Instead of snow and ice whirling on the wind, a foot-deep aquamarine lake now sloshes around a webcam stationed at the North Pole. The meltwater lake started forming July 13, following two weeks of warm weather in the high Arctic. In early July, temperatures were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) higher than average over much of the Arctic Ocean, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center.
Meltwater ponds sprout more easily on young, thin ice, which now accounts for more than half of the Arctic’s sea ice. The ponds link up across the smooth surface of the ice, creating a network that traps heat from the sun. Thick and wrinkly multi-year ice, which has survived more than one freeze-thaw season, is less likely sport a polka-dot network of ponds because of its rough, uneven surface.
July is the melting month in the Arctic, when sea ice shrinks fastest. An Arctic cyclone, which can rival a hurricane in strength, is forecast for this week, which will further fracture the ice and churn up warm ocean water, hastening the summer melt. The Arctic hit a record low summer ice melt last year on Sept. 16, 2012, the smallest recorded since satellites began tracking the Arctic ice in the 1970s.
A picture of a buoy anchored near a remote webcam at the North Pole shows a meltwater lake surrounding the camera on July 22. Credit: North Pole Environmental Observatory
On a cool spring morning in the mountains of southwest Washington, 12-year old Cathy Cahill helped her dad plant scientific instruments around the base of trembling Mount St. Helens. A few days later, the volcano blew up, smothering two of his four ash collectors. When he gathered the surviving equipment, Cathy’s father found a downwind sampler overflowing with ash laced with chlorine.
Cathy Cahill holds a carbon-fiber AeroVironment Raven she will use to sample plumes of hazy air. Photo by Ned Rozell
Tom Cahill of the University of California, Davis, wrote a paper on this surprising result; editors at the journal Science were impressed enough to publish it.
Tom’s teenage daughter was not a co-author on her dad’s Mount St. Helens paper in the early 1980s, but her name has appeared next to his in a few journals since then. Now 44, Cathy continues to stamp her own mark on the field of atmospheric science. The University of Alaska Fairbanks professor has captured and examined the particles floating in air breathed by U.S. servicemen and woman in far-off deserts. She has invented an air-sensing system that alerts pilots they are encountering volcanic ash particles. She also spoke on a national radio program about the bitter, smoky midwinter air of her adopted home of Fairbanks, Alaska.
And she now commands a fleet of 161 unmanned aerial vehicles. Cahill will fly 160 AeroVironment Ravens (which have a wingspan, at 55-inches, more like a sandhill crane’s) and one Boeing Insitu ScanEagle (which weighs 10 times more and has the 10-foot spread of a California condor). She will use them to sniff the air around volcanoes and inside wildfire plumes.
Cahill will also enlist the drones to expand her ground-based studies of air from Afghanistan, Djibouti, Kuwait and other regions in which Americans are stationed. For years, she has helped officials with the U.S. Army Research Lab see the tiny particulates wafting in the air above urban battlefields.
“The military has a healthy population, but we’re still seeing increases in respiratory diseases in soldiers that are coming home,” she says in her office that overlooks the flats of the Tanana River valley, home to both an Army post and an Air Force base. “They call it ‘the Iraq crud’ — you come back hacking. We’re trying to find out what might be responsible for some of these respiratory ailments.”
Along with the health of men and women, military officials have also asked Cahill what particulates are doing to their machines.
“A lot of soils behave like volcanic ash,” Cahill says. “That’s part of the reason engines tend to get destroyed in Saudi Arabia. The soils there can melt in the engines. And soils in high enough concentrations also abrade. If you have high concentrations and you fly through them again and again, you’re going to wear out your aircraft.”
Geophysical Institute machinist Greg Shipman and an electronics specialist, David Giesel with the unmanned aircraft program, helped Cahill convert her ground-based air samplers from a 40-pound Pelican case to an eight-pound unit that fits in the nose of an unmanned aircraft. Her air samplers will lead the way into volcanic ash clouds and choking plumes of singed black spruce.
Going airborne is just another step in the life of the little girl who followed her father’s footsteps over a volcano many years ago.
“My entire career’s thread is aerosols — the sources, atmospheric transformations, transport and impacts,” she says. “If you’re studying the atmosphere, you want to be able to go up in it.”
