Marilyn Portwood, center, is shown with members of her family. All are among those facing disenrollment from the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. (Photo by Leah Gibson/Indian County Today Media Network).
As Grand Ronde Tribal Chairman Reyn Leno celebrated Restoration Day with a speech honoring tribal members who held onto their Indian identity even as the government tried to take it away, Mia Prickett said it brought tears to her eyes.
Prickett is one of 79 family members – whose ancestor Tumulth signed the 1855 Willamette Valley Treaty – facing disenrollment by the Oregon tribes, according to a story on Indian Country Today Media Network by Kevin Taylor.
“Hearing council talk about how difficult it was to go through termination and how termination took away their membership and took away their identity and tried to strip them of their heritage and took away their home. … Hearing them say that, I also felt threatened, that they’re doing this same thing to their membership right now and there was not even a bat of an eye as [Leno] read this prepared script about termination. There was no remorse in it. No acknowledgment that we are in the room and feeling that our days are numbered.”
The tribes were celebrating the 30th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan signing the Grand Ronde Restoration Act, which ended three decades of termination. In the years since, the tribe opened a casino and enrollment jumped from about 3,500 members to almost 6,000.
Taylor reports at ICTMN that having a treaty signer as an ancestor was once enough to qualify for tribal enrollment, but that has changed. Tumulth, Taylor reported, was executed by the U.S. Army in 1856 and before the tribe – which joined together 27 disparate tribal bands and communities – was formally created.
The issuance of per-capita payments has also created tensions, and appears to have created a schism between people who were enrolled before or after the casino. “Before the casino, we were enrolled and we were welcomed into the tribe. And now that the casino is there … well, I think greed is definitely a factor for some,” said Nicomi Levine, another member of the Tumulth descendants.
ICTMN says 15 members have been disenrolled this year, and hearings on Pickett’s family were slated to start as early as Monday.
GRAND RONDE — The education status of Oregon’s Native American youth will be the focus of a new, one-of-a-kind study thanks to a grant from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund.
GRAND RONDE — The education status of Oregon’s Native American youth will be the focus of a new, one-of-a-kind study thanks to a grant from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund.
The Chalkboard Project, a Portland-based education advocacy group, received a $71,000 grant from SMCF to study the state of education among Oregon’s Native American population.
The sweeping study will look into the achievement outcomes of K-12 students, graduation rates and higher education status in eight of the nine federally recognized tribes in Oregon.
This spring, the Chalkboard Project approached SMCF for a grant and SMCF staff saw it as an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.
“This was an unusual and exciting request for Spirit Mountain Community Fund,” SMCF Director Kathleen George said. “After discovering it and looking into it, we saw that really this would be the first-of-its-kind study in the state.”
The Chalkboard Project, partnering with Pacific Northwest-based consulting firm ECONorthwest, has conducted similar studies — most recently publishing a report on Oregon’s K-12 education system — but none solely focusing on Oregon’s Native American tribes.
The eight tribes involved in the study are spread across Oregon, from Coos Bay to Burns and Klamath County to Umatilla County.
The divergent nature of Oregon’s tribes and its relatively low population has led to the general inattention when education is concerned, George said.
“I think they’re largely out of sight and out of mind for the education leadership of our state,” she said. “Our kids are widely dispersed across the state. You’ll have several hundred Warm Springs kids; maybe a hundred, maybe less in Burns Paiute.”
The Chalkboard Project’s goal for the study is to inform each tribal government on their students’ progress and achievements in the public school system.
Reports will be provided specifically for each tribe, with only data on their students, and a master report will be prepared for Oregon legislators at their 2014 session.
The study is now under way, but sifting through the data to produce quantitative information is where the trouble lies, said Dr. Andrew Dyke, economist with ECONorthwest.
“The big hurdle is figuring out who the population is, because of confidentiality concerns it’s not as simple as going to the tribes and asking who their kids are,” he said. “The next step is to quantify the high level outcomes and take that information back to each tribe for feedback.”
