Tulalip News

California State admits traditional management more effective than marine reserves; Annual recreational abalone harvest reduced

Photo of red abalone at Santa Cruz Island courtesy of California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW).

State officials and representatives of some corporate “environmental” NGOs have constantly touted the so-called “marine protected areas” created under the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative as a “science-based” method for bolstering fish and shellfish populations in California.

Yet a recent California Fish and Game Commission decision revealed that traditional fishery management, rather than the marine protected areas supported by the Western States Petroleum Association, Safeway Corporation and other corporate interests under the MLPA Initiative, may be much more effective in addressing fishery declines than the creation of questionable “marine protected areas.”

The Commission on June 26 voted to modify abalone fishery regulations along the northern California coast. By doing this, the Commission effectively admitted that fishing regulations, rather than alleged “marine reserves” that went into effect on the North Central Coast on May 1, 2010 and on the North Coast on December 19, 2012, are the “solution” to reducing pressure on a declining abalone population. The decline was spurred by a die-off that coincided with a local red tide bloom and calm ocean conditions in 2011.

The Commission voted to reduce the annual limit to 18 abalone (previously 24), with no more than nine taken from Sonoma and Marin counties. Other changes to abalone regulations included a coast-wide start time for the fishing day of 8 a.m. and a closure at Ft. Ross in Sonoma County.

The changes were proposed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and then adopted by the Commission.

“The new management measures we’ve adopted today will help ensure that the red abalone remains abundant on the North Coast and the popular recreational fishery there continues to thrive,” said Commission President Michael Sutton. “Our job is to keep wildlife populations in California healthy and not wait for a crisis to take action.”

Jim Martin, the West Coast Regional Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and representative of the Sonoma County Abalone Network (SCAN), responded, “Apparently Fish and Wildlife believes that traditional fishery management is more effective than marine protected areas in rebuilding fishery stocks – and that reductions in harvest are more effective than closing down areas.”

Martin noted that the abalone decline – caused by a die-off and not overharvesting – occurred in 2011. SCAN immediately supported a temporary closure at the Fort Ross index site to help the population to recover.

“They extended this temporary closure to a year round one,” said Martin. “We supported both that closure and an 8 am start time to help enforcement, as well as reduced bag limit south of Mendocino County.”

However, the abalone fishermen felt the reduction of the bag limit from 24 to 18 was “completely unnecessary.”

“What they really did was reduced the allowable recreational catch from 280,000 to 190,000 abalone, over a 30 percent reduction. And the Abalone Recovery and Management Plan only called for a 25 percent reduction,” said Martin.

In the course of discussing the regulations, Martin and other fishermen asked the Department to quantify the benefits of marine protected areas to the fishery.

The MPAs were touted by MLPA officials, including Ron LeValley, the Co-Chair of the MLPA Initiative Science Advisory team now being investigated by federal authorities for conspiracy with two others to embezzle nearly $1 million from the Yurok Tribe, because of the “benefits” they would provide by bolstering abalone and fish populations. (http://www.times-standard.com/… )

“The CDFW refused to quantify the benefits because they said it would take too long,” said Martin. “We believe there should be some benefit to quantify these benefits based on science.”

“The whole selling point of these MPAs is that they would make fish and shellfish populations more abundant,” said Martin. “The first test of that theory turned to be based on false promises.”

Martin emphasized, “We don’t think these marine protected areas benefit abalone at all. If they benefit abalone, give us some numbers. Instead they turned to traditional management to deal with a situation wasn’t harvest related.”

The CDFW press release announcing the regulations confirms Martin’s contention that the Department effectively admitted that the marine protected areas weren’t benefiting the abalone at all.

“Northern California red abalone are managed adaptively by the Commission, using traditional management measures coupled with fishery independent surveys to maintain the catch at sustainable levels, as prescribed by the Abalone Recovery and Management Plan (ARMP). Ongoing data surveys by the Department of Fish and Wildlife detected the effects of a recent abalone die-off along the Sonoma coast,” the Department stated.

