An increase of acidity in the Pacific Ocean is quickly killing off one of the world’s most beloved shellfish, the scallop, according to a report by the British Columbia Shellfish Grower’s Association.
“By June of 2013, we lost almost 95 per cent of our crops,” Rob Saunders, CEO of Island Scallops in B.C. told Canada’s CTV News.
The cause of this increase in acidity, scientists say, is the exponential burning of fossil fuels for energy and its subsequent pollution. Oceans naturally absorb carbon dioxide, a byproduct of fossil fuel emissions, which causes acidity to rise.
An overdose of carbon in the atmosphere subsequently causes too much acidity in the world’s oceans, Chris Harley, a marine ecologist from the University of British Columbia, told CTV News. Overly acidic water is bad for shellfish, as it impairs them from developing rigid shells. Oyster hatcheries along the West Coast are also experiencing a steep decline,CTV News reports.
“This is a bit of a red flag,” said Harley.
And this red flag has a much bigger impact than one might imagine. “Whenever we see an impact at some level of the food chain, there is a cascading effect at other levels of the food chain,” said Peter Ross, an expert in ocean pollution science.
A recent study warned that ocean acidification is accelerating at a rate unparalleled in the life of the oceans—perhaps the fastest rate in the planet’s existence—which is degrading marine ecosystems on a mass scale.
Ocean acidification has been referred to as the “evil twin” of climate change.
Poertner says that if humanity’s industrial carbon emissions continue with a “business as usual” attitude, levels of acidity in the world’s oceans will be catastrophic.
Lynne Lynch/Columbia Basin Herald Wanapum Reservoir Lowered water levels on the Wanapum Reservoir have brought about issues with public safety and preservation of archaeological sites. A bill recently signed into law protects the archaeological locations from being revealed in public records requests.
OLYMPIA – A bill protecting the locations of tribal burial grounds and other archaeological sites awaits the governor’s signature to become law.
The legislation, which makes information about the locations of archaeological resources unavailable to the public through public records requests, was passed unanimously by the House with 47 votes in favor and two opposed in the Senate.
In Grant County, some shores of the Columbia River in Grant County PUD’s Priest Rapids Project contain artifacts from the Wanapum and other Native American groups that lived and traveled along the river, according to Grant’s website. And lately, artifact protection and public safety have been concerns because of the lowered Wanapum Reservoir, exposing shoreline and resulting in the PUD closing the area to the public. Two human skeletons, believed to be several years old, were recently found after the water was lowered.
“This bill is about respect for our Indian tribes,” main sponsor Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, D-Mukilteo, said, speaking before the Senate Committee on Government Operations.
Tribes are reluctant to share sensitive information about where their ancestors might be buried or artifacts could be found. They’re worried about “people who might go digging around,” said Sen. Pam Roach, speaking in favor of the bill before the senate vote earlier this month.
“This bill is to help protect that by making the whereabouts of such objects a little more shielded,” Roach said.
The supporters of HB 2724 hope it will encourage tribes to entrust local governments with more information so they can prevent sites from being accidentally disturbed during development.
Representatives from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, state Department of Ecology, Yakama Nation, Association of Washington Cities, state Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation, and state Department of Natural Resources testified in support of the bill.
Rowland Thompson, of Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington, testified with concerns because the bill was drafted too broadly, as it mentions any information and any agency, according to the House Bill Report. “Any agency” should include schools, libraries and museums, Thompson clarified.
He said it could apply to museums or schools, rather than specifically protecting the database of archaeological sites that city developers used.
The bill was amended so property owners can get information about their own property from the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP).
“Perhaps they have some cultural data on their property and they may not know about it, and this allows that to happen,” said Sen. Linda Parlette, R-Wenatchee, who proposed the change.
DAHP preservation officer Allyson Brooks said it was important for landowners to know that the department wouldn’t stop construction because of archaeological finds.
“I think it’s a bit of a myth, a scare, that things will stop, when we all work very hard to keep projects going. A lot of times tribes will come out and do the work for free with property owners,” Brooks said at the senate hearing.
Lawmakers also clarified that the bill relates to information regarding the locations of historical resources shared between tribal governments, state agencies or local governments.
Once signed by Gov. Jay Inslee, the law would go into effect in June.
EVERETT — The Snohomish County Public Utility District on Thursday received federal approval for plans to place two large turbines on the sea floor off Whidbey Island.
The pilot project has been in development for years, and if the PUD’s Board of Commissioners signs off on the project, it may be a few more years before the turbines are installed.
Snohomish County PUD This artist’s rendering shows the tidal energy turbine Snohomish County Public Utility District plans to test to determine if tidal energy is a viable source of electricity.
The project is a test to see if using tides to generate electricity is technically, commercially and environmentally viable, said Craig Caller, an assistant general manager for the PUD.
It would be the first time tidal power turbines in Puget Sound would be connected to the larger electricity grid.
So far, the PUD has raised about $13 million in federal Department of Energy grants, which is expected to cover about half the cost of the project. The rest would come from a mix of more grants and money from the utility’s Resource Reinvestment Reserve, Caller said.
The test area is 200 feet deep in Admiralty Inlet, less than half a mile off the west shore of Whidbey Island and not far from the Keystone ferry slip and Fort Casey State Park.
The utility is to operate the turbines for three to five years, during which time it will study the turbines’ actual performance versus the expected output, maintenance requirements, underwater noise and response of nearby fish and marine mammals.
