Environment Archives - Page 47 of 106

Muckleshoot Tribe Urges Rejection of Genetically Engineered Salmon Application

Business Wire Source: Muckleshoot Indian Tribe

AUBURN, Wash. — The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe has joined with the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) in calling on the United States Food and Drug Administration to deny any application for the introduction of genetically engineered salmon into the United States until a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and further scientific review is completed and formal consultation with Northwest Treaty Tribes undertaken.

AquaBounty, a large Boston-based biotechnology company, has proposed to produce genetically engineered salmon eggs in Canadian waters, ship them to Panama where the engineered salmon would be raised to maturity in inland tanks, then slaughtered and processed in Panama and shipped to the United States for human consumption.

AquaBounty has patented a process whereby the DNA of wild Chinook salmon and an eel-like pout fish are fused and injected into Atlantic salmon. That engineered salmon is said to grow to full size in half the time of a wild fish and, according to AquaBounty, “increase the efficiency of production.”

According to federal guidelines, not only would the genetic engineering process and resultant salmon be owned by a corporation, but the fish would not be labeled as genetically modified so consumers wouldn’t know if they are buying it.

Northwest Tribes share a number of serious concerns about genetically engineered salmon, including the possibility of escape into the wild habitat and competing with wild salmon for food and rearing locations, or inbreeding with wild salmon which could result in the destruction of the species upon which all Indian people of the Pacific Northwest depend. Studies have not ruled out those possible impacts.

“From time immemorial salmon has been central to the culture, religion and society of Northwest Indian people,” said Virginia Cross, Muckleshoot Tribal Council Chair. “Genetically engineered salmon not only threaten our way of life, but could also adversely affect our treaty rights to take fish at our usual and accustomed places.”

In opposing FDA approval, the Muckleshoot Tribe and ATNI cite the precautionary principle, which states that habitat modification should not be undertaken until the full impacts are known and the natural and human environments are protected – and that the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls upon those proposing the action.

“The Coast Salish people have organized their lives around salmon for thousands of years,” said Valerie Segrest, Muckleshoot Tribal member and Native Foods Educator. “We see them as our greatest teachers, giving their lives for us to have life. Corporate ownership of such a cultural keystone is a direct attack on our identity and the legacy our ancestors have left us. Absent indisputable evidence that there is no harm in human consumption, wild fish habitat or the treaty-protected fishing rights of Northwest Indians the FDA must not permit the promised increase of production efficiency to trump sound science or fishing rights and culture of Northwest Indians.”

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2014/05/19/5977165/muckleshoot-tribe-urges-rejection.html?sp=/100/773/385/#storylink=cpy

Land trust hopes to buy Lummi Island quarry site

By KIE RELYEA

THE BELLINGHAM HERALD May 18, 2014

LUMMI ISLAND – The Lummi Island Heritage Trust wants to buy quarry land on the island for conservation and low-impact recreation with saltwater access.

“We’re interested in doing what we can to protect it,” said Rebecca Rettmer, executive director of the trust.

The land trust is negotiating with Resource Transition Consultants, the receiver for Lummi Rock quarry, to buy 105 acres on the southeast side of the island near Scenic Estates.

While receivership is an alternative to bankruptcy, it is similar in that creditors must line up to get paid under the direction of the receiver.

Lummi Rock and its operator, Aggregates West of Everson, have both turned their assets over to Resource Transition Consultants, which is charged with selling off those assets to pay the companies’ debts.

The companies have been in receivership since 2013.

Both sides declined to reveal the trust’s purchase offer. But Resource Transition Consultants’ Robert Nall said it was too low.

“We felt it was substantially below fair market value,” he said of the offer, adding that as receiver his company must by court order maximize the value of the companies’ assets.

Nall’s company had an appraisal done and then gave that to the land trust for evaluation.

Resource Transition Consultants would like to sell the property to the trust, provided it can get a fair-market value for the land or something close, Nall said.

“I think that would be a wonderful solution,” he said.

If the two sides don’t reach a deal, the property eventually will be listed for sale – primarily as a mining asset, Nall said.

When Lummi Rock’s receivership was filed last June in Whatcom County Superior Court, documents listed its most valuable asset as the 114 acres of property it owns at and near the quarry on Lummi Island.

The land was worth $1.55 million, and the company owed more than $10 million to shareholders, Union Bank and other creditors, according to those documents.

Lummi Rock’s mining operations were on 20 acres.

Rettmer went before a Whatcom County Council Natural Resources Committee in January to talk about the project and a possible partnership with the county, including its help in buying the 105 acres.

