Environment Archives - Page 55 of 107

5 Easy Steps: How to Start a Community Garden

Cheyenne River Youth Project (LakotaYouth.org)Guided by traditional and spiritual principles, the Cheyenne River Youth Project® has incorporated the traditional Lakota values of generosity, spirituality, wisdom, respect, courage, honesty and patience into the development of its 2-acre, naturally grown, pesticide-free Winyan Toka Win (“Leading Lady” in the Lakota language) garden. — Cheyenne River Youth Project (LakotaYouth.org)
Guided by traditional and spiritual principles, the Cheyenne River Youth Project® has incorporated the traditional Lakota values of generosity, spirituality, wisdom, respect, courage, honesty and patience into the development of its 2-acre, naturally grown, pesticide-free Winyan Toka Win (“Leading Lady” in the Lakota language) garden.

Darla Antoine, ICTMN

For our ancestors, community gardening was the ONLY form of gardening, but as the landscape of our territories have been whittled away, so has our sense of communal responsibility and communal effort to feed ourselves.

Bringing gardening back to our communities has a number of obvious and not-so-obvious benefits: first, it is a great way to give ourselves dignified access to culturally appropriate foods and it’s a wonderful way to pool resources and strengthen community bonds. That much should be obvious. But did you know that community gardening might also reduce crime rates? One community garden in Philadelphia transformed their neighborhood by revamping and cleaning up an empty lot to house a beautiful community garden. Their efforts had a ripple effect and soon everyone was looking after their property—and their neighbors’—with more care.

And that’s not all: Community gardening gives elders in the community a voice and a chance to share their knowledge while teaching our youth the importance of sustainability and being sovereign—inter-generational exposure of cultural traditions is vital to our communities! Community gardens may also help your community grow traditional foods in a traditional way—something we don’t get from the supermarket.

Spending time in a garden or green space can also help reduce seasonal allergies, stress and air pollution. If built to include a composting station it can also reduce the amount of garbage taken to the landfill every week. And if they are involved in the gardening process, kids (of all ages) are more likely to eat their vegetables.

With all of those benefits, what are you waiting for! Here is how you can start your own community garden in five easy steps:

1. Organize a Meeting

Where will the garden be (find a place with at least 6 hours of sunlight and access to water)? How much are dues? How many plots and what size? What should be planted? Who will be involved? Who will benefit? Is there the possibility of funding or sponsorships to help cover the costs?

2. Form Committees

Who will be in charge of securing funding or collecting dues? Who will buy the seeds? Who will construct the plots? Will there be youth activities or a youth garden? Who will organize the planting and harvesting? Or is it all up to the individual plot owners?

3. Make Rules and Post Them

Involve the community in making the garden rules and the community will follow the rules. When are dues? How will the money be used? Will there be regular meetings? Are individuals responsible for the tending and harvesting of their own plots or is the garden an entire community effort from beginning to end? Will tools be provided to share or is everyone responsible for their own needs? Will the garden be organic?

4. Prepare and Develop Site

Clean the site, create a design or arrangement for the plots, build the garden beds, build a tool shed, and build a compost center. You may want to plant ornamental shrubs around the parameter of the garden to help make the garden look beautiful. You may also have to consider deer fencing or other steps to keep animals out of the garden. Don’t forget to plan pathways in-between all of the plots! Pathways that are able to accommodate wheelbarrows are highly suggested.

What considerations for traditional farming and gardening practices do you need to make? Do you want to honor the ancestors in the design of the garden somehow?

5. Stay in Touch

One of the purposes of a community garden is to strengthen the ties that bond a community. Be sure to create a phone tree, email list and/or put up a bulletin board to help members stay in touch when they need to. Also consider planning monthly workshops aimed at teaching the community how to garden, weed, harvest and maintain pest control without the use of harmful pesticides and herbicides. You can also plan seasonal foraging expeditions for traditional foods– and don’t forget to plan a harvest festival!

Darla Antoine is an enrolled member of the Okanagan Indian Band in British Columbia and grew up in Eastern Washington State. For three years, she worked as a newspaper reporter in the Midwest, reporting on issues relevant to the Native and Hispanic communities, and most recently served as a producer for Native America Calling. In 2011, she moved to Costa Rica, where she currently lives with her husband and their infant son. She lives on an organic and sustainable farm in the “cloud forest”—the highlands of Costa Rica, 9,000 feet above sea level. Due to the high elevation, the conditions for farming and gardening are similar to that of the Pacific Northwest—cold and rainy for most of the year with a short growing season. Antoine has an herb garden, green house, a bee hive, cows, a goat, and two trout ponds stocked with hundreds of rainbow trout.

