Tribes Archives - Page 10 of 16

Indian rights activists say treaties give them a say on pipeline route

Indian rights lawyers argue that a Sandpiper spill could endanger their rights to gather wild rice.

By David Shaffer, Star Tribune

In a new battlefront over energy policy, American Indian rights attorneys argued Wednesday before a Minnesota judge that historic treaties give tribes a say in where to build crude oil pipelines across land ceded by the Chippewa in the 19th century.

“Everybody has kind of forgotten what our rights are, and that is why we are here,” Frank Bibeau, an attorney for the Indian nonprofit group Honor the Earth, told an administrative law judge at a hearing in St. Paul.

Honor the Earth says the proposed $2.6 billion Sandpiper crude oil pipeline across northern Minnesota will produce “inevitable oil spills and environmental degradation” on ceded lands. Spills could endanger Rice Lake near McGregor and Sandy Lake in Aitkin County where Indians gather wild rice, the group says.

For the first time in Minnesota, Indian rights attorneys are arguing that the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) lacks unilateral authority to approve pipelines. They want the state to reject the proposed route of the Sandpiper pipeline from North Dakota, and have offered an alternative path.

Enbridge Energy’s preferred pipeline route goes southeast from Clearbrook, Minn., passing west of Park Rapids and then heading east to Superior, Wis. It avoids Indian reservations, but passes through ceded lands on which Chippewa bands retain the right to fish, hunt and gather rice.

Attorneys for the company contend that the commission has no business deciding the meaning of federal treaties. Even so, much of the two-hour discussion before Judge Eric Lipman focused on 10 treaties signed between 1825 and 1864 by Minnesota Indian tribes.

“It would represent a dramatic departure from the commission’s precedent and would significantly impact not just pipeline projects but all large energy projects sited in northern Minnesota,” said Christine Brusven, an attorney for the Calgary-based pipeline company that’s proposing to build the 610-mile pipeline to carry North Dakota oil.

Headed for the courts?

Lipman, who is overseeing the regulatory review of the pipeline, is expected to rule on the treaty rights question, but the final decision rests with the Public Utilities Commission. The issue ultimately could land in federal court.

Before the hearing, about 45 Honor the Earth supporters, led by the group’s leader Winona LaDuke, demonstrated outside the PUC’s office.

Some Minnesota tribes have successfully asserted off-reservation rights under 19th century treaties. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1999 affirmed that the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa and seven other Chippewa bands retained hunting, fishing and gathering rights under an 1837 treaty on lands and lakes ceded by the tribes in central Minnesota, including Lake Mille Lacs.

Similar rights have been recognized under other treaties, and state and tribal governments share responsibility for game management in some ceded areas. This year, the Fond du Lac Band of Chippewa is exercising rights under an 1854 treaty to spear walleyes in several lakes in northeastern Minnesota’s Arrowhead region.

Honor the Earth attorneys contend that the 19th century treaties and early 20th century court rulings about wild rice reserves give the Ojibwe a present-day right to help make decisions affecting treaty-related resources.

“We are not saying we have an absolute veto,” Bibeau said in an interview.

Cooperation sought

Prof. Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law, who also represents Honor the Earth, said various treaties “need to be accommodated by state regulatory activities.” He said the state and tribes need to find a way to cooperate on pipeline siting.

But Enbridge attorney Randy Thompson, who represented Lake Mille Lacs landowners in the 1999 case, said Honor the Earth overstates the reach of the landmark decision.

“It is a nonexclusive right to hunt and fish,” Thompson said. “It gives bands the ability to self-regulate hunting and fishing by band members. It doesn’t give bands co-management authority. It doesn’t give the bands the ability to regulate nonmembers.”

Legal experts say protection of natural resources under 19th century Indian treaties is an emerging area of law.

“We have very little idea where it is going to go,” said James Coleman, an assistant professor of energy law at the University of Calgary and Haskayne School of Business.

In the state of Washington, a tribe with rights to fish for migrating salmon has successfully argued that the state Transportation Department must repair hundreds of culverts that block the passage of fish. Federal judges, most recently in 2013, have ruled that the barrier culverts violate treaty promises. Another federal judge in that state upheld in 1996 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ right to deny a permit for a fish farm because it conflicted with the Lummi Nation’s treaty fishing rights.

Most treaty cases have been decided in federal court. Honor the Earth’s legal battle is unusual because it’s in a state regulatory proceeding. Bibeau said he reserves the right to take the case to tribal or federal court later.

Two precedents

In two previous Minnesota utility cases, tribes tried unsuccessfully to assert tribal authority over proposed pipelines or power lines. In 2011, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe objected to a proposed transmission line that skirted tribal lands, but lost in federal court. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa objected to another pipeline in 2007. That project, like the transmission line, eventually won approval of the PUC.

Coleman, who grew up in the Twin Cities, said Indian activists face a difficult legal battle in the pipeline case. Unlike the Washington cases, he said, where judges saw actual harm to treaty-protected resources, the Minnesota concerns are about a potential situation, and depending on how bad the disaster was, maybe at some point it could eliminate those treaty rights.

Competitors Gear Up for the Jim Thorpe Games

Smithsonian/Cumberland County Historical SocietyJim Thorpe in his Carlisle Indian School track uniform, running in Stockholm at Olympic track practice. — Smithsonian/Cumberland County Historical Society
Jim Thorpe in his Carlisle Indian School track uniform, running in Stockholm at Olympic track practice.

