Pipeline approval will spark big battle

By Albert Bender, lohud.com

At a recent Native American conference held in Nashville, celebrated American Indian leader Onondaga wisdomkeeper Oren Lyons said, “If Obama approves the pipeline, this is the deal breaker.” He was referring, of course, to the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Just in the past few days, President Obama in a speech on climate change stated that the pipeline would not be approved if it resulted in more “carbon pollution.” This statement is being interpreted in different ways. For those who oppose the pipeline, Obama is setting the stage for rejection of Keystone; for those who favor the pipeline, he is hinting at approval. But one thing is certain: If Obama follows the logic of his statements, the pipeline is “dead in the water.”

The pipeline, by scientific analysis, would result in massively more “carbon pollution”; in fact, 600 parts per million CO2. The maximum safe limit for the atmosphere is 350 parts per million.

Another thing is certain, Native Americans are preparing in case Obama approves the heinous project: Native communities are set for massive civil disobedience to stop the pipeline from crossing the Northern Plains. Indian people are in special training called the “Moccasins on the Ground Tour of Resistance” from South Dakota to Oklahoma.

For Native people, the pipeline means death. The Keystone oil is extracted from tar sands in Canada. Because of the pipeline, Native people there have been exposed to contaminated water, and arsenic has been found in moose meat, a staple of their diet. In Alberta, extraction of tar sands oil already has been linked to a 30 percent elevated rate in rare cancers and rare autoimmune disorders. This pipeline means genocide!

In Rapid City, S.D., representatives of 11 Native American nations angrily stormed out of a May meeting with federal government officials in protest of the pipeline. Tribal officials refused to meet with low-level government representatives. Oglala Sioux President Bryan Brewer said, “We will only talk with President Obama.”

Also, the pipeline would run through sacred sites and traditional burial grounds, and pollute the Oglala Aquifer, which provides water to millions of citizens in the Midwest, including non-Indians.

Indian people are prepared to risk their lives by standing in front of the bulldozers, but this is not just a fight for Native people; it’s a fight for all Americans. Environmentalists, land owners and ranchers are joining with Indian nations in opposition to this abominable project.

At a recent press conference, the tribes said “Tar sands pipelines will not pass through our collective territories under any conditions or circumstances.” This is a life-and-death struggle for Native Americans.

Night Out Against Crime returns to Arlington, Marysville, Tulalip

Kirk Boxleitner, Arlington Times

The National Night Out Against Crime is returning to the Arlington, Marysville and Tulalip communities on Tuesday, Aug. 7.

Arlington’s Night Out Against Crime will run from 5-7 p.m. in a new venue, in the grassy fields just east of the Stillaguamish Athletic Club on 172nd Street NE, which organizers hope will afford the popular annual event enough room to breathe.

“Last year we held it in the Food Pavilion parking lot, which was great, but we wanted a little more space,” said Paul Ellis, assistant to the Arlington City Administrator for capital projects. “It was also important that we site it near the Smokey Point area.”

Last year’s Night Out Against Crime in Arlington drew an estimated 400 attendees, with the local clubs of Rotary cooking up hot dogs and Kiwanis providing popcorn. According to Ellis, this year’s event includes the Arlington School District and the Cascade Valley Hospital and Clinics, and promises the return of not only the Arlington Police and Fire departments — complete with fire engines, medic units and a K-9 — but also that of Snohomish County Parks Rangers and personnel from the Department of Emergency Management.

“We’ll see if we can’t get a ‘Touch a Truck’ going with some of the heavy equipment,” Ellis said. “What we really try to address is personal safety, including pedestrians and bicyclists, and home preparedness for events such as disasters, by helping people build their own preparedness kits for their houses and cars.”

Ellis encouraged those with questions to email him at pellis@arlingtonwa.gov.

The Marysville and Tulalip communities share their Night Out Against Crime, alternating between Comeford Park in Marysville and the Tulalip Amphitheatre as its locations, and this year will see the event returning to the Tulalip Amphitheatre from 6 -8 p.m., with a theme of “Give Crime and Drugs a Going-Away Party.”