“The declines in abalone density triggered the changes to management measures, because the densities dropped below levels that are prescribed in the ARMP for management action,” the release continued.

“The new regulations are intended to provide an opportunity for abalone populations in Sonoma and Marin to increase, and to help Mendocino County maintain a productive fishery. The set start time for the fishing day will also aid enforcement,” the DFW said.

Not mentioned anywhere in the news release are the “glorious” new marine protected areas, created under an allegedly “open, transparent and inclusive” process, that were supposed to bolster the populations of abalone and other species.

The release also didn’t mention the reasons for the abalone die-off and how to prevent a similar situation from taking place in the future.

Background: MLPA Initiative based on terminally flawed “science”

The “science” that the MLPA Initiative is based on is very questionable, leading tribal biologists, independent scientists, fishing groups and grassroots environmentalists to challenge its assumptions, methodology and conclusions.

The Northern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, including the Chairs of the Elk Valley Rancheria, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Smith River Rancheria, Trinidad Rancheria, and Yurok Tribe, believes the science behind the MLPA Initiative developed by Schwarzenegger’s Science Advisory Team is “incomplete and terminally flawed.” (http://yubanet.com/…)

The Yurok Tribe said it has attempted on numerous occasions to address the scientific inadequacies with the MLPA science developed under the Schwarzenegger administration by adding “more robust protocols” into the equation, but was denied every time.

For example, the MLPA Science Advisory Team in August 2010 turned down a request by the Yurok Tribe to make a presentation to the panel. Among other data, the Tribe was going to present data of test results from other marine reserves regarding mussels.

“The data would have shown that there was not a statistical difference in the diversity of species from the harvested and un-harvested areas,” wrote John Corbett, Yurok Tribe Senior Attorney, in a letter to the Science Advisory Team on January 12, 2011. “The presentation would have encompassed the work of Smith, J.R. Gong and RF Ambrose, 2008, ‘The Impacts of Human Visitation on Mussel Bed Communities along the California Coast: Are Regulatory Marine Reserves Effective in Protecting these Communities.’” (http://yubanet.com/…)

No Tribal scientists were allowed to serve on the MLPA Science Advisory Team, in spite of the fact that the Yurok and other North Coast Indian Tribes have large natural resources and fisheries departments staffed with many fishery biologists and other scientists.

On the day of the historic direct action protest by a coalition of over 50 Tribes and their allies in Fort Bragg in July 2010, Frankie Joe Myers, Yurok Tribal member and Coastal Justice Coalition activist, exposed the refusal to incorporate Tribal science that underlies the fake “science” of the MLPA process.

“The whole process is inherently flawed by institutionalized racism,” said Myers. “It doesn’t recognize Tribes as political entities, or Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists.” (http://klamathjustice.blogspot.com/…)

To make matters even worse, the Del Norte County District Attorney arrested Ron LeValley, Co-Chair of the MLPA Science Advisory Team, in February 2012 for conspiracy with two others, Roland Raymond and Sean McAlllister, to embezzle nearly $1 million from the Yurok Tribe.

In January, District Attorney Jon Alexander said the state case was dismissed without prejudice against Raymond, LeValley and McAllister to “allow the case to move forward through the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” according to the Eureka Times-Standard. (http://www.times-standard.com/…)

Wouldn’t it have been prudent for the Natural Resources Agency and Department of Fish and Wildlife to have postponed the implementation of the alleged North Coast “marine protected areas” until this case had been resolved in the courts – and when the legitimacy of the “science” of the MLPA Initiative was already facing severe criticism from well-respected scientists?

The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a landmark law, signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, designed to create a network of marine protected areas off the California Coast. However, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 created the privately-funded MLPA “Initiative” to “implement” the law, effectively eviscerating the MLPA.

The “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, water pollution, military testing, wave and wind energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering. These areas are not “marine protected areas” in any real sense, but are just “no fishing” zones.

