Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration Project and earth Day Celebration
Article by Monica Brown
Ecologist Walter Rung demonstrates how to plant a native tree. Photo by Monica Brown
TULALIP, Wash. – Community members chose to celebrate Earth Day on April 20th, by helping plant native trees and shrubs in the Qwuloolt Estuary located on the South end of Marysville. The Adopt a Stream Foundation (AASF) is guiding this portion of the project by planting the native trees and shrubs which have been made possible by a grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology through a $250,000 Allen Creek Grant. The main focus of the grant is to work with and inform nearby homeowners that live near the Allen Creek watershed about the restoration project. Walter Rung, Ecologist from the AASF says “We are going to door to door and talking to them about ways to help improve water quality in the creeks.”
A plastic shield is placed around the tree in order to help it thrive and prevent it from being cut down when the invasive species are removed from the area. Photo by Monica BrownA peek iside that the freshly planted tree. Photo by Monica Brown
The expected outcome of the restoration project is to raise the population of salmon, and migratory birds that inhabit the Qwuloolt Estuary and it’s tributaries. Planting native vegetation is one way of helping to improve water quality. CK Eidem from the AASF informs, “Today we’re putting in about 100 potted stalk and 100 live stakes; potted stalk are potted plants and live stakes are a cutting from a tree which will grow into a shrub if planted at the right time of year,”
Other environmental changes are being made such as improving natural channel formation and eventually removing the tide gate. The tide gate is located just south of the storm water Treatment Facility and should be taken down within a year.
“We’re expecting once they remove the tide gate that there will be a lot more salmon in the creek,” said Walter Rung.
At the estuary project, informational booths and speakers informed people about how to protect the estuary and streams in the area by simple methods of not using toxic chemicals in their yards for weed control, disposing of pet droppings properly and regular maintenance their septic systems. Staff from Tulalip Tribes Natural Resources Department explained the stages and reason of the restoration project and provided delicious samples of Sitka Spruce tea and Nettle Tea.
Josh Meidav and Kelly Finley hosted The Tulalip Tribes booth. Photo by Monica Brown
This project has been made possible through a large partnership between The Tulalip Tribes, City of Marysville, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Sound Transit, Wash. Dept of Fish and Wildlife, Wash. State Recreation and Conservation Office, Natural Resources Conservation Services, Snohomish Basin Salmon Recovery Forum, Sound Salmon Solutions and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Seattle Premium Outlets, located off Interstate 5 on the Tulalip Tribes Reservation, is opening more than a dozen new stores to attract a growing number of bargain hunters.
By Amy Martinez
The recession brought to a near-standstill all but one segment of shopping-center development in the past few years: the outlet mall.
While developers shelved plans for new full-price shopping centers amid a sharp downturn in U.S. discretionary spending, some stepped up the pace of construction of stores catering to bargain hunters.
Locally, Seattle Premium Outlets on the Tulalip Tribes Reservation soon will unveil a 100,000-square-foot expansion with more than a dozen new stores, including American Eagle Outfitters, Armani Exchange, Clarins, Diane von Furstenberg, Forever 21, MaxStudio and The North Face.
The expansion will give the 8-year-old shopping center half a million square feet and up to 125 stores starting in June. Current tenants Coach, Columbia Sportswear, DKNY, Polo Ralph Lauren and Tommy Bahama also will move to larger space in the new buildings off Interstate 5, near Marysville.
“People are looking for value, and this is what we offer,” said Michele Osgood, the outlet mall’s marketing manager.
Owner Simon Property Group, whose local portfolio also includes Northgate Mall, says its focus for new development is on premium outlets. Indianapolis-based Simon plans to open five outlet malls this year, up from two last year. In total, it has nearly 80 outlet malls in North America and Asia.
Outlet malls originated in the early 1980s as a way for brands to sell surplus stock at lower prices. Today, much of their merchandise is outlet-only, meaning the goods never appear at full-price stores. The change enables retailers to keep a growing number of outlets fully stocked, especially as they use technology to better manage inventory and avoid surpluses.
Analysts say the new frugality, born of the Great Recession, has turned outlet malls into shopping magnets for people who want name-brand merchandise but not at full price.
Sales at outlet stores rose 10 percent for the 12 months that ended in February, according to market-research firm The NPD Group. Meanwhile, non-outlet sales of apparel, shoes and accessories increased only 3 percent.
“The outlet mall continues to grow faster than the traditional retail market,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD. “Consumers, because they’re shopping less often, are willing to spend the day at an outlet mall and make it a longer endeavor.”
Seattle Premium Outlets, located about 100 miles from the Canadian border, is popular with shoppers from British Columbia and Alberta, many of whom stay overnight at the nearby Tulalip Resort Casino or Holiday Inn Express, said Osgood.
“The longer they stay here and shop, the more they can take across the border duty-free,” she said. “So there’s kind of an incentive for them to stay longer.”
