeye salmon have been located above the old Elwha Dam site.

Each fish is equipped with a uniquely coded radio transmitter that differentiates it from all other tagged fish.

Radio signals from the tags are then detected by radio receivers and antennas.

Six telemetry stations were installed between the mouth of the river and just above the Glines Canyon Dam site.

These stations continually scan for and record data, documenting when individual fish pass by each station.

Biologists also manually track fish between Rica Canyon and the river mouth using handheld radio receivers and antennas.

Also involved in the radio-tracking program are biologists with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Washington’s National Park Fund has provided funding, Maynes said.

For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/PDN-damremovalblog.

Orca calf born to Puget Sound resident L pod

(Photo: Capt. James Maya / Maya’s Westside Whale Charters)

Susan Wyatt, KING 5 News, September 7, 2014

The Center for Whale Research is celebrating the birth of an orca calf in the Salish Sea, the first one since 2012.

The proud mother is 23-year-old L86, and this is her second calf. The newborn has been designated L120.

The birth is sorely needed in the Southern Resident Community population, Michael Harris, Executive Director of the PWWA, said in a press release. Their numbers had just dipped to 78, the lowest count in over a decade.

Meanwhile, the Northern Resident Community of British Columbia have steadily increased in numbers, and transient or marine mammal-eating orcas seem to be thriving in the Sound and Straits.

Yet the Southerns continue to struggle to recover, Harris said. Researchers attribute the problem to lack of prey, primarily their preferred diet of wild Chinook salmon.

A Pacific Whale Watch Association crew was the first to snap and post the baby photos.

“We wouldn’t have known about it, but heard from David Elifritt out on the water that L86 had a new calf, and then ran into them,” said Capt. Jim Maya of Maya’s Westside Whale Charters on San Juan Island. “What a thrill to be there at the right time in the right place. Everyone on board was so excited. I’ve never seen a calf born, but it’s always a thrill to be there the day a new calf was discovered.”

“I remember someone saw a shot of L86 breaching back in June and word got out that she had a little ‘baby bump,'” explains Michael Harris, Executive Director of the PWWA. “This is great news. But every time a baby’s born, we’re careful not to pass out the cigars too soon. Infant mortality is really high among wild orcas, especially these Southern Residents. This little whale has a tough road ahead. Every birth is exciting, but we’ll be especially thrilled and relieved to see L120 rolling back into the Sound and Straits next summer.”

Tribes Want EPA Involved In Washington Clean Water Rulemaking

By Associated Press

EVERETT, Wash. — An alliance of Washington tribes says it will ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in and come up with new water-quality rules for the state.

The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission sent Gov. Jay Inslee a letter on Thursday expressing “dissatisfaction” with his proposal for updating the state’s clean water rules that are partly tied to how much fish people eat.

The Herald reports that the tribes say the proposal won’t do enough to protect tribal members. They’re also concerned about another delay.

Inslee’s plan would increase the fish consumption rate to 175 grams a day, but the tribes say that improvement is offset by other less protective changes.

An Inslee spokesman said Saturday that the governor’s office and the Department of Ecology hope to discuss Inslee’s proposal with the group.

Conservation Groups Concerned Oil Spill Would Harm Wildlife

An oil train moves through Skagit County in Western Washington, headed to refineries in the Northwestern part of the state. | credit: Katie Campbell

Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Radio

As more oil trains travel along the Columbia River and Puget Sound, conservation groups worry that cleanup plans could harm sensitive wildlife, like endangered salmon and shorebirds.

That concern is prompting legal action. The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Columbia Gorge Thursday filed a 60-day notice to sue the U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency. The conservation groups say the oil spill response plan needs to be updated to account for endangered species.

Jared Margolis, an attorney for the center, said the response plan hasn’t been updated in 10 years. That means the plan doesn’t include new wildlife habitat and new species on the Endangered Species List, like smelt, also known as eulachon.

“If those spill response plans aren’t up-to-date, they could boom the oil right into critical habitat for endangered species, which can really impact the salmon and sturgeon.” Margolis said.

Margolis said the Gulf Coast’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill taught conservation groups that cleanup efforts, like burning oil and mixing oil with the dispersants, could harm endangered species.

An EPA spokeswoman said she could not comment on pending litigation. She said cleanup plans in the Northwest include monitoring for endangered species.

