In this Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014 photo provided by the Center for Whale Research, a new baby orca whale swims near its mother near Vancouver Island in the Canadian Gulf Islands of British Columbia. (AP Photo/Center for Whale Research, Ken Balcomb)
The Center for Whale Research in Washington state says the baby, part of the J pod of the southern resident orca population, has stayed healthy since it was first spotted Dec. 30 off the Canadian Gulf Islands of British Columbia.
The newborn whale is being called J-50. Researchers say they are now working with Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans to gather more information about the baby’s mother.
Experts originally identified a whale in her early 40s known as J-16 seen swimming alongside the calf as its mother, but now say she might have actually been looking after the newborn for her daughter – a 16-year-old orca called J-36.
If J-16 is the mother, she will be the oldest southern resident orca to give birth in more than four decades of field studies.
Southern resident killer whales are considered an endangered species, with just 78 in the waters of British Columbia and Washington state, including the new arrival. But the arrival of the newborn orca is considered an encouraging sign following the death earlier this month of a pregnant killer whale from the same group.
Now, everyone is hoping J-50 survives. An estimated 35 percent to 45 percent of orcas die in their first year, said Howard Garrett of the Whidbey Island-based Orca Network.
Then-Lummi Nation Chairman Clifford Cultee, left, and Hereditary Chief Bill James speak at a 2012 protest against a proposed coal export terminal at Cherry Point. The tribe sent a letter on Monday, Jan. 5, 2015 to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking the agency to reject a permit application for the coal terminal because it would interfere with tribal fishing grounds. PHILIP A. DWYER — THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
Lummi Nation sent a letter on Monday, Jan. 5, to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking the agency to immediately reject a permit application for a coal terminal at Cherry Point because it would interfere with tribal fishing grounds.
An environmental group in Bellingham called the action “historic.”
Lummi Nation cited its rights under a treaty with the United States to fish in its “usual and accustomed” areas, which include the waters around Cherry Point. A court decision in 2000 clarified the Lummi fishing territory, first established in 1855, to include northern Puget Sound from the Fraser River to Seattle, with the exception of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Hood Canal.
“The Lummi have harvested at this location since time immemorial and plan to continue into the future,” said the Lummi letter, signed by Chairman Tim Ballew. “The proposed project will impact this significant treaty harvesting location and will significantly limit the ability of tribal members to exercise their treaty rights.”
The letter was authorized by the Lummi Indian Business Council on Wednesday, Dec. 31.
A manager at RE Sources for Sustainable Communities in Bellingham said in a message to members that the Lummis had made “an historic announcement.”
“This is a critical development in the fight to block the Cherry Point coal terminal,” wrote Matt Petryni, clean energy program manager at RE Sources.
Past case law suggests Gateway Pacific Terminal could be in trouble. The corps rejected a permit in 1992 for a salmon farm in Rosario Strait on the grounds that the farm, though no larger on the surface than 1.41 acres, would interfere with Lummi fishing. The decision withstood a challenge in U.S. District Court.
“There’s a precedent for a threshold of impact on treaty rights,” Ballew said. “I trust that the Corps will uphold its constitutional responsibility.”
Officials for Gateway Pacific Terminal said they could not comment before the deadline for this story.
The coal terminal, if approved by federal and state agencies, and Whatcom County, would ship up to 48 million metric tons of coal annually to Asian ports, starting as early as 2019.
While environmentalists who have actively opposed the coal terminal for years celebrated, they didn’t declare victory.
“One of the things I’m sure of is that the Corps will respond to the gravity of this statement,” said Crina Hoyer, RE Sources’ executive director. “What the ultimate end result will be, it may be decided in the court.”
Corps officials said they will review the 97-page document submitted to them on Monday by the tribe. If the Corps finds that treaty-protected fishing would be disrupted to any significant degree, it will pass the information along to project applicant SSA Marine of Seattle for review.
“We generally ask the applicant to coordinate with the relevant tribes and to resolve the issue,” the Corps said in a statement on Monday.
Lummi Nation consistently has opposed the coal terminal publicly. Tribal members in 2012 burned a symbolic check representing a presumed buy-out from the coal industry. Last year, the tribe toured the western U.S. and Canada with a totem pole to raise awareness of their opposition to fossil-fuel transport. The tribe also has criticized Gateway Pacific Terminal in written comments to permitting agencies.
