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Parents, Advocates Team Up to Save Native Education Program

By Richard Walker, ICTMN

A few months ago, all seemed lost for two Seattle school communities.

Wilson-Pacific School was slated for demolition to make way for a new K-8 school, sounding the death knell for a 40-year-old program for Native American students in grades 6-12. The program, with a culturally competent curriculum and teachers, once had a 100 percent graduation and college attendance rate.

Pinehurst School, formerly Alternative School No. 1, was slated for demolition for construction of a new K-8, threatening the end of a 42-year-old program of experiential, project-based learning with an emphasis on social justice.

In rallying to save their programs, parents and advocates from both schools discovered similarities in values and pedagogy and, at the urging of school board member Sharon Peaslee, came together to develop an idea: Merge the programs into a new K-8 program called Native Heritage AS-1, to be housed in the wing of an existing school until the new school is finished at the Wilson-Pacific site.

The merger was approved by the school district 5-2 on November 20. Students offered their voices at the board meeting, testifying for the need for Native Heritage AS-1.

A group of parents, advocates and students protested to save the program November 20, 2013. (Damien Conway)

“We made our voices heard in a constructive, positively influential [way],” said Sarah Sense-Wilson, Oglala, chairwoman of the Urban Native Education Alliance. “This was truly historic.”

She added, “A lot of people have volunteered their time to create a real solution for supporting Native learners and [to] develop programs which serve the unique cultural and educational needs of Native kids and families.”

She said Superintendent José Banda “has repeatedly stated he supports revitalizing the Indian Heritage school program.” She said the Native Heritage AS-1 program will help the district comply with its own policy regarding educational and racial equity, and meet its Title VII obligations, for which it receives federal funding.

Students from Pinehurst and the former American Indian Heritage School program will attend Native Heritage AS-1 beginning September 2014, in a wing of the former Lincoln High School. That school no longer exists, but the buildings house other educational programs.

Native Heritage AS-1 will be housed at Lincoln until the end of the 2016-17 school year, when it will move to the new school at the Wilson-Pacific site. Meanwhile, parents and advocates are working to develop a high school Native Heritage program at Ingraham High School, which has the highest population of Native students, so that Native Heritage AS-1 is K-12 when it moves to Wilson-Pacific. They are also lobbying for the new school to be named after Robert Eaglestaff School, after the late principal of the Indian Heritage school program.

The Wilson-Pacific site is significant to Seattle’s Native community. A spring, long ago diverted underground, flows under the property; the spring was important to the Duwamish people and the neighborhood’s name—Licton Springs—is derived from the Duwamish name for the reddish mud of the spring. On several school walls are murals depicting Native heritage and leaders, including Chief Seattle, the city’s namesake, by noted Haida/Apache artist Andrew Morrison. The school has long been a venue for powwows and other Native events. The Urban Native Education Alliance and the Clear Sky Native Youth Council regularly host events there.

The murals were threatened with being lost when the school is demolished, but parents and advocates rallied and the school district agreed to save them. The walls with the murals will be incorporated into the new school.

Courtesy Andrew Morrison

According to the proposal, the Native Heritage AS-1 program will focus on Native culture, history and worldview with culturally competent leadership. It will also collaborate with Native community-based organizations on instructional materials.

School district officials had cut back on support and resources for the Pinehurst and Indian Heritage programs because of declining enrollment over the last decade. But parents and advocates said enrollment declined because parents were uncertain about their schools’ future.

Despite Indian Heritage’s closure and the assimilation of its students into other schools, student participation in cultural activities presented at Wilson-Pacific remains high. Even though the school is closed, as many as 75 Native students participate twice a week in Clear Sky Native Youth Council activities there. Over the summer, dozens of students participated in rallies to preserve the Indian Heritage program and the murals.

At Pinehurst, despite cutbacks in resources and district support, the school’s commitment to social justice remains high.

Supporters of the creation of Native Heritage AS-1 rally at the Seattle Public Schools offices on November 20, 2013. (Alex Garland)

Pinehurst has an Equity Committee committed to “undoing institutional racism.” On the school walls are photos of students participating in rallies to save their school. A poster by Tahltan artist Alano Edzerza features the Raven-Frog crest Ga,ahaba, flying out of the reach of despair, with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

As part of their science curriculum, students learned about the role of salmon in local Native culture, and the release of salmon fry they raised included a traditional blessing by Glen Pinkham, Yakama. Students collaborated with Tlingit carver Saaduuts Peele on a traditional Northwest canoe that was gifted at a potlatch in Hydaburg, Alaska.

Parents and advocates expect enrollment will climb once Native Heritage AS-1 opens at Lincoln. Because of low enrollment, the district estimates it spends $6,500 per student. Projected enrollment increases, and merging two programs under one administration, are expected to drop that cost to $5,500 per student.

John Chapman, a Pinehurst parent and member of the school’s site committee, helped write the 12-page merger proposal. Next they will work on staff training.

He’s enthusiastic about the next school year. “We’re eager to get it going,” he said.

Endangered Species Act Turns 40: A Look At 3 Interesting Debates

Amelia Templeton, Earth Fix

It’s the 40th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act. Much of our day to day reporting on endangered species focuses on the political controversies that arise from conservation strategies: wolf predation of livestock, water shutoffs in the Klamath Basin, mill closures after the Northwest Forest Plan.