Sam Laskaris, ICTMN

About 1,200 competitors are expected to take part in a multi-sport competition honoring one the greatest athletes from the 20th century. The 3rd annual Jim Thorpe Native American Games will be staged June 8-14 in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

During its first two years, the Games were held in Oklahoma City. Instead, organizers opted to move the games to Shawnee, located about a 30-minute drive east of Oklahoma City. “It was really done to have the Games have more of an Indian community feel,” Annetta Abbott, the Games’ executive director, told ICTMN. “We are more in Indian country now.”

The Games were first staged in 2012, in honor of the 100-year anniversary of Thorpe’s medal-winning performances at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Sweden. Thorpe captured gold medals in both the pentathlon and decathlon events in Sweden. He later played pro baseball and football. About 1,500 athletes from across the country took part in the inaugural Jim Thorpe Native American Games. “The plan was to stage the Games every two years,” Abbott said. “But after that first year, people were asking if we could have it again the next year. So it became an annual event.”

Organizers are also hoping to expand the Games in future years and to stage regional qualifiers across the country. A goal is to then have winners from those regional competitions have a portion of their expenses covered to attend the national Games.

Organizers are anticipating athletes representing at least 60 tribes will take part in this year’s Games. “We’ve got athletes from all corners of the country coming,” Abbott said.

Last year’s participation numbers were down from the first year in large part because of Mother Nature. Abbott said numerous athletes withdrew from the event as tornadoes were rampant, and many parents did not want their children travelling to Oklahoma. “We are really pleased with the numbers we have this year,” Abbott added. “We’ve been able to see what sports work well and we’ve added some divisions in those sports.”

A total of 12 sports will be contested at this year’s Games. Stickball is a new addition. It had been an exhibition (demonstration) sport during the first two years of the games, but is now a full-medal sport. Lacrosse is an exhibition sport this time around.The other sports being offered are basketball, beach volleyball, cross-country running, football, golf, martial arts, softball, tennis, track and field and wrestling.

For the first time, games’ organizers will also offer two $2,500 scholarships to competitors who are college-bound high school seniors. One female and one male winner will be selected.

Abbott said the calibre of athletes at these Games is rather high. “We’ve had some really good athletes,” she said. “Some of the tennis athletes are on the junior amateur circuit. And some of the football and basketball athletes were going to go on to NCAA schools.”

Tribes and First Nations Unite to Halt B.C. Mine That Threatens Salmon Habitat

Tongass Conservation SocietyThe headwaters of the Unuk River, where a company called KSM wants to build a humongous open-pit mine for cold, copper and other metals. — Tongass Conservation Society
The headwaters of the Unuk River, where a company called KSM wants to build a humongous open-pit mine for cold, copper and other metals.

Paula Dobbyn, ICTMN

It has become an all-too-familiar story: Pristine waters. Salmon habitat. Sacred significance. Mining.

The Unuk River watershed, straddling the border between British Columbia and Alaska, is on track to become ground zero in a struggle to stop the world’s largest open-pit mine, Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM). The fight against it is uniting First Nations and Alaska Natives as they battle to preserve stewardship of the pristine region. And it is just one of five massive projects proposed for the region.

If KSM secures the financing and the regulatory go-ahead, the giant mine would turn 6,500 acres of pristine land into an industrial zone that would generate more than 10 billion pounds of copper and 38 million ounces of gold, according to a project summary. As with any large mine, it would employ a hefty workforce—in this case mostly Canadians—and create taxes and royalty payments for Canada. But it would also produce a slew of waste. And that’s what critics say downstream Alaska communities stand to take on: none of the economic benefits but much of the environmental risk.

With its remote headwaters in British Columbia, the Unuk River is one of the world’s most prolific salmon waters. An international river, the Unuk flows into neighboring Southeast Alaska and its temperate rainforest, the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest, a place of towering coastal mountains, tidewater glaciers and fog-shrouded islands. The Unuk empties into Misty Fjords National Monument, an attraction for cruise ship passengers viewing glaciers, bears and whales that dot Alaska’s Inside Passage. The Unuk, known as Joonáx̱ in Tlingit, supports large runs of king salmon, a cultural icon prized by commercial, sport and subsistence fishermen alike.

“The consequences for salmon runs on both sides of the border could be devastating, yet Alaskans would see none of the economic benefit,” wrote National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Michael Fay in a 2011 letter to British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, signed by nearly 40 other scientists.

Seabridge Gold, the mine developer, expects KSM to generate more than two billion tons of acidic waste rock called tailings, a byproduct of the mining process than can be lethal to fish. The tailings would be held behind two huge dams—each taller than the Hoover dam—built in the headwaters of the Nass River, one of British Columbia’s most important salmon rivers.

Because KSM is located in sensitive fish habitat, it has raised the ire of Southeast Alaska tribes, fishermen and some Canadian First Nations. They joined forces in early April, forming a cross-border working group to develop a unified strategy to protect their interests.

It’s not just KSM that worries them. KSM is one of more than a dozen mines planned for northern B.C., including five located in salmon-bearing watersheds that arise in Canada and drain into Alaska. The British Columbia government is encouraging the mines’ development, offering tax breaks and relaxed environmental rules. Also spurring development is the construction of a new power line extending electricity into the northwest corner of the province, bordering Alaska. The transboundary projects include Red Chris, Schaft Creek, Galore Creek and Tulsequah Chief. The international rivers they could affect are the Taku, Stikine and Unuk, some of Southeast Alaska’s top salmon rivers.

“These projects could not be in a worse location. Salmon is our traditional food. If anything happens to them, we would be in a world of hurt,” said Ketchikan fisherman and tribal leader Rob Sanderson Jr.

