News Archives - Page 206 of 447

Nisqually Tribe looking for connections between zooplankton and salmon

May 27th, 2014 Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Nisqually Indian Tribe is trying to find a way to predict future salmon runs by measuring what juvenile salmon eat on their way out to the ocean.

The tribe is expanding their research on local salmon to take a look at zooplankton in deep South Sound, which young salmon eat after leaving the Nisqually River. “Eventually, we might be able to connect the availability of food in Puget Sound with chinook runs three or four years down the line,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe.

As they migrate to the open ocean, juvenile salmon consume small animals like zooplankton. Nisqually tribal researchers want to find out if there’s less food in Puget Sound when salmon are migrating out, meaning fewer may be coming back.

Jed Moore and Emiliano Perez, Nisqually natural resources staff, deploy a plankton net in deep South Sound.

The study will examine the entire community structure of competitors and predators, including plankton and other fish species. A smolt trap operated by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife on the Nisqually River will determine the timing, size and number of out-migrating salmon.

The tribe will sample juvenile fish from the Nisqually estuary and adjacent marine areas using a beach seine and lampara net. At the same time, the tribe will sample the water for zooplankton and other small animals. “If we find that in years when a lot of food is available, salmon survive to return at higher rates, we could more easily predict future salmon runs,” Troutt said.

In an earlier study of chinook leaving the Nisqually River, the tribe found a direct connection between fish that were able to find food in the river’s estuary and those able to make it back as adults. “We typically find two groups of juvenile chinook leaving the watershed,” Troutt said. “The fish that stayed and fed in the estuary survived to return as adults while those with other life history strategies did not.”

The tribe’s research is part of the region-wide Salish Sea Marine Survival Project. The project brings together researchers in both the United States and Canada to better understand the relationship between salmon and the marine environment.

Treaty Indian tribes are locally based and use cutting edge management techniques, making them uniquely qualified to conduct close to the ground research. “Being able to understand the salmon life cycle is important if we want to preserve our treaty protected right to harvest salmon,” said Georgiana Kautz, natural resources manager for the tribe. “Our treaty rights depend on there being fish actually available to harvest.”

When College Isn’t Worth It

Save up your pennies ... but shop wisely.Doram/iStockphoto — Save up your pennies … but shop wisely.
Doram/iStockphoto

By Anya Kamenetz NPR.org

May 28, 2014

The New York Times highlighted new data yesterday that once again beats the drum: Despite skyrocketing costs, a college degree is a good investment. In fact, MIT economist David Autor writes in the journal Science that the value of a degree is rising. College grads made almost twice as much per hour in 2013 as workers without a four-year degree. And the lifetime value of a diploma is now around a half-million dollars, even after you factor in tuition.

Well, we here at NPR Ed thought we’d play the skeptic and ask: When is college not worth it? Because, lo and behold, sometimes it isn’t. Here are the three broad cases in which a college education, in fact, does not pay.

If … You Don’t Graduate

Lots and lots of people who enroll in college just don’t finish. And, to get an honest accounting of a diploma’s value, these noncompleters (that’s the term of art in the research —”dropouts” is a bit too judgmental) need to be part of the math. Otherwise, it’s like the latest fad diet touting “befores” and “afters” without counting those who didn’t stick with it.

Only 59 percent of people who begin a four-year degree, with all good intentions, actually finish within six years. How many people are we talking about? Some 34 million American adults attended college but have no degree to show for it. That’s huge, compared with the 41 million Americans who have a bachelor’s as their terminal degree.

Keep in mind, noncompleters borrow student loans just as often as those who finish. And, unfortunately, raw knowledge picked up while in college doesn’t do nearly as much to boost earning potential as a diploma does. Folks with some college earn less than those with an associate’s degree. They’re also more likely to be unemployed. In other words: results not typical for college graduates.

If … You Pick the Wrong College

For-profit colleges enroll just under 10 percent of all college students, but they’re notorious for relatively high tuition costs and low graduation rates. Research shows that graduates of these schools have higher unemployment rates and lower opinions of their education long after graduating.