By Kate Mather, Tony Perry and Hailey Branson-Potts, Los Angeles Times
August 9, 2013, 3:15 a.m.
Authorities searching for a missing San Diego County teenager allegedly abducted by a family friend stretched warned that her alleged abductor might be using explosives.
The suspect, James Lee DiMaggio, 40, might have abandoned his blue Nissan Versa and left it booby-trapped with explosives, authorities said, warning people that if they find the vehicle or anywhere he might have stopped, they should stay away.
DiMaggio is an avid outdoorsman, and authorities are also urging people to be on the lookout at campsites and other rural areas where he might be hiding.
Four days into the search for 16-year-old Hannah Anderson, authorities were no closer to finding her or DiMaggio, though numerous tips have poured in to law enforcement agencies in multiple states.
“Basically, the search area is the United States, Canada and Mexico,” said Lt. Glenn Giannantonio of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. “The search area is North America.”
As the search fanned out Thursday, authorities had no confirmed sightings of Anderson or DiMaggio, who is believed to have abducted the teenager Sunday after killing her mother and 8-year-old brother in Boulevard, a rural border town in eastern San Diego County.
An Amber Alert for Hannah Anderson and her brother Ethan was active in four states Thursday, though authorities said it was possible she might have been taken to Texas, or even Canada. Boulevard is about five miles north of the Mexican border, and the FBI was working with Mexican authorities to search for DiMaggio, Giannantonio said.
New details in the case emerged Thursday about the death of Hannah’s mother, 44-year-old Christina Anderson of Lakeside, another community east of San Diego. Anderson died of blunt force trauma and may have been hit with a crowbar, a source close to the investigation said.
Anderson’s body was found in a stand-alone garage near DiMaggio’s burning home, the source said. The body of a child was found in the house. Although the child has not been identified because the body was badly burned and DNA difficult to obtain, family members have said they believe it to be Ethan.
Christina Anderson’s dog was also found dead on the property, Giannantonio said.
An arrest warrant for murder has been issued for DiMaggio, and a judge agreed to set bail at $1 million if he is arrested, San Diego County sheriff’s officials said Thursday.
As the Amber Alert widened to Nevada, authorities said DiMaggio might have changed vehicles.
Molalla High School is one of the schools that still has a Native American mascot. Under Senate Bill 215, the school would be able to keep the mascot if a local tribe approved it. But Gov. John Kitzhaber is expected to veto the bill. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian)
Gov. John Kitzhaber intends to issue a rare veto over a culturally sensitive bill passed by his fellow Democrats amid split testimony from Native Americans.
Senate Bill 215 installs a loophole in a ban implemented by Kitzhaber’s Board of Education, which decided last year to eliminate the use of all tribal mascots at high schools, such as the Banks Braves or Molalla Indians. The mascots, the board found, negatively impact Native American students.
Kitzhaber said he was willing to support a bill allowing schools to adopt the names of tribes, similar to college sports rules, but the bill the Legislature delivered offered too broad an exemption, letting schools keep generic names if a local tribe approved.
“We worked hard to let them know our concerns and the governor doesn’t think the bill gets there,” said Kitzhaber spokesman Tim Raphael.
While a trio of Republicans introduced the mascot legislation, the bill attracted many Democratic votes, passing the House and the Senate by broad enough margins to override a veto.
Even so, Sen. Jeff Kruse, R-Roseburg, said he doesn’t think the Legislature would beat back Kitzhaber’s veto. Instead, he’s hoping the governor will reconsider, and is preparing for the next session.
“I’m just hoping at this point, I don’t know what else I can do,” said Kruse, a chief sponsor of the bill. “The reality of a veto override is non-existent, I know that. So we’d just do another bill.”
The renewed debate over Native American mascots in Oregon this year kicked up at the same time as the owners of the Cleveland Indians rebuffed fresh calls to dump the team’s mascot — the grinning, red-faced “Chief Wahoo.”
In 2012, the Oregon Board of Education established a strict statewide ban giving 15 schools until 2017 to change their mascots or lose state funding.