The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversaw the implementation of “marine protected areas” included a big oil lobbyist, marina developer, real estate executive and other individuals with numerous conflicts of interest. Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Coast and North Central Coast.

Reheis-Boyd, a relentless advocate for offshore oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the Keystone XL Pipeline and the weakening of environmental laws, also chaired the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task that developed the MPAs that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, 2012.

The MLPA Initiative operated through a controversial private/public partnership funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. The Schwarzenegger administration, under intense criticism by grassroots environmentalists, fishermen and Tribal members, authorized the implementation of marine protected areas under the initiative through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the foundation and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Tribes, Utility Protect Salmon Eggs

K. Neumeyer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

A rainy April and a hotter-than-normal week in May created a challenge for the steelhead fry expected to emerge in Au- gust.

The rain, combined with heavy snow- melt after a string of 80-degree days in May, built up in the reservoir of Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project. To prevent an overflow that could scour out steelhead redds (nests), the utility released more water than usual, increasing the flow of the Skagit River. As a result, spawning steelhead dug redds in places at risk of being dewatered before the last fry emerge this summer, when flows are lower.

Water management in the Skagit Riv- er is guided in part by spawning surveys conducted by biologists Stan Walsh of the Skagit River System Cooperative and Dave Pflug of Seattle City Light. The Skagit River System Cooperative is the natural resources extension of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes.

Based on data gathered by Walsh and Pflug, Seattle City Light will release enough water in August to keep vulnerable steelhead eggs under water.

Walsh and Pflug have monitored salmon and steelhead redds between Rockport and Newhalem on the Upper Skagit River since 1995. They document new redds, note the condition of existing redds, and measure the depth of the shallowest redds to make sure the river’s flow stays high enough for those eggs to survive, but not so high that the eggs are washed away.

They also share data with state fisheries co-managers to help forecast run sizes.

“Seattle City Light has been a great part- ner to the tribes in water management,” Walsh said. “They’ve gone out of their way to protect fish beyond what’s required in their license agreement.”

NYT: Photos of Tlingit country in Alaska at turn of the century

Three young Tlingit children. Photo from Vincent Soboleff Photograph Collection, ca. 1896-1920. Alaska State Library - Historical Collections. — Three young Tlingit children. Photo from Vincent Soboleff Photograph Collection, ca. 1896-1920. Alaska State Library – Historical Collections.

Source: Indianz.com

The Lens blog of The New York Times explores a new book, A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country:

The black-and-white photograph taken in Killisnoo, Alaska, at the turn of the 20th century depicts a group of fishermen reeling in a gigantic halibut. The image is lighthearted and almost comical: workers smile as the imposing creature writhes perilously close to them. What makes the photograph (Slide 5) unusual is not its subject matter but its subjects. The fishermen, working in apparent harmony, represent a cross section of the population of Killisnoo, an island off southeastern Alaska that was an important outpost for American businesses and tourism. Several of the men are white; at least two are Native American, members of the Tlingit community; and one is Asian. Taken at a time when racial integration was the exception and not the rule in the United States, the image by Vincent Soboleff, a Russian-American amateur photographer, is noteworthy. As the Dartmouth anthropologist Sergei A. Kan argues in his new book, “A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska” (University of Oklahoma Press), Mr. Soboleff’s images of the United States territory, especially its Native population, are also significantly different from others of the period.

Get the Story:
Lens: A Russian-American Photographing Native Alaska (The New York Times 7/17)

Native boxers set sights on 2020 Olympics

071113box1 — (Courtesy photo).
TOP: San Carlos Apache boxer Tommy Nosie (left) spars with Nico Martinez of the Menominee Indian Boxing Club of Wisconsin during the 2013 All Indian Boxing Championships in San Carlos, Ariz.

By Quentin Jodie, Navajo Times

The host city of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games has yet to be determined but Greg Parsons is thinking big.

As the promoter of the 2013 All Indian Boxing Championships, Parsons is prophesying that we’ll have a Native American boxer competing in those games.