“This is the strongest statement that we’ve seen from the Lummi Nation,” Hoyer said.
A report released last month provided preliminary evidence that the terminal would impede tribal fishing. The vessel traffic study, developed by SSA Marine and Lummi Nation with oversight by the state Department of Ecology, indicated that cargo ships and other traffic for Gateway Pacific Terminal would increase the number of vessels in north Puget Sound by 15 percent. Vessel traffic in the vicinity of Cherry Point would increase 33 percent. The risk of oil spills also would increase.
Those results, released on Dec. 18, were not taken to be final. Ecology officials emphasized that further study of vessel traffic would be included in a draft of the environmental impact statement on the coal terminal, expected in early 2016.
Even so, the Lummis mentioned the vessel traffic study in their letter to the Corps.
“Review of the impacts associated with this project, including … (the vessel traffic study) lead to the inescapable conclusion that the proposed project will directly result in the substantial impairment of the treaty rights of the Lummi Nation,” the letter said.
Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/01/05/4061757_lummi-nation-asks-army-corps-to.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
Sadie Young Bird, the director of the Ft. Berthold Coalition of Domestic Violence, listens during a breakout session during the 2014 statewide summit on human trafficking put on by North Dakota FUSE at the Bismarck Civic Center in Bismarck, N.D. on Thursday, November 13, 2014. Carrie Snyder / The Forum
By Amy Dalrymple and Katherine Lymn, Forum News Service, Bismarck Tribune
NEW TOWN, N.D. – As the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation reels from the impacts of producing a third of North Dakota’s oil, the reservation must add human trafficking to its list of increasing hazards.
“We’re in crisis mode, all the time, trying to figure out these new ways, these new crises that are coming to us that we never thought we’d have to worry about,” said Sadie Young Bird, director of the Fort Berthold Coalition Against Violence. “No one was prepared for any of this.”
The Three Affiliated Tribes are implementing a new tribal law designed to combat human trafficking at Fort Berthold.
“I’m really hoping to send a message that we are not tolerating this on our reservation,” said Chalsey Snyder, a tribal member who helped draft the law.
Meanwhile, victim advocates and leaders of tribal nations in neighboring Minnesota and South Dakota worry about reports of American Indian women and girls being trafficked to the Bakken.
Suzanne Koepplinger, former executive director for the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, said she started to hear anecdotal stories in 2010 and 2011 about a boyfriend or friend telling women and girls, “Let’s go to North Dakota over the weekend and make some money.”
“Because of poverty and high rates of mobility with Native people, it’s not unusual for them to go up to White Earth for a party and then say, ‘Let’s just buzz over to North Dakota and see a friend of mine,’ and then she’s gang-raped over there,” Koepplinger said.
Since 2010, Indian girls in Minnesota have reported to service providers that family members or friends have tried to talk them into going to North Dakota.
“Their girls go missing and then show up in the North Dakota child protection system, or are picked up by law enforcement in Williston, Minot,” Koepplinger said.
Erma Vizenor, chairman of the White Earth reservation in western Minnesota, said sex trafficking of women and girls has been a concern there for a long time, and the proximity of North Dakota’s oil boom adds to that concern.
The White Earth DOVE Program (Down On Violence Everyday) has identified 17 adult victims of sex trafficking last year, said Jodie Sunderland, community advocacy coordinator.
The DOVE program received funding through the Minnesota Safe Harbor law and is connecting Indian youth who are victims of sexual exploitation with services. The efforts will include collaborations with Red Lake and Leech Lake reservations in northwest Minnesota.
The vulnerability of Indian populations to become victims of sex trafficking, particularly at Fort Berthold with the impacts of the oil boom, is a major concern, U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said.
“The grooming of the candidate for trafficking tends to go to lower income, tends to go to kids who’ve been victimized in the past, so automatically that puts them in a category that is hugely at risk,” Heitkamp said during a discussion hosted by the McCain Institute for International Leadership and moderated by Cindy McCain.
Mark Fox, recently elected chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes, said he hears concerns about human trafficking at Fort Berthold from law enforcement and social services. He’s also noticed it himself.