Gathering that data will determine whether the utility proceeds with a commercial deployment. Right now there isn’t enough data to make even an educated guess as to tidal power’s viability.
“It’s in its infancy. It’s about where wind technology was decades ago,” said Dave Aldrich, president of the PUD’s Board of Commissioners.
In issuing the license, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ruled that the PUD has addressed concerns raised by Native American tribes and an undersea cable company.
The Tulalip Indian Tribes, the Suquamish Tribe and the Point No Point Treaty Council, representing the Port Gamble and Jamestown S’Klallam tribes, opposed the project, saying the turbines posed a risk to fish and fishing nets and would force the state to close the area to fishing.
A data communications company, Pacific Crossing of Danville, Calif., also protested the project. The company operates more than 13,000 miles of undersea fiber-optic cable that pass through Admiralty Inlet to Harbour Pointe from Asia and California. It is concerned cables would be damaged by the operation of the turbines.
Caller said that FERC in its ruling said the turbines posed no risk either to undersea cables or marine wildlife, nor would they impede the tribes’ fishing rights.
Officials from the Tulalip Tribes and Pacific Crossing could not be reached for comment.
In the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, another pilot project using the same model of turbines found there was no danger to wildlife.
“What they found consistently over that time is that when the turbine is rotating, that fish and mammals simply avoid it,” Caller said.
The turbines are to be made by the Irish firm OpenHydro. They are approximately 20 feet in diameter, weigh 414 tons each and sit 65 feet high on a triangular platform 100 by 85 feet.
At peak generation, the turbines could produce 600 kilowatts of electricity. But because this is a pilot project, it is unlikely the turbines would ever generate that much electricity for the grid, Caller said,
If the PUD’s board votes to move forward with the project — Aldrich said it likely will — the utility will need to obtain permits from Island County, where the power would be brought to shore, order the turbines and hire contractors.
It’s brand new territory for the utility, and installation of the turbines is years away.
“We’re pioneers if we go through with this,” Aldrich said.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165 or cwinters@heraldnet.com.
March 20th is National Native American AIDS Awareness Day. AIDS and HIV, though declining nationally, are on the rise in many Native American communities, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. For Tulalip, HIV and AIDS have been steadily climbing, following that trend.
National Native American AIDS Awareness Day is intended to raise awareness about the unique challenges native American communities face that lead to increased risk. While race and ethnicity neither play no part in susceptibility nor create a predisposition to risk of infection, the demographic challenges many Native Americans face to lead to increased risk factors. These include cultural diversity, socioeconomic challenges, substance abuse, societal stigmas, mistrust of government health care, and lack of awareness because of cultural barriers.
National Native American AIDS Awareness day was first observed in 2007, and has been observed on the first day of spring each subsequent annum. To learn more visit http://aids.gov/news-and-events/awareness-days/native/
Sno Co Health District, contact for locations and more information.
Evergreen Aids Foundation, Contact
CHC of Snohomisch Count, Contact to schedule an appointment
Planned Parenthood, contact
Concerns rise over failing fish populations, meaningless water rights and pushback from other governments
Trinity Lake is one of the largest reservoirs in California, and much of its water goes to the Central Valley and its agriculture. Reservations are often left dry. Photo: Tim Reed/USGS
Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series examining how drought affects Native Americans and their communities.
Drought maps this winter have shaded swaths of the American West in oranges and reds to signify severe, extreme and even exceptional levels of drought.
And exceptional drought gets attention, especially when it hits America’s vegetable basket, California’s Central Valley.
Speaker of the House John Boehner in January stood in his shirtsleeves in a dusty, bare field in Bakersfield. He supported a state bill that would quash salmon restoration in the San Joaquin River delta, joining the cry that scarce water should go to farms, not fish.
President Barack Obama, a month later, stood in his shirtsleeves in a dusty, bare field in nearby Fresno, offering $183 million in aid and announced an initiative on climate change to address larger issues affecting the three-year drought.
But living in the dry is nothing new for Native Americans in the West. Nor is being overlooked.
In wet years as well as dry, many American Indians live in chronic droughtlike conditions, thanks to decades’ worth of dams that hold water back or divert it from reservations which were usually sited on already marginal land.
“We are definitely one of the overlooked groups of people in the U.S.,” said Margaret Hiza Redsteer from her office in Flagstaff, Ariz. A member of the Crow Nation, Redsteer is a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and has been monitoring 18 consecutive years of drought conditions in the Southwest, primarily on Hopi and Navajo lands.
“The California drought is getting a lot of attention right now, and I keep thinking ‘You know, we’ve been facing this problem for a while now’ … [but] we don’t supply the food to the rest of the country, so people haven’t noticed,” she said.
The dry side of reservoirs
Her concerns are echoed in the Great Plains — where reservoirs behind federal dams have displaced Indians — and in Northern California, where once teeming salmon streams shrink as water is diverted south.
During the last century, California constructed a massive system of dams, reservoirs, tunnels and canals to funnel water to the Central Valley, which has become an industrial agriculture wonderland. According to the USGS California Water Science Center, Central Valley agriculture is a $17 billion per year industry that supplies a quarter of America’s food, including 40 percent of its fruits and nuts.
Lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and fruit take tremendous quantities of water, and the dry fields where Obama and Boehner were standing during their media events are often irrigated with water that comes from far away.
In fact, 557 miles to the north, amid the forested ridges that outline the sinuous Trinity River, Rod Mendes reflected about being on the dry side of the Central Valley Project dams.