First Nations Save First Foods: Northwest Tribes Seek to Restore Historic Fish Runs

Jack McNeelGrand Coulee Dam, the so-called granddaddy of all impediments to fish migration, as seen from the hillside above the reservoir. — Jack McNeel
Grand Coulee Dam, the so-called granddaddy of all impediments to fish migration, as seen from the hillside above the reservoir.

Jack McNeel, Indian Country Today Media Network

Salmon and other migratory fish attempting to return to their spawning grounds in the Pacific Northwest face no fewer than 400 man-made barriers in the Columbia River Basin, the earliest dating back to 1885—and there may be as many as 100 more constructed illegally on private property, tribal fish biologists estimate.

The impediments to fish migration posed by such monolithic barriers as the 551-foot-high Grand Coulee Dam are well documented, but anadromous fish face a myriad of other obstacles as well. In the 129 years since that first dam was built in Spokane, Washington, fish passage has been restricted, if not totally eliminated, in many areas, tribal experts said at a recent workshop addressing the issues. And it’s not just the Columbia River.

“The tributaries and main stem Snake River habitat are probably in worse shape than on the Columbia,” said Dave Johnson, program manager for the Nez Perce Department of Fisheries. “The main stem is a mess. All the Snake River salmon and steelhead populations are listed under the endangered species act or have been extirpated. Idaho Power Company is trying to relicense those facilities right now, and there are things they need to fix as part of that, things that are caused only by those dams being there such as the mercury issue, such as temperature problems.”

Biologists with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) have documented most of these obstructions on a massive map of the basin. They gathered at a workshop in mid-March to review their individual projects ahead of the CRITFC’s Future of Our Salmon conference to be held in Oregon on April 23 and 24. The goal is to restore historic fishing runs. Eliminating such obstructions is essential not only from a food-security standpoint, the experts said, but also culturally and spiritually—though all are different facets of the same thing.

“The deal we made with the Creator is that if we take care of our first foods, the first foods will take care of us,” said Paul Lumley, executive director of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), which held the workshop. “Salmon are the first of the first foods.”

By 1980, river flows had been reduced by 50 percent, causing migration time to increase from weeks to months and decreasing survival, said Sheri Sears of the Colville Tribes. The granddaddy of all these barriers is Grand Coulee Dam, completed in 1942, which completely blocked upstream migration all the way into the headwaters in western British Columbia. But there’s more—much, much more. The Brownlee, Hells Canyon and Oxbow dams on the Snake River totally block fish migration across western and southern Idaho nearly to the Wyoming border as well, for instance.

Moreover, these are all high dams. Besides Grand Coulee there is the Brownlee, soaring 420 feet. Others are only slightly lower. Their construction, and lack of any means to transport fish beyond them, has changed the culture of Northwestern tribes, whose members once depended on these fish for food.

Ever since the first dams were built, biologists from tribes and governmental agencies have sought ways to get fish over, around, and through these barriers: large and small dams, culverts and even waterfalls. Currents and water temperatures have changed over the years, as well.

The issue stretches all the way up into Canada, with nonexistent fish passage at the Keenleyside, Brilliant, and Waneta dams. Sockeye were once abundant there.

“None of these facilities provide fish passage,” Canadian biologist Will Warnack told workshop attendees.

Different locations reported various problems and possible solutions. One practice that has proven effective is the use of pit tags to compare survival rates between dams. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries biologist Ritchie Graves pointed out that it was relatively cheap, no handling was required, fish were from a known source, and it was an easy estimate to understand. In addition, he said, everyone using this technique sends their findings in, making for highly accurate reporting statistics.

New technology sometimes replaces old, as cited by James Bartlett, fisheries biologist with Portland General Electric. For instance, Round Butte Dam once had a 2.8-mile fish ladder. That was discontinued a few years later, and they now use a truck and haul method for both juveniles and adults. A pipe releases the fish 20 feet below the surface to prevent thermal shock.

Cracking down on the roughly 100 mostly illegal dams in central Washington would be a good starting point for restoring the fish runs, Sears said. The smaller dams and barriers notwithstanding, the single overriding problem continues to be moving fish past the major hydroelectric dams. Solutions are possible, but funding is key, which is one hope for the outcome of the renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty, which is nearly complete.

