Washington is slowly moving ahead with a long-delayed plan to update its water quality rules. Tuesday’s will be the first public meeting on Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposal to dramatically increase the fish consumption rate, which determines how clean discharged water must be. But some say the proposal doesn’t go far enough.
The governor’s plan would increase the fish consumption rate to about a meal a day, rather than a meal a month. It would increase the current rate of 6.5 grams per day to 127 grams per day. That’s the same rate recently adopted by Oregon, which has the strictest rate in the country.
“Well, yes, but it’s important to remember that that’s just one part of this equation,” said Chris Wilke with Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, one of four groups that sued the federal government last year to force it to make the state comply with the Clean Water Act.
Wilke says the plaintiffs are glad to see a more realistic fish consumption rate. But at the same time, he points out that Inslee’s proposal also lowers the bar on the allowable risk for cancer by a factor of 10, from one in a million to one in 100,000.
“It appears the state has kind of engineered the standards to come out where they want them to be or where might be acceptable to business interests,” Wilke said.
The state Department of Ecology says the Governor felt the compromise is necessary, because businesses have warned tightening the standard too much would prompt them to move jobs elsewhere.
And instead of just cleaning up the aftermath, Inslee is pushing for additional policies to discourage use of the chemicals in the first place, to “shift people away from using these kinds of things that are so problematic for the permit holders,” said Carol Kraege, who leads the state Department of Ecology’s toxics reduction efforts.
But the plaintiffs who brought suit for cleaner water say such policies might not make it through the Legislature. And they say a similar compromise was recently put forward in Idaho and rejected by the Environmental Protection Agency.
A young orca captured in Penn Cove in 1970, which is believed to be Lolita, an orca that whale activists have been fighting to have set free in Puget Sound after 44 years in captivity at the Seaquarium in Miami. | credit: Dr. Terrell Newby
The resident killer whales of Puget Sound are an endangered species. There are about 80 of them left.
But there was a time, not too long ago, when people were catching these whales and selling them into captivity.
In the 1960s and ‘70s an estimated 35 orcas were taken from Puget Sound. 13 were killed in the process.
Sandra Pollard has documented the history of orca capture in Puget Sound in a new book: Puget Sound Whales For Sale: The Fight To End Orca Hunting.
She spoke with EarthFix’s Ashley Ahearn about this dark period in orca history.
Ashley Ahearn: Let’s go back in time here a little bit, why did people start catching orcas?
Sandra Pollard: I think there was probably an element of the trophy hunter there but also they didn’t like whales very much in those days, particularly the orcas, because they thought they were taking the salmon. And in the ‘60s the Navy used them as target practice for strafing runs and many of the whales that eventually turned up in marine parks had bullet holes in them.
So they were not respected. They were disliked. The people who did revere and respect them were the Native American people and they’re on their tribal crests and they looked up to them and they still do.
Ahearn: So it’s been almost 50 years since the first captive orca arrived in Seattle. Can you tell me about that whale and what happened, what was his story?
Pollard: That’s correct. The first whale was called Namu and a man called Ted Griffin had an aquarium down in Seattle, the Seattle Marine Aquarium, and he’d always wanted to have a killer whale and two whales actually washed up in British Columbia at Warrior Cove. They got caught in nets when a couple of fishermen abandoned their nets to get away from a storm. So they had two whales up there. One a bull and one a calf. The calf escaped but unfortunately the bull did not.
So Ted Griffin flew up to Warrior Cove and secured the whale, but then of course, he had to get it back to Seattle. So, with the help of fishermen, he built a three-sided pen with a net on one side and steel bars on the other and they brought Namu, as he was then called, down to Seattle in that three-sided pen. That was a 400-mile journey which took 18 days, and made a glorious entrance into Seattle to go-go dancers and great jubilation. But at the same time there were people there who didn’t like what they were seeing and there were protesters waiting with “Save The Whales” signs even back then. But that was how it all started.
Ahearn: And there was a Canadian biologist who went along for the trip and he describes the separation of Namu from his family. Can you read that section?
