Protestors continue to rally against alcohol sales in Whiteclay, with the situation escalating last week.
Incidents began on Labor Day when protestors marched into the small town just south of the South Dakota state line.
“That day, basically, they were pretty calm, except they went to some of the beer stores and squirted some substance in to the locks. It appeared to be some kind of glue,” said Sheridan County Sheriff Terry Robbins. Store owners had to replace the locks.
The next day, authorities and protestors confronted each other again during weekly beer deliveries by Budweiser.
The protestors hid behind a building on the South Dakota side of the border until the trucks arrived and then attempted to gain access to the beer stores, engaging in confrontations with authorities, Robbins said. A female individual also allegedly spray painted a Whiteclay building. As authorities tried to arrest her, other protestors began shoving, hitting and spitting on the officers, which included Robbins, one of his deputies and two Nebraska State Patrol troopers. Robbins and the NSP troopers each requested additional help from their respective agencies.
The protestors eventually moved back in to South Dakota. An NSP report indicated that there they set up four cars across the road and refused to allow traffic entry to South Dakota.
The Budweiser delivery was halted Sept. 3, and the trucks told to “back out of town” until the matter was under control, Robbins said. Delivery was never completed that day, but all three distributors that serve the town were able to make deliveries without issue on Thursday. Budweiser also visited Whiteclay again this week without problems.
“The sad part about this is that very few of these people (the protestors) actually live in Shannon County, and very few are tribal members,” Robbins said. Many of the protestors are from other areas of the country, and many do not appear to be Native American, he added.
The Pine Ridge Reservation recently voted to allow alcohol sales on what has traditionally been a dry reservation. The tribal council must still formulate the regulations and policies that will guide alcohol sales and consumption on the reservation. Robbins said he’s visited with tribal members who are for and against allowing alcohol on the reservation.
Video: Neil Young says Fort McMurray looks like ‘Hiroshima’
Paul Koring and Kelly Cryderman
WASHINGTON/CALGARY — The Globe and Mail
Sep. 10 2013
Canadian rocker Neil Young has waded into the bitter debate over Alberta’s vast oil sands and the controversial Keystone XL pipeline planned to funnel one million barrels a day of Canadian crude to huge refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
Mr. Young said in a news conference on Monday that oil sands extraction was killing native peoples, igniting a new firestorm in the ongoing battle between proponents who want the massive reserves extracted and an array of opponents who argue that burning the carbon-heavy crude will seriously exacerbate global warming that threatens the planet.
Neil Young arrives for the film “Neil Young Journeys” at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Sept. 12, 2011. (Nathan Denette/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
“The fact is, Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima,” Mr. Young said in Washington. “Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying.”
Keystone opponents were quick to cheer Mr. Young’s blunt intervention.
Sierra Club spokesman Eddie Scher said: “Neil Young has been expressing and exposing hard truths his whole career,” adding: “Looks like he’s at it again.”
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver – who was in Washington himself on the same day for a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, took a different view.
“I am a big fan of Neil Young’s music,” Mr. Oliver told the Globe. “But on this matter we disagree because Keystone XL will displace heavy oil from Venezuela which has the same or higher greenhouse gas emissions, with a stable and secure source of Canadian oil.”
The singer is among a growing number of well-known activists speaking out against Keystone XL “Neil Young is speaking for all of us fighting to stop the Keystone XL,” said Jane Kleeb, Executive Director of Bold Nebraska, a coalition of landowners and others opposed to the $5.3-billion Keystone XL pipeline. “When you see the pollution already caused by the reckless expansion of tar sands, you only have one choice and that is to act.”
Mr. Young, one of Canada’s best-known singer-songwriters since the 1960s, told a conference in Washington Monday that he recently travelled to Alberta, where “much of the oil comes from, much of the oil that we’re using here, which they call ethical oil because it’s not from Saudi Arabia or some country that may be at war with us.”
As for Keystone, Mr. Young lampooned claims that it would create lots of jobs.
“Yeah it’s going to put a lot of people to work, I’ve heard that, and I’ve seen a lot of people that would dig a hole that’s so deep that they couldn’t get out of it, and that’s a job too, and I think that’s the jobs that we are talking about there with the Keystone pipeline,” he said.
He spoke at the U.S. National Farmers Union conference in Washington, intended to support alternative fuels, such as ethanol, which he did at length, slamming Big Oil and talking about his own LincVolt, an old Continental that runs on ethanol and electricity.
Young said he drove the 1959 Lincoln, which runs on ethanol and electricity, to Fort McMurray while traversing the continent from his California home to Washington over the last two and half weeks.
At the same time, Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was making the latest in a long series of lobbying visits by ministers and premiers intended to sway President Barack Obama to approve the long-delayed pipeline.
