GMO labeling debate shifts to Olympia
by Associated Press
January 17, 2014
SEATTLE — Months after Washington voters narrowly rejected an initiative requiring labeling of genetically modified foods, lawmakers are reviving the GMO debate in Olympia.
One bill would require labeling genetically engineered salmon for sale, even though federal regulators have not yet approved any genetically modified animals for food. Another bill requires many foods containing GMOs to carry a label.
The debate comes as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering approval of an apple engineered not to brown. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is also weighing an application for a genetically modified salmon that grows twice as fast as normal.
In Olympia, a public hearing is scheduled Friday in the House Committee on Agriculture & Natural Resources on the bill. That measure also would prohibit genetically engineered finfish from being produced in state waters
‘Got Land?’ From T-Shirts to Teach-Ins, Idle No More Calls for Day of Action
Tenelle Starr, a Grade 8 student at Balcarres Community School, wears her, “Got Land? Thank an Indian,” sweatshirt. Starr and other students wearing sweaters bearing that slogan were initially instructed to wear them inside-out due to complaints.
The grassroots Idle No More movement was already planning a national day of action across Canada for January 28 to teach people about the First Nations Education Act, which most Indigenous Peoples oppose. Now the organizers are exhorting everyone to dress for the occasion—in a “Got Land? Thank an Indian” t-shirt or sweatshirt.
RELATED: First Nations Call Federal Education Act a Bust
Idle No More has scooped up 13-year-old Tenelle Starr, the eighth-grade student from Star Blanket First Nation who persuaded school officials to let her wear a hoodie with the words “Got Land?” on the front and “Thank an Indian” on the back.
RELATED: First Nation Student Wins Right to Wear ‘Got Land?’ Hoodie After School Ban
Since that day, the shirt’s maker in Canada, Jeff Menard, has been swamped with orders. But now he might want to add another phone line. Idle No More is calling on everyone across Canada to don the slogan, which Menard sells on t-shirts and bibs in all sizes, in addition to hooded and non-hooded sweatshirts.
RELATED: ‘Got Land?’ Hoodie Orders Flood in After School Controversy
Menard has set up a website, Thank An Indian, to field and fulfill orders. The shirts, bibs and other items that he said are forthcoming are also showcased on his Facebook page of the same name. A portion of the proceeds will go to help the homeless.
Those wishing to buy the slogan south of the 49th Parallel can order at its U.S. source. The White Earth Land Recovery Project, part of the Native Harvest product line that is run by Ojibwe activist and author Winona LaDuke, has sold hoodies and t-shirts bearing the slogan for years. Menard has said he got the idea after seeing friends from the U.S. wearing similar shirts.
The message and the lesson have taken on new urgency as racist comments proliferated on Tenelle’s Facebook page to such a degree that it had to be taken down. But that has only solidified the teen’s determination to make a difference and to educate Canadians, which she said was her intial goal in wearing the shirt to school.
She received support, too, from Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta, which invited her to the Neil Young concert in support of its efforts to quell development in the oil sands of the province. She attended the Saturday January 18 performance as an honorary guest, according to Idle No More’s website. Young is doing a series of concerts to raise funds for the Athabasca Chipewyan’s legal fight against industrial activity in the sands.
RELATED: Neil Young: Blood of First Nations People Is on Canada’s Hands
Tenelle “is now calling, along with the Idle No More movement, for people everywhere to don the shirt as an act of truth-telling and protest,” Idle No More said in a statement on January 17. “Now and up to a January 28 Day of Action, Tenelle and Idle No More and Defenders of the Land are encouraging people across the country to make the shirt and wear them to their schools, workplaces, or neighborhoods to spark conversations about Canada’s true record on Indigenous rights.”
CBC News reported that Tenelle’s Facebook page was shut down at the suggestion of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which briefly investigated some intensely negative and racist comments that were posted on the girl’s page after the school ruling.
“It was racist remarks with attempts to shadow it in opinion, but they were pretty forceful, pretty racist,” Sheldon Poitras, a member of the band council for the Star Blanket First Nation, and a friend of the family, said to CBC News. “The family was concerned about Tenelle’s safety.”
