JUNEAU, Alaska — A British Columbian gold mine would pollute a major tributary of a Ketchikan fjord, threatening fishing stock and tourism, locals say.
They allege the mine’s s massive amounts of water requiring treatment, sludge, tailings, rock and processing would be a “looming train wreck.”
A meeting of fishermen, environmentalists and tribal members convened by environmental groups focused on the Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell, also known as KSM, The Juneau Empire reported.
KSM is a proposed mine undergoing permitting in British Columbia. It would be one of the largest mines in the world once operational.
“Alaska has nothing to gain by this mine,” said Southeast Alaska Conservation Council Mining and Clean Water Project Coordinator Guy Archibald. “We’re only going to get contamination from it.”
The mine is proposed for a site on the Unuk River, which flows into the Misty Fjords National Monument.
The river supports five species of salmon. Mine owner Seabridge Gold conducted an environmental report that predicts minimal impact on fish and their habitat.
Most criticized at the meeting was the lack of objective data on the mine’s impact. Since all data so far has been generated by company-funded studies, Archibald called for state dollars to pay for scientifically accurate and defensible” studies.
“The first thing we need is some baseline water quality data on these rivers,” he said, referring to other mines as well. “Right now we’re relying on what the companies are telling us.”
The Juneau Empire attempted to reach Seabridge Gold, but the company did not return calls requesting comment by the paper’s deadline.
After mining, the site could need monitoring for decades, and speakers questioned the resilience of several of the structures the company plans to hold tailings and other byproducts.
“This is a long-term, very large issue of transboundary impacts,” said seiner and speaker Bruce Wallace, past president on the executive committee of the United Fishermen of Alaska.
KSM expects to employ 1,040 people at the site once the mine is operational.
At least one British Columbia tribe supports the project. The Gitxsan Treaty Society said in a letter that mine representatives’ “open, honest and transparent” interactions with the Gitxsan Nation led them to support the project and the jobs and economic benefits they expect the mine to provide.
Information from: Juneau (Alaska) Empire, http://www.juneauempire.com
High Country News map click image to read full article
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Insurance enrollment helpers are encouraging Native Americans to sign up for coverage under the nation’s new health care law, saying it will help them better access X-rays, mammograms, prescription drugs and trips to specialists not covered under Indian Health Service.
American Indians are exempt from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that people carry insurance, but the law opens up resources that for years have been limited through IHS, said Jerilyn Church, executive director of the South Dakota-based Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board.
“There’s a huge gap in access to services, so being enrolled in the marketplace is going to make a big difference in terms of accessibility to health care,” Church said.
The Indian Health Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides free health care to enrolled members of tribes, their descendants and some others as part of the government’s treaty obligations to Indian tribes dating back nearly a century.
Critics long have complained of insufficient financial support that has led to constant turnover among doctors and nurses, understaffed hospitals, sparse specialty care and long waits to see a doctor.
The Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board received $264,000 in South Dakota and $186,000 in North Dakota to assist with Native American signups on the states’ reservations and urban areas.
The new law health care law will especially benefit people who seek treatment at urban Indian health clinics, which collectively are funded by just 1 percent of the IHS budget, said Ashley Tuomi, executive director of the American Indian Health and Family Services clinic in Detroit.
“Our resources are extremely limited, even more so than the tribes,” Tuomi said. “What we have within our walls is what we can offer for free.”
The clinic has seen a lot of patient interest in the health care marketplace, but “navigators” helping with signups have had to cancel many appointments because of continued issues with the federal healthcare.gov website, Tuomi said.
The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska has received about $38,000 in federal grant funds to encourage signups for tribal members scattered in 12 counties in Nebraska, two in Iowa and one in South Dakota.
The tribe’s IHS-contracted clinic in Omaha, Neb., has a medical doctor and two nurse practitioners, but the X-rays, specialists and prescriptions that are outsourced are not covered, said Jan Henderson, the tribe’s navigator project director. “And if they don’t have insurance, they have to pay for it themselves,” she said.
Tribes across the country get some federal money for referrals, but the small pools run out quickly, Henderson said.