Pollard: Yes. The biologist was called Gil Hewlett and this is what he had to say.
“When they are within 300 yards of the pen, Namu lets out a terrifying squeal, almost like a throttled cat. He leaps out of the water and crashes against the left corner of the pen. There is terrific thrashing and he is making all kinds of sounds. Then they are there again, the same family of the cow and two calves. They came straight up behind the pen to about 10 feet away, tremendous squealing going on. Namu seemed to lose all coordination in the pen. He kept getting swept against the cargo net and swimming vigorously forward. The family unit circles around towards the end of the pen.”
Ahearn: Now the family unit follows him a certain distance but then they stop. What happens?
Pollard: Yes the female and the two calves follow him to an area called Seymour Narrows up in British Columbia near Campbell River and then they gradually fell back. And it has been found that the Seymour Narrows area is really the dividing line between the northern residents and the southern residents.
Ahearn: What was the public sentiment around orcas that were being captured and taken into captivity for entertainment? How were people responding at the time?
Pollard: For the most part I think they were thrilled to see this exotic creature up close and personal and impressed by the abilities it had because they are such intelligent creatures that they learn tricks for food. But I think the general consensus was more one of wonder. But there were still those creeping suspicions that this wasn’t right.
Ahearn: It seems that in terms of public sentiment changing about orca capture the most notorious, the most well known capture, occurred in Penn Cove on Whidbey Island in 1970. Can you tell me what happened on that day?
Pollard: That was on either August the 7th or 8th, 1970 and the three pods of Southern Resident orcas known as J,K and L were going north, probably back to the San Juan Islands, and Ted Griffen and Don Goldsbury and the capture team they went out in boats and started to turn them back towards Whidbey Island and the idea was to drive them into Holmes Harbor, which is a sheltered place on Whidbey Island. And they used seal bombs, which are loud explosive devices. And they also used buzzing aircraft.
But they didn’t get them into Holmes Harbor. The whales are very clever and they brought in their diversionary tactics. The mothers and the calves headed up for Deception Pass and the males did a decoy action by going in the opposite direction. But it was too late. The boats outstripped them and they turned the mothers and the calves back and drove about 100 whales into Penn Cove on Whidbey Island. And they were held there in nets until they went through the selection process, which would be to corral the mothers away from the calves and split them up, because it was the calves that they wanted. They were smaller. They easier to transport. And they were easier to train.
The capture net pens in Penn Cove on Whidbey Island 1970.
And the rest of the whales that were turned away that they didn’t want, they stayed around. They’re a family unit. They’re highly social and they stay together for life. There is no dispersal, other than by death or human interference. So those whales stayed with the whales in the capture pens and eventually seven whales were selected for marine parks, which were already waiting around the world. Four calves were drowned and there also had been a female who had died. She had charged the net to try to get to her calf, so she also died during the process, as well. And this caused an uproar and a lot of feeling against the captures. And that started to be the turning point.
And the last whale to be taken from Penn Cove was Lolita and she remains at the Miami Seaquarium where she has been for 44 years.
Ahearn: Sandra, when did we stop taking orcas out of Puget Sound to sell to marine parks around the world?
Pollard: We stopped doing that in March, 1976 when six orca were driven into Olympia and the seal bombs were used and it caused a great hue and cry. There were protesters on the water. There were protesters on land. And there was a lawsuit, as well. So after a couple of weeks there were only two whales left because three had escaped. One had been turned away because it was too big and the two whales were turned over to the University of Washington to be radio tagged and tracked for as long as possible. I don’t think they were tracked for very long, but there was a lawsuit which stopped the captures in Washington state and Seaworld were not able to come back into Washington state and capture orca again and that was the last capture in Washington state.
Ahearn: So really the end of a very dark era for the orca in Puget Sound.
Pollard: It certainly was. And one wonders if that hadn’t happened how much longer the captures would have continued and how many more whales we would have lost.