“You can’t help but sometimes, walking around the casino, you see individuals who would be highly suspect,” Fox said.
Young Bird, whose program has seen a significant increase in domestic violence victims, has assisted some sex trafficking victims, although the women and girls don’t usually identify themselves as victims. Some have returned to South Dakota reservations, she said.
“We see that most of the human trafficking victims want to leave, they just want to get out, they want to go back to where they came from, they want to go back somewhere safe,” Young Bird said.
The domestic violence program, which has a new shelter in Mandaree and a new safe house elsewhere in the Bakken, primarily serves Indian women, but also will serve non-tribal members.
A meth epidemic on the reservation contributes to the violence Young Bird sees, including more severe sexual assaults.
“You can tell when there’s no meth around and you can tell when there’s a new shipment of meth around. The severity is worse when the meth is gone,” Young Bird said. “When the new shipment comes, it’s more that they head out and they leave and they leave their family with nothing. They spend all the money. Then when the wife is asking for money, that’s when the violence occurs.”
Heroin is a major problem for the reservation, too, she said. In one sex trafficking case, the pimp kept the woman compliant using heroin, Young Bird said. The woman did not want to press charges.
“They all want to leave. They don’t want to stay around. And we can’t force them. We’re the advocates; we’re not law enforcement. We’re there to support people,” she said.
A recent law change will allow the tribal court to prosecute human trafficking cases that don’t rise to the level of being charged in U.S. District Court.
“This law allows our reservation to take back ownership and take back the prosecution and penalties,” Snyder said.
The law is called Loren’s Law in memory of Loren White Horne, a behavioral health specialist from Fort Berthold who used to deal with sexual abuse and sexual assault cases on the reservation. White Horne was a driving force behind raising awareness about trafficking and working toward a new law before she died in a vehicle accident in 2013, said Snyder, who continued her work.
The law also requires defendants to pay for any expenses incurred by the victim, such as drug abuse treatment.
“These victims can seek help and they can get help without having to worry about any financial obligations,” Snyder said, if the convicted trafficker has resources or such resources were seized.
Statistics show that minorities represent a disproportionate amount of sex trafficking victims.
That has been true in South Dakota, where the U.S. Attorney’s Office has prosecuted sex trafficking cases involving several dozen victims. About half of those victims were American Indian women and girls.
In most cases, the victimization did not occur on the reservations, but in Sioux Falls and other larger cities.
“Most often, it is girls and some women who come from the reservation to Sioux Falls,” said. U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson. “When they are here, if they’re coming without a lot of resources, they’re often targeted by these guys.”
On March 8, 2013, President Barack Obama signed into law the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act that includes tribal provisions.
National Congress of American Indians, December 3, 2015
Washington, DC: Vice President Joe Biden joined over 300 tribal leaders at the sixth annual White House Tribal Nations Conference today. At the opening of the conference, Vice President Biden delivered an impassioned speech about violence against women in Indian Country saying “The most horrific prison on earth is the four walls of an abused woman’s home. For far too many Native American women that is a daily reality.”
The Vice-President, who was the original author of the Violence Against Women Act and has been its most steadfast supporter over the past 20 years, was introduced by Councilwoman Deborah Parker from the Tulalip Tribes , “Vice President Biden has led the movement to protect women against rape and domestic violence. Last year he helped pass the much needed protection to help Native women from violence. Mr. Vice President, you are correct when you say no means no — no more abuse.”
Referring to the provisions added to VAWA in 2013 that allow tribal governments to prosecute non-Indian domestic violence offenders in certain cases, the Vice-President apologized that it took so long to give tribal governments the tools to hold offenders accountable in their communities, saying “as long as there is a single place where the abuse of power is excused as a question of jurisdiction or tolerated as a family affair, no one is truly safe, and we cannot define ourselves as a society that is civilized.”
The Vice President delivered a call to action saying, “Tribal governments have an inherent right, as a matter of fact they have an obligation, to protect their people. All people deserve to live free of fear.” He urged all tribal governments to be prepared on March 7 when the law goes into effect to use their authority to aggressively prosecute domestic violence offenders. He stressed the need to change the culture that too often leaves victims asking what they did wrong and instead to focus on sending a strong message that violence against women is always unacceptable.