People need to keep in mind, as [drought] legislation is drafted, that farms can be bailed out but fish populations can’t.
Dave Hillemeier
fisheries manager, Yurok Tribe
“For the most part, the Hoopa Indian Reservation is kind of in a drought situation all the time anyway,” said Mendes, who is writing an emergency drought plan for the tribe. “We have a lot of dams in the area. They control the flow of the river whether we’re in a drought year or not. We’re not getting the flows we were getting before the dams.”
A half-century of lesser flows has reduced coho salmon runs to the point they are on federal and state endangered species lists. Officials with both the Hoopa and Yurok tribes say they are concerned that California’s declaration of a drought emergency in January will make things worse by loosening environmental protections known as CEQA, California Environmental Quality Assurance.
“We’re concerned because during the process the tribes really haven’t been consulted with,” said Hoopa Valley tribal chairwoman Danielle Vigil-Masten. “All this legislation that’s getting put through really fast. They have legislation to increase water flows into the Shasta Reservoir. They have other bills to do with the Trinity River. We have to constantly go online and look and try to understand what the information is that we are reading. We have our attorneys on it.”
“People need to keep in mind, as [emergency drought] legislation is drafted, that farms can be bailed out but fish populations can’t,” said Dave Hillemeier, fisheries manager for the Yurok Tribe. “Once you lose the genetics that make up your fish population, they’re gone.”
Salmon returning from the ocean last year faced such obstacles as low flows in the Trinity and Klamath rivers, higher water temperatures, algae blooms from agricultural runoff and even dewatering — stretches that were sucked dry by irrigation or consumption.
“Too much water has been allocated to too many people,” said Konrad Fisher, executive director ofKlamath Riverkeeper. Along the Scott River, an important tributary of the Klamath, Fisher said, “an 18-mile stretch … was completely dry,” because of overappropriation of water rights.
Dry stretches strand returning salmon, keeping them from reaching spawning grounds.
Talking to the elders
Pressure on Northern California water may be especially dire this year. According to the California Water Science Center, “2013 was the driest calendar year for California in 119 years of recorded history.”
Foreshadowing a bone-dry 2014, snowpack in the north ranged from 22 percent to 25 percent of normal by late February. Snowpack provides about one-third of the water used by California’s cities and farms, the center said.
In the Southwest, “It’s a year without a winter here,” Redsteer said from her USGS office in Flagstaff. She has chronicled the worsening scarcity of water by setting up her own weather stations and interviewing up to 100 tribal elders about changes they observed during their lifetimes, which included winters without snow, summers without monsoons and vanishing streams, plants and animals.
One of the ways USGS geologist Margaret Hiza Redsteer tracks climate change is by talking to Navajo and Hopi elders. Photo: U.S. Geological Survey
Streams on the Navajo reservation have dried up one after another. Without moisture in the ground, perennial grasses don’t grow. Without grass cover, sand dunes begin to migrate and advance on dwellings, roads and grazing land. Dry riverbeds release fine sediment to the winds, and the airborne dust settles on the snowpack of the southern Rockies. Dust absorbs more heat from the sun and melts the snow more quickly.
Is it climate change? “That’s the $10 million question, and frankly it’s a question I don’t think you’ll ever be able to answer. It’d be like trying to claim which cigarette gave the person lung cancer,” Redsteer said.
What can be said, she added, is that drought conditions are intensified by warmer temperatures. Plants don’t remain dormant in winter anymore. They germinate and use up scant moisture. Higher temperatures increase aridity, which steals water from plants through evapotranspiration.
Use it or lose it
But haven’t indigenous cultures in the Southwest long adapted to arid climates?
“First of all, the traditional way of adapting to dry seasons was to move,” Redsteer said. These days, “If you have a reservation, and the reservation is established where there are the most limited water resources in the region, the odds of you being able to make it through dry seasons are stacked against you.”
Indeed, she said, census data shows the reservation population in decline even as there are more Navajo. “There is a notable emigration from the reservation and mostly it’s young people who are leaving because they can get jobs in cities,” she said. This is due in part from the limited, land-based economies on the reservation.
“There’s not a lot of alternatives out there,” Redsteer said.
When it comes to drought planning, she praised the Navajo and Hopi tribes but added, “What is it that we do after the first 10 years?” Redsteer asked. “People on the reservation use one-tenth of the water that people in Phoenix use every day. How do you conserve when you are already using so little? They don’t have lawns, they don’t wash their cars on a regular basis. It’s hard to say, ‘Well, we really need to conserve now,’” she said with a laugh.
And Phoenix, a desert city that glimmers with emerald golf courses and backyard swimming pools when seen from the air, highlights the archaic nature of water laws.
“One of the real ironies is that western water law is ‘use it or lose it’. Phoenix … to keep its Colorado River allocation, has to use that allocation or it will lose its rights to it. So in some ways there’s a disincentive to conserve,” Redsteer said.
The aftershocks of dam building resonate throughout Indian Country, even on the Great Plains.
“It is no coincidence that the major dams on the Missouri are on Indian reservations,” added Gary Collins. Collins is a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe who has spent much of his career in natural resource and water issues.
“Actually, the tribes on the Missouri didn’t get the dams, they got the reservoirs,” said Bob Gough, secretary of the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, based in Rosebud, S.D. “When the dams were built for flood control, it actually means the tribes were permanently flooded and someone else is in control. That’s what ‘flood control’ means if you are an Indian.”
