Tulalip News

Potawatomi Break Ground on Biogas Plant—Converting Food Waste to Electricity

Rendering of the Forest County Potawatomi Community's renewable generation facility (miron-construction.com) — Rendering of the Forest County Potawatomi Community’s renewable generation facility (miron-construction.com)

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

By this time next year, the Forest County Potawatomi Community-owned FCPC Renewable Generation, LLC is anticipated to complete its food waste-to-energy facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The company recently broke ground on the copy8.6 million renewable energy facility in the Menomonee Valley that will convert liquid and solid food wastes to biogas through an anaerobic digestion process. The biogas will fuel two 1-megawatt generators to produce a total of approximately 2 megawatts of gross electrical power output—enough electricity to power about 1,500 homes. The power will be sold to WE Energies, the local electrical utility.

The “Community Renewable Energy Deployment” project, better known as CommRE, is being developed one block west of Potawatomi Bingo Casino on tribal land.

Construction of the facility is expected to create nearly 100 construction jobs at its peak and an additional five full-time jobs after completion.

“This project is an example of how renewable energy projects can benefit both the environment and the local economy. It will not only keep waste from our landfills, but also provides opportunities to partner with other local businesses and industries,” Jeff Crawford, attorney general for the Forest County Potawatomi Community, told the Milwaukee Community Journal. “We hope that this project will allow others to see the many benefits that small-scale renewable energy projects can bring to communities.”

Beyond the renewable energy facility, the Tribe is also currently developing a $36 million data center on the Concordia Trust property on Milwaukee’s near west side and a copy50 million, 381-room hotel adjacent to Potawatomi Bingo Casino in the Menomonee Valley.

“The Forest County Potawatomi have called Milwaukee home for hundreds of years,” said Crawford. “We are proud of our ongoing investments in the area which help make Milwaukee, and Wisconsin, an even better place live and do business.”

U.S. energy infrastructure a sitting duck in face of climate change

Hurricane Sandy offered a glimpse of what future storms could mean for energy infrastructure Photo: Arlington County/cc/flickr

By Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

The nation’s energy infrastructure is a sitting duck in the face of climate change.

This is according to a report released Thursday from the Department of Energy that looks at how the effects of climate change–from increasing temperatures, decreased water supplies and rising sea levels–threaten the nation’s energy network.

U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme Weather looks at examples where energy infrastructure has already been impacted by extreme weather events.

In the summer of 2010, for example, two nuclear power plants–Hope Creek in New Jersey and Exelon’s Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania–had to reduce power when the cooling waters from rivers was too high. Or take July 2011 when an Exxon pipeline beneath the Yellowstone River was ravaged by flood debris, spewing oil into the river.

And coming temperatures increases, heatwaves, droughts and shrinking water supplies are only set to worsen with runaway greenhouse gases, bringing further threats.

Rather than steering away from water-intensive and water-polluting energy extraction techniques like fracking, the report states that “attendant water demands for their development and production become increasingly important.”

“Water is obviously the big question,” the Associated Press quotes Jonathan Pershing, deputy assistant secretary of energy for climate change policy and technology, who oversaw the report, as saying. “In drought you don’t have enough water. As seas rise, you have too much.”

A press release on the report lists more of the upcoming challenges:

Increased risk of temporary partial or full shutdowns at thermoelectric (coal, natural gas, and nuclear) power plants because of decreased water availability for cooling and higher ambient and air water temperatures. Thermoelectric power plants require water cooling in order to operate. A study of coal plants, for example, found that roughly 60 percent of the current fleet is located in areas of water stress.
Increasing risks of physical damage to power lines, transformers and electricity distribution systems from hurricanes, storms and wildfires that are growing more intense and more frequent.
Higher air conditioning costs and risks of blackouts and brownouts in some regions if the capacity of existing power plants does not keep pace with the growth in peak electricity demand due to increasing temperatures and heat waves. An Argonne National Laboratory study found that higher peak electricity demand as a result of climate change related temperature increases will require an additional 34 GW of new power generation capacity in the western United States alone by 2050, costing consumers $45 billion. This is roughly equivalent to more than 100 new power plants, and doesn’t include new power plants that will be needed to accommodate growth in population or other factors.

“We don’t have a robust energy system, and the costs are significant,” the New York Times quotes Pershing as saying. “The cost today is measured in the billions. Over the coming decades, it will be in the trillions. You can’t just put your head in the sand anymore.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers also recently flagged the nation’s energy grid and distribution system as being in need of serious investment, giving it a grade of D+ in its 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.

