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April surge in snow has small impact: drought continues in much of the West

USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service

WASHINGTON, May 13, 2013 – May measurements confirm April forecasts: NRCS hydrologists predict reduced spring and summer water supply for much of the West.

April saw a surge in snow in many places but didn’t make up the shortfall during previous months.

“For much of the West, April was wetter than January, February and March combined,” said NRCS Meteorologist Jan Curtis. “But it was too little, too late.”

NRCS hydrologists use May streamflow forecasts to confirm and refine the April forecasts. Though recent snow made small improvements in some areas, most changes are insignificant.

“California, southern and eastern Oregon, Nevada, southern Utah, southern Colorado and especially New Mexico will experience major water shortages due to sustained drought conditions and low reservoir storage,” says NRCS Hydrologist Tom Perkins.

“I haven’t seen it this bad in New Mexico since I started forecasting for the Snow Survey Program in 1983,” he added.

As of May 1, USDA’s Secretary Tom Vilsack designated many counties in Western states as eligible for USDA drought assistance.

Water resource managers face difficult decisions because of this shortage. Western states should prepare for potentially increased vulnerability to forest and rangeland fires and mandatory water restrictions. In addition, wildlife that depends on surface water is going to suffer.

There are a few exceptions to the dry forecasts. The North Cascades and the headwaters of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers are near normal.

“For the rest of the West, there is no silver lining,” Perkins said. “I think it’s going to be a long, hot, dry summer.”

According to Curtis, much of the snowmelt won’t reach the streams.

“The soil in the southern half of the West is like a dry sponge that will absorb and hold water as it melts from the snowpacks. Only when the soil is sufficiently saturated will it allow water to flow to the streams,” he said.

NRCS’ National Water and Climate Center monitors soil moisture with its SNOw TELemetry (SNOTEL) and Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) networks. These sensors gather soil data that helps NRCS better monitor drought development.

“Although NRCS’ streamflow forecasts do not predict drought, they provide valuable information about future water supply in states where snowmelt accounts for the majority of seasonal runoff,” said Perkins.

In addition to precipitation, streamflow in the West consists largely of accumulated mountain snow that melts and flows into streams as temperatures warm into spring and summer.

The May forecast is the fifth of six monthly forecasts. The forecast compares the current level of water content in snowpack in the 13 Western states with historical data to help the region’s farmers, ranchers, water managers, communities and other stakeholders make informed decisions about water use and future availability.

NRCS scientists analyze the snowfall, air temperature, soil moisture and other measurements taken from remote climate sites to develop the water supply forecasts.

“USDA streamflow forecasts play a vital role in the livelihood of many Americans,” said Jason Weller, NRCS acting chief. “With much of this region greatly affected by drought, our experts will continue to monitor snowpack data and ensure that NRCS is ready to help landowners plan and prepare for water supply conditions.”

Since 1935, NRCS has conducted snow surveys and issued regular water supply forecasts. NRCS installs, operates and maintains its extensive, automated SNOTEL system to collect snowpack and related climatic data in the Western United States and Alaska.

View May’s Snow Survey Water Supply Forecasts map or view information by state.

Other resources on drought include the U.S. Drought Monitor and U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook map, which forecast drought conditions through March 31. For information on USDA’s drought efforts, visit www.usda.gov/drought. And to learn more about how NRCS is helping private landowners deal with drought, visit the NRCS site.
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service helps America’s farmers and ranchers conserve the Nation’s soil, water, air and other natural resources. All programs are voluntary and offer science-based solutions that benefit both the landowner and the environment.
Follow NRCS on Twitter. Check out other conservation-related stories on USDA Blog. Watch videos on NRCS’ YouTube channel.

USDA has made a concerted effort to deliver results for the American people, even as USDA implements sequestration – the across-the-board budget reductions mandated under terms of the Budget Control Act. USDA has already undertaken historic efforts since 2009 to save more than $828 million in taxpayer funds through targeted, common-sense budget reductions. These reductions have put USDA in a better position to carry out its mission, while implementing sequester budget reductions in a fair manner that causes as little disruption as possible.

Overcoming Addiction, Professor Tackles Perils American Indians Face

Emily Rasinski for The New York TimesDavid A. Patterson with students at Washington University in St. Louis. — Emily Rasinski for The New York Times
David A. Patterson with students at Washington University in St. Louis.

By Alan Schwartz, The New York Times

LAWRENCE, Kan. — The visitor to Haskell Indian Nations University detailed his roaring 20s: drug addict, garbage collector, suicidal burnout once told by a doctor that he was mentally retarded. It was a curious way to inspire a group of young American Indian students long surrounded by these types of problems. Until he got to the good part.