Vice President Biden also acknowledged that we have much more to do to protect Native women from violence including giving Alaska tribes the same authority and expanding the provision to cover sexual assault and other crimes. Biden called on Congress to appropriate the $25 million in grants authorized in VAWA 2013 to implement the new law.
Attorney General Eric Holder followed Vice President Biden, and strongly stated the Department of Justice’s commitment to improving law enforcement in Indian country, and to institutionalizing that commitment so that it will continue. He announced that he has implemented a Statement of Principles to guide the Department’s work with tribal nations into the future.
Attorney General Holder also announced a new initiative to promote compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act in partnership with the Departments of Interior and Health and Human Services. Holder stated that the initiative is “working to actively identify state-court cases where the United States can file briefs opposing the unnecessary and illegal removal of Indian children from their families and their tribal communities.” Holder went on to explain that DOJ will work with its partners and tribes to “to promote tribes’ authority to make placement decisions affecting tribal children; to gather information about where the Indian Child Welfare Act is being systematically violated; and to take appropriate, targeted action to ensure that the next generation of great tribal leaders can grow up in homes that are not only safe and loving, but also suffused with the proud traditions of Indian cultures.”
Orcas are an endangered species in inland waters of the Salish Sea, encompassing Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. (VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)
The last days of 2014 have brought glad tidings and great joy to those who follow and worry about the southern resident community of orcas (killer whales) that inhabit the Salish Sea, the inland waters of Washington and southern British Columbia.
A newborn orca was discovered Tuesday looking “healthy and energetic” and being snuggled by its mother off South Pender Island, just over the border in B.C.’s Gulf Islands. The discovery was made by Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research.
The baby, christened J50, was born to 42-year-old J16 (Slick), who has produced five offspring, three living, with the oldest 23-year-old J26 (Mike).
“We’re excited!” said Howard Garrett of Orca Network. “She (J16) sets a new bar, a new record for the oldest to give birth, by a year or two.”
The birth of J50 raises the southern resident community population to 78.
The southern residents were classified in 2005 under the Endangered Species Act at a time when the population of the great marine mammals had fallen to 78.
Orcas are particular about their diet. They feed off chinook salmon, in a region where salmon stocks have declined due to factors ranging from habitat destruction to pollution to bad forest practices to overfishing.
The orcas do not consume any of the millions of sockeye salmon that head for B.C.’s Fraser River each year through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland. “We wish they would,” joked Garrett.
The region’s inland waters have two major populations of orcas. The northern resident community spends July through September in waters of Johnstone Strait off northern Vancouver Island. The orcas are renowned for rubbing against pebbles just offshore from the mouth of the Tsitika River near Alert Bay.
The northern residents head north in the winter, presumably to southeast Alaska waters. The northern resident community totals about 250 orcas.
The diets of the southern resident and northern resident communities “are the same,” Garrett explained, “but their communication and call system are entirely different. Their is no overlap, no interaction between the two communities.”
The birth of J50, in a month when the southern residents have been seen in both the San Juans and Gulf Islands, puts the spotlight on a major decision pending in Canada.
The giant Houston-based Kinder Morgan pipeline company wants to triple the capacity of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline, which transports oil from Alberta to a refinery in Burnaby, just east of Vancouver. The completed pipeline would carry more oil than the controversial Keystone XL pipeline designed to link Alberta oilfields to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The enlarged Trans-Mountain Pipeline would bring oil from Alberta’s vast tar sands project to the coast for export to Asia.
If the Kinder Morgan project goes through, an estimated 30 tankers a month — up from four at the present time — would traverse Haro Strait, a middle point in habitat for the southern resident community and the marine boundary between the U.S. San Juan and Canada’s Gulf Islands. Both countries have national parks and monuments in the islands.
A major environmental battle over Kinder Morgan is underway north of the border.
Three prominent Native American Washingtonians have been appointed to key positions in education, environmental protection, and the judiciary.
On December 15, Gov. Jay Inslee announced his appointment of Raquel Montoya-Lewis, Isleta Pueblo/Laguna Pueblo, to the Whatcom County Superior Court. She will be the only Native American Superior Court judge in Washington state when she takes office in January.