Sandra Pollard is the author of Puget Sound Whales for Sale: The Fight To End Orca Hunting. You can find out about upcoming stops on her Northwest book tour here.
The conventional wisdom on climate change is that the issue is politically toxic. But it turns out the American people may be prepared for the kind of enormous undertaking that would be required to stem the catastrophic effects of climate change — including unilateral action by the U.S. government.
Last month, the Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication published “Politics and Global Warming,“ a massive survey of 860 registered voters on the subject of the government’s role in fighting climate change. While the results appear to confirm that there is still a strong partisan divide on the issue, there is, as the report authors state, “much more going on beneath the surface.”
Perhaps the most crucial finding is that 62 percent of respondents are not content to have the U.S. wait on the sidelines unless and until other nations commit to emissions cuts. All but the most conservative of respondents said the U.S. should reduce its emissions “regardless of what other countries do.” Climate change skeptics have long argued that anything the U.S. does will not count for much if large polluters like India and China do not also take steps to curtail their carbon output. The Obama administration has argued that the U.S. has to exhibit leadership on emissions cuts (most recently through Environmental Protection Agency rules on existing and new power plants), and that the U.S.’s credibility at forthcoming climate talks in Paris rests on a demonstration of American commitment.
The poll numbers suggest many Americans intuitively understand this. The partisan breakdown is intriguing: While Democrats (especially liberals) are solidly behind this flavor of American unilateralism, Republicans are divided: 57 percent of self-described liberal and moderate Republicans would support that effort.
The poll also suggested fairly wide acceptance of several other benefits of emissions reductions, including public health improvements, energy self-sufficiency, and poverty reduction. There is fairly broad agreement that taking steps to reduce global warming will “[p]rovide a better life for our children and grandchildren,” a catch-all statement that indicates Americans are willing to make some sacrifices now in exchange for benefits down the line.
More concretely, most people seem to buy into the EPA’s argument that its emissions reduction plans will have public health benefits (54 percent total; 72 percent among Democrats and 46 percent among Republicans), an improvement from a previous Bloombergpoll that asked the same question.
Many Americans also look forward to climate action reducing dependence on foreign oil (55 percent total), though so far there is no climate-related public policy intervention in the offing that would drastically reduce oil consumption. The EPA regulations affect power plants, very few of which are oil-fueled, and our declining oil imports over the past half decade can largely be attributed to domestic drilling efforts, especially extraction of tight and shale oil. The polling suggests, however, that the American people closely correlate the end-result of climate action with energy security.
The only result that may give climate hawks pause was the benefit that polled as the least popular: That addressing climate change would improve U.S. national security. Even among liberal Democrats, it is not an easy sell (47 percent); it does not even break 30 percent with moderate or conservative Democrats and only 24 percent for Republicans as a whole. Previous studies show that adopting this frame is unlikely to convince conservatives to take climate change seriously (David Roberts has written previously on the “boomerang effect” of such arguments). Indeed, only on poverty reduction is there less agreement than national security improvement.
The belief that climate change and national security are not interrelated is prevalent despite repeated warnings from the U.S. intelligence and defense communities. As The Week‘s Ryan Cooper put it in a recent piece, the imperatives for risk management and self-preservation with regard to climate change are understood very well among the military. There are two points worth making about this.
The first is that it is a relatively novel and recent development to think about climate change in national security terms. People typically think of climate change as an environmental problem, rather than a security one, so it is no surprise that saving plant and animal species and preventing destruction of life scores much higher. Additionally, aside from military responses to natural disasters — such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami or the 2013 typhoon that devastated parts of the Philippines — there is no headline event that would cause people to link climate and national security.
The second point is that, on some level, the fact that public opinion is not catching up with some sectors of elite opinion is not necessarily an immediate cause for concern. That the argument is not making inroads with Main Street is less of a problem than it not influencing policy in executive departments. While Congress has abdicated its responsibility on climate change legislation, the Obama administration has been pro-active.