Since the late 1970s, the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute
Coca-Cola sales are plummeting in the wake of a growing movement away from sugary soft drinks in the U.S. and increasing concerns over the link between sugar, obesity and diabetes.
Profits for the global soda giant dropped by 4 percent this quarter, compared to last year at this time. The overall drop was influenced by a total soda sale decline of 4 percent in North America, where consumers are caught in the midst of a battle between retail advertising and government warnings over the negative health impacts of soda.
In June, the American Medical Association labeled obesity a disease, pointing a finger directly at the increase of U.S. sugar consumption and calling on the United States Department of Agriculture to cut sugary drinks out of government-sponsored food assistance programs.
The call to cut back Americans’ intake of sugar comes after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s soda ban, a proposal that would have banned sale of sugary drinks — mainly sodas — that come in containers larger than 16 ounces. While the proposal is still being worked out in the courts, the Bloomberg’s proposal brought the debate about soda’s health impact to the front lines.
Coca-Cola isn’t pointing to the social debate over sugary drinks as the main component of its decline in sales. Instead, it’s talking about the weather.
“Our second quarter volume results came in below expectations, reflecting an ongoing challenging global macroeconomic environment and unusually poor weather conditions in the quarter,” Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent said in a press release following the second-quarter earnings release.
While Coca-Cola claims its downturn in North American soda sales is largely due to weather, arguing that people drink fewer sugary beverages when it’s just not nice out, it comes in the midst of a U.S. health-inspired trend that’s moving consumers away from the sugar-filled drinks that make up the company’s portfolio.
“Soft drinks are the devil product at the moment,” London Metropolitan University nutrition policy professor Jack Winkler told the Wall Street Journal.
Coca-Cola denial and the growing scientific debate
In an attempt to stay relevant in the midst of a society growing more aware of the impacts sugary drinks have on health, Coca-Cola is in the midst of attempting to create a soda that uses low-calorie sweetener while still providing a full-body taste.
This follows a campaign launched at the beginning of the year that attempted to brush off the obesity scare, urging Americans instead to get out, exercise and quench their thirst with a Coke product.
“We’re watching, we’re learning,” Steve Cahillane, who heads Coca-Cola’s North American division told CBS News.
The company is also engaging in the nationwide conversation, portraying itself as a leader in the fight against obesity. A commercial released recently aims to market Coca-Cola as a company intent on reducing calorie consumption and battling the obesity epidemic.
According to the American Medical Association, 36 percent of American adults are obese or overweight. If trends continue, experts predict that could rise to 50 percent of Americans by 2040.
On top of obesity, the nation is also seeing a rise in Type 2 diabetes. A recent Harvard study indicated that people who drank two cans of sugary drinks a day had a 26 percent greater risk of developing diabetes. It also found that men and women who increased sugar consumption with a 12-ounce serving per day gained an average of 4 pounds every year.
“For over 125 years, we’ve been bringing people together. Today we’d like to come together on something that concerns all of us: obesity,” the Coca-Cola commercial states. “The long-term health of our families and the country is at stake. And as the nation’s leading beverage company, we can play an important role.”
The commercial goes on to give a glowing report of just how hard Coca-Cola is working to provide “healthier options” for American consumers, claiming that a growing percentage of products are ones that have been severely limited in caloric content.
“Across our portfolio of more than 650 beverages, we now offer 180 low- and no-calorie choices and most of our full-calorie choices now have low or no calorie versions,” the ad states. “Over the last 15 years, this has helped reduce calories per serving across our industry’s products in the U.S. by about 22 percent.”
Will Coca-Cola win the ‘health’ battle?
By the end of 2013, Coca-Cola plans to help limit portion sizes by offering smaller bottles and cans of various sodas available in 90 percent of the country, according to the advertisement. This adds to what it claims are efforts to help consumers make the right choices.
The commercial states that elementary and high schools throughout the nation have been equipped with Coca-Cola vending machines that have increased the choice of low- and no-calorie drinks, including diet sodas.
According to a Wall Street Journal report in March, one-third of North American Coca-Cola sales came from low- and no-calorie beverages.
“We are committed to bring people together to help fight obesity,” Stuart Kronauge, Coke’s North America Sparkling Beverages Division general manager told Time magazine. “This is about the health and happiness of everyone who buys our products and wants great-tasting beverages, choices and information. The Coca-Cola Company has an important role in this fight.”