Fishing, seafood processing and tourism are key economic drivers in Southeast Alaska. The seafood industry produced $641 million worth of fish in 2011, which created 17,500 jobs and $468 million in wages. A million visitors tour the area every year, spending about copy billion.

Tribes have passed numerous resolutions of concern about how KSM and the other transboundary mines could potentially contaminate the region, including their traditional fishing grounds. Recently a delegation of tribal leaders and fishermen flew to Washington, D.C. to lobby for State Department intervention. They delivered a letter signed by 40 businesses, groups and individuals asking for help.

Alaska’s congressional delegation got the message. Shortly after the Alaskans flew home, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, along with Congressman Don Young, contacted the office of Secretary of State John Kerry by letter asking him to get involved to protect Alaska’s interests. Because the mines are located in Canada, Alaska tribes feel they have less influence over the outcome than if they were on U.S. soil.

“It’s happening in a foreign country. We don’t have a lot of control over it,” said Sanderson. “They don’t even have to consult with Alaska tribes.”

The U.S. Environmental Protect Agency has raised issues regarding the KSM project, mirroring the tribes’ concerns. The U.S Interior Department has urged Seabridge Gold to consult with Alaska tribes regarding fishing and clean water.

Recently Seabridge sent its vice president for environmental affairs to Alaska to participate in a tribal meeting on Prince of Wales Island near Ketchikan regarding KSM. Seabridge’s Brent Murphy told the Juneau Empire that “the overwhelming design philosophy for the KSM project is the protection of downstream environments and that is ensuring protection also for Alaskans.”

On its website, Seabridge notes that KSM has undergone extensive review by environmental and technical experts over the past five years to see that salmon and other wild resources are protected.

But Seabridge’s assurances have done little to allay skepticism on the U.S. side. Since the meeting on Prince of Wales in late March, the newly elected president of Alaska’s largest tribe, the Juneau-based Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, has elevated the matter.

“This is a direct threat to the lifestyle and culture of our tribes’ 29,000-plus members,” said Richard Peterson, tribal president.

At Peterson’s urging, the Central Council adopted a resolution giving Southeast Alaska’s 19 federally recognized tribes the green light to work with First Nations to try to slow the development of the transboundary mines.

“We need a collective call to arms,” said Peterson.

Not all B.C. First Nations oppose the KSM mine or the other transboundary projects. The Gitxsan and Nisga’a Nations support the mine’s development. But others, including the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, who live downstream from where the KSM waste facility would be located, are opposed.

“Nass River fish are critical for the food security of the Gitanyow,” said Kevin Koch, a fish and wildlife biologist with Gitanyow Fisheries Authority. “KSM poses a major threat to the Gitanyow way of life.”

Koch noted that the Gitanyow have constitutionally protected aboriginal rights to fish in the Nass. Seabridge maintains that any ill effects from mine waste on Nass River salmon would be minimal.

Peterson is unconvinced.

“I think John Kerry should be sitting in my office talking to me right now,” he said. “We need face-to-face consultation on this. We’re a sovereign nation.”

Tribes Optimistic About Returning Salmon To Upper Columbia Basin

File photo. An aerial view of Hells Canyon Dam on the Snake River, the border between Oregon and Idaho.Credit MrPanyGoff / Wikimedia — File photo. An aerial view of Hells Canyon Dam on the Snake River, the border between Oregon and Idaho.
Credit MrPanyGoff / Wikimedia

By Tom Banse, Thursday April 24, 2014, NW News Network

Hydropower dams built without fish ladders have blocked migratory fish from the upper reaches of the Columbia and Snake Rivers for decades.

Tribal leaders from across the region gathered for the past two days in Portland to strategize how to return salmon to their full historic range.

The meeting ended Thursday on an optimistic note.

Northwest American tribes and Canadian First Nations presented a united front to restore salmon above Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River and to southern Idaho via the Snake River.

Shoshone-Bannock tribal chairman Nathan Small says on this he’s long felt like he was beating his head on a wall.

“Now I feel maybe my head is going to raise a little bit because there is that possibility to be talked about.”

Tribes and other fish advocates see opportunity to gain traction in two forums. One is the federal relicensing of Idaho Power’s Hells Canyon Project dams. The other is the pending renegotiation of the 50-year-old Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada.

But stumbling blocks remain. Those include ratepayer objections to the cost of getting salmon around very tall dams and degraded spawning habitat upstream.

Inslee weighs big increase in cancer risk for fish eaters

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee at the State of the State address in January. Flickr/Jay Inslee.

By Robert McClure, InvestigateWest; Source: The Herald

OLYMPIA — How much risk of cancer from eating fish is too much? Gov. Jay Inslee has privately advanced a proposal that would likely pass legal muster but which worries Indian tribes and environmentalists. It would allow a tenfold increase in allowable cancer risk under the law.

It’s either that, the governor has told a panel of his advisers, or the state will have to consider regulatory breaks for polluters that the state has not traditionally granted in the past.

For example: giving factories, municipal sewage treatment plants and others who dump pollution into waterways 20 years or perhaps even more to come into compliance with new toxic-waste limits.

Caught in crossfire between Indian tribes and business interests, Inslee stepped into the controversy last spring after his predecessor, Chris Gregoire, short-circuited plans by the state Ecology Department to make water pollution rules more protective of people who eat a lot of fish. Gregoire’s move came a day after the former governor met with a senior Boeing Co. executive who strongly objected to tighter restrictions on toxic pollution, as InvestigateWest was the first to report.

Inslee’s first step was to organize a panel of advisers, including business and tribal officials. It was in front of that group in February that the governor laid out the choices as he saw them, according to several people who attended the meeting.