Still, what these findings suggest is that the steady drumbeat of analysis on climate change is having a positive effect. People are generally aware there is a problem, and are generally supportive of policies to fight it, even going so far as to say the U.S. can strike out ahead of other countries. People also recognize that benefits will accrue in such a way as to eventually justify the cost. While there is still a motivated minority resisting these findings, the Yale–George Mason report confirms they are nothing more than that: A minority.
WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama announced this morning that the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has committed to lead a Native American Task Force to advance the important work of the White House’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative. NCAI is proud to have the following organizations join our initial team of partners for this task force: Center for Native American Youth, Native American Boys and Girls Clubs of America, National Indian Child Welfare Association, National Indian Education Association, and UNITY Inc. This task force will coordinate and serve as the central point for sharing important work, opportunities, and resources for our youth. Included in the task force’s initial work plan, is the Native Youth Resilience Project and First Kids 1st Initiative.
Indian Country has a shared responsibility to address the issues facing our children and families. NCAI urges other interested partners to join this task force to strengthen opportunities for our Native youth.
NCAI President Brian Cladoosby released the following statement, “The National Congress of American Indians and its partners in the task force look forward to working with the White House on this important initiative. Our tribal nations’ most important resource and responsibility are our Native youth. We must work hard every day to enhance opportunities and create better lives for our younger generations and generations yet to come.”
This 2013 file photo shows some of the hundreds of mustangs the U.S. Bureau of Land Management removed from federal rangeland. (Photo: Scott Sonner/AP file photo )
By Martin Griffith, Associated Press
A Utah representative has introduced legislation to allow Western states and American Indian tribes to take over management of wild horses and burros from the federal government.
U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has mismanaged the animals on public rangelands and states should have the option of managing them.
An overpopulation of horses is pushing cattle off the range, the Republican lawmaker said, and leading to the destruction of important habitat for native species.
“States and tribes already successfully manage large quantities of wildlife within their borders,” Stewart said in a statement. “If horses and burros were under that same jurisdiction, I’m confident that new ideas and opportunities would be developed to manage the herds more successfully than the federal government.”
But Anne Novak, executive director of California-based Protect Mustangs, said her group opposes the legislation because it would lead to states and tribes killing the animals or selling them off for slaughter for human consumption.
The government is rounding up too many mustangs while allowing livestock to feed at taxpayer expense on the same rangeland scientists say is being overgrazed, she said.
“We’ve had firsthand experience with states and tribes managing wild horses, and it’s horribly cruel,” Novak said in a statement. “They ruthlessly remove wild horses and sell them to kill-buyers at auction. Severe animal abuse would be the result of the (legislation).”
The Bureau of Land Management says it’s doing all it can, given budget constraints, overflowing holding pens and a distaste for the politically unpopular options of either ending the costly roundups or slaughtering excess horses.
The bill’s introduction comes at a time when the bureau has been under increasing pressure from ranchers to remove horses that they say threaten livestock and wildlife on rangelands already damaged by drought.
In Utah, Iron County commissioners had threatened to gather up hundreds of mustangs themselves, saying the government refuses to remove enough horses in herds that double in size every five years.
Iron County Commissioner Dave Miller said he and commissioners from Utah’s Beaver and Garfield counties are trying to drum up support for a resolution in support of the legislation at the National Association of Counties annual conference in New Orleans, which ends Monday.
“The resolution will be instrumental in getting Chris Stewart’s bill through Congress because it shows support across the nation,” he told the Spectrum in St. George, Utah.
Stewart said his Wild Horse Oversight Act would extend all protections that horses and burros enjoy under the federal Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 while giving states the opportunity of implementing their own management plans.
Under the bill, the states could form cooperative agreements to manage herds that cross over borders, and the federal government would continue to monitor horses and burros to ensure that population numbers as prescribed by the 1971 act are maintained.
The bureau estimates 40,600 of the animals — the vast majority horses — roam free on bureau-managed rangelands in 10 Western states.
The population exceeds by nearly 14,000 the number the agency has determined can exist in balance with other public rangeland resources and uses.