Ms. Kleeb wasn’t impressed. “Prime Minister Harper can write all the memos he wants, Joe Oliver can say anything but the reality is people are dying and the alliance between cowboys and Indians is stronger than any K Street lobbyists Canada hires.”
All Risk, No Rewards, another group opposed to Keystone XL also echoed Mr. Young’s comments.
“Canada’s First Nations know all too well the risks of Keystone XL and the risks of expanding the tar sands,” said Rachel Wolf, a spokeswoman for the group. Ranchers in Nebraska and First Nations peoples in Canada have more in common than one might think: they’re ‘Ordinary People’ who share a common goal to protect their land and protect their water, and they both know that these tar sands expansion projects are all risk and no reward.”
Mr. Young described his recent visit graphically. “The fuel’s all over – the fumes everywhere – you can smell it when you get to town. The closest place to Fort McMurray that is doing the tar sands work is 25 or 30 miles out of town and you can taste it when you get to Fort McMurray. People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All the First Nations people up there are threatened by this.”
Mr. Young’s comments don’t sit well with Fort McMurray’s mayor, who called them “blatantly false.”
Melissa Blake, mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray, said she has no problem with people having environmental interests at heart.
But she said Fort McMurray is totally different from Mr. Young’s characterization. With his power in the music industry, she’s disappointed “there wasn’t more rationality to it.”
“When people say it’s a wasteland, it really and truly isn’t,” Ms. Blake said. “When it comes to the community of Fort McMurray, you’re overwhelmed frankly by the beauty of it. You’ve got an incredible boreal environment that’s all around you. You proceed further north into the oil sands and inevitably, there’s mining operations that will draw your attention because they take up large chunks of land.”
The mayor said she always invites outsiders to the region to see the landscape, and to see oil sands companies’ reclamation efforts.
Danielle Droitsch, director of the National Resources Defense Council, said “Seeing tar sands development up close is shocking” adding “these are massive operations and industry hopes to triple its production over the next 20 years.”
Blocking Keystone XL will thwart expansion of oil sands production, according to the NRDC, but Mr. Oliver says Canada will just export its reserves elsewhere.
With files from Steven Chase and The Canadian Press
“I’ve decided to stop using the Washington team nickname. It’s a name you won’t see me use anymore. The simple reason is that for the last two or three years, I’ve been uneasy when I sat down to write about the team and had to use the nickname. In some stories I’ve tried to use it sparingly. But this year, I decided to stop entirely because it offends too many people, and I don’t want to add to the offensiveness. Some people, and some Native American organizations—such as the highly respected American Indian Movement—think the nickname is a slur. Obviously, the team feels it isn’t a slur, and there are several prominent Native American leaders who agree. But I can do my job without using it, and I will.”
And just to prove it, King pointed to a 2,400-word feature on Washington’s offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan, that never once mentions the team’s name.
For his part, Redskin’s owner Daniel Snyder has said repeatedly that he has no intention of ever changing his team’s name, despite protests from Native American groups and a growing legion of sports journalists, who like King, will not say or write the team name.
Snyder has emphasized the word “never” when ruling out such a name change, instructing reporters to print the word in all-caps.
A judge finds that the city failed to turn over emails requested by Cedar Grove Composting as public records.
September10, 2013
By Bill Sheets, Herald Writer
EVERETT — The city of Marysville was ordered Monday by a judge to pay more than $143,000 to Cedar Grove Composting for violations of the state public disclosure law.
The Everett composting company last year sued Marysville in Snohomish County Superior Court over the city’s withholding of emails between it and a consultant.
In an unusual move, Judge Richard T. Okrent also ruled that the city should have disclosed emails related to Cedar Grove that were sent internally at the consulting firm, Strategies 360.
Cedar Grove officials did not respond Monday to an email seeking comment.
The city of Marysville, the Tulalip Tribes and many who live in Marysville and Everett have been battling Cedar Grove for several years over allegations that the company’s Smith Island plant has been emitting offensive odors in the area.
Strategies 360 was performing public relations work for Marysville related to the issue.
The consulting firm already had been hired by the city to lobby on transportation and other issues and had been paid a flat rate of $7,500 per year for all the combined work, according to city administrator Gloria Hirashima.
Last year, Cedar Grove filed a public disclosure request with the city for all written communications with Strategies 360 related to the composting company. The city supplied most of the emails but withheld a number of them, claiming they were exempt from public disclosure because of attorney-client privilege. The emails contained discussions of legal strategy, Hirashima said.
Okrent ruled that 15 of those emails did not meet that standard. Though Marysville released the emails before Cedar Grove filed the lawsuit, the city should have released them sooner, the judge ruled.
The emails contained possible strategies and approaches, some of which the city used and some it didn’t, Hirashima said. For example, the city acted on the consultants’ suggestion to have city and Tulalip tribal leaders send letters to elected officials, she said.