Lac Courte Oreilles Band to expand mining protest camp

Source: Indianz.com

Members of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe Indians will expand a camp being used to protest a huge mine development in northern Wisconsin:

Tribal Elder Melvin Gasper is organizing the five acre site so they can hunt, fish and gather food as well as educate the public. Now, he wants the five acres to become 35 acres, adding room to harvest maple syrup. “We’re going to have two different maple sugar processes going on,” says Gasper. “We’re going to show people how — in just one little area — what it’ll produce and how we could use this one little area to make more money than GTAC’s planning on paying.” Gasper says this is their way of occupying an area where an open pit iron ore mine is proposed by Gogebic Taconite. He plans to keep it occupied until 2018.

Get the Story:
LCO Harvest Camp Near Mine Site Plans To Expand (Wisconsin Public Radio 7/11) Also Today:
Armed Guards At Drill Site Weren’t Licensed To Operate In Wisconsin (Wisconsin Public Radio 7/10)

Gravel Mining Puts Kiowa Sacred Place in Peril

Brian Daffron, Indian Country Today Media Network

The Kiowa Tribe has gathered cedar for ceremonies and prayed on Longhorn Mountain south of Gotebo, Oklahoma for generations. That practice is in serious jeopardy as efforts to mine gravel out of the mountain are scheduled to begin by summer’s end, turning generations of sacred usage into rubble.

“This is where we always come,” said tribal historian Phil Dupoint. “This is where our elders used to come. Maybe they were searching for some kind of power… They would go to Longhorn and different places in the area.”

Dupoint says the cedar gathered from the area has a unique scent, different from any other cedar in the United States and Canada. He said medicine people in the Kiowa Tribe would also leave spiritual power for future generations on the mountain.

The mountain being in jeopardy can be traced back to the creation of the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Reservation through the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, which placed the tribes’ reservation in southwest Oklahoma, where Longhorn Mountain is. By 1901, the Jerome Agreement opened the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Reservation to non-Indian settelement, after the KCA familes were allotted 160 acres each.

Kiowa tribal historian Phil Dupoint and Kiowa Museum Director Amie Tah-Bone are both trying to stop the gravel mining on Longhorn Mountain in Oklahoma. (Brian Daffron)

Sections of the mountain were alloted to Kiowa families, but those lands were eventually sold to non-Indians—five non-Indian familes currently own the Longhorn Mountain area. It is through what Dupoint refers to as a “gentleman’s agreement” that the Kiowa have entered the mountain on the east side to gather cedar.

Mining is scheduled to begin on the west side of the mountain this summer. A blasting permit was issued by the Oklahoma Department of Mines to the Material Service Corporation, according to Amie Tah-Bone, the Kiowa Museum director. Rock crushing activities will then be under the supervision of Stewart Stone, based out of Cushing, Oklahoma. Calls placed to the Oklahoma Department of Mines and to Stone have not been returned.

Dust from the mining activities on the west side have the potential to impact the area’s environment, ranging from reduction of air quality, damage to surrounding crops and livestock, and killing of the cedar trees on the mountain.

“It’s a hard and complex situation,” said Tah-Bone. “We’re at a disadvantage. It’s not trust land. It’s not federal land. It’s privately owned land, and we don’t have a right to it. We thank the people on the eastern side for their generosity in letting us have access to it. They could throw us in jail for trespassing, but they don’t. We are working on it… and doing everything we can think of to stop it. It might take some time. We want people to know we’re doing the best that we can.”

The Kiowa have been meeting with landowners as well as state and federal officials about the issue. Kiowa officials have also been meeting with the farmers and ranchers in the surrounding region about the environmental impact of the mining. Dupoint and Tah-Bone encourage those who want to help to contact the Kiowa Tribe at 580-654-2300 or email pr@kiowatribe.org.

Previous attempts to purchase the land have not been successful. For now, efforts to halt construction rest with those who hold the surface and mineral rights to the mountain—the landowners—and those who are spiritually connected to the mountain.

“Right now, it’s just to work with the landowners,” Dupoint said. “Somewhere down the line, if it’s not them, maybe their offspring. They may feel passion; they may be able to talk with us and give us the opportunity to purchase it back, or they would deed it back to us. We don’t know what goes on in a man’s mind or in his heart.”

NIGC consults tribes at meetings in Washington and Oklahoma

Source: Indianz.com

The National Indian Gaming Commission will be consulting tribes at two upcoming meetings.

The commission will be on the Tulalip Reservation in Washington next Thursday, July 18. The consultation takes place after the Northwest Indian Gaming Conference & Expo.

“It is essential that we engage with tribes on policies that directly affect them,” NIGC Chairwoman Tracie Stevens said in a press release. “Tribes and tribal regulators are uniquely positioned to provide relevant information and feedback to the NIGC.”

Stevens is a member of the Tulalip Tribes. She will be leaving the NIGC by the end of August, a person with a connection to the Obama administration confirmed.

Before she leaves, the commission will be holding another public meeting on August 14 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It takes place following the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association Conference & Trade Show.