At a glance
Some 49,000 horses and burros removed from the range are being held in government-funded short- and long-term facilities.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In this July 10, 2014 photo, Denise Mesteth poses outside the powwow grounds in Pine Ridge, S.D. Mesteth is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, born and raised on the Pine Ridge reservation. She has signed up for health insurance through the federal marketplace. (AP Photo/Nora Hertel)
By NORA HERTEL Associated Press
PINE RIDGE, South Dakota — Denise Mesteth signed up for new health insurance through the federal Affordable Care Act, despite concerns that it may not be worth the money for her and other Native Americans who otherwise rely on free government coverage.
Mesteth, who has a heart murmur and requires medication and regular blood work, said she’s cautiously optimistic that the federal insurance will be superior to what she has now. Many other American Indians have been more reluctant to enroll, choosing instead to continue relying on the Indian Health Service for their coverage and taking advantage of a clause in the federal health reform law that allows them to be exempt from the insurance mandate if they meet certain requirements.
“If it’s better services, then I’m OK,” Masteth said of ACA. “But it better be better.”
Mesteth and other American Indians in South Dakota account for 2.5 percent of the people in the state who have signed up for insurance under the federal health care law, according to the latest signup numbers. The state, with nearly 9 percent of its overall population Native American, ranks third for the percentage of enrollees who are American Indian among U.S. states using the federal marketplace.
The Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board, which provides support and health care advocacy to tribes, received $264,000 to help Native Americans in South Dakota navigate the new insurance marketplace.
Tinka Duran, program coordinator for the board, said people are primarily concerned about the costs of enrolling. Insurance is a new concept to most because health care has always been free, she said.
“There’s a learning curve for figuring out co-pays and deductibles,” she said.
During a U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing in May, tribal leaders chastised IHS as a bloated bureaucracy unable to fulfill its core duty of providing health care for more than 2 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives. IHS acting director Yvette Roubideaux said changes were underway but that more money will be needed than the $4.4 billion the agency receives each year.
She noted that federal health care spending on Native Americans lags far behind spending on other groups such as federal employees, who receive almost twice as much on a per-capita basis. Meanwhile, American Indians suffer from higher rates of substance abuse, assault, diabetes and a slew of other ailments compared to most of the population.
Native Americans and Alaska Natives are exempt from the health insurance mandate if they meet certain requirements. ACA also permanently reauthorized the Indian Health Care Improvement Act and authorized new programs for IHS, which also is starting to get funds from the Veterans Affairs Department to help native veterans.
When American Indians do obtain insurance, it means fewer people are tapping the IHS budget, said Raho Ortiz, director of the IHS Division of Business Office Enhancement.
“If more of our patients have health insurance or are enrolled in Medicaid, this means that more resources are available locally for all of our patients,” Ortiz said in an emailed statement. “This, in turn, allows scarce resources to be stretched further.”
Those who sign up for federal health care can still use IHS facilities but have the option of seeking health care elsewhere, Ortiz said.
State Democratic Sen. Jim Bradford is among the skeptics. The Oglala Sioux member lives on the Pine Ridge reservation, home to two of the poorest counties in the nation.
The U.S. government provides health care to Native Americans as part of its trust responsibility to tribes that gave up their land when the country was being formed. Bradford and others object to the shift in health care providers on the principle that IHS is obligated by treaty to supply that care.
Harriett Jennesse, a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe who lives in Rapid City, said she already has seen the benefits of the new health insurance and doesn’t mind paying a little out of pocket.
Jennesse said she put off treatment for a painful bone chip in her elbow after IHS denied a doctor’s referral to a specialist on grounds that it wasn’t an urgent enough need. She’s now seeing a specialist for dislocation in her other elbow and will also try to get the bone chip fixed when the other arm heals.
A 2012 file photo of Fisherman’s Terminal in Seattle bustling as ships get ready to head to Alaska for the summer fishing season. Hundreds of Northwesterners hold commercial fishing permits for Bristol Bay. | credit: Ashley Ahearn
by: Associated Press
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it is proposing restrictions that would essentially block development of a planned massive gold-and-copper mine near the headwaters of a world premier salmon fishery in Alaska.
