Tulalip News

Breaking: Via Rail blockade by First Nations halts Montreal-Toronto trains

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)

March 19, 2014. Source: CBC News

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Trains travelling in the Montreal-Toronto corridor have been replaced by chartered buses.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.

Appeals panel says Nooksack ouster must get federal approval

By JOHN STARK

THE BELLINGHAM HERALD March 18, 2014

BELLINGHAM – Three days after suffering a setback in tribal elections, the 306 people facing loss of membership in the Nooksack Indian Tribe won a legal victory that promises to slow down the tribal council’s effort to remove them.

But the appeals court’s action may not stop that removal.

In a ruling delivered to the tribal court office on Tuesday, March 18, a three-judge Nooksack Tribal Appeals Court panel ruled that the procedures for removing the 306 from tribal membership rolls must be approved by the U.S. Department of Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribal council, headed by Chairman Bob Kelly, had approved a resolution in August 2013 declaring that each individual facing loss of tribal membership would get a telephone hearing before the tribal council of no more than 10 minutes.

Attorneys representing the council had argued that the resolution did not need federal approval. Seattle attorney Gabe Galanda and his firm, representing the 306, convinced the court that the resolution was, in fact, an ordinance, and the tribal constitution requires Interior Department approval of ordinances.

Otherwise, the appeals court ruled that the short telephonic hearing was adequate protection of the affected tribal members’ legal right to due process before they are deprived of tribal membership, which members say has emotional as well as financial benefits. The judges’ ruling states that a more lengthy, in-person hearing would serve no purpose, because a member’s right to tribal status would hinge on documentary evidence of ancestry, not personal pleas.

The court ruled that the affected tribal members must have 21 days’ notice before their hearing, and they have a right to be represented by someone of their choice.

In an email, Galanda said it was significant that the appeals court ruling forces the Department of Interior to get involved. Until now, the threatened Nooksacks have been rebuffed in efforts to get the agency to weigh in on the membership controversy.

Galanda said he wasn’t sure whether the approval process would be handled in regional BIA offices, or whether it might be referred to Washington, D.C. He declined to guess how long the approval process might take, and whether there was any chance that the federal agency would deny the approval that the tribal council needs to get the membership ouster started.

In a Saturday, March 15, tribal council election, the 306 members and their allies managed to claim two of the four council seats on the ballot, but Kelly and another incumbent were re-elected, leaving the council with an apparent 5-2 majority in favor of the ouster of the 306. Kelly, the eighth member of the council, votes only when there is a tie, but he still plays a significant leadership role.

Kelly and council members who support the ouster have avoided making public statements outside tribal gatherings since the controversy began more than a year ago. Kelly did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Nooksack member Marie Witt, a strong Kelly supporter, said she understands why Kelly and the other council members are keeping quiet in public.

“We were raised to believe silence is a virtue,” Witt said.

As Witt sees it, Kelly’s reelection demonstrates that most Nooksacks support the effort to remove the members of the Rabang, Rapada and Narte-Gladstone families, who were admitted to membership in the 1980s. Those facing the loss of tribal membership have based their membership claim on their descent from Annie George, who died in 1949. Members of those three families have introduced evidence that Annie George was Nooksack, but those who want the three families out have noted that George’s name does not appear on a list of those who got original allotments of tribal land and or on a 1942 tribal census, and those two criteria determine legal eligibility for membership.

Many other tribal members opposed the three families’ membership claims from the beginning, Witt said, because they believe the three families have much stronger ties to Canadian tribes.

“It (the ouster) is something we all wanted,’ Witt said. “People in the tribe have been pushing for this for many years.”

Witt, 23, said she has friends and relatives who are faced with loss of tribal membership, and she regrets that. But she is convinced that the original enrollment of the members of those three families was a mistake that strains tribal resources. Among other things, she said members of the families are getting a significant share of the money available for tribal members’ health care, and there isn’t enough money to provide for those she believes have a better claim to membership.

Witt said she admires Kelly’s willingness to take on such a hotly contested issue, and she said it is a mistake to think that Kelly is solely responsible for a membership purge that has the support of a majority of the council. She added that Kelly has done a lot to improve tribal government.

“He’s trying so hard to make our tribe better,” Witt said. “We’re putting more of our trust in him because he’s not trying to hide anything from us.”

Reach John Stark at 360-715-2274 or john.stark@bellinghamherald.com . Read the Politics Blog at bellinghamherald.com/politics-blog or get updates on Twitter at @bhampolitics.