Perhaps the most unique option for boosting fish over large dams is being developed by Whooshh Innovations, a company that is testing a flexible sleeve that rapidly moves fish using a pressure differential. The first tests will move fish 200 feet with a 50-foot rise, but the company is already thinking of much larger numbers, a minimum of 1,000 feet with a 236-foot rise.

“Our model indicates it would take a fish 25 seconds to make that rise,” said Deligan. “Do we want to go over something like Chief Joseph Dam? Absolutely.”

Just one visit to Grand Coulee Dam put the money needs in perspective. Over the next 10 years, $400 million will be spent for turbine retrofits at Grand Coulee. Each year, $70 million goes toward operations and maintenance. Fish-passage solutions pale in comparison.

“These huge outlays of money make one realize that installing fish passage facilities is not a financial impossibility,” noted Lumley, who emerged from the workshop optimistic about the April conference.

“This workshop exceeded my expectations in terms of identifying real solutions to restoring fish passage,” Lumley said. “It was mostly technical, but also [yielded] some really helpful suggestions for us on the funding side of it, and also in asking our leadership to reconsider some of the bad historical decisions that have been made and to right those wrongs.”

Pollution Is Not The Top Priority At Oso Landslide Site, But It Is A Concern

Propane tanks floated to the surface of the massive landslide debris field that engulfed 42 homes near Oso, Washington. | credit: Ashley Ahearn

By Ashley Ahearn, KUOW

OSO, Wash. — An orange backhoe beeps in the background as cleanup workers and search dogs slog through the gray-blue clay of the Oso landslide zone. In the distance a muddy American flag waves over hummocks of exposed roots, broken trees and the remnants of the 42 homes that used to line this stretch of highway in the Cascade Mountains northeast of Seattle.

The death toll stands at 30 with 13 people still missing. Dozens of homes were destroyed.

As the search-and-rescue-effort shifts gears into cleanup mode, officials are beginning to assess potential environmental and public health risks.

“Personnel, even canines, when they come off the site they’re going to get decontaminated,” said Maj. William Pola with the Army National Guard. Behind him workers pressure wash massive trucks with hot water and mild detergent as they leave the landslide zone.

Other responders somberly wash off their boots nearby. It’s a standard precautionary measure, said Dick Walker, a spills expert with the Washington State Department of Ecology.

“This really is just mud,” Walker said. “There’s really nothing terribly bad in here. The chemical hazards are very, very small.”

But there is a lot of mud here – enough to fill Safeco Field three times.

The mud engulfed dozens homes. Propane tanks floated to the surface of the liquid debris field. Septic tanks, cars and household chemicals remain buried.

“But really that’s very minimal with the volume of soil that has been dumped on that and spread around and some of this is extremely deep and some of that material we may never recover,” Walker said.

Along a trail by the Stillaguamish River a child’s soccer ball sits in the rain.

When the slide hit, families were going about their usual Saturday mornings -– kids playing in the woods, parents mowing lawns.

Most of the dead have now been removed, though there are still people missing.

“We have a potential exposure for blood and body fluids but whatever we had was diluted in over a million cubic yards of dirt so the risk to the individual rescuer going in is really quite small,” said Dr. Richard Bradley, a physician with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on a recent visit to the disaster zone.

Rescue workers are more likely to injure themselves clambering around the debris field, he added, than through exposure to any hazardous materials or organic material.

The mud tumbled 600 feet down the mountainside and blocked the Stillaguamish River. Then it continued south, burying the neighborhood on the other side.

“It pushed everything away from the river,” Walker explained. “So most of the hazardous waste items are back away from the water’s edge, vehicles, too and because of the slope of the land we don’t believe that anything’s going to get into the river from the chemical perspective.”

Walker added that Ecology has taken some water samples downstream from the slide zone and has not found evidence of chemical contamination. More sampling will be done in the coming months.

The river looks different. Springtime in the Northwest means blue-green rivers, frothing with snowmelt. Right now the Stillaguamish is a morose gray, littered with broken trees.

All that muck and debris will harm the salmon and steelhead that spawn in this stretch of river. But fish experts says it’s too soon to say how much those populations will suffer.

For now, the focus remains on the overwhelming loss of human life along this ravaged stretch of the Stillaguamish.