“I am looking at some of our 15- and 16-year-old kids,” Parsons said. “Some of them competed at the JO (Junior Olympics) this year and they placed real high.”

Of course that conversation depends on what happens to the fate of the boxing climate within the Native American community.

Parson said in years past, the AIBC has attracted as much as 90 fighters back in his heydays. But last year the event only drew in 32 boxers, which featured only four championship bouts.

This year, however, the numbers were a bit healthier as 52 boxers showed up, which was held at the Apache Gold Casino and Resort in San Carlos, Ariz., on July 4-6.

“We need consistency,” Parson said. “Sometimes this event goes away for one year and it comes back another. It’s really about consistency because for some Native kids this is the biggest tournament they look forward to.

“If this is not around they could lose interest for a whole year,” he added. “If we can keep this going I am sure we can get someone to the Olympics. We just need to so support them and send them places and give them the best fights we can. Maybe we can schedule some international bouts.”

071113box2 — Yoruba Moreu Jr., (left) of New Mexico sustains a right hand punch to the head from Jameel Maldonado of Arizona in San Carlos, Ariz.

Parsons said it’s imperative to keep the AIBC event ongoing and in the future he would like for the event to be move to other sites.

“I believe it will be back in San Carlos next year but we would like to spread this around as much as we can,” he said.

At this year’s event, Parsons said they ended up with 54 fights including 17 tournament bouts.

“I think we did pretty good,” he said. “We got teams from Canada, Wisconsin, Oregon, Utah, Washington and South Dakota.”

The Wisconsin team, which was represented by the Menominee Indian Boxing Club, brought in eight fighters ranging from 9 to 14 years old.

“Everyone got a ‘W’ this weekend,” said Jason Komanenkin, who co-serves as the MIBC coach along with Arnold Peters and Gerald Wayka Jr. “We are very happy with the results. We got eight national Native American champions.”

One of those fighters is Leon Peters, who went 2-0 in the 110-pound category in the 11-12 age group.

“My coaches told me what to do,” said Peters, while adding that his right hand is his best punch.

Last December, Peters also went 2-0 and won the National Silver Gloves Championship in Kansas City, Mo., after qualifying in a regional meet in South Dakota.

“I won my first match by a split decision,” Peters said. “I drove him with my right hand and he started running (away from me.) I practically chased him down.”

In his next match, he stopped his opponent with a TKO in the second round to win the title.

“I was proud that I brought the title home to my tribe,” he said.

According to his dad, Arnold Peters, his son prepared for that tournament by sparring with kids older than him.

“He’s big for his age,” Arnold Peters said of his son. “In a lot of tournaments we went to the normal-sized kids would not fight him so we moved him up. He lost a lot of those fights and his spirits was down but I just told him to keep going.”

Besides Leone Peters, the MIBC also got one of its fighters to compete at a national event as Antonio Makhimetas boxed at the 2013 USA Boxing Junior Olympic National Championships in Mobile, Ala., two weeks ago.

“I think he beat the best 145-pounder in the country,” Komanenkin said, “but the judges didn’t think so.”

According to Arnold Peters, they started their gym four months ago as a way to get kids off the streets.

“We got 16 kids in our basement but we’re doing our best to keep the kids off drugs and alcohol,” Peters said.

The former boxing pro said it’s a shame that they have those issues on the reservation but a lot of people in the community are thanking them for the service they provide.

“They like what we’re doing,” he said. “We don’t have much but we’re taking what we have and turning them into champs.”

– See more at: http://www.navajotimes.com/sports/2013/0713/071113box.php#sthash.0xP8IHCi.dpuf

5 Genetically Modified Foods You Should Never Eat

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Since genetically engineered foods were introduced in 1996, the United States has experienced as upsurge in low birth-weight babies, infertility and an increase in cancer.

Agricultural tech giants like Monsanto have restricted independent research on their crops, which is legal, because under U.S. law, genetically engineered crops are patentable. The studies that have been conducted link genetically modified foods to a vast array of diseases—and long-term effects have yet to be measured.