Now Inslee is on the verge of handing down orders to the state Ecology Department on how to proceed. It’s a decision fraught with political tension because Inslee has allies in the tribes and in business.

“The governor came into this issue, inherited it, hearing both that this is going to kill business and hearing this is necessary to protect Washington citizens who are heavy fish consumers,” said Ted Sturdevant, who first pushed the tighter limits as director of Ecology and is now Inslee’s chief adviser on the issue. “He’s been looking for a path that does both — that protects people who eat a lot of fish and that doesn’t kill the economy.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly told Washington that the state must fix its system for regulating water pollution under the federal Clean Water Act.

What needs fixing is the fish consumption rate: an official state estimate of how much fish people eat and a key part of Washington’s formula for deciding how much pollution is allowed. The more fish people consume, the more exposure they face to water-borne pollutants, and the less pollution can be discharged into waterways under the Clean Water Act.

The fish-consumption estimate Washington uses is based on a national study conducted in 1973 and 1974 in which people filled out three-day food diaries. According to that study, and in the current state calculations, Washingtonians eat less than half a pound of fish per month, about one serving. In reality, many eat more in a single meal. Starting in the 1990s, more-rigorous studies of Northwest Indian tribes found fish consumption rates of 30 pounds per month or more among the highest consumers in the Suquamish Tribe, for example, where even the average consumer eats 14 pounds a month. Other groups, such as sport fishers and immigrant communities, are also known to eat fish in excess of the state estimate.

Critics of Washington’s one-meal-per-month figure point to Oregon, which in 2011 adjusted its rate to 11 pounds per month, or roughly one fish meal per day, making it the strictest standard in the nation. That move was designed to protect 90 percent of people eating fish in the state to a one-in-1-million standard of increased lifetime risk of cancer.

Following Oregon’s lead, Sturdevant as director of Ecology in 2011 began a process to correct Washington’s fish-consumption estimate. Vigorous protests from business and influential members of the state Legislature failed to stop the rulemaking process by spring 2012. But when Boeing took its complaint all the way to the governor, Gregoire told Ecology to go back to the drawing board.

Tribes protested. After his election, Inslee personally stepped into the controversy, tapping a panel of prominent business, tribal and municipal officials to try to reach agreement on a path forward.

Ten months later, that hasn’t happened. And in the interim, environmentalists filed suit in federal court seeking to compel the federal EPA to force action by the state or take over the whole process

Businesses and local governments rightly point out that wastewater technology is not currently available to meet the strict water-quality standards that would result if Washington adopts a fish consumption rate as high as Oregon’s.

To environmentalists and Indian tribes, that’s not the point. They rightly point out that the Clean Water Act has often required industry and others under its regulation to set a standard to protect public health and rely on that standard to drive technological innovation. That way, at least eventually, even heavy fish consumers are protected, they argue.

At a meeting at the governor’s office in early February, according to several of those who attended, the governor laid out two options, both of which lessen the potential burden on polluters:

Boost the estimate of how much fish Washingtonians are eating, but alter another pivotal part of the formula used to set pollution limits: the additional cancer risk from eating fish that is considered acceptable. Traditionally, Ecology has set that at one additional cancer case for every 1 million people exposed to a given pollutant. That number could be set at one in 100,000 instead, Inslee suggested, and remain within legal bounds. EPA allows states to set the risk at either level, so long as even highly exposed groups such as Indian tribes face risks no greater than one additional cancer case from eating fish per 10,000 people.

Keep the traditional limit of one-in-1-million increased cancer risk, but take steps to help pollution dischargers. This could include giving them variances from the rules; allowing them years or even decades to reduce pollution; or other alternatives. Similar polluter-friendly steps were taken in Oregon but traditionally have not been used in Washington. This second option, Inslee adviser Sturdevant told InvestigateWest, would have to be paired with “creative solutions” that would further protect fish eaters, although such solutions have not yet been outlined.

The EPA’s Seattle-based Region 10 oversees the Ecology Department’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran refused to grant an interview to discuss EPA’s position or provide another spokesman for the agency.

But recently the agency repeated its position in a letter to the Washington Ecology Department, saying an “important part of a final rule is choosing a cancer risk level that provides risk protection for all Washington citizens, including those who eat higher amounts of fish.” If the state doesn’t come up with a rule by the end of the year, EPA plans to step in and do the job itself, the letter said. The suit the environmental groups filed in federal court seeks to force such action by EPA.

Meanwhile, a coalition of business interests, local governments and a labor organization endorsed increasing the allowable cancer risk. Expecting a one-in-1-million increased cancer risk is “unacceptable,” the group wrote in a letter to Inslee.

“We anticipate that this risk level, coupled with a high fish consumption rate, will result in largely unattainable ultra-low numeric criteria, unmeasureable incremental health benefits, and predictable economic turmoil,” the group said.

One signer was Maud Daudon, president and CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, who served on Inslee’s panel of advisers and attended the meetings where the governor discussed the issue. She told InvestigateWest even the one-in-100,000 cancer rate would lead to significantly tightened water-pollution standards.

By adopting that goal, she said, “you can get industry to invest in ways that will move the needle for human health.”

Business and local governments argue, too, that they are unfairly targeted by the Clean Water Act. Pollution from factories and sewage plants has already been ratcheted down substantially since the landmark legislation was adopted in 1972. Nowadays, quite a bit of pollution flowing into Washington waterways comes not from a sewage plant or factory, but rather from the foul mix that flows off streets, parking lots and other hard surfaces during rainstorms, carrying the detritus of our modern world, including three pollutants that have proved particularly difficult to clean up: PCBs, arsenic and mercury.