Greenhouse gardeners begin transplanting crops to aid local food banks

by Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

TULALIP – Gardeners in training took part in a transplanting extravaganza on Sunday, March 16, at the Hibulb Cultural Center.

A new partnership between the Tulalip Tribes and the Washington State University Snohomish County Master Gardeners Foundation is making it possible for participants to learn the nit and grit of greenhouse gardening.

During Sunday’s event, 40 gardeners of all ages transplanted 75 flats of broccoli, kale, and chard seedlings into larger pots. These seedlings will be part of a crop grown to aid local food banks, such as Tulalip Food Bank, and other Snohomish County Master Gardener food bank gardens.

Tulalip tribal member Gisselo Andrade Jr., helps transplant broccoli that will be harvested for the Tulalip Food Bank during the Greenhouse Gardening class hosted by the Tulalip Tribes and Washington State University Snohomish County Master Gardeners Foundation on March 16, 2014. Photo/ Richelle Taylor — Tulalip tribal member Gisselo Andrade Jr., helps transplant broccoli that will be harvested for the Tulalip Food Bank during the Greenhouse Gardening class hosted by the Tulalip Tribes and Washington State University Snohomish County Master Gardeners Foundation on March 16, 2014.
Photo/ Richelle Taylor

“We all got to know each other more and shared our passion and enthusiasm for gardening,” said Veronica Leahy, Diabetes Educator at the Tulalip Karen I. Fryberg Health Clinic. The gardens began with the clinic’s diabetes management care and prevention education as the ‘Gardening Together as Families’ program. The program expanded through the Rediscovery Program at the Hibulb Cultural Center to incorporate traditional plants and traditional foods

“Even in the rain we were warm and comfortable inside the greenhouse, enjoying each other’s company,” said Leahy.

An additional class was held on Wednesday, March 19, that focused on proper transplanting, water, and sanitization techniques, along with how to seed and label plants, and protecting young plants as they grow.

For more information on ‘Gardening Together as Families’ program at the Hibulb Cultural Center, please contact Veronica Leahy at 360-716-5642 or vleahy@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.

Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

Seventy-five flats of broccoli, kale, and chard seedling were transplanted during the Greenhouse Gardening class hosted by the Tulalip Tribes and the Washington State University Snohomish County Master Gardeners Foundation on March 16, 2014 at the Hibulb Cultural Center. Photo/ Richelle Taylor — Seventy-five flats of broccoli, kale, and chard seedling were transplanted during the Greenhouse Gardening class hosted by the Tulalip Tribes and the Washington State University Snohomish County Master Gardeners Foundation on March 16, 2014 at the Hibulb Cultural Center.
Photo/ Richelle Taylor

Tribes talk salmon, dams as Columbia River Treaty renewal looms

Becky Kramer The Spokesman-Review

March 19, 2014

Northwest tribes and their Canadian counterparts are meeting in Spokane this week to discuss engineering solutions for getting salmon over Grand Coulee Dam.

Returning chinook, sockeye and steelhead to the upper Columbia River is a long-standing dream for indigenous people on both sides of the border. When the 550-foot-tall dam began operation in 1942 without fish ladders, it cut off access to hundreds of miles of upstream habitat, delivering the final blow to a fishery already weakened by overharvest on the lower river.

“We all know that our biggest challenge is Grand Coulee, because it’s such a big dam,” said Paul Lumley, executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland.

But it’s a worthy challenge, Lumley told 120 people gathered for the three-day technical workshop at Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights, which kicked off Tuesday.

“I certainly hope to see (the salmon return) in my lifetime,” he said. “It’s not just about tribal culture, it’s for all citizens of the Columbia Basin. We all care about the fish.”

Renegotiation of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada created the opening for discussing fish passage over Grand Coulee. Federal agencies, Northwest states and 16 Indian tribes favor amending the treaty to address ecosystem functions, such as salmon and climate change.

The treaty, which governs flood control and hydropower generation on the Columbia, is up for possible renegotiation beginning this fall.

The tribes and Canada’s First Nations are pushing for fish passage at Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams on the Columbia, and at three Canadian dams: Hugh Keenleyside, Brilliant and Waneta.

They favor pilot-scale reintroductions of fish and said identifying funding for the work should be discussed by the U.S. and Canada during treaty negotiations.