Below, Indian Country Today Media Network rounds up the five most deadly genetically modified crops or substances on the market that you should avoid at all cost.

1. Corn

This is not our ancestors’ corn. Genetically modified corn contains toxic materials and is at least 20 percent less nutritious for our bodies, according to a report titled “2012 Nutritional Analysis” by globalresearch.ca.

Corn is the worst offender on the GMO list, because at least 65 percent of the U.S. corn production is genetically modified, and it is found in so many products and forms—on the cob, in nearly every processed food with corn syrup, in the corn feed consumed by the chickens and cows you may eat, and the list goes on.

Genetically engineered corn contains the highly toxic gene Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which Monsanto introduced in the 1990s to make plants immune to Roundup, which is Monsanto’s weed and insect killer that tears into the stomachs of certain pests.

According to Sherbrooke University Hospital in Canada, Bt has been found in the blood of humans, including in 93 percent of pregnant women they tested, in 80 percent of the umbilical blood in their babies, and in 67 percent of non-pregnant women tested.

2. Soy

More than 90 percent of soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified, and animal studies have shown devastating effects from genetically engineered soy, including allergies, sterility, birth defects, and offspring death rates up to five times higher than normal, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola in the Huffington Post.

Americans typically consume unfermented soy, mostly in the form of soymilk, tofu, TVP, and soy infant formula, which have at least 10 adverse effects on the body, like reducing one’s ability to assimilate essential nutrients and increasing the potential for thyroid cancer.

3. Sugar Beets

Sugar beets comprise more than 50 percent of U.S. sugar production, while sugar cane counts for the remainder, Natural News reports. Last year, the USDA deemed genetically modified sugar beets safe, de-regulating the crop. Now the hazards of an already toxic substance are exacerbated, presenting the likelihood of increased cancer rates, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal tract, allergic reactions, infertility and accelerated aging.

But all sugar is best avoided, according to a specialist in pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, Robert Lustig. “Sugar is not just an empty calorie, its effect on us is much more insidious. It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself,” Lustig says.

4. Aspartame

This fake sugar substitute is made from genetically modified bacteria and is used in basically every diet soda and product on the market.

Aspartame “has been linked to a number of diseases, can impair the immune system, and is even known to cause cancer,” Natural News reported. In one study, of the 48 rats given aspartame, up to 67 percent of all female rats developed tumors roughly the size of golf balls or larger.

5. Canola

Canola—marketed as being void of “bad fats”—is a genetically engineered oil developed in Canada from the Rapeseed plant, which is part of the rape or mustard plant family.

Rapeseed oil is poisonous to insects and used as a repellent.

So while olive oil is made from olives and coconut oil is made from coconuts, canola oil is made from the rapeseed. Canola is short for “Canadian oil low acid.”

Agri-Alternatives, a magazine for the farming industry, notes “By nature, these rapeseed oils, which have long been used to produce oils for industrial purposes, are… toxic to humans and other animals.”

But, canola oil companies insist that through genetic engineering, it is no longer rapeseed, but “canola” instead.

According to Dr. Josh Axe, “It’s an industrial oil, not a food, and has been used in candles, soaps, lipsticks, lubricants, inks and biofuels. Rapeseed oil is what is used to make mustard gas. In its natural state, it causes respiratory distress, constipation, emphysema, anemia, irritability and blindness.”

Cedar Grove odor complaints return

By Bill Sheets, the Herald

EVERETT — As the weather keeps heating up, so again are the complaints against Cedar Grove Composting.

The Smith Island business was cited for four odor violations last month by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

Inspectors for the agency recently traced the smells from residences in Marysville to the composting plant, twice June 6 and twice again June 25, agency spokeswoman Joanne Todd said.

The citations bring the total to 13 in the past five years for Cedar Grove. The plant has received numerous other odor complaints during that time from people living in Marysville and north Everett. The company also has received four written warnings in those five years.