The U.S. Department of Education has just drafted a proposed rule that’s meant to crack down on the for-profits. It’s called the “gainful employment rule” and would cut off federal aid to schools where a) too many students are defaulting on their loans or b) the debt burden of graduates is way out of line with their incomes.

But the for-profits are striking back, pointing out that — by the Education Department’s own statistics — 26 percent of graduates from public four-year colleges and 39 percent of grads from private four-year colleges are not “gainfully employed.” That’s an awful lot of college graduates, across all types of institutions, who have reason to ask: Was college worth it?

If … You Pick the Wrong Degree

What you study matters — a lot. The gap in average earnings by undergraduate major is just as wide as the gap between high school and college grads. They range from a high of $120,000 for petroleum engineers to a low of $29,000 for those who major in counseling psychology. Considering the average student debt burden is $29,400, that’s a big group of graduates whose degrees may not pay off.

Now, we’re not arguing that a college degree is a bad idea. It’s not. Let’s italicize that one: For most students, it’s not. Our point is, when it comes to bold, blanket statements about the value of a college degree and whether it will pay off … words like “always” and “never” aren’t helpful. Or true.

Could Diet Soda Really Be Better Than Water For Weight Loss?

By Allison Aubrey NPR.ORG

May 28, 2014

Answering the question of whether diet soda helps or hinders dieters’ efforts to lose weight has been the focus of much research. And buzz.

Unfortunately, the answer is still murky.

On one hand, as we’ve reported, long-term studies suggest that some diet soda drinkers’ efforts to lose weight are stymied when they compensate for the zero-calorie beverages by eating more food. Call it the Diet Coke and french fry conundrum. Or perhaps artificial sweeteners mess up our metabolisms, as some have theorized.

But there’s also research showing that when people swap sugary drinks for zero-calorie options, they lose weight. And, when people combine a diet drink habit with an overall healthy pattern of eating, the combination seems to work to lower the risk of metabolic syndrome, according to research.

Better than water for losing weight? A study funded by the beverage industry says yes.

Now a new study, funded by the American Beverage Association, suggests that diet drinks might be more effective than water alone in helping dieters shed pounds.

We had to ask: Really?

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Obesity, included about 300 overweight participants, all of whom were enrolled in a weight loss and exercise program. As part of the intervention, each participant was randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group was told to avoid all diet drinks and drink mostly water. The other group was told to consume a combination of zero-calorie drinks (for example, diet soda or artificially sweetened teas) and water.

At the end of three months, the participants in the diet-drink group had lost about 13 pounds on average. That was four more pounds than the average of nine pounds lost by those in the water group.

“We were kind of surprised by the findings that showed that diet beverages actually did a little better than water” in the outcome, John Peters, one of the study authors, tells The Salt. He’s the chief strategy officer of the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Health and Wellness Center.

So, what explains the findings? How could diet drinks potentially lead to more weight loss?

“We did see that people in the diet-soda wing of the study reported less hunger during the trial than those in the water group,” says Peters. But he emphasizes that this is just speculation. “We can’t determine mechanism from this trial.”

That speculation doesn’t fly with some experts, who question using diet soda as a tool to curb appetites. “Studies suggest that consumption of diet soda makes people continue to crave sugar, thereby making it harder to quit,” says Laura Schmidt, a professor of health policy at the University of California, San Francisco.

Peters tells me he’s aware that people are questioning the results. And he’s surprised by that reaction to the study so far: “I’m kind of amazed how much people are trying to find a reason not to believe these findings.”

It’s possible that many people are still leery about the safety of artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, despite years of studies aimed at establishing safety. “There’s always some lingering question: Are these good for you or not?” Peters says.

Or it could be that once people hear about the industry link, they’re just dismissive of the findings. But Peters says he and his colleagues carried out the study completely independently at their academic research sites.