Many of Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes didn’t formally weigh into the debate. Those that did were split.
The Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians supported the mascot ban. Two tribes, The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde both sought the modified policy encompassed in the legislation: let mascots remain only if a local tribe approved. The Coquille Indian Tribe supported the board’s ban, but changed its position, supporting SB 215 during the Legislative session.
Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, who chairs the Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee, said lawmakers relied on input from local tribes. “It’s emotional on both sides for the tribes and the Oregon tribes wanted this bill, so we passed the bill that they said they supported,” Hass said.
Kitzhaber said it went too far. He wanted the bill modeled after National Collegiate Athletic Association rules, which banned the use of Native American mascots during tournaments in 2005.
NCAA rules let Florida State University keep the Seminoles name for its sports teams after reaching an agreement with the Seminole Nation of Florida.
Brenda Frank, who chaired the Oregon Board of Education when it adopted the ban, said any Native American mascot could hurt a Native American child’s self esteem.
“I still go back to how offensive is that? How is that fair to other tribal people who find that offensive?” said Frank, a member of the Klamath Tribe. “I just don’t think that there is anything that can justify racism.”
Frank said the board took into consideration the concerns of school administrators when it passed the ban, including the cost of replacing uniforms and other materials.
“As uniforms cycle down, they would eventually all be replaced and that’s a cost that districts would pay for anyway,” Frank said.
Kruse still worries about the cost of change at Roseburg High School, which he attended. The school long ago modified its logo in deference to the local tribe, the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians.
“In the case of the Roseburg Indians and the Cow Creek Band, everybody’s happy with it,” he told The Oregonian in February.
But it wasn’t that the tribe had asked for the change, and its response illustrates the different ways tribes feel about this issue.
Susan Ferris, a spokeswoman for the Cow Creek Band said students from Roseburg approached the tribe roughly 15 years ago and asked whether the mascot, then a Native American warrior, should be changed. Ferris said tribal leaders told the students to do what they thought was right. The district adopted a new mascot: a feather.
The Cow Creek Band kept out of the mascot debate in Salem this year.
“The Cow Creek stance, historically, seems to be ‘do what you think is right regardless of us.'” Ferris said.
The Cherokee Nation has sent its elite squad of firefighters to Oregon to help fight wildfires in northern California.
The dozen-member team, the Cherokee Fire Dancers, deployed to the Northwestern state on Tuesday July 23 to “work 16-hour days, hiking up to seven miles per day to cut down timber to create fire breaks to help battle the flames,” the tribe said in a statement.
“It’s a thrill watching a fire as it’s contained and know you’ve helped,” said Danny Maritt, of Tahlequah, who has been a Fire Dancer for 23 years, in the tribe’s statement. “We’re glad we’re out there making a difference.”
Fire Dancers are on call from the U.S. Forestry Department, the tribe said. Their last mission was assisting in cleanup efforts from Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey.
The Fire Dancers have traveled back and forth across the United States since 1988 to help suppress wildfires, earning “an outstanding reputation and the respect of wildland management agencies throughout the United States,” the tribe’s website says.
Information on specific fires that the Cherokee team will help with was not available, but there were several fires burning in northern California earlier in the week. Many have been contained, but others, such as the Aspen fire, were still being suppressed. That was at 2,000 acres in hard-to-access territory in the High Sierra Ranger District of the Sierra National Forest, where it was discovered burning on July 23, according to Inciweb. As of late morning on July 25, the fire had burned about 2,000 acres and remained active.
Oil refiner Tesoro and terminal operator Savage are trying to secure permits to build the region’s biggest crude oil shipping terminal at the Port of Vancouver, along the Washington state side of the Columbia River.
KPLU reports that the proposed terminal would receive crude by rail from oil fields in North Dakota and transfer it onto oceangoing tankers for delivery to refineries along the West Coast. And that’s just one of many plans to boost shipments of oil through the region to coastal ports. Environmentalists are not pleased, fearing oil spills among other problems.
