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The Plight of the Honeybee—and How You Can Help

Darla Antoine, Indian Country Today Media Network

Honeybees are holy. They are matriarchal powerhouses, spiritual catalysts . . . and they’re dropping like flies.

It’s a phenomenon that’s become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. While its causes are contested and debated, it’s largely agreed that the bees are dying from some sort of a combination of exposure to pesticides (in the field and in their hive), and of exposure to pathogens and viruses. All of which may potentially be caused, and prevented, by commercial beekeeping practices. This is a big deal because it’s estimated that we rely on bees for up to 40 percent of our food—bees are the pollinators that make our food happen!

It’s been attributed to Einstein, but someone once said that if the honey bee goes extinct, we humans will follow four years later.

FOUR years later.

So what can you do? Well you can buy your honey locally for starters. Big operation beekeepers often harvest all of the honey in their hives and give the bees high fructose corn syrup to live off of during the winter. They also buy pre-fabricated honeycombs to speed the honey-making process up and to make the slats of honey produce more uniformly. The honeycomb is where the Queen bee lays her eggs. There are generally two sizes of honeycomb in a hive: large and small. These different sizes create different kinds of bees, which lends biodiversity to the hive, creating a healthier, stronger, hive. For example: the smaller honeycombs create bees that are disease tolerant, while the larger honeycombs create bees that are tolerant to the cold. That means that if there is a sudden cold snap, some of the disease-resistant bees might die, but there would be plenty of cold-resistant bees left to keep the hive going and to help regenerate it. And vice versa.

The problem in most commercial operations is that they slip in pre-fabricated honeycombs to save time and to get the bees producing honey faster. These combs are also reusable and disposable—easier and cleaner to work with. However, these combs are also only come in one size: large. That means large commercial productions for honey have a lot of cold-resistant bees and not many disease-resistant ones, which may be one reason so many honeybees have died in the last few years. This then leads commercial beekeepers to use antibiotics and pesticides in their hives— which is bad for the bees and bad for us when we ingest their honey or use the beeswax.

Another bonus to buying your honey locally: the honey will be infused with local pollens (from the pollen-collecting process) and over time this exposure to local pollens will help reduce or eliminate your seasonal allergies.

What else can you do to help the bees out? Become a beekeeper! It’s really pretty simple and inexpensive to get into beekeeping. I recommend finding a local beekeeper and asking her for some tips on getting started. You can also check out area beekeeping organizations for classes on beekeeping and other sources for getting everything you need to get started. You can also check out websites like BackYardHive.com Also be sure to check with your city or county ordinances—sometimes you can get a property tax break for having a hive on your land.

If you’re not a beekeeper, but still want to help the little beauties out, plant a diverse selection of flowers in your garden to help attract bees and consider not using chemical applications on your plants and soil. The bees will thank you for it.

Darla Antoine on a recent visit to Washington State.

Darla Antoine is an enrolled member of the Okanagan Indian Band in British Columbia and grew up in Eastern Washington State. For three years, she worked as a newspaper reporter in the Midwest, reporting on issues relevant to the Native and Hispanic communities, and most recently served as a producer for Native America Calling. In 2011, she moved to Costa Rica, where she currently lives with her husband and their infant son. She lives on an organic and sustainable farm in the “cloud forest”—the highlands of Costa Rica, 9,000 feet above sea level. Due to the high elevation, the conditions for farming and gardening are similar to that of the Pacific Northwest—cold and rainy for most of the year with a short growing season. Antoine has an herb garden, green house, a bee hive, cows, a goat, and two trout ponds stocked with hundreds of rainbow trout.

Biologists want island for salmon habitat; farmers worry about livelihoods

Dan Bates / The HeraldA bald eagle prepares to leave its perch on Smith Island near I-5 and the Snohomish River in January. — Dan Bates / The Herald
A bald eagle prepares to leave its perch on Smith Island near I-5 and the Snohomish River in January.

Noah Haglund, The Herald

EVERETT — Biologists see Snohomish County’s Smith Island project as their best chance to revive threatened chinook salmon in the Puget Sound basin.

Others consider it a threat to their livelihood.

The project is a massive undertaking to breach an old 1930s dike along Union Slough north of Everett and build new dikes farther from the water. By flooding more than 300 acres, the county hopes to bring back some of the salmon habitat converted to farmland after settlers arrived here in the 1800s.

“The Snohomish River basin is the most important chinook-producing river in the Puget Sound area, second only to the Skagit River system,” County Councilman Dave Somers said. “Rebuilding the Snohomish River is a very top priority for the entire Puget Sound.”