“I never shared this with anyone until I got my Ph.D.,” he said.

His American name is David A. Patterson, his Cherokee name Adelv unegv Waya, or Silver Wolf. He is a tenure-track assistant professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. His groundbreaking research on the pitfalls facing Native Americans is both informed and inspired by his own story of deliverance.

“Mentally retarded? I wish I could find that doctor now,” Dr. Patterson said, the students transfixed.

Dr. Patterson, 49, has devoted what he considers his second life to studying the quicksand that just about swallowed him, and that continues to imperil American Indians more than any other ethnic group. About 18 percent of American Indian or Alaska Native adults need substance-abuse treatment, almost twice the national average, according to figures from the federal government. Deaths from alcoholism, diabetes, homicide and suicide are two to six times as high among Native Americans as they are among other groups, according to various studies.

During Dr. Patterson’s childhood in Louisville, Ky., any interest he might have had in his Cherokee roots was discouraged by his abusive father and squelched by teasing schoolmates. By 9, he had moved from beer to highballs, and at 18 he was a quaalude-favoring high school dropout. Detached and directionless, he pointed a loaded rifle at his head one afternoon in his basement before someone knocked at the door.

It was his mother’s brother, Bill Allen. He treated David’s disconnection with some long-repressed family history. Mr. Allen recounted how his grandmother, David’s great-grandmother, was half-Cherokee, making David 1/16th Cherokee. He told him where she came from, the traditions David never enjoyed. This expanding family lineage, which to that point had essentially stopped with his Irish father, gave David a new sense of belonging. Ultimately, the two researched census records and made pilgrimages to obscure Indian cemeteries to trace long-forgotten generations, penciling rubbings off gravestones.

When Dr. Patterson found a red-tailed hawk feather on a sidewalk, Mr. Allen explained how it meant that the bird, signifying wisdom and strength, was leading him on the right path.

“Bill was the one guy I could feel Indian around,” Dr. Patterson said, choking up. “Our pride fed off one another.”

Still an alcoholic garbage worker for Waste Management in Louisville — for a while he processed sewer excrement — Dr. Patterson used this newfound past to conceive a future. He went to employee counseling and, upon psychiatric examination, was told he was dyslexic and mentally retarded; he spent five weeks in a mental health facility. But he took the diagnoses as a challenge, a new starting point. He got sober and began to work with other addicts, and at 27 entered junior college.

Growing his hair into a Cherokee ponytail and with fresh tattoos of a wolf and three tepees, he enrolled at Spalding University and earned a degree in social work. He got his master’s degree and his doctorate from the University of Louisville, also in social work. He was hired by the University of Buffalo as an assistant professor studying solutions for Native American substance abuse and high dropout rates — longtime problems caused in part, Dr. Patterson’s research suggests, by the same cultural disconnection that he had felt.

The Brown School, ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation’s top schools of social work, lured him away last year.

“He brings to the table new strategies, new ways and new perspectives to think about,” said Pete Coser, the program manager for the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies, a division of the Brown School. “His story and experiences will be able to bring, at least, a light to those that are experiencing it now. Things that plague Indian country. How do we get over the mental monster that keeps us in that box?”

A walking movie script in the genre of Chris Gardner, the homeless single father who became a millionaire investor and was portrayed by Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” Dr. Patterson only recently decided to reveal details of his past. And few acquaintances from his lowest points know anything about his present.

“I couldn’t be happier,” said Dr. Adrian Pellegrini, a Louisville psychiatrist who treated Dr. Patterson two decades ago and did not know what became of him. “The biggest miracle for people like David is that they’re still alive.”

Dr. Patterson’s research focuses on intervention strategies for substance abusers in underserved populations, particularly American Indians. He has just finished teaching a graduate-level class on drug and alcohol abuse.

As the first American Indian professor at the Brown School, Dr. Patterson has helped connect Indian students on campus, of whom there about 20, with their varying heritages. (Students belong to the Choctaw, Navajo and Seneca nations and a half-dozen others across the United States.) He invites them to his home to sit around a drum and teach one another Native songs.

One evening, eight students gathered in a downpour with Dr. Patterson outside the Brown building for a traditional spiritual cleansing ceremony. A student lighted some blades of sweet grass and gently waved the smoke on each student with an eagle feather. The smoke rose into the dripping trees as a student led the prayer: “We ask our creator to help us stay on track,” he said, “and take this education, this training, kinship, all of this back home.”