Collaboration among tribes and federal and state agencies is welcome but is fraught with ugly history such as Indians being flooded out by dams. “It was forced displacement, and that provides the mistrust tribes have with the government,” Collins said.
Some tribes, such as those on Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation, have fought for more control by having their water rights adjudicated — which clarifies how much water a user has a right to use and who has priority during times of scarcity.
“It was 37 years in the courts,” Collins said. “We are constantly having pushback from non-Indian society wanting more of the tribes’ assets.”
Tribes are first affected and most affected. They are the ones on the ground who sustain themselves with subsistence hunting and fishing and gardening.
Gary Collins
Northern Arapaho tribe
With drought, Collins said, “Tribes are first affected and most affected. They are the ones on the ground who sustain themselves with subsistence hunting and fishing and gardening.”
Gough is among the lead authors of a chapter on the effects of climate change on indigenous people — the first time they have their own chapter — in the forthcoming third edition of the National Climate Assessment.
Among the observations: “A significant decrease in water quality and quantity caused by a variety of factors, including climate change, is affecting Native Americans’ and Alaska Natives’ drinking water supplies, food, cultures, ceremonies and traditional ways of life. Native communities’ vulnerabilities and lack of capacity to adapt to climate change are exacerbated by land-use policies, political marginalization, legal issues associated with tribal water rights and poor socioeconomic conditions.”
It often comes down to poverty, Gough said. “When you get to Indian Country, you see that these reservations have already been beset upon with with all sorts of vulnerabilities.”
Poverty often means that even if tribes have senior water rights, “they don’t have a lot of money for infrastructure to actually get the benefits of those water rights,” Redsteer said. It’s not uncommon for tribes to bargain away some of their rights to have water returned via someone else’s pipes.
“It doesn’t do any good to have water rights on paper,” she said.
Meanwhile, as they prepared for the predicted dry summer, people enjoyed the few days of late-winter rain that spattered Northern California.
“I love the rain. I went out and took a walk in the rain,” Yurok chairman O’Rourke said.
“I love the smell of rain,” Hoopa chairwoman Vigil-Masten said. “It seems that when it rains, we are all happy, really. Because you can see the water in the river start to increase.”
Image source: twitter.com/BuffySteMarie ‘If you really want to see something historic in your life, go to Fort McMurray and just bear witness to what they’re doing,’ says legendary musician-activist Sainte-Marie.
For decades, Buffy Sainte-Marie has been an artistic trailblazer. The Sixties folk explosion saw the Canadian-born Cree songwriter confront the colonial status quo with hit songs like “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” as well as the anti-war anthem “Universal Soldier.” Sainte-Marie, who is currently based in Hawaii, is gearing up to record her first album of new material since 2008 (more on that later), and took a few minutes to share her thoughts on a number of topics with ICTMN.
We’ve seen your Tweets (@BuffySteMarie) about the oil sands, or tar sands as they’re sometimes called — what’s your take on the situation?
Almost a year ago I went to Fort McMurray (Alberta) and I was just devastated with what’s going on there. Just devastated. I just told everybody I could: “You’ve got to take this seriously.” Even since I was there, other people have really stepped forward in their own ways, Neil Young in particular. He’s caught a lot of criticism because he didn’t involve me, Susan Aglukark or other Native people. Neil came to the induction ceremony in Nashville, at the Musicians Hall of Fame, and I told him I’d seen some of the criticism and not to listen to it at all! Because it’s so important, it has to be everybody doing whatever they can, whenever they can, and being effective at whatever level they can be. You reach people your way, I do it my way and Neil does it his way. But people have to see it.
It’s really worth a trip to Fort McMurray just to see it with your own eyes. If you really want to see something historic in your life, go to Fort McMurray and just bear witness to what they’re doing. It’s never going to return, and this is the future of the planet if the present people are allowed to stay in charge. We are allowing them to stay in charge. We are allowing it. That’s why we have wars. We have to be really vigilant and supportive of one another, because it has to stop. There’s no turning back.
Neil Young toured with the First Nation that’s experiencing high cancer rates from the tar sands. And yet he also caught criticism when people said, “Oh, he’s just an outsider, he lives in California — what right does he have to criticize this?”
(Laughs). Because it’s not only about Canada, that’s why! Good for Neil for stepping up. Everybody should be stepping up at whatever their most effective level is. It’s not just about Native people and it’s not just about Canada. Just the weather changes are indicative: people just gotta wake up.
Have the issues changed over time, or is it still the same root issues as in your songs “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” or “Universal Soldier”?
The root issue is always the same. It’s about corporate greed in charge of all of our energy. That’s the root issue. But in the 1500s it was gold and silver in Central America, and then coal, oil, and now uranium. I have a song that’s going to be on the album I’m recording now called “The Uranium War.” It has a line:
Coal and oil and hey, now uranium
Keep the Indians under your thumb
Pray like hell when your bad times come
Get ’em up, rip ’em up, strip ’em up
Get ’em with a gun.
So the violence that occurs, and has been occurring against Indigenous People in the world because of resources has now become obvious to the non-indigenous people too. There are now more people understanding how devastating the misuse of resources not only can be, but just plain is.
Let’s talk about the Longest Walk. Richie Havens passed on last year, and you were a long supporter of the Longest Walk and affirming treaty rights. Could you offer some thoughts on him, his passing and his legacy?