By sheer size, the Smith Island proposal is the second largest estuary-restoration project in the region after the 750-acre Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in the south Puget Sound.

It will come at a price: $18 million, most of it from grants. The total includes $2 million from the city of Everett.

That’s an awful lot to pay, some argue, for a project estimated to restore 900 or so spawning adult chinook per year to the Snohomish River and its tributaries.

There’s more to the cost than what the county will pay. A neighboring lumber mill and tree farm worry that resulting changes to the estuary could put them out of business. At a minimum, they want to see the county conduct more thorough studies.

There’s also a vocal contingent of farmers dead-set against what they view as needless destruction of what is now agricultural land. State law, they correctly point out, requires the county to protect farmland, even as federal law often spells out conflicting steps to protect salmon.

You can expect to hear more about Smith Island in the coming months — and beyond. After years of study, the county on June 10 issued a final environmental impact statement. That’s a precursor to seeking permits.

Balancing the competing needs of farmers and fish is one of the trickiest feats governments in Western Washington are asked to perform. It’s why Snohomish County convened the nonpartisan Sustainable Lands Strategy three years ago to seek equilibrium.

In Snohomish County government, it’s easy to find leaders on both sides of the fish-farmer teeter-totter.

Somers, who worked as a fisheries biologist for the Tulalip tribes before joining the County Council, said there’s solid science behind the Smith Island project and its benefits for salmon.

The county arrived at this point after more than a decade of study, he said. Nobody was forced from the land.

“We bought the land from a willing seller,” he said. “We have not condemned any land.”

Councilman John Koster, a former dairy farmer, is staunchly opposed because once saltwater floods the ground, it will become unfarmable.

“The bottom line for me is it’s taking out in excess of 300 acres of farm ground when we have people looking to farm and (it flies) in the face of our mandate to conserve farm ground,” he said.

While opposed to the project, Koster can’t see any way for the county to back out. To sell the land, the county would have to repay grants used for the purchase years ago.

“This is a freight train running down the track and I don’t know that it’s even possible to stop it,” Koster said.

The fate of the Smith Island project, from here on, won’t necessarily rest with the County Council.

With a final environmental impact statement issued, people can ask Snohomish County to consider any unanswered concerns.

The county must submit a shoreline development permit, among others, before breaching dikes or any construction. That permit can be appealed after it’s issued, likely late this year. The appeal would go to a state hearings board.

Smith Island sits between Union Slough to the east and the main stem of the Snohomish River to the west.

The county project involves the part of the island east of I-5 and north of Everett’s sewage treatment plant.

Buse Timber, on the west side of I-5, is one of the businesses that could be affected. Originally founded in 1946, Buse has about 70 workers and is now employee-owned.

“We’re not opposed to the project, we just need some assurance,” said Mark Hecker, Buse’s recently retired president and a former commissioner with the local diking district.

The company has two concerns: being protected from floodwaters and being able to use Union Slough to float logs to the mill.

“We’ve never had any flooding as long as those dikes have been there,” Hecker said. “So they’re pretty strong.”

Buse wants the county to make commitments about dredging the slough if the new dike system causes it to silt up.

“That channel is pretty critical for us,” Hecker said. “If that were shut off, it would seriously impact whether we could run or not.”

Another nearby business facing potential effects is Hima Nursery, an 80-acre organic farm on the east side of I-5. Owner Naeem Iqbal worries that tampering with the dikes would prevent his land from draining properly and allow saltwater to seep in, potentially wiping out his nursery.

On Friday, Diking District 5, which is comprised of local landowners, voted to appeal the county’s final environmental impact statement. They’re asking the county for further examination the issues business owners have raised.

“Negotiations with the county have been going on for two and a half years and some of those issues aren’t resolved yet,” attorney Peter Ojala said.

If not for the fish-habitat plans on Smith Island, some farmers would like to grow crops there.

Ken Goehrs, of Everett, represents a Mount Vernon farmer who’s had trouble finding good cropland in the Snohomish Valley.

As Goehrs sees it, the county is looking to spend millions to destroy ag land. If farmed, that same land could provide jobs for dozens of agricultural workers.

“There is not enough farmland here to start with,” he said. “It’s going to destroy farmland. It’s going to take jobs out of the valley and it’s going to take taxes out of their (the county’s) coffers.”

The Smith Island project was spawned by the 1999 Endangered Species Act listing of the chinook salmon.

To address the problem, the federal government in 2007 adopted an overall Puget Sound recovery plan, part of which addresses the Snohomish River basin.

The Smith Island property, by 2001, already had been identified the best of a dozen places in Snohomish County for re-creating salmon habitat, according to a report from the county’s Public Works Department. The other sites would have carried similar costs for realigning dikes.