“Crime and drugs are in both of our communities, Marysville and Tulalip, and this is a great chance for community members to come together and say that we’re not going to tolerate these behaviors,” said Rochelle James of the Tulalip Tribes’ Police Services. “We’re going to work together to gather information and obtain support from people who share our same values and the belief that ‘enough is enough.'”

James explained that this year’s Night Out Against Crime in Tulalip features an even heavier emphasis on drugs than usual, due to the number of people in the Marysville and Tulalip communities who have been personally impacted by drug abuse.

“It’s the one opportunity a year where our communities can get together and openly talk about the issue,” James said. “More importantly, beyond talking about it, we’ll have agencies, departments and community groups here with the resources for families to help rectify these problems, or at least understand them better.”

In addition to the Marysville and Tulalip Tribal emergency management and police departments, Snohomish County Emergency Management and Search and Rescue will also be on hand, along with Domestic Violence Services of Snohomish County, Families and Friends of Violent Crime Victims, the Marysville Fire District and a host of other services from the Tulalip Tribes.

“K-9 units are really popular,” James said. “Special forces for the police departments usually show their equipment, kids like getting in the police cars and taking pictures, and of course, there are usually little treats from each of the vendors.”

James can be reached by phone at 360-716-5945 or via email at rochellejames@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov for more information.

9 rescued off Port Townsend after canoe capsizes

Chris Tucker/Peninsula Daily News filesPullers from the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe, front, paddle their canoe toward a ceremonial landing Monday in Neah Bay. Eighty-six canoes from across the Pacific Northwest joined in the 2010 Tribal Canoe Journey. Nine people were rescued Monday off Port Townsend after their canoe overturned in Salish Sea waters during the annual journey.
Chris Tucker/Peninsula Daily News files
Pullers from the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe, front, paddle their canoe toward a ceremonial landing Monday in Neah Bay. Eighty-six canoes from across the Pacific Northwest joined in the 2010 Tribal Canoe Journey. Nine people were rescued Monday off Port Townsend after their canoe overturned in Salish Sea waters during the annual journey.

Source: Associated Press

SEATTLE — Nine people were rescued Monday off Port Townsend after their canoe overturned in Salish Sea waters during the annual Intertribal Canoe Journey.

The U.S. Coast Guard says there were no serious injuries. Some of them experienced mild hypothermic conditions after being in the frigid waters.

The Coast Guard says the first calls to 911 came in around 7:30 Monday, apparently from someone in the water. The capsized canoe was also spotted by a passing cargo ship that saw people waving their arms.

The Coast Guard deployed a helicopter and a 45-foot response boat that reached the group in the water.

For more than two decades, Native American tribes in Washington state, Alaska and British Columbia embark on a canoe journey to honor their culture in the region, visiting different coastal towns.

Baby Owls Rescued! Fluff & Puff Now Chowing on Crickets, Mice and Chick

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

The tiny creatures had been abandoned and left to their nest as the wildfire raged closer in the Sierra National Forest in mid-June.

Too young to fly, two newborn Western screech owls could not escape the flames on their own. But no one knew they were there until the tree they were hiding in was felled to form part of the fire control line. The birds tumbled out of their nest onto a roadway, the U.S. Forest Service reported in a July 18 blog entry.

Two firefighters saw them, scooped them up and summoned assistance, which brought Anae Otto, a wildlife biologist for the Sierra National Forest’s Bass Lake Ranger District.

“My heart was racing when I received the report of owls on the ground in the Carstens Fire,” Otto told the forest service after making the 2.5-hour drive to retrieve the birds. “I was concerned because there were no details as to how old they were, how long they had been exposed, etc. I was relieved to find the owlets alive and in fair condition. So much of my daily work deals with habitat protection. It was very rewarding to provide direct assistance to an animal in need.”

Otto estimated they were between two and three weeks old. She wrapped them in a towel and brought them home overnight, the forest service said, then called for reinforcements the next day. That brought in wildlife rehab specialist Terri Williams, a volunteer for the Fresno Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Service.