Lindsay Belone, a Navajo from Twin Lakes, N.M., is working on her master’s degree with Dr. Patterson. “He’s brought to the classroom a lot of American Indian spirituality and social justice issues — honoring mother earth and our ancestors,” she said. “He’s definitely a leader in Indian country who I can look up to. If you want to be a professor, that can happen.”

Dr. Patterson will return to Buffalo this summer to participate in ceremonies among the Six Nations of the Iroquois and speak with students about Indian challenges. He also plans to visit other American Indian communities across the nation to share his story, much as he did last fall at Haskell, the only accredited university devoted to serving various Indian tribes.

Haskell’s history makes it as much shrine as school: a century ago, young Indians whose tribes’ land had been seized by the United States were sent there to become Christians, cut their hair and shed their traditional customs and tongues. Students who did not comply could be beaten or chained to walls in what is now Kiva Hall. Many died there from such abuse.

Today, about 1,000 students use some of the same buildings to become one of the rare members of their tribes to earn a college degree. More inspiration came from Dr. Patterson, most poignantly when he explained why he took the name Silver Wolf. Wolves “take care of each other,” he said. “Their survival depends on it.”

Terry Redlightning, a Haskell junior from the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, recalled how only 17 of his 100 classmates at Flandreau Indian School graduated with him. He described a “feeling of hopelessness” pervading his community back home and said Indians there live on whatever comes to them. “Whether that’s a government handout or a minimum-wage-paying job — or you commit suicide,” he said.

“Those are your options — at least that’s what the thinking is,” Mr. Redlightning said. “Especially when you’re a kid, you see it. You’re constantly going to funerals. Death by drugs or alcohol. Car wrecks. Suicide. You don’t have any high expectations.”

After his lectures last fall, Dr. Patterson walked around campus to visit relics of Haskell’s sad past — the powwow grounds, Kiva Hall and some sacred wetlands. Then he went to the most solemn area of all. It was a cemetery filled with dozens of small, weathered gravestones for children who, four and five generations ago, did not survive their days at Haskell.

Dr. Patterson teared up when he saw the stones from a distance. “These are the children of the Holocaust for us,” he said.

He dried his cheeks with a tissue and kept walking toward the cemetery. He looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk perched on a lamppost, leading him still.

County beekeepers adjust to causes of colony collapse

County’s beekeepers continue to see threat to agriculture

Nick Adams / The HeraldQuentin Williams checks over his bees in the back yard of his Snohomish home on May 5. Williams, the manager of Beez Neez, has six hives with two breeds of bees. A federal report suggests that parasites, malnutrition and pesticide exposure are behind the decline in bee colonies nationwide. — Nick Adams / The Herald
Quentin Williams checks over his bees in the back yard of his Snohomish home on May 5. Williams, the manager of Beez Neez, has six hives with two breeds of bees. A federal report suggests that parasites, malnutrition and pesticide exposure are behind the decline in bee colonies nationwide.

By Bill Sheets, The Herald

Last fall, hobbyist beekeeper Jeff Thompson had nine hives of honeybees. “I only had two hives make it through the winter,” said Thompson, who keeps bees at his home in Edmonds and also in Mill Creek.

Dave Pehling, who keeps hives at his home near Granite Falls, lost all his honeybees over the winter.

Neither was surprised to hear about a report regarding one of the more mysterious recent environmental problems: the sharp decline of honeybees.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency report issued a week ago cites a complex mix of problems contributing to honeybee colony declines, which have accelerated in the past six to seven years.

Factors include parasites and disease, genetics, poor nutrition, pesticide exposure and farming practices, according to the report.

“It’s just a combination of stresses,” said Pehling, an assistant with the Washington State University cooperative extension in Snohomish County. He has a zoology degree and has been keeping bees since the 1970s, he said.

The recent report warns that even with intensive research to understand the cause of honeybee colony declines in the United States, losses continue to be high and could pose a serious threat to meeting the pollination demands for some commercial crops. Growers in California have had trouble pollinating almond trees in the winter, for example, and blueberry farmers in Maine face similar pressures.

Many bee experts have focused on pesticides recently, Pehling said. While he agrees that’s a factor, he doesn’t think it’s the biggest one.

The varroa mite, native to Southeast Asia, was introduced to North America in the 1980s.

In about 1987, it reached Snohomish County, Pehling said.

“That’s when I started losing bees,” he said.

The mite lays eggs on young honeybees and the larvae feed off the living bees’ blood, weakening them and making them more susceptible to illness from other factors, Pehling said.

In Asia, the mites feed off the bees as well but those bees are smaller, providing less space and food for the mites and keeping the relationship in balance, he said.