The land has more than 3,000 feet of saltwater shoreline that includes pocket beaches and critical nearshore habitat, with 80 acres of forestland and wildlife habitat in the upland, according to the trust.

Lummi Island Heritage Trust has conserved 853 acres of land on the island. It owns and manages three preserves that provide public access.

Lummi Nation challenges Bellingham plans for work related to new Costco

Shoppers enter the Bellingham Costco store Jan. 8, 2013. City officials are continuing to work on projects designed to clear the way for development of a West Bakerview Road site that could accommodate a new Costco store. THE BELLINGHAM HERALD |Buy Photo

By JOHN STARK

THE BELLINGHAM HERALD May 16, 2014

BELLINGHAM – Lummi Nation and Fred Meyer Stores have appealed the city’s preliminary approval of wetlands, stormwater and street modifications along West Bakerview Road to accommodate a new Costco store.

The appeals will trigger a city hearing examiner review of the development proposal. In technical terms, the review will determine whether City Planning Director Jeff Thomas was justified in issuing a “mitigated determination of non-significance” for the work in and around the proposed Costco store. Thomas’ finding meant that the project could move ahead without a more extensive review of environmental issues, as long as steps were taken to deal with traffic and other impacts.

Brian Heinrich, Mayor Kelli Linville’s executive coordinator, said there was no way to know how long that process might delay final approval of the project. The hearing examiner will set a hearing date after checking with attorneys representing the tribe and Fred Meyer.

“Any delay can have an impact, but we trust the process and are confident that city staff have acted appropriately in application of our land use and environmental regulations,” Heinrich said in an email.

In a press release, Lummi Nation Chairman Tim Ballew said the appeal was based on concern about the project’s potential impact on salmon and the Nooksack River.

“Filling wetlands that nourish salmon-spawning streams is significant,” Ballew said. “It is significant to the health of the river, the Lummi people, and everyone who calls the Nooksack River watershed home. As the steward of the environment, it is the Lummi Nation’s responsibility to protect these waters and the fish that live in them.”

In an email, Heinrich said the city shares the Lummi concern with the environment and salmon. Because of those concerns, the city is following the law in requiring the project to add wetlands to make up for those that will be filled, while restoring a salmon-bearing stream.

Heinrich noted that Lummi Nation also has offered developers the opportunity to compensate for wetland-filling projects by buying shares in the tribe’s wetlands bank to help cover the cost of creating new wetlands to make up for those lost to development.

Lummi Nation has its own long-term plans for major retail development on tribally owned real estate farther north. In the past, tribal leaders have negotiated with the city of Ferndale on division of tax revenues from major retail development of tribally owned property inside that’s city’s boundaries. So far that issue has not been settled, and no specific development plans for the tribal real estate have emerged.

Fred Meyer’s objections to the West Bakerview project are based on traffic impacts on its existing store on the other side of West Bakerview.

“The proposed development will significantly and adversely affect (Fred Meyer’s) interests by, among other things, substantially interfering with access to the Fred Meyer store by unreasonably increasing traffic on West Bakerview Road.”

Seattle attorney Glenn Amster, representing Fred Meyer, asks the hearing examiner to order preparation of an environmental impact statement, or the imposition of other measures to reduce the traffic impacts.

The city already has decided to impose the cost of some traffic improvements on Costco as a condition of city approval, including the construction of added turning lanes for cars entering the site. The city will require Costco to provide a right-turn lane into the store parking lot for westbound traffic, plus an additional left-turn lane for eastbound traffic.

Costco has agreed to pay for those improvements, Heinrich said, but as yet there is no cost estimate.

The 20-acre Costco site is on the north side of West Bakerview Road near Pacific Highway.

Reach John Stark at 360-715-2274 or john.stark@bellinghamherald.com . Read the Politics Blog at bellinghamherald.com/politics-blog or get updates on Twitter at @bhampolitics.

California OKs Clear Lake tribe’s request for fish consumption guidelines

story — Clear Lake. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat, 2013)

By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

May 18, 2014, 2:09 PM

CALIFORNIA -New guidelines for safe consumption of fish and shellfish of interest to a Clear Lake-area Pomo tribe were released last week by the state Environmental Protection Agency.

The recommendations are based on the levels of mercury found in 15 species of fish and shellfish in Clear Lake, long known for contamination from extensive mercury mining from the 1870s to as recently as 1957.

The state EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment said it developed the food advisory based on requests from the Big Valley Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians located in Finley, a small town near Lakeport.

Species added to the new guidelines based on the tribe’s interest include threadfin shad, prickly sculpin, mosquitofish, inland silverside, winged floater mussels and Asian clams, the EPA said.