“We responded to a [request for proposal] that was put out by the ABA to the scientific community” to study the effects of diet drinks, he says.

But, Peters explains, he and the other researchers made an agreement with the industry group in advance that whatever the findings — positive or negative — the results would be submitted for publication.

As industry funding of nutrition research has become more commonplace, there are protocols in place to keep separation between funders and scientists. But a 2007 meta-analysis in PLoS Medicine found that industry funding increases the odds of results favoring the industry’s position.

Beyond the study’s ties to the diet soda industry, other researchers say the new research doesn’t provide any closure to the murky science of diet sodas. “This paper is fatally flawed, and leaves us with little science to build on,” Purdue University researcher Susie Swithers tells us.

She points out that the paper does not include detailed information about what participants consumed in lieu of diet soda beyond the water they were told to drink. So it’s hard to know how many calories they consumed from other beverages. “Did they switch to regular sodas? [Did they] add sugar instead of artificial sweeteners to their coffee or tea?” Swithers wonders.

All in all, “this paper tells us nothing about the long-term health consequences that should be our real focus,” Swithers concludes.

NRCS California Accepting Applications for Tribal EQIP Initiative

SOURCE USDA – Natural Resources Conservation Service

DAVIS, Calif., May 27, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in California is partnering with California’s tribal nations to make financial assistance available to help tribal farmers, ranchers and non-industrial private forest operators put additional conservation on the ground.

Applications will be accepted through July 18, 2014. Funding is being made available through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) through two statewide and three landscape tribal resource priority areas.

The three Landscape Resource Priorities are aimed at improving and managing forest health and reducing wildfire threats, as well as rangeland health and water quality. The three priorities areas are:

— Northern Coastal Tribes Forests and Rangeland in Del Norte, Humboldt,
Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma, Trinity and Western Siskiyou counties.
— Intermountain and Central Sierra Tribal Forests and Rangeland in Amador,
Butte, Eastern Siskiyou, El Dorado, Fresno, Kings, Lassen, Madera,
Mariposa, Modoc, Placer, Plumas, Sierra, Tulare, Tuolumne and Western
Shasta counties.
— South Coast and Desert Tribal Forests and Rangeland in Imperial, Inyo,
Mono, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.
The two Statewide Resource Priorities are aimed at reducing soil erosion, improving irrigation water efficiency, water quality, restoring and managing native plants for traditional Native American food and fiber production. The two statewide priorities are:

— Statewide Tribal Poly-farms: small, biologically diverse farms and
medium size agricultural operations for subsistence, intra-tribal and
external commerce.
— Native Plants Restoration: culturally important tribal plants for food
and fiber.
The EQIP Tribal Initiative provides financial and technical assistance to Tribes and tribal producers who voluntarily agree to NRCS guidelines for installation of approved conservation practices that address program priorities related to addressing soil, water, air quality, domestic livestock, wildlife habitat, surface and groundwater conservation, energy conservation, and related natural resource concerns.

There are 109 Federally Recognized American Indian Tribes in California. There are at least 69 Non-Federally Recognized Tribes in California petitioning for federal recognition. The Federally-recognized tribes have jurisdiction over 635,739 acres of Tribal Trust Land in California.

NRCS has provided leadership in a partnership effort to help America’s private land owners and managers conserve their soil, water and other natural resources since 1935. For more information on NRCS, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov.

USDA – Natural Resources Conservation Service

CONTACT: Jonathan Groveman (530) 792-5692, Alan Forkey (530) 792-5653

Web Site: http://www.ca.nrcs.usda.gov

TransCanada looks to ship oil to U.S. by rail amid Keystone XL delays

Train cars carrying crude oil burn after derailing in Lac Megantic, Quebec, July 2013.

Calgary-based company has waited more than 5 years for the Obama administration to make a decision

CBC News, May 22, 2014

TransCanada is in talks with customers about shipping Canadian crude to the United States by rail as an alternative to its Keystone XL pipeline project that has been mired in political delays, according to company president and CEO Russ Girling.