Now the two owls, dubbed Puff and Fluff, are being cared for until they can fly. At last report they were chowing down daily on 25 crickets, two mice and a chick.

It was a heartwarming moment in a wildfire season fraught with tragedy at the death of 19 firefighters in Arizona in June. (Related: Hero Firefighters Named, Mourned, in Arizona)

The Western screech owl, Megascops kennicottii, is plentiful over the western half of Turtle Island, although, as with their brethren the spotted owl, their habitat has been encroached upon by the barred owl as well as eroded by logging and development. (Related: Pot-Farm Raticide May Be Killing Spotted Owls; Hoopa Tribe Investigates)

Puff and Fluff will grow to be 7½ to 10 inches long, according to information on the species from the Arizona Game and Fish Department. They will weigh between four and seven ounces, and their wingspan will reach 21 inches or so, the department said.

The Carstens fire raged for 10 days between June 16 and June 26, according to CalFire, the website for California fire incidents. It burned 1,708 acres in total, including acreage in the Sierra National Forest.

Read the full story of Puff and Fluff’s rescue and recovery, Life’s a Hoot for Owlets Saved from Wildfire, at the U.S. Forest Service blog.

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/07/21/firefighters-rescue-baby-owls-fluff-and-puff-now-chowing-down-crickets-150521

Self-Help Shamster Behind Sweat-Lodge Homicides Released From Prison

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

James Arthur Ray, the purported self-help guru who went to jail in 2011 for negligent homicide after three people died in his sweat lodge, is out on parole.

The 55-year-old author and entrepreneur left state prison near Phoenix on Friday July 12, the Associated Press reported. Though he is not barred from conducting self-help seminars or sweat lodge ceremonies, AP said, “his brother said Ray has no immediate plans to resurrect his business,” though he left it open by maintaining that the tragedy was not Ray’s fault.

The deaths occurred after things went awry about halfway through a two-hour ceremony back in 2009. The incident killed a 38-year-old and a 40-year old man, injured 18 and led to the death of a third man in the hospital a week later, AP recounted.

Ray went to trial in 2012 and was sentenced to two years—concurrent sentences for each of the deaths. He was required to fulfill at least 85 percent of the term and was ordered to pay $57,000 in restitution to the victims’ families, ICTMN reported upon his sentencing. AP said that his release means he has served that amount of time.

The tragedy resonated deeply in Indian country, not least of all because the ceremony bore little if any resemblance to an actual sweat lodge ceremony.

“It was a bastardized version of a sacred ceremony sold by a multimillionaire who charged people $9,695 a pop for his ‘Spiritual Warrior’ retreat in Sedona, Ariz.,” wrote ICTMN’s now West Coast Editor Valerie Taliman at the time in an award-winning opinion piece.

Related: Selling the Sacred

Ray’s brother did not elaborate on whether his brother would try to resume the sweat lodge practice.

“At this point, he wants to get out and hide out, and start putting his life back together, which has been completely turned upside down,” Ray’s brother, who was not named, told AP just before the release. “I say that with all due respect because I know a lot of people’s lives have been turned upside down because of this unfortunate incident.”

Dozens of people were in the sweat lodge that day outside Sedona, Arizona, the culmination of a five-day Spiritual Warrior retreat, AP said. The sweat lodge’s advertised “hellacious hot” temperatures were supposed to generate breakthroughs.

“The man responsible, self-help spiritual entrepreneur James Arthur Ray, claimed the New Age retreat would absolutely ‘change your life,’ ” Taliman wrote. “It did—it took the lives of a father of three children and a healthy young woman. It also caused burns, respiratory arrest, kidney failure, loss of consciousness, and dehydration for other paying customers who were hospitalized.”

Related Stories:

Two-Years for James Arthur Ray, Is It Enough?