Pesticides can temporarily control the mites but the chemicals collect in the wax in the hives and erode the bees’ health.

“It’s not an acute effect, but it can affect the immune system and shorten life of an adult bee,” Pehling said.

Now, beekeepers are experimenting with “softer” chemicals such as Thymol and essential oils, he said.

“I think there’s a multitude of issues why the bees are declining,” said Thompson, vice president of the Northwest District Beekeepers Association, based in Snohomish.

He said that whether pesticides are the major cause of bees’ problems or not, they worry many beekeepers.

Neonicotinoids are synthesized, concentrated forms of nicotine made into pesticides.

“These are very long-acting products” that get absorbed into plants and in turn by bees, Thompson said.

“That’s the beekeepers’ big concern right now, they don’t like it,” he said.

Honeybees are not native to North America but have been here since the 17th century, Pehling said. They have managed to mostly live in balance with other species, he said.

Dozens of bees are native to Washington state, including some variety of bumblebees, he said. Pehling keeps bumblebee hives as well as honeybees, he said.

One species, the western bumblebee, has experienced some decline in recent years but “most of (the native species) are doing OK,” he said.

Because of honeybees’ role as prolific pollinators, their decline could spell serious trouble for American agriculture, experts say.

The USDA estimates that a third of all food and beverages are made possible by pollination, mainly by honeybees. Pollination contributes to an estimated $20 billion to $30 billion in U.S. agricultural production each year.

A consortium will study the problem this year with the hopes of putting in place measures to help reduce bee deaths next growing season, said Laurie Davies Adams, executive director of the San Francisco-based Pollinator Partnership, which is overseeing the project.

Farmers, beekeepers, pesticide manufacturers, corn growers, government researchers and academics will study this summer ways to address the corn dust problem by changing the lubricant used in the machinery, as well as trying to improve foraging conditions for bees at the same time the pesticides are applied.

“It’s not in anybody’s interest to kill bees,” she said. “It just isn’t.”

Erika Bolstad of the McClatchy Washington Bureau contributed to this story.

National Museum of the American Indian and Bureau of Indian Affairs to Co-Host Special Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Exhibit During National Police Week in D.C.

Source: U.S. Department of the Interior

WASHINGTON – For the first time in their histories, the National Museum of the American Indian and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services will co-host a special exhibit of the Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial during the 2013 National Police Week. The special exhibit will be located in the Museum’s Potomac Atrium from May 13 through 17.

“National Police Week is an important opportunity to educate the public about the Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and honor those in law enforcement who have given their lives in the line of duty in Indian Country,” said Kevin K. Washburn, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs. “I want to thank the National Museum of the American Indian and its director, Kevin Gover, for co-hosting this special exhibit on the Memorial.”

“The National Museum of the American Indian is pleased and proud to host this special exhibit of the Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in conjunction with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services,” said Museum Director Kevin Gover (Pawnee). “It is only fitting that the Museum, which is home to so much of Indian Country’s history, should acknowledge during National Police Week those law enforcement officers who have given their lives to protect Indian people.”

The Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial includes the names of 101 tribal, state, local and federal law enforcement officers working on federal Indian lands and in tribal communities who have died in the line of duty since the mid-1800s. It is located at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, N.M.

First dedicated on May 7, 1992, at the United States Indian Police Academy then in Marana, Ariz., both the Memorial and Academy were moved to their present site on the Center’s Artesia campus and re-dedicated there on May 6, 1993. Each year since 1991, the Office of Justice Services has hosted a service at the site to honor the officers on the Memorial.

The special exhibit, which is maintained by the Office of Justice Services at its headquarters in the Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C., includes a plaque with all of the names inscribed on the Memorial, a binder with officer profiles, a display case of police badges, and a Book of Remembrance that visitors can sign.

According to the website of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, President John K. Kennedy in 1962 proclaimed May 15^th as National Peace Officers Memorial Day and the week in which that date fell as National Police Week. Established by a joint resolution of Congress the same year, National Police Week pays special recognition to those law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protection of others.

Established in 1989 through an Act of Congress, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian is an institution of living cultures dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of the lives, languages, literature, history and arts of the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere. For more information about the museum and its public program schedules, visit www.AmericanIndian.si.edu.

The BIA Office of Justice Services’ mission is to enhance public safety and protect property in Indian Country by funding or providing law enforcement, corrections and tribal court services to the nation’s federally recognized tribes. It operates 36 law enforcement programs, oversees 152 tribally operated law enforcement programs, coordinates emergency preparedness support on federal Indian lands by working cooperatively with other federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies throughout Indian Country, and provides training and professional development to BIA and tribal law enforcement through the U.S. Indian Police Academy in Artesia, N.M.