Federal studies have identified two distinct populations of naturally spawning chinook salmon in the Snohomish estuary: Skykomish chinook and Snoqualmie chinook. Several environmental factors, including habitat loss, have driven those populations to about 3 to 6 percent of historical levels, respectively.

The Puget Sound Partnership, which consists of government agencies, businesses and the public, said the spot near the mouth of the Snohomish River has importance beyond those two groups of salmon.

“This project potentially benefits all 22 populations of chinook in Puget Sound, including Nisqually fish leaving Puget Sound that may use the Snohomish estuary as well,” spokeswoman Alicia Lawver said.

If completed, the Smith Island project would satisfy about a quarter of the goals for restoring salmon habitat in the Snohomish River basin.

Supermoon will rise in weekend night sky

The supermoon of 2012 rises over Entiat, Wash., in this photo by skywatcher Tim McCord snapped on May 5, 2012. (Tim McCord)

Joe Rao, Space.com

The largest full moon of 2013, a so-called “supermoon,” will light up the night sky this weekend, but there’s more to this lunar delight than meets the eye.

On Sunday, June 23, at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT), the moon will arrive at perigee — the point in its orbit its orbit bringing it closest to Earth), a distance of 221,824 miles. Now the moon typically reaches perigee once each month (and on some occasions twice), with their respective distances to Earth varying by 3 percent.

But Sunday’s lunar perigee will be the moon’s closest to Earth of 2013. And 32 minutes later, the moon will officially turn full. The close timing of the moon’s perigee and its full phase are what will bring about the biggest full moon of the year, a celestial event popularly defined by some as a “supermoon.”

You can watch a free webcast of 2013 supermoon full moon on SPACE.com on Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 June 24), courtesy of the skywatching website Slooh Space Camera.

While the exact time of the full moon theoretically lasts just a moment, that moment is imperceptible to casual observers. The moon will appear full a couple of days before and after the actual full moo most will speak of seeing the nearly full moon as “full”: the shaded strip is so narrow, and changing in apparent width so slowly, that it is hard for the naked eye to tell in a casual glance whether it’s present or on which side it is.

During Sunday’s supermoon, the moon will appear about 12.2 percent larger than it will look on Jan. 16, 2014, when it will be farthest from the Earth during its apogee.

Supermoon’s big tides
In addition, the near coincidence of Sunday’s full moon with perigee will result in a dramatically large range of high and low ocean tides. The highest tides will not, however, coincide with the perigee moon but will actually lag by up to a couple of days depending on the specific coastal location. [The Moon Revealed: 10 Surprising Facts]

For example, for New York City, high water (6.3 feet) at The Battery comes at 8:58 p.m. EDT on Sunday, or more than 12 hours after perigee. From Cape Fear, N.C., the highest tide (6.5 feet) will be attained at 9:06 p.m. EDT on Monday, while at Boston Harbor a peak tide height of 12.3 feet comes at 12:48 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, almost 2 days after the time of perigee.

Any coastal storm at sea around this time will almost certainly aggravate coastal flooding problems. Such an extreme tide is known as a perigean spring tide, the word spring being derived from the German springen, meaningto “spring up,” and is not — as is often mistaken — a reference to the spring season.

Spring tides occur when the moon is either at full or new phase. At these times the moon and sun form a line with the Earth, so their tidal effects add together (the sun exerts a little less than half the tidal force of the moon.) “Neap tides,” on the other hand, occur when the moon is at first and last quarter and works at cross-purposes with the sun. At these times tides are week.

Tidal force varies as the inverse cube of an object’s distance. We have already noted that this month the moon is 12.2 percent closer at perigee than at apogee. Therefore it will exert 42 percent more tidal force at this full moon compared to the spring tides for the full moon that will coincide with apogee next January.

Huge moon at moonrise
Usually the variation of the moon’s distance is not readily apparent to observers viewing the moon directly.

Or is it?

When the perigee moon lies close to the horizon it can appear absolutely enormous. That is when the famous “moon illusion” combines with reality to produce a truly stunning view. For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, a low-hanging moon looks incredibly large when hovering near to trees, buildings and other foreground objects. The fact that the moon will be much closer than usual this weekend will only serve to amplify this strange effect.

So a perigee moon, either rising in the east at sunset or dropping down in the west at sunrise might seem to make the moon appear so close that it almost appears that you could touch it. You can check out this out for yourself by first noting the times for moonrise and moonset for your area by going to this website of moonrise times by the U.S. Navy Oceanography Portal.

Happy moon-gazing!

