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Blackfeet Tribal Council says energy leases on religious site cancelled

The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council issued a news release Wednesday stating proposed oil and gas leases near Chief Mountain have been canceled. The mountain, located near the Canadian border and on the boundary between the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Glacier National Park, is considered sacred by many of the Blackfeet people.

“The current proposed leases by Nations Energy, which are the subject of so much misinformation, were canceled on July 24, 2013 due to nonpayment by the company,” the tribal council news release states. “The intention of such leases was to explore an area of the reservation which is at least two miles from Chief Mountain and at least one half mile from the mandated buffer zone.”

The tribal council’s announcement comes three days prior to a planned protest in opposition to oil and gas development at the site. Reports that the council had approved exploration leases at Chief Mountain became public last week after a conservation activist posted lease documents purportedly obtained from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on his web site.

Included within those documents is a resolution signed by council chairman Willie Sharp, Jr. and acting council secretary Roger “Sassy” Running Crane reaffirming a prior resolution from January 3, 2013. The resolution approves the mineral lease development of 4,000 acres of tribal land by Nations Energy, LLC, with three wells to be developed within a five year primary term, the first to be drilled within 18-months of the lease signing.

Publication of these documents prompted a petition drive in opposition to the development, which had gathered more than 2,200 signatures by Wednesday afternoon.

The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council’s news release notes that as far back as 1982, nontribal people were prohibited from making incursions into a one mile buffer zone around the base of Chief Mountain, and that this protection was reaffirmed by tribal council action in 1992.

“The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council has always considered Chief Mountain as one of the most sacred sites on the Blackfeet Reservation,” the news release states. “This area was for spiritual use of the Blackfeet people only. This protection continues to this day and nothing has or will disturb this area, including any oil and gas development.”

It continues on to state that even if the agreement with Nations Energy had advanced to the drilling of wells, the tribe would have first had to complete an environmental and cultural resources study to see if the proposed wells would impact any Blackfeet cultural resources.

“However, since the leases no longer exist, this is not an issue,” the news release concludes.

The tribal council goes on reassert its “absolute right to develop its own resources on its own land.”

“The council is clear in its purpose to create a better economic environment for its people who currently suffer some of the highest rates of poverty and unemployment in the United States,” the news release states. “With that responsibility to better the lives of its people, however, comes the absolute mandate to do no harm to the tribe’s cultural sites, traditions and resources, including water. The two duties go hand-in-hand and this council will follow its oath and the Blackfeet Constitution to protect and defend its land and to responsibly develop its many and valuable resources.”

On Fate of Wild Horses, Stars and Indians Spar

By Fernando Santos, New York Times

It seemed at first like a logical alliance for boldface names in the interconnected worlds of Hollywood and politics. Bill Richardson, a former governor of New Mexico, and the actor Robert Redford, a staunch conservationist, joined animal rights groups in a federal lawsuit to block the revival of horse slaughter in the United States, proclaiming that they were “standing with Native American leaders,” to whom horse slaughter “constitutes a violation of tribal cultural values.”

Soon, though, the two men, who recently started a foundation to protect New Mexico’s wildlife, found themselves on a collision course with the Navajo Nation, the country’s largest federally recognized tribe, whose president released a letter to Congress on Aug. 2 asserting his support for horse slaughtering.

Free-roaming horses cost the Navajos $200,000 a year in damage to property and range, said Ben Shelly, the Navajo president. There is a gap between reality and romance when, he said, “outsiders” like Mr. Redford – who counts gunslinger, sheriff’s deputy and horse whisperer among his movie roles – interpret the struggles of American Indians.

“Maybe Robert Redford can come and see what he can do to help us out,” Mr. Shelly said in an interview. “I’m ready to go in the direction to keep the horses alive and give them to somebody else, but right now the best alternative is having some sort of slaughter facility to come and do it.”

The horses, tens of thousands of them, are at the center of a passionate, politicized dispute playing out in court, in Congress and even within tribes across the West about whether federal authorities should sanction their slaughtering to thin the herds. The practice has never been banned, but stopped when money for inspections was cut from the federal budget.