“We are absolutely considering a rail option,” Girling told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in New York Wednesday. “Our customers have needed to wait for several years, so we’re in discussions now with them over the rail option.”

The comments are the first to confirm growing speculation that TransCanada might use more costly and controversial railway shipments as a stopgap alternative to the Keystone XL pipeline, whose approval has been delayed by the U.S. government.

Girling said the firm was exploring shipping crude by rail from Hardisty in Canada, the main storage and pipeline hub, to Steele City, Neb., where it would flow into an existing pipeline to the Gulf refining hub.

5-year wait

TransCanada has waited more than five years for the Obama administration to make a decision on the $5.4-billion project, which would carry up to 830,000 barrels per day of crude from the oilsands of northern Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

While the project has received a mostly favourable environmental report, the State Department last month delayed a decision beyond the mid-term elections in November while a legal dispute over the line’s route in Nebraska is settled.

The pipeline has drawn sharp criticism from environmental groups who say it will fuel more production of Canada’s energy-intensive oilsands.

But the oil-by-rail movement has also come under scrutiny after a series of explosive derailments, including the one in Lac-Megantic, Que., last summer that killed 47.

Opposition fuelling opportunity

“It’s an irony that the adamant opposition of environmental organizations and others against oilsands-derived crude have actually created a phenomenal opportunity for rail to pick up the slack,” said David McColl, an analyst at Morningstar, Inc.

The line has the backing of the Canadian government and conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the project “a no-brainer.” Canada is counting on new export lines to boost discounted oil prices in the country and accommodate rising production from the oilsands.

Demand to ship crude by rail has gathered pace in Canada as producers scramble for alternatives to congested export pipelines.

Canadian crude-by-rail exports jumped to 146,047 bpd in the last quarter of 2013, an 83-per cent year-on-year surge, according to the National Energy Board.

Crude-by-rail boom

With Keystone XL and a number of other new pipelines projects mired in regulatory delay and environmental opposition, the crude-by-rail boom shows little sign of slowing.

Jarrett Zielinski, chief executive officer of TORQ Transloading — which is building Canada’s largest unit train terminal in Kerrobert, Sask., said TransCanada would need to load at least roughly nine unit trains per day to rival the takeaway capacity of Keystone XL, if they were to load raw bitumen.

Zielinski said that much extra crude travelling on Canada’s rails, in addition to the new rail loading projects already underway, could strain the system.

“The rail network would need more infrastructure and people,” he said. “It’s my fear that the current rail infrastructure would be insufficient, although it could be scaled up quickly.”

CAPP reaction

The president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) says using rail is a good stopgap measure until the Keystone XL pipeline is approved.

“We expect to see pipeline growth, but rail is important in the near term,” said Dave Collyer.

He says CAPP will release its production and transportation outlook for the year next month.

“What it will show is rail is an important interim transportation solution to accommodate the growth and production we foresee,” Collyer said.

He says pipelines are still the best in the long term, but until that happens he says rail is a choice that must be considered.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/transcanada-looks-to-ship-oil-to-u-s-by-rail-amid-keystone-xl-delays-1.2651054

Residents Upstream Of Wanapum Dam Make Do With Low Columbia River

Eugene and Karen Penix live in the Sunland vacation community near Vantage, Washington, above Wanapum Dam.Credit Anna King / Northwest News Network — Eugene and Karen Penix live in the Sunland vacation community near Vantage, Washington, above Wanapum Dam.
Credit Anna King / Northwest News Network

May 23, 2014 Anna King

NWNewsNetwork.org

Dramatically lowered water behind the damaged Wanapum Dam in eastern Washington means boaters are out of luck this Memorial Day on that stretch of the Columbia River.

But people who own vacation homes upstream from Wanapum, at Sunland Estates, say they are getting creative for the long weekend.

The drop in the Columbia River has produced a moonscape of vast sandy islands and miles of mudflats.