The Port of Vancouver got an earful Thursday from backers and opponents of a proposed crude-oil transfer terminal who packed the Board of Commissioners’ hearing room to trumpet their arguments.
Executives with Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies, who want to build the terminal to handle as much as 380,000 barrels of oil per day, told commissioners the project capitalizes on rising U.S. oil production, boosts the local economy and will operate in ways that minimize harm to the environment.
“A lot of family-wage jobs will be created,” said Kent Avery, a senior vice president for Savage.
Critics told commissioners the project, which would haul oil by rail and move it over water, conflicts with the port’s own sustainability goals, increases the risk of oil spills in the Columbia River and further fuels global warming.
“This is a really big gamble,” said Jim Eversaul, a Vancouver resident and retired U.S. Coast Guard chief engineer.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) will have the final decision on the proposal. From the Columbian again:
Port managers are negotiating the terms of a lease agreement with Tesoro and Savage. Commissioners may decide a proposed lease arrangement on July 23.
Such a decision won’t end the matter, though. The state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council will scrutinize the proposed crude oil facility and make a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee, who has the final say.
The council’s review could take up to a year or more. The companies hope to launch an oil terminal at the port in 2014.
The Seattle-based nonprofit Sightline reports that 11 port terminals and refineries in Washington and Oregon “are planning, building, or already operating oil-by-rail shipments” and “if all of the projects were built and operated at full capacity, they would put an estimated 20 mile-long trains per day on the Northwest’s railway system.”
This undated photo from NOAA Fisheries Service shows a species of Pacific krill. Millions of the inch-long shrimp-like animals have been washing up on beaches between Eureka, Calif., and Newport, Ore., and scientists don’t exactly know why. Strong winds may have pushed them ashore while they were mating near the surface, or they may have run into an area of low oxygen.AP Photo/NOAA, Jaime Gomez Gutierrez
GRANTS PASS — Millions of krill— a tiny shrimp-like animal that is a cornerstone of the ocean food web — have been washing up on beaches in southern Oregon and Northern California for the past few weeks.
Scientists are not sure why.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationoceanographer Bill Peterson says they may have been blown into the surf by strong winds while mating near the surface, and then been dashed on the beach.
The species is Thysanoessa spinifera. They are about an inch long and live in shallower water along the Continental Shelf. They have been seen in swaths 5 feet wide, stretching for miles on beaches from Eureka, Calif., to Newport, Ore. Some were still alive.
“There has definitely been something going on,” Peterson said from Newport. “People have sent us specimens. In both cases, the females had just been fertilized. That suggests they were involved, maybe, in a mating swarm. But we’ve had a lot of onshore wind the last two weeks. If they were on the surface for some reason and the wind blows them toward the beach and they are trapped in the surf, that is the end of them.”
Or, they may have fallen victim to low levels of oxygen in the water, said Joe Tyburczy, a scientist with California Sea Grant Extension in Eureka. A recent ocean survey showed lower than normal oxygen levels in some locations. If the krill went to the surface to get oxygen, they could have been blown on shore, he said.
For some reason, people did not see gulls and other sea birds eating them, he added.
Peterson said low oxygen conditions, known as hypoxia, are a less likely explanation because they normally occur later in the summer.
The mass strandings are unusual, but not unheard of, Peterson added. There is no way to tell yet whether this represents a significant threat to a source of food for salmon, rockfish, ling cod and even whales.
Even as Oregonians are mourning and memorializing the tens of thousands of bees killed in a recent pesticide spraying, they’re also trying to prevent other bees from meeting a similarly tragic end. That means keeping the pollinators away from the poisoned trees that caused the deaths. And for some activists, it also means pushing for new rules and policies to curb use of neonicotinoid insecticides.
The tragedy started a week and a half ago when a landscaping company sprayed Safari neonic insecticide over 55 blooming trees around a Target parking lot in Wilsonville, Ore. Soon thereafter bees started dropping dead. The number of bees killed in the incident has risen to more than 50,000, making it the biggest known bumblebee die-off in American history. The insecticide was reportedly sprayed in an attempt to kill aphids.