Visit the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center website at http://www.fletc.gov/about-fletc/locations/artesia/indian-country-law-enforcement-officers-memorial.html to view the Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and a list of officers’ names.

WHO: The National Museum of the American Indian and the Bureau of Indian

Affairs Office of Justice Services.

WHAT: Special exhibit of the Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial

during National Police Week.

WHEN: May 13-17, 2013, from 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. EDT daily.

WHERE: The National Museum of the American Indian, Potomac Atrium (1^st level),

4^th & Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. (located on the National

Mall between the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and the U.S.

Capitol Building); Phone: 202-633-1000.

Federal appointment for Suquamish Tribe chairman

File photoSuquamish Chairman Leonard Forsman ... appointed by President Obama to the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. — File photo
Suquamish Chairman Leonard Forsman … appointed by President Obama to the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

Source: North Kitsap Herald

SUQUAMISH — President Obama on Wednesday announced his intent to appoint Suquamish Tribe Chairman Leonard Forsman to the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

The announcement was made Wednesday by the White House Office of the Press Secretary. Forsman said the appointment will not affect his service as Suquamish chairman; the advisory council meets quarterly. It is not a paid position.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (www.achp.gov) is an independent federal agency that promotes “the preservation, enhancement, and productive use of our nation’s historic resources,” and advises the President and Congress on national historic preservation policy.

According to the agency’s website, “The goal of the National Historic Preservation Act, which established the ACHP in 1966, is to have federal agencies act as responsible stewards of our nation’s resources when their actions affect historic properties. The ACHP is the only entity with the legal responsibility to encourage federal agencies to factor historic preservation into federal project requirements.

“… the ACHP serves as the primary federal policy advisor to the President and Congress; recommends administrative and legislative improvements for protecting our nation’s heritage; advocates full consideration of historic values in federal decisionmaking; and reviews federal programs and policies to promote effectiveness, coordination, and consistency with national preservation policies.”

In a statement released by his press secretary, Obama said of Forsman and Margaret W. Burcham, who he intends to appoint to the Mississippi River Commission: “I am confident that these outstanding individuals will greatly serve the American people in their new roles and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come.”

Forsman has been chairman of the Suquamish Tribe since 2005. He earned a bachelor of arts in anthropology from the University of Washington and a master of arts in historic preservation from Goucher College.

Forsman was director of the Suquamish Museum from 1984 to 1990, and has served on the museum Board of Directors since 2010. He was a research archaeologist for Larson Anthropological/Archaeological Services in Seattle from 1992 to 2003.

He has been a member of the Tribal Leaders Congress on Education since 2005, the Suquamish Tribal Cultural Cooperative Committee since 2006, the Washington State Historical Society board since 2007, and was vice president of the Washington Indian Gaming Association in 2010. He is also a member of the state Board on Geographic Names.

Forsman said, “I want to build on the advisory council’s efforts to recognize and protect those cultural resources that are important to Tribes — the cultural landscape and sacred places that have been neglected — and provide Tribes more resources to protect those places to the best of our ability.”

Hibulb Powwow honors Native American tradition

Dancers at the 2012 Hibulb Pow Wow. Photo Brandi N. Montreuil, TulalipNews

Source: The Herald

EVERETT — The 21st annual Hibulb Powwow is planned at Everett Community College on Saturday, featuring traditional American Indian dancing, drumming, singing and arts and crafts.

The theme for the event is “Keeping our Traditions Alive.” It is to be held at the college’s Fitness Center, 2206 Tower St. in Everett.

“The powwow honors cultural survival and the perseverance needed to celebrate and maintain Native identity into the 21st century,” according to a statement from Paula Three Stars, EvCC’s 1st Nations Club adviser.

The event is free. Everyone is invited.

This year’s head dancers are Reuben Twin, Jr., and EvCC student Christine Warner. The master of ceremonies will be Arnold Little Head. Tony Bluehorse will serve as the arena director. The host drums are Young Society and Eagle Warrior.

The Hibulb Powwow was founded in 1990 to honor American Indian ancestors who once lived near the mouth of the Snohomish River. Hibulb was the stronghold of the Snohomish peoples who thrived at the site just below Legion Park in Everett. Hibulb had an estimated population of 1,200 and was once the largest trading center in the Pacific Northwest.

Descendants of the people of Hibulb live today in the neighboring community of Tulalip, and on other nearby reservations representing many different tribal bands.

For more information, contact Three Stars at 425-388-9281 or Matt Remle at 360-657-0940.