It’s all clearly visible from Eugene and Karen Penix’s second-story deck — and all that sand has been blowing into their yard. Penix said he and his neighbors have been fighting back that silt with troops of leaf blowers.

For the long weekend the Penix family has stocked up on a lot of chips, burgers and hot dogs.

They have also stocked up on patience. “You know Americans, they just won’t give up. People are buying these kind of almost portable swimming pools made of vinyl,” Penix said with a laugh. “And that’s kind of a new thing.”

Plus, Penix said wineries, the Gorge concerts and the eastern Washington sun are all good distractions.

This Memorial Day, Honor the Water, Remember the Fallen, and Protect the Mounds

FishHabitat.orgThe Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk — FishHabitat.org
The Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk

Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today

Officially, Memorial Day is a day on which war dead are honored. Unofficially, it’s a universal day of remembrance for all who have passed on. Many Americans will visit cemeteries over this holiday weekend in order to offer prayers, respect and honor to the graves of warriors and non-warriors alike.

Americans take great care in honoring their dead with fine monuments marking their lives and impact they have made on the world. To express anything other than respect for these sites would be considered downright un-American. The ancestors of Native peoples, however, are frequently not afforded this most basic level of humanity. Our dead often rest in mounds or sites that are marked with far more subtle methods than stone markers.

“There are cemeteries in Europe that are as old as our Native burial mounds here in the U.S. The only difference is that they have headstones with last names that can still be found in the immediate community,” said Kim Wesler, former director of the Wickliffe Mounds site in Kentucky.

The Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk lead by a group of Anishinabe grandmothers who pray for the water and raise awareness about the pollution that plagues this element that is essential to life. They began the walk in Pittsburgh on April 22, Earth Day, and are concluding their journey on Memorial Day near Wickliffe Mounds, a gesture that sends a poignant, potent message in both time and place.

Once a notorious example of racial disregard for Native burial sites, Wickliffe Mounds now stands as a tribute to what can be accomplished by tribal and mainstream collaboration in reclaiming the sacred.

The Nibi Walkers traveled 981 miles from the source to the mouth of the Ohio River, the most polluted river in America in efforts to reconnect people with the sacred element essential to life. Completing the journey at Wickliffe Mounds has an added bonus of underscoring the treasured graves of Native ancestors that have too often been disrespected and desecrated by mainstream America.

On this Memorial Day in Kentucky, commemorations will include ceremony not only for the war dead of the U.S., but for the many warrior and non-warrior Native ancestors, perhaps killed in defense of their homelands.

Sharon Day, Ojibwe, leader of the walk noted that the Ohio River valley is home to many sacred sites and burial mounds. “It is sad to see such a sacred area treated so badly by pollution and disregard for the ancestors who lie here,” she said.

Sharon Day, Ojibwe, begins the first leg of the day of Nibi Walk along the Ohio River in Cincinnati. (Mary Annette Pember)

Looting of Native graves by amateur and professional collectors in search of artifacts was not an uncommon practice in this region. According to historians with the Ancient Trail of Ohio, hundreds of mounds in Ohio alone have also been destroyed by farming and development.

For generations, Wickliffe Mounds exemplified disrespect for Native sacred places and burial sites.

The modern story of Wickliffe Mounds began in 1932 when Fain King, the owner of the site opened a number of burial mounds on his property, unearthing the bones of hundreds of men, women and children from the Mississippian culture. According to the Kentucky Parks Service, they were likely buried around 1200 A.D. in the large settlement located on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. King created a roadside tourist attraction from his find. He dubbed it “The Ancient Buried City,” where he offered paying customers a close up view of the remains. After removing the tops of the mounds, he built walkways over the graves where ancestors lay interred with pottery and other items. One of the opened mounds offered for public view contained the remains of many infants. The operation continued until 1983 when it was given to the Murray State University of Kentucky. Murray State operated the site until 2004 when Kentucky State Parks took over, making Wickliffe Mounds the 11th Kentucky state historical site.