Innovative engineering for getting salmon over high dams is already occurring in smaller watersheds in the basin, said D.R. Michel, executive director for the Upper Columbia United Tribes. Tuesday’s session featured discussions of trapping and transporting fish around dams, as well as methods for getting them safely through dams. Speakers also discussed where good salmon habitat remains upstream of Grand Coulee.

With the climate projected to warm, returning salmon to historical spawning grounds in British Columbia becomes critical, said Bill Green, director of the Canadian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission.

Under climate change modeling, precipitation becomes more uncertain and stream temperatures are expected to warm, Green said. But British Columbia will continue to have glacier-fed streams that will provide cold water for spawning, he said.

The Upper Columbia River was once home to prolific salmon and steelhead runs, with some fish traveling 1,300 miles to spawn in the river’s headwaters. The annual harvest from the Upper Columbia once numbered between 980,000 and 1.6 million fish, said Sheri Sears, a policy analyst for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. Salmon was a daily part of tribal members’ diets and integral to culture and religion.

“Without an opportunity to catch salmon, tradition skills and knowledge associated with the harvest, preparation, and use of the fish … is being lost,” the tribes and First Nations wrote in a recent policy paper.

The potential for restoring salmon over Grand Coulee also raises the possibility of salmon returning to the Spokane River, said Matt Wynne, a Spokane tribal council member.

The Spokanes once trapped salmon at Little Falls by building rock barriers partway across the river and spearing fish caught in weirs. They also fished at the Spokane River’s confluence with the Little Spokane and Latah Creek. However, three dams owned by Avista Utilities blocked fish passage on the lower Spokane River even before Grand Coulee was built.

The tribe is starting to analyze what it would take to restore salmon to the Spokane River system, Wynne said. The Little Spokane River in particular still has good habitat, he said.

Nettle, the nutritional nuisance: Hibulb rediscovery program begins annual spring harvest of traditional superfood

Inez Bill discusses how to gather Nettle. *Photo:* *Francesca Hillery*

By Andrew Gobin, photos by Francesca Hillery

The nuisance in the back yard known for its annoying sting and pungent earthy smell, nettle is not the most desirable flora of the Pacific Northwest. For northwest tribes, however, nettle is a cultural and traditional staple. The Rediscovery Program at the Hibulb Cultural Center began their spring harvest of nettle sprouts March 12^th, working to reintroduce the use of nettle into the community and continuing the revitalization of our culture.

Inez Bill, who has spent the last ten years learning about how to use nettle, harvested nettle sprouts on the bluff above Arcadia on the Tulalip Reservation. Derek Houle, who has been involved with the culture program for most of his life, and Lauw-Ya Spencer, who became involved in 2012 through the summer youth program, joined Bill as they gathered the sprouts to use in the rediscovery program. They then process the nettle sprouts for use in foods and preserve some nettle for continued use throughout the year.

“Nettle was a staple for our people for hundreds of years,” explained Bill, “It has tremendous health benefits. For food you have to harvest the sprouts in the spring, or in the summer you can harvest the tops of the nettle, the stock gets too hard. Here at the museum we have expanded the uses. We make nettle tea and different flavored lemonades with nettle tea. We also have created Hibulb Bread, which is like buckskin bread, only more healthy and nutritional.”

Bill and her husband, the late Hank Gobin, learned to harvest and prepare nettle and other traditional flora from Valerie Segrest, Elise Krohn, and the late Bruce Miller, whose dedicated themselves to cultural revitalization and educating about traditional flora. Bringing that knowledge to the rediscovery program, Bill continues their work in revitalizing traditional plant use. As a girl, Bill’s elders instilled in her the respect and reverence for these traditional plants as foods and as medicines and she hands down those teachings throughout the rediscovery program. She also gets creative, incorporating nettle into many recipes.

“The Hibulb bread is diabetic friendly. It is made with ground almond meal instead of flour, and without salt or sugar. Ground nettle is added, but we had to play around with how much was the right amount.” said Bill.

A true superfood, nettle is packed with nutrients. It can be ground up and added to almost any dish for a healthy boost. The cultural center makes a seasoning, ground nettle for recipe ingredients, blanched and frozen nettle for later in the year, nettle stock, nesto (nettle pesto), and so much more. As a cultural staple, beyond food, nettle was traditionally made into twine and nets, it is one of the stronger natural twines.

To learn more about the rediscovery program, or to participate in activities, contact Inez Bill at the Hibulb Cultural Center at (360) 716-2638.