The family deactivated Tenelle’s Facebook account “on advice from RCMP,” CBC News reported, and the RCMP confirmed that it was investigating.
The message is a quip laden with historical accuracy that refers to the 1874 document known as Treaty 4, which Star Blanket First Nation is part of, in which 13 signatory nations of Saulteaux and Cree deeded the land to the settlers of what would become modern-day Canada.
Nevertheless, many continue to view the message as racist. Idle No More aims to debunk that notion as well as clarify the historical record. Tenelle has participated in Idle No More rallies with her mother as well, the group said.
“Everyone can wear the shirt,” said Tenelle in the Idle No More statement. “I think of it as a teaching tool that can help bring awareness to our treaty and land rights. The truth about Canada’s bad treatment of First Nations may make some people uncomfortable, but understanding it is the only way Canada will change and start respecting First Nations.”
Although Menard said that support has been streaming in from chiefs and others throughout Canada for both him and Tenelle, there has been negative feedback that shows there’s still a lot of misinformation to be dispelled, he told ICTMN.
“I’ve been getting hate messages, Tenelle has been getting hate messages,” Menard said in a phone interview on January 21, but reiterated that the slogan merely reflects historical fact. “If anybody learns their history they see that the Indians were here first.”
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/21/got-land-t-shirts-teach-ins-idle-no-more-calls-day-action-153185
Indian Law and Order Commission: Shelving This Report – A Huge Mistake
Pictured, from left, are: Troy Eid, Chairman of the Indian Law and Order Commission; Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Vice-Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; Commissioner Affie Ellis, Navajo, of Wyoming; and Commissioner Tom Gede of California.
Tanya Lee, ICTMN
Radical, revolutionary, exceptional or just plain common sense are some of the terms used to describe “A Roadmap to Making Native America Safer,” the result of two years’ work by the nine-member Indian Law and Order Commission established by the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010.
For more than 200 years Congress has consistently passed legislation that deeply erodes the authority of tribal justice systems. The TLOA began to reverse that trend by increasing tribal courts’ sentencing authority, and the Violence Against Women Act of 2013 again enhanced tribal judicial authority to some extent. The TLOA also called for the establishment of a commission to make recommendations as to how to improve public safety in Indian country in response to skyrocketing crime rates.
RELATED: President Barack Obama’s VAWA Law Signing Spotlights Native Women Warriors
The commission presented its report in November, saying that it had “concluded that criminal jurisdiction in Indian country is an indefensible morass of complex, conflicting, and illogical commands, layered in over decades via congressional policies and court decisions and without the consent of tribal nations.” The report makes more than three-dozen recommendations about how to change things, some of them breathtaking.
The commissioners, all volunteers acting as private citizens, represented a spectrum of political views, yet easily reached consensus on some basic principles. Commissioner Tom Gede, a former California deputy attorney general and executive director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General, says, “What is really remarkable is that all the commissioners felt unanimously that the current system, which is in fact a multitude of systems in Indian country, does not serve the public safety of individual Indians and tribes very well and that tribes should be given the opportunity to engage their own justice systems and law enforcement systems free of the overarching control of other governments, subject, however, to the same constitutional constraints faced by all other governments in the United States.”
Local, that is, tribal control of law enforcement and the judiciary is the theme that runs through the report. The commission’s first recommendation is that Congress pass legislation allowing tribes simply to opt out of the current federal and/or state law enforcement and justice systems and replace them with their own systems. “There’s no certification process, no U.S. Department of Justice working group or pilot project. The [commission] emphatically rejected the approach…. We want Indian tribes to have the freedom to choose and to not have to go on their knees to Justice or BIA and say ‘Please tell us that we’re ready,'” says Commission Chairman Troy Eid, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado and currently on the faculty of two law schools.
This and all the other recommendations are based on extensive field hearings and comments from tribal members. “We struggled over these issues out in the field and in forums with sometimes 400 or 500 local people who were telling us what they thought. If there ever was a grassroots effort, this was it,” says Eid.
Commissioner Ted Quasula, Hualapai, has more than 40 years’ experience in law enforcement in Indian country. “Probably the most important part about putting the report together was getting the thoughts and the viewpoint and the position of all the tribal people that have firsthand information on what the problems are,” he says.