We also do fair amount of reporting on the strange things people do to try to save individual species in peril: putting fish in trucks, removing a dam, relocating deer, and shooting one kind of owl to save another.

But what interests me the most are the big picture questions. Here are three questions conservation scientists are debating, inspired in part by this excellent conservation literature review.

1) Is It Time To Triage?

Governments and conservation groups have a limited amount of money to spend trying to recover endangered species. Those dollars are typically allocated to species judged to be the most at threat, the most ecologically unique and significant and the most charismatic. Scientists say tigers, pandas and spotted owls all benefit from a disproportionate share of conservation funding.

Researchers with the University of Queensland in Australia and the Department of Conservation in New Zealand have sparked a vigorous debate over the need to include two more criteria: the cost of management and the likelihood that an attempt to save a species will succeed.

The question of whether to stop trying to save some charismatic, highly imperiled species so funding can go to more help conserve more viable populations seems particularly relevant in the Northwest, where scientists are debating a potentially costly and risky campaign to save the spotted owl by shooting barred owls.

It’s also an idea that appears to have influenced local groups like the Wild Salmon Center, which has proposed protecting the Northwest’s strongest salmon runs and healthiest rivers as the most effective approach to salmon recovery.

2) Is There A Universal Minimum Viable Population?

Small populations are particularly vulnerable to extinction due to random catastrophe, variation in birth and death rates, and other factors. The idea of a minimum viable population was first introduced by biologist Mark Shaffer in a paper in 1981.

Getting an accurate population count of an endangered species is surprisingly difficult, and some scientists have argued for universal benchmarks for all species: 50 individuals for short-term survival, 500 individuals for the genetic health of a species, and 5,000 individuals for long-term viability.

However, many researchers have rejected the idea and argue that a species’ life history, size, environment and rate of decline all affect what constitute a viable population size.

In a recent study, authors Curtis Flathers et al, write that while marbled murrelets in the Northwest number in the tens of thousands, the species is still endangered by loss of nesting habitat and depletion of its food sources.

They offer the passenger pigeon as an example of a species that seemed abundant but ended up extinct.

“The extinction of the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), perhaps the most abundant land bird in North America during the 1800’s (numbering 3–5 billion individuals [69]), stands as a sobering reminder that population size alone is noguarantee against extinction.”

3) Should We Be Assisting Migration?

The Oregon Climate Change Research Institute has reported that Humboldt squid from the tropics have moved into Oregon waters, birds are migrating earlier and moving further north, and small mammals in Eastern Oregon are contracting their high-elevation ranges.

Forest ecologists are predicting that climate change could threaten tree species like coastal yellow cedar and alpine whitebark pine.

Some scientists argue that many species will not be able to move or evolve quickly enough to survive climate change, and are calling for human intervention to assist migration of threatened species through the creation of seed banks and other strategies.

Where do you stand on these debates? Let us know the endangered species stories you think we should be covering.

Documents Reveal Coal Exporter Disturbed Native Archaeological Site

Ashley AhearnLummi tribal council member Jay Julius points to an area of Cherry Point that was disturbed by Pacific International Terminals. — Ashley Ahearn
Lummi tribal council member Jay Julius points to an area of Cherry Point that was disturbed by Pacific International Terminals.

Ashley Ahearn, 1/2/14, Earth Fix

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Three summers ago the company that wants to build the largest coal export terminal in North America failed to obtain the environmental permits it needed before bulldozing more than four miles of roads and clearing more than nine acres of land, including some wetlands.

Pacific International Terminals also failed to meet a requirement to consult first with local Native American tribes, the Lummi and Nooksack tribes, about the potential archaeological impacts of the work. Sidestepping tribal consultation meant avoiding potential delays and roadblocks for the project’s development.

It also led to the disturbance of a site from which 3,000-year-old human remains had previously been removed—and where archeologists and tribal members suspect more are buried.

Pacific International Terminals and its parent corporation, SSA Marine, subsequently settled for copy.6 million for violations under the Clean Water Act.

According to company documents obtained by EarthFix after the lawsuit made them public, Pacific International Terminals drilled 37 boreholes throughout the site, ranging from 15 feet to 130 feet in depth, without following procedures required by the Army Corps of Engineers under the National Historic Preservation Act.

Map showing locations of 37 boreholes that Pacific International Terminals drilled at the proposed site of the Gateway Pacific Terminal.

(The original document the image is from, is available here.)

The Gateway Pacific Terminal is one of three coal export facilities proposed in Oregon and Washington. Mining and transportation interests want to move Wyoming and Montana coal by train so it can be loaded onto vessels on the Columbia River or Puget Sound and shipped to Asia.

The projects have been met with strong opposition from various groups concerned about increases in train and vessel traffic, coal dust and climate change.

The conflict between Gateway Pacific developers and the Lummi tribe underscores just how deep opposition can run among Native Americans whose homelands are in close proximity to proposed coal-shipping facilities. For tribes, the stakes include the protection of their treaty fishing rights and the sanctity of their ancestral burial grounds.