That day, Inslee also announced his appointment of Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Vice Chairman Russell Hepfer to the Puget Sound Partnership’s Leadership Council. The Partnership is a state agency charged with mobilizing community, regional, and state efforts to restore the health of Puget Sound.
And in November, the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction hired Michael Vendiola, communications director of the Swinomish Tribe, as program supervisor for the Office of Native Education.
Montoya-Lewis is chief judge for the Nooksack Tribe and the Upper Skagit Tribe, and is an associate professor at Western Washington University. She is also an appellate court judge for the Nisqually Tribe Court of Appeals and the Northwest Intertribal Court System and previously for the Nooksack Tribal Court of Appeals. She is former chief judge of the Lummi Nation Court.
Montoya-Lewis serves on the federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice and was appointed by Inslee’s predecessor to the state’s Partnership Council on Juvenile Justice. She has a J.D. and a master’s in social work from the University of Washington and a B.A. from the University of New Mexico.
“Raquel’s 15 years of experience as a judge will be well appreciated on the Superior Court,” Inslee said in his announcement. “She is wise and has a strong commitment to service and to promoting justice. I know she will serve the community and the court exceptionally well.”
Earlier in her career, Montoya-Lewis taught legal research and writing at the University of New Mexico, represented Indian country governments as an attorney at Williams, Janov & Cooney, and served as a law clerk to New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Pamela B. Minzner.
Bellingham City Council member Roxanne Murphy, Nooksack, who is also assistant to the general manager of the Nooksack Tribe, wrote a letter to Inslee encouraging Montoya-Lewis’s appointment.
“She has handled some of our most complex cultural, political and societal issues and managed these cases with the utmost care, intelligence, timeliness and fairness,” Murphy wrote.
Murphy, the first Native American elected to the Bellingham City Council, added that Montoya-Lewis’ appointment would create another important role model.
“I still feel overwhelmed when I think about my campaign experiences and just how many people supported me [for City Council],” Murphy wrote. “This has meant so much to our tribes; to the City Council and our work; to the little girls on and off the [reservation] who tell me that they want to be on the Bellingham City Council; and to the general population that appreciates my ability to understand and work with so many walks of life.”
At the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council, Hepfer brings an indigenous perspective “as well as hands-on experience with the Elwha dam removal project and knowledge of what it takes to rebuild an ecosystem that welcomes salmon home,” Inslee said in his announcement. “His rich knowledge of the complex voices and issues involved in Puget Sound recovery work are a welcome addition to the Puget Sound Partnership’s Leadership Council.”
Hepfer’s term on the leadership council continues to June 25, 2018.
Hepfer’s career in natural resources began in 1995 as a water quality technician. He has served on the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission for 18 years and on the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Council for 16 years, formerly as chairman and now as vice chairman.
Hepfer is the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s delegate to the state Department of Social & Health Services’ Indian Policy Advisory Committee; and to the Coast Salish Gathering, an annual meeting of representatives from Coast Salish nations from the U.S. and Canada.
Sen. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, one of three Native Americans in the state legislature, said of the governor’s appointments, “I think these two are great appointments. I know the both of them will do a tremendous job.”
In a farewell column in the December edition of the Swinomish news magazine he edits, Vendiola wrote that in his new position in the state Office of Native Education, “I will get the chance to apply my academic and cultural skills to support Native education.”
Vendiola, Swinomish/Lummi, has been editor of qyuuqs, the Swinomish Tribe’s monthly news magazine, since November 2011. During his editorship, he expanded the magazine’s news coverage, elevated its graphic design and news presentation, and established features designed to improve the reader’s grasp of the Lushootseed language. He helped establish the communications department at the Swinomish Tribe.
In addition to serving as editor of qyuuqs, Vendiola has served as coordinator/activities adviser at Western Washington University since August 1998. He was director of student activities at Northwest Indian College from September 1995 to July 1998. He was recruitment and retention specialist at Skagit Valley College from August 1991 to August 1993. He also founded The Philomath Groove, a project that instills love of learning through the use of mixed media.
Vendiola earned a doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies in 2013 from the University of Washington. He earned a master’s degree in adult education administration in 1997 from Western Washington University. He earned a bachelor’s in American cultural studies in 1994 from Western Washington.