Northwest Researchers Document Whales Which Set New Breath-Hold Record

Satellite tag being attached to the dorsal fin of a Cuvier's beaked whale. The tagging arrow can be seen in the air as it detaches from the tag.Erin Falcone Cascadia Research under NOAA permit 16111 — Satellite tag being attached to the dorsal fin of a Cuvier’s beaked whale. The tagging arrow can be seen in the air as it detaches from the tag.
Erin Falcone Cascadia Research under NOAA permit 16111

By Tom Banse, NW News Network

Think about how long you can hold your breath and then let this discovery blow your mind.

Northwest-based whale researchers have documented a new breath-hold record among mammals. They timed a dive by a beaked whale that lasted 2 hours and 17 minutes.

A paper published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One by scientists with the Cascadia Research Collective of Olympia revealed two new records. The researchers tagged Cuvier’s beaked whales, a rarely seen species which forages in deep ocean waters worldwide, including off the U.S. West Coast.

Lead study author Greg Schorr says his team tracked thousands of dives by these whales. The longest lasted 137 minutes.

“Imagine holding your breath while flying from Seattle to San Jose,” says Schorr. “That would be similar to what these animals are capable of doing.”

Schorr says one beaked whale also dove deeper than any other mammal seen before, including the previous record holder, a southern elephant seal. The tagged whale dove nearly two miles below the surface — 2,992 meters deep.

“They basically can store huge amounts of oxygen in their muscle tissue and release it in a very controlled manner to allow them to dive to these depths,” explains Schoor.

To gather the results, the researchers used barbed darts to attach temporary dive recorders to the dorsal fins of eight whales. The satellite-linked tags were made by a Redmond, Washington company, Wildlife Computers.

Schorr says he reacted with disbelief after seeing the deep diving record for the first time. He says the research team independently verified the results by putting the depth sensor in a pressure tank at a NOAA lab in Seattle.

“Indeed the readings are correct,” Schorr reports.

The U.S. Navy was the primary funder for this research. The Navy wants more info about whether anti-submarine warfare exercises using sonar harm whales.

It is “a very pertinent question,” observes Schorr. Naval sonar use has been associated with whale strandings elsewhere. In fact just this week, environmental groups blamed a joint naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea for a mass beaching of Cuvier’s beaked whales along the coast of Crete.

Closer to home, environmental and tribal groups have gone to federal court to seek more study and restrictions on sonar and underwater noise to protect marine mammals in the U.S. Navy’s Northwest Training Range Complex. This ocean range stretches from Northern California to the Canadian border.

Schorr says the next phase of his team’s research will compare whale behavior in the presence and absence of naval sonar activity on an ocean training range off the coast of Southern California. That is the same place where the record-setting dives were observed.

Greenhouse Gases, More To Be Weighed In Vancouver Oil Terminal Review

Protesters opposing an oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver gather Wednesday outside the Clark County Public Service Center before a meeting there of the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. | credit: Troy Wayrynen/The Columbian

The Columbian; Source: OPB

The Washington state board reviewing what would be the Northwest’s largest oil-by-rail terminal will undertake a sweeping analysis of the facility’s environmental effects — from the extraction of the oil to its ultimate consumption.

The environmental review for the proposed $110 million Tesoro-Savage oil terminal will consider impacts well beyond its location at the Port of Vancouver, the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council unanimously decided Wednesday.

Opponents of the oil terminal said they were heartened by the decision, while the project’s proponents remained unfazed.

“It’s generally encouraging that they’re looking at impacts outside of Vancouver throughout the state of Washington and the region,” said Dan Serres, conservation director for the environmental advocacy group Columbia Riverkeeper. “As the process moves forward, we’re going to be looking for more specifics.”

The general manager of the proposed terminal, Jared Larrabee, said Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies have known since they first filed their application with EFSEC last summer that the council’s review would be “very robust.”

“We’re fully on board with going through that process,” Larrabee said.

The proposed facility would generate 250 temporary construction jobs and 120 permanent jobs, according to the companies, and boost local and state tax revenues.

EFSEC, a state council created in 1970 to address controversy over the siting of nuclear power plants, is reviewing the terminal proposal before making a recommendation to the governor, who has the final say.

The council consists of a governor-appointed chairman and an employee each from five state agencies. During deliberations on the Tesoro-Savage proposal, Vancouver, Clark County, and the state Department of Transportation have representatives on the council, as does the Port of Vancouver, which approved a lease for the project.