A Cedar Grove official said information from its odor monitors contradict the clean air agency’s information regarding the June 6 complaints. As of Friday the company hadn’t yet received the violation notices for June 25, company spokeswoman Susan Thoman said in an email.

“Our on-site electronic odor monitoring system indicated that no detectable odors left our property during the time cited by the (notices for June 6),” Thoman wrote. “We plan to share this monitoring information with the agency.”

The notices won’t necessarily result in disciplinary action against the company.

“It’s up to our supervisors to be able to work through that with Cedar Grove,” Todd said. “And they can appeal it.”

These citations were the first for Cedar Grove in 2013, Todd said.

In 2011, the company was fined $169,000 for odor violations going back several years at both its Everett plant and its plant in Maple Valley, King County.

The company appealed those fines to the Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board, a state regulatory panel. The fines were upheld but the board knocked $50,000 off in deference to Cedar Grove’s expenditures on measures to curb the odors.

The board said Cedar Grove to that point had spent $6.5 million on odor control at the two locations combined, some of it voluntarily and some as a result of earlier violations.

Cedar Grove collects yard and food waste from hauling companies in much of Snohomish and King counties and grinds it, cures it and sells it for compost in gardens.

In past years, complaints often have spiked early in the summer, corresponding with an increase in volume of waste being brought to the plant at Smith Island.

Cedar Grove officials have said other sources could be causing the odors. The remainder of Cedar Grove’s fine from 2011 — $119,000 — was put toward an odor study last year by the clean air agency.

The study will combine information from 10 electronic odor monitors, called “e-noses,” and recorded impressions from volunteers in an attempt to scientifically determine the source of the offensive stench.

The total cost of the study is $375,000.The city of Seattle and King County, which both have sent yard and food waste to Cedar Grove for composting, are putting up $100,000 and $50,000, respectively. The city of Seattle recently decided to end its arrangement with Cedar Grove effective next spring. The clean air agency is spending $25,000 on the study.

Four monitors are located at Cedar Grove, having been purchased previously by the company. One monitor each also has been placed at the wastewater treatment plants operated by Everett and Lake Stevens; the Cemex plant in north Everett; the clean air agency’s weather station in central Marysville; one at a volunteer’s home in Marysville and another at a home in Everett.

The results of the study are expected later this year.

Ballots and local voters’ pamphlets scheduled to be mailed for August 6 Primary

EVERETT – Snohomish County Elections will mail ballots tomorrow to over 332,000 voters for the August 6 Primary. The August 6 Primary is not countywide. Voters in Edmonds, Everett and Tulalip as well as some of the surrounding areas have no races to vote on in the Primary and will not receive a ballot. The local voters’ pamphlets will be mailed today one per household to areas featuring a Primary race or issue.

This year’s primary features all partisan races that are up for election and any non-partisan race with three or more candidates. This includes three County Council positions as well as a number of city, school district, fire district, and sewer district positions. Ballot measures for Monroe, Fire District 4, Fire District 28, and the Arlington Transportation Benefit District are also up for voter approval.

Voters are encouraged to be an informed voter by learning about the races and issues on their ballot, reading and following the ballot instructions, not writing in silly names for office, signing their ballot envelope and returning their ballot as soon as practical. These steps will ensure that their ballot can be counted without issue or delay.

Snohomish County conducts all of its elections entirely by mail. There are no polling locations. All eligible voters will be mailed a ballot to their current residential or mailing address beginning July 18.

Voters choosing to return their voted ballot through the mail must ensure that it is postmarked no later than August 6. Voters may return their voted ballot postage free to any one of eleven 24-hour ballot drop box locations in Snohomish County. Ballots can be deposited at these locations any time until 8:00 pm on Election Day, though voters are encouraged to return their ballot as soon as practical to avoid potentially long wait times at drop boxes on Election Day.