Sidebar:

Nutrients of nettle mg/100g (About 1 Cup)

Calcium 2900
Magnesium 860
Iron 41.8
Potassium 1750
Vitamin A 18,700 AU
Vitamin C 83
Thiamine .54
Riboflavin .43
Niacin 5.2
Chromium 3.9
Cobalt 13.2
Phosphorus 447
Zinc 4.7
Manganese 860
Selenium 2.2
Sodium 4.9
Protein 16.5%

Andrew Gobin is a reporter with the See-Yaht-Sub, a publication of the Tulalip Tribes Communications Department.
Email: agobin@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov
Phone: (360) 716.4188

Get Real: Climate Change Scientists Cut Through Bluster in Blunt Report

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Forget about reading, writing and ’rithmetic. Reality, risk and response are the new three Rs, scientists say, and the situation is dire.

The incremental changes taking place in the global climate will in the not-too-distant future add up to irreversible damage, says a new report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Compiling all that is known to date about the changes taking place in Earth’s air, water and land, the U.S.’s top scientists are trying to get humanity to listen up.

“This new effort is intended to state very clearly the exceptionally strong evidence that Earth’s climate is changing, and that future climate change can seriously impact natural and societal systems,” said James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University and one of three chairs of a panel that issued the 20-page report, What We Know: The Reality, Risks and Response to Climate Change. “Even among members of the broader public who already know about the evidence for climate change and what is causing it, some do not know the degree to which many climate scientists are concerned about the risks of possibly rapid and abrupt climate change.”

McCarthy is one of 13 panelists offering expertise on the matter via lectures, testimonials on a new website accompanying the report, and outreach to fellow professionals, the AAAS said in its media release.

“We’re the largest general scientific society in the world, and therefore we believe we have an obligation to inform the public and policymakers about what science is showing about any issue in modern life, and climate is a particularly pressing one,” said AAAS CEO Alan Leshner in the group’s statement. “As the voice of the scientific community, we need to share what we know and bring policymakers to the table to discuss how to deal with the issue.”

The first new R is Reality, the AAAS said.

“Climate scientists agree: Climate change is happening here and now,” the AAAS said, emphasizing that 97 percent of climate experts agree.

“The second [R] is Risk—that the reality of climate change means that there are climate change impacts we can expect, but we also must consider what might happen, especially the small, but real, chance that we may face abrupt changes with massively disruptive impacts,” the association said. “We are at risk of pushing our climate system toward abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts.”

That leads to the third R.

“The third R is Response—that there is much we can do and that the sooner we respond, the better off we will be,” the AAAS said. “The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost.”

Inaction, however, could exacerbate extreme weather conditions and cause, for example, crop failure and thus famine. Although many factors—ranging from variations in the Earth’s crust, to changes in orbit and tilt toward the sun—can cause climate changes, this time human activity is the main driver, the AAAS report said.

“Decades of human-generated greenhouse gases are now the major force driving the direction of climate change, currently overwhelming the effects of these other factors,” the AAAS report said. “Many studies show that the combined effects of natural drivers of climate cannot explain the temperature increase observed over the past half century.”

The full AAAS report is available for download, along with a huge volume of information, at the What We Know website.

“Climate change is already happening. More heat waves, greater sea level rise, and other changes with consequences for human health, natural ecosystems, and agriculture are already occurring in the United States and worldwide,” said the AAAS report, released on March 18. “These problems are very likely to become worse over the next 10-20 years and beyond.”

One Year Later: Assaulted Native Professor Continues Healing and Hoping

AP Photo/The Spokesman-Review, Colin MulvanyWashington State University instructor David Warner is seen in Spokane, Washington on June 27, 2013. Warner was assaulted on March 30, 2013, in Pullman, Washington. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and has trouble speaking and getting around. — AP Photo/The Spokesman-Review, Colin Mulvany
Washington State University instructor David Warner is seen in Spokane, Washington on June 27, 2013. Warner was assaulted on March 30, 2013, in Pullman, Washington. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and has trouble speaking and getting around.

Alysa Landry, Indian Country Today Media Network

David Warner was not expected to survive.

The culture, gender and race studies professor at Washington State University suffered a traumatic brain injury March 30, 2013, when he was assaulted outside a bar near the Pullman, Washington, campus. Warner, 42, doesn’t remember trying to prevent a verbal confrontation close to 2 a.m. that day or being tackled to the ground and striking his head against the asphalt.