CNN Reports on Indian Country’s Reactions to James Arthur Ray Verdict

James Arthur Ray Found Guilty of Negligent Homicide

CNN Post on James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge Trial

James Ray Sweat Lodge Trial Begins

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/07/13/james-arthur-ray-released-prison-no-not-guy-who-killed-mlk-150407

Native American Rights Fund: Stop the Forced Removal of Baby Veronica

Suzette Brewer, Indian Country Today Media Network

Echoing the loud thunder of voices from Native communities and organizations across the U.S. and Canada in outcry over yesterday’s decision to return Veronica Brown to South Carolina, the Native American Rights Fund yesterday issued the strongest statement yet in a call to action to join the fight in protecting the girl’s right to be raised by her biological father, Dusten Brown.

“The Native American Rights Fund joins with the Brown family, the Cherokee Nation, the National Congress of American Indians, the National Indian Child Welfare Association, and many others inside and outside of Indian country who are expressing their outrage over the South Carolina Supreme Court’s imprudent order effectively granting the adoption of Veronica without due process of law or a hearing to determine what is in her best interest,” said the statement from the country’s oldest Native legal rights organization.

The Native American Rights Fund encourages all of the state attorneys general, adoption and child welfare organizations, past and present members of Congress, religious organizations, and others who submitted briefs in the case to express their concern and join with Indian country to take all necessary steps to stop the forced removal of this Indian child from her Indian father, her Indian family, and her Indian community.”

As rage over the decision began to take shape on Thursday, Native leaders, community members and legal experts were unanimous in their solidarity toward what they feel is a rubber stamp of approval from the court by taking Veronica from her home. In short, they feel that the Capobiancos “won ugly,” and have been rewarded by removing the child from a fit parent and a community in which she has thrived.

“This is Indian country’s Trayvon Martin moment; we cannot pass on this,” said a Native legal scholar in Washington, D.C., who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing litigation. “The message is clear: They are continuing to take our land, they’re taking our children, they’re taking our identity and now the courts have endorsed this whole pattern of white settler mentality.

This man and his daughter have been denied due process all the way down and he did not even get a hearing to determine what’s in his own daughter’s best interest, which in itself represents the destruction of tribes. He needs to have a fair hearing and we in Indian country support him 100 percent in retaining a child that never should have been put up for adoption in the first place.”

National native organizations and tribes have begun gathering and collaborating in mobilizing support for a case that has struck at the heart of tribal existence perhaps more so than any time since the Termination Era of the 1950s. Advocates say that the course this case has taken has forced many in Indian country from the sidelines to take a public stand and who are willing to take to the streets, if necessary.

“They don’t get it,” says A. Gay Kingman, executive director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association. “Who is thinking and representing the best interests of this child? Like many of our American Indian children in South Dakota, she is being removed from her birth father, her Indian family and her tribe. Shouldn’t the child have due process?”

Whatever shape this case takes over the coming days, grassroots activism and legal mobilization are gaining momentum by the minute.

“This is not over,” said the legal scholar. “It’s not over by a longshot.”

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/07/19/native-american-rights-fund-stop-forced-removal-baby-veronica-150489

Attacking Sovereignty: 2nd Circuit Rules to Tax Slots at Tribal Casino

Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today Media Nework

A federal appeals court has ruled that the slot machines leased by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe from non-tribal businesses can be taxed.

The ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on July 15 reversed a decision by a federal district court judge that said states and their subdivisions cannot tax property on Indian land regardless of who owns it. (Related story: Mashantucket Court Ruling Reaffirms Non-taxable Status of Reservations)

The Nation has the option of asking for a rehearing or filing a petition with the United States Supreme Court to review the appeals court ruling but no such decision has yet been made. “’We just received the decision today and continue to review it,” William L. Satti, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation’s (MPTN) Director of Public Affairs, said on July 16. “We are disappointed that the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s decision, which ruled in favor of the tribe.”

The town of Ledyard called the ruling “a precedent-setting decision in favor of state and local governments,” according to The Day. “With this decision, the town of Ledyard will be able to collect taxes that are critically important to providing government services, including those that result from being a host community for the Foxwoods casino,” said Ledyard Mayor John Rodolico. “This case was just the tip of the iceberg, and our tax revenues would have taken a huge hit if we had not persevered throughout this eight-year legal battle to achieve this victory,” he said.