Which Fish Get To Recolonize After Elwha’s Dams Are Gone?

May 9, 2013 | KUOW

CONTRIBUTED BY:Ashley Ahearn

This is the second in a two-part series..

From where Mike McHenry stands he can see several gray, torpedo-shaped bodies moving slowly through the brown water of this side channel of the Elwha River, not too far from the site of the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.

“You are looking at several wild winter steelhead. These are the native remnant stock of the Elwha River,” explains McHenry, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s fisheries habitat biologist.

http://soundcloud.com/earthfix/hatchery-vs-wild-fish-in-elwha

These fish are some of the last wild steelhead in the Elwha – biologists estimate that there are between 200 and 300 left, and they’re here to spawn. But despite the fact that tearing down two dams has opened nearly 70 miles of pristine habitat on the upper Elwha River and its tributaries in the Olympic National Park, it’s made life rather difficult for fish in this river right now.

Millions of cubic yards of sediment and debris are flowing down from above the two dams, making this murky lower stretch of the river a bad place to spawn. But nevertheless, these few wild fish represent the prospect of a restored river, populated with thousands of salmon and steelhead – rivaling the numbers of fish that were here before the dams went in 100 years ago.

With that future in mind, McHenry and a team of field biologists and technicians are capturing, tagging and relocating these ready-to-spawn steelhead into a clear tributary of the Elwha, above the former site of the lower dam.

It’s a fascinating scene, filled with silvery flailing and splashing and men carrying fish from the pool up the hill to the waiting tanks to be anesthetized and tagged before the drive to the drop-off point upstream.

Then all that activity is brought to a halt by a slightly sleepy steelhead resting in a tank. It’s captured the attention of John McMillan, a contract biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“This is probably broodstock,” McMillan says.

Broodstock is another term for a fish that has spent time in a hatchery, even though its parents were wild.

This moment of discovery symbolizes a much larger debate playing out as different groups struggle over how best to rebuild the Elwha’s fish runs.

A broodstock fish discovered among wild steelhead. Credit: Ashley Ahearn

The Great Hatchery Debate

The 20th century wasn’t just an era of dam building in the Northwest. It’s also when hatcheries went up along the region’s rivers to supplement wild populations reduced by those dams, among other causes.

Some Native Americans support hatchery use as a way to restore fish runs that provided subsistence for earlier generations before the dams. But there are some who think hatcheries should not be used to speed up the return of wild, native fish.

It’s not just tribes that favor hatcheries on the Elwha as a way to provide a safe haven to keep native-origin steelhead alive in the tumultuous conditions that have accompanied dam removal.

“In this case what is very clear, crystal clear to us, is that the fish are in such bad shape and the conditions in the river are so unprecedented that any risk that the hatchery poses to these fish is more than outweighed by the benefits,” says Rob Jones, chief of production for inland fisheries with the National Marine Fisheries Service – one of the defendants in a lawsuit to stop the use of fish hatcheries on the Elwha.

Jones says wild steelhead numbers are dangerously low in the Elwha so the hatchery is necessary to steelhead survival. “The job is to help them hang on until these conditions improve enough and then, the strategy is, as we see that improvement that we start to phase out the hatchery.”

Jones says the hatcheries will be phased out when salmon and steelhead numbers increase, but the Elwha River Fish Restoration Plan does not give a set timeframe or hard date when the hatcheries will be removed.

Small-Brained Fish Or The JV Team?

Research has shown that when some types of salmon and steelhead are raised in hatcheries they can become domesticated. Other research suggests hatchery fish’s brains don’t grow as big and steelhead hatchery fish don’t produce as many offspring once they’re released. They’re also less likely to survive to adulthood than wild fish. But as the two hatcheries on the Elwha have demonstrated for years now, they’re a way to ensure that fish return to the river when conditions are hostile for wild, native fish.

The lawsuit over hatcheries in the Elwha recovery plan is a measure of how staunchly some groups oppose them.

“We believe that wild fish in the Elwha would recover better in the absence of hatchery influence,” says Jamie Glasgow, director of science and research for the Wild Fish Conservancy. “You cannot raise a fish in a hatchery without having a negative impact on it’s genetics and its behavior.”

The Wild Fish Conservancy is one of the non-profits that filed the lawsuit against the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the National Marine Fisheries Service and several governmental agencies responsible for the Elwha restoration project.

The group says that hatcheries aren’t necessary for fish recovery in the Elwha, but if hatcheries are going to beallowed, it should only be for a limited time.

“From our perspective the plan lacks teeth,” says Glasgow. “It does not give us assurance and a real commitment to when hatchery production will be stopped.”