He and I kind of emerged around the same time — the summer of 1963-4. We would see each other over the years. He came and visited me in Hawaii a few times. We were good friends. He was such an incredible interpreter of other people’s songs, and such a good guy. Pete Seeger too — he just did so much for the world through music, in ways both subtle and big. You know, heaven must be a great place, because there’s a lot of people going there!
Pete Seeger with Buffy Sainte-Marie. Source: twitter.com/buffystemarie
You were with Pete Seeger at Clearwater Fest last summer. The photos were just beautiful, you guys having a lovely hug.
He was just really, really special, huh?
Do you ever feel nostalgic for that era, when you all emerged almost at once? It must have been such a different energy because it was also a social movement as well as being about music.
It was, but I’ve been waiting for it to come back. And I think it has. For me, the Internet is like the Sixties. It used to be, in the Sixties, all kinds of music was available to you, but it was kept away. You had to go with this label and that genre. It really became a very narrow-minded corporate world. They’d sign 90 artists and shelve 90 others. It used to be so unfair. But now you can hear all kinds of music, and everybody can get played, publish a song, or share things on the Internet. It’s such a wonderful time that we’re living in. You shouldn’t discount it or think that the Sixties were better. The Sixties were about a true student movement. And now there’s another true populist movement, so let’s do what we can, while we can.
To learn more about Buffy Sainte-Marie, visit her official site BuffySainte-Marie.com.
A group of protesters have gathered at a railroad crossing near Tyendinaga Mohawk reserve to demand justice for murdered and missing indigenous women. (Photo: Frederic Pepin/Radio-Canada)
Protesters near the Tyendinaga Mohawk reserve in southern Ontario have blocked the Montreal-Toronto Via Rail line to draw attention to missing and murdered aboriginal women.
The blockade is at Marysville, Ont., between Belleville and Kingston.
Via Rail’s media relations manager Jacques C. Gagnon said Marysvilleis a popular site for railroad blockades.
“We had hints since late last night that there would be a blockade,” Gagnon said.
Train service between Montreal and Ottawa is still running. However, service between Toronto and Ottawa has been halted.
Trains travelling in the Montreal-Toronto corridor have been replaced by chartered buses.
Ontario Provincial Police in Smith Falls, Ont., have confirmed that Wyman Road/Highway 2 in Tyendinaga is also blocked.
Earlier this month, protesters from the Tyendinaga Mohawk reserve blocked a highway over what they said was a lack of action on investigations into missing and murdered aboriginal women.
A pre-conference tour of Grand Coulee Dam on Monday kicked off a conversation about restoring salmon to the Upper Columbia Basin. Tom Banse, Northwest News Network
Once upon a time, salmon and steelhead swam over a thousand miles upriver to the headwaters of the mighty Columbia River, at the foot of the Rockies in British Columbia.
Salmon and steelhead have been absent from the upper Columbia River for 75 years. But tribes on both sides of border still miss the fish. Colville tribal member D.R. Michel senses an opportunity “to correct a lot of wrongs.”
“The tribes never surrendered to the loss of salmon,” he says. “You see old photos of the chiefs standing on the reservation side looking down on the project with all of those promises of, ‘We’ll take care of you. You’ll have your fish. We’ll put in hatcheries.’ None of that stuff ever really happened.”
The Bureau of Reclamation’s Lynne Brougher led a tour Monday of Grand Coulee Dam for tribal leaders and biologists from British Columbia and the U.S Northwest. She stopped the tour van in the center of the enormous concrete span so the group could peer over the edge at the torrents of water plummeting down the spillways.
“What you’re looking at here is a 350 foot difference between the water at the base of the dam and uplake in the reservoir,” Brougher explained over the din of rushing water.
Nobody has built a fish ladder on a dam this high according to Canadian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission biologist Will Warnock of Cranbrook, British Columbia.
“It would be going into uncharted waters to build that kind of passage facility. There’s other things you can do to get salmon past dams this high, though. You can trap them and manually truck them around the dam.”
That’s one idea. An elevator actually is another. A long fish ladder would be very expensive and a last resort, if tried at all.
A separate suite of technologies would be needed to help juvenile salmon migrating downstream get past the hydropower turbines and long stretches of slack water behind the upper Columbia dams.
Who would pay?
Who would pay for this? Nearly all of us, as D.R. Michel sees it. He directs the Upper Columbia United Tribes of North Idaho and Eastern Washington.
“It’s potentially a shared cost between ratepayers, the federal government, farmers and irrigators,” says Michel. “Some of the folks who benefit directly from use of this water and what comes out of this dam should help pay for this also.”
The unknown costs of reintroduction could add up, and that worries the Public Power Council’s Scott Corwin. He represents public utilities who get electricity from Columbia River dams.
“There are just a lot of questions about whether that is even possible and how it would impact other species. Yeah, we have a lot of questions.”
The U.S. and Canada are about to open negotiations to renew the 50-year-old Columbia River Treaty. That is the forum chosen by fish advocates to advance their idea. But last week, British Columbia’s government declared it doesn’t want to discuss it at the treaty talks.
A position paper forwarded to Ottawa reads, “British Columbia’s perspective is that the management of… salmon populations is the responsibility of the Government of Canada and that restoration of fish passage and habitat, if feasible, should be the responsibility of each country regarding their respective infrastructure.”