Wesler, archaeologist and current director of the Remote Sensing Center at Murray State, was charged by the university with taking over the site in 1983. Although he had little knowledge at the time of the cultural concerns of Native peoples regarding treatment of remains, he knew immediately that the bones needed to be taken off display. “I got a crash course in Native American cultural awareness,” he recalled.

“I soon learned that when you define the past as family, you take it personally,” he remarked about those early conversations with tribal peoples whose ancestors are interred in the mounds.

The road to reburial was not easy in those early days for a traditionally trained archaeologist like Wesler. “The archaeological establishment was strictly anti-reburial in those days,” he recalls. One of his colleagues threatened to sue him if he went through with reburial efforts. He was threatened with legal action from a tribe upset about not being involved in consultations. Many community members also expressed anger over the reburial efforts and the decision to remove remains from public display. “The bones were on display for over 60 years. People grew up seeing them and wanted their children to see them. It was sort of a tradition here,” he said.

Chickasaw Nation Lieutenant Governor Jefferson Keel, with Kylo Prince, who is Lakota/Ojibwe from Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, and Thomas Pearce, of the American Indian Movement of Indiana and Kentucky at an honoring ceremony to rebury ancestral remains at Wickliffe Mounds.

As he worked to make contacts and build relationships with the Native community, Wesler took the bones off display and replaced them with plastic replicas. The plastic bones served as placeholders, he said, as he struggled to strike a compromise among stakeholders.

The plastic replicas and walkways over the gravesites remained until 2011 when the Chickasaw Nation assisted in reburying the remains. The Oklahoma Intertribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes determined that since the Chickasaw were the closest living descendants of the Wickliffe ancestors they should lead reburial efforts.

During the 2012 ceremony celebrating the reburial of over 400 ancestors from the mounds, Jefferson Keel, Lt. Governor of the Chickasaw Nation noted in his speech that in the past, Wickliffe was a place of desecration. Certainly no Native person would have wanted to visit such a place. Carla Hildebrand, manager of the site that is now owned and operated by the Kentucky State Parks Service, recalled Keel’s words.

“He spoke positively about the growing cooperative relationship between tribes and mainstream officials that allowed the reburial to happen. He said, ‘Now we can move forward,’” she recalled.

The story of Wickliffe Mounds is profound according to Hildebrand. She reports that numbers of Native groups such as the Nibi Walkers now stop in to pay their respects. “I’m happy that the mounds are getting the respect and attention due them,” she said.

“I’m grateful I got to keep those promises made to Native people along the way,” Wesler said.

The history of Wickliffe Mounds reflects a slowly maturing societal opinion regarding Native burial sites, noted Wesler.

Hildebrand noted that in recent years many people expressed discomfort about having the plastic bone replicas on display. “People’s sensibilities are maturing, we are seeing a change in attitudes. People from differing backgrounds would tell us they thought even the plastic replicas were disrespectful,” she said.

Unfortunately, however, modern farming, graveling and urban sprawl continue to take a toll on sacred sites, according to the Ancient Trail of Ohio website. Following are three examples in a long list of ongoing battles between developers and preservationists over protecting sacred sites.

Wal-Mart has a history of destroying sacred sites. They have built or attempted to build stores on burial mounds in Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia, California, and Hawaii. In 2004, Wal-Mart opened a store in Mexico City within view of the 2000-year-old pyramids of Teotihuacan despite protests by local residents.

The owner of Wingra Redi-Mix in Wisconsin wants to destroy a bird effigy mound on his property in order to get at copy million worth of gravel buried beneath. The mound, part of the Ward Mounds, have been called the “Heart of the homelands of the Ho-Chunk Nation.” Effigy mounds in Wisconsin were built as long ago as 700 BC.

The Wingra Redi-Mix Quarry has been bulldozed as close to the bird effigy mound as possible. Wingra Redi-Mix seeks to destroy the mound to reap the copy0 million of sand and gravel. The mounds on the property are protected by a burial site protection act. (WisconsinMounds.com)

Recently preservationists narrowly succeeded in saving the most important surviving Adena earthworks in the Ohio Valley from developers.