One of the boreholes at the Gateway Pacific site was drilled within an area designated as “site 45WH1,” the first documented archaeological site in Whatcom County, about 20 miles south of the Canadian border.

Boreholes are drilled to test the soil composition and geology of a site. In this case, the test was to help determine if the ground at Cherry Point could stand up to 48 million tons of coal moving over it each year.

Government regulators and tribal officials say they were unaware of Pacific International Terminals’ non-permitted work at Cherry Point until a local resident was out walking in the area, saw the activity, and reported it.

Pacific International Terminals said it was an accident. The company had planned to drill 36 more boreholes at the site before their activity was reported.

According to a document the company submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers four months prior to the non-permitted activities at the site, Pacific International Terminals knew the exact location of site 45WH1 and had said that “no direct impacts to site 45WH1 are anticipated as the project has been designed to avoid impacts within the site boundaries.”

In the document the company said that to mitigate potential impacts it would have an archaeologist on hand for any work done within 200 feet of site 45WH1. The company also acknowledged that it needed an “inadvertent discovery plan” in case human remains or other artifacts were uncovered, and that it would be required to consult with the Lummi tribe under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act before any work could begin at the site. Pacific International Terminals did none of those things.

“By going ahead and doing it illegally and then saying, ‘oh sorry,’ but actually having the data now, it allows them to start planning now,” said Knoll Lowney, one of the lawyers who represented the Bellingham-based environmental group RE Sources in its lawsuit against the terminal’s backers. “That way if they get their permits someday they’re ready to build right then.”

Pacific International Terminals and its parent company, SSA Marine, declined repeated requests for an interview; Bob Watters, senior vice president of SSA Marine, emailed this statement:

“We sincerely respect the Lummi way of life and … their cultural values. Claims that our project will disturb sacred burial sites are absolutely incorrect and fabricated by project opponents. We continue to believe we can come to an understanding with the Lummi Nation regarding the Gateway Pacific Terminal.”

Site 45WH1

Cherry Point and the waterways surrounding it are a culturally significant place for the Lummi Nation and other tribes. Ancestors of the Lummi peoples hunted, fished and buried their dead at Cherry Point for more than 3,000 years. And there is no shortage of archaeological evidence to prove it.

45WH1, a small section of Cherry Point, just 50 by 500 meters in size, is the most extensively studied archaeological site in Whatcom County. The location is not shared publicly because it is spiritually important to the tribe and they are afraid of people looting the site.

Western Washington University Faculty Herbert Taylor and Garland Grabert conducted seven separate field excavations at the site between 1954 and 1986.

Western Washington University Anthropology Professor Sarah Campbell. (Ashley Ahearn)

Both archaeologists have since died. Sarah Campbell, a professor of anthropology at Western Washington University, has studied the artifacts from 45WH1 since the late 1980s. It is a large collection, filling 150 boxes and includes harpoon points, shells, amulets, lip ornaments, reef net weights, beads, jewelry, blades and bone and rock tools, among other things.

Cherry Point is an area rich in potential for future research, Campbell says as she sorts through boxes filled with tiny plastic bags, each one labeled “45WH1.”

The area was used not only to hunt and fish, but also to manufacture reef net weights made of stone, which suggests permanent residence at the site. Campbell and others believe the site was used extensively over a long period of time, spanning from 3,500 years ago until relatively recently.

Arrow point found at site 45WH1. (Ashley Ahearn)

The Lummi signed a vast majority of their traditional land away in a treaty with the federal government in 1855. A portion of their traditional land known today as Cherry Point was taken at a later date; the tribe has disputed whether this was done lawfully. It is now owned by SSA Marine and Pacific International Terminals.

“That’s one of those things that makes Cherry Point important is it has a long time span,” she says. “And it provides the chance to see the changing use over time. The chance to do those comparisons through time is really important and useful.”

The Western Washington University collection also includes human remains, and Campbell believes that there are more Lummi ancestors buried at Cherry Point.

“It would be highly, highly, highly unlikely that there are not human remains in unexcavated areas of the site,” she cautions. “It’s absolutely prudent to assume that there are.”

‘My People’s Home’

From the deck of his fishing boat, the God’s Soldier, Lummi tribal council member Jay Julius looks to the shore of Cherry Point. He says that, for the Lummi, the spiritual and cultural value stretches far beyond the boundaries of site 45WH1.

“I see this as my people’s home. I can envision it,” Julius says quietly. “I know what’s there now.”

Reef net weights, carved from the rocks of Cherry Point. (Ashley Ahearn)

Julius cites Pacific International Terminals’ unpermitted activity at Cherry Point as a major source of tribal opposition to the Gateway Pacific Terminal.

“When I come out here, it’s all that’s on my mind—is what took place here at Cherry Point when these guys bulldozed over it and called it an accident,” he said. “It’s obvious. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”

Despite the fact that the Lummi tribal council asserted its “unconditional and unequivocal” opposition to the Gateway Pacific Terminal in a letter it sent to the Army Corps of Engineers on July 30, the Lummi chose not to take part in the civil suit brought by RE Sources.

That, the group’s attorney Knoll Lowney said, would have strengthened the environmental group’s case against Pacific International Terminals and SSA Marine. The Lummi had standing in a civil court because they could have demonstrated that they were harmed, culturally and spiritually, by Pacific International Terminal’s unpermitted activity at Cherry Point.