But keep in mind, the recovery process, underway on the Elwha right now, is unlike anything scientists have ever encountered. It is truly a grand experiment. No government or tribe has ever tried anything like this before – and no one knows exactly how it will play out.

Here’s the central question: with so few wild salmon and steelhead in the Elwha, should hatchery fish like be used as sort of junior varsity subs to boost the overall numbers of fish in this river as it recovers post-dam removal?

The science isn’t settled on how hatcheries impact wild fish, though there’s been a debate among fisheries managers on that for years.

Right now the Elwha is a difficult place to live if you’re a salmon or steelhead but it’s not impossible. Last year 500 wild Chinook made the journey above the lower dam to spawn on their own.

‘We Need To Make A Decision’

The debate over hatchery use in the Elwha recovery is playing out in real time as Mike McHenry stands over the tank and looks down at the fish with the nibbled dorsal fin that John McMillan has singled out as possibly coming from the nearby hatchery.

“Here’s where we need to make a decision,” he says, looking at McMillan.

Do the biologists bring these hatchery fish up into the pristine habitat above the dam? Or do they leave them here?

The team decides to bring two hatchery-raised fish upstream, along with six wild steelhead, to be released into the newly-available habitat above the former site of the lower dam.

McHenry leans down into the cold clear waters of this side creek and unzips a black bag. Two large steelhead slip slowly into the shadows along the bank nearby.

The biologists have DNA samples from all of the fish they’re releasing today – hatchery and wild. Mike McHenry and John McMillan say that will allow them to see who spawned with whom and which pairings led to more successful offspring.

“It’s a mixture, and that’s what we have,” McHenry says. McMillan nods his head in agreement.

“Yeah. It’s all we have to work with and you figure nature will sort it out ultimately. Nature sorts out who wins and who loses — and it will.”

For now anyway, nature is getting a little bit of help in the natural selection process.

Wednesday: Elwha River Recovery Proceeds Despite Sediment Setbacks.

New law targets how schools perform

Gov. Jay Inslee speaks to reporters during his first news conference as governor on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo/Rachel La Corte)

By Jerry Cornfield, The Herald

OLYMPIA — One of the first Republican-sponsored education reform bills became law Tuesday and will give the state more power to intercede in schools where student performance on basic skills tests is persistently poor.

Under the legislation signed by Gov. Jay Inslee, the superintendent of public instruction will provide technical assistance to schools where student scores on reading and math assessments are consistently poor for a period of years.

If the extra attention doesn’t improve student performance, the superintendent can impose a multi-year action plan on the school that prescribes such things as teaching methods and curriculum as well as how federal and state funds are spent on campus.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn said it is a “solid bill” which will enable the state to partner with targeted schools and shift to a leading role down the line if needed.

The prime sponsor of Senate Bill 5329 did not attend Tuesday’s signing but issued a statement calling it “a great step toward ensuring that all children are successful.”

“This was one of the important ways we can go about making sure our public-education system is serving all children and preparing them for the demands of an increasingly competitive job market and global economy,” said Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, who is chairman of the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee.

What Inslee signed is a far cry from the bill introduced by Litzow. That version required Dorn’s office to take over and manage poor performing schools starting in January 2014.

Pressure from House Democrats and the education establishment led to much revised language, which focuses on letting each school try to turn itself around before the state intervenes.

“We just don’t believe takeovers are a long-term solution to enacting real improvement in student achievement,” said Ben Rarick, executive director of the state Board of Education.

The final version sailed through the Senate on a 45-3 vote and passed the House on a comfortable 68-29 margin. The law takes effect in July.

In the House, opposition came from liberal Democrats, who thought it gave the state much power to intervene in local schools, and conservative Republicans who thought it did not go far enough.

Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, voted to advance the bill out of the House Education Committee on which he serves then voted against it in the end.

He said it was being revised and improved from his perspective as it made its way through the House but did not reach the point where he could support it.

“We have overloaded schools with so many requirements, all in the name of accountability,” he said. “I am of the mindset that we need to give schools more leeway to get the job done. We have to give them the ability to teach.”

Meanwhile, Litzow and Senate Republicans are still pushing for action on a number of other education reform bills in special session.

One of those would evaluate the performance of every school using letter grades of A-F like on a report card. Student achievement is one of the measures that would be used in determining the grade.

Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens, said the law signed Tuesday lays the foundation for such a system. “I think they complement one another,” he said. “In order to have a grading system that is meaningful you have to have clearly spelled out accountability standards.”

Inslee said the door is open for dialogue.