The one stipulation to the opt-out recommendation is that Congress establish a U.S. Court of Indian Appeals to which a defendant could appeal on the grounds that his 4th, 5th, 6th or 8th amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution had been violated. Such a court is also needed, says the report, “because it would establish a more consistent, uniform, and predictable body of case law dealing with civil rights issues and matters of Federal law interpretation arising in Indian country.”
Commissioner Jefferson Keel, lieutenant governor of the Chickasaw Nation, retired U.S. Army officer and former president of the National Congress of American Indians, says, “This and the whole process of appointing a commission to look at the conditions of law enforcement and tribal law and order in Indian country is extremely important. The tribes across the country … can take it and really make some inroads in creating a legal level playing field.”
The question of what the tribes will do with the report brings up the question of how President Barack Obama, Congress and federal agencies such as the Departments of Justice and the Interior will respond. “Our hope,” says Quasula, “is that it doesn’t sit around and collect dust,” a concern expressed over and over again by the commissioners. “With tribal leadership taking charge, there will be change to the outrageous child abuse, domestic violence, violence against women statistics. They’re just unacceptable, totally unacceptable,” he says.
Commissioner Carole Goldberg, a justice of the Hualapai Tribe’s Court of Appeals and a professor at UCLA’s School of Law, is taking the lead in crafting an implementation plan, which will be “a distillation of recommendations of the commission’s report into a set of more specific actions. For example, there may be points where we need to specify whether a specific action would best be undertaken through seeking a solicitor’s opinion in the Interior Department or modifying a regulation. If there’s to be a statutory change, where in the federal code would that statutory change be most appropriately located,” she says.
Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, says, “It is important that we now move to the next stage. I’ve asked the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to hold a hearing on the report, because I think it’s important for us not just to put this on a shelf and ignore it. There are some pretty important issues we should address here.”
Those issues include the need for base funding for tribal law enforcement, justice systems and detention facilities and for better cooperation between federal, state and tribal law enforcement. The report also recommends a requirement that federal agents turn up in tribal court when they are called, not a trivial issue, says Eid.
The unique situation in Alaska gets a chapter, as does juvenile justice, which Goldberg describes as “an urgent problem that needs to be remedied.” Those recommendations follow the principle of the Indian Child Welfare Act in putting young offenders – and the dollars to provide services – in the control of the tribe rather than of the federal and state justice systems ill-equipped to deal with them.
The report’s recommendations may look like a hard sell, but, Eid says, the report “is not to tell anyone what to do, but it’s also to say, ‘Local government works best; it’s the American way.’ It’s emphatically a better way to prevent crime…. It’s clear that many Native governments, even those with not a lot of means, want to and will sacrifice in order to put sovereignty into action through enforcing their own criminal laws.”
Eid says he thinks the movement toward local tribal control of law enforcement and justice systems is unstoppable. “I’m very optimistic,” he says.
The other members of the Indian Law and Order Commission are Affie Ellis, Navajo; former U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin; former U.S. Rep. Earl Ralph Pomeroy III; and Tulalip Tribal Court Chief Justice Theresa Pouley, Colville Confederated Tribes.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/22/indian-law-and-order-commission-shelving-report-huge-mistake-153151
More oil spilled from trains in 2013 than in previous 4 decades, federal data show
By Curtis Tate
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Jan 21, 2014 Bellingham Herald
WASHINGTON — More crude oil was spilled in U.S. rail incidents last year than was spilled in the nearly four decades since the federal government began collecting data on such spills, an analysis of the data shows.
Including major derailments in Alabama and North Dakota, more than 1.15 million gallons of crude oil was spilled from rail cars in 2013, according to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
By comparison, from 1975 to 2012, U.S. railroads spilled a combined 800,000 gallons of crude oil. The spike underscores new concerns about the safety of such shipments as rail has become the preferred mode for oil producers amid a North American energy boom.
The federal data does not include incidents in Canada where oil spilled from trains. Canadian authorities estimate that more than 1.5 million gallons of crude oil spilled in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, on July 6, when a runaway train derailed and exploded, killing 47 people. The cargo originated in North Dakota.