The eleven 24-hour ballot drop boxes locations are:

Arlington (near library)

135 N Washington Ave, Arlington

Edmonds (near library)

650 Main St, Edmonds

Everett (Courthouse Campus)

Rockefeller Ave and Wall St, Everett

Everett (at McCollum Park)

600 128^th St SE, Everett

Lake Stevens (near the city boat launch)

1800 Main St, Lake Stevens

Lynnwood (in front of City Hall)

19100 44^th Ave, Lynnwood

Marysville (behind Municipal Court)

1015 State Ave, Marysville

Monroe (near Library)

1070 Village Way, Monroe

Mukilteo (near library)

4675 Harbour Pointe Blvd, Mukilteo

Snohomish (near library)

311 Maple Ave, Snohomish

Stanwood (near library)

9701 271^st St NW, Stanwood

More information is listed on the insert delivered with each ballot and can also be found online at www.snoco.org/elections. Voted ballots returned to the 24-hour ballot drop boxes must be deposited directly into the ballot drop box.

Snohomish County Elections will have accessible voting equipment designed for voters with disabilities available in the Auditor’s Office beginning July 17 through August 6 and at the Lynnwood Sno-Isle Library on Monday, August 5 from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Election Day, Tuesday, August 6 from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. The Lynnwood Sno-Isle Library is located at 19200 44^th Ave, Lynnwood.

The Snohomish County Auditor’s Office is located on the first floor of the Snohomish County Administration Building, 3000 Rockefeller Avenue, Everett. Voters may drop their voted ballots at the Auditor’s Office Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The office will have extended hours on Election Day, Tuesday, August 6 from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.

Snohomish County Elections may be reached at 425-388-3444.

Keystone XL could hike gas prices as much as 40 cents a gallon

By John Upton, Grist

If the Keystone XL pipeline is built, Americans could pay as much as 40 cents more per gallon for gasoline in some parts of the country, according to a new report by the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog [PDF].

That’s because oil extracted in Canada would start to bypass traditional American markets, traveling through the pipeline to the Gulf Coast and onto tanker ships bound for international markets where oil fetches higher prices.

“The pipeline is being built through America, but not for Americans,” Consumer Watchdog researcher Judy Dugan said in a statement. “Keystone XL is not an economic benefit to Americans who will see higher gas prices and bear all the risks of the pipeline.” From the report:

The aim of tar sands producers with refining interests on the Gulf Coast — primarily multinational oil companies — is to get the oil to their Gulf refineries, which would process additional oil largely for fuel exports to hungry foreign markets. Other oil sands investors, including two major Chinese petrochemical companies and major European oil companies, have an interest in exporting crude oil and/or refined products to their markets. Such exports would drain off what the tar sands producers consider a current oversupply, and help push global oil prices higher. …

U.S. drivers would be forced to pay higher prices for tar sands oil, particularly in the Midwest. There, gasoline costs could rise by 20 cents to 40 cents per gallon or more, based on the $20 to $30 per barrel discount on Canadian crude oil that Keystone XL developers seek to erase. Such an increase, just in the Midwest, could cost the U.S. economy $3 billion to $4 billion a year in consumer income that would not be spent more productively elsewhere. The West Coast imports much smaller amounts of Canadian oil in a larger and more complicated market. Even so, a sharp price hike for Canadian oil could bump Pacific Coast gasoline prices by a few cents a gallon.

The report also connects a few corporate dots, showing who’s really intended to benefit from Keystone XL:

Here’s an easy way to protect coastal communities from rising seas and storms

By John Upton, Grist

Protecting nature is the best way of protecting ourselves from rising tides and storm surges, according to new research.

Sand dunes, wetlands, coral reefs, mangroves, oyster beds, and other shoreline habitats that ring America help to protect two-thirds of the coastlines of the continental U.S. from hurricanes and other such hazards.

Developers see these coastal areas and think — *ding* *ding* *ding* *ding* — opportunity. They want to replace shoreline habitats with waterfront homes, shipping channels, highways, and other delights of urbanism and commerce, along with hulking concrete structures designed to keep the rising seas at bay.

Or, another idea would be to leave nature intact and let it continue to shelter us.

The latter approach would, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change, be the superior option for protecting lives and property in most of the nation’s coastal areas.