The emails also revealed that the city and Strategies 360 helped residents write letters to newspapers and with other activities, such as applying for grants, according to the original complaint by Cedar Grove.
Hirashima said there’s nothing wrong with that in itself.
“We had literally hundreds of citizens asking us for help on this issue,” she said.
Mike Davis, leader of the Cedar Grove opposition group Citizens for a Smell Free Snohomish County, acknowledged he had help with letter writing but said he took the initiative.
“Any implications that we were created by the city of Marysville or that they ran the citizens group is not true,” he said. “I went to my elected officials as any citizen should. We were offered and gladly accepted help from the city. Fix the smell, I go away, it’s that simple.”
Also, Okrent ruled the city was negligent in failing to track down 19 other emails in response to Cedar Grove’s disclosure request.
Marysville also should have released internal Strategies 360 emails pertaining to Cedar Grove, the judge wrote in the ruling signed on Monday. The firm was acting as an employee of the city on the matter, he said.
“Marysville knew what Strategies was doing, paid them for those activities, was generally aware that there were documents in Strategies’ possession created during those activities, and discussed the contents of some of those documents with Strategies,” Okrent wrote.
The attorney working on the case for Marysville, Jeff Myers of Olympia, said the ruling broke new legal ground.
“I think it caught everyone by surprise that the court did what we thought was an unprecedented extension of the public records act to records the city never had,” Myers said. “Those were things the city never saw, didn’t possess and some of it was done for other clients.”
Myers said he’s specialized in public disclosure law for nearly 10 years and “it’s the first time to my knowledge it’s been done anywhere,” he said of the ruling.
Hirashima said the ruling sets an ominous precedent in terms of how the city and other government agencies must respond to disclosure requests in the future.
“This is a distraction from trying to get the (odor) issue addressed,” she said. “There are tools Cedar Grove has to inflict punishment back.”
Cedar Grove two years ago was fined $119,000 by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency for odor violations at its plants in Everett and Maple Valley in King County.
That amount was applied toward Cedar Grove’s $200,000 contribution to a $375,000 study of odors in the Snohomish River Delta run by the Clean Air Agency.
The city of Seattle and King County, both of which send yard and food waste to Cedar Grove, put up $100,000 and $50,000, respectively. The Clean Air Agency is spending $25,000.
Northern Spotted Owl Photo source: WikipediaBarred Owl Photo Source: Wikipedia
September 10, 2013 @ 9:14 am
GRANTS PASS, Oregon (AP) – Federal wildlife officials are moving ahead with an experiment to see if killing a rival owl will help save the northern spotted owl from extinction.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it gave final approval to a plan to send trained hunters into the woods to shoot barred owls.
Barred owls migrated from the East and arrived in spotted owl territory in 1959. The agency says they have since become the biggest threat to spotted owl survival.
Plans are to kill or capture barred owls in four study areas in Washington, Oregon and Northern California over the next four years.
The spotted owl forced big changes in management of national forests when environmentalists won lawsuits to protect the old growth forests where the owls live from logging.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
A company hauling human waste from Spokane into Idaho as fertilizer has sparked a legal fight with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.
Gobers Pumping and Repair, with business partner St. Isidore Farms, will have to prove that injecting 54,000 gallons of sewage from septic tanks and portable toilets into a 150-acre patch of privately owned farmland just inside the reservation boundary near Plummer poses no health risk.
The case has prompted a visceral reaction from tribal leadership and pits expert witnesses testifying to the safety of the interstate sludge against worried hunters and anglers.
“It makes me sick just thinking about it,” said Chief Allan, chairman of the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Council.
The tribe filed suit against the two companies in its own tribal courts earlier this year seeking to ban the delivery of waste onto St. Isidore property. While the farm’s property lies outside tribe-owned lands, it is on the reservation, the tribe contended, and the injection process was feared to pose a health risk to grazing animals near the site hunted by tribal members.
In March, the tribal council passed a resolution aimed at forcing the fertilization process off reservation lands by limiting solid waste disposal to council-approved locations.
St. Isidore and Gobers took the dispute to U.S. District Court and used testimony from Tom Hess, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of Idaho.
“The land treatment is … one of the main ways they treat septage,” Hess said, referring to the semisolid waste that is pumped from residential retention tanks. The process is particularly common on the East Coast, he said.
Hess visited the St. Isidore site in June, gathering soil samples and testing for the presence of disease-causing bacteria in the soil. He determined the site “poses neither threat nor harm to the health and welfare of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe or its members,” according to court records.
Scott Fields, Water Resource Program administrator for the tribe, disagreed.
After reviewing the St. Isidore application approved by the Department of Environmental Quality, Fields expressed concern that the waste posed “a risk to the water quality of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Indians’ Reservation.”
Several tribal members also offered declarations expressing concern about the animals grazing nearby.