BRUCE CRUMMY — ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nearly 750,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a train on Nov. 8 near Aliceville, Ala. The train also originated in North Dakota and caught fire after it derailed in a swampy area. No one was injured or killed.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration doesn’t yet have spill data from a Dec. 30 derailment near Casselton, N.D. But the National Transportation Safety Board, which is the lead investigator in that incident, estimates that more than 400,000 gallons of crude oil were spilled there. Though no one was injured or killed, the intense fire forced most of Casselton’s 2,400 residents to evacuate in subzero temperatures.
The Association of American Railroads, an industry group, estimates that railroads shipped 400,000 carloads of crude oil last year. That’s more than 11.5 billion gallons, with one tank car holding roughly 28,800 gallons.
Last year’s total spills of 1.15 million gallons means that 99.99 percent of shipments arrived without incident, close to the safety record the industry and its regulators claim about hazardous materials shipments by rail.
But until just a few years ago, railroads weren’t carrying crude oil in 80- to 100-car trains. In eight of the years between 1975 and 2009, railroads reported no spills of crude oil. In five of those years, they reported spills of one gallon or less.
In 2010, railroads reported spilling about 5,000 gallons of crude oil, according to federal data. They spilled fewer than 4,000 gallons each year in 2011 and 2012. But excluding the Alabama and North Dakota derailments, more than 11,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from trains last year.
Last week, the principal Washington regulators of crude oil shipments by rail met with railroad and oil industry representatives to discuss making changes to how crude is shipped by rail, from tank car design to operating speed to appropriate routing. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx called the meeting productive and said the group would take a comprehensive approach to improving the safety of crude-oil trains.
Foxx said the changes would be announced within the next 30 days.
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Super Kid: Shelbi Hatch, 17, Marysville SOAR program
Shelbi Hatch is a senior in the Secondary Options and Alternative Resources high school program in Marysville.
By Gale Fiege, The Herald
Question: What does Marysville School District’s high school program called SOAR stand for?
Answer: I guess it’s Secondary Options and Alternative Resources. All I know is that SOAR has been a good fit for me. I previously went to Heritage and Marysville Pilchuck high schools. I am trying hard to make the best of the fine instruction offered by my SOAR teachers. I like the way they teach and that they know how I learn.
The program allows me some flexibility in my day. My health requires that I sleep in, so I start later and I think better when I am fully awake. Our program is like a one-room school. We are close.
Q: So where are you going to college next year?
A: I plan to start at Everett Community College. My goal, though, is the University of Hawaii. I hope to study psychology, perhaps to become a school counselor or a therapist. I love to study people, even now.
Q: Your teachers describe you as being confident, curious, hard-working, inclusive, insightful, mature, an excellent student, a good writer and a leader. What do you think about that?
A: Wow. I don’t know what to say. I am just focused on my goals to finish high school, go to college and bring something back to my community on the reservation. So many people are on drugs. I want to come back to help people deal with issues. My community is my passion.
My education has been a struggle for me. I am not going to lie. It’s been tough. Now I am seeing the bigger picture. I am determined. I know I am the only person who can make it happen.
Q: Your teachers also mentioned a project in which you studied what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder among Civil War veterans. How was that?
A: It was interesting. PTSD back then was termed a broken heart. People were prescribed alcohol. So much different than now. What I think about war is that we really need to consider the people who we are sending to fight.
Q: What is your favorite part about school?
A: I love to write and I have since elementary school. It’s my way to express myself. I guess I like to do research, too.
Q: Why Hawaii for university?
A: This fall I attended an education conference for native people that was held in South Dakota. Some of the participants were native Hawaiians. They are friendly, laid back, happy and family oriented. No drama. I like that.
Q: Do you do any volunteer work?
A: I have enjoyed helping with reading at Quil Ceda Elementary School, where my folks work. It’s been tough lately to fit it in because of college application essays and that stuff.
Q: Along with your high school work, you also are taking a college class, correct?
A:: Yes, my cousin Natosha Gobin teaches Lushootseed, our native Coast Salish language, and I have been taking the college-level class that she offers. In class, I also learn more about the culture, history and traditions of our Tulalip Tribes. Lushootseed is important to our culture. If people like me don’t work to carry it on, who will?