She views the new health care law as a great step for Native Americans, but the greatest challenge is educating tribal members who are weary from decades of promises of improved health care.
“Education is very important in this right now to get people to be open to actually hearing about it,” Henderson said. “We hear a lot of people who say they don’t need this, they don’t want this.”
Largely unknown to mainstream America, Indian relay is a race like no other.
From left, Zack Rock and Luke Rock head into the home stretch during a relay race at the Crow Native Days in Crow Agency. MontanaPBS will feature the native sport in the documentary ‘Indian Relay.’
Fast and furious — Indian relay racing is like no other horse racing and no other sport you’ve ever seen.
And it’s largely unknown to mainstream America.
A new documentary by MontanaPBS, “Indian Relay,” focuses on this unique and dangerous sport. Before the film premieres nationally in November, Helenans can get a free sneak preview 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, at the Myrna Loy Center.
Filmed by Charles Dye, a Northwest Regional Emmy-award winner, it was written by Montana educator and poet M.L. Smoker, who is Assiniboine and Sioux.
You’ll see incredible and daring race film footage from a host of relay races in Indian Country and then the Indian Relay National Championships in Blackfoot, Idaho, in 2011.
Along the way, you travel with rider Myles Murray from Browning, Zack Rock and Kendall Old Horn of Crow Agency and Lance Tissisimit and Alonzo “Punkin” Coby, who are Shoshone-Bannock from Fort Hall, Idaho.
In this sport, riders race bareback at top gallop around a track. After one lap, barely slowing down, they switch horses by leaping down from one and onto another. After galloping around the track the second lap, the riders again leap onto a fresh horse and race to the finish line.
“These riders are very athletic and very fearless,” said Old Horn, who has been involved in Indian relay racing for 37 years.
“You could take any Indian relay rider and he could play with the best basketball and football players,” he said. “But you can’t take the best football or basketball player and put them in Indian relay. Professional jockeys wouldn’t touch Indian relay with a 10-foot stick. The degree and skill it takes to be an Indian relay rider is night and day from any other sport.”
With the sport comes a whole set of lingo — besides the rider, there’s a mugger who catches the rider’s horse when he dismounts, the set-up guy (or exchange holder) who holds the fresh mount, and then a back holder with the next fresh horse.
After the rider gallops off, the back holder passes the fresh horse to the set-up guy, while the mugger passes the horse he’s just caught to the back holder.
“There’s quite a bit of choreography that’s involved,” said Dye, the film’s director and producer. It takes a real trained team effort.
There’s also quite a bit of chaos and danger on the track throughout the race.
“It’s a unique and beautiful … sport,” said Dye. “It’s just amazing. Those thoroughbreds are huge. These guys are brave, and these horses are too. The horses are also athletes.”
Before he started making the film, Dye went to all the relay races in 2010.
“I wanted to see what it would look like with different camera angles,” he said. “It’s almost impossible to capture so many pieces.”
By the time his crew filmed the Indian Relay National Championship in Blackfoot, Idaho, in September 2011, they had 13 cameras running.
“The challenges were many,” Dye said. “The film is just one small bit of relay.”
One of the biggest challenges was after interviewing teams for months and filming them train and race in relays all over Indian Country, Dye had to edit it all down to a 1-hour film that primarily focuses on just three teams.
His interest in Indian relay was first piqued years ago, when he was filming the Montana PBS documentary, “Before There Were Parks,” which showed the views of Native people on the creation of Yellowstone and Glacier National parks. It aired at the time of Ken Burns’ 2009 PBS series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”
“My curiosity was building,” said Dye, who had been seeing photos in different homes showing various Indian relay races. “I couldn’t figure out the photos. It didn’t look like standard horse racing.”
When Aaron Pruitt, director of content at MontanaPBS, heard Dye first describe “this crazy, dangerous, exhilarating sport,” he was surprised.
“I’m a native Montanan,” said Pruitt, “and I’d never heard of this. We were thrilled to tell this contemporary and popular story.”
“They did a good job,” said Old Horn. “I think the film speaks for itself.”
“It’s a very short version of the story,” Old Horn added. “To see the full impact and how Indian relay affects Indian families and Indian Country, you’d have to do a whole series.”