The injection process shoots the sewage into the ground about eight inches beneath the surface, said Gregg Smith, lead counsel for St. Isidore and Gobers. Hess also concluded the sewage posed no risk to wildlife.
Returning the case to the tribal court to settle the health risk, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge said the question of whether a threat exists “must be analyzed objectively based on all the facts available.”
Smith called the ruling “frustrating,” disputing many of the claims made by the tribe in response to the ruling. A determination has not yet been made whether to pursue an appeal in federal court or take the argument back to the tribal court in Plummer.
A server at Famous Dave’s in Bismarck, North Dakota, is out of a job after posting a photo on Facebook that implied Native Americans are bad tippers.
Over the weekend, Bismarck was the site of the 44th Annual United Tribes International Powwow. On Facebook, an unidentified server posted a photo of herself holding a sign that reads:
Spare change? Help I’m a server at Famous Dave’s on Pow Wow weekend! Anything helps! 5¢ 25¢! Its more than my tips
Last Real Indians publicized the unpleasant image by posting it to the site’s official Facebook page. That post (which appears to have been deleted) suggested Natives boycott the restaurant and sparked hundreds of comments from angered American Indians.
Famous Dave’s founder Dave Anderson is Choctaw and Ojibwe, and is a former Assitant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior.
Both Anderson and the Bismarck restaurant’s manager, Mike Wright, posted comments about the incident on Facebook.Wright’s comment reads, in part, “When an employee decides to make an ass of him or herself they can now do it for all to see. Sadly, for reasons unkown to me, often times bitter employees also try to embarass the employers and taint the businesses where they work. Clearly a recent post by a now former employee fits this description.”
On September 10th the World unites to remember loved ones lost to Suicide during World Suicide Prevention Day. This year Tulalip will participate with a “Walk for Life” from the Tulalip Health Clinic parking lot to the tribal gym where we will have a potluck and candle lighting.
Suicide is a difficult subject to talk about for many people; but the most important thing we can do for prevention is break the silence, reduce the stigma and share. Please see the attached flyer, print it, give it to family members, create walking teams and help loved ones you know who may still be grieving, healing or living with suicidal thoughts themselves to come out and unite for this evening of Love, Acceptance and Remembrance.
This is an ALL COMMUNITY event, employees, friends, spouses, tribal members and everything else in between J
See you Tuesday September 10th, 6pm at the Health Clinic Parking Lot. (there will be rides back to your car afterward).
Tulalip, Washington – Tulalip Resort Casino is gearing up for a weekend of revelry to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Taste of Tulalip, its coveted award-winning food and wine aficionado event. Scheduled for November 8 and 9, 2013, this year’s line-up of top talent, to be announced within the next month, will include many familiar names as well as some stars on the rise. Past culinary celeb appearances have included ABC TV’s “The Chew” host Carla Hall, Bravo’s Top Chef Master and author Marcus Samuelsson, wine legend Marc Mondavi, “Thirsty Girl” Leslie Sbrocco and others. Executive Chef Perry Mascitti and Sommelier Tommy Thompson are putting together a dazzling roster of food, wine and tradition show-stoppers that have been a year in the planning. Taste 2013 will feature honorary winemaker Bob Betz of Betz Family Winery. Taste of Tulalip tickets have just gone on sale at Ticketmaster, with Friday night Celebration dinner tickets soon to follow.
The two-day gathering, with a focus on food, wine and tradition, begins with a Friday night wine and passed hors d’oeuvres reception, followed by the aptly named Celebration Dinner. The multi-course repast will focus on Native American and traditional recipe inspired dishes, paired with a global offering of rare, top wines. It is priced at $175. Tickets are limited and this event is always a sell-out.
On Saturday “All Access” pass holders ($295) will enjoy early entrance to the unforgettable Grand Taste; a VIP seminar featuring a celebrity cooking demo, table talk and Q & A session on the Viking Kitchen Stage; a private Magnum Party where they’ll be treated to a high level wine and indigenous food pairings; and a special bonus this year – two in-depth Reserve Tasting forums.
The weekend’s highlight is always the Grand Taste, spanning four hours and featuring lavish food stations as well as over 100 wines from Washington State, California and Oregon, and craft beer. It is priced at $95 and includes a Rock –n- Roll Cooking Challenge done “Iron Chef” style with celebrity judges looking for the best from both regional and Tulalip chefs, and sommelier teams. Special guest Emilio Lopez of El Salvador (a sixth generation specialty coffee producer), will be appearing at the Dillanos Coffee Roasters espresso bar, where guests will be able to sample a special TOT 5th Anniversary Blend.
All of the weekend’s wine offerings will be available in limited quantities for purchase in the Taste of Tulalip retail wine shop. There will also be book and bottle signings for those looking to personalize their purchases.