“If they don’t take part in the legal process, they’re weakening themselves. They’re throwing away their weapons,” said Tom King, an expert on the National Historic Preservation Act who served on the staff of the federal Advisory Council For Historic Preservation in the 1980s.

The council oversees the permitting of projects that could affect places of historic and archaeological significance, like the Gateway Pacific Terminal.

It is unclear why the Lummi decided against participating in the environmental lawsuit. Diana Bob, attorney for the Lummi, declined to be interviewed for this story.

King said Pacific International Terminals’ non-permitted drilling and disturbance at Cherry Point could put approval of the Gateway Pacific Terminal at risk because the company skirted the requirements of the so-called “106 process” under the National Historic Preservation Act.

“I think the Lummi have a very strong case,” he said. “The site, the area, the landscape—they can show that it’s a very important cultural area and permitting the terminal to go in will have a devastating effect on the cultural value of that landscape.”

The Army Corps of Engineers is now working on finalizing what’s called a “memorandum of agreement” between Pacific International Terminals and the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. The Army Corps says the document, which was obtained by EarthFix and KUOW under the Freedom of Information Act, will serve as a retroactive permit.

The Lummi Nation refused to sign the memorandum or accept the $94,500 that was offered as mitigation.

For now, the coal terminal backers are being allowed to move ahead with the permitting process. But that doesn’t mean the larger questions have been resolved around how compatible a coal export terminal is at a location where local Native Americans have lived for millennia.

The tribe and historical preservation officials with the state and federal governments have written letters to the Army Corps objecting to its decision limiting the geographic area studied to determine the potential for damage to archeological resources at Cherry Point—another point of contention as the review continues.

Monroe cow manure to help power PUD

Dan Bates / The HeraldFrom left, Qualco Energy treasurer Dale Reiner president Daryl Williams and systems operator Andy Werkhoven discuss the company's complex digester system that converts cow manure to electricity on Dec. 23. Qualco Energy recently signed a contract with the Snohomish County PUD. — Dan Bates / The Herald
From left, Qualco Energy treasurer Dale Reiner president Daryl Williams and systems operator Andy Werkhoven discuss the company’s complex digester system that converts cow manure to electricity on Dec. 23. Qualco Energy recently signed a contract with the Snohomish County PUD.

By Bill Sheets, The Herald

MONROE — For the past five years, 300 homes outside Snohomish County have been powered by cow manure from farms near Monroe.

For the next five years, that power will stay in the county.

Qualco Energy, which runs a biogas plant south of Monroe, has been selling its power since 2009 to Puget Sound Energy.

Now, Qualco has signed a five-year contract with the Snohomish County Public Utility District, effective Wednesday.

The PUD provides electricity to Snohomish County and Camano Island. Puget Sound Energy, based in Bellevue, provides electricity to parts of eight counties in the region but not Snohomish.

The PUD “was able to offer a better rate than PSE did,” said Daryl Williams, environmental liaison for the Tulalip Tribes and a Qualco board member.

The PUD will pay Qualco $47.84 per megawatt hour in 2014, steadily rising to $67.60 in 2018, according to the utility. The price is based on a complex formula established by the PUD.

Qualco is a nonprofit formed by three groups: the energy division of the Tulalip Tribes; Northwest Chinook Recovery, a salmon advocacy group based in Anacortes; and the Sno/Sky Agricultural Alliance, a farmers’ group based in Monroe.

Qualco was created after cattle farmer Dale Reiner wanted to use a piece of property he’d purchased but was concerned about flooding and environmental effects on nearby streams.

He worked with Northwest Chinook Recovery on a fish habitat restoration project. Haskell Slough — a former main channel of the Skykomish River that had been diked off to create farmland — was restored into a salmon spawning stream. The project also has served to prevent flooding on Reiner’s property.

The unusual alliance of a farmer and environmentalists clicked, and the participants looked for another project. They brought in the Tulalip Tribes for added perspective on salmon habitat.

The group realized that making use of cow manure could help farmers and fish. Clearing farms of animal waste would reduce pollutants running into streams and cut costs for farmers in complying with environmental regulations. This, in turn, could allow them to add to their herds.

Biogas was the way, the group agreed.

Qualco was formed. The group obtained, through donation by the state, a former dairy farm in the Tualco Valley run by the Monroe Correctional Complex. The group also received a federal loan for renewable energy and a grant from the state Department of Agriculture. The equipment cost more than $3 million.

The group nets about $300,000 a year, Reiner said. The money goes to bond payments, environmental projects and upgrades to the system.

“None goes into our pockets, not a dime,” he said.

The work at the plant is done by dairy farmers on a volunteer basis.

The biogas plant uses the waste from about 1,200 cows. About 900 of them are located at Andy Werkhoven’s dairy farm about a mile and a half away. That waste is mixed with water and sent to the Qualco site via pipeline. The other 300 cattle are located on site next to the plant. Their only job is to eat and put out fuel for the generator.

Qualco also accepts unsold foods and beverages from stores, blood from meat processors and restaurant grease and uses it all in the mix. Qualco collects fees from companies to take the waste.