Although the council’s Wednesday work session was public, the council did not take comments. Instead, the council chewed over a summary of the 31,074 overwhelmingly critical comments it had already received about the oil terminal proposal.

Since they knew they wouldn’t be able to speak directly to the council, about 50 opponents gathered outside the Clark County Public Service Center in downtown Vancouver before EFSEC began its meeting there.

“I’m hoping that everyone who is going to be inside will see we are out here and we care. We’re very concerned about the environment and safety,” protester Victoria Finch said. She lives close to the rail line that would supply the terminal with as many as 380,000 barrels of crude a day.

“We want EFSEC to turn it down. If they don’t, we want the governor to turn it down,” said protester Lehman Holder, chairman of the local Sierra Club chapter.

Opponents have argued the environmental impact statement should include the effects of greenhouse gas emissions — not just from the transportation of the oil to and from the terminal and its daily operations, but also from consumption of the oil.

Toward the end of the council’s meeting, EFSEC member Christina Martinez asked how far the environmental study’s consideration of greenhouse emissions would go.

“There’s some question of whether it fits into an area that’s speculative,” Chairman Bill Lynch said. “Some general analysis is appropriate because, obviously, burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gases.”

Martinez pressed the point.

“It came up quite a bit in the scoping comments,” she said. “There’s a way for us to do that in the document without going to the nth degree.”

Don Steinke, who organized the pre-meeting protest, was taken aback.

“The biggest impact was almost an afterthought: the emissions from burning the fuel they’re shipping out,” he said.

Another Vancouver resident who has been tracking the oil terminal proposal was more upbeat.

“Listening to the tone of the board is encouraging,” said Eric LaBrant, who lives in the neighborhood closest to the proposed terminal. “They’re looking at details and asking questions. I’m going to be breathing those details — benzene and hexane and carbon monoxide. My kids are going to be breathing that when they’re taking spelling tests and riding their bikes.”

EFSEC staff can’t yet say how long the environmental review will take, let alone how long it will be before the council forwards its recommendation to the governor on whether to approve the oil terminal. The council will discuss the time line more specifically at its regular meeting April 15 in Olympia.

Wyoming delegation draft bill seeks to clarify boundaries of Wind River Reservation; Tribal leaders say it’s an attack on Tribal lands

by Ernie Over on April 2, 2014

Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi at the ground breaking for the Wind River Job Corps Center. (Ernie Over photo)

(Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyo) – A new push by U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., to terminate a portion of the Wind River Reservation should appall and worry Native American people everywhere, Northern Arapaho leaders said Tuesday in a news release.

Draft legislation by Enzi, and supported by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., would eliminate the reservation status of a significant portion of Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone homeland in central Wyoming, according to the news release.

Enzi’s Washington office, however, said the bill clarifies the boundaries of the Reservation as established in law in 1905. “Senator Enzi is not proposing to withdraw any lands from the Wind River Indian Reservation,” Press Secretary Daniel Patrick Head told County10.com Wednesday morning in an email. ”Senator Enzi doesn’t want to change the current reservation boundaries. He wants to make sure they stay as they have been for decades. The delegation’s legislation would keep things as they are, neither adding to nor taking away reservation land.”

Head said there has been misinformation spread about the legislation. ”Senator Enzi and the Wyoming delegation continues to work on legislation with the tribes, state government, Fremont County and the City of Riverton. The bill is being drafted to allow the EPA to treat the reservation as a state for purposes of air quality monitoring, but with the boundaries of the reservation as they were established before the EPA’s erroneous decision that Riverton is part of the reservation,” he wrote.

“It’s chilling to see this kind of attack on Indian Country in 2014,” said Northern Arapaho Business Council Chairman Darrell O’Neal.

The bill, according to the release, is a response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to treat the Wind River tribes as a state under the Clean Air Act. A detailed legal analysis in the EPA decision concluded that the town of Riverton is part of the Wind River Reservation, a position the tribes have always held.

“Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead has asked the federal courts to determine whether the EPA analysis is correct. Enzi has decided instead to change the law. In doing so, Enzi has turned his back on his approximately 15,000 tribal constituents in Wyoming, Northern Arapaho leaders said,” again quoting a news release.

Northern Arapaho leaders traveled to Washington, D.C., last week to confront members of the Wyoming’s delegation about the bill and their opposition to the tribes’ treatment as a state application.