In line with Coca-Cola’s push for no-calorie drinks in U.S. schools, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition indicates that from 2007 to 2008, 12.5 percent of children were consuming artificially sweetened beverages during a 24-hour time period — double the amount children were drinking 10 years ago.
And while that gives the company a favorable statistic in terms of sugar content, with a 90 percent reduction in beverage calories sold in U.S. middle and high schools since 2004, it doesn’t eliminate health concerns.
Concerns over the no-calorie push
A mock Coca-Cola anti-obesity advertisement addresses this issue, citing health concerns related to the use of no-calorie sweeteners.
“Even though we’ve reduced the calories per serving, these beverages can still cause kidney problems, obesity, metabolic syndromes, cell damage and rotting teeth, which leaves 470 beverages which have extremely high unhealthy levels of calories,” the mock ad states.
The ad that took a stab against Coca-Cola is based on studies conducted on aspartame, the ingredient that is most often found as a substitute for sugar in low- and no-calorie beverages.
It wasn’t too long ago when no-calorie sweeteners were considered dangerous chemicals.
In 1958, Congress required the FDA to ban any additive that was known to cause cancer in animals or humans. In the 1960s, cyclamate was removed from U.S.-sold products when it was linked to cancer. Specifically, chicken embryos that were exposed to aspartame began to develop deformities. A later study showed rats fed the product grew bladder tumors, according to a Time magazine report.
By the 1980s, aspartame moved on to the market, becoming the preferred additive for diet colas. This was after a 1980 Food and Drug Administration Board of Inquiry study that initially deemed the additive to be potentially dangerous and a carcinogen.
“The Board has not been presented with proof of a reasonable certainty that aspartame is safe for use as a food additive under its intended condition of use,” the report states.
However, a year later a new set of studies favorable to aspartame emerged, and it was approved for U.S. market consumption.
In 1985, Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle, the company that owned the aspartame patent. Since then, it has become the go-to for the soda companies, including Coca-Cola in their quest to produce low- and no-calorie beverages not just throughout the U.S., but throughout the global market.
“The key here is to ensure that in every market where we operate to have no- or low-calorie beverages of our main brands available,” Kent said in a conference call, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We do not have that consistently across the world today.”
Dung beetles, which navigate their poop balls via starlight, must be onto something.
Source: Indian Country Today Media Network
Euphemistically known as waste-to-energy, the possibilities afforded by excrement are, well, excremental. David Waltner-Toews, a veterinarian, epidemiologist, scientist and author, wrote The Origin of Feces: What Excrement Tells Us About Evolution, Ecology, and a Sustainable Society, as well as other books about the intersection of humans and nature and its relationship to development. He recently outlined 10 ways that the use of such waste could do everything from promoting energy self-sufficiency to improving drinking water.
These concepts are not new in Indian country. Witness the technical assistance grant earlier this year bestowed by the U.S. Department of Energy on the Ho-Chunk Nation of Black River Falls, Wisconsin, to develop a one- to two-megawatt biomass waste-to-energy plant. “The plant could potentially use municipal solid waste, agriculture waste or other biomass resources to offset tribal facility energy costs,” the DOE said in a press release in May. (Related: Ten Tribes Receive Department of Energy Clean-Energy Technical Assistance)
1. Energy self-sufficiency could be within our grasp if we would just compost the waste.
“If half the livestock manure in the world were used to produce energy, it could replace about 10 percent of current fossil fuels and save countries billions of dollars,” Waltner-Toews writes. This could be derived from a process that is sort of composting on steroids, which is to say, “produced from manure and other organic materials through a process of decomposition and bacterial fermentation.” The leftover compounds could also be used to make fertilizer.
2. Keep those trees standing.
People could burn manure instead of wood, the author says, which would prevent deforestation.
3. Pull Mother Earth back from her tipping point.
Create methane using anaerobic biodigesters, which would also be used for list item number one, to reign in the amount of the noxious gas that makes it into our atmosphere. “Manure-based anaerobic biodigesters create, contain and use methane as fuel to cook, heat homes and run vehicles.” Bonus: Getting rid of a greenhouse gas that’s 23 times worse than carbon dioxide in terms of the impact on global warming.