“We are very respectful of the importance of salmon to First Nations,” said provincial Energy Minister Bill Bennett, using the Canadian term for native tribes. But during an interview, Bennett also maintained that ratepayers of BC Hydro should not have to pay more for fish passage. “Our (electricity) rates are already going up in B.C.,” Bennett noted.
Tim Personius, deputy regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, says Canada’s position could be a problem.
“The position of the United States is that we should not move forward without Canada participating. I think that’s a good idea.”
Personius says it looks like a lot of the spawning habitat for upper Columbia River fish is in Canada. He says it would not make a lot of sense “for the United States to spend millions or billions of dollars on fish passage” only to have the salmon run to British Columbia and “stub their noses” on a Canadian dam.
The U.S. government is taking an open-minded position in Personius’ telling. But given the many unknowns, “We should kind of approach this cautiously and probably in small steps.”
The Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps think say they are willing to investigate, but unknown costs could be a problem later.
Hundreds of Indigenous Peoples from the state and throughout the country gathered with a crowd of over 4000 people at the State Capitol in Sacramento on March 15 to send a clear message to Governor Brown: ban fracking, an environmentally destructive oil extraction practice that pollutes groundwater, rivers and the oceans.
The large Tribal contingent included members of the Miwok, Maidu, Winnemem Wintu, Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Ohlone, Pit River, Cahto, Round Valley, Tule River, Pomo and Chumash Nations and other Tribes from throughout the state, as well as members of the Dakota, Lakota Sioux, indigenous communities, native organizations and activists in the Idle No More Movement and Klamath Justice Coalitions. Many Tribal representatives emphasized the direct connection between fracking and the Shasta Dam raise and the Governor’s peripheral tunnels plan, which will provide water for fracking.
“We should call the Governor ‘Westlands’ Brown,” quipped Chook Chook Hillman, a member of the Karuk Tribe and the Klamath Justice Coalition that has organized many direct action protests to remove the Klamath dams, halt the violation of tribal gathering rights under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected areas,” and to stop the Westlands Water District legal attempt to raid Trinity River water.
“Brown is setting aside all the environmental rules in order to ship water south,” said Hillman, who held a banner proclaiming, “Stop Fracking Around – Undam the Klamath,” with other members of Klamath Justice Coalition. “Fracking will take good water, put chemicals in it and then it will come out toxic forever. Fracking will affect all us – fracking is a terrible use of water, water that could be used for people and fish.”
The event, organized by the Californians Against Fracking, featured diverse speakers including environmental justice advocates, farmers, student activists and other groups opposed to fracking. Hundreds of organizations, ranging from grassroots groups to large NGOs, helped to organized the rally.
Chief Caleen Audrey Sisk, Tribal Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu, led the opening ceremony and prayer. She took aim at the Governor’s peripheral tunnels plan – the “Brown Water Plan,” as she calls it.
She emphasized, “Here at the Capitol a lot of Brown water planning is going on. This water is our medicine – it comes from the sacred places where the medicine comes from. We struggle to continue to take care of our waters – there is no other place we can go to practice our religion.”
Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, opens the rally with a ceremony and prayer. (Photo by Dan Bacher)
After the rally was over she led a group of Winnemem Wintu and their supporters down to the Sacramento River at Miller Park take the “Water Challenge” to defend waters, rivers and fish population. Around 20 people cautiously waded into and then swam in the muddy waters.
“When we accept the winter water challenge and go down to our rivers, springs, lakes and oceans to make a heartfelt commitment and challenge others to do the same it makes the waters happy,” she said. “All over California the water ways are waking up with good blessings! Now accept the challenge to take the message you got to the Capitol and tell the world…no fracking chance will your Brown Water Plan destroy our sacred waters.”
Warrior Woman, a Dakota Indian woman holding a sign saying, “Mother Earth Does Not Negotiate,” said, “We’re here to stop fracking and the rape of Mother Earth. Water is the life blood of Mother Earth. The governmental system can’t continue to oppress the people and Mother Earth any longer.”
Mike Duncan, Round Valley Reservation Tribe member, described fracking as “another broken treaty.”
“I’m here for tribal water waters and to stop the raising of Shasta Dam. It’s the future – it’s our responsibilities as tribal people to stop fracking. Fracking is another broken treaty as far as I am concerned,” he said.
Penny Opal Plant, an organizer of Idle No More, pointed out that the battle against fracking and other destructive methods of oil and gas extraction is a worldwide struggle, including Lakota resistance to the XL pipeline, the resistance of Canadian First Nations to fracking and battles of indigenous people against destructive resource extraction throughout Latin America.
“We are not Mother Earth’s failed experiment. We are her immune system. All of the our two legged relatives must stand up for Mother Earth,” she stated.
Penny Opal Plant of Idle No More explained how California fracking occurs in the context of indigenous struggles against fracking across the globe. (Photo by Dan Bacher)
She noted that the oil industry is planning ship dangerously explosive crude oil through Richmond, California – and vowed direct action to stop the trains.
“We will put our bodies on the line and we may have to sit in front of the those trains,” Plant said.
“What time is it?,” she shouted to the crowd. “It’s time to transition!”
In a press release before the rally, Corrina Gould, Elder, Chochenyo/Karkin Ohlone, stated, “We are the ancestors of the future and it is our responsibility to be the care takers of the earth, as was given to us in our original teachings by our ancestors. We must not allow the continuous devastation and degradation of our Mother, Earth. We must be the voices for our children and our grandchildren. Fracking must stop by any means necessary.”