In Navajo territory, parched by years of unrelenting drought and beset by poverty, one feral horse consumes 5 gallons of water and 18 pounds of forage a day – sometimes the water and food a family had bought for itself and its cattle. Read More »

Mexico Now World’s Fattest Nation; President Hopes Stevia Can Save It

Brazil’s Indigenous peoples have sweetened teas with stevia since ancient times. (Flickr/kochtopf)

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

This year Mexico surpassed America as the world’s fattest nation. According to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 32.8 percent of adults in Mexico are obese and 70 percent are overweight, and roughly a third of the country’s teenagers are overweight, reported The Global Dispatch. Meanwhile, approximately 1 in 6 Mexican adults—or 70,000 people—suffer from weight-related diabetes each year.

Among the reasons for Mexico’s bulging waistline are increases in junk food and fast-food chains combined with a sedentary lifestyle, states a report by the FAO.

The news has spurred Mexico’s new President Pena Nieto to recommend stevia, a natural, zero calorie sugar substitute, as a solution to repair the “collapse in Mexico’s healthcare system” by 2030, reports Suzy Chaffee, 1968 ski racing Olympian and co-founder of the Native American Olympic Team Foundation, for enewschannels.com.

South American tribes discovered the rainforest herb Stevia. The Guarani Indians of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia were among the first to enjoy the unique benefits of kaa-he-he, which translates to “sweet herb,” according to stevia.net.

“The rebaudiana extract from Stevia is the only known natural sweetener with zero calories, zero carbohydrates, and a zero glycemic index, which gives you zero fluctuations in blood glucose and zero contributions to any disease,” Olivia (Cherokee), a Master Gardener and Chaffee’s advisor, told Chaffee.

China and Japan have grown and used the most Stevia since the 1970s, and the country’s residents have the lowest rates of diabetes in the world. Chaffee says the countries’ health success likely inspired President Nieto to recommend stevia as a weight loss solution in Mexico.

Read Chaffee’s full article here.

‘Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over’ runs through Sept. 2 in Snohomish County

DUI is the leading cause of death on Washington roadways, accountable for nearly half of the 439 fatalities on the state’s roads during 2012. That’s why — between Friday, Aug. 16, and Monday, Sept. 2 — extra officers will be looking for drivers under the influence of alcohol, marijuana or other drugs during the annual “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign.

Even though Washington legalized marijuana for adults aged 21 years and older, it is still illegal and dangerous to drive under the influence of marijuana. Studies have found that marijuana-positive drivers are twice as likely to crash as other drivers. Marijuana use can slow reaction time, decrease the ability of a driver to maintain lane position and diminish the ability to pay attention to the tasks of driving. It also interferes with a driver’s ability to perform divided-attention tasks, such as steering and maintaining vehicle speed at the same time.

Officers can tell when a driver is experiencing other effects of marijuana influence such as relaxed inhibitions, altered perception of time and distance, disorientation, incomplete thought processes and increased pulse.

The goal of these extra patrols is to keep you and your families safe during this vacation travel time. If you see a DUI, please call 911. Remember, the safest thing is not to drive at all after drinking or using marijuana or other drugs.

Last year in Snohomish County, officers on routine and extra patrols arrested 176 people for DUI during the same time period. For all of 2012, 3,578 people were charged with DUI in Snohomish County.

The Arlington, Marysville and Everett police departments will be joining those of Brier, Edmonds, Lake Stevens, Lynnwood, Mill Creek, Monroe, Mountlake Terrace and Mukilteo, as well as the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington State Patrol, in participating in this “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign. The Bothell Police Department will also conduct patrols as part of the Snohomish County effort.

The Snohomish County DUI & Target Zero Traffic Safety Task Force organizes and supports this enforcement effort.

These and all extra patrols are part of Target Zero, which is striving to end traffic deaths and serious injuries in Washington by 2030. For more information, visit www.targetzero.com. Additional information on the Washington Traffic Safety Commission can be found at www.wtsc.wa.gov.

Ravens on Decks: The Art of Trickster Skateboards

Cristina Olds, Indian Country Today Media Network

A couple of innovative young artists are melding the ancient tradition of formline drawing with the hip canvas of skateboard decks. “The demand for Native art skateboards was made very clear by the popularity of my early hand-painted decks,” Rico Lanáat’ Worl (Tlingit/Athabascan) of Trickster Company said in a recent interview.