These materials are dumped into a concrete pit 15 feet deep and about 25 feet across, into which the liquid manure is piped.

An agitator with propeller blades churns the material into a swirling, roiling mix.

It’s then piped into a 1.4 million-gallon underground tank — 16 feet deep, 180 feet long and 74 feet wide — where it bubbles and gives off methane gas.

That gas is piped into a generator in a neighboring building, creating the power. The electricity is sent to the grid through three transformers mounted on a pole outside the building. The PUD is planning to replace those transformers with larger ones, Reiner said.

Previously, the energy went into the PUD’s system and the utility sent an equivalent amount to Puget Sound Energy. Now the power will stay home.

Effluent and solids from the process are applied to several farms as fertilizer.

Qualco’s original agreement with the state requires the fuel mix to be at least 50 percent cow manure and no more than 30 percent food-and-beverage waste. Qualco uses cow manure for the remaining 20 percent, creating a 70-30 ratio.

The sugars in the food waste, however, generate methane gas at a much higher rate than the cow waste, Qualco members said. As a result, the plant produces more gas than it can convert into electricity, and burns it off through an exhaust system.

While the generator creates enough power for about 300 homes, the plant produces enough gas for 800 homes, according to the Qualco website.

The plant would need another generator, or some type of expanded system, to take advantage of the remaining gas.

Qualco members plan to expand the plant, Reiner said. Options include steam power generation and compressing the fuel for use in cars.

“There are many directions we could go, and all of them are good,” he said.

Reiner believes the potential of biofuel is unlimited. Much more food waste and cow manure is available than is being used, he said.

Qualco could burn more food waste if it had the capacity and its agreement with state allowed it to do so, Reiner said.

He said any organic material that’s combustible could be turned into fuel.

“It’s just barely starting,” he said.

Filtered Stormwater Added to Annual Coho Salmon Experiment

WSU toxicologist Jenifer McIntyre and USFW biologist Steve Damm adjust the spouts for the barrels mimicking rain gardens for stormwater filtration.

Source: NWIFC

Rain gardens filter toxic chemical contaminants from stormwater before it flows into Puget Sound streams, but no one knows how well they protect the salmon that spawn in those streams.

That was this year’s question during the annual coho salmon stormwater experiment at the Suquamish Tribe’s Grovers Creek Hatchery.

Since 2011, tribal, federal and state scientists have been studying how salmon are affected by stormwater before they spawn.

In previous years, the research team found that adult coho were dying prematurely when they returned to spawn in urban watersheds throughout many areas of Puget Sound. Working with the tribe, the team hopes to better understand why stormwater runoff is so toxic, and also identify stormwater treatment methods that can effectively protect adult spawners.

At the hatchery this fall, scientists ran raw stormwater through four barrels of sand and compost. The barrels mimic the filtration that occurs when runoff is cleaned using various green stormwater infrastructure or low-impact development technologies. Unfiltered and filtered water were then placed into large tanks with fish to monitor their survival and observe their behavior. The team also exposed fish to clean well water from the hatchery.

“The Washington Department of Ecology recommends this kind of filtration technique for bioremediation and new low-impact development,” said Julann Spromberg, a NOAA toxicologist. ”We wanted to see how well it would work from the perspective of the fish – can we remove enough of the pollution from urban runoff to keep the coho spawners alive?”

Preliminary results show that this year was a success. Fish in the filtered water for 24 hours were alive and behaving normally, Spromberg said. In addition, the team conducted its regular experiment – exposing fish to hatchery well water and raw stormwater – and came up the expected results: the former survived, the latter did not.

“We don’t know exactly which contaminants are causing the fish to die, but we do know the bioretention filtration technique is effective,” Spromberg said.

The next step will be to take the filtered stormwater and the sand/compost mixture to try and determine what toxic components were filtered out, narrowing down what contaminants are causing salmon to die before they can spawn.

“I’m glad we’re able to provide a space for these folks to do this work,” said Mike Huff, Grovers Creek hatchery manager. “Anything we can do to support salmon survival benefits everyone.”

Partners in the project include the Suquamish Tribe, Environmental Protection Agency, Seattle Public Utilities, Kitsap County, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington State University, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Tulalip Tribes partner with others to restore salmon habitat

Brett Shattuck, forest and fish biologist for the Tulalip Tribes, stands beside the wood debris that was installed during this fall’s restoration of Greenwood Creek to make it a better salmon habitat.— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner — Brett Shattuck, forest and fish biologist for the Tulalip Tribes, stands beside the wood debris that was installed during this fall’s restoration of Greenwood Creek to make it a better salmon habitat.
— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner

By Kirk Boxleitner, Marysville Globe, December 30,2013

STANWOOD — The coastal stream at 18510 Soundview Drive NW in Stanwood began as a “degraded straight ditch,” according to Brett Shattuck, forest and fish biologist for the Tulalip Tribes, but the gulch came to reclaim its old name of Greenwood Creek in the wake of its restoration as a salmon habitat this fall.