“Fracking” is a method of oil and gas production that involves blasting millions of gallons of water, mixed with sand and toxic chemicals, under high pressure deep into the earth to extract oil and gas but it can also pollute local air, water, and endanger the lives of people and wildlife, according to Corine Fairbanks, director of American Indian Movement Southern California Chapter.
Fracking exposes people to radioactivity and numerous toxic chemicals such as lead, arsenic, methanol, and benzene. The chemicals used in fracking have been linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer.
“Fracking is also known to trigger seismic activity and earthquakes,” said Fairbanks. “Anti-Fracking efforts have been led by California Native Nations throughout the state and on February 28th, 2014 the Los Angeles City Council passed a ban on fracking within its jurisdiction. This makes Los Angeles the first oil-producing city in California to call a halt to the practice.”
Fracking has been documented in 10 California counties — Colusa, Glenn, Kern, Monterey, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Sutter, Kings and Ventura. Oil companies have also fracked offshore wells in the ocean near California’s coast, from Seal Beach to the Santa Barbara Channel. Fracking may have been used elsewhere in California, since state officials have monitored neither or tracked the practice until recently, according to Fairbanks.
Fairbanks pointed out that Indian people have been fighting against hydraulic fracking and toxic dumping for many years.
“Toxic dumping and hydraulic fracking like efforts have been happening on and around Reservations for decades, causing a multitude of problems for our people; birth defects, and twisted strands of cancer,” said Fairbanks. “ No one took notice or interest when Native people wanted this stopped, now all of a sudden when it is becoming more of threat in non-Native communities, there is alarm and action.”
Gary Mulcahy, a member of the Winnemen Wintu Tribe, emphasized the connection between the raising of Shasta Dam, the peripheral tunnels and building of new dams that many tribal members and Delta folks made with their signs and banners at the event.
“It is interesting how fracking would bring out 4,000 to 5,000 people to a demonstration because this fracking, one way or the other, will hurt the water supply,” he noted. “But when you talk about agribusiness taking water drip by drip and drop by drop by building canals, raising dams or building more dams supposed to supply more water than the system can deliver in the first place, only a few voices are heard like a candle in the darkness.”
“Fracking involves your water from north to south, from east to west, water that is ultimately controlled by big corporations, including agribusiness and oil companies. If fracking is bad, then so is raising dams, building new dams and building the tunnels,” he concluded.
Hopefully, this highly successful rally will be followed by even bigger rallies and demonstrations in Sacramento and throughout the state opposing fracking, the peripheral tunnels, the Shasta Dam raise and the building of new dams.
Adam Scow of Food and Water Watch, one of the co-founders of Californians Against Fracking, said anti-fracking activists will keep building the movement to put pressure on Brown to ban fracking.
“Water is a human right and fracking is a violation of that human right, as are the twin tunnels,” Scow concluded.
Caleen Sisk: “We call to Olebis to look down on us and send down the good blessings. We call on sacred Mt. Shasta to help bless us with this sacred water, so it will continue to bring us and our children’s, children and so on in to the future with good health and long life for all our relations. We are calling on the water and fire spirits to help bring back the balance in our world, as wild salmon, wolves, beavers and giant trees make their way back. We sing to the water that flows from the sacred spring on Buliyum Puyuk (Mt. Shasta) to the ocean and back again…..waters from Mauna Kea come back and answer the call and the lakes of fire send their blessings. We ask the fires inside of Mt Shasta and all the sacred fires inside the mountains of the world to help us bring understanding and balance to our way of life and change our lives to the good again. Bring back the original taste of water to guide the people and all relatives back to healthy thinking and acting. For nothing will be here with out fresh clean healthy WATER. No air can be produced without waters to grow the trees, the Kelp, ……this world was created in the most perfect functioning way…..but now so much destruction and toxic waste ….for mega money for a few. We pray that our words will be heard and the August Fire and Water Ceremony be good in sending our prayers up the Creator!!!”
Background on fracking and oil industry money
For those not familiar with the practice, fracking blasts massive amounts of chemical-laced water into the ground to crack rock formations in order to extract oil and natural gas, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. The process routinely employs numerous toxic chemicals, including methanol, benzene and trimethylbenzene.
Oil companies have also fracked offshore wells over 200 times in the ocean near California’s coast, from Seal Beach to the Santa Barbara Channel, according to a Freedom of Information Act Request and media investigation by the Associated Press and truthout.org last year. WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd served on the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Forces during much of the time that this fracking of our marine waters was taking place.
The Center cited two studies documenting the harm fracking poses to human health. Birth defects are more common in babies born to mothers living near fracked wells, according to a new study by researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health. In California, a recent Center report found that oil companies used 12 dangerous “air toxic” chemicals more than 300 times in the Los Angeles Basin over a period of a few months.
Besides posing a big threat to human health, the pollution to California groundwater supplies, rivers and the Delta that will result from fracking and acidization will devastate already imperiled populations of Central Valley Chinook salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species.
The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the most powerful corporate lobbying organization in Sacramento, spent over $4.67 million, more than any other interest group, while lobbying state government in 2013, according to data released by the Secretary State’s Office and compiled by the Capitol Morning Report.
Another oil company giant, Chevron Corporation and its subsidiaries, spent $3.95 million, the third most spent by any group on lobbying state government in 2013. Chevron also spent much of its money on lobbying against bills that would ban or regulate fracking in California.