U.S. Forest Service Awards Nearly $2.5M for Renewable Energy Projects

Indian Country Today Media Network

Chilkoot Indian Association, Menominee Tribal Enterprises win grants to support clean, renewable energy projects, help reduce the risk of wildfire and provide economic opportunities to their rural communities

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell today announced the award of nearly $2.5 million in grants to 10 small businesses and community groups for wood-to-energy projects that will help expand regional economies and create new jobs.

“These grants help grow new jobs, support clean energy production and improve our local environments, especially in reducing fire threats,” said Tidwell. “Communities from Massachusetts to Alaska will benefit from the program this year.”

The projects will use woody material removed from forests during projects such as wildfire prevention and beetle-killed trees, and process woody biomass in bioenergy facilities to produce green energy for heating and electricity. The awardees will use funds from the Woody Biomass Utilization Grant program to further the planning of such facilities by funding the engineering services necessary for final design, permitting and cost analysis.

In fiscal year 2012, 20 biomass grant awards from the Woody Biomass Utilization Grant program totaling approximately $3 million were made to small business and community groups across the country. This $3 million investment leveraged more than $400 million of rural development grants and loan guarantees for woody biomass facilities. The program has contributed to the treatment of more than 500,000 acres and removed and used nearly 5 million green tons of biomass at an average cost of just $66 per acre. Grantees also reported a combined 1,470 jobs created or retained as a result of the grant awards.

The program helps applicants complete the necessary design work needed to secure public or private investment for construction, and has been in effect since 2005. During this time period, more than 150 grants have been awarded to small businesses, non-profits, tribes and local state agencies to improve forest health, while creating jobs, green energy and healthy communities.

Out of the 17 applications received, the Forest Service selected 10 small businesses and community groups as grant recipients for these awards. According to the requirements, all 10 recipients provided at least 20 percent of the total project cost. Non-federal matching funds total nearly $6.3 million.

The following are the 2013 woody biomass utilization grantees:

2013 Woody Biomass Utilization Grantees

Chilkoot Indian Association, Haines, Alaska $35,000

Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Ketchikan, Alaska copy43,363

Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, Plumas County, Calif. $250,000

Calaveras Healthy Impact Products Solution, Wilseyville, Calif. copy84,405

Narragansett Regional School District, Baldwinville, Mass. $250,000

Stoltze Land and Lumber Company, Columbia Falls, Mont. $210,988

New Generation Biomass, Alamogordo, N.M. $250,000

Wisewood, Inc., Harney County, Ore. $250,000

Oregon Military Department, Salem, Ore. $250,000

Menominee Tribal Enterprises, Neopit, Wis. $250,000

The mission of the U.S. Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The agency manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than copy3 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the nation’s clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live.

Stakeholders Talk Indian Health Research

More than 350 people attend the summit at the Sanford Center in Sioux Falls to discuss American Indian health research.Credit Kealey Bultena / SDPB — More than 350 people attend the summit at the Sanford Center in Sioux Falls to discuss American Indian health research.
Credit Kealey Bultena / SDPB

KealeyBultena, South Dakota Public Broadcasting

Partners in three states are working with Native American communities to focus on health in Indian country. A federal grant worth more than $13 million establishes a collaboration to research American Indian health in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

Researchers from one dozen health and education organizations meet with members and advocates of America Indian communities. It’s a break on day two of a major health summit in Sioux Falls, and a young woman chats with fellow college students at the conference.

“I’m Courtney Rocke. I’m part of the SURE program, the summer undergraduate research experience,” Rocke says. “I’m from New Mexico; I’m Lakota and Navajo, and I’m majoring in pre-med biology.”

The University of North Dakota junior wants to be an oncologist. She’s particularly interested in cancers found in women.

“Because there’s not a lot of data right now on Native American women and cancer, and that’s a really health disparity,” Rocke says. “The average age on these reservations for Native American women is 30-45, and that’s a really big problem.”

Rocke says her culture ties her to the reservation, which is why she plans on amassing knowledge and skills in higher education to establish her practice on reservations. The future M.D. says discussions surrounding collaborative research for American Indian health inspire her, and one particular speaker unexpectedly piqued her interest.

“I never really thought about public health, but how he spoke and was like ‘We have to change public health now and IHS, and if we’re not going to change it, it’s going to stay forever and people are going to keep getting sicker. Nobody’s going to do anything about it.’ That really touched me, so now I’m looking into public health after my undergrad,” Rocke says.

The breadth of possibilities collaboration offers tribes and non-Native people is unimaginable. That’s according to educator Gene Thin Elk. He’s a Lakota man from Rosebud Sioux Tribe who says all cultures are returning to “indigeniety.” He says that may not be a real word to most people, but it is to Thin Elk.