Nisqually Tribe working with neighbors to restore Ohop Creek

Kyle Kautz, Nisqually tribal natural resources, collects fish from a pool in the former Ohop Creek channel.

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

This summer, the Nisqually Tribe, the Nisqually Land Trust and the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group are tacking on another 1.5 miles of restored habitat to Ohop Creek.

“In this stretch of creek, salmon aren’t really given much space to feed or hide,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe. “We’ll be restoring the creek back to a natural shape and giving the salmon the habitat they need to survive.”

Over a century ago farmers turned the creek into a straight-flowing ditch in an attempt to dry out the valley floor and create cattle pasture. However, deep clay deposits in the soil continued to hold water year round, and despite the failed effort to completely dry the valley the stream remained channelized.

“It went from a shallow, meandering stream that was very good for salmon to a straight ditch,” Troutt said.

The Ohop Creek restoration will include digging an entirely new channel as well as adding other features, such as logjams and deep pools, that will provide habitat for salmon.

Salmon habitat restoration on the creek began in 2009 with a repaired one-mile channel just upstream of the new site. That channel was constructed to restore a sinuous stream that connected to its floodplain. The floodplain, now replanted with native vegetation, re-creates 80 acres of healthy riparian habitat that controls water temperatures and stabilizes the stream banks.

The project partners have already documented the progress of the upstream restoration. “We’ve seen a lot of changes, down to the types of birds that visit the site,” Troutt said. Early results include increased use by salmon and the return of wildlife species, such as elk, that had not been seen in the valley for decades.

Ohop Creek is one of two major tributaries to the Nisqually River that can support chinook salmon and steelhead, both of which are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. “Because there are only a few places other than the mainstem of the Nisqually River where they can spawn, increasing the quality of habitat in those places is important,” Troutt said. Ohop Creek also supports coho and pink salmon and cutthroat trout.

“Throughout Puget Sound, we’re seeing available salmon habitat continue to disappear, despite millions of dollars spent to restore and protect it,” Troutt said. “There is no larger threat to treaty rights than lost salmon habitat. Projects like this are a small step to reversing that trend.”

Storm drains with a message

By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

TULALIP – Through the summer break, 175 storm drains on the Tulalip Indian Reservation received a mini makeover due to a collaborative effort between Tulalip Tribes Natural Resources department and the Goodwill Aerospace Program.

Receiving help from 20 students from the Marysville/Everett area who participated in the Goodwill Aerospace program, the drains, located near the Tulalip Resort Casino, Totem Beach Road and Totem Beach Loop Road, now display a stenciled salmon graphic and custom message reading, “No Dumping; Drains to Salmon Habitat.” Tulalip Natural Resources hopes the message will remind the public of the risks salmon habitat face.

“Many people have the misperception that a drain in a street or parking lot is sent to a wastewater treatment plant, but it is not,” explains Valerie Streeter, Tulalip Natural and Cultural Resources stormwater planner. “ After a rain storm, stormwater runoff enters the drain and is usually piped directly to a ditch, stream or bay with very little treatment. This water picks up heavy metals, copper from brake pads, Zinc from tires, and oils from engines, and delivers these pollutants to our waterways. Salmon are especially sensitive to copper, which alters their response to predators and damages their olfactory organs, how they smell. Zinc and oils also damage aquatic plants and animals.”

Students involved in the program were required to participate in service learning projects, which involves learning about the science and background of a project and then volunteer their time toward that project.

“Protecting our watersheds and salmon habitat are very important and we want the community to understand that dumping anything down storm drains can impair fish and other aquatic creatures because storm drains drain directly to streams, lakes, and even the bay,” said Kelly Finley, Tulalip Tribes Natural Resources Outreach and Education Coordinator.

Streeter explains that when people wash their cars or driveway and either dump or allow the dirty wash water into the storm drains, this contributes to water pollution. “It is better to wash your car on the lawn or use a car wash, which are connected to wastewater treatment plants. Pet waste is another common pollutant in our water, which can pass diseases on to other animals or even us humans.”

“The worst is an old practice of dumping used oil from an oil change into the storm drains,” said Streeter, who recommends discarding used oil at appropriate places, such as the automotive center at the Walmart Supercenter located in Quil Ceda Village, who will discard the oil free of charge.

For more information on how you can help in salmon recovery, please visit Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office’s website at www.rco.wa.gov/salmon_recovery/what_you_can_do.shtml.

Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com

Oregon Board Considers Logging Rules To Protect Salmon

By: Associated Press

Oregon’s state Board of Forestry is working on balancing a healthy timber industry with healthy salmon runs.

On Wednesday, the board votes on taking the next step in developing rules governing how many trees must be left standing along streams to keep the water shaded and cool enough for salmon to survive.

It would be the first change to the riparian protections of the Oregon Forest Practices Act since 1994.

The question was raised by a 2011 study that found temperatures were getting warmer in salmon streams on state-regulated timberlands in the Coast Range.

The Department of Forestry is recommending the board go forward with analyzing the different logging prescriptions that would be needed to meet the cool water protection standards for small- and medium-sized streams with salmon, steelhead and bull trout, and their economic impact.

A final decision is months away and will take into account whether the changes create too much of a hardship on the timber industry.

Mary Scurlock of the Oregon Stream Protection Coalition says the study makes it clear that Oregon will have to start leaving more trees standing along streams to meet the cool water standard set by the state Environmental Quality Commissions, and some form of financial assistance for small landowners may be needed to soften the blow.

She added that Washington state logging rules use the same cold water protection standards set in Oregon, and the timber industry is viable there.

In testimony to the board over the past year, representatives of the timber industry have urged approaching the Environmental Quality Commission to change the cool water standards — a position opposed by the Department of Forestry — and raised questions about how long-lasting the effects are of logging on stream temperatures.

Katrina McNitt, president of the Oregon Forest Industry Council, said while the study showed water temperatures rose after logging, they never exceeded the standard for protecting salmon.

The RipStream study by the department and Oregon State University looked at 33 stream sites on state and private lands in the Coast Range dating to 2002. The study found an average increase of 1.26 degrees Fahrenheit after logging on private lands. There was no increase on state timberlands, where more trees are left standing along streams. The temperature increases were prompted by less shade thrown on the water by trees.

Relocation turns pests into assets: Beavers help salmon and ease the impacts of climate change

The beaver are paired up in traps before being transported to their new home. Photo/Niki Cleary — The beaver are paired up in traps before being transported to their new home.
Photo/Niki Cleary

By Niki Cleary, Tulalip News

Beaver are known for their industrious landscaping. They regularly use their skills to rearrange the world around them, much like humans, to build safe places to live and grow the plants they feed upon. Unfortunately, for businesses and homeowners, the beaver’s best-known talent is also one of its least charming attributes.

The solution? Move nuisance beaver from urban areas to Forest Service land in the mountains where their construction skills will both build salmon habitat, and mitigate the effects of climate change. A win-win that Tulalip Wildlife Biologist Jason Schilling is excited to share.

“Beavers are marvels of engineering, we’re hoping to tap into their ability to store water,” he explained. “This was a big vision of Terry Williams [Tulalip Natural Resources], he saw it as a way to restore degraded landscape.”

“Benjamin Dittbrenner [of the University of Washingon], is studying how beaver change water quality,” Schilling continued. “ Particularly he’s looking at stream flow before and after beaver relocation and water temperature, those are two very important things for salmon.”

Dittbrenner is a former Snohomish County employee. While at the County he worked with landowners to ensure that property was protected from beaver activity.

“Beavers have a lot of really great ecological benefits,” he explained. “They take water and slow it down so that it can infiltrate into subsurface soils, increase groundwater and recharge aquifers. This creates backwater habitat for specialist species, and there have been studies to show that beavers and Coho are closely linked, Coho use beaver habitat as juveniles. We suspect that part of the reason Coho numbers are dropping is lack of beaver habitat.”

Dittbrenner continued, “The climate shifts that are predicted in the mountains mean that we’re going to have a lot less snow. That snow directly provides water to streams in spring and early summer. If there’s less water that means there is warmer water, and warmer water means less dissolved oxygen and less successful spawning. We’ve been looking at solutions to cope with less and warmer water.”

The project will work, said Dittbrenner.

“We’re modeling the project after other projects, east of the Cascades, where it’s legal to relocate beavers. Ranchers who once were against beavers are seeing that when the beavers come in, the groundwater levels increase and their pastures stay greener much longer. We’re hoping to see the same great benefits that they’re seeing.”