Warner, whose heritage comes from Canada’s First Nations, was transported by helicopter from Pullman to Spokane, a distance of about 75 miles. Surgeons discovered that Warner’s skull had cracked into three pieces and his brain was swelling. They removed a four-by-six-inch piece of his skull to manage the pressure.

“My skull shattered on impact,” Warner said during a phone interview this month. “They didn’t expect me to survive.”

Warner doesn’t remember the two weeks he was in critical condition at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, or the following two weeks at a separate facility for serious head trauma. He remembers waking up at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute and struggling to put words together.

“I lost about a month and a half,” he said. “My vocabulary was reduced to five words. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t come up with words except the five that were in my vocabulary.”

The situation was a new one for Warner, who earned his PhD in American Studies in August of 2012 and was teaching courses in gender and race. Before the injury, he was characterized as a prolific reader, writer and poet, said his mother, Cherie Warner.

“He was a voracious reader his whole life,” Cherie said of her son. “He would go through books and remember them. He has a library that would rival the town’s library.”

David Warner is seen here before the assault. (Courtesy Warner family)

Warner always wanted to be a teacher, his mother said. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in American Studies at Washington State University. When the university offered him a teaching position, he jumped at the opportunity to teach classes about gender and race and to research topics like tribal sovereignty, self-determination, genocide studies and critical race theory.

“He’s very passionate about that subject area and the marginalization of minority people,” Cherie said. “He has a lot of knowledge in that. He knows and understands it.”

Warner’s life changed when his head hit the ground. During the weeks in the rehabilitation hospital, speech and physical therapists worked every day to help him relearn skills that at one point were second nature. He returned home at the end of May, still facing a long road to recovery.

A year after the injury, Warner is able to live alone and take care of himself, his mother said. He goes to conferences with colleagues and attends classes at the university. Some of the lingering effects include problems remembering names and difficulty with reading and comprehension.

“I can read books and understand words,” Warner said. “Before, I could read a book and remember all of it. I’m not retaining it now. I can’t recall the words and get the message. At the present time, my brain needs to heal some more.”

As Warner was in initial stages of recovery, Pullman police arrested five people who were connected with the assault. According to the police report, Warner was drinking with a friend that night at a bar called Stubblefields. Just before 2 a.m., Warner’s friend confronted a group of people and began insulting them.

Surveillance footage shows Warner trying to prevent the confrontation from getting physical. He stretched out his arms between the parties as his friend advanced and threw a punch. Warner and his friend were tackled, but cars obstruct the video and it is unclear whether Warner was injured when he hit the ground or if one of the assailants kicked him in the head.

David Warner is seen here after the assault. (Courtesy Warner family)

Because the video surveillance was inconclusive, prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges, said Bill Gilbert, an attorney representing Warner in a civil suit. Gilbert is in the process of investigating the incident. He may file civil claims against the people involved in the assault or against the bar and seek damages topping $250,000 to cover medical bills and expenses.

“It was a drunken, stupid episode,” Gilbert said of the incident. “The value in this case, you can’t put numbers on it. You’ve got a guy who’s brilliant, who has a PhD, who’s going to be messed up for life.”

Warner believes that, in time, he will heal and once again teach at Washington State University.

“There’s a quote I give my students,” he said. “I tell them I constantly think about hope. It makes me stronger and filled with life.”

The rain advantage

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News

TULALIP, WA. Living in the Pacific Northwest, there is one thing that is certain, it may rain today. Spring is here and with it comes the rain. The Tulalip area averages about 3” of rain every month during the spring. With summer around the corner, rain water management is on the minds of home owners that are thinking about improving the look of their yard. During the spring, rainwater runoff is inevitable, causing soil erosion and flooding. But there are useful ways to handle the runoff that are beneficial for the environment and your yard during the drier summer months.

In your yard, prior to the construction of your house, rainwater was absorbed and filtered by the plants and trees eventually making its way back in the air through evaporation and transpiration or back down into the water table and eventually into the ocean. After construction, the surface of the house and driveway are impermeable and cause rainwater to runoff in concentrated places eroding the soil and washing pollutants into nearby streams, rivers, lakes and oceans.

Two widely used methods for managing rainwater runoff, are to harvest it from the roof into barrels or to divert it into a rain garden. Harvesting rainwater is a more simple method that works by fixing a barrel to the gutter of the house to catch and store water to use on garden plants. Rain gardens require more work to install but are low maintenance in the long run.