But some wonder if a recovering U.S. economy might eventually put a damper on outlet sales.
“In the early 2000s, when the economy got better, outlet shopping plateaued,” said retail analyst Jeff Green. “The question becomes, when the economy gets better, will it plateau again? And I’ve got to believe it might. That’s because it’s the only segment of retail where you’re seeing new development.”
Shopper Evonne Noble, 35, of Seattle, held up a green sleeveless dress Friday during an outing with friends at the Tulalip outlet mall. The dress originally cost $80, but Noble paid $20 at the Banana Republic outlet store.
“I would not come up here without a plan,” she said over lunch at the mall’s food court. “There was this Kate Spade purse I was watching for a year and then I got it here for a few hundred dollars off.
“I hate shopping,” she added. “So I try to do it only a few times a year and be savvy about it.”
TULALIP — A bomb squad was called Tuesday night to remove a suspicious bottle found outside the Tulalip Resort Hotel and Casino, officials said.
“We contained and evacuated the area,” Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Shari Ireton said.
A Washington State Patrol bomb squad, which includes law officers from several local police agencies, removed the bottle and took it to the Boom City parking lot behind the casino.
It was unclear what was in the bottle, Ireton said.
The bottle and its contents were destroyed with a chemical explosive, Ireton said.
Each year, Earth Day – April 22- marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.
The height of hippie and flower-child culture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it.
At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news. Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and, up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and public health.
Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center.
The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land.
As a result, on the 22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.
Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. “It was a gamble,” Gaylord recalled, “but it worked.”
As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It also prompted President Bill Clinton to award Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995) — the highest honor given to civilians in the United States — for his role as Earth Day founder.
As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. With 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. It used the Internet to organize activists, but also featured a talking drum chain that traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Earth Day 2000 sent world leaders the loud and clear message that citizens around the world wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy.
Much like 1970, Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community. Climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a disinterested public, and a divided environmental community all contributed to a strong narrative that overshadowed the cause of progress and change. In spite of the challenge, for its 40th anniversary, Earth Day Network reestablished Earth Day as a powerful focal point around which people could demonstrate their commitment. Earth Day Network brought 225,000 people to the National Mall for a Climate Rally, amassed 40 million environmental service actions toward its 2012 goal of A Billion Acts of Green®, launched an international, 1-million tree planting initiative with Avatar director James Cameron and tripled its online base to over 900,000 community members.
The fight for a clean environment continues in a climate of increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more manifest every day. We invite you to be a part of Earth Day and help write many more victories and successes into our history. Discover energy you didn’t even know you had. Feel it rumble through the grassroots under your feet and the technology at your fingertips. Channel it into building a clean, healthy, diverse world for generations to come.
Saturday, April 20 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration Project Site,
Harborview Park, 4700 60th Ave. NE, Marysville, WA 98270
The first 200 participants get a free Earth Day T-shirt. Visit informational booths and stamp your shirt with all the parts of a healthy watershed. Informational booth topics include water pollution, salmon, the water cycle, native plants, controlling invasive plants and restoration projects.
Plant a native tree or shrub to help restore the Qwuloolt Estuary, then spread mulch to nourish new plants and suppress weeds.
Come prepared for all weather conditions; wear sturdy shoes or boots. Plants, tools, gloves, water and snacks will be provided for volunteers.
Drop in or stay for the whole event. Registration is not required but preferred for groups, to register please CLICK HERE
Directions from I-5:
Take exit 199 east into Marysville, travel east on 4th St NE
Turn Right (south) onto State Ave
Turn Left (east) onto 3rd St for approximately 1.7 miles
Turn Right (west) onto 52nd St NE,
52nd St NE turns south and becomes 60th Ave NE, Harborview Park is on the right (west) side of the street. Find parking in the Harborview neighborhood.
Tulips: The fields should be stunning this weekend, so it would be a good time for a trip up to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. Read about it in our story here.
Live music: The Hootenanny will play today’s current country hits, leaving the classics behind. Hometown Hootenanny presents “On the Radio,” a tribute to country music on Saturday at the Historic Everett Theatre. Read about it in our story here.
On the stage: “Giselle” will be presented at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Edmonds Center for the Arts. “Giselle,” one of the greatest romantic tragedies in ballet, is being staged by two artistic directors who were both Pacific Northwest Ballet leading artists. Also, the leading male dancer was just promoted to principal dancer at PNB. Read more in our story here.
Carving show: The Quil Ceda Carvers present a show this weekend at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds. The show offers a wide variety of carvings to admire or buy, including masks, totem poles, carousel figurines and clocks. There are also woodcarving demonstrations, classes, a juried show and door prizes. Everyone who attends receives a carving goodie bag. The show is 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Donation of $5 requested; children under 12 free.
For spring: The spring version of Kla Ha Ya Days is this weekend. Activities include a street fair on Saturday and Sunday in Snohomish. There will be a chili cook-off Saturday and a barbecue competition Sunday with public sampling each day. There will also be entertainment, a carnival and a beer garden. For more information go to www.klahayadays.com.