“We asked them to reconsider, to open their minds and work with us in good faith,” said Councilman Al Addison, “but they were not interested.”

Head, however, said the tribes were invited to comment on the draft legislation, which he said was sent to them in advance for review and comment. “As far as status, we sent it to the tribes last week and asked for comments by the end of this week. Depending on comments the delegation may or may not introduce the bill next week,” he said.

Tribal leaders made a call Tuesday for support and prayers from Native American people and governments everywhere. Tribal people must work together to prevent the loss of any more of our precious homelands, Chairman O’Neal said. “If the Wyoming Delegation can do this to us, they can do it to any tribe in the nation,” O’Neal added.

Enzi was part of a similar anti-sovereignty campaign during the Northern Arapaho Tribe’s successful effort to secure gaming more than a decade ago. Once again, Enzi has demonstrated he is no friend of the tribes, tribal leaders said.

“We’ve seen these kinds of tactics from Senator Enzi before,” said Northern Arapaho Business Council Co-Chairman Ronald Oldman. “They didn’t work in our gaming case, and they won’t work here.”

Quinault Indian Nation partners with Corps of Engineers during repairs of Taholah seawall

Quinault Indian Tribe and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle District work to repair seawall from Brandi Montreuil on Vimeo.

by Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

TAHOLAH, WA – Residents described the crashing storm waves like an earthquake hitting. Wave after wave broke over the weakened seawall that separates Taholah’s lower village from the raging North Pacific Ocean on the evening of March 25. During the storm, a section of the 1, 100 foot seawall failed, leaving residential properties and residents of the Quinault Indian Nation vulnerable to flooding.

The following morning the destruction was clear. A smokehouse lay in a twisted shamble, other outbuildings, and properties were damaged and flooded, and the weeks’ weather report came in projecting rain, high winds, and 3 to 5 foot waves with 13 to 15 second swells by the weekend. Seven hundred Taholah residents faced an emergency.

Fawn Sharp, President of the Quinault Indian Nation issued a voluntary evacuation, in which four families left the affected area. A request was also sent to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to declare the portion of Taholah affected as a federal disaster area and funds made available for disaster relief.

Seattle District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineer Brian Stenehjem leads the Corps team assisting Quinault Indian Nation. He explains that wave action has damaged a 500-foot section of the seawall that separates Taholah's Lower Village.Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News — Seattle District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineer Brian Stenehjem leads the Corps team assisting Quinault Indian Nation. He explains that wave action has damaged a 500-foot section of the seawall that separates Taholah’s Lower Village.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved Quinault Nation’s emergency assistance request on March 27, and put the Seattle District Emergency Operations center into 24-hour operations. Teams were sent out to assist Quinault with temporary repairs to the failing 500-foot section of seawall, with a 48-hour completion date before an overnight storm coincided with high tide on March 29.

During the Corps initial inspection of the wall, they reported calving of rock and core material due to wave action.

During the March 25 storm, the wall sustained damage along the entire structure length, with the toe material of the berm removed and replaced with what protected the slope. This left the slope of the berm unprotected and vulnerable to waves and more removal of slope material, which if left unrepaired, would lead to a collapse of the berm’s capstones and loss of protection.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle District has put its Emergency Operations Center into 24-hour operations to assist the Quinault Indian Nation with flood protection measures following damage to the Taholoah Lower Village seawall on Tuesday, March 25.Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News — U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle District has put its Emergency Operations Center into 24-hour operations to assist the Quinault Indian Nation with flood protection measures following damage to the Taholoah Lower Village seawall on Tuesday, March 25.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

The repairs involved an orchestrated effort by Quinault’s Emergency Management, Quinault TERO workers, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

To make the necessary repairs, an access ramp had to be built to allow in excavators large enough to remove the capstones, and install a filter blanket and armor rock to prevent further erosion of the slope during wave action.

“We first had to make an access route to work our way down to the filter blanket,” said Brian Stenehjem, Corps of Engineers team leader on the project, about the layer of material placed between the riprap [a layer of stone to stabilize an area subject to erosion] and the underlying soil to prevent soil movement into or through the riprap.