Tribal interests, nevertheless, are growing impatient with the Ecology Department’s drawn-out process.

“It’s really concerning to me,” said Jim Peters of the Squaxin Island Tribe. “It seems like they have no problem having heavy fish consumers have a higher risk of getting cancer than other people.

“It’s just not something we can accept. Tribal members and my family do eat a lot of fish. It’s part of our lives and part of our culture and a staple of our diets. And we’d probably eat more fish if there were more around.”

Although Inslee has not yet said publicly how he will resolve the dispute, those involved in the discussions say it seems likely that he will find a way to allow polluters leeway on PCBs, mercury and arsenic. What form that might take remains unclear.

Kelly Susewind, a key adviser to Ecology Director Maia Bellon, argues that one case per 100,000 people “is very, very close to zero” cases, although he acknowledges that one in 1 million “is even closer” to zero.

He said the agency should be given credit for not simply focusing on protecting the average person.

“We’re saying let’s set a number that’s right for high consumers,” Susewind said.

One thing to consider is that the measure of increased cancer risk is based on 70 years of exposure to a given pollutant. Also keep in mind that Washington’s population is about 6.9 million people. So if the allowable cancer rate were to be set at one in 100,000 people instead of one in 1 million people, the difference would be roughly 62 extra cases of cancer over 70 years — if the assumptions are right. It could be more or it could be fewer.

One of Inslee’s advisers is Seattle attorney Rod Brown.

“What’s your social judgment about how much risk is acceptable for a carcinogen?” Brown asks. “It sounds like math, but it’s also a social judgment.”

InvestigateWest is a Seattle-based non-profit journalism organization focused on the environment, public health and government accountability in the Pacific Northwest.

Tulalips, others oppose state’s move to halt release of hatchery steelhead

By Chris Winters, The Herald

TULALIP — A lawsuit filed against the state Department of Fish and Wildlife has led the state to cancel this year’s entire release of hatchery-raised steelhead trout into Western Washington rivers.

That means that there will be virtually no steelhead fishing in 2016 and 2017.

This week the Tulalips and other local American Indian tribes weighed in, blasting the decision by the state to cancel the release, and the lawsuit that forced the move, filed by the Wild Fish Conservancy, a nonprofit based in Duvall.

The suit was filed on March 31. In a declaration filed April 16 by Phil Anderson, the director of Fish and Wildlife, he wrote that the department’s plan to protect wild steelhead from genetic hybridization with hatchery fish is under review by the National Marine Fisheries Service, but that he had no expectation it would be approved in time for the release.

That approval is necessary so that the program wouldn’t run afoul of the Endangered Species Act, which lists wild steelhead as threatened. Therefore, Anderson decided there would be no steelhead release this year.

A joint statement issued by the Tulalip Tribes, the Lummi Nation and the Upper Skagit Tribe took issue with the basis for the nonprofit’s lawsuit, which, it said, “erroneously concluded that hatchery production, rather than the loss of habitat, is responsible for the depressed state of the Puget Sound steelhead populations.”

The statement from the tribes urged anglers to contact Gov. Jay Inslee, the Fish and Wildlife Commission, and Anderson and to put pressure on the department.

“Maybe the hatcheries do have some impact, but there are greater impacts out there,” said Ray Fryberg, executive director for natural and cultural resources for the Tulalip Tribes.

Habitat loss, environmental change, perhaps even seals waiting at the mouths of rivers to eat the returning fish probably have a greater impact on wild populations than the hatcheries do, Fryberg said.

The fish at issue is known as Chambers Creek steelhead, a strain raised in six hatcheries in Western Washington, including the Whitehorse Ponds hatchery near Darrington.

The hatchery-raised juveniles are released earlier than when wild steelhead hatch, and the difference in timing allows the hatchery-raised adult steelhead to be fished before the wild runs return to their spawning grounds.

A spokesperson for the Department of Fish and Wildlife declined to comment on the lawsuit or the statement from the tribes.

The conservancy’s suit alleges that the state’s hatchery programs allow Chambers Creek steelhead to interbreed with the wild strains, out-compete the wild fish for food and spawning grounds, and that the hatchery operations themselves have suppressed the wild population.

The wild stocks are so depressed that they are in danger of being listed as endangered, which would drastically affect fishing for all salmonid species in the region, said Kurt Beardslee, the executive director of the Wild Fish Conservancy.

Loss of habitat is a critical issue, Beardslee said, but the only two actions that would have an immediate impact on wild populations would be to curtail fishing or to stop hatchery releases.

He cited a recent study conducted in the Skagit River of the impacts of hatchery-raised steelhead on the wild population, one of whose recommendations was to suspend hatchery releases for seven to 10 years to eliminate competition among the species, reduce cross-breeding among populations and increase the survival rate of wild steelhead.

“We have to look at things that can get results immediately,” Beardslee said.

Fryberg said that the lawsuit was a step backward in the struggle to restore wild runs of steelhead and salmon.

“For years and years as co-managers and cooperative managers we’ve always emphasized that we should be working together,” Fryberg said.

With the environment changing rapidly, there is simply no baseline condition to compare it to, and it’s essential to get all the scientific data on the table before acting, he added.

“We have not fished some native runs of fish out here for 20 to 30 years and they still haven’t rebounded,” Fryberg said. “Let’s not run into this hastily.”