One of the topics on the agenda for both meetings will be the NIGC’s proposal to treat one-touch bingo as a Class II game. Comments are also being accepted in written form until August 26.

“The NIGC is not proposing a regulation classifying games but rather our proposal is to reconsider one agency decision related to one type of game — one touch bingo,” Stevens said.

Navajo Code Talker Will Be Honored at MLB All-Star Game

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Veterans will be honored at the MLB All-Star Game to be played July 16 at Citi Field in Queens, New York (despite the home club New York Mets offending American Indians this week). And one of those will be Navajo Code Talker David Patterson. He will represent the Los Angeles Dodgers at the event.

By fan selection through a People magazine effort called Tribute to Heroes, Patterson and 29 other vets, one per MLB team, were voted in and will be honored at the baseball game. Meet all the vets here.

Here is the biography of Patterson provided by People.

David E. Patterson Sr. of Rio Rancho, N.M., is among an elite group of marines who helped create the only unbroken code in modern military history. As one of the Navajo Code Talkers, David and other Navajos coded and decoded classified military dispatches during WWII using a code derived from their native tongue. The Code Talkers took part in every Marine assault, from Guadalcanal in 1942 to Okinawa in 1945, including the Marshall Islands, Kwajalein, Iwo Jima, and Saipan, and doubtless helped win the war. After he was discharged, David, now 90, went to college in Oklahoma and New Mexico, becoming a social worker. He married and raised his family on the reservation in Shiprock, N.M., and worked for the Navajo Nation’s Division of Social Services until retiring in 1987. He was awarded the Silver Congressional Medal of Honor in 2001 and up until last year volunteered in a Shiprock school on the Navajo Reservation as a

Alcohol in the Movies: Parents Need to Talk to Children about Consequences of Drinking

Source: Native News Network

WASHINGTON – Given huge problems in and out of the American Indian community with alcohol abuse, it is unfortunate that its usage is glamorized by Hollywood in feature movies.

Movies rated for teen audiences are showing more alcohol.

A recently released study indicates movies rated for teen audiences are showing more alcohol. Elaina Bergamini of Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire looked at data on hit movies from 1996 through 2009. She says appearances of branded alcohol in movies rated G, PG and PG-13 rose from 80 to 145 a year.

Bergamini says there are controls on tobacco appearances, and they were not rising, but alcohol lacks similar controls.

She says parents should talk with their children:

“Talk about drinking. Talk about binge drinking. And talk about the consequences of drinking especially in light of the fact that those consequences are not sufficiently represented in the movies.”

The study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

The Basics

Talk to your child about the dangers of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. Knowing the facts will help your child make healthy choices.

Parents, what do you need to say when you talk about tobacco, alcohol, and drugs?

Here are some tips that may be useful:

Teach your child the facts
Give your child clear rules
Find out what your child already knows
Be prepared to answer your child’s questions
Talk with your child about how to say “no”

“Holy Man” Producers Start a Kickstarter Campaign: Need Your Help!

Levi Rickert, Native News Network

LOS ANGELES Producers of “Holy Man: The USA vs. Douglas White” are raising funds through Kickstarter to finish the feature documentary narrated by award winning actor Martin Sheen.

Douglas White (c) with filmmakers Jennifer Jessum(Director/Producer) and Simon J. Joseph (Writer/Producer).

The Kickstarter campaign was started to raise finishing funds to pay for music rights, make DVDs, and redesign the HOLY MAN website in order to sell DVDs. Any additional funds raised will go to doing free screenings on reservations and getting copies of the film into reservation schools and libraries across the country.

“Holy Man: The USA vs. Douglas White” is the story of a Lakota Sioux holy man who was wrongfully convicted and spent 17 years in prison, for a crime he didn’t commit.

Douglas White, an elderly Lakota Sioux medicine man from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, spent the last 17 years of his life in a federal prison for a crime he did not commit.

White was sent to prison for the alleged sexual abuse of his two grandsons. Years later the grandsons recanted their stories and admitted they lied in court at their grandfather’s trial. Even with the new evidence, White remained in prison until his death at 89 in 2009.

“Holy Man” offers a rare glimpse into the mysterious world of Lakota religion, their intimate connection to the land, and a provocative expose of the systemic injustice that Native Americans face in the criminal justice system. “Holy Man” is narrated by Martin Sheen and features Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Russell Means, Arvol Looking Horse, Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, Leonard Crow Dog, and many other Lakota elders and leaders.

You can choose to help with a donation here.

Grave robber’s loot

400 confiscated artifacts returned to Navajo

By Shondlin Silversmith, Navajo Times

(Times photo – Shondiin Silversmith)U.S. Army Corps of Engineer workers Julia Price, right, and Ron Kneebone, left, unload artifacts that were recovered from South Dakota. — (Times photo – Shondiin Silversmith)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineer workers Julia Price, right, and Ron Kneebone, left, unload artifacts that were recovered from South Dakota.