In a nutshell, the beaver’s dam building creates ponds which helps increase the water table. Beavers slow down water during fast flow times and increase water during the dry season. All of which adds up to more, and better quality water, as well as rearing habitat for salmon. Lastly, as climate change causes the snowpack to decrease, beaver ponds are an effective and natural way to store water for the dry season.

Since it’s such a great solution, why isn’t everyone doing it? Because in Western Washington it’s illegal to transport beaver alive from where they are trapped. It’s still perfectly legal to kill them. Tribes, however, are not subject to state law.

“It really has to do with our management of wildlife, as part of our broader treaty rights in off-reservation resource management,” explained Tulalip Attorney Tim Brewer. “We have the right to manage these resources and we’re working with the feds on federal land and therefore state law is pre-empted.”

Tulalip biologists have 24 beaver friendly sites picked out, but only eight of the sites will be populated initially. The unused sites will be used to as a comparison to demonstrate how effective the project has been.

“We may use them as release sites next year,” said Schilling, “but that will give us some good baseline data for beavers we released.”

For more information about the project contact Jason Schilling via email jschilling@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.

Molly Alves points out the recently nibbled branches, explaining that they will be placed on site with the beaver. The beaver are more likely to stay because they recognize their scent on the old branches. — Molly Alves, Assistant Wildlife Biologist at Tulalip, points out the recently nibbled branches, explaining that they will be placed on site with the beaver. The beaver are more likely to stay because they recognize their scent on the old branches.

Beavers await relocation at the Tulalip Hatchery

Assistant Wildlife Biologist Molly Alves helps take care of beaver while they await relocation. She feeds them, dropping bunches of vine maple and vegetation, into the chum raceways where they are living. The beaver are also offered commercial rat food, but don’t seem to care for it. They sleep in man-made lodges built out of cinder blocks.

“We have to rebuild their lodges every night,” she said. “We weren’t anticipating catching six, and they don’t fit very well in a single lodge. The lodges are built out of plywood and cinder blocks, we have to line the plywood with steel mesh or they will chew through it.”

Alves explained that beaver are highly social and prefer to sleep together. That is one of the reasons they’ll be relocated as a group. Other strategies to ensure the animals don’t leave include scent marking the locations.

“We take these,” she held up the vine maple from the previous day, it’s bark stripped and the wood notched with teeth marks, “we call them chew sticks, and we’ll put them at the release site. They’re more likely to stay there if their scent is already there.”

The family is made up of two adults, three sub-adults and one kit.

“We’ve been setting up camera traps as well, so we know there are two more at the site where we caught this family,” said Alves.

“There’s another kit and a sub-adult. We’ll go back and catch those two and release them [as a pair],” she continued. “We know the sub-adults stick around for a couple of years to take care of the kits, so we know the kit will be fine. They’ll be released as their own family and they’ll probably go to a different spot because by the time we get them, these ones will be established.”

While the cameras are useful, Alves said the biologists knew there were more beaver because the animals can’t stand a leaky dam.

“There were three dams where we caught these guys. We notched the dams, that means we pulled out sticks and mud so there was a trickle of water,” she described, “it drives them crazy. When we went back some of the dams were rebuilt.”

Beaver are nocturnal herbivores, although they don’t hibernate, their planning and construction ensure that they survive winters just fine.

“They eat leaves in the summer and bark year round,” Alves said. “They stay in their lodges all winter and they create caches of food under their lodges. Other animals like muskrats and mice will stay in their lodges too.”

Hatchery visitors can learn about the beaver through series of interpretive signs that describe the relocation project and it’s benefits.

Lummi Totem Pole Journey Rallies Voices Against Environmental Destruction

Courtesy of 'Kwel Hoy: A Totem Pole Journey'A 19-foot pole carved by Lummi master carver Jewell James and the House of Tears Carvers is being taken on a journey to 21 Native and non-Native communities in four Northwest states and British Columbia. James carved the pole to compel people to speak out against coal and oil transport projects that could have a devastating impact on the environment. The pole will be raised at Beaver Lake Cree First Nation on September 6. — Courtesy of ‘Kwel Hoy: A Totem Pole Journey’
A 19-foot pole carved by Lummi master carver Jewell James and the House of Tears Carvers is being taken on a journey to 21 Native and non-Native communities in four Northwest states and British Columbia. James carved the pole to compel people to speak out against coal and oil transport projects that could have a devastating impact on the environment. The pole will be raised at Beaver Lake Cree First Nation on September 6.