A magnetic survey done in 2005 revealed the Junction Group below the surface.

Sharon Day is pondering the significance of finishing her 981-mile journey along the Ohio River near Wickliffe Mounds. Seeing the destruction of the water, earth and sacred sites along the way brings home a message from a long ago Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, who called on people to unite and take action to protect the earth.

“….soon the trees will be cut down to fence in the land. Soon their broad roads will pass over the graves of your fathers and, the place of their rest will be blotted out forever. The annihilation of our race is at hand unless we unite in common cause.”

$100,000 Food Security Award American Indian Elderly

First Nations Development Institute Awards $100,000 to Support Food Security for American Indian Elderly in Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wisconsin

by Native News Online Staff / Currents / 23 May 2014

LONGMONT, COLORADO — First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) announced it has awarded four grants to American Indian communities in Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wisconsin that will address hunger, nutrition and food insecurity among senior populations. The grants come as part of First Nations’ Native American Food Security project, which is generously supported by AARP Foundation.

These 2014 grants expand work that began in 2012 when AARP Foundation first partnered with First Nations on the food security project. Under the first phase, First Nations awarded funding to successful projects at the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, the Pueblo of Nambe and Santo Domingo Pueblo in New Mexico, and Sipaulovi Development Corporation (Hopi) in Arizona.

The four organizations receiving $25,000 grants for 2014 are:

Painted Desert Demonstration Project / The STAR School, Flagstaff, Arizona. This project will devise and demonstrate a model that links community-based farms with local schools and senior centers. The goals are to provide elders a local source of nutritious, traditional foods at senior centers and intergenerational gatherings; decrease social isolation of elders through monthly celebrations featuring traditional Navajo foods, elder storytelling and cooking demonstrations. The project will serve the Navajo communities of Leupp and Tolani Lake, Arizona.
Pueblo of Tesuque, Santa Fe, New Mexico. This project will connect youth and elders through a healthy traditional foods program that concentrates on honoring and preserving elder knowledge regarding food, seeds and agricultural traditions. Elders and youth will work together to prepare and store seeds, cultivate traditional gardens, harvest in traditional ways, and preserve and prepare traditional foods. The program will include an educational component for both youth and elders, and will provide healthy foods and preparation instructions for families.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Fort Yates, North Dakota. The Nutrition for the Elderly Program will further develop and enhance current tribal food initiatives such as the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program and the tribe’s Native Gardens Project. Community gardens will provide freshly grown fruits, vegetables and herbs for meals and nutrition education courses will expand knowledge of healthy food preparation and eating.
College of the Menominee Nation, Keshena, Wisconsin. The Gardens for Elders project will benefit elders from the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, located on the Menominee Reservation in Keshena. Gardens for Elders is an intergenerational, community-based project that focuses on helping elders grow fresh, healthy food sources in their own yards with assistance from youth in various tribal programs. The college intends to build a sustainable elder food-system model that brings together multiple community resources to ensure Menominee elders have locally grown, healthy food sources readily available to them.

“We are excited to expand work focused on ending senior hunger in Native communities,” said First Nations President Michael E. Roberts. “This year, First Nations received over $1.1 million in grant requests under the Native American Food Security project. We’re able to fund only about 10 percent of that amount now, which illustrates the critical need for additional support for Native American food security projects.” The Native American Food Security project assists Native American tribes or organizations working to eliminate food insecurity among senior populations.

National statistics document that Native Americans continue to experience high rates of poverty, contributing to significant food insecurity in many Native American communities. According to the most recent American Community Survey, about 26 percent of American Indians live at or below the poverty line. The same survey indicates that roughly 12 percent of all Native Americans living in poverty are age 55 and older. Other studies conducted by the National Resource Center on Native American Aging note that Native American seniors suffer from higher rates of obesity, diabetes and other negative health indicators when compared to other senior groups in the United States.