A fisherman stumbled upon a rock carving that appears to show a legendary battle in Quileute mythology. As historic finds go, it’s “the most important, at least in this modern day” for the tribe.
Mark Harrison / The Seattle Times An old petroglyph found by a fisherman in the Calawah River was celebrated with a ceremony by a group of Quileute tribal members before it was moved to the tribal headquarters in La Push. State archaeologists authenticated the carving and think it may date to around or before the mid-1700s.
OUTSIDE OF FORKS, Clallam County — There hadn’t been any good fishing on the Calawah River the day last December when Erik Wasankari and his son Reid found the rock.
It was a damp, cold day when the pair, on their lunch break, saw the rock and walked into the river, which was running shallow, to inspect it.
It was big — about 2 feet in diameter, with a domelike top filled with grooves and small depressions. Reid scraped off some moss so they could see it better.
All Wasankari could make out were “just some triangles and rectangles and shapes,” but he realized they had found something special.
“The symbols that we saw were too unique,” said Wasankari, a 44-year-old contractor who grew up in the area and now lives in Gig Harbor.
The rock they stumbled upon appears to be a carving that depicts a legendary battle in Quileute mythology, according to tribal and state officials.
Chas Woodruff, chairman of the Quileute Nation’s Tribal Council, describes the historic find for the tribe as “ the most important, at least in this modern day.”
Up to 1,000 pounds
When tribal and state officials, including Woodruff and state Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark gathered Wednesday for a ceremony to celebrate the rock’s discovery, you couldn’t walk across the Calawah River. The mud-tinted river was square in the middle of a storm that was dumping several inches of rain on the region and sending whitecaps and dead trees hurtling downstream.
The rock — which could weigh up to 1,000 pounds — had been hauled up to the river bank by a power winch.
Standing near it just before the ceremony were Lee Stilson and Eugene Jackson. Stilson retired just last week as state lands archaeologist for the state Department of Natural Resources; Jackson is a Quileute tribal member.
The two talked about what they could see on the rock’s surface. Stilson pointed out the head of what is believed to be K’wati, a transformative figure in Quileute mythology. With his finger, Stilson traced K’wati’s head, beak and distinctive comb, and then K’wati’s tongue, which leads to another figure on the rock, believed to be the Red Lizard.
The tongue is a power symbol and weapon for Northwest tribes, Stilson explained. Jackson, who has done some carving himself, agreed.
“Anything that comes out of the mouth is an offensive design — that animal is showing his power,” Jackson said.
Stilson and Jackson wondered if the rock could have been a trail marker.
“On the 1893 General Land Office map, they show a trail here,” Stilson said.
As state archaeologist, Stilson helped authenticate the rock. Whoever carved it used not a metal tool but stone, he said. That means it’s a “pre-contact” artifact, one made before Europeans moved into the region. Stilson guessed it dates to around or before the mid-1700s.
Stilson described such a significant discovery as a gift to end his 44-year archaeological career.
“It’s a phenomenal work of art,” he said, more than once.
Jackson’s connection is more personal. He said the rock could have been moved downstream over the centuries from land where his ancestors lived. And he brought his 7-year-old son, Frank, to see the carving and show him “who he is, where he comes from.”
“Bad monster”
The Red Lizard, according to Quileute legend, made his home near the narrowest point of land between the Calawah and Sol Duc rivers and stopped people using it as a shortcut from one to the other. K’wati, a figure of good who was known as the “transformer” and turned the Quileutes from wolves into people, eventually killed the Red Lizard, who had a much poorer reputation.
“He was a very bad monster … his urine, actually, if you stepped on it, it would kill you,” Quileute Tribal Councilman Justin “Rio” Jaime told those gathered at the ceremony.
The rock will go on display in La Push, as a welcome addition to help tell the tribe’s history. Of this, the Quileute don’t have much — in the late 1880s, a European settler set La Push afire. Along with homes and fishing equipment, the tribe lost almost all its pre-contact artifacts.
But Marion Jackson, Eugene’ Jackson’s younger sister, who also came to the ceremony, doesn’t think of the rock as just something from the past.
“I’m excited,” said Marion Jackson, as she stood just a few feet from it. “I feel like our ancestors are definitely talking to us.”