Richard Walker, 9/2/14, Indian Country Today

LUMMI NATION, Washington—At each stop on the totem pole’s journey, people have gathered to pray, sing and take a stand.

They took a stand in Couer d’Alene, Bozeman, Spearfish, Wagner and Lower Brule. They took a stand in Billings, Spokane, Yakama Nation, Olympia and Seattle. They took a stand in Anacortes, on San Juan Island, and in Victoria, Vancouver and Tsleil Waututh.

They’ll take a stand in Kamloops, Calgary and Edmonton. And they’ll take a stand at Beaver Lake Cree First Nation, where the pole will be raised after its 5,100-mile journey to raise awareness of environmental threats posed by coal and oil extraction and rail transport.

“The coal trains, the tar sands, the destruction of Mother Earth—this totem [pole] is on a journey. It’s calling attention to these issues,” Linda Soriano, Lummi, told videographer Freddy Lane, Lummi, who is documenting the journey. “Generations yet unborn are being affected by the contaminants in our water.… We need people to take a stand. Warrior up—take a stand, speak up, get involved in these issues. We will not be silent.”

The 19-foot pole was crafted by Lummi master carver Jewell James and the House of Tears Carvers. The pole and entourage left the Lummi Nation on August 17 for 21 Native and non-Native communities in four Northwest states and British Columbia. The itinerary includes Olympia, the capital of Washington State, and Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. The pole is scheduled to arrive at Beaver Lake Cree on September 6.

The journey takes place as U.S. energy company Kinder Morgan plans to ship 400 tanker loads of heavy crude oil each year out of the Northwest; a refinery is proposed in Kitimat, British Columbia, where heavy crude oil from Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline would be loaded onto tankers bound for Asia; and as Gateway Pacific proposes a coal train terminal at Cherry Point in Lummi Nation territory. Cherry Point is a sacred and environmentally sensitive area; early site preparation for the terminal was done without permits, and ancestral burials were desecrated.

In a guest column published on August 11 in the Bellingham Herald, James wrote that Native peoples have long seen and experienced environmental degradation and destruction of healthy ecosystems, with the result being the loss of traditional foods and medicines, at the expense of people’s health.

And now, the coal terminal proposed at Cherry Point poses “a tremendous ecological, cultural and socio-economic threat” to Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples, James wrote.

“We wonder how Salish Sea fisheries, already impacted by decades of pollution and global warming, will respond to the toxic runoff from the water used for coal piles stored on site,” he wrote. “What will happen to the region’s air quality as coal trains bring dust and increase diesel pollution? And of course, any coal burned overseas will come home to our state as mercury pollution in our fish, adding to the perils of climate change.”

James wrote that the totem pole “brings to mind our shared responsibility for the lands, the waters and the peoples who face environmental and cultural devastation from fossil fuel megaprojects.… Our commitment to place, to each other, unites us as one people, one voice to call out to others who understand that our shared responsibility is to leave a better, more bountiful world for those who follow.”

‘This Is the Risk That Is Being Taken’

Recent events contributed to the urgency of the totem pole journey’s message.

Two weeks before the journey got under way, a dike broke at a Quesnel, British Columbia, pond that held toxic byproducts left over from mining; an estimated 10 million cubic meters of wastewater and 4.5 million cubic meters of fine sand flowed into lakes and creeks upstream from the Fraser River, a total of four billion gallons of mining waste. A Sto:lo First Nation fisheries adviser told the Chilliwack Progress of reports of fish dying near the spill, either from toxins or asphyxiation from silt clogging their gills; and First Nation and non-Native fisheries are bracing for an impact on this year’s runs.

On July 24, a Burlington Northern train pulling 100 loads of Bakken crude oil derailed in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood. The railcars didn’t leak, but the derailment prompted a statement from Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and Area Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians.

“People need to know that every time an oil train travels by, this is the risk that is being taken,” she said. “These accidents have occurred before. They will occur again. … The rail and bridge infrastructure in this country is far too inadequate to service the vast expansion of oil traffic we are witnessing.”

A year earlier, on July 6, 2013, an unmanned train with 72 tank cars full of Bakken crude oil derailed in a small Quebec village, killing 47 people. An estimated 1.5 million gallons of oil spilled from ruptured tank cars and burned; according to the Washington Post, it was one of 10 significant derailments since 2008 in the United States and Canada in which oil spilled from ruptured cars.