He’s hoping the documentary draws more attention to the thrilling sport and attracts bigger crowds and sponsorships.
The free screening is sponsored by Montana Historical Society, Montana PBS and the Myrna Loy Center. Pruitt and Smoker and possibly some of the participants will attend the show.
“Indian Relay” makes its MontanaPBS Broadcast premiere at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31.
It’s also been selected by PBS’ five-time Emmy Award-winning series “Independent Lens,” and will premiere before national public television audiences on Nov. 18.
“It’s very prestigious for the film to have it selected by ‘Independent Lens,’” said Pruitt, who is also a co-producer for the film.
It was edited by Katie Lose Gilbertson and it was shot by Emmy-award winning cinematographers, Daniel Schmidt, Dawson Dunning and Rick Smith. Wayne Smith Jr., of the Blackfeet tribe, was an associate producer for the film.
UPDATE: Elsipogtog Chief Aaron Sock moved burnt-out trucks Sunday night with two friends, a shovel and a local tow-truck company. War Chief John Levi says still wants RCMP to ground surveillance flights to move camp to Hwy 116 site. Mi’kmaq Warrior Society spokeswoman Suzanne Patles says group needs mandate to continue participating if camp moves.
By Jorge Barrera, APTN National News ELSIPOGTOG FIRST NATION–The remaining encampment along Route 134 that was the scene of a heavily-armed raid Thursday will be dismantled if the RCMP grounds its surveillance aircraft, said Elsipogtog’s War Chief John Levi.
Levi said stopping the surveillance flights would be an act of good faith and allow people in the community to heal.
Levi said he spoke with RCMP officers Sunday who also wanted free passage to remove the burned-out shells of their vehicles torched during Thursday’s raid.
“I told them, get rid of that plane. We are trying to heal and you are still there poking us with a stick,” said Levi. “They are not willing to call off the plane and I told them I am not backing them up on cleaning up their mess. It works both ways, when you negotiate something, you get something.”
He said he came away frustrated from the meeting, but hoped to convince the police to do the right thing Monday.
“Let our people heal, don’t agitate any more, it is so simple,” said Levi. “Yet they can’t even do that.”
New Brunswick RCMP could not be reached for comment.
Levi is the war chief specifically for Elsipogtog and is not connected to the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society which was in charge of security at the encampment at the time of the RCMP raid by camouflaged tactical units.
Levi was a prominent spokesperson for Elsipogtog’s anti-fracking movement throughout this past summer.
Levi said there are plans to move the encampment and light a sacred fire in an open area used during the summer. The area, which was once the nerve centre of the region’s anti-fracking movement, sits just off Hwy 116 which runs through Elsipogtog First Nation’s territory.
“We are planning on going to the 116 where the sacred fire was before and do our healing there and get ready for the next round,” said Levi.
Levi said there is no longer any point to the Route 134 encampment after the raid freed the exploration trucks it was blocking.
“There is no sense to being on the side of the road, it’s only a danger for our people,” said Levi.
Many of the Warrior Society’s core members were among the 40 arrested during the raid. At least two involved in its leadership are still in custody. The RCMP also seized three hunting rifles, ammunition, knives and crude improvised explosive devices.
The encampment is less than a kilometre away from a high school.
“For the safety of the students there, we don’t want anything to escalate here anymore,” said Levi.
Levi said he’s never advocated the use of weapons or violence.
“I told my supporters, let’s kill them with kindness. The only weapons we carry are drums, sweetgrass and sage,” said Levi.
A community meeting was held in Elsipogtog Sunday afternoon to discuss the trauma experienced by community members as a result of the raid.
Levi said the community hall would remain open 24-7 throughout the week for people who need counselling as a result of the events.
“We have to help our people heal,” said Levi, in an interview with APTN National News by the burned out police cruisers as the RCMP’s surveillance plane circled overhead.
Elsipogtog Chief Aaron Sock also asked the community to allow RCMP members to return to the detachment on the reserve, said Willi Nolan, from Elsipogtog.
“There is great disappointment, there is mistrust of (the RCMP by) the people,” said Nolan.