“We spent years studying all the coastal streams in the Whidbey basin, looking for which ones were used the most by juvenile chinook salmon, and we found the highest number of them here,” said Shattuck, who reported that Tulalip Tribal Natural Resources staff counted 280 chinook, out of a total of 600 juvenile salmon that also included coho and other species, during a single day’s electrofishing survey. “Even though this property is owned by Snohomish County and in a public right-of-way, it was an ideal restoration site, so we spent the past year pursuing that. Our neighbors were very supportive, and the county was willing to work with us and the Adopt-A-Stream Foundation to find a strategy that was beneficial to the county, the local residents, the Tribes and the fish.”

Shattuck explained that crews pulled back the banks of the stream to widen it, cleared out invasive species such as blackberry brambles, installed large wood debris to foster a better habitat for the salmon, and planted a dense variety of native vegetation to help hold back the stream banks and provide shade for the salmon.

“We’ve got about 300-400 trees and shrubs, not including the live stakes, all about two feet apart from each other,” said Shattuck, who listed willow, red cedar and red twig dogwood as among those species. “Volunteers and Tribal Natural Resources staff did most of the planting in about a day. The county donated the plants and wood debris, and their staff helped us with the permitting and engineering of the site. Again, the stream’s neighbors were really behind us, and it was good working with the Adopt-A-Stream Foundation’s contractor. Our funding source was the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund.”

According to Shattuck, the contractor work ended in September and the planting took place in October, and all that’s left now is to install the interpretive sign for the site — which he expects will be completed within the next couple of months — and to continue the monitoring work that led the Tribes to select the stream in the first place.

“We monitored this site for three years prior to implementing anything,” Shattuck said. “This is a pilot program, because there are plenty of other drainage streams in the basin that could be made into better habitats for their fish.”

“If we are truly committed to seeing salmon stocks rebound to harvestable levels, we must work together on recovery projects both large and small,” Tulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. said. “Greenwood Creek represents a small project with a huge benefit. The Tulalip Tribes look forward to working with Snohomish County on future projects to solve our salmon crisis.”

Tribes partner in marine survival research

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Treaty Indian tribes have invested millions of dollars in hatchery programs and habitat restoration, but poor marine survival continues to stand in the way of salmon recovery.

Marine survival rates for many stocks of chinook, coho and steelhead that migrate through the Salish Sea are less than one-tenth of what they were 30 years ago.

“We have a solid understanding of the factors that affect salmon survival in fresh water,” said Terry Williams, commissioner of fisheries and natural resources for the Tulalip Tribes. “To improve ocean survival, we need a more complete understanding of the effects of the marine environment on salmon and steelhead.”

The Tulalip, Lummi, Nisqually and Port Gamble S’Klallam tribes are among the partners in the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project, which also brings together state and federal agencies from the United States and Canada, educational institutions and salmon recovery groups. The Salish Sea is the name designated to the network of waterways between the southwestern tip of British Columbia and northwest Washington. It includes the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Strait of Georgia, the waters around the San Juan and Gulf islands, as well as Puget Sound.

Led by the non-profit Long Live the Kings and the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the project is coordinating and standardizing data collection to improve the sharing of information and help managers better understand the relationship between salmon and the marine environment.

The project is entering a five-year period of intensive research, after which the results will be converted into conclusions and management actions.

“A new collaborative approach is being taken,” Williams said. “The question is, what do we do with the information we have and how do we make predictions?”

For more information, visit the Long Live the Kings website.

Video: Yakama Nation’s Work to Bring Back the Salmon

ICTMN Staff, 12/29/13

Time was when the salmon ran so thick you could walk on their backs to cross the river.

That’s how the elders tell it.

Then came the dams. The dams cut off key points in salmon migration, preventing the mighty fish from returning to their birthplace to spawn future generations. It was obvious to the indigenous experts that this was going to affect not only the well being of the fish species but also of the entire forest—and ultimately, of the tribes themselves.

But now, 100 years later, Turtle Island’s Indigenous Peoples are using that same knowledge to restore the habitat. Northwestern tribes have toiled for decades to stop the degradation of salmon habitat and bring back the fish’s numbers.

The video below looks at the efforts of the Yakama Nation and its innovative programs. It was recently posted to the site of the website Washington Tribes, dedicated to disseminating information about the ways in which the state’s 29 tribes contribute to the economy, business, environment and many other areas. The site’s environment page is a treasure trove of examples of how other indigenous nations in the Northwest have toiled in similar, parallel efforts as well.

William Shelton revived Tulalip culture

J.A. Juleen's portrait of Tulalip artist and activist William Shelton was taken in 1913. — J.A. Juleen’s portrait of Tulalip artist and activist William Shelton was taken in 1913.

By Bill Sheets, The Herald

TULALIP — When it came to healing the rift between local Indian tribes and the white world that once stripped Snohomish County’s original inhabitants of much of their culture, there has been no more important figure than William Shelton.

Early in the 20th century, Shelton worked hard to restore and preserve early tribal traditions that had been banned on the Tulalip Indian Reservation for decades.

At the same time, he offered an olive branch to the non-tribal community, reaching out to speak at club meetings and schools. He attended fairs and gave radio interviews.

He served as an ambassador, a liaison between the two worlds.

A Tulalip tribal member, a historian and a filmmaker recently joined forces in hopes of making a documentary to spotlight Shelton’s effect on local tribal and non-tribal culture alike.