Sarah Ryan, the tribe’s environmental director, said clams were the Pomos’ main interest. Tribal members who eat clams from the lake recall their parents and grandparents doing the same, she said, though it was unclear whether those clams were the same kind that are eaten today.

Beyond that, Ryan said it seemed right to assess the mercury in other species from the lake.

“We’re really glad they took on the task,” she said.

Dr. George Alexeeff, director of the environmental health hazard office, said in a press release that fish are “part of a healthy and well-balanced diet.”

“They are an excellent source of protein and can help reduce the risk of heart disease,” he said.

The guidelines are designed to help people balance the health benefits “against the risk of exposure to mercury from fish in Clear Lake,” Alexeeff said.

Mercury can harm the brain and nervous system of people, especially in fetuses and children, the EPA said.

Consumption standards for women age 18 to 45 and children under 18 are more restrictive than they are for women over 45 and men.

The advisory said that all people can consume seven servings a week of Asian clams or winged floater mussels, and that women over 45 and men can eat the same amount of inland silverside or threadfin shad.

Women 18 to 45 and children should limit silverside and shad to three servings per week, and should limit the other 10 species — blackfish, bullhead, catfish, crayfish, mosquitofish, bluegill or other sunfish, carp, crappie, hitch and prickly sculpin — to one serving a week.

Women over 45 and men can eat three servings a week of the 10 species, or one weekly serving of bass. Younger women and children should not eat bass.

Six other tribes — the Elem Indian Colony, Robinson Rancheria, Middletown Rancheria, Scotts Valley Rancheria, Koi Nation and the Habematolei Pomo — are also located in Lake County.

Mercury mining was prevalent in the Clear Lake area in the late 1800s, including a productive site, the former Sulphur Bank Mercury Mine, which operated on the lake’s shore until 1957, the EPA said.

The advisory on eating fish from the lake was originally issued in 1987 and was last updated in 2009.

For details on the advisory, go to http://www.oehha.ca.gov/fish/pdf/AdvyClearLake051514.pdf

(You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.)

Columbia Basin Tribes Applaud New Cooperation With Army Corps

U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceThe Pacific lamprey, significant to Columbia Basin tribes, could be helped by the new federal water bill. — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The Pacific lamprey, significant to Columbia Basin tribes, could be helped by the new federal water bill.

Source: Indian Country Today

The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) has come out in favor of the bipartisan congressional conference report on pending legislation that would enable direct cooperation between the Army Corps of Engineers and tribes.

“The Columbia Basin tribes and the Corps have long mutually agreed that acquisition of such authority would substantially advance project expertise and efficiency and allow the Corps to meet its statutory obligations by accessing tribal expertise,” the CRITFC said in a statement, adding that the language in the relevant section, 1031, was “short and simple but will remedy prior inefficiency in projects such as cultural resources protection, water quality monitoring and lamprey passage research.”

Lamprey passage has been an issue for the tribes in the northwestern United States, to whom they are a cultural icon. Dam construction has impeded the fish’s ability to spawn.

Section 1031 “authorizes the Corps of Engineers to carry out water-related planning activities and construct water resource development projects that are located primarily within Indian country or impacts tribal resources,” the conference report stated. “Previous Water Resources Development Acts have authorized individual Tribes to carry out these activities. This section is intended to provide this authority generically so that all Tribes may benefit.”

The commission also gave a hat tip to Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, calling him “instrumental” in getting the Cooperative Agreement Authority language included in the bill that passed the Senate in 2013. The tribal organization also noted the contributions of House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster and Ranking Member Nick Rahall, who “were integral to affirming House commitment to the policy improvements.”

A final vote on the bill is pending.

“We look forward to swift passage of WRRDA in both the House and Senate and look forward to working with the US Army Corps of Engineers to quickly implement this authority,” said CRITFC Executive Director Paul Lumley in the statement.

Thousands of dead fish wash ashore in California

Foul-smelling, silvery blanket covers waters off Marina Del Rey

May 19 2014

Tracy Bloom KTLA.com

Clean up efforts were considered over, but thousands of small dead fish remained in the waters off of Marina Del Rey on Monday morning, two days after they were first discovered.

Scores of dead fish, believed to be mostly anchovies, began washing up in a corner of the marina near Bora Bora Way on Saturday night, creating a foul-smelling, silvery blanket on top of the water.

“It’s horrible. There’s like a million dead anchovies floating around, as well as other fish,” said Lisa Lascody, a resident of the area. “It’s creepy and weird,”

Crews spent Sunday cleaning up, and although carcasses continued to litter the water on Monday, a supervisor with the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors said clean up efforts were over.