My grandparents, Bernie and Patti Gobin, taught me to know who I am and where I come from, and that is very important to me. The oral history and the morality tales, which I grew up hearing as bedtime stories, have to be carried on. I know my family lineage back to before the boarding school days, when, as children, my elders were taken away from their families.
Q: We understand a recent science lesson on ocean acidification called you to action.
A: We all need to understand and work to prevent pollution in our waters. It’s a very personal issue for me. The Coast Salish people have always depended on seafood. We fish. If I ever have children, I want them to be able to go to Mission Beach to fish.
U.S. Sen Begich speaks out against proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska
January 21, 2014
By Becky Bohrer
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JUNEAU — U.S. Sen. Mark Begich has come out against the proposed Pebble Mine, calling the massive gold-and-copper project “the wrong mine in the wrong place for Alaska.”
In a statement released by his office Monday, Begich said he has long supported Alaska’s mining industry and believes continued efforts must be made to support resource-development industries that help keep Alaska’s economy strong. But he said “years of scientific study (have) proven the proposed Pebble Mine cannot be developed safely in the Bristol Bay watershed.”
“Thousands of Alaskans have weighed in on this issue, and I have listened to their concerns,” he said. “Pebble is not worth the risk.”
In 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiated a review of large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay region in response to concerns about the impact of the proposed Pebble Mine on fisheries. The agency released its final report last week, concluding that large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed posed significant risks to salmon and Alaska Native cultures that rely on it. The region is home to a world-premier sockeye salmon fishery.
Image source: Wild Salmon Center.org
The report did not recommend any policy or regulatory decisions. But EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran said it would serve as the scientific foundation for the agency’s response to the tribes and others who petitioned EPA to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to protect Bristol Bay. Mine opponents have been pressing the agency to take steps to block or limit the project.
Begich, a Democrat, is the only member of the state’s congressional delegation to outright oppose the project, and his position, first reported by the Anchorage Daily News, won praise from Pebble critics on Monday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, last week expressed concerns that the EPA report could be used to pre-emptively veto the project, saying that would set a bad precedent.
“If the EPA has concerns about the impact of a project there is an appropriate time to raise them – after a permit application has been made, not before,” Murkowski said in a release.
Under section 404c of the Clean Water Act, the EPA has the authority to restrict, prohibit, deny or withdraw use of an area as a disposal site for dredged or fill material if the discharge would have “unacceptable adverse” effects on things like municipal water supplies or fisheries, according to an EPA fact sheet. The agency says it has issued just over a dozen final veto actions since 1972.
Mike Heatwole, a spokesman for the Pebble Limited Partnership, the group behind the project, said Pebble is disappointed that Begich had “come out against thousands of new jobs, hundreds of millions in state revenue, and potentially billions in economic activity for Alaska.”
Heatwole said in a statement that it is “no secret that there is a substantial difference of opinion regarding the science of EPA’s recent Bristol Bay Assessment. Not many Alaskans think EPA is impartial.”
He said there is a process that exists for evaluating a project, and there is no environmental harm in allowing Pebble to follow that permitting process.
Begich told The Associated Press that one of the complaints he hears from the mining industry is that it needs to know what federal agencies want before getting too far along in the permitting process. He said if Pebble intends to apply for a permit, the watershed assessment provides a framework for what to respond to before the permit process starts.
Elwha River Restoration: Kruckeberg Botanic Garden Special Lecture
January 21, 2014 KING5.com
KBGF MEMBERS MEETING JANUARY 21
Our guest speaker at the 2014 KBGF Members’ meeting will be Joshua
Chenoweth, head botanist on the Elwha River Dam Removal Ecosystem Restoration Project. Dam removal, once completed, will be the largest dam removal project in the U.S. and the restoration project is the second largest project ever undertaken by the National Park Service. Join us to learn about the unprecendented ecosystem restoration activities occurring in our state!