The announcement came as the EPA was being sued by Pebble Limited Partnership, the group behind the proposed Pebble Mine, and the state of Alaska for allegedly exceeding its authority.
The state and Pebble Partnership, which was created to design, permit and run the mine, argue the EPA should not be able to veto the project before a mine plan is finalized and evaluated through the permitting process. Pebble has asked that a judge block the EPA from taking any additional steps, but no ruling has been made.
EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran said the science is clear “that mining the Pebble deposit would cause irreversible damage to one of the world’s last intact salmon ecosystems. Bristol Bay’s exceptional fisheries deserve exceptional protection.”
The EPA said as part of its analysis it used plans filed by the mine’s owner, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2011. That information indicated the Pebble deposit is likely to involve excavation of the largest open pit ever built in North America, reaching a depth that rivals that of the Grand Canyon at nearly a mile, the EPA said in its report.
The agency looked at three mine scenarios, one based on the worldwide median size deposit that contains copper-, gold- and molybdenum-bearing minerals, which was the smallest scenario analyzed, and two that it said were based on statements made by Northern Dynasty, of mine sizes of 2 billion tons and 6.5 billion tons.
The restrictions proposed by EPA are in line with the estimated impacts of the smallest scenario, including loss of at least 5 miles of streams with documented salmon or loss of 1,100 or more acres of wetlands, lakes and ponds that connect to salmon-bearing streams or tributaries of those streams.
The EPA said if the proposed restrictions were finalized, mining of the Pebble deposit would still be possible, but only if the environmental impacts were smaller than those laid out.
U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, who has said Pebble is the wrong mine in the wrong place, said he’s seen noting in the EPA document that would prevent Pebble from applying for a permit.
“Instead, it sets the ground rules for responsible development that the Pebble Partnership, or any other business, must abide by in order to mine the Pebble deposit in this critical habitat,” he said.
The EPA called its analysis conservative, focused on the use of certain waters in the region for disposal of materials associated with mining the Pebble deposit. The agency said it did not include impacts associated with build-out and operation of a mine, like roads, pipelines and housing for workers, or potential effects of accidents or mine failures.
The EPA also said the proposal is specific to the Pebble deposit, and does not affect other deposits or claims.
In 2011, the EPA, petitioned by Alaska Native tribes and others to protect Bristol Bay, initiated a review that culminated in the finding earlier this year that large-scaling mining in the Bristol Bay watershed posed significant risks to salmon and Alaska Native cultures that rely on the fish. The agency later invoked a rarely-used process through which it could ultimately restrict or prohibit development of the proposed Pebble Mine to protect the fishery.
The announcement Friday is the next step in that process. EPA plans to take public comment beginning Monday through Sept. 19 and to hold public meetings in Alaska next month. After that, McLerran would have to decide whether to withdraw the proposed action or send it to EPA headquarters for consideration.
Tom Collier, CEO of the Pebble Partnership, said while his group needed to analyze EPA’s proposal, it was outraged that the agency took this next step with litigation pending and EPA’s inspector general reviewing whether EPA followed laws, regulations and policies in developing its watershed assessment.
“We will continue to fight this unprecedented action by the Agency, and are confident we will prevail,” he said in a statement.
More than 300 walkers complete a 5K course through Tulalip to raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation July 12. — image credit: Kirk Boxleitner
By Kirk Boxleitner, The Marysville Globe
TULALIP — More than 300 walkers turned out to help raise $44,000 and counting for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation during the Tulalip Great Strides Walk July 12.
Anna Lester, development manager for the Washington and Alaska chapter of CFF, explained that the top three teams in the Tulalip walk’s sixth year generated nearly $20,000.
“Those are some amazing numbers,” said Lester, who recalled the Tulalip walk’s totals growing from $10,000 to $24,000 in its first and second years, before generating $30,000 and $40,000 in its third and fourth years. “We took in close to the same amount this year that we did last year, which is still amazing.”