“It’s this process of indigeniety I talk about,” Thin Elk says. “It’s that there are people actually returning back to common sense, returning back to teachings of the earth, the mother earth.”

“I think this is the time. It should have been the time a long time ago, when our first surgeons and our first MDs from Indian Country came out.” -Courtney Rocke

He says people recognize that embracing the lessons of the past is the way forward. Thin Elk presents at the conference, and his speech examines how tribal nations can be legitimate partners in research to identify health challenges and develop real solutions.

“Research is not new. They used to be able to look out and watch and observe and learn, and as the people observed and learned, to look at it and push in that direction so we can find the things that we need to find out. good, bad or indifferent, and we learn from those,” Thin Elk says.

Thin Elk says he’s been to 454 indigenous nations in the last three decades. His view is that teachings of American Indian culture can benefit people around the globe, but non-Native practices also prove helpful for Native communities. Thin Elk says that symbiosis is desirable – but not at the expense of sovereignty. He notes that protecting intellectual and physical property used in research, elements like genetic codes, blood and tissue samples, is a paramount value.

Russ Zephier from Pine Ridge is a committee member on the Oglala Sioux Tribe Research and Review Board.

“If there’s any individual, group, whatever wants to come onto the Pine Ridge reservation to do research in the health field or whatever it might be in diabetes or heart disease, whatever, they have to come through our board first to get our approval before they can do this,” Zephier says.

That means the Sioux people have standing to allow or disband research, that the committee has a right to know what studies researchers conduct, how they perform those trials, and what the experts find. Zephier says the tribes are open to more collaboration, but money is a significant hurdle in Native health care.

“They have something that they call contract health. If an individual is injured, if they can’t provide that service in Pine Ridge or any of the hospitals on the reservations, then they can send them out to Rapid City or Sioux Falls or wherever, but those funds are limited, so they go on priority stuff,” Zephier says. “If someone has real major issues, then they do it.”

Zephier says he hopes funding issues don’t stand in the way of research and discoveries in mental and physical Native health, particularly incidence of obesity and diabetes.

Native American educator Gene Thin Elk says that’s where the latest generation asserts itself. He says this segment of young people who’ve become educated in health practices possesses the resources for change which spreads up the societal hierarchy.

“We have this generation of elders and traditional healers who are saying, ‘Okay, we’re open to collaboration now and we’re more willing to do that,’ because we have those younger people who can articulate for us and watch out for those things, because they’ve been educated in the process,” Thin Elk says.

“I think this is the time. It should have been the time a long time ago, when our first surgeons and our first MDs from Indian Country came out,” Rocke says. “There’s more now, and it’s growing as time goes on. And we’re learning that everything we were told through assimilation and genocide isn’t true, that we can accomplish whatever we want.”

Pre-med student and Native American woman Courtney Rocke says the new research initiatives offer her cultures a chance at improving health community-wide. She says that’s because people are now actively working to change the situation instead of musing that somebody should.

Health systems, universities, and tribes from three states are part of the Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health. Specific projects for research in Native American health are currently working through federal approval.

Tribal students learn natural resource management skills

Gaspar Ramos, 16, watches the meter on the datasonde, a water quality measurement tool that gives information about factors such as temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen, while Jonah Black, 19, records the results on the Dickey River near LaPush. The two students receive high school science credit doing work through the North Olympic Skills Center Natural Resources program in cooperation with Quileute Natural Resources and the Quileute Tribal School.

Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Gaspar Ramos, 16, strides confidently to the edge of the Quillayute River and drops a hydrolab datasonde that measures water quality parameters into the water. The Quileute tribal member has worked with the water quality equipment enough to look like he has been doing it for years.

Ramos might one day have a job just like it if the introduction by the Quileute Natural Resources and the North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center Natural Resources program creates an interest in pursuing education needed for natural resources work. The Skills Center offers project-based field science classes and work on real-world projects in local ecosystems. The Quileute Tribe provides the jobs for the two tribal students to shadow as well as do project work.

The ideal pathway is that the next step is an internship, that provides paid education awards through AmeriCorps, followed by college or a job,” said Dan Lieberman, the coordinating teacher for the Skills Center Natural Resources, headquartered in Port Angeles.

The students spend half a day a week, outside of regular class hours, working with the tribe and the Skills Center Natural Resources program. Ramos and Jonah Black work on water quality and job skills assignments with Nicole Rasmussen, water quality biologist for the Quileute Tribe. They also are introduced to other jobs and shadow other biologists in tribal natural resources.