Worl painted decks for himself and his family first, but soon saw the need for an affordable line of manufactured boards sporting his digitized designs. He also paints custom artboards, and says his clientele are split fairly evenly between skaters who actually ride the boards and collectors who hang them on their walls.

“I started painting on decks just for fun, just for myself,” Worl said. “It continues to be my canvas of choice while I study the old masters and the new masters of formline design, in the rich history of Tlingit and Athabascan art.” Flowing two dimensional formline designs featuring northwestern coastal sea creatures and other symbols have adorned totem poles and house posts for thousands of years.

Three box boards by Trickster Skateboards.

The clan crest of Worl’s family is the sockeye salmon, which he recreated on his first deck. “We only manufacture designs if our relatives give us permission,” he explained, and the Tlingit culture property includes land, names, songs, stories, crests and more. To respect the clan protocol, Worl focuses on general designs including the eagle and the raven, or abstracts.

“My formline style takes after the Northern Tlingit style which varies as you go from Yakutat to Washington and across tribes, and the style is more bold, with heavier lines and is slightly blockier.” He especially loves the complexity of box designs, as well as the Chilkat weaving influences.

Trickster skateboards, Chilkat pattern.

Artist Ronnie Fairbanks also designs skateboards for Trickster Company (tricksterskateboards.com) when not teaching Native art carving in Craig, Alaska. “My style is a cross between Tlingit and Tsimshian styles, since I was taught by Tsimshian carver Eli Milton,” Fairbanks said. When designing skateboards, he strives for balance over the entire area. “I have spent a lot of time drawing formline and I always try to think of unique ways to fill the space.”

Worl is the arts director at Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, Alaska, and is currently visiting the Santa Fe Indian Market with a collection of archival art from SHI to promote the development of a northwest costal arts market.

Trickster Company issued a limited edition rocker snowboard deck last winter and plans to release another this year in collaboration with Chugach Flyer Snowboards who produce the manufactured boards.

Raven skateboard by Ronnie Fairbanks.

Trickster skateboards. Photo by Klas Stolpe of the Juneau Empire.

Artist Rico Worl with Warrior skateboard. Photo by Klas Stolpe of the Juneau Empire.

Quinault Nation Passes Resolution to Oppose Coal Exports

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network, August 16, 2013

The Quinault Indian Business Committee has passed a resolution opposing proposals to export coal from the Pacific Northwest. The resolution, passed Monday, specifically addresses a proposal to transport coal by rail from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming through Washington State for export from Cherry Point in Anacortes. There are other locations in Washington and British Columbia under consideration, including Longview, said Fawn Sharp, President of the Quinault Indian Nation.

“This resolution is a strong statement by the Quinault Nation and demonstrates its commitment to protect and promote the health, safety and general welfare of our people,” said Sharp, who is also President of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. “We have determined that the coal trains are detrimental to the health of our people and to the natural resources of our region, and thus in violation of our treaty-protected rights,” she said.

“We have serious concerns about the long-term effects of pollution caused by burning coal from Asian countries, many of which lack the pollution standards we are used to within the United States. Emissions from coal-fired plants have the potential to further threaten our oceans and fisheries, already severely impacted by the acidification of the water, added Sharp.

The Quinault Indian Nation is signatory to the Treaty with the Quinault of 1855. It, along with other Northwest treaties, has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the federal government, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and is thus legally classified as the “supreme law of the land” under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution.

“Coal dust and diesel particulates will find their way into our air and waterways as these trains pass along and over our rivers, doing damage to natural resources upon which the Nation depends,” said Sharp. “The United States Environmental Protection Agency, Tribal governments, and environmental organizations have voiced concerns over the threat to human health these proposals bring because of the adverse health effects of coal dust and diesel pollution, including bronchitis, emphysema, lung damage, asthma, and cancer. Our elders and our children are particularly vulnerable because of sensitivity to the health effects of fine particles,” she said.

“The Quinault Nation’s treaty fishing right includes a right of access to its traditional fishing, hunting, and gathering sites that will be impacted by increased vessel and rail traffic.