Lester credited the day’s warm, sunny weather with inspiring more walkers to step outside, and expressed her appreciation to the Tulalip Tribes for their support over the years.
“The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is the largest funding source for a cure for CF,” Lester said. “Just about every new drug in the fight against cystic fibrosis has been made possible, at in part, by CFF fundraisers like Great Strides.”
Lester touted Seattle Children’s Hospital as among the top researchers of cystic fibrosis, and identified research and treatment as the primary recipients of Great Strides, whose goal for 2014 is to raise $43 million through 600 walks nationwide.
TULALIP — A Tulalip woman convicted of murder in the 2012 death of her young daughter won’t learn her punishment until early next month.
Christina Carlson was scheduled to be sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. The hearing was pushed back to Aug. 4.
Carlson, 38, pleaded guilty in April to second-degree murder and criminal mistreatment. Lawyers have agreed to recommend a sentence between eight and 13 years. A federal judge isn’t obligated to follow the attorneys’ recommendations. Carlson faces up to life behind bars.
Her daughter, Chantel Craig, 1 ½, suffered from severe malnutrition and died after paramedics found her. Chantel and her sister, 3, were living with Carlson in a car on the Tulalip Indian Reservation.
The girls had sores all over their bodies and were covered in feces, lice and maggots. Chantel wasn’t breathing when paramedics reached her. They were unable to revive her. The older girl was unconscious and suffered seizures. She was treated for dehydration and skin sores from prolonged exposure to feces and urine.
The girls were kept buckled into their car seats for hours. Carlson hadn’t changed their diapers for days despite having an unopened package of clean diapers in the trunk of the car. The girls also hadn’t been adequately fed in several days, possibly longer.
Evidence also showed that Carlson smoked heroin in the car with the girls inside.
The day that Chantel died Carlson left them alone for several hours to visit with nearby neighbors. She used their phone in an attempt to buy drugs. The neighbors eventually persuaded her to go check on the girls.
Chantel wasn’t breathing and her other daughter wasn’t responsive. She ran back up the road and called 911.
Carlson and the girls had for months been the focus of on-again, off-again searches by state and tribal child welfare workers. Their grandmother called Child Protective Services in December 2011 with concerns that the girls were being neglected.
Carlson had lost custody of at least three other children because of her drug use and neglect, court papers said.
In a terrible coincidence, state social workers closed the investigation hours before Chantel died. They hadn’t been able to find her or Carlson. The woman and her daughters had for weeks been living in her car down a dirt road on the reservation.
Ishmael Hope, left, and other Alaska Native representatives at the 2013 Choose Respect rally in Juneau, Alaska, asking legislators to address issues with the Violence Against Women Act.Heather Bryant/KTOO Public Media
Complicated history sets Alaska Native women apart from Violence Against Women Act
Opponents of the reauthorization of a federal law passed last year say it has created a dangerous situation for Alaskan domestic violence victims and are urging lawmakers to support a repeal.
Proponents of the original 1994 Violence Against Women Act say it was signed into law with the purpose of providing more protection for domestic violence victims and keeping victims safe by requiring that a victim’s protection order be recognized and enforced in all state, tribal and territorial jurisdictions in the U.S.
According to the White House, the VAWA has made a difference, saying that intimate partner violence declined by 67 percent from 1993 to 2010, more victims now report domestic violence, more arrests have been made and all states impose criminal sanctions for violating a civil protection order.
Last year the law was reauthorized, clarifying a court decision that ruled on a case involving civil jurisdiction for non–tribal members and amending the law to recognize tribal civil jurisdiction to issue and enforce protection orders “involving any person,” including non-Natives.
But almost all Alaska tribes were excluded from the amendment, with only the Metlakatla Indian community from Alaska included under the 2013 law. The rest of Alaska remains under the old law.
The change has created confusion, opponents say, particularly in cases when there is a 911 call about enforcing a protective order.