The supervisor estimated that about 3,000 to 4,000 fish carcasses were removed from the harbor.

The remaining dead fish floating in the water would either get eaten or eventually be pushed out into the ocean, the supervisor added.

It was unclear why exactly the dead fish washed up in the first place, but one marine expert speculates the amount of fish could have sucked the oxygen out of the water, and that could have caused them to die.

“The currents in here… it gets trapped in here, it doesn’t have a good flow. So it’s possible all these anchovies came in here, then all the other fish came in here, and all of that massive load of anchovies…sucked out all of the oxygen in the water. And through that, everything died,” said Eric Martin, the facility director and educational co-director of Roundhouse Aquarium, a marine studies lab in Manhattan Beach that teaches about the ocean and marine life.

The was not the first time numerous dead fish showed up dead in Southern California waters. In March 2011, millions of small fish turned up dead in King Harbor in Redondo Beach, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In that incident, it was believed that the fish used up all the oxygen after swimming into the marine en masse and eventually suffocated, the Times reported.

More forestry funding needed on Indian lands, tribal leader says

By Kate Prengama, Yakima Herald-Republic

Phil Rigdon, the director of Yakama Natural Resources Program and president of the Intertribal Timber Council

Federal funding cuts pose dire consequence for the ability of tribes to manage their land and reduce wildfire risks, a Yakama Nation leader told a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Phil Rigdon, the director of the Yakamas’ natural resources program and president of the Intertribal Timber Council, told the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that programs that once kept tribal forests healthy are now “running on fumes.”

“The consequences of chronic underfunding and understaffing are materializing,” Rigdon told the committee. “The situation is now reaching crisis proportions and it’s placing our forests in great peril.”

There are more than 18 million acres of tribal forest lands held in trust by the federal government, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs gets far less funding per acre for forest management and fire risk reduction than national forests.

Funding has fallen 24 percent since 2001, Rigdon said, and that can have dire consequences.

For example, last year when the Mile Marker 28 Fire broke out off U.S. Highway 97 on the Yakama reservation, only one heavy equipment operator and one tanker truck were able to respond immediately because that’s all the current federal budget supports, Rigdon said in an interview before the hearing.

“Back in the early 1990s, when I fought fire, we would have three or four heavy equipment operators,” he said. “Someone was always on duty. That’s the kind of thing that’s really changed.”

The Mile Marker 28 Fire eventually burned 20,000 acres of forest.

Rigdon noted that the dozens of tribes around the country that are represented by the Timber Council are proud of the work they do when resources are available.

“If you go to the Yakama reservation and see our forests, we’ve reduced disease and the risk of catastrophic fire. If we don’t continue to do that type of work — if we put it off to later — we’ll see the types of 100,000- or 200,000-acre fires you see other places,” Rigdon said.

Currently, there are 33 unfilled forestry positions at the BIA for the Yakama Nation, he added. That limits the program’s ability to hit harvest targets, which hurts the tribe economically and affects the health of the forest.

A 2013 report from the Indian Forest Management Assessment Team found that an additional $100 million in annual funding and 800 new employees are needed to maintain strong forestry programs on BIA land nationwide. The current budget is $154 million.

In addition to the concern over future funding, other members of the panel also discussed the different approaches to forest management by tribes and the Forest Service.

“We’ve done a good job maintaining a healthy forest on a shoestring budget, but the Forest Service is not maintaining its adjacent lands,” said Danny Breuninger Sr., the president of the Mescalero Apache Nation in New Mexico.

Committee member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., cited a 2011 Arizona fire as an example of how tribal efforts can succeed. In the wake of a 2002 fire, the White Mountain Apache conducted salvage logging and thinning work while the adjacent national forest did not. When fire hit the region again, federal forests were devastated, but the treated tribal forests stopped the fire’s spread.

Jonathan Brooks, forest manager for the White Mountain Apache, told McCain that lawsuits prevent the Forest Service from doing similar work.

“Active management gets environmental activists angry,” Brooks said. “But what’s more hurtful to the resources: logging, thinning and prescribed fire, or devastating fires?”

Rigdon said the Intertribal Timber Council would like to see increased abilities for tribes to work with neighboring national forests on management projects like thinning, which could support tribe-owned sawmills and reduce fire risks.

The Yakama Nation is working with the Forest Service on developing such a collaborative project, as part of a new program known as “anchor forests.” It’s a pilot program currently being used on a few reservations, and the panelists at the hearing supported expanding it to more regions.

Anchor forests are intended to balance the economic and ecological needs of a forest through a collaborative effort involving tribes, the BIA and local, state and federal agencies.