The ruling notes that the town expends $652,158 annually on services to the Nation offset by around $415,900 in federal aid, leaving the town with $236,258 in non-reimbursed costs. It also notes the MPTN employs 10,000 people and has reimbursed the state more than $56 million for law enforcement services since it opened in 1992. The Nation has contributed almost $3.3 billion from slot revenues to the state and around $85 million in donations to local organizations.

Michael Willis, an attorney with the firm Hobbs, Strauss, Dean & Walker who specializes in Indian tax issues, called the 2nd Circuit ruling “very controversial” because it concerns Indian gaming activities. “I think the shocking part of the 2nd Circuit Decision is there are specific provisions in IGRA that indicate that states are not allowed to tax Indian gaming activities and in order to get around that the 2nd Circuit says owning a slot machine is not in itself a gaming activity,” Willis told Indian Country Today Media Network. “But the reality is if slot machines were not engaged in Class III gaming activity on behalf of the tribe, they’d be illegal in the State of Connecticut so, really, it’s hard to fathom how the 2nd Circuit comes up with the view that slot machines are not engaged in gaming activity. It’s absurd. It overturns what was a fairly reasoned opinion in the lower court.”

In March 2012, a federal court granted the Nation’s motion for summary judgment in complaints it had filed against the town in August 2006 and September 2008 on behalf of two vendors – New Jersey-based Atlantic City Coin & Slot Co. and WMS Gaming – who lease slot machines to the tribe for use at Foxwoods Resort Casino. The Nation had argued that imposition of the tax by the town was preempted by the federal Indian Trader Statutes and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and cited White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, which balances federal, state and tribal interests, federal district court Judge Warren W. Eginton upheld the Nation’s position and wrote in his ruling, “Indian tribes are distinct sovereign entities that are ‘distinct, independent political communities retaining their original natural rights.’” Worcester is one of the Marshall Trilogy cases from 1823 to 1832 that set the foundation for Indian law. The trilogy paradoxically asserts the sovereignty of Indian nations while denying them land rights other than occupancy. “States do not have authority to regulate Indian tribes where a state law is preempted by federal law or infringes upon the ‘right of reservation Indians to make their own laws and be ruled by them,’” Eginton said.

But the appeals court said the federal court had erred and none of MPTN’s arguments bars the town from taxing a non-tribal entity. The panel called it a “close case” but ultimately ruled in favor of the state and town of Ledyard. “[T]he tribe’s generalized interests in sovereignty and economic development are not significantly impeded by the state’s generally-applicable tax; neither are the federal interests protected in IGRA,” the ruling says. “The town has moderate economic and administrative interests at stake, and the affront to the state’s sovereignty on one hand approximates the affront to the tribe’s sovereignty on the other. The balance of equities here favors the town and state.

The town spent more than $900,000 on legal fees in the case, according to The Day. The 2nd Circuit ruling notes that the slot machines leased by the two companies combined generate $20,000 in annual property taxes.

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/07/22/attacking-sovereignty-2nd-circuit-rules-tax-slots-tribal-casino-150526

Berg sworn in as superintendent

Kirk BoxleitnerDr. Becky Berg is sworn in as superintendent of the Marysville School District by Marysville School Board President Chris Nation on July 8
Kirk Boxleitner
Dr. Becky Berg is sworn in as superintendent of the Marysville School District by Marysville School Board President Chris Nation on July 8

Kirk Boxleitner, Marysville Globe

MARYSVILLE — Dr. Becky Berg was sworn in and presided over her first Marysville School Board meeting as superintendent of the school district on Monday, July 8, and as she took the seat of her new role, she was acutely conscious of the legacy that she has to live up to.

“From where the Board and superintendent sit in the Board room, we face a wall with the names of former Board members and superintendents dating back to the early 1960s,” Berg said. “I’ve read those names, and I’m struck by those who have gone before, who have dedicated their lives and careers to public service, and more importantly to the children of the Marysville and Tulalip communities. I am humbled and challenged to take the symbolic baton from those in our past, and to help lead our fine district into the future.”