“The trooper is waiting, because he’s not sure who has jurisdiction,” said David Voluck, a tribal court judge for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. “We need to get rid of those exceptions that create confusion.”
An ongoing debate
The reauthorization highlighted an ongoing debate about Native communities and tribal courts’ and governments’ jurisdiction, particularly in cases of policing and justice.
The reauthorization made sense, according to Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty, who noted that Alaska has always been treated differently because of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. In exchange for 40 million acres of land and about $1 billion, he said, tribes forfeited reservations and the notion of Indian country to form Native corporations.
He said the state needs to find better ways to collaborate with institutions in small communities to provide better protection and justice but disagrees with giving pockets of tribal authority throughout Alaska.
“We do have an issue with violence and domestic violence,” he said. “We have a challenge in providing safety.”
But Geraghty said he has never heard of a situation when a victim was in danger because of confusion over jurisdiction.
“There’s nothing in the act that expands or retracts the jurisdiction of tribal courts,” he said. “If tribal courts had jurisdiction before, they do now. Troopers are not lawyers. If they are faced with a situation, they are going to protect the public. These concerns are overblown.”
‘A cloud over Alaska’
Lloyd Miller, an attorney who works on Indian rights and tribal jurisdiction litigation, disagrees and said things did change with the 2013 reauthorization.
“What he’s saying is that an Alaska village only has the authority to issue a protective order if that man is a member of the tribe. They can’t if he’s from the neighboring tribe,” he said. “Why would we not want to have Alaska villages have all the tools to protect women from domestic violence?”
Voluck agreed. “Does it really matter if a woman is hit in a mall somewhere or the south corner of where the tribe lives?” he said.
Opponents of the Alaska exemption recently urged a task force convened by Attorney General Eric Holder to study the effects of violence on Native American children to support the repeal of Section 910 of the law.
“VAWA creates a cloud over Alaska, and the last thing women and children need is a delay in an emergency,” said Voluck. “A matter of minutes can mean life or death. It’s unequal protection under the law for a very vulnerable part of the population.”
Lack of law enforcement
Voluck was one of a number of experts who testified last month before the Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence about the special circumstances surrounding Alaska Native domestic violence, including geography, a lack of law enforcement and difficulty for victims to travel to safety.
Experts attested to a number of facts, including that Native American and Alaska Native women are 2.5 times as likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than other American women. About 140 villages have no state law enforcement. Eighty have absolutely no law enforcement. One-third of Alaska communities do not have road access.
It’s a serious issue for communities, said Valerie Davidson, a task force member who lives in Alaska. “Even if you only have 300 people, you still need law enforcement,” she said.
The debate continues, this time in Congress as the Senate Indian Affairs Committee works on legislation, which includes a provision repealing Section 910 of the 2013 reauthorization. Geraghty and the governor oppose a repeal, but the U.S. attorney general’s office has voiced its support.
Associate U.S. Attorney General Tony West attended the Alaska task force hearing and said arguments about the scope of authority of Alaska Native villages and tribes shouldn’t get in the way of protecting Native children from harm.
“If there are steps we can take that will help move the needle in the direction for victims, we need to do it,” he said. “When a tribal court issues an order, the state ought to enforce it. If not, the orders are worth nothing more than the paper they’re written on.”
More than just symbolic
Repealing the law won’t resolve the multilayered issues of jurisdiction, but it would be a step in the right direction, West added.
“It is more than just symbolic,” he said. “Repeal of Section 910 is an important step that can help protect Alaska Native victims of that violence and, significantly, the children who often witness it, and it can send a message that tribal authority and tribal sovereignty matters, that the civil protection orders tribal courts issue ought to be respected and enforced.”
The Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence will make a recommendation to Holder by late October.
“Alaska is frozen in time,” Voluck said. “Why in the world would you hold the worst state when it comes to domestic violence in the old law? Forty-nine other states have figured out how to work with their tribal courts. Let’s work together. People are getting hurt and dying. That’s why I’m upset.”