Nolan said Thursday’s raid, which triggered widespread chaos and clashes between police and demonstrators, left many people shaken.
“The community suffered terrible trauma. We saw our elders, youth and women being injured, being hurt by the police because a corporation wants to poison everything,” she said. “They saw what the law does.”
But there was another sentiment just beneath the pain, said Nolan.
“It was also celebratory. One elder said, ‘we are winning,’” she said. “Even though it doesn’t feel like it now, it feels like we are all traumatized, but he said we are winning and I want to believe him.”
The encampment along Route 134 continued to hum with life late Sunday evening as volunteers split and piled fire wood while others sat around fires chatting and smoking cigarettes. In one area, a group of warriors were called into a circle and told that their job was not to instigate, but to keep the peace.
There was an air that this could all continue indefinitely, even as they opened the road back to two lanes of traffic. The day before, over 100 Mi’kmaqs and their supporters marched from the site and for about an hour blocked Hwy 11, which passes over Route 134.
Some people, who did not want to be named, criticized the meeting held earlier in the day. One long-time supporter said he thought the meeting was going to map out the next steps in the protest and came away disappointed. He said he planned to dig in for the long haul.
Assembly of Manitoba Grand Chief Derek Nepinak visited the site late Saturday night and attended the meeting Sunday after participating in a ceremony on the community’s Sundance grounds with Sock. The two exchanged gifts and smoked a peace pipe.
Nepinak said he suspected there was collusion between the RCMP and Houston-based SWN Resources Canada, which had its vehicles trapped by the encampment. SWN is conducting shale gas exploration in the region. Shale gas is extracted through fracking, a controversial method many believe poses a threat to the environment.
“How is it that during this process that the company was able to come in untouched and remove their equipment?” said Nepinak. “There was obviously a degree of collusion.”
Mike Forcia, Chairman of AIM in Minneapolis, tells ICTMN that “The name should have been changed 20 years ago. Yes we have more pressing issues but it doesn’t mean we are going to back off of this issue. This is what the media jumps on.”
Forcia said that just as many supporters could be found at a moment’s notice to protest against such things as the Keystone XL Pipeline or the troubles facing the Indian Child Welfare Act, and that this mainstream notice could also be a catalyst for the awareness of other issues.
A graphic, created to announce the event, that was posted by Forcia on Facebook.
“This is a publicly funded stadium and there is a lot of racism going on. What about the Fourth Amendment, in which we are all entitled to life, liberty and happiness? If they have these statutes that say no racism, then the [NFL] commissioner has to say we cannot have the Redskins because it is offensive and it is against the law.”
Forcia said that for him, it isn’t just about the logo. It is the behavior at the games.
“I don’t mind something like the North Dakota fighting Sioux logo. Yes, the Cleveland Indians logo is offensive, but it is more about the connotation and the actions of the fans. You hear things like, ‘we are going to scalp those Indians, we are going to send those Indians back to the reservation’ or you see the Tomahawk chop. It is the antics that are at the crux of this whole thing.”
“If you had the Saints and Angels playing and we were all dressed up like the Pope or a priest or a sister or a nun and we were all their swinging around our Rosaries, splashing holy water on people – they probably wouldn’t like it very much. “
Forcia is looking forward to November 7th, and is asking for anyone with hand drums or big drums to show their support, and is also inviting any supporters of the Occupy or Idle No More movements to bring their own protest signs and lend support. He also says Native women will be called to take their place as leaders in the Native community.
“It will be starting at the Minneapolis American Indian Center. We are walking down Franklin Avenue, down Chicago Avenue, and right on down to the field. I think this is going to be ground zero. I think that after November 7, it won’t be very long ’til they change the name.”
EVERETT — While a decision on whether tidal power turbines may be installed in Admiralty Inlet has been delayed in part by the federal government shutdown, sparring between the proponent and opponents has continued.
The federal energy agency has been awaiting a report on the project from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Completion of that report came later than expected and has been further delayed by the government shutdown, PUD officials said.
The tidal power plan has faced stiff opposition from Pacific Crossing of Danville, Calif., which owns two transoceanic cables that run through the inlet between Whidbey Island and Port Townsend.