A good example of a rain garden can be found at the Tulalip administration building near the backside of the parking lot. The building’s rain gardens have been used to prevent erosion by catching the parking lot runoff and filtering out the pollutants as the water passes through the soil and natural vegetation.

10822013-11-13 15.18.22 — Marysville rain garden registered with the Puget Sound rain garden initiative.

The Tulalip tribes have begun helping residents to find the most useful way they can to manage their stormwater runoff and are providing informational packets to all Tulalip residents. For more information about rainwater management in your yard and your options, contact Val Streeter in the Tulalip Tribes Natural and Cultural Resources department at 360-716-4629 or email vstreeter@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

For those located off of the Tulalip reservation, the Puget Sound rain garden campaign is helping to install 12,000 rain gardens by 2016. The campaign offers in depth information about rain gardens, incentives in your area and local resources to help you get started. For more information about the Puget Sound rain garden campaign visit the website at http://www.12000raingardens.org/.

Rainwater management options

Driveway Infiltration trench controls stormwater from running off your property by collecting and infiltrate stormwater from your driveway until it soaks into the ground.

Dry well reduces erosion and ponding water by collecting runoff in an underground well structure that allows the water to leach back into the soil slowly.

Pervious walkways, driveways and patios made from material that allows water to seep through cracks while still providing a flat and stable surface.

Rain barrel will reduce stormwater runoff and allows you to use captured water for lawns, gardens and indoor plants.

Rain garden reduces the amount of stormwater coming from you property and recharges your groundwater by capturing stormwater in a bowl-shaped garden that uses soil, mulch, and plants to absorb and treat stormwater before seeping back into the water table.

Vegetated Swale receives drainage from roads, sidewalks and driveways though a shallow channel that slows stormwater runoff and directs it to an area where it can infiltrate through plants that trap sediment and remove pollutants and prevent erosion.

Tribes Push To Restore Salmon To Upper Columbia River

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 — 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

By 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.

Those epic migrations ended in 1938 with the construction of Grand Coulee Dam.

This week, tribes from both sides of the U.S.-Canada border along with scientists and policymakers are meeting in Spokane to figure out how Columbia River fish could be restored to their entire historical range. The idea draws passionate supporters, but has unknown costs that you might be asked to help pay.

Uncharted waters

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.”

Tribes are taking the lead to examine options for restoring migratory fish to the upper Columbia River. Five dams built without fish ladders now stand in the way — two in Washington and three in Canada.

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.

Golf pro killed in lawn-mower accident identified

Herald file photoJim Pulliam, photographed in 2007, was killed in a lawn-mower accident on a Tulalip-area golf course. — Herald file photo
Jim Pulliam, photographed in 2007, was killed in a lawn-mower accident on a Tulalip-area golf course.

By Rikki King, The Herald

TULALIP — A Snohomish man who died in a lawn-mower accident on a Tulalip-area golf course last week has been identified by friends and family as James “Jim” Pulliam, 58.

Pulliam was a member of the Professional Golfers’ Association of America. He’d worked as the head golf professional at the Battle Creek Golf Course, and was on the grounds crew there for the past five years, said Fred Jacobson, director of golf at Battle Creek and at the Snohomish Golf Course.

Pulliam was working at the Battle Creek course on Friday when the lawn mower apparently flipped over and landed on him, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. He died at the scene. The state Department of Labor and Industries is investigating, a standard step in workplace fatalities.

Jacobson and Pulliam both grew up in Snohomish. They graduated from Snohomish High School, worked for a time as lifeguards and served in the U.S. Marine Corps, Jacobson said. Jacobson hired Pulliam in the 1980s to work at the Snohomish Golf Course.

Pulliam came from a big family and had two grown daughters. Pulliam helped build the Battle Creek course, Jacobson said.

“He liked to play golf a lot. He played a lot more golf in this life than I did,” Jacobson said. “His main passion was going out and playing and probably the highlight of his golfing career was he won the Washington State Open Pro-Am with his team.”

Pulliam’s family on Monday declined to comment for this story. They are planning to place an obituary in the coming days, according to his brother.

Pulliam loved teaching others the game of golf, and he also liked to cook, Jacobson said.

Before getting the job at the golf course, Pulliam worked as a bank teller and in construction.

“He knew a lot of people over at Battle Creek and (Snohomish),” Jacobson said. “He grew up in this area. He was a veteran. He came home and went to work and raised girls. He was a good man. I’ll miss him.”