4. Better food (no, you don’t have to eat sh*t).
Manure + farming = food for animals. Fish and cattle are little alchemy machines, transforming chicken manure into protein, Waltner-Toews points out.
5. Better drinking water.
The more manure that gets processed out of the methane-polluting mix, the fewer water supplies will be contaminated.
6. A healthier public.
All those doggie fecal flakes lying around get into waterways and food supplies, Waltner-Toews notes. They spread disease and parasites and increase child mortality. “By channeling the poop through digesters and/or composters, we kill most of the pathogenic bacteria and parasites.”
7. Poop knowledge is power.
Excrement conveys information to those willing to translate. This can help gauge the health and well-being of wildlife, especially endangered species, and teach us a lot about their habits and lives.
8. Togetherness.
No, this does not entail a group bathroom hangout. But researching ways to use manure as energy could unite farmers, scientists and other industries in partnership.
9. Poop: the great equalizer
Although there are some who would appear to be more full of sh•t than others, Waltner-Toews points out that humans produce about 120 pounds of excrement, be they bombastic dictators or just plain old us. “Everybody produces more or less the same amount of excrement, regardless of religion, ideology, sex, sexual orientation or economic status,” Waltner-Toews writes. “If this were acknowledged, quantified and used to produce energy and fertilizer, we could publicly celebrate each person’s contribution to the global economy.”
10. Jumpstart the dialogue.
Now that we understand that all that foul-smelling stuff is actually the stuff of life, we can find ways to integrate excrement production into public life via sustainable urban and rural planning—“and, yes, save the earth for another generation to explore, delight in, and wonder about.”
Nearly 14 million gallons of petroleum avoided through alternatives and efficiency measures
Source: Western Washington Clean Cities
SEATTLE, Wash (July 19, 2013) – Through Western Washington Clean Cities initiatives, over 75 local fleets collectively eliminated the use of 13.6 million gallons of petroleum in 2012. By switching to cleaner, alternative fuels and implementing efficiency measures, these fleets also reduced $38 million in spending on foreign oil and prevented the emission of more than 93 thousand tons of greenhouse gas pollution.
“We’re really proud of our partners and members,” said Stephanie Meyn, program manager for the Western Washington Clean Cities Coalition. “Each of them has taken calculated risks and demonstrated tremendous leadership toward advancing regional goals to sustain the natural beauty, economy and public health of the Pacific Northwest.”
The Western Washington Clean Cities Coalition is a not-for-profit membership organization dedicated to expanding the use and availability of alternative fuels and advanced vehicle technologies in the Pacific Northwest. Western Washington Clean Cities is one of the nearly 100 coalitions in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities initiative.
“A primary goal of Western Washington Clean Cities is to reduce the amount of foreign oil consumed by fleets in our region each year,” said Meyn. “We do this by educating fleets about alternatives such as biofuels, compressed natural gas, propane, and electricity – and helping them find the technology and financing partners to help make the switch.”
Each year, Western Washington Clean Cities measures the progress of its members and partners by collecting data on the amount and type of fuel used by their fleets. The U.S. Department of Energy sets a target for each Coalition to reduce petroleum use by 16 percent per year over the previous year. The 2012 Survey showed that Western Washington members reduced petroleum use by more than 33 percent compared with 2011.
“In 2012 our partners really embraced electric vehicles,” observed Meyn. “More than 10 percent of our fuel savings are a result of fleets switching to electric vehicles. We also noted an uptake in propane vehicles – with police fleets, appliance repair and elevator maintenance companies among those moving to propane.”
“There’s a groundswell of enthusiasm for sustainable vehicle technologies in Western Washington,” said Meyn. “With this kind of growth, and with the added boost of rising fuel costs, we expect to further surpass our goals in 2013.”
2012 Western Washington Clean Cities Partner Accomplishment:
13.6 million gallons of petroleum displaced. Local fleets switched to electric, biodiesel, ethanol, hybrid, propane and natural gas vehicles, saving millions of gallons in foreign oil.
93,448 tons of greenhouse gases reduced. The increased use of alternative fuels and fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles has helped achieve significant reductions in regional greenhouse gas pollution.
$38 million in spending on foreign oil reduced. By not purchasing foreign oil, Clean Cities partners instead invested in local fuels and technologies, supporting local jobs and economic growth.