Four Indian tribes, including the Tulalips, also say the project could affect salmon migration and fishing.
Officials with the PUD say the concerns either are unfounded or have been addressed. A 215-page environmental study issued last year by the FERC concluded that the turbines pose no threat to the cables, wildlife habitat or fishing.
Under the plan, two 65-foot-tall turbines, each resembling a giant fan sitting on a tubular platform, would be placed 200 feet underwater to capture the current. The turbines are made by OpenHydro of Ireland.
At peak output, the turbines are expected to generate 600 kilowatts between them, enough to power 450 homes. Most of the time, the output will be less, PUD officials say. This would be a demonstration project intended to determine whether more turbines could be effective in the future, officials say.
The cables, only a couple of inches in diameter, contain fiber-optic lines that transmit data through the Internet and social media, said Kurt Johnson, chief financial officer for Pacific Crossing. The lines are encased in steel and polypropylene.
The cable network extends a total of more than 13,000 miles in a loop from Harbour Pointe in Mukilteo to Ajigaura and Shima, Japan, and Grover Beach, Calif.
The turbines would be placed about 575 feet and 770 feet from the cables. Pacific Crossing and its trade group, the New Jersey-based North American Submarine Cable Association, say the standard should be around 1,600 feet.
Pacific Crossing has submitted several more sets of comments to FERC since last winter.
The cable interests believe the lines could be damaged by placement of the turbines or by boats dropping anchors in the area.
“Our ultimate concern is the adequate and safe separation of the turbines from our cables,” Johnson said. “We’re kind of concerned this project will become a precedent for authorizing projects such as this at an unsafe distance from submarine cables.”
The company pointed out that an agreement between utilities and cable companies in the United Kingdom established 500 meters — about 1,600 feet — as the minimum distance between offshore wind farm turbines and undersea cables.
On its website, the cable association says that although the agreement pertains to wind projects, the agreement could be applied equally to tidal and wave energy projects.
Officials with the PUD disagree.
“The bottom line is it’s an apples and oranges kind of thing,” said Craig Collar, assistant to PUD general manager Steve Klein.
The PUD earlier submitted to the federal agency a list of precautions that crews would take when operating near the turbines. For example, boats would stay running when in the area to eliminate the need for dropping an anchor, Collar said.
On the issue of turbine placement, OpenHydro officials have told those at the PUD that they can get the turbines within 10 feet of their target locations, Collar said.
Fishing gear could get hung up in the turbines, and the structures could potentially harm migrating salmon, said Daryl Williams, environmental liaison for the Tulalip Tribes.
Tribes fish for halibut, crab and shrimp in the area, he said.
“We’ve already lost most of our fishing area due to shipping traffic and piers and anchor buoys and the other things that get in the way of drift gillnets,” Williams said.
The turbines take up but a tiny part of the large inlet, Collar said.
“This project is so small, it doesn’t in any material way impede the tribes’ fishing rights,” he said.
Williams said the very conditions that determined the placement of the turbines — strong currents — could steer migrating salmon into the turbines. Chinook salmon and sturgeon travel as deep as 150 feet below the surface, he said.
“When the fish are migrating, they travel with the current so they don’t burn much energy while swimming,” Collar said. “We don’t think the studies are going to identify what the impacts are to migrating fish.”
The PUD is working with the University of Washington on state-of-the-art sonar equipment and underwater cameras that will be deployed to monitor fish passage near the turbines.
The tribes are skeptical, Williams said.
“Our fish are already in bad shape in the Puget Sound area and we’re throwing in one more obstacle to recovery.”
Two Washington, D.C., radio stations have silenced the Oneida Indian Nation.
According to a news release, CBS stations WJFK and WPGC will not air the Nation’s new radio ad, called “Legacy,” which is part of the “Change the Mascot” campaign. A representative from CBS said that the increased discussion around the Washington football team’s name was the reason for pulling the ad.
“Based on the amount of on-air debate, adding paid commercials from one side is not something that we think is beneficial for this discussion and for our audience,” Steve Swenson, senior vice president of CBS Radio Washington wrote in an e-mail that was provided by the Oneida Nation to The Washington Post.