Mace Vaughan / Xerces SocietyInsect-proof netting being draped over insecticide-drenched trees in Wilsonville, Ore.
To stop the slaughter, nets have been draped over the insecticide-drenched linden trees to prevent pollinators from reaching their flowers. The time and equipment needed for the draping were donated by five cities, three landscaping companies, and volunteers, according to the Xerces Society, a nonprofit that works to conserve insects and has been helping to coordinate the effort.
“These insecticides are used throughout the country in both urban and agricultural environments,” Black said. “If these events had not happened over areas of concrete, I am not sure anyone would have ever noticed. The insects would just fall into the grass to be eaten by birds as well as ants and other insects.”
Black said his group will send letters to local and state agriculture departments across the country, urging them to end the use of neonicotinoid insecticides on trees, lawns, and for other cosmetic purposes on lands that they manage. He said such a policy is in place is Ontario.
Xerces also wants warning labels mandated in aisles of stores where insecticides are sold to help consumers understand their hazards.
“In urban areas, most of the pesticides used are purely cosmetic. It’s to have a perfect lawn. It’s to have a perfect rose. It’s to have a linden tree that doesn’t have aphids that drop honey dew,” Black said. “Losing valuable pollinators, such as bees, far outweighs the benefits of having well-manicured trees and lawns.”
Mace Vaughan / Xerces SocietyA bumblebee kept away from poisoned flowers by netting.John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.
Wisdom of the Elders is celebrating its 20 year anniversary on April 19, 2013
We’d like to you to join us. For the past twenty years, we have completed numerous oral history recording projects, three American Indian radio series, culturally tailored multimedia health and wellness curricula, sponsored seven Northwest Indian Storytelling Festivals and emerging tribal storytellers workshops, hosted Turtle Island Storytellers Network, and formed Wisdom Gardens. Our mission: Wisdom of the Elders, Inc. records and preserves oral history, cultural arts, language concepts, and traditional ecological knowledge of exemplary American Indian historians, cultural leaders, and environmentalists in collaboration with arts and cultural organizations, and science and educational institutions.
The evening at Ecotrust’s Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center at 721 NW 9th in Portland (97209) will include music from Cedar Rose, featuring Nico Wind and Karen Kitchen; storytelling; and an account of Wisdom’s history. There will be a raffle to help cover event expenses and a paddle raising to welcome new Friends of Wisdom.
Please let us know that you can join us April 19 for our celebration. This is our “thank you” to our friends, board members, teams, and volunteers. And it is free, but seating is limited. So please RSVP:http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/337502.
Special acknowledgement goes to our colleagues at Ecotrust for the grant for the use of the Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center at The Ecotrust Building; and to New Seasons for their generous food donations. Also a huge thank you to all of our Friends of Wisdom, board members, teams, and volunteers from the past 20 years!
In light of the mass shootings having taken place many states are taking action. States are either reviewing gun control policies or choosing more proactive ways to protect themselves. While Oregon, the location of the Clackamas Town Center shooting, is divided on whether or not they are pro-gun and Washington has recently offered a Gun buyback program part of a gun safety initiative in order to reduce gun violence, Alaska is definitely pro-gun.
As stated in the Anchorage Daily News, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich stated that he had no current interest in a ban on sales of assault weapons in this country. Begich said decision-makers can’t “jump to the clamor of emotion” and create legislation that they think will be the “magic solution” to gun violence. He says there’s a broader issue of violence and a need for improved mental health services that need to be looked at.
The Alaska State Legislature will consider House Bill 55 sponsored by Republican Rep. Bob Lynn,
“An Act allowing school districts and private schools to adopt a policy authorizing one or more permanent employees to possess one or more firearms on school grounds under certain conditions.”
Alaska is not the only state mulling around the idea of arming their teachers, other states such as Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama are also taking to the idea of arming teachers and school personnel.
Seattle’s first buyback will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26 in downtown Seattle in the parking lot underneath Interstate 5 between Cherry and James Streets. The Seattle Police Department will monitor the buyback.