Although Berg has already interacted with members of those communities on several occasions, including the Marysville School District’s strategic leadership transitioning meeting on June 18, she remains reticent to draw more than general conclusions.

“At this point, I’ve officially been on the job just a few weeks,” Berg said. “In this short amount of time in the position, I would be remiss to make profound judgements about the community that I now call home. I will say, however, that those whom I have met have a deep commitment to children and their futures. They also have a deep local pride and great optimism about the future of Marysville and Tulalip.”

Berg shares that sense of optimism, and echoed Marysville School Board President Chris Nation’s frequent refrain that the community needs to know the district’s success stories.

“Marysville and Tulalip have so much to be proud of, and are second to none in relation to other communities and school districts,” Berg said. “We do have far to go, however, until we reach our mission of each child, every day, as well as 100 percent graduation, but there is simply no reason we cannot reach our goals. I so look forward to coming together to envision the next few years for our school district.”

Berg repeated the quote attributed to Chief Sitting Bull, “Let us put our heads to together and see what life we will make for our children.”

To that end, Berg explained that she and the Board are committed to listening to the community members, families and employees of the district, to understand its history and complexities, while still managing its day-to-day operations and preparing for the reopening of school in September. In the long term, the district is approaching the end of the Board’s four-year goals, as well as the sunsetting of the current maintenance and operations levy.

“[That levy] is vital funding for school districts such as ours,” Berg said. “We will follow the lead of our Board of Directors, as we discuss initiating the next stage of strategic planning, and consideration of renewal of our maintenance and operations levy, which our community has supported for years.”

On Monday, July 15, Berg began a week-long vacation, but far from relaxing on a beach, she’ll be working in Washington, D.C., with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a nonprofit group with 140,000 members worldwide that’s concerned with issues of learning, teaching and leading. Berg currently volunteers as the president of ASCD.

“I find this kind of working vacation so exhilarating, because when we come together from across the globe, to learn from each other and to advance the mission of success for each and every child, there is no stopping us,” Berg said. “An additional bonus from this kind of volunteer work is that I come home with new ideas and solutions that directly benefit the students of Marysville and Tulalip. I am so energized and thrilled to be a part of the Marysville School District. If anyone has ideas, or would like to meet and discuss the future of our students, just give me a call.”

Some Volcanoes ‘Scream’ at Ever-Higher Pitches until They Blow their Tops

It is not unusual for swarms of small earthquakes to precede a volcanic eruption. They can reach a point of such rapid succession that they create a signal called harmonic tremor that resembles sound made by various types of musical instruments, though at frequencies much lower than humans can hear.

By Vince Stricherz | University of Washington 07/15/2013

 

Redoubt Volcano’s active lava dome as it appeared on May 8, 2009. The volcano is in the Aleutian Range about 110 miles south-southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.Image-Chris Waythomas, Alaska Volcano Observatory
Redoubt Volcano’s active lava dome as it appeared on May 8, 2009. The volcano is in the Aleutian Range about 110 miles south-southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.Image-Chris Waythomas, Alaska Volcano Observatory

A new analysis of an eruption sequence at Alaska’s Redoubt Volcano in March 2009 shows that the harmonic tremor glided to substantially higher frequencies and then stopped abruptly just before six of the eruptions, five of them coming in succession.

“The frequency of this tremor is unusually high for a volcano, and it’s not easily explained by many of the accepted theories,” said Alicia Hotovec-Ellis, a University of Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences.

Documenting the activity gives clues to a volcano’s pressurization right before an explosion. That could help refine models and allow scientists to better understand what happens during eruptive cycles in volcanoes like Redoubt, she said.

The source of the earthquakes and harmonic tremor isn’t known precisely. Some volcanoes emit sound when magma – a mixture of molten rock, suspended solids and gas bubbles – resonates as it pushes up through thin cracks in the Earth’s crust.