We’ve always had a core mission to attract tribal students to working in natural resources jobs,” said Frank Geyer, assistant director of Natural Resources for the Quileute Tribe. “We’re happy to have the Skills Center Natural Resources program as another partner in our efforts of getting tribal students out to see what jobs are available here and how it applies to their treaty rights.”

The Skills Center Natural Resource program has been working in the Forks area for less than a year, but began in Port Angeles five years ago. It now serves all five school districts in Clallam County and provides students opportunities to obtain high school and sometimes college credit by working with a variety of natural resource organizations like tribes, Olympic National Park, Olympic National Marine Sanctuary and area timber companies.

For students like Ramos, the work provides an opportunity to design their own scientific questions and methods to answer them on the job. He has been measuring the salinity levels of various spots in the Quillayute River system and making predictions based on the results. “It’s interesting. When I was little, I would always see people on the river doing experiments, so I asked them what they were doing. They told me they didn’t like sitting in the office much and that their job allowed them to be outside a lot,” Ramos said. “That sounded like a good idea to me, too.”

Layoffs, closed parks, no lottery without a budget deal

If the Legislature can’t reach a deal by Sunday, state parks would close, state workers would be laid off and the lottery would halt

Jerry Cornfield, The Herald

OLYMPIA — As legislative leaders insisted Thursday that they are nearing agreement on a new state budget, the governor’s office offered a preview of what might occur if they fail and a partial government shutdown ensues.

State parks will close, the lottery will halt, and most convicted criminals will be monitored less closely outside prison walls if Washington is forced to cease many of its operations July 1.

Those are among the hundreds of programs and services which would be halted or scaled back, according to an analysis released by the Office of Financial Management.

In all, 34 state agencies would be completely shut down and 24 others would incur a partial cessation, said Mary Alice Heuschel, chief of staff for Gov. Jay Inslee. Twenty-five agencies would continue operating because they are funded wholly or in large part from sources other than the state’s general fund.

Meanwhile, the leader of the state Senate predicted the Legislature can be done Sunday, one day before layoff notices are sent to thousands of state workers.

“We are going to finish on Sunday and there will be absolutely no shutdown of state government,” said Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina, who is a member of the Majority Coalition Caucus ruling the Senate.

Senate and House budget negotiators said Thursday they are making steady progress but are at least a day away from achieving an agreement in principle that can be written up and voted on. House Speaker Frank Chopp declined to say if he thought a budget could be passed by Sunday.

Planning for the shutdown won’t stop until the Legislature acts on a spending plan for the biennium that runs from July 1 though June 30, 2015.

Among those agencies that can expect to be shuttered include the Lottery Commission, Public Disclosure Commission and Liquor Control Board.

Washington’s largest agencies, such as the Department of Social and Health Services and Department of Corrections would curtail some activities while community colleges, universities and the court system will stay open.

Also, the Washington State Patrol and Washington State Ferries will operate because those are funded through the state transportation budget, which has been signed in law.

Only once before has the Legislature come this close to forcing a government shutdown. That occurred in 1991 when the House and Senate approved a budget early June 30 and Gov. Booth Gardner signed it shortly before midnight.

Here is a sample of what might happen:

•Most community supervision of ex-convicts would be halted;

Prisons would not accept new inmates;

Offenders in local or tribal jails for violating probation as of June 30 would be released;

Licensing and regulation of real estate brokers, home inspectors, barbers, cosmetologists and many other professions would be suspended;

The State Patrol would halt involvement in Snohomish County Auto Theft Task Force;

No lottery tickets would be sold or drawings conducted;

Horse racing at Emerald Downs would be halted;

State parks would be closed and camping reservations for early July canceled.

Sovereignty Summer to ‘increase tension’ over rights during summer of action

Members of the Haisla First Nation march in Kitimat, B.C. as part of a rally in support of the Idle No More movement in 2012. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Robin Rowland

Michael Woods, Canada.com

Indigenous rights activists are aiming to “increase tension” this summer to oppose the Harper government’s agenda, which they say ignores aboriginal rights and weakens environmental protections.

Friday, National Aboriginal Day, marks the launch of the so-called “Sovereignty Summer” in which the grassroots indigenous Idle No More movement says it will band together with other activist groups to plan “non-violent direct action” across the country.

“The point is to increase tension,” said Sheelah McLean, one of Idle No More’s four co-founders. “To raise awareness and increase tension between people who are wanting to assert their rights and people who are unjustly forgetting about the rights of indigenous peoples.”