Feds Call Bakken Crude Volatile as Quinault Warn Against Oil Rail Transport

Some good news during the journey: As the totem pole and entourage arrived at the Yankton Sioux Reservation in Wagner, South Dakota, word was received that the Oregon Department of State Lands rejected Ambre Energy’s application to build a coal terminal on the Columbia River; the company wants to ship 8.8 million tons of coal annually to Asia through the terminal.

One of the concerns that communities have about coal transport is exposure to coal dust; those concerns are shared by residents of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, where proponents of a coal terminal on the Mississippi River forecast an increase in Gulf Coast coal exports from seven million tons in 2011 to 96 million by 2030.

Dr. Marianne Maumus of Ochsner Health Systems told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that coal dust contains heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium and mercury, and can cause cancer, neurological, renal and brain-development problems.

“I think the risk is real. I think there is a lot of potential harm from multiple sources,” Maumus told the Times-Picayune.

James said there are alternatives to coal and oil—among them energy generated by wind, sun and tides.

“But we’re not going to move toward those until we move away from fossil fuels,” he said.

In his Nation’s territory, Yakama Chairman JoDe L. Goudy told videographer Lane he hopes the pole’s journey will help the voice of Native people “and the voice of those people across the land that have a concern for the well-being of all” to be heard.

“May the journey, the blessing, the collective prayers that’s [being offered] and the awareness that’s being created lift us all up,” he said, “lift us all up to find a way to come against the powers that be … whether it be coal, whether it be oil or whatever it may be.”

Albert Redstar, Nez Perce, advised young people: “Remember the teachings of your people. Remember that there’s another way to look at the world rather than the corporate [way]. It’s time to say no to all that. It’s time to accept the old values and take them as your truths as well.… They’re ready for you to awaken into your own heart today.”

To Unite and Protect

The totem pole journey is being made in honor of the life of environmental leader and treaty rights activist Billy Frank Jr., Nisqually. Frank, chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, walked on in May.

James said the pole depicts a woman representing Mother Earth, lifting a child up; four warriors, representing protectors of the environment; and a snake, representing the power of the Earth. The pole journey has been undertaken in times of crisis several times this century.

In 2002, 2003 and 2004, to help promote healing after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, James and the House of Tears Carvers journeyed across the United States with healing poles for Arrow Park, New York, 52 miles north of Ground Zero; Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashed; and Washington, D.C.’s Congressional Cemetery, seven miles from the Pentagon. And In 2011, James and a 20-foot healing pole for the National Library of Medicine visited nine Native American reservations en route to Bethesda, Maryland. At each stop on the three-week cross-country journey, people prayed, James said at the time, “for the protection of our children, our communities and our elders, and generally helping us move along with the idea that we all need to unite and protect the knowledge that we have, and respect each other.”

Kitsap Sun: Kittyhawk Drive culvert finally removed for fish

Aug 28th, 2014, Northwest Indian Fisheries

The Kitsap Sun (subscription required) reported on the removal of a partial fish-blocking culvert on Chico Creek, under Kittyhawk Drive. Under the direction of the Suquamish Tribe, the 50-year old culvert is being removed, fully allowing the mouth of the estuary to return to a more natural state.

From the story:

Removing the Kittyhawk culvert is an important step in restoring the estuary, according to Small and Tom Ostrom, of the Suquamish Tribe, who helped pull together more than $2 million for the project. Replacing the freeway bridge, they said, will lead to an even greater improvement in salmon habitat, supporting increased populations of chum, coho and steelhead.

Work on the Kittyhawk project began earlier this summer with construction of a new driveway punched in from Chico Way. The driveway has a gravel surface, but it will be paved later this year. The driveway provides a new access for residents who previously crossed Chico Creek to get home.

Along with the culvert removal, the project will remove 400 feet of Kittyhawk Drive, built on a raised roadbed. An estimated 10,000 cubic yards of soil will be pulled out of the estuary where it was placed to build the road. That’s more than 1,000 average dump truck loads.

Before the end of September, Chico Creek should be able to flow smoothly out of the freeway culvert and down a gradual slope into Chico Bay, according to John Gaffney, water resources engineer for Anchor QEA. Log structures will be buried downstream of the remaining culvert to ensure that the stream does erode vertically, but Gaffney does not expect that to happen.