Courtesy Environmental Protection Agency The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will issue water quality rules to uphold certain levels of fish consumption.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has told the State of Washington it intends to step in to develop a federal plan for the state’s human health water quality criteria as the state did not finalize a plan by year’s end, a deadline EPA gave the state last April.
The EPA’s rulemaking process, in part tied to the human fish consumption rate, will overlap the state’s potential timeline but preserves the EPA’s ability to propose a rule in case the state does not act in a timely manner, EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran wrote to Department of Ecology head Maia Bellon on December 18.
Under the federal Clean Water Act, the state must adopt standards that ensure rivers and major bodies of water are clean enough to support fish that are safe for humans to eat. Washington’s current standard assumes people eat just 6.5 grams of fish a day, or about one filet a month.
Tribal leaders with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, which represents 20 western Washington tribes, met with the EPA’s McLerran in September seeking to step in and set new water-quality rules for the state, after sending Washington Gov. Jay Inslee a letter expressing dissatisfaction with his proposed draft rule change last July.
Inslee’s draft rule would raise the fish consumption rate to 175 grams a day to protect people who eat one serving of fish per day, a figure that tribal leaders accept. But it has taken the state two years to work out the new draft rule in a political push-pull between business interests and human health advocates, which have each missed their own deadlines in the process.
Tribal leaders say they are also “deeply concerned” about a proposal privately advanced by Inslee that would allow a tenfold increase in allowable cancer risk under the law. The EPA letter asks Washington to explain why a change in the state’s long-standing cancer risk protection level is necessary.
The state’s draft rule is now expected in January, but since the EPA believes it can complete a proposed federal rule by August 2015, the state is looking at a limited time period in which to finalize its rulemaking process.
If not, the EPA is prepared to move forward with rulemaking that McLerran wrote considers the best science, and includes an assessment of downstream water protection, environmental justice, federal trust responsibility, and tribal treaty rights.
The reading of “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” a poem by Clement Clarke Moore better known by its first line, “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” is a tradition in many households; nearly 200 years after its first appearance, an author and an artist published a version that gave the story an American Indian flair.
Called simply Native American Night Before Christmas, the children’s book featured words by Gary Robinson (Choctaw and Cherokee) and images by Jesse T. Hummingbird (Cherokee). It was published by Clearlight Books, and was the Silver winner of the Moonbeam Children’s Award.
Here’s a short video of the poem, in which Old Red Shirt (Santa Claus) rides a sleigh pulled by bison and distributes frybread. It’s read by former Native America Calling radio host Harlan McKosato, with music by recent NAMA lifetime Achievement Award winner Jim Boyd. Gather round…
Members of the Tualatin Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited toss used Christmas trees into a side channel of the Necanicum River on the Oregon Coast. | credit: Michael Ellis
Most Christmas trees get kicked to the curb and ground up into mulch after the holidays. But a Portland-area conservation group is trying to change that.
The Tualatin Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited has found used Christmas trees make great salmon habitat when placed in coastal waterways.
Next month, they’re launching the third year of a program they call Christmas for Coho. They’ll collect used Christmas trees on three Saturdays in January and place them in the Necanicum River, coastal stream in northwest Oregon.
There, once submerged in water, the dying trees will take on a whole new life.
Michael Ellis, the group’s conservation director, said the trees provide valuable woody debris that salmon can use to hide from predators.
“It’s pretty incredible. We’ll be putting trees into the Necanicum River and you can actually observe fish flocking to these trees,” he said. “They’re just looking for this kind of cover.”
The trees also feed microorganisms that attract other critters for baby salmon to eat before they head out to sea.
Coho Sanctuary is one of the wetlands where the group has placed trees. Its owner captured underwater videos of young coho salmon swimming through the habitat.
Ellis said the group has found lamprey and other wildlife using the habitat, too.
“We’ve seen salamander egg masses being laid on the Christmas trees,” he said. “So we believe it’s really enriching the environment quite a bit for just about everything that uses the wetland. It’s pretty neat, really.”
Ellis’ group will be collecting used Christmas trees on January 3, 10 and 17 from 9 am to 4 p.m. at two fly-fishing shops: Northwest Fly Fishing Outfitters in Portland and Joel La Follette’s Royal Treatment in West Linn.
The group requests a $10 donation to cover the cost of transporting the trees.
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