Placement of armor rock was conducted on Saturday, March 29, which will help decrease the vulnerability to wave action to the slope.Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News — Placement of armor rock was conducted on Saturday, March 29, which will help decrease the vulnerability to wave action to the slope.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

“The toe rock got scoured out which caused the slope rock to fall down so all we had was the caprock on top and the toe rock and nothing in the slope. And without that slope armor protection, it really leaves the whole structure susceptible to wave action. And that is the underlying problem if the structure doesn’t have any of that protection,” said Stenehjem

“We had to work our way down, creating a filter to protect the embankment, so we used class 2 riprap and you inline the whole embankment with that. Then we overlay armor rock, which is 2 to 4 ton rock, which will provide the protection. So you want the big rock, your medium rock, and then your small rock as a kind of filtering,” said Stenehjem

Quinault Emergency Management staff member John Preston, drives past a residence that sustained damage due to the breach on Tuesday evening, March 25.Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News — Quinault Emergency Management staff member John Preston, drives past a residence that sustained damage due to the breach on Tuesday evening, March 25.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

More than 100 dump trucks were used to haul in the armor rock, adding to the increased general council traffic, and annual clam-digging event during March 29 through 30. Despite issues with broken equipment and increased traffic, repairs were finalized on Sunday, March 30, costing $300,000 and resulting in the placement of 4,500 tons of rock.

Corps teams remained on site throughout the March 29 storm to monitor the seawall conditions. The temporary repairs remained intact during the storm and prevented flooding to 700 residents in the affected area, including Quinault Indian Nation’s Tribal Police Department, animal control, storage facility for canoes, public work shops, Headstart School, and a retail shop and restaurant.

“On hearing about Quinault’s breached seawall we were immediately concerned for our tribal brothers and sisters,” said Tulalip Chairman Mel Sheldon Jr., when Quinault Indian Nation announced a state of emergency. “This, along with the tragic events in Oso this past week, we’re reminded how vitally important it is to the tribes to have the best possible emergency management plans in effect.”

“We wish to acknowledge and thank the help of the Corps of Engineers as well as Grays Harbor Emergency Services, the elected officials and all others who have sent their prayers and offers of support. Our people will be kept safe and we will continue to seek a more long term solution to this dangerous situation,” said Fawn Sharp.

A permanent solution is being sought due to the encroachment of the North Pacific Ocean waters, which have become invasive over time due to sea level rise and violent storms.

Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

Washington Tribes excluded from decision to hold 2014 winter steelhead hatchery release: State reacts to Conservancy lawsuit, halting the release of more than 900,000 steelhead

The new Elwha Tribal fish hatchery on the Elwha reservation is to be used to supplement populations of fish that naturally recolonize the river as habitat becomes available. Photo: Steve Ringman / The Seattle Times, 2011

By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News

“The hatcheries were built for one reason. That is to make up for lost natural and salmon production caused by habitat loss,” said Billy Frank Jr., Chairman of the Northwest Indian Fish Commission, in reaction to Washington State’s decision to hold 900,000 steelhead slated to be released from state hatcheries this year. The decision follows a lawsuit filed by Washington’s Wild Fish Conservancy, an environmental group based in Duvall, which contends that hatchery runs are detrimental to wild steelhead and salmon populations, claiming hatchery reared steelhead suffer genetic inferiority and create habitat competition.

The conservancy filed a complaint, claiming the state is in violation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Wild Steelhead were added to the endangered species list in 2007 as threatened, and in the seven years since, according to the conservancy, the state had an obligation to prove that hatchery runs pose no threat to the wild steelhead.

According to a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) press release on April 1, the state hatchery operations do not currently have approval from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which is required following the addition of wild steelhead to the endangered species list. That alone opens up the WDFW to legal action.

Phil Anderson of the WDFW said, “We believe strongly that we are operating safe and responsible hatchery programs that meet exacting science-based standards, but without NMFS certification that our hatchery programs comply with the Endangered Species Act, we remain at risk of litigation. We are working hard to complete that process.”

The WDFW has decided that they will not be releasing the ‘early winter’ hatchery steelhead unless the legal issues are resolved. If they continue unresolved, the WDFW will continue to rear the steelhead and release them into lakes in the spring.

Washington tribes, who were neither consulted before the decision nor lawsuit, are very disappointed about the state’s decision, and that the conservancy group did not work to resolve their differences within the 60 day intent period.

“Both Indian and non-Indian fishermen depend on tribal and state hatcheries and the fish they provide. Hatchery steelhead and salmon are also essential to fulfilling promises of tribal treaties with the United States,” Frank said. Those treaty rights depend on fish being available for harvest.