“It is unfortunate and un-American that the station permits the team to slander Native Americans on the public airwaves with the use of the r-word, but doesn’t permit Native Americans to use the same airwaves to object to the use of a racial slur,” Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said in a news release. “We will not be silent mascots. This issue is not going away, as evidenced by the growing and diverse support this effort gains by the day.”
WJFK or 106.7 The Fan is the same radio station that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell used to say that it was important to “listen” to fans of differing points of view about whether the team’s name was offensive. The station bills itself as an “unbiased” and “unfiltered” station for D.C. sports fans that “never holds back.”
The ad, that was scheduled to run this weekend, queried the history of the Redskins name saying that the original owner, Preston Marshall, chose to use a racial slur as the team’s name. The ad also questioned what legacy Snyder would leave.
“By changing his team’s name Mr. Snyder can create a better historical legacy for himself — one of tolerance and mutual respect, not of racial epithets,” Halbritter says in the ad. “Native Americans do not want their people to be hurt by such painful epithets. We just want to be treated as what we all are: Americans.”
“The issue has been heavily debated on WJFK where we can provide a good balance of discussion, opinions and context to the issue through our programming,” Swenson said by e-mail to The Post. “Our audience has reacted positively to that presentation, and we will continue to approach the situation keeping in-line with our audiences’ expectations.”
Halloween is almost here. Time for everyone to start picking out their costumes.
Many children and adults across the country wear culturally based costumes such Pocahatas, terrorist, and more.
This controversial topic has been discussed many times in the past. But each year the costumes still remain.
In 2011 students at Ohio University started a campaign – “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume“. They produced a series of posters to help raise awareness of this issue.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Friday, October 18, is National Mammography Day. Here are eight things the American Cancer Society wants you to know about breast cancer:
1. A woman’s chance of developing breast cancer is 1 in 8.
2. All women are at risk for breast cancer.
3. An estimated 232,340 new cases are expected to be diagnosed in women in the United States this year.
4. Men can get breast cancer too: About 2,240 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013.
5. Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed non-skin cancer in women.
6. About 40,030 breast cancer deaths are expected in 2013.
7. Stay healthy: maintain a healthy weight, exercise, and reduce alcohol consumption.
8. Early detection saves lives; the American Cancer Society recommends yearly mammograms starting at age 40.
Schedule a mammogram today. It could save your life. If you need help paying for a mammogram, contact the American Cancer Society at 1.800.227.2345 or visit http://www.cancer.org.
Chris Bickford for The New York Times Government Reopens After Shutdown: National parks, monuments, museums and federal agencies reopened on Thursday after a 16-day shutdown of the government.
WASHINGTON — The United States government sputtered back to life Thursday after President Obama and Congress ended a 16-day shutdown, reopening tourist spots and clearing the way for federal agencies to deliver services and welcome back hundreds of thousands of furloughed workers.
Across the country, the work and play of daily life, stalled for more than two weeks, resumed at federal offices, public parks, research projects and community programs. Museums opened their doors. Federal money for preschool programs started flowing again. Scientists at the South Pole began ramping up their work.
And the National Zoo’s panda cam flickered on again (though a flood of online visitors soon crashed it).
For Shafiqullah Noory, on his first trip to the United States from Afghanistan, the legislative deal came just when he needed it. Sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, admiring the view of the Washington Monument, he said he knew why Abraham Lincoln had been an important leader.
“If you have the unity, you have the prosperity,” he said. “And then everything comes after that.”
In Boston, tourists once again spilled into the Charlestown Navy Yard, the national historic park that contains the Constitution, the world’s oldest commissioned warship afloat. Among them was Dorothy Bank, a retired kindergarten teacher from North Carolina, who was just about to leave Boston for a foliage tour in New England.
“I was hoping it would be open; we didn’t know whether it would be in time,” she said, noting the uncertainty of the legislative fight in Washington. Of the ship, she said, “I like it as a part of history.”
In New York City, office workers poured in and out of the mammoth building at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, eager to start working — and be paid — again. “Put yourself in that situation,” said Regina Napoli, 60, a legal administrator who had been furloughed from her job with the Social Security Administration. “The bills pile up.”