In the Resolution, the Quinault Business Committee expresses its solidarity and support for the “no” position regarding the Gateway Pacific Terminal proposal adopted by the Lummi Indian Business Council, based on documented disturbance of sacred burial grounds and proposed fill of that area for the purpose of containing over a hundred acres of coal piles.

The Resolution also endorses the words of Billy Frank, Jr., Nisqually tribal elder and longtime chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission that, “We are at a legal and biological crossroads in our efforts to recover the salmon and preserve our tribal cultures, subsistence, spirituality, and economies. Not since the darkest days of the fishing rights struggle have we feared so deeply for the future of our treaty rights.” Quinault Nation, one of 20 member tribes of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, is signatory to “Treaty Rights at Risk” submitted to the federal government by that Commission. Among other things, that report states that coal export proposals will, in fact, further endanger Treaty Rights.

The Quinault Resolution will be submitted to President Obama, key members of the federal Administration, key members of Congress and to Governor Inslee.

Petroglyphs the oldest in North America

Source: Associated Press

PYRAMID LAKE, Nev. — Ancient rock etchings along a dried-up lake bed in Nevada have been confirmed to be the oldest recorded petroglyphs in North America, dating back at least 10,000 years.

The petroglyphs found on limestone boulders near Pyramid Lake in northern Nevada’s high desert are similar in design to etchings found at a lake in Oregon that are believed to be at least 7,600 years old. Unlike later drawings that sometimes depict a spear or antelope, the carvings are abstract with tightly clustered geometric designs — some are diamond patterns, others have short parallel lines on top of a longer line.

Scientists can’t tell for sure who carved them, but they were found on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe’s reservation land.

“We initially thought people 12,000 or 10,000 years ago were primitive, but their artistic expressions and technological expertise associated with these paints a much different picture,” said Eugene Hattori, the curator of anthropology at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City who co-wrote a paper on the findings earlier this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science

The petroglyphs could be as much as 14,800 years old, said Larry Benson, a geochemist who used radiocarbon testing to date the etchings and was the lead author of the research paper.

Radiocarbon testing dated the carbonate layer underlying the petroglyphs to roughly 14,800 years ago. Geochemical data and sediment and rock samples from adjacent Pyramid Lake show they were exposed to air from 13,200 to 14,800 years ago, and again from 10,500 to 11,300 years ago.

“Whether they turn out to be as old as 14,800 years ago or as recent as 10,500 years ago, they are still the oldest petroglyphs that have been dated in North America,” said Benson, a former research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey and current curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Natural History Museum in Boulder.

Dennis Jenkins, an archaeologist with the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, called it a significant discovery. He led recent excavations of obsidian spear points near Paisley, Ore., that he dated back 13,200 years, and noted that the bigger challenge is identifying who created the petroglyphs.

“When you get back into this time period, if you speak with Native Americans they will tell you they were made (created) there and that is obviously their people and their artwork,” Jenkins said. “But approaching it from a scientific point of view — what we can prove — at this point, it is impossible to connect these to any tribal group.”

William Cannon, a longtime archaeologist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management who found the petroglyphs at Long Lake in Oregon, brought the Nevada site to Hattori’s attention years ago. He said they bore similarities to petroglyphs at nearby Winnemucca Lake, and Hattori began connecting the dots after Benson spotted the carbonate coating on the rocks.

The etchings in Nevada and Oregon have relatively deep, carved lines dominated by linear, curved and circular geometrical designs. Some feature “tree-form designs” with a series of evenly spaced, vertically oriented ‘V’ shapes bisected by a vertical line.

Researchers have suggested the etchings represent various meteorological symbols, such as clouds and lightning, perhaps the Milky Way.

“But we really have nothing to go on for these particular petroglyphs that go back 10,000 or more years,” Hattori said Wednesday.

Benson has no idea what they mean. “When I looked at it, I said, ‘These things are incredibly beautiful.’ We have so much beautiful, old Native American stuff in the United States, but this shows it didn’t necessarily get more interesting or more pretty with time,” he said.