July 9 was a good day for the Navajo Nation. More than 400 artifacts that were stolen from Navajo land were finally returned.

The Navajo Nation coordinated with the U.S Army Corps of Engineers’ Omaha, Neb. District to have the stolen artifacts returned.

The individual responsible for the theft is Donald B. Yellow, who stole a total of 710 artifacts, with 425 of those items being from the Navajo Nation.

According to the USACE, the artifacts were found in central South Dakota when Yellow attempted to sell some of them.

“It was a pretty interesting case,” Julie Price, USACE program manager, said because she still doesn’t know how Yellow was able to transport the items from the Southwest to the middle of South Dakota.

The artifacts were taken from Lukachukai, Ariz., said Ronald Maldonado, supervisory archaeologist for the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department.

Maldonado said Yellow was a technician working for the Indian Health Service in Chinle when he found the items and collected them, some from a gravesite in the Chuskas. When he relocated to the Midwest, he allegedly took all his collection with him.

“It’s not a lot of stuff, but it belongs to the people, and it feels good to have it back where it belongs,” Maldonado said.

The artifacts include four grinding stones, a hand-grinding stone, a wooden weaving batton, five whole and partial pottery bowls, a bundle of cordage/rope, 381 pottery shards, 20 stone pieces, 11 stone tools and a corn cob.

“He took something from a Navajo burial. It’s part of the culture that’s being stolen, I don’t know whose grave they took this from but this was a Navajo burial,” Maldonado said, adding he can’t believe people would do that to sell the items for profit. “It’s good to see it returned back where it belongs, back to Navajo. It’s part of the culture, part of the history and people.”

During his trial almost two years ago, Yellow pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. He was sentenced on Oct. 11, 2011. The judge ordered that he be fined $618, pay restitution of $4,382, but no jail and no probation.

ARPA is an act set to “to secure, for the present and future benefit of the American people, the protection of archaeological resources and sites which are on public lands and Indian lands,” states language in the legislation.

Within the documents provided by Megan Maier, field archaeologist with the USACE Omaha District, “the forfeited artifacts were looted from both USACE-managed lands and Navajo tribal lands. This information was obtained through interviews between the arresting officer and Mr. Yellow. The judge ordered that all southwestern artifacts are to be returned to the Navajo Nation.”

“ARPA violations have hefty fines and restitution fees, so with the coordination between multiple agencies hopefully we’re making an impact on people that are destroying these types of items,” said Price.

“If feels very good to bring something back to its homeland where it’s supposed to be,” Price added, noting that this is normally a long, complicated process, but since Yellow admitted where he took the items from they were able to start returning the items after making contact with the Navajo Nation over a year ago.

“Everything went smoothly to bring them back to where they were stolen,” Price said, adding that it was nice being able to work with a tribe they’ve never visited before and return the artifacts to their homeland.

“It shows that sometimes the bad guys get caught and good things can come out of bad situations,” she said.

“The people that are looting and profiting off these artifacts are slowly learning a lesson,” Maier said. “If you are going to be profiting off someone else’s culture, you’re going to get caught.”

Mutant Super-Wheat Spreading By Itself! Alarmed Farmers Sue Monsanto

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

From 1998 to 2005, agricultural biotech giant Monsanto planted genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant wheat in experimental fields in 16 states. It was not intended for commercialization; genetically engineered wheat has never been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for sale. But, nine years after Monsanto’s experiment was discontinued, strains of this GM wheat have been found in other wheat fields, the USDA announced on May 29.

Immediately after the news leaked, South Korea and Japan banned all U.S. imports of wheat. And a handful of wheat farmers have since sued Monsanto, charging that this genetic pollution is financially damaging their business, reported Natural News.

Monsanto’s other genetically engineered crops—including many currently available on supermarket shelves—have encountered a barrage of backlash as well, with debates raging about the need for GMO crops to be labeled as such. Environmentalists sound horns about GMOs spreading or “self-replicating,” and nutritionists question the long-term implications genetically engineered foods will have on our health.

All this, and many of Monsanto’s efforts to make plants insect- and herbicide-resistant have backfired, as pests have developed immunity, reported OpposingViews.

Mike Adams, the health ranger editor for Natural News, has warned that self-replicating GMOs, like the glyphosate-resistant wheat, have sparked a “genetic apocalypse”—with the potential to threaten the global food supply and destroy the human race:

Mark my words: there will come a day when Americans will wish they had burned all the GM corn fields to the ground. But by then it will be too late. The blight will be upon us, and with it comes the starvation, the suffering, the desperation and the riots. Hunger turns all family men into savages, just as greed turns all corporate men into demons.