The halt of the steelhead release means the probable end of the state’s steelhead sport fishery. Similarly, continued hindrances to other hatchery operations would have the same drastic effects, for all fisheries in the state, tribal and non-tribal.

Frank said, “Instead of addressing the real problem of steelhead habitat loss, the lawsuit could once again force Indian and non-Indian fishermen to unfairly pay the price for habitat destruction that hatcheries were supposed to make up for. That’s not right.”

Andrew Gobin is a reporter with the See-Yaht-Sub, a publication of the Tulalip Tribes Communications Department.
Email: agobin@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov
Phone: (360) 716.4188

Mi’kmaq Warriors and Elsipogtog anti-fracking struggle update

April 3, 2014. Source: Reclaim Turtle Island

Mi’kmaq Warriors and Elsipogtog anti-fracking struggle update

The Mi’kmaq Warriors, Germaine Jr Breau & Aaron Francis who have been held in custody since the day of the raid on Oct 17th, are now facing trial in Moncton courts. They are currently facing indictable charges for being true to their inherent responsibilities as L’nu people by protecting the lands and waters against corporate imperialists, SWN. We are unsure how much longer Aaron & Jr will have to sit in jail, having already served over 5 months without conviction. The financial burden of supporting imprisoned warriors has been carried solely by the family and loved ones and it’s time that changed. Again we are uncertain as to the outcomes of sentencing, but Jr & Aaron have plead to a number of charges. Support funds will be used for canteen, phone calls (which are both collect & long distance), gas for visits, etc. Please donate here http://www.gofundme.com/jailedwarriors Thanks to everyone for their ongoing and continued support!!

For a full update on all of the charges (those that were dropped, plead to and now on trial) please go here. To get a feeling of how court is going so far, check out the court roundups from the Halifax Media Coop, RCMP Tactical Officer Cross Examination: “My function is not to negotiate”, and Crown’s first eyewitness, RCMP ERT member “My report writing is just sub-standard.”. To continue to follow the trials, follow @mileshowe on Twitter as he is releasing daily courtroom roundups and @defendourlands #WarriorsCourt for sneaky-live-tweeting and other updates.

Elected Officials Ask Oregon Governor To Deny Coal Export Permit

A coal mine in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Elected officials from the Northwest and beyond want Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber to stop the Morrow Pacific project, which transfer Powder River Basin coal to Asia by way of the Columbia River. | credit: Katie Campbell | rollover image for more — A coal mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Elected officials from the Northwest and beyond want Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber to stop the Morrow Pacific project, which transfer Powder River Basin coal to Asia by way of the Columbia River. | credit: Katie Campbell

By Cassandra Profita, OPB

Dozens of elected officials from across the region are asking Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and a state agency director to deny a key permit for a coal export project on the Columbia River.

The request went out in the form of a letter from 86 officials including mayors, city councilors and state lawmakers from Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

They want the governor and Oregon Department of State Lands Director Mary Abrams to stop the Morrow Pacific coal export project. The project would ship nearly 9 million tons of coal a year from Wyoming and Montana to Asia by trains, barges and ships.

Opponents say the state of Oregon can stop the project by denying a permit project developer Ambre Energy needs to build a dock for coal barges at the Port of Morrow in Boardman. Oregon Representative Jules Bailey of Portland is one of the officials who wants to see that happen. He says Gov. Kitzhaber has “a lot of tools at his disposal” that he could to deny the project.

“I think where there’s a will there’s a way,” he said. “Folks in state government from the governor on down ought to be looking for ways we can have a more responsible, sustainable path.”

Kitzhaber spokeswoman Rachel Wray says the permit in question is issued by the state lands department “a standards-based review process.”

She says isn’t aware of any plans for the governor to get involved in that permitting process.

Earlier this week, the company once again asked the state to extend the deadline for completing its permit application.

Last month, the Oregon Department of State Lands notified the company that it will also need to lease state land in the areas where the project would operate over state-owned land submerged in water. That will require additional state approval.

The Morrow Pacific project is the smallest of three proposed coal export facilities that mining and shipping interests want to build in the Pacific Northwest. The Gateway Pacific project proposed north of Bellingham Washington would ship 48 million tons a year and the Millenium Bulk terminal in Longview would ship up to 44 million tons of coal. All three projects would receive Wyoming or Montana coal hauled in by train. The terminals would transfer the coal to ocean-going vessels bound for Asian markets.