Go to tea: The Marysville Historical Society’s Spring Tea and Vintage Fashion Show is from 12:30 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Tulalip Resort Hotel. Admission is by registration only. Seats are $25 each. The best way to register at this late date is to call Ken Cage, historical society president, at 425-308-8707 or society treasurer Meg Engelter at 425-314-3706.
Make flowers: Kids and teens ages 9 and up can make beautiful and intricate crepe paper flowers on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Everett Public Library Evergreen branch. Each participant will receive supplies for three flowers, limited to first 25 children. Get more information here.
Learn about crows: Corvid expert and professor John Marzluff will talk about his 2012 book “Gifts of the Crow.” Marzluff says that crows and other corvids have large brains, which allow them to have complex emotions, think, plan, and reconsider their actions. The event is at 2 p.m. at the Everett Public Library main branch. Get more information here.
“You can see they’re in a somewhat precarious situation in terms of their basic existence and the stability of their communities given that precarious land tenure situation.”
James Anaya United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
As published in The First Perspective April 18, 2013
By Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk
A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination.
James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes.
Anaya said that in nearly two weeks of visiting Indian reservations, indigenous communities in Alaska and Hawaii, and Native Americans now living in cities, he encountered people who suffered a history of dispossession of their lands and resources, the breakdown of their societies and “numerous instances of outright brutality, all grounded on racial discrimination”.
“It’s a racial discrimination that they feel is both systemic and also specific instances of ongoing discrimination that is felt at the individual level,” he said.
Anaya said racism extended from the broad relationship between federal or state governments and tribes down to local issues such as education.
“For example, with the treatment of children in schools both by their peers and by teachers as well as the educational system itself; the way native Americans and indigenous peoples are reflected in the school curriculum and teaching,” he said.
“And discrimination in the sense of the invisibility of Native Americans in the country overall that often is reflected in the popular media. The idea that is often projected through the mainstream media and among public figures that indigenous peoples are either gone or as a group are insignificant or that they’re out to get benefits in terms of handouts, or their communities and cultures are reduced to casinos, which are just flatly wrong.”
Close to a million people live on the US’s 310 Native American reservations. Some tribes have done well from a boom in casinos on reservations but most have not.
Anaya visited an Oglala Sioux reservation where the per capita income is around $7,000 a year, less than one-sixth of the national average, and life expectancy is about 50 years.
The two Sioux reservations in South Dakota – Rosebud and Pine Ridge – have some of the country’s poorest living conditions, including mass unemployment and the highest suicide rate in the western hemisphere with an epidemic of teenagers killing themselves.
“You can see they’re in a somewhat precarious situation in terms of their basic existence and the stability of their communities given that precarious land tenure situation. It’s not like they have large fisheries as a resource base to sustain them. In basic economic terms it’s a very difficult situation. You have upwards of 70% unemployment on the reservation and all kinds of social ills accompanying that. Very tough conditions,” he said.
Anaya said Rosebud is an example where returning land taken by the US government could improve a tribe’s fortunes as well as contribute to a “process of reconciliation”.
“At Rosebud, that’s a situation where indigenous people have seen over time encroachment on to their land and they’ve lost vast territories and there have been clear instances of broken treaty promises. It’s undisputed that the Black Hills was guaranteed them by treaty and that treaty was just outright violated by the United States in the 1900s. That has been recognised by the United States supreme court,” he said.
Anaya said he would reserve detailed recommendations on a plan for land restoration until he presents his final report to the UN human rights council in September.
“I’m talking about restoring to indigenous peoples what obviously they’re entitled to and they have a legitimate claim to in a way that is not devisive but restorative. That’s the idea behind reconciliation,” he said.
But any such proposal is likely to meet stiff resistance in Congress similar to that which has previously greeted calls for the US government to pay reparations for slavery to African-American communities.
Anaya said he had received “exemplary cooperation” from the Obama administration but he declined to speculate on why no members of Congress would meet him.
“I typically meet with members of the national legislature on my country visits and I don’t know the reason,” he said.
Last month, the US justice and interior departments announced a $1 billion settlement over nearly 56 million acres of Indian land held in trust by Washington but exploited by commercial interests for timber, farming, mining and other uses with little benefit to the tribes.
The attorney general, Eric Holder, said the settlement “fairly and honourably resolves historical grievances over the accounting and management of tribal trust funds, trust lands and other non-monetary trust resources that, for far too long, have been a source of conflict between Indian tribes and the United States.”
But Anaya said that was only a step in the right direction.
“These are important steps but we’re talking about mismanagement by the government of assets that were left to indigenous peoples,” he said. “This money for the insults on top of the injury. It’s not money for the initial problem itself, which is the taking of vast territories. This is very important and I think the administration should be commended for moving forward to settle these claims but there are these deeper issues that need to be addressed.”