First Nations Save First Foods: Northwest Tribes Seek to Restore Historic Fish Runs

Jack McNeelGrand Coulee Dam, the so-called granddaddy of all impediments to fish migration, as seen from the hillside above the reservoir. — Jack McNeel
Grand Coulee Dam, the so-called granddaddy of all impediments to fish migration, as seen from the hillside above the reservoir.

Jack McNeel, Indian Country Today Media Network

Salmon and other migratory fish attempting to return to their spawning grounds in the Pacific Northwest face no fewer than 400 man-made barriers in the Columbia River Basin, the earliest dating back to 1885—and there may be as many as 100 more constructed illegally on private property, tribal fish biologists estimate.

The impediments to fish migration posed by such monolithic barriers as the 551-foot-high Grand Coulee Dam are well documented, but anadromous fish face a myriad of other obstacles as well. In the 129 years since that first dam was built in Spokane, Washington, fish passage has been restricted, if not totally eliminated, in many areas, tribal experts said at a recent workshop addressing the issues. And it’s not just the Columbia River.

“The tributaries and main stem Snake River habitat are probably in worse shape than on the Columbia,” said Dave Johnson, program manager for the Nez Perce Department of Fisheries. “The main stem is a mess. All the Snake River salmon and steelhead populations are listed under the endangered species act or have been extirpated. Idaho Power Company is trying to relicense those facilities right now, and there are things they need to fix as part of that, things that are caused only by those dams being there such as the mercury issue, such as temperature problems.”

Biologists with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) have documented most of these obstructions on a massive map of the basin. They gathered at a workshop in mid-March to review their individual projects ahead of the CRITFC’s Future of Our Salmon conference to be held in Oregon on April 23 and 24. The goal is to restore historic fishing runs. Eliminating such obstructions is essential not only from a food-security standpoint, the experts said, but also culturally and spiritually—though all are different facets of the same thing.

“The deal we made with the Creator is that if we take care of our first foods, the first foods will take care of us,” said Paul Lumley, executive director of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), which held the workshop. “Salmon are the first of the first foods.”

By 1980, river flows had been reduced by 50 percent, causing migration time to increase from weeks to months and decreasing survival, said Sheri Sears of the Colville Tribes. The granddaddy of all these barriers is Grand Coulee Dam, completed in 1942, which completely blocked upstream migration all the way into the headwaters in western British Columbia. But there’s more—much, much more. The Brownlee, Hells Canyon and Oxbow dams on the Snake River totally block fish migration across western and southern Idaho nearly to the Wyoming border as well, for instance.

Moreover, these are all high dams. Besides Grand Coulee there is the Brownlee, soaring 420 feet. Others are only slightly lower. Their construction, and lack of any means to transport fish beyond them, has changed the culture of Northwestern tribes, whose members once depended on these fish for food.

Ever since the first dams were built, biologists from tribes and governmental agencies have sought ways to get fish over, around, and through these barriers: large and small dams, culverts and even waterfalls. Currents and water temperatures have changed over the years, as well.

The issue stretches all the way up into Canada, with nonexistent fish passage at the Keenleyside, Brilliant, and Waneta dams. Sockeye were once abundant there.

“None of these facilities provide fish passage,” Canadian biologist Will Warnack told workshop attendees.

Different locations reported various problems and possible solutions. One practice that has proven effective is the use of pit tags to compare survival rates between dams. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries biologist Ritchie Graves pointed out that it was relatively cheap, no handling was required, fish were from a known source, and it was an easy estimate to understand. In addition, he said, everyone using this technique sends their findings in, making for highly accurate reporting statistics.

New technology sometimes replaces old, as cited by James Bartlett, fisheries biologist with Portland General Electric. For instance, Round Butte Dam once had a 2.8-mile fish ladder. That was discontinued a few years later, and they now use a truck and haul method for both juveniles and adults. A pipe releases the fish 20 feet below the surface to prevent thermal shock.

Cracking down on the roughly 100 mostly illegal dams in central Washington would be a good starting point for restoring the fish runs, Sears said. The smaller dams and barriers notwithstanding, the single overriding problem continues to be moving fish past the major hydroelectric dams. Solutions are possible, but funding is key, which is one hope for the outcome of the renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty, which is nearly complete.

Perhaps the most unique option for boosting fish over large dams is being developed by Whooshh Innovations, a company that is testing a flexible sleeve that rapidly moves fish using a pressure differential. The first tests will move fish 200 feet with a 50-foot rise, but the company is already thinking of much larger numbers, a minimum of 1,000 feet with a 236-foot rise.

“Our model indicates it would take a fish 25 seconds to make that rise,” said Deligan. “Do we want to go over something like Chief Joseph Dam? Absolutely.”

Just one visit to Grand Coulee Dam put the money needs in perspective. Over the next 10 years, $400 million will be spent for turbine retrofits at Grand Coulee. Each year, $70 million goes toward operations and maintenance. Fish-passage solutions pale in comparison.

“These huge outlays of money make one realize that installing fish passage facilities is not a financial impossibility,” noted Lumley, who emerged from the workshop optimistic about the April conference.

“This workshop exceeded my expectations in terms of identifying real solutions to restoring fish passage,” Lumley said. “It was mostly technical, but also [yielded] some really helpful suggestions for us on the funding side of it, and also in asking our leadership to reconsider some of the bad historical decisions that have been made and to right those wrongs.”

Sen. Begich Presses VAWA Protections for Alaska Natives

Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) discusses his pending Safe Families and Villages legislation, as well as a clean Carcieri legislative fix.

Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network

Having just chaired a portion of a recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Sen. Mark Begich spoke to Indian Country Today Media Network for an interview focused on his pending Safe Families and Villages legislation, as well as the recently introduced clean Carcieri legislative fix.

Thank you for doing another interview, senator. The last time we talked, you mentioned the need for a hearing focused on strengthening the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to include jurisdictional provisions for Alaska Native tribes. That hearing, which you co-chaired April 2, highlighted yours and Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) Safe Families and Villages legislation, and your desire to repeal Section 910 of VAWA, which excludes Alaska Natives from the VAWA jurisdiction provisions granted by Congress last year to tribes in the lower 48 states. Please explain your desire to repeal Section 910.

What 910 really does is prevent the Alaska Native community from having full criminal prosecution regarding any crimes that may occur within what we consider tribal land. It also does not allow us to have equal type of law enforcement that reservation tribes do. When someone comes onto reservation land [in the lower 48 states], and they commit a crime on that land as a Native or non-Native, they can still go through a prosecution process. With us, that can’t happen. It really is a problem. We have tribal courts that exist with cooperation and agreement from the state, but they have very limited capacity.

The VAWA with the increased jurisdiction provisions for tribes in the lower 48 just passed Congress just last year with 910 in there. Why was 910 included in that legislation at all?

We attempted to try to get it out, but we did not have agreement, honestly, within our [federal] delegation on this. I’m a very strong supporter of tribal rights and tribal responsibility and self-determination. I’ve always been that way—it’s not a newfound belief since coming to the Senate. I think in a lot of ways I couldn’t get agreement. I knew if it was put in there the way it was written, Section 910, that we would see a backlash from within our Alaska Native communities. And that is what is happening. I wish we could have taken it out, but we also had the state of Alaska being totally against taking that section out of there. They wanted that section. I know they lobbied members of the [Senate Committee on Indian Affairs] when the bill was being reviewed, and they were able to prevail on the idea that 910 was needed so as not to interfere with states’ rights. I wasn’t on the committee at that time. If I was on the committee at that time, I would have done everything I could to prevent that section from being added in there.

Is Sen. Murkowski, part of your Alaska delegation, on board with getting rid of 910?

Yes. She’s agreed to that. We had a lot of discussion after the bill passed. She felt the conversation from the Alaska Native community really moved her to accept this as an important piece.

How about Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) on the House side—has he weighed in on the idea of repealing 910?

He has not to me. That does not mean that his staff and my staff aren’t talking. But I haven’t heard a problem here yet.

Beyond repealing 910, it’s clear that Alaska Native tribal advocates want amendments added to your bill that would increase and enhance Alaska Native tribal jurisdiction over non-tribal offenders. You were supportive during the hearing of adding those kinds of amendments, but is that going to be easy?

It’s not going to be easy, but I will tell you, the Alaska Federation of Natives and a group called the Tanana Chiefs Conference have created a tribal law project that encourages jurisdiction for tribes to implement tribal law and order issues. We know that non-tribal member perpetrators are a problem for tribes in Alaska, yet tribes have no jurisdiction. I’m not sure how far we will get with this. The good news is there are more folks getting aware of this issue. Sen. [Heidi] Heitkamp [D-N.D.], as you heard during the hearing, was not aware, really, of what was going on in Alaska on these issues. And now she is willing to work with us in any way she can to make our legislation have the same impact as the increased tribal jurisdiction in the lower 48.

Tribal judge Natasha Singh testified in favor of a tribal law project-inspired amendment at the hearing. What are the political realities in your state of getting that project implemented?

This would deal with curbing child abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and other issues among tribal members and non-members, yet the state is not supporting it at this point. In order to make it work, I want to put it inside the Safe Families and Villages Act, so we have more tools to fight these incredibly big problems. The politics of it—the state will more than likely oppose it. But I hope they are supportive of the people of Alaska.

Is there tribal consensus in your state that this tribal law project amendment is the way to go?

Yes. There is no question. We have received enormous support from individual tribes, groups, the Alaska Federation of Natives—everywhere across the state.

Your legislation currently encourages the state to enter into intergovernmental agreements with tribes related to the enforcement of certain state laws by the tribes. You made it clear at the hearing that this provision isn’t enough. But why not? Why wouldn’t that be a good start, and then you try to do more later on?

Here’s the challenge. Years ago, when the Tribal Law and Order Act passed, I sat with state of Alaska officials, the federal delegation, and others, and I said back then that I wanted these better provisions for Alaska Natives. And they said, ‘Oh no, let’s pass the Tribal Law and Order Act, and it will all get resolved.’ Now here we are several years later with the same story, the same talk, and no results. My view is that the state would like the Alaska Native people to be subservient to them. That is not acceptable when we have outrageous crime statistics facing Alaska Native communities.

Are there a lot of Congress members who would take a stand against allowing tribes in Alaska to be treated the same as tribes in the lower 48 on these matters?

I don’t think so, but you never know. On this one, I think we can make the case.

If state officials don’t agree with repealing 910 and adding the other amendments, is that really going to make this bill tougher to pass?

It may be tougher, but I feel confident that at the end of the day we can prevail. The state’s current administration does not recognize tribes. I think that is apparent to a lot of senators, and as I lay that out more, I think they will be shocked. It’s the same administration that wanted to strip away voting protection rights for our tribes and the same administration that has battled against tribal subsistence. They just don’t support tribes.

I have to ask you about Carcieri again and the controversial 2009 Supreme Court decision that affected the Department of the Interior’s ability to place lands into trust for tribes. Since we last talked, you have cosponsored a clean Carcieri legislative fix that would recognize Interior’s ability to take lands into trust for all tribes, no matter when they came under federal jurisdiction. Give opposition to a clean fix by some Democrats including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), it seems clear that Republican support is going to be needed for it to pass. How likely is that?