Revegetation of the Former Reservoirs on the Elwha River 2011-2013
Revegetation of the former reservoirs, Lake Mills and Lake Aldwell, on the Elwha River is an unprecedented effort to reverse the impacts of dams on a major river. Dam removal, once completed, will be the largest known dam removal project in the United States and the Elwha Ecosystem Restoration Project is the second largest restoration project ever undertaken by the National Park Service. Dam removal has exposed nearly 800 acres of valley slopes, terraces, and floodplain that was inundated for 80-100 years. The reservoir trapped nearly 30 million cubic yards of inorganic sediments ranging in
Time/Date: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Tues. Jan 21st, 2014
Cost: free to KBGF members / $5 suggested donation
Venue:
Shoreline City Hall, Council Chambers
17544 Midvale Ave N # 100
Seattle, WA 98133
Community: Shoreline – Lake Forest Park
View Map | Get Directions
Feds Stand By Current Dam, Salmon Plan For Columbia
Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Radio
The federal government is standing by its previous plans for managing the Columbia River to prevent the extinction of its salmon and steelhead. That means little would change for dam operations on the West’s biggest river — but only if it wins court approval.
Officials Friday released the finalized plan, known as the biological opinion or BiOp. It guides dam operations to assure they do not lead to the extinction of 13 species of salmon and steelhead that are protected under the Endangered Species Act. The plan has been the subject of more than 20 years of legal conflict between people who want to protect salmon and people who want the dams to produce hydroelectricity and maintain shipping traditions.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is the lead agency in developing the biological opinion. It says the current plan is on track to meet Endangered Species Act goals for the federally protected fish. NOAA officials say the plan may better protect some fish than previously thought.
“The actions outlined in the biological opinion, and the operation of the hydro system, is designed to move us in the direction towards recovery and avoid jeopardy, and this program does that,” said NOAA’s Barry Thom. “It actually does improve the status of the populations over time. But it is not designed to achieve ultimate recovery of the population.”
Officials say the 610-page plan will protect and improve habitat, with specific attention paid to tributaries and estuaries of the Columbia and Snake rivers.
“A major focus of the tributary habitat program is to help us buffer against potential effects of climate change in the system, so that the habitat projects … are designed to maintain and protect the cool water inputs into the system,” Thom said during a conference call with reporters.
NOAA released a draft version of this plan in September.
In 2011, U.S. District Judge James A. Redden rejected the plan and asked the Obama administration to consider more ways to recover the endangered fish.
Redden’s suggestions included spilling more water over the dams to help juvenile salmon safely make it downriver to the ocean, changing reservoirs to help fish passage, and removing the Snake River dams altogether.
The case has been transferred to Judge Michael H. Simon. He has yet to set a court date for the plan’s sponsors and opponents to argue it. He’ll then decide if the plan is adequate to protect Columbia River salmon and steelhead.
Now that the previous version of the plan is partway completed, supporters say a trend toward larger salmon runs shows the plan is working. Terry Flores is with Northwest RiverPartners, which represents commerce and industry groups that defend the presence of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia-Snake system.
“This plan is amazing. It’s the most comprehensive plan we can find anywhere in this country by far,” Flores said.
Environmental groups say they are disappointed with this finalized plan. Gilly Lyons, with advocacy group Save Our Wild Salmon, said the group is frustrated.
“The federal agencies in charge here have re-isuued a slightly tweaked, but largely status quo federal salmon plan that repeats a lot of the same mistakes over the past decade or so that kept them in court and bound them in litigation over these dams and the salmon that they impact,” Lyons said.
Lyons said it is too soon to tell if environmental groups will file another lawsuit.
“With all the stuff that we see in the plan, or that’s not there, as the case may be, it sure looks like the federal government would like to go back to court,” Lyons said.
NOAA officials said there will be a few years before they have to start writing a new 10-year plan beyond 2018.
“One main priority is to carry out this existing biological opinion,” Thom said. “There will be a period of time between [the 2018 discussions] and the next couple of years where I would like to focus our efforts on talking about long-term recovery. … As opposed to focusing either on A) the litigation or B) the details of a new biological opinion beyond 2018.”
White out Tulalip: Hawks face Blackhawks in Rival Rematch
The Tulalip Heritage Hawks will play the Lummi Blackhawks for the second time this season, after a last minute upset first game January 7th, losing by three points. Be sure to wear white and cheer for the Heritage boys tonight at 7:oo p.m. Tulalip Heritage High School. You can also catch the game on Tulaliptv.com.