Since it is the most powerful corporate lobby in Sacramento, the oil industry is able to wield enormous influence over state and federal regulators and environmental processes. The result of this inordinate money and influence is the effective evisceration of the Marine Life Protection Act of 1999 during the MLPA Initiative process and the signing of Senator Fran Pavley’s Senate Bill 4.
A report recently released by the American Lung Association revealed that the oil industry lobby spent $45.4 million in the state between January 1 2009 and June 30, 2013. The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) alone has spent over $20 million since 2009 to lobby legislators. (http://blog.center4tobaccopolicy.org/oil-lobbying-in-california)
Courtesy Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s Office Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, right, was in attendance for the Champions for Change ceremony in Washington, D.C. recently. Heitkamp is pictured with office intern and one of the five Champions for Change Danielle Finn.
U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp is the first female elected from North Dakota. Since taking the oath of office on January 3, 2013, Heitkamp has shown herself to be a strong advocate fighting for the needs of Indian country as she has been since her role as state Attorney General beginning in 1990.
As a member on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Heitkamp has pledged to stand for Native American families and has worked to ensure the U.S. government lives up to treaty and trust responsibilities.
Last October, Heitkamp introduced a bill to improve the lives of Native American children that has received bipartisan support as well as another bill with Republican Senator Moran that would end the IRS’ practice of taxing crucial programs and services that aim to support the health and safety of Native families. Additionally she is an advocate for the Violence Against Women Act and better transportation and infrastructure on reservations.
In a conversation with ICTMN, Heitkamp shared her stance on the importance of working for the betterment of Indian country and why we should all fight for the needs of our children.
Can you tell us about your bill regarding the Commission on Native Children?
I don’t think there’s any aspect of Indian country that would be left untouched as we talk about children. It really comes to me from the words of Sitting Bull, who said “Let us now sit down and decide what kind of life we can make for our children,” I am paraphrasing, but if we stay focused on kids and our children we will make good choices and we will hopefully get better attention to the challenges for Native American families.
The important part of this commission is that we need to be looking at it from a holistic standpoint. You see people talk about Indian education or protection of our children or health care for our children or making sure that we have good transportation so that our kids can get to school. All of these things have a direct effect, but we worry about the programs and not about the outcomes.
For instance, I feel that Native languages are a huge component of the child bill because I think it is a way that we begin to grasp that cultural connection to heal families to provide the pride to move forward.
You played a key role in the Violence Against Women Act, you specifically pushed for tribal governments to gain authority to prosecute non-Native perpetrators, how are things going?
Currently three tribal courts have been selected as a sort of first pass – from there we will learn what tribal courts need to do as a court that has the authority and the jurisdiction to act over non-Native offenders.
We are taking those first steps but it is not enough to pass legislation. We have to be vigilant about making sure that that legislation is given its full effect. I think at this point, We are all grateful this is on track but we need to make sure that these test pilot tribal courts work.
None of these courts are in my state, I am really looking forward to seeing this implemented in my state so that Native American women do not and are not treated as second class citizens as it relates to the pursuit of justice.
I spent a lot of my time as Attorney General with domestic violence programs and it was one of the reasons why I ran for AG.
Can you speak on transportation infrastructure on reservations?
Obviously we are always road challenged in North Dakota. It doesn’t matter if you are at Township – We have issues with roads just given our weather patterns. One of the concerns that I have, Are the stories such as roads not getting plowed so that children cannot go to school or maybe grandma needs to get in for her diabetes treatment, but she cannot get out for groceries.
The frustration that I have is that we probably could see better cooperation between County and State officials along with tribal authorities – but the federal highway folks need to step up and do a better job allocating resources.
There is a great deal of concern about retention of overhead costs, so that these dollars don’t actually go back to the tribes, but are retained within the programs in Washington, D.C.
I realize that when we talk about roads, it is not going to fill up the room, but it might be (what is) most important to a Native American family. It is so important that we talk about this now as we’re looking at, again, reauthorizing the Highway Bill.
You are working to end the taxation of tribal programs through the IRS with Sen. Moran, can you explain?
We are very concerned about an IRS agent questioning the judgment of a sovereign entity as they relate to what constitutes general welfare. I think there’s a fair amount of a lack of understanding as to what tribal governments do and how culturally significant a lot of this is. To suggest that a family who receives funeral dinner and funeral services aught to be taxed on those services is to ignore the pervasive poverty on a reservation, but also it ignores the cultural significance of that expenditure.
I think that this is a great bipartisan effort. We hope that the IRS is starting to get it, but it is more important that we are not fighting this fight a year from now or two years from now and that we get some federal legislation that makes the intent of Congress clear in that it respects tribal sovereignty as it relates to their expenditure decisions.
One of the 2014 Champions for Change is your intern Danielle Finn.
She is a star! We are a little biased in that she is an intern in our office. She is going off to law school; she has tons of options. We are so proud of her and her family is so proud of her. We are just excited to see across the board that these champions for change are part of a hopeful program.
We see all of this wonderful opportunity for expansion of tribal leadership and it really makes us hopeful that there are so many people. I think we need to remember that there are some kids who are getting left behind. We need to celebrate these superstars and amazing kids, but we also need to know there are also very many students And young people who with the right set of circumstances could have equal achievement.
That motivates me as well. When you see these Champions For Change and think that it is not just them but there are probably hundreds of champions for change when given an opportunity.
We just need to keep that in mind and this is what my child’s commission bill is all about.