Oklahoma Governor Caves; Now Ready to Extradite Baby Veronica’s Dad

Suzette Brewer, Indian Country Today Media Network, August 14, 2013

This morning, after a downtown Tulsa press conference in which Matt and Melanie Capobianco made an emotional plea for the return of Veronica Brown to them, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin reversed her position from yesterday and issued a threat to Oklahoma native Dusten Brown in signing an extradition warrant from South Carolina unless Brown “cooperated” with the Capobiancos.

Only yesterday, Fallin issued a statement to the Associated Press saying that she would not extradite Dusten Brown because “he has a right to his day in court.”

“What Fallin may not realize, or doesn’t care to realize is that Dusten Brown, prior to their latest round of playing the victim, had offered them shared custody every which way from Sunday—and they flat out rejected every single offer,” said an insider. “He offered them summers and holidays, they said no. He offered them the school year and he get the summers, they said no. And now here they are on our doorstep whining about cooperation when they have rejected every single offer behind the scenes. They wanted all or nothing, and he’s simply not going to do that. So here we are. It’s disgusting.”

‘Custodial Interference’: Dusten Brown Turns Himself In

Dusten Brown Released After Posting copy0K Bond

It is widely acknowledged that during her tenure she has lost a lot of political ground with Oklahoma’s Indian tribes, who are collectively one of the largest employers in the state with billions in annual revenues and thousands of jobs. They comprise the second largest tribal population in the country after California.

“Mary Fallin has failed to be a good partner to her tribal constituents and this is just more proof that she is weighing her national aspirations with selling out and armtwisting her own citizens to pander to a foreign jurisdiction,” said one tribal leader who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. “She’s trying to have it both ways, but this is the deal: Is she going to stand up and support the American Indian people of Oklahoma and allow Dusten Brown his day in court, or is she going to be subservient to another state and allow native people to continue to be pawns in a political and judicial system that is not a friend to Indian tribes? Today’s action is a politically calculated, 180-degree turn that will not go unnoticed when the next fundraising cycle comes around.”

Fallin’s office did not respond to requests for comment from Indian Country Today Media Network. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker also issued a statement voicing his continued support for the Brown family and their right to due process.

“The Capobiancos have requested the Cherokee Nation and Dusten Brown to follow the South Carolina court’s order, but they forget that Dusten Brown has the same rights to have his arguments heard before our Oklahoma courts and Cherokee Nation Tribal Court,” Cherokee Principal Chief Bill John Baker said in a statement issued after the press conference. “We respectfully ask the Capobiancos to allow that due process.”

Dakota oil could add risks to rail transport

Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — Crude oil shipped by railroad from North Dakota is drawing fresh scrutiny from regulators concerned that the cargo is adding environmental and safety hazards, something that analysts say could raise costs.

The Federal Railroad Administration is investigating whether chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing are corroding rail tank cars and increasing risks. Separately, three pipeline companies including Enbridge Inc. warned regulators that North Dakota oil with too much hydrogen sulfide, which is toxic and flammable, was reaching terminals and putting workers at risk.

Until last month, safety advocates’ chief worry was spills in derailments. After tank cars blew up July 6 on a train in Quebec, investigators in Canada are considering whether the composition of the crude, which normally doesn’t explode, may have played a role in the accident that killed 47 people. The oil was from North Dakota’s Bakken shale.

“Crude historically has not been considered in the highest category of hazmat,” said Anthony Hatch, an independent analyst in New York who has tracked railroad companies for almost three decades. “The risks have been considered to be environmental, not to humans. Perhaps Bakken crude should be considered in a higher category.”

The cost of added safety measures, such as tighter rail-car specifications that would make obsolete some current models, may become an issue if oil prices fall, according to Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based policy-analysis firm.

“The solution to rail safety issues looks like unanticipated costs, whether, it be rail car investments or new safety protocols,” Book said.

Such costs are less likely to slow production when is oil trading for $100 or more per barrel, Book said. “At $75 per barrel, it could be a big deal,” he said. Crude oil futures have traded higher than $100 a barrel since July, and are more than $90 a barrel since late April.