Canadian Community Blockades Gulf Islands Territory Over Phallic Clams

By Jimmy Thomson

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

May 13, 2014 | 5:05 am

The Stz’uminus (Chemainus) First Nation has enacted a blockade that spans its traditional territory in the Gulf Islands of BC. They say they’ve been let down by a recent Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) policy decision to restrict their ability to culture geoducks, a hugely valuable clam species that is already harvested commercially in the area.

“We’re trying to send a message to DFO,” says Ray Gauthier, CEO of the Coast Salish Development Corporation and the man behind the blockade. “If you’re not going to acknowledge our interests… then we’re going to reclaim the area.”

Nobody from DFO was made available speak with VICE, but the agency sent a statement, saying: “Officials are engaged in ongoing discussions with the Stz’uminus to understand their concerns and interest.”

It’s the “ongoing” part that has enraged the First Nation.

Six years ago they applied for permission to conduct a 100-hectare geoduck aquaculture operation in the waters off their reserve near Nanaimo. The undeniably phallic clams grow up to a metre long, and can sell for $50 a kilo to Asian markets.

Band officials saw the lucrative geoduck harvest as a chance to build the local economy and make the reserve more self-sufficient.

“We don’t have our hand out here,” says Gauthier. “We’re not asking for money.”

But the plan stalled. Then, after two years of frustration, the First Nation blockaded commercial operations in Kulleet Bay in 2010, preventing the divers from getting in the water. “The message was, if we can’t have access to the industry, then neither can you,” Gauthier recalls.

They threatened to blockade the bay again the following year, but the commercial geoduck harvesters steered clear. A few weeks ago, the First Nation was given a one-time opportunity to apply to harvest in five hectares. They say it’s not enough. “This new policy that was supposed to address aboriginal interests simply doesn’t,” says Gauthier.

Now they’re blockading much more than just one fishery in just one bay: they’re planning on blocking access to “all vessels including but not limited to commercial fishing vessels, DFO vessels and any non-native civilians and government officials,” within their traditional territory. That territory spans from Active Pass to Gabriola Island, heavily used areas in the Gulf Islands.

Gauthier says the issue is that the government is shirking its duty to consult with First Nations prior to making decisions regarding resources they have the right to use. “It doesn’t mean you have a meeting and it’s all good, he says. “They’re having trouble with the concept.”

That alleged failure to consult has attracted the interest of “10 or 12” other First Nations. Meaning, depending on the outcome, this protest could grow. No confrontations have occurred yet, but Gauthier says the blockade is in full swing.

“In our world it’s already begun,” he said.

Police seek steelhead bandits who released 25,000 fish

by GARY CHITTIM / KING 5 News

NWCN.com

Posted on May 13, 2014 at 2:34 PM

Updated yesterday at 5:36 PM

FALL CITY, Wash. — Washington state’s five steelhead hatcheries are on high alert after someone broke into a facility overnight and released approximately 25,000 juvenile fish into the Snoqualmie River.

State Fish and Wildlife Hatchery managers are concerned it was an act of defiance against a new agreement that sharply curtails the state’s steelhead hatchery program. The agreement resulted from a lawsuit filed by a fish protection group, Wild Fish Conservancy, which accused the State of violating the Endangered Species Act. State Fish and Wildlife Managers agreed to stop planting winter steelhead hatchery fish in all but one river.

This set off a wave of criticism by some sport anglers who eagerly await the steelhead runs each year.

It also left the state with huge numbers of steelhead that could not be released into tributaries of Puget Sound. Whoever struck the Tokul Creek facility on the Snoqualmie appeared to know the hatchery was planning to truck its large inventory of steelhead to the east side of the state where they would be released into lakes that would not allow them to migrate to the Sound.

State Fish and Wildlife Enforcement officers and King County Sheriffs deputies are investigating the break in. Hatchery workers say whoever did it cut the lock off a tall chain link fence, entered the hatchery grounds and pulled the screens that prevented the steelhead from entering the creek and Snoqualmie River.

Private security officers have been hired to patrol the other hatcheries until police figure out if this is an isolated case or part of an organized resistance to the settlement.

USGS Geologist Doubts Cause Of Oso Landslide Will Ever Be Pinned Down

File photo of landslide near Oso, Washington. credit: Washington Governor's OfficeFile photo of landslide near Oso, Washington. | credit: Washington Governor's Office — File photo of landslide near Oso, Washington. credit: Washington Governor’s Office
File photo of landslide near Oso, Washington. | credit: Washington Governor’s Office

By Tom Banse, Northwest News Network

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.

This story first appeared on Northwest News Network.