“I really think that people need to know about William Shelton,” said Lita Sheldon, the tribal member spearheading the project.

Her goal, she said, is to make an hour-long documentary to air on the History channel, Biography channel or PBS.

Sheldon, along with Everett-based historian David Dilgard and Bellingham video producer Jeff Boice, started the project in 2012 with a short video overview of Shelton’s life.

The 11-minute video, supplemented with historical photos and footage, features an interview with Dilgard in which he describes how Shelton revived tribal art on the Tulalip reservation by carving his “sklaletut” pole in 1912.

Shelton interviewed tribal elders about their encounters with spirit helpers, including animals, birds and people, and depicted them in carvings on both sides of a 60-foot pole.

Sklaletut is the word for spirit helpers in Lushootseed, the language of Puget Sound-area Indian tribes.

“There is a broken link between my race and the white people,” Shelton wrote in “Indian Totem Legends of the Northwest Coast Country” in 1913, an article originally printed for an Indian school in Oklahoma and later in The Herald.

“So I thought I better look back and talk to the older people that are living and try to explain our history by getting their totems and carve them out on the pole like the way it used to be years ago,” Shelton wrote.

The pole has deteriorated over the years, but part of it still stands in front of Tulalip Elementary School on the reservation.

Shelton carved several other poles, including one that stood for decades at 44th Street SE and Evergreen Way in Everett — for which the Totem restaurant was named.

Herald file, 2011These two poles carved by William Shelton stood in his original longhouse and now are at the cultural center. — Herald file, 2011
These two poles carved by William Shelton stood in his original longhouse and now are at the cultural center.

The pole deteriorated and was taken down in the late ’80s or early ’90s. It’s now being preserved in a warehouse on the Tulalip reservation.

About 200 of the 1,000 items in the collection of the recently built Hibulb Cultural Center either were made by Shelton or came from among other items stored on his family’s property, assistant curator Tessa Campbell has said.

Shelton ran the sawmill on the reservation and served as a translator for tribal elders who did not speak English. He supervised timber sales, served for a time as police chief and sold war bonds during World War I.

He spoke at the dedication of Legion Park in Everett shortly before his death from pneumonia in 1938 at age 70, according to the city.

In the 1990s, Lita Sheldon worked with Boice, the filmmaker, on short historical and Lushootseed language videos on the reservation.

Boice, a former videographer, editor and producer at KVOS-TV in Bellingham, did freelance video work for the Tulalips for several years, including recording tribal events.

Recently, Sheldon contacted Boice and Dilgard about her idea and the short video was made. The video won best overall film and best documentary short film at the Hibulb Cultural Center Film Festival last January.

Later, it was shown at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco in November and at the Red Nation Film Festival in Los Angeles, Sheldon said.

Sheldon said she needs to raise about $60,000 to fully fund the documentary. The cost would include travel to locations in the East and Midwest where William Shelton sent some of his poles, she said.

The film project had a “kickstarter” web page last summer but received only a little more than $2,800 in pledges, so the idea was shelved temporarily.

Sheldon hasn’t given up, though. She said she hasn’t asked the Tulalip Tribes for funds.

Niki Cleary, a spokeswoman for the tribes, said the project could be eligible for funding as a tribal endeavor, but Sheldon’s group would have to apply. The group also could gain nonprofit status and apply through the tribes’ annual charitable contribution program, she said.

Photo courtesy of the Everett Public LibraryThe Tulalip Longhouse interior is shown during a "Treaty Day" celebration in January 1914. Posts inside the longhouse were ornamented by William Shelton with clan and family symbols. — Photo courtesy of the Everett Public Library
The Tulalip Longhouse interior is shown during a “Treaty Day” celebration in January 1914. Posts inside the longhouse were ornamented by William Shelton with clan and family symbols.

Lita Sheldon, 61, works as the librarian at the Hibulb center but stressed that she is doing this project on her own.

She said it’s not just a matter of money but also of gathering more information about the former tribal leader.

Much of the history about Shelton came through his daughter, Harriette Dover, who died in 1991, as well as from other surviving relatives.

Sheldon is hoping more people with knowledge of William Shelton come forward.

“There’s not a definitive tribal history written,” she said. “This is the closest thing to a tribal history.”

The project

Anyone interested in the William Shelton documentary project may contact Lita Sheldon at litasheldon@yahoo.com.

Endangered Species Act: a 40-year fight to save animals

Photo courtesy Howard Garrett / Orca Network, JuneMembers of L pod, one of the Salish Sea's resident orca pods, heads north up Boundary Pass to Georgia Strait. — Photo courtesy Howard Garrett / Orca Network, June
Members of L pod, one of the Salish Sea’s resident orca pods, heads north up Boundary Pass to Georgia Strait.

By Bill Sheets, The Herald

Forty years after the passage of the federal Endangered Species Act, the state and Snohomish County remain squarely on the edge of that preservation frontier.

More than 40 animal species in Washington are listed by the federal government as either endangered or threatened under the law, signed by President Richard Nixon on Dec. 28, 1973. Many others are listed as species of concern.

Among creatures found in waters in and around Snohomish and Island counties, seven species of fish or marine mammals are listed under the act.