“We are confident that these new programs will continue to value the contribution of elders to Native communities, focused on solutions to combating senior food insecurity,” said Roberts.

Green and Sustainable Living-NBSM Week 4

By Monica Brow, Tulalip News Writer

Tulalip, WA-The final week of National Building Safety Month is all about creating and maintaining an energy efficient home. General electric has developed an online test that can be used to estimate the carbon footprint for each household and points out what levels you are at compared to the national average. This useful tool will give you an idea of where to begin when creating a more energy efficient home.

The usual and more common energy efficient methods that, if you haven’t already implemented one more you should do so, will save you money on water and electric bills along with helping out the environment. They include fitting your home with energy efficient doors and windows, proper home insulation, installing low flow toilets and shower heads, using LED or florescent light bulbs, and energy star appliances.

Some of the less common techniques aim toward sustainability through recycling. They include lessening garbage waste by recycling and saving kitchen scraps for garden composting. Install a rain water barrel to catch water for gardening. Use a manual lawn mower instead of electric or gas powered will save money and provide a workout. When building or renovating a home, find reclaimed building materials instead of buying new; this adds a uniqueness that isn’t mass produced and can be cost saving.

Carbon foot print calculator http://www.ge.com/ivillage/calculator/

For NBSM handout material or questions contact Orlando Raez of the Tulalip Tribes Community Development at 360-716-4214

10 tips for green and sustainable building

Heating and cooling uses more energy and drains more energy dollars than any other system in the home. Approximately 43% of utility bills cover heating and cooling.

Close curtains and shades at night to keep warmth in and keep them open during the day.

Try new lighting control technologies like motion-sensitive or timed off switch lighting. Using these new options can reduce lighting use by 50% – 75% and save the lighting portion of energy bills that account for 11% of overall household energy consumption.

Replace ordinary light bulbs with Compact Flurosent Light (CFL) bulbs. If every household replaced just one light bulb with a CFL bulb, America could save enough energy to light nearly three million homes.

Install a programmable thermostat to keep your home comfortably warm in the winter and comfortably cool in the summer.

Replacing windows can save between 7% and 24% of the household heating and air-conditioning costs.

Plug home electronics, such as TVs and DVD players, into power strips, and turn the power strips off when the equipment is not in use as TVs and DVDs in standby mode still consume several watts of power.

Choosing energy-efficient products can save families approximately $400 a year while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Chose ENERGY STAR certified products when you buy or replace household appliances.

In the workplace, buy and use ENERGY STAR labeled office equipment, and other products. Be sure that the “stand-by mode” function is activated as this automatic “sleep mode” saves energy and money when the equipment is not in use.

Regularly change the filters in the heating and cooling system of your home or office as dirty filters can cost up to $5 a month extra, overwork the equipment and result in dirtier indoor air.

Consider purchasing “electrostatic” filters, which are washable, long lasting, and provide cleaner air. Clean or change filters more often if smokers or pollution sources are present.

Polar bear pulled Arctic Bay man from tent, says MLA

Quttiktuq MLA Isaac Shooyook spoke in the Nunavut legislative assembly Friday about a polar bear attack on his grandson this week. (Courtesy Isaac Shooyook)

CBC News May 23, 2014

The victims of a polar bear attack near Arctic Bay, Nunavut, are still receiving medical treatment.

Isaac Shooyook, MLA for Quttiktuq, spoke about the attack in the Nunavut legislature Friday morning.

Two people were attacked during a hunting trip nearly 100 kilometres outside of Arctic Bay.

Shooyook says the bear pulled his grandson out of a tent by the head in the middle of the night.

“When he started screaming, the bear turned to the other man,” he said in Inuktitut. “My grandson then grabbed the gun and the bear threw the other man.”

Another group of hunters drove the two men back to the community. Shooyook says neither of the victims have broken bones, but they were scratched and bitten.

The two were flown to Iqaluit for treatment Thursday night.