North Dakota is the nation’s second-biggest oil-producing state, with more than 790,000 barrels a day this year up from from about 150,000 barrels in 2008. Railroads move 75 percent of the state’s crude, including the load of more than 70 cars that derailed and exploded last month in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

Canadian regulators are testing the composition of crude from the wrecked Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd. freight train. A question they say they’re asking is why the derailment led to such an intense inferno, which regulators have called “abnormal.” They visited North Dakota as part of their review, said Chris Krepski, a spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

“We did take samples from the tank cars to get a better understanding of what was actually carried in them and verifying that against the shipping documents,” Krepski said. “It’s safe to say we’re looking at everything.

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic said last week it was forced to file for bankruptcy because of potential liability in the crash.

Much of North Dakota’s production relies on hydraulic fracturing or fracking, a technique in which millions of gallons of chemically treated water and sand are forced underground to shatter rock and free trapped oil. Highly corrosive hydrochloric acid is widely used to extract oil in the state, according to a 2011 report from the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

In a July 29 letter to the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based lobbying and standards-setting group for the oil and gas industry, the railway administration said it found increasing cases of damage to tanker cars’ interior surfaces. A possible cause is contamination of crude by materials used in fracking, according to the letter.

“If the hydrochloric acid is carried with the oil into rail cars, corrosion can be an issue,” said Andy Lipow, president of Houston-based Lipow Oil Associates.

Shippers need to know the properties of the oil to ensure that it’s transported in tankers equipped to handle the cargo, according to the rail agency’s letter. Because information provided to railroads on the properties of oil is not gathered from tests, the agency said it “can only speculate” as to the number of cars in violation of hazardous-materials regulations.

Investigating whether the chemical composition of Bakken oil makes it more likely to corrode tank cars is reasonable, said Peter Goelz, a former National Transportation Safety Board managing director who’s now a senior vice president with O’Neill and Associates in Washington.

The Quebec accident also revived a debate over the type of cars used to haul oil. For years, regulators and watchdogs have sought improvements to a common car design shown to be susceptible to rupture when derailed. The NTSB estimates that 69 percent of today’s rail tank-car fleet has “a high incidence of tank failure during accidents,” Chairman Deborah Hersman wrote last year. The agency recommendeds thicker shells and other modifications to strengthen the cars.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., this week called on U.S. regulators to phase out the older cars, known as DOT-111s, saying they’ve contributed to spills of hazardous materials.

“The DOT-111 tank car has proven particularly prone to spills, tears and fires in the event of a derailment, and it’s simply unacceptable for New York’s communities along the rail lines to face that risk when we know thicker, tougher cars could keep us safer,” Schumer said.

The rail industry is fighting a proposal to retrofit existing cars, saying it could cost as much as $1 billion.

Shippers also must account for hydrogen sulfide, a highly flammable toxic gas that at some wells is a byproduct of oil, to properly classify oil for transport. The Bakken oil field generally produces lighter oil with little or no hydrogen sulfide, though at times, crudes with different grades are mixed for shipping, said John Harju, associate director for research at the University of North Dakota Energy and Environmental Research Center, and co-author of the Society of Petroleum Engineers report on the Bakken reservoir.

“You see little blender facilities popping up all over the place along pipelines and rails,” Harju said.

In June, Enbridge won an emergency order to reject oil with high hydrogen-sulfide levels from its system after telling the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it found dangerous levels of the compound at a rail terminal in Berthold, N.D. In addition to being highly flammable, hydrogen sulfide in the air is an irritant and a chemical asphyxiant that can alter both oxygen utilization and the central nervous system, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“We did discover that some of the crude coming into the system had much higher levels of hydrogen sulfide than we felt was safe for our employees,” said Katie Haarsager, an Enbridge spokeswoman. “Some blending may not have been up to levels in the past.”

Enbridge won FERC’s permission to refuse delivery of any oil with hydrogen sulfide that exceeded 5 parts per million, half the minimum exposure recommended by federal regulators. In a May 5 test, Calgary-based Enbridge, which owns and operates a 970-mile pipeline from Plentywood, Montana, to Clearbrook, Minn., found levels as high as 1,200 parts per million at its Berthold terminal “that could cause death, or serious injuries,” according to the company’s FERC filing.