Led by Stanford University’s Natural Capital Project, researchers mapped the intensity of hazards posed to communities living along America’s coastlines from rising seas and ferocious storms now and in the decades to come. They examined the hazards those communities would face in the year 2100 with and without the coastal habitats left intact. Here is what they found:

Habitat loss would double the extent of coastline highly exposed to storms and sea-level rise, making an additional 1.4 million people now living within 1 km of the coast vulnerable. The number of poor families, elderly people and total property value highly exposed to hazards would also double if protective habitats were lost.

The research team’s map shows areas where natural systems would be most effective for sheltering lives and properties. From ClimateWire:

The East Coast and Gulf Coast would feel the largest impacts from depleted ecosystems, because they have denser populations and are more vulnerable to sea-level rise and storm surge.

Florida would see the largest increase of people exposed to hazards by 2100 under one sea-level rise scenario highlighted by the researchers. If coastal habitats were preserved, about 500,000 Floridians would face intermediate and high risk from disasters, compared with almost 900,000 people if the habitats disappeared.

New York sees one of the biggest jumps as a percentage of people facing risk under the same scenario. With habitat, a little more than 200,000 people would face high risk, compared with roughly 550,000 people without habitat.

But what’s wrong with building seawalls, levees, and such? Couldn’t such infrastructure allow builders to develop the shorelines safely, keeping rising waters at bay? The paper explains some of the problems with that approach:

In the United States — where 23 of the nation’s 25 most densely populated counties are coastal — the combination of storms and rising seas is already putting valuable property and large numbers of people in harm’s way. The traditional approach to protecting towns and cities has been to ‘harden’ shorelines. Although engineered solutions are necessary and desirable in some contexts, they can be expensive to build and maintain, and construction may impair recreation, enhance erosion, degrade water quality and reduce the production of fisheries.

So let’s maybe thank nature for protecting us by leaving it intact, yeah?

Lies, Betrayal, & Embezzlement: Chamber of Commerce Head Pleads Guilty

By Carol Berry, Indian Country Today Media Network

Justice caught up with the former head of the Rocky Mountain Indian Chamber of Commerce (RMICC) July 12 in Denver District Court when, despite his earlier assertions of innocence, he pleaded guilty to charges of theft from RMICC, including felony theft of more than $20,000, and avoided a jury trial.

Joshua Running Wolf, 32, of the Blackfeet Nation, Browning, Montana, has been ordered to repay the RMICC $30,000 in restitution before his sentencing October 11 or the felony theft charge will remain on his permanent record and he will serve jail time, according to a deputy district attorney.

Potential penalties for the crimes are up to 24 years incarceration and up to a $750,000 fine for the major theft conviction and up to 18 months in county jail with a $5,000 maximum fine for conviction on a charge of misdemeanor theft of more than copy,000, an amount cited by the prosecution.

Dee St. Cyr, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and RMICC board chairwoman, said justice prevailed “but there are no winners in this case.” Running Wolf was offered the opportunity to serve as president, but in that capacity he “stole large sums of money from the very people who supported him.” RMCC will continue to provide services to the Native business community, she said.

Deb Emhoolah, Kiowa, RMICC board of directors secretary, noted Running Wolf is the father of four of her grandchildren. “He abandoned them nearly two years ago and embezzled RMICC funds to support his philandering lifestyle,” she explained. “RMICC is stronger, in a better place and we are looking forward to a successful future for RMICC.”

Don Kelin, of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and a RMICC member, said Running Wolf “embezzled funds from what little dollars the [RMICC] had and embezzled funds from the education funds for our youth” as he “continued with lies to the Indian community about what happened.”

According to the charges to which Running Wolf pleaded, the thefts occurred in a period that began in 2011, about three years after he said he became RMICC president. The matter came to light when “we were doing audits,” he said in an interview shortly after his arrest. He said at that time that he was “not too sure” about the charges against him but that he was not aware of doing anything wrong.

The amount of total restitution was placed at copy15,152.