“I don’t think that this bill obviates the wisdom of continuing to look at some better ways to evaluate our schools,” he said. “I don’t think it’s the last of the discussion in that regard.”

North Dakota Visitor Center Honoring Sitting Bull Set to Open

Sitting Bull College/Standing Rock Sioux TribeSitting Bull Visitor Center in North Dakota — Sitting Bull College/Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Sitting Bull Visitor Center in North Dakota

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association (AIANTA) Member Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will partner with Sitting Bull College for the ribbon cutting and open house of the highly anticipated Sitting Bull Visitor Center on May 15 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m./MST at the Sitting Bull College Campus in Fort Yates, North Dakota.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Charles Murphy and Sitting Bull College President Dr. Laurel Vermillion will conduct the ribbon cutting ceremony at the Visitor Center’s Medicine Wheel Park, with a musical performance by flutist Kevin Locke, a National Endowment for the Arts Master Traditional Artist.

“This was a joint project of the Standing Rock Native American National Scenic Byway, Sitting Bull College and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,” said LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, AIANTA Board Member at Large and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Director of Tourism. “The new Sitting Bull Visitor Center and Medicine Wheel Park is a dream come true for us.”

The Sitting Bull Visitor Information Center, operated by Sitting Bull College, will offer travelers information regarding local and special events, places to visit, a gift shop that will sell a variety of authentic Native American arts and crafts, and more. The Visitor Center is also the new home to the Standing Rock Tribal Tourism Office operated by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Tourism Office provides Tatanka Okitika Historic Tours offering individualized tours on a first come first serve basis and reservations are recommended. Narrated tours are given along the Scenic Byway in both North Dakota and South Dakota. Stops include the Sitting Bull Burial Site, Standing Rock Monument, Standing Rock Tribal Administration Building, Sitting Bull Visitor Center and other points of interest.

Allard added, “We look to Native tourism to help our nation become sustainable for the future of our culture and people. We honor our great leader Sitting Bull with a center that will bring healing to our nation.”

“AIANTA is excited for our member the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and AIANTA Board Member LaDonna Brave Bull Allard,” said AIANTA Executive Director Camille Ferguson. “This is an example of how tribes are helping define, introduce, grow and sustain American Indian and Alaska Native Tourism.”

For more information about the Open House or to schedule a tour please contact LaDonna Brave Bull Allard at 701-854-3698 or lallard@standingrock.org.

AIANTA is a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit association of Native American tribes and tribal businesses that was incorporated in 2002 to advance Indian Country tourism. The association is made up of member tribes from six regions: Alaska, Eastern, Midwest, Pacific, Plains and the Southwest. AIANTA’s mission is to define, introduce, grow and sustain American Indian and Alaska Native tourism that honors and preserves tribal traditions and values.

The purpose of AIANTA is to provide our constituents with the voice and tools needed to advance tourism while helping tribes, tribal organizations and tribal members create infrastructure and capacity through technical assistance, training and educational resources. AIANTA serves as the liaison between Indian Country, governmental and private entities for the development, growth, and sustenance of Indian Country tourism. By developing and implementing programs and providing economic development opportunities, AIANTA helps tribes build for their future while sustaining and strengthening their cultural legacy.

Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe starts Washington Harbor restoration

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe seined Washington Harbor to develop a baseline of fish populations in the harbor. The harbor’s roadway and two culverts will be replaced by a bridge later this summer. More photos can be found at NWIFC’s Flickr page by clicking on the photo.

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is restoring salmon habitat in the 118-acre Washington Harbor by replacing a roadway and two culverts with a 600-foot-long bridge.

The 600-foot-long road and the two 6-foot-wide culverts restrict tidal flow to a 37-acre estuary within the harbor adjacent to Sequim Bay, blocking fish access and harming salmon habitat.

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe seined Washington Harbor to develop a baseline of fish populations in the harbor. The harbor’s roadway and two culverts will be replaced by a bridge later this summer. More photos can be found at NWIFC’s Flickr page by clicking on the photo.

The tribe seined the harbor in April to take stock of current fish populations before construction begins this summer. Chum and chinook and pink salmon, as well as coastal cutthroat, all use the estuary. Young salmon come from a number of streams, including nearby Jimmycomelately Creek at the head of Sequim Bay.

Historically, the area had quality tidal marsh and eelgrass habitat until the roadway and culverts were installed about 50 years ago, said Randy Johnson, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe habitat program manager.

“The roadway and culverts appear to have severely degraded this habitat, with evidence showing that the estuary marsh has been deprived of sediment and is eroding,” he said. “The structures restrict access for fish and for high quality habitat to develop.”