In a precedent-setting ruling that has national and international implications, Ontario Superior Court Justice Carole Brown has ruled that three separate lawsuits against the Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals can proceed to trial even though the plaintiffs are from another country.
“As a result of this ruling, Canadian mining corporations can no longer hide behind their legal corporate structure to abdicate responsibility for human rights abuses that take place at foreign mines under their control at various locations throughout the world,” said Murray Klippenstein, of Toronto’s Klippensteins, Barristers & Solicitors, who’s representing 13 Maya Qeqchi from El Estor, Izabal, Guatemala.
The Maya Qeqchi turned to Canada’s court system over three separate injustices that were carried out by employees of the Fenix Mining Project, a nickel mine that was acquired by HudBay Minerals after the company purchased Skye Resources in 2008.
In January 2007, Skye Resources (subsequently renamed HMI Nickel) requested the eviction of five Maya Qeqchi communities from their ancestral lands.
At the time, the Fenix project was subject to land claims by the local communities, who maintained that Guatemala breached international law by approving the mining concession because it failed to carry out prior consultations.
“With the force of the army and police”, observes Rights Action, “company workers took chainsaws and torches to people’s homes, while women and children stood by. The mining company claimed that they maintained ‘a peaceful atmosphere during this action.’”
As if it wasn’t enough to displace the Maya Qeqchi families, on January 17, 2007, 11 women from the community of Lote Ocho were gang raped by the police, military and security personnel.
In their lawsuit against Hudbay, the women are seeking $1 million each in compensation for the pain and suffering they’ve endured, in addition to another $4 million in punitive damages because of the “extreme and heinous nature of the attacks against them.”
The second lawsuit against Hudbay is led by Angelica Choc, the widow of Adolfo Ich Chaman. A respected community leader, a school teacher and father, Adolfo was brutally murdered by the company’s mine security. Their son, José, who witnessed the killing, says the security guards hacked at Adolfo with a machete before shooting him in the head. Adolfo was trying to help restore calm in the region after hearing gunshots from the direction of the company’s buildings.
A third lawsuit was filed for German Chub, a young father who was shot at close range by the head of the security personnel the very same day that Adolfo was murdered. As a result of the injuries that he sustained, German Chub was paralyzed and no longer has use of his right lung.
“There will now be a trial regarding the abuses that were committed in Guatemala, and this trial will be in a courtroom in Canada, a few blocks from Hudbay’s headquarters, exactly where it belongs,” said Mr. Klippenstein. “We would never tolerate these abuses in Canada, and Canadian companies should not be able to take advantage of broken-down or extremely weak legal systems in other countries to get away with them there.”
“Today is a great day for me and all others who brought this lawsuit,” said Angelica Choc. “It means everything to us that we can now stand up to Hudbay in Canadian courts to seek justice for what happened to us.”
“This judgment should be a wake-up call for Canadian mining companies,” added Cory Wanless, co-counsel for the Mayas along with Mr. Klippenstein. “It is the first time that a Canadian court has ruled that a claim can be made against a Canadian parent corporation for negligently failing to prevent human rights abuses at its foreign mining project. We fully expect that more claims like this one will be brought against Canadian mining companies until these kinds of abuses stop.”
Those wondering what public school teachers do all day are going to get an answer.
Tucked deep in Washington’s new two-year budget is money for a study to find out what a “typical work day” looks like for thousands of teachers toiling away in the state’s 295 school districts.
Lawmakers specifically want “an estimate of the percent of a teacher’s typical day that is spent on teaching-related duties and the percentage of the teacher’s day that is spent on duties that are not directly related to teaching.”
Researchers there intend to use much of the next school year to collect details of teachers’ daily lives in small, medium and large schools in all corners of the state.
Using logs, surveys, interviews or other means, they will try to reveal how teachers pass the hours, a subject of much debate in an unending political inquest of public education.
“It’s an old question that no one has ever answered with data,” said Linda Schactler, director of public affairs for the Ellensburg-based university. “We’ve answered it with anecdotes. We think we know but we haven’t actually done the research.”
It’s hard to not sit through a legislative hearing on the quality of Washington schools without a champion of education reform insisting the system is failing students because teachers are not spending enough time teaching.
This is followed by a rebuttal from a teacher-type saying they can’t spend more time teaching because it is tied up on tasks required by the state like compiling reports and conducting tests.
Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, proposed the study by the university because he was tired of listening to the back-and-forth in front of the House Education Committee on which he serves.
While he thinks teachers are weighted down by state-imposed chores, he wanted to find out if it’s actually true.
“I got frustrated at the unfunded mandates,” he said. “During the session there were some folks trying to add requirements to the teacher’s work day. I said they’re full.”
He and two teachers who serve on the House panel — Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, and Rep. Steve Berquist, D-Renton, — are going to help design the study.
A full report is due in December. However, lawmakers are likely to give them until the end of the school year in order to track time expended for testing, which happens in the spring.
McCoy hopes the final product will bring clarity to one part of the conversation on education reform. But he isn’t so naïve to believe the results will quell the debate on how teachers spend their time in the classroom.
“You’ll still have the naysayers saying it won’t mean anything,” he said.
And the results may prove McCoy’s thinking wrong about teachers and become fodder for reformers.
“I understand that,” he said. “We have to get the information out there.”
Once lawmakers know much time teachers are teaching, they can tackle the next question of how well they teach.
Jack McNeel, Indian Country Today Media Network, July 22, 2013
The salmon once swam freely throughout the upper Columbia River, and plucking them from the waters represented an opportunity to benefit all the Colville Tribes by sharing the bounty.
“What a beautiful experience it was,” said Mel Taulou, an elder of the Colville Confederated Tribes, at a recent ceremony celebrating the first fish to be taken from the Chief Joseph Hatchery. He and others spoke of the sharing associated with fishing, of the exchange of fishing gear if someone was lacking something, and of sharing their catch with elders, friends and family.
“You gave freely. Everybody did. That’s the way it was,” said tribal member and longtime fisherman Lionel Orr, who sang in honor of the first fish as it was lifted from the river in the First Salmon ceremony. “That’s the way I was taught by the older fishermen.”
The salmon was then filleted, smoked, and later everyone present at the pre-opening ceremony was offered a taste of the first salmon.
About 800 people gathered near Chief Joseph Dam for the grand opening of the brand new Chief Joseph Hatchery on a rainy, overcast June 20. The water did not dampen their enthusiasm. Rather, since rain fills the rivers for salmon and is the lifeblood of the region, it was welcomed on this day in particular.
Although the day included a ribbon cutting and other opening celebrations, it was also an opportunity to honor the fishermen and their contributions to keeping this part of tribal custom alive and in passing their knowledge on to younger tribal members. The crowd gathered around tables under a huge tent to listen as representatives from tribal, state and federal agencies spoke about the history leading to this moment and what the hatchery would mean for the future.
The celebration concluded with tours of the hatchery, a full lunch featuring salmon, and the traditional ribbon cutting signifying the opening of the hatchery and completion of a promise made seven decades earlier.
Colville Tribal Chairman John Sirois, center, cuts the ribbon for the long-awaited Chief Joseph Hatchery on the Colville Reservation, June 20, 2013. He is flanked by representatives of partner groups from the federal and tribal governments. (Photo: Jack McNeel)
The salmon’s freedom was first cut off by a series of dams that impeded their return to the spawning grounds. In the 1930s a number of dams throughout the Columbia basin were being planned, and tribes in the region were bracing themselves for the disastrous effect these constructs would have on fish runs and thus on tribal members’ lives. Four hatcheries were promised to help mitigate those effects on the Entiat, Wenatchee, Methow and Okanogan watersheds.
“Three of the four hatcheries were constructed between 1939 and 1942,” said Jim Brown, with the Washington Department of Fisheries and Game. Then came World War II. The hatchery plans were put on hold. Chief Joseph Hatchery, the fourth, had to wait. The wait is now over.
“Today’s event gives us the chance to celebrate the fulfillment of the 70-year old commitment,” Brown said at the opening. “Chief Joseph Hatchery is a tremendous accomplishment.”
The hatchery sits on 15 acres of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers property within the Colville Indian Reservation. It will be managed by the Colville Tribes under guidelines recommended by scientists as requested by Congress. It includes 40 raceways, each measuring 10 feet by 40 feet, plus three rearing ponds and three acclimation ponds, some onsite and some offsite.
“This is a modern hatchery built to the highest modern standards of science,” said Lorri Bodi of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). “It represents 30 years or more of progress in trying to meet the commitments by the federal government to tribes and the region. It represents a major step in our efforts to get fish back into the rivers of the Northwest.”