At play are many of the same issues that helped galvanize the indigenous movement in December and January when protests reached their peak: matters such as implementing historic treaty rights, the federal government’s changes to environmental protections, and consultation with aboriginals regarding resource development on their traditional lands.

“The one thing that’s going to stop this resource hyper-extraction is the rights of indigenous Canadians, and Canadians have to stand behind them,” McLean said. “Pressure on the government is essential.”

Idle No More grew in reaction to Conservative omnibus legislation that, opponents say, infringed on indigenous rights and weakened environmental protections. It helped lead to a meeting in January between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and First Nations leaders, but many aboriginal leaders and activists have lamented a lack of progress since then.

Now, Idle No More has joined with Defenders of the Land, a group of indigenous activists formed in 2008. McLean said it was a natural fit: much of Idle No More activity has taken place in urban areas, but Defenders of the Land works mostly in remote areas.

Organizers say “non-violent direct action” will cover a wide spectrum, and individual communities will decide what it means. But it could include banner drops, camping, rallies, round dances – and even blockades. Whatever the methods, McLean says tension will continue to escalate if the government ignores aboriginal issues.

“The government is counting on settler Canadians not understanding these issues,” McLean said. “What we’re hoping is to focus on these issues by any means possible to educate people on why they need to stand behind indigenous communities to protect the land.”

Andrea Richer, spokesperson for Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, said the government is “always prepared to work with those First Nations, and other partners, who want to achieve results.”

“Canadians have a right to peaceful protest, but much more can be accomplished by working together,” Richer said. “While we may not always agree on the way forward, we do agree that it is critical we demonstrate concrete movement on some of the key issues like education, skills and training and economic development.”

Sovereignty Summer national campaigner Clayton Thomas-Muller said there will be “major actions” in mid-July and early August, but declined to provide details. He said the end of the summer would feature “mass mobilization” in urban centres across the country.

Protests will highlight various land-based struggles: Thomas-Muller said there are “dozens and dozens that are potential powder kegs” including proposed pipeline paths, disputes with provincial governments, and proposed hydroelectric and uranium mining expansions.

The groups have listed six demands which include repealing provisions of Bill C-45, the government’s omnibus budget bill that made changes to the Navigable Waters Act; recognition of Aboriginal title and rights; respecting indigenous rights to free, prior and informed consent on matters that may affect them; honouring historic treaties; and launching a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

“Our goal is to … bring this government to a place where they have no choice but to act,” Thomas-Muller said. “What we’re talking about is stopping the ability of Canada to operate as business as usual until the government addresses these six core things.

“It’s ‘go’ time. These are life and death situations, and there needs to be real political will taken to respond to them.”

Friday’s National Aboriginal Day features events across the country that will celebrate aboriginal history and culture. Opposition leader Tom Mulcair, for example, will join a march in solidarity with First Nations starting on Victoria Island near Parliament Hill, the site of Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence’s January protest liquid diet, and ending in a speech on the Hill.

Save the Dates: Traditional Native Games Conference & Competitions

Jack McNeel, Indian Country Today Media Network

The International Traditional Games Society was organized in 1997 but will hold its first Traditional Native Games Conference & Competitions from June 26-28 at Salish Kootenai College in Pablo, Montana. This will bring together many of the leading minds throughout Indian country and elsewhere to discuss the value of these games, the preservation of spiritual ties as shown through joy and play and the restoration of traditional games within tribes from both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.

This conference will advance those basic philosophies and procedures through three disciplines. Traditionalists will speak of how the games were used in the old culture. Academics will speak about historic trauma and how that has affected succeeding generations in their ability to survive. Neuroscientists will discuss their work pertaining to the emotional center of the brain and the implications of how joy and play were part of the survival picture for all traditional people.

Chief Joseph Hatchery: A promise from the past holds promise for the future

Little Miss Sunflower Emma Hall presents tribal fisherman Art Seyler with a hat during the opening ceremonies for the Chief Joseph Hatchery on Thursday. Seyler was one of several elder tribal fishermen honored during the event, which drew hundreds of people from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, several other tribes, and numerous state and federal agencies.

BRIDGEPORT — Hundreds came Thursday to celebrate the new, $50 million hatchery, its concrete raceways, its incubation building, its state-of-the-art plans to raise and release 2.9 million chinook salmon while protecting their wild cousins.

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation officially opened the Chief Joseph Hatchery bordering the southwest corner of their reservation.

Funded by ratepayers through the Bonneville Power Administration along with Grant, Douglas and Chelan County PUDs, the new facility is expected to bring thousands more spring and summer chinook back to the upper Columbia River for both tribal and non-tribal fishermen.