Southern resident killer whales and bocaccio rockfish are listed as endangered. Puget Sound chinook salmon, Puget Sound steelhead, bull trout, yelloweye rockfish, canary rockfish and Pacific smelt are threatened.

Nationwide, 645 species of animals and 872 plants or trees native to the U.S. are listed as threatened or endangered, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Of the local fish species and orcas, salmon and bull trout were listed in 1999, the killer whales in 2005 and the other fish species in 2010.

Reasons cited for the decline of the fish are many, including pollution, overfishing and loss of habitat. In the case of killer whales, dwindling supply of their diet staple — chinook salmon — is a major contributing factor, officials say.

Supporters claim many success stories for the Endangered Species Act, with bald eagles and peregrine falcons among the more prominent examples.

Gray whales were taken off the list in 1994 and steller sea lions just this year.

According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, 99 percent of the hundreds of species listed since the Endangered Species Act became law have been prevented from going extinct.

The law protects species by preventing them from being harmed or captured and by regulating human activity in their habitat areas.

Perhaps the best feature of the Endangered Species Act, some say, is that it keeps the species’ problems in the public spotlight.

“It has pulled people together to talk about what to do,” said Daryl Williams, environmental liaison for the Tulalip Tribes.

Recovery for many species, however, is slow and not guaranteed.

“Listing is a way of sort of planning for recovery, if you will,” said Brent Norberg, a marine mammal biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle.

The southern resident orca population, for example, had 88 whales in 2004, the year before it was listed under the ESA. The population now is down to 80, according to the Orca Network, a Whidbey Island-based group that tracks the whales.

“Because they’re so long-lived and their recruitment is so slow and their numbers are so small, it’s going to be quite a lengthy process,” Norberg said.

William Ruckleshaus, the first director of the Environmental Protection Agency under Nixon in the early 1970s, is 81 and lives in Medina.

The EPA was created and Endangered Species Act was passed after pollution and declines in species had reached alarming levels, Ruckleshaus said. The Cuyahoga River in northeast Ohio, for example, famously caught fire in 1969.

“The public demanded something be done about it and the president responded,” he said.

He said the endangered species law might have overreached.

“We passed laws that promised levels of perfection that probably weren’t possible. It’s hard to do it, to be honest with you,” Ruckleshaus said. The law has been refined over time, he said.

Ruckleshaus works part-time for Madrona Venture Group, a venture capital firm, and has served on the boards of the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council and the Salmon Recovery Funding Board.

“The motivation behind the ESA couldn’t have been any higher — we want to preserve all living things on Earth. Who’s against that?” Ruckleshaus said.

“I think it’s been very positive overall,” he said. “It’s shown how what we believe to be innocent acts can have devastating effects on species.”

The Endangered Species Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental group, has issued a report titled “Back from the Brink: Ten Success Stories Celebrating the Endangered Species Act at 40.”

Among those stories is perhaps the most high-profile recovery: the national symbol, the bald eagle.

The eagle’s numbers in the 48 contiguous states declined from roughly 100,000 in the early 19th century to only 487 nesting pairs in 1963, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife website.

Several measures were taken to help the eagle, beginning with the 1940 Bald Eagle Protection Act, which made it illegal to kill an eagle. The pesticide DDT, found to have thinned the eggshells of eagles and other birds, was banned in 1972.

Still, “listing the species as endangered provided the springboard” for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to accelerate recovery through captive breeding, law enforcement and nest-site protection, according to the agency’s website

Bald eagles rebounded and they now number about 10,000. The eagles were taken off the list in 2007.

The Endangered Species Act’s effect on salmon is not so clear, the Tulalips say.

Development that destroys habitat is not restricted enough to offset the losses, Williams said.

“We’re still losing habitat faster than we’re gaining it from restoration,” he said.

The problem is inconsistency in rules among various agencies involved in environmental protection, said Terry Williams, fisheries and natural resources commissioner for the tribes.

Also, because of the ESA, some habitat restoration projects have to jump through the same hoops as other construction, causing delays in measures that could help fish, Daryl Williams said.

“I kind of have mixed feelings about it,” he said.

Those restrictions may be a necessary evil, said Norberg, of the fisheries service.

For example, if creosote-soaked logs are being removed from a waterway, if it’s not done properly, it could result in creosote finding its way back into the water, “so it does as much harm as it does good,” he said.

Restrictions also can affect landowners’ use of their property. This not only angers some property owners but can defeat the intent of the law, said Todd Myers, environmental director for the Washington Policy Center, a right-leaning think tank in Seattle.

Because the law governs use of land where a listed species is found, some landowners take steps to eliminate habitat for a species on their property so it won’t be seen there, Myers said.

“You get a regulatory stick that puts landowners at odds with habitat recovery,” he said.

A better way, he said, is to reimburse landowners for measures taken to preserve or promote habitat, he said.

“That at least takes a step toward making a landowner a partner as opposed to an opponent.”

Despite the ESA’s flaws, “it is working well in terms of bringing all the various parties together to talk and to plan accordingly,” Norberg said.

The decline of the salmon might not be reversed without it, Ruckelshaus said.

“It is an extraordinarily complex problem,” he said. “But for the ESA I doubt we would have paid the attention to it we have, and I think that is absolutely necessary for it to recover.”