It was a collaborative effort involving the Colville Tribe, BPA, US Army Corps of Engineers, several Public Utility Districts and the NW Power & ‘Conservation Council. Funding came from the BPA and area public utility districts, Bodi said.
The $50 million hatchery will annually release up to 2.9 million chinook salmon.
“We’re going to see natural spawning of fall and summer chinook in the Okanogan River and we’re going to see spring chinook in the Okanogan basin for the first time in many, many years,” said Tom Karier from the Northwest Power & Conservation Council.
“It’s been a historic day,” said Tribal Chairman John Sirois, who was the day’s emcee. “It really touched my heart hearing stories from our elders about our history. We are salmon people. The salmon sacrifice for us in a sacred way. We also make that sacred commitment to them, to provide their water. I am so grateful, thankful and humbled by all the work that went into making this hatchery possible.”
Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels came under fire last week when The Associated Press uncovered a slew of emails relating to the use of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States in Indiana schools.
In the 2010 emails, Daniels, who is now president of Purdue University, calls the book a “truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page.”
Zinn passed away January 27, 2010, just before the email exchange occurred between Daniels and top state education officials on February 9.
“Can someone assure me that it is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history?” asks Daniels in the emails.
What is it that Daniels has against the book? It doesn’t teach what is in grade school textbooks. Zinn concentrates on the genocide perpetrated by Christopher Columbus against Indigenous Peoples, and who presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln really were, among other topics.
Democracy Now! Spoke to Zinn in May 2009 when he was launching A Young People’s History of the United States and had him answer a question he is frequently asked about the book: “Is it right to be so critical of the government’s policies, of the traditional heroes of this country?”
“Should we tell kids that Columbus, whom they have been told was a great hero, that he mutilated Indians and kidnapped them and killed them in pursuit of gold. Should we tell people that Theodore Roosevelt, who is held up as one of our great presidents, was really a war monger who loved military exploits and who congratulated an American general who committed a massacre in the Phillipines,” Zinn responsed. “Should we tell young people that? My answer is, we should be honest with young people, we should not deceive them. We should be honest about the history of our country. We should not only be taking down the traditional heroes like Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt but we should be giving young people an alternate set of heroes.”
Daniels has defended himself saying he meant for the book to not be taught in K-12 schools, but some are calling his actions censorship and an attack on academic freedom.
Among them are the American Historical Association, which said it “would consider any governor’s action that interfered with an individual teacher’s reading assignments to be inappropriate and a violation of academic freedom.”
In an email response to The Associated Press, Daniels wrote: “We must not falsely teach American history in our schools. We have a law requiring state textbook oversight to guard against frauds like Zinn, and it was encouraging to find that no Hoosier school district had inflicted his book on its students.”
In response to the emails coming to light, more than 60 Purdue faculty members signed an open letter to Daniels who are “troubled by the fact that you continue to express these views today, especially since you are now speaking as the chief representative of Purdue University, with the responsibility to embody the best of academic inquiry and exchange.”
The faculty members go on to explain why Zinn should not be deemed a “fraud” like Daniels called him including having been praised in the past by numerous people including Eric Foner, the Dewitt Clinton Professor of history at Columbia University and a former president of the American Historical Association. Read their full letter here.
“I have long been struck by how many excellent students of history first had their passion for the past sparked by reading Howard Zinn,” Foner said February 22, 2010 in an article from The Nation.
The Board of Trustees at Purdue, the second largest university in Indiana, is standing behind Daniels and called the Associated Press article “misleading.” Others say that board is one Daniels himself appointed when he was governor, and are not surprised.
The Department of Agriculture is being sued for issuing permits to horse slaughtering plants in New Mexico and Iowa.
The Obama administration opposes horse slaughtering. But the USDA was forced to issue two permits because an appropriations rider that barred the inspection of such plants lapsed.
Valley Meat Co. in New Mexico received one of the permits. The plant expects to open August 5 even though it has been denied a wastewater permit by the state
Animals rights groups and a new organization founded by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and actor Robert Redford hope to block the opening with their lawsuit in federal court. A hearing on a temporary restraining order is set for August 2.
At least three tribes, including one in New Mexico, have called on the USDA to issue permits for horse slaughtering plants.