Any time you can get a bipartisan bill, it’s a good thing. This is a complex issue. It needs to be a clean fix. I think if we can get some Republicans, it would be very positive. We need to resolve this and get it settled. For us to continue to leave this lingering, it is harming tribes throughout the country. I know Sen. Tester is going to work it to see what he can get.

Have you been surprised that Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, has been rather quiet on Carcieri?

It’s a little bit surprising, but I do think that now that the bill is out there, he knows that this is coming to a hearing, so he’s going to have commentary on it. That will help create the discussion we need. I think he has to figure out if there are other Republicans who will support this if he does. I don’t know what his thinking is, but as the vice-chair, I would expect him to have some commentary on it.

Do you work with Sen. Barrasso on various issues?

I do. I have worked with him on issues surrounding oil and gas. We just had a bill that I sponsored with him.

So you will be encouraging him to support a clean Carcieri fix?

Oh yes.

Finally, how did it feel to have that gavel in our hand when you co-chaired the recent hearing?

(laughs) It’s always a good feeling when you can manage the conversation on issues that you care a great deal about.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

With Interior Department Funding, Native American Tribe Could Soon Build A Billion-Dollar Wind Farm

By Katie Valentine, Think Progess

Twenty-one tribal energy and mineral projects just got a boost from the Department of Interior, including multiple projects to advance renewable energy on tribal land.

On Friday, the Interior Department announced the 21 tribal projects that would share in $3.2 million worth of federal grants. The projects include 13 proposals for renewable energy, including wind, hydropower and biomass. The recipients also include two oil and gas extraction projects and six projects focused on extracting limestone and other minerals.

“These grants are about strengthening self-determination and self-governance by enabling tribal nations to evaluate and promote their energy and mineral assets, negotiate the best agreements with partners or investors and develop these resources for the social and economic benefit of their communities,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a release

Not all of the tribes know how much money they’ll receive yet, but renewable projects accounted for the largest chunk of grant money at $1,972,350 for the 13 proposals. One of the tribes to receive grant money is the Crow Creek Sioux tribe in South Dakota, which has plans to build a billion-dollar wind farm. Crow Creek leaders hope the farm will provide free electricity to the 2,000 tribe members that live on the reservation and also generate electricity that the tribe could sell to nearby towns. If the tribe gets enough funding to build the project, leaders say it could produce enough energy to power 100,000 to 400,000 homes.

“We never hardly hear good news,” tribe Chairman Brandon Sazue told the Rapid City Journal of the tribe’s grant. “This was one of the greatest pieces of news I have heard since being chairman for Crow Creek.”

The tribe hopes to secure funding in time to start constructing the 150-160 turbine wind farm in early 2016.

Another initiative that secured Department of Interior funding is Montana’s Crow Tribe, which will receive $655,000 to build a hydroelectric facility at an existing dam on their reservation. That project would also provide power to reservation residents and would have the potential of supplying power outside of the reservation as well.

The grants are helping fund some projects that, if completed, would be one of only a few of their kind on tribal lands. There’s only one tribal-run wind farm in the U.S. so far — the Kumeyaay wind farm in California, which produces enough energy to power about 30,000 homes. The Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma is also working to build a 90-turbine wind farm, but that project hasn’t been completed yet. Government initiatives are looking to jump-start renewable energy on tribal land, however — in 2012 the Department of Energy gave away more than $6.5 million to 19 renewable energy projects on tribal lands, and in 2013 the DOE gave $7 million to nine tribes for wind, biomass and solar projects.

New McNary Dam Passage Gives High Hopes for Pacific Lamprey

U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceThe Pacific lamprey — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The Pacific lamprey

Indian Country Today Media Network

The Pacific lamprey, culturally significant to the Umatilla and other tribes, now has a shot at making it past the McNary Dam to spawn.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supplementing the fish ladder of the dam’s Oregon shore with an additional structure that offers water velocities more conducive to lamprey migration, the Union-Bulletin reported on March 8.

The structure would allow lampreys, which tend to move along the river bottom in water that flows more slowly than the upper levels preferred by spawning salmon and steelhead, to access the fish ladder and make it upstream, the Union-Bulletin said.

“We plan to conduct video monitoring to observe which velocity is preferred by migrating lampreys,” said Mark Smith, who managed the project for the Corps, to the newspaper. “We anticipate this prototype structure will help us learn quite a bit about what’s best for lamprey passage.”

Lampreys have been around for at least 450 million years, the oldest fish in the Columbia River system, according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC). Though not in danger of extinction, they have declined from a former high of millions 30 years ago to just about 4,000 returning to the Snake, Clearwater and Salmon river drainages where they once teemed, said Aaron Jackson, lamprey project leader for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, to the Union-Bulletin.

Tribes in the Pacific Northwest use the lamprey for food and medicine, and the fish plays a key role in regulating inland aquatic systems. They spend their first four to seven years of life acting as filters in freshwater sand and silt, then move to the ocean where they become parasites, latching onto various saltwater prey, the Union-Bulletin said. After two to three years of that they return to their freshwater origins to spawn.

The Army Corps of Engineers work group that helped design and engineer the structure included tribal representatives, the newspaper said. Built by Marine Industrial Construction of Wilsonville, Oregon under a $336,542 contract, was completed in late February and is the first such installation in the mid-Columbia River, the Union-Bulletin said.

“We’re excited to see something like this put in the river,” Jackson said.