But Hotovec-Ellis believes in this case the earthquakes and harmonic tremor happen as magma is forced through a narrow conduit under great pressure into the heart of the mountain. The thick magma sticks to the rock surface inside the conduit until the pressure is enough to move it higher, where it sticks until the pressure moves it again.

Each of these sudden movements results in a small earthquake, ranging in magnitude from about 0.5 to 1.5, she said. As the pressure builds, the quakes get smaller and happen in such rapid succession that they blend into a continuous harmonic tremor.

“Because there’s less time between each earthquake, there’s not enough time to build up enough pressure for a bigger one,” Hotovec-Ellis said. “After the frequency glides up to a ridiculously high frequency, it pauses and then it explodes.”

She is the lead author of a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research that describes the research. Co-authors are John Vidale of the UW and Stephanie Prejean and Joan Gomberg of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Hotovec-Ellis is a co-author of a second paper, published online July 14 in Nature Geoscience, that introduces a new “frictional faulting” model as a tool to evaluate the tremor mechanism observed at Redoubt in 2009. The lead author of that paper is Ksenia Dmitrieva of Stanford University, and other co-authors are Prejean and Eric Dunham of Stanford.

The pause in the harmonic tremor frequency increase just before the volcanic explosion is the main focus of the Nature Geoscience paper. “We think the pause is when even the earthquakes can’t keep up anymore and the two sides of the fault slide smoothly against each other,” Hotovec-Ellis said.

She documented the rising tremor frequency, starting at about 1 hertz (or cycle per second) and gliding upward to about 30 hertz. In humans, the audible frequency range starts at about 20 hertz, but a person lying on the ground directly above the magma conduit might be able to hear the harmonic tremor when it reaches its highest point (it is not an activity she would advise, since the tremor is closely followed by an explosion).

Scientists at the USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory have dubbed the highest-frequency harmonic tremor at Redoubt Volcano “the screams” because they reach such high pitch compared with a 1-to-5 hertz starting point. Hotovec-Ellis created two recordings of the seismic activity. A 10-second recording covers about 10 minutes of seismic sound and harmonic tremor, sped up 60 times. Aone-minute recording condenses about an hour of activity that includes more than 1,600 small earthquakes that preceded the first explosion with harmonic tremor.

Upward-gliding tremor immediately before a volcanic explosion also has been documented at the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica and Soufrière Hills volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

“Redoubt is unique in that it is much clearer that that is what’s going on,” Hotovec-Ellis said. “I think the next step is understanding why the stresses are so high.”

The work was funded in part by the USGS and the National Science Foundation.

Source: University of Washington

Oregon Considers Tuition-Free Program for College Students

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

As the student-debt crisis looms, Oregon is considering a solution of its own, a plan called “Pay it Forward, Pay it Back.”

The plan would allow students to attend state schools without taking out any loans or paying anything up front, as long as they agree to pay up to three percent of their future salaries into a fund annually for 24 years.

“We have to get way out of the box if we’re going to get serious about getting young people into college and out of college without burdening them with a lifetime of debt,” Mark Hass, a Democratic state senator from Beaverton, Oregon, told the Wall Street Journal.

Hass championed a bill that creates a study committee charged with created the pilot program, which was passed unanimously in the state’s Senate on July 8 and had already gained House approval.

The legislature will now decide in 2015 whether to implement the pilot program or not.

According to the Journal, the idea came from the Economic Opportunity Institute, a nonpartisan group out of Washington state. Oregon is the first to take action on the idea.

“If it’s done correctly it’s essentially creating a social insurance vehicle for enabling access to higher education,” John Burbank, the institute’s executive director said.

The plan comes at a pivotal time. Public funding for higher education has plunged, tuitions are high, and total student-loan debt in the United States is more than copy trillion. And, on July 1, interest rates on government tuition loans doubled to 6.8 percent because the Senate didn’t block the increase.

Oregon has 10 federally recognized tribes and according to the 2012 Census, an American Indian population of 1.8 percent.

 

Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/07/09/oregon-considers-tuition-free-program-college-students-150345