Two other pipeline operators, Tesoro Corp. and the closely held True companies, which operates the Belle Fourche and Bridger pipelines in North Dakota, also found high levels of hydrogen sulfide in crude shipments. The FERC approved Tesoro’s request to reject oil with hydrogen sulfide at more than 5 parts per million effective Jan. 1. True companies was allowed to turn away crude with more than 10 parts per million of hydrogen sulfide effective April 1

True, based in Casper, Wyo., sent a notice to its Belle Fourche and Bridger customers in January warning that high levels of hydrogen sulfide “materially affected the common stream and created safety hazards at certain delivery locations.

North Dakota regulators say hydrogen sulfide is prevalent in oil wells in some areas and field inspectors are required to carry hydrogen-sulfide monitors.

“The fact that there were explosions, and crude oil is not supposed to explode, raises a lot of suspicions as to whether there were other chemicals and so on added to oil in the process before the shipment,” said Edward Burkhardt, chief executive officer of Rail World Inc., which owns the Montreal and Maine railway.

While derailments of trains hauling crude can create environmental messes, oil doesn’t usually ignite unless exposed to extreme heat, said Lloyd Burton, professor of environmental policy at the University of Colorado in Denver. Gasoline, refined from crude oil, is more more volatile.

“Crude oil doesn’t usually explode and burn with the ferocity that this train did,” Burton said.

State reminding people to cook shellfish after increase in illnesses

Published: August 14, 2013

By KIE RELYEA — THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

Three people in Whatcom County have become sickened by saltwater bacteria after eating undercooked or raw crab and oysters – part of a statewide surge totaling 44 probable or confirmed cases of the intestinal illness.

The number of cases of people sickened by vibrio bacteria is about twice what it was for this time last year; about 40 to 80 cases are reported annually.

“We seem to be in an active season,” said Rick Porso of the state Department of Health’s Office of Shellfish and Water Protection.

Most cases occur during summer.

The worst outbreak in recent years was in 2006, when Washington had 80 lab-confirmed vibrio cases, with 36 of them in King County, according to the King County Health Department.

Of the 44 confirmed or probable cases so far this year, King County has 21.

To avoid being sickened, health officials recommend cooking all shellfish during the summer to kill the bacteria.

“It is completely preventable with cooking, so that’s what we urge people to do this time of year,” Porso said.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus, the bacterium that causes the illness, occurs naturally in marine coastal waters.

In low numbers, vibrio doesn’t sicken people. But when water temperatures rise, the bacteria multiply rapidly – raising the risk of vibriosis illness among people who eat raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters.

Public health officials believe the warm summer and daytime low tides contributed to the recent illnesses, and expect more to occur in the coming weeks because current conditions are likely to continue.

Vibriosis causes flu-like symptoms that can include diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Symptoms usually appear 12 to 24 hours after eating infected shellfish.

The illness is usually mild to moderate and lasts two to five days, but it can be life-threatening to people with weak immune systems or chronic liver disease. People who take antacids also can become very sick.

The three cases reported in Whatcom County were from recreational harvesters who fell ill after eating oysters and crab.

Here’s what people should do to kill the bacteria and avoid becoming sick:

– Cook shellfish to an internal temperature of 145 degrees for at least 15 seconds.

– Recreational harvesters should take extra precautions when gathering oysters during the summer, including putting them on ice or refrigerating them as soon as possible after collecting them.

– Harvest as soon as the tide recedes, avoiding oysters that may have been exposed for unknown periods of time.

– Don’t rinse cooked oysters with seawater.

– Before gathering shellfish, recreational harvesters should check safety information by calling the toll-free hotline at 1-800-562-5632.

The Department of Health has been sending notices to shellfish growers recommending extra precautions during low mid-day tides and warm weather.

Officials close a growing area when vibrio levels are high or when four or more people who eat shellfish from there are sickened within 30 days. As a result, Hammersley Inlet and several parts of Hood Canal, including Dabob Bay and Quilcene Bay, are closed because of high vibrio levels, while Oakland Bay and Totten Inlet growing areas are closed because of recent illnesses.

Reach KIE RELYEA at kie.relyea@bellinghamherald.com or call 715-2234.