Washington’s Metro trains were once again packed with federal workers streaming in from suburban Maryland and Virginia, government IDs dangling from lanyards around their necks. Robert Lagana said Thursday morning that he was eager to get back to his job at the International Trade Commission.
“It beats climbing the walls, wondering where your next paycheck is going to be and how you’re going to make your bills,” Mr. Lagana said. “They really need to come up with a law where this never happens again.”
Meanwhile, those arriving at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington were met by none other than Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., being boisterous, as usual. “I brought some muffins!” Mr. Biden said as he arrived at the security desk, greeting employees with handshakes and hugs.
And at the White House, President Obama took a moment to speak directly to federal workers, saying: “Thanks for your service. Welcome back. What you do is important. It matters.”
The government’s top personnel officer announced just before 1 a.m. Thursday that officials should restart normal functions “in a prompt and orderly manner.” Those few words were enough to kick-start the government. A memorandum from officials at the Department of the Interior encouraged returning workers to check their e-mail and voice mail, fill out their timecards and “check on any refrigerators and throw out any perished food.”
But not everything was back to normal immediately. In Chicago, people who had been waiting to visit the Internal Revenue Service office since the shutdown began were still turned away by security. “If you aren’t making a payment, they won’t see you,” said an officer in the lobby, who suggested they try again on Friday.
Cynthia Ellis, a South Side resident, needed to get federal tax documents for a state program that helps pay her mortgage. “I heard the news say all government employees are back to work,” she said, clearly frustrated. “This is bad. This is really bad.”
The agreement extending federal borrowing power, hammered out at the last moment in Washington, paves the way for another series of budget negotiations. Conservative Republicans in the House and Senate vowed to renew their fight for cuts in spending and changes to the Affordable Care Act.
Across the globe, investors shrugged at the decision by United States politicians to end the shutdown. On Wall Street, stocks were mixed in part on reports of disappointing earnings from I.B.M.
At the Capitol, lawmakers immediately began post-shutdown posturing as they braced for another confrontation in the budget negotiations that are set to begin in the days and weeks ahead.
“We’ve got to assure the American people that we are not going to do this again,” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
For some people across the country, the political debate remained raw. In Oak Ridge, Tenn., where the shutdown was set to furlough about 3,600 employees at the Y-12 National Security Complex, Dean Russell said he had no plans to do away with the sign he posted at the entrance of his restaurant: “Members of Congress not welcome here.”
Even in deeply conservative Tennessee, Mr. Russell said his edict applied to both parties, who are now barred from the restaurant’s selection of apple, chocolate and coconut fried pies.
“I’m sure the anger will pass, and I’ll take it down,” Mr. Russell said. “But we’ll keep the sign because I’m sure they’ll do something again.”
But others were just happy that the shutdown was over.
At the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, north of Los Angeles, Bonnie Clarfield, a supervisory park ranger, spent Thursday morning taking down the closed signs — 16 of them in all — and cleaning up after vandals who had ripped some of them down and in some cases posted signs of their own.
She found one handwritten sign that read, “Congress Can’t Shut Down the Park,” while some official park signs announcing the closing were strewn in the bushes.
“We had a lot of vandalism of infrastructure,” she said. “People were frustrated, and they were taking it out on the rangers. We were doing our jobs, and they were taking it out on the messengers. I feel great today. No one’s been mad at me.”
Federal officials said the lingering impact of the shutdown should begin to dissipate in the coming days as agencies reopen fully and begin taking stock.
Sean Hennessey, a spokesman for the National Park Service, said 85 furloughed employees were back to work in Boston. He estimated that the city’s national historical sites, which include the navy yard, the Bunker Hill Monument and the downtown Faneuil Hall visitor center, lost about 55,000 visitors because of the shutdown.
The U.S.S. Constitution Museum alone, he said, lost an estimated $7,000 per day.
Reporting was contributed by Jess Bidgood from Boston, Alan Blinder from Oak Ridge, Tenn., J. David Goodman from New York, Emmarie Huetteman from Washington, Ian Lovett from Thousand Oaks, Calif., and Steven Yaccino from Chicago.
October 20, 2013