Those who gathered for opening ceremonies spoke largely about the history of events that led to this day, hailed as the fulfillment of a promise made by the U.S. government before the Great Depression.

First, a traditional salmon song and then tribal members caught the hatchery’s first salmon using a pole net.

Whooping cries and large smiles erupted as the salmon was laid on the aluminum platform, then filleted at a table nearby, its eggs and innards tossed back to the Columbia below.

After the riverside ceremony, tribal fishermen were honored, many speaking of times when the fish were abundant, and shared by all.

It was this place where Colville tribal fishermen came to fish after the construction of Grand Coulee Dam, and later Chief Joseph Dam — just across the river. The dams erased Kettle Falls, one of the largest fishing spots on the Columbia River, where tribes from around the region gathered yearly.

With no fish passage, the dams were barriers to spawning salmon, which still return each year to the concrete wall that prevents them from completing their journey.

So fishermen came here to fish from the rocks, and the bridge, or the wall below the dam.

World photo/K.C. Mehaffey

Freshly caught salmon was cooked and dried using traditional methods at opening ceremonies for the Chief Joseph Hatchery on Thursday. Hundreds of people came to celebrate the new facility, which will produce nearly 3 million smolts for release.

“If you needed something, we all shared,” said Lionel Orr, who had offered up the morning’s salmon song. “It was like a community. If I had fishing line, or hooks, I’d give it to you. It was really a good experience.”

Mel “Bugs Hook ‘Em In The Lips” Toulou recalled being accepted into the clan after catching his first salmon on a ten-foot bamboo pole. “What you feel down here is the brotherhood, and the family that you gain,” he said. They used to catch 50 and 60 pound fish, he said, and their fathers and grandfathers reeled in 100-pounders. Today, the salmon average 25 pounds he said.

Ernie Williams recalled catching 750 pounds of salmon in 72 hours once. And then giving it away to elders on their way home. He praised the rain as “soul cleansing,” and said his mother, Mary Marchand, and other elders who had passed on were there with them. “Those past fishermen too. I know they’re all here, and they’re smiling, too.”

Officials, too, spoke of the past.

John Smith, the first director of the Colville Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Department, talked about the collaborative effort it took to build the hatchery, with not only the tribes, but state and federal agencies, PUDs and the support of other tribes.

He said he hopes people aren’t upset when they see tribal members catching these new hatchery salmon from boats or scaffolds, using nets or spears.

“What you’ve got to remember is, we’ve been denied a lot of good fisheries for a lot of years,” he said. “I’ve seen the devastation that’s been caused,” he said.

Fish were once 50 percent of their diet, and the dams cut off that food source for so many, he said. “That was like cutting you off from Safeway or Walmart. That’s what it did to our people.”

Federal officials also spoke of the impact that these dams without fish passage had on tribal people, and the promises made to for another hatchery.

Tom Karier, a member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, said an old document of an 1800s missionary near Kettle Falls revealed that it was not uncommon for tribal fishermen to catch 1,000 fish a day, or count hundreds of salmon jumping out of the water on their way upstream.

“We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go,” he said. “Today, we celebrate significant progress.”

World photo/K.C. Mehaffey

Sneena Brooks, Robbie Stafford and Dan Edwards were among the drummers singing an honor song for elder tribal fishermen at the opening of the Chief Joseph Hatchery on Thursday.

Leroy Williams, a tribal fisherman who is teaching others the old ways of fishing with hoop nets and dip nets, recalled discovering the letter from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for a fourth hatchery while sorting through papers for the tribe’s fish and wildlife department. The Great Depression and World War II delayed the project, and he promise had been forgotten until they rediscovered this letter.

Hatcheries had been built at Leavenworth, Entiat and Winthrop, but this one was delayed by the Great Depression and World War II, and then forgotten.

The new hatchery is located on 15 acres owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the north bank of the Columbia River, just downstream of Chief Joseph Dam. The complex includes 40 raceways, three rearing ponds, and three acclimation ponds. It draws water from wells and the reservoir behind the dam, known as Rufus Woods Lake.

Colville Tribal Chairman John Sirois expressed gratitude for all the support from tribal members and former council members, agencies, and other tribes.

“This is truly humbling, and a day that we’ll remember forever,” he said.

Elsewhere on the Columbia River, the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama tribes began commercial sales from their summer fishery on June 17, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission announced.

“This is the first significant commercial fishery of 2013,” the commission said in a media release. “Pre-season forecasts estimate 73,500 summer chinook and 180,500 sockeye. Depending on the actual run sizes, Indian fishers may harvest approximately 20,000 summer chinook and 12,000 sockeye, most of which will be sold commercially.”