Month: March 2015

Wyoming Lawmakers Approve Spending For Northwest Coal Ports

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead during a June 3, 2014 visit to the proposed site of the Bulk Millenium coal export terminal in Longview Washington.Cassandra Profita/OPB
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead during a June 3, 2014 visit to the proposed site of the Bulk Millenium coal export terminal in Longview Washington.
Cassandra Profita/OPB

 

By: Earthfix; source OPB

Wyoming lawmakers have passed legislation that would allow the state to finance the construction of coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere.

On Friday, Wyoming’s state legislature sent to Gov. Matt Mead a bill that would allow the state to issue up to $1 billion in bonds to help fund out-of-state projects, including coal export terminals.

Lloyd Drain, director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, said these projects would be good for Wyoming coal and the Northwest, too.

“If I’m looking at it with my Washington state or Oregon state hat on, I think there’s a lot more benefits to be had than any risk,” he said.  Wyoming plans to send a delegation to Pacific Northwest later this spring to lobby Native American tribes for support.

The Legislature’s vote is the latest in a series of steps by Wyoming politicians to push for the construction of export terminals hundreds of miles away on the West Coast. Last June Wyoming’s governor made a publicized trip to Washington to raise awareness of his state’s interest in moving its coal through the Northwest. Then in October, Mead invited tribes and city and county leaders from the Northwest to visit Wyoming to see the benefits of supporting the export of Wyoming coal coal through their states.

Coal export projects are proposed on Puget Sound near Bellingham, Washington, and on the Columbia River in Longview, Washington. A third, smaller terminal on the Oregon side of the Columbia was rejected last August by state regulators. That decision is being appealed.

The projects have had trouble with financing. In late 2014 Ambre Energy sold its interest in terminals in Oregon and Washington to a private equity firm in order to remain solvent.

This was first reported by Inside Energy, a reporting team based in energy boom states.

Statue of Chief Joseph Recommended for U.S. Capitol

  Chief-Joseph-Nez-Perce1-e1341872045622

Richard Walker, Indian Country Today

 

A state commission has recommended to legislators that statues of two pre-statehood figures representing Oregon in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall be replaced by statues of Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph and women’s rights advocate Abigail Scott Duniway.

If approved by Oregon’s legislature, Chief Joseph’s statue would be the eighth of an indigenous figure in the National Statuary Hall. The others:

Sequoyah (c. 1770-1840), creator of the Cherokee syllabary; given by Oklahoma in 1917.

William Penn Adair “Will” Rogers, Cherokee (1879-1935), entertainer and social commentator; given by Oklahoma in 1939.

Kamehameha I, king of Hawaii (1758-1819); given by Hawaii in 1969.

Chief Washakie (c. 1798-1900), Eastern Shoshone leader; given by Wyoming in 2000.

Sacagawea, Lemhi Shoshone (c. 1788-1812), guide and interpreter for the Lewis and Clark Expedition; given by North Dakota in 2003.

Sarah Winnemucca, Paiute (1844-1891), educator, author, and defender of her people’s rights; given by Nevada in 2005.

Po’pay, Tewa (c. 1630-c. 1688), leader of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt against Spanish colonial rule; given by New Mexico in 2005.

Sequoyah’s statue was the first representing a Native American to be placed in Statuary Hall. Kamehameha’s statue, at 9 feet 10 inches tall on a 3-foot-6-inch granite base, is the largest and heaviest in Statuary Hall. The statue of Po’pay is the first in Statuary Hall by a Native American artist, Cliff Fragua, Jemez Pueblo. Gov. John Kitzhaber, Dr. John McLoughlin, Rev. Jason Lee,

Since 2003, seven states have replaced statues with those representing figures they feel better represent their history or contributions to humankind. In August 2014, then-Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber established the Statuary Hall Study Commission to determine whether Oregon’s statues of pre-statehood leaders Dr. John McLoughlin (1784-1857) and Rev. Jason Lee (1803-1845) should remain or be replaced by other notable Oregonians.

Commission chairman Jerry Hudson notified Kitzhaber and legislative leaders on January 26 that the commission had unanimously agreed to recommend the statues of McLoughlin, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s superintendent at Fort Vancouver, and Lee, missionary and founder of Willamette University, be returned to “places of honor” in Oregon and that “two equally worthy individuals who represent different chapters in Oregon’s history” be installed in National Statuary Hall, according to the commission’s website.

On March 4, the commission made the recommendation formal with a vote. According to KGW.com, Chief Joseph received seven votes from the nine-member commission, Duniway received six.

Jim Boyd is chairman of the Confederate Tribes of the Colville Reservation, where descendants of Chief Joseph’s Wallowa band are enrolled today.

“The statue of Chief Joseph at Statuary Hall in D.C. will be a great honor to Chief Joseph and to all those who have been left a legacy that has helped mold who we are today as very proud Indian people,” Boyd said.

“He stood strong and fought hard for his people and territory in a way that will always be remembered, and will continue to inspire and guide what will be for generations to come. It is a great thing that the state of Oregon is initiating this legislation.”

According to a state biography, Chief Joseph, or Heinmot Tooyalakekt (Thunder Rising to Loftier Mountain Heights), was born in 1840 in the Wallowa Valley of eastern Oregon. His father, Tuekakas, was the leader of the largest of independent Nimiipuu, or Nez Perce, bands living in Oregon, central Idaho, and southeastern Washington. Heinmot Tooyalakekt became leader in 1871 upon his father’s death.

Heinmot Tooyalakekt’s band never agreed to an 1863 treaty that surrendered 90 percent of Nimiipuu lands, and resisted the federal government’s order to abandon their ancestral lands and move onto a small reservation.

According to the biography: “In meetings and councils from 1874 to 1877 with army officers, Indian agents, and a delegation from Washington, D.C., [Heinmot Tooyalakekt] argued persistently that the resistant Nez Perce bands were not bound by the 1863 treaty. As a follower of the Dreamer religion of the Columbia Plateau, he pleaded as well that his people were intimately bound to their homeland and could never leave it, and that to become farmers, as the government insisted, would violate the Earth Mother.”

In spring 1877, Gen. Oliver O. Howard, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific Northwest, insisted that all resisting bands report to the reservation within a month. (According to another bio, this forced removal violated the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla, in which the Nez Perce reserved 7.5 million acres of their ancestral lands and the right to hunt and fish in their usual and accustomed territory.) Howard’s order resulted in the Nez Perce War of June to October 1877.

Heinmot Tooyalakekt and other Nimiipuu were captured 40 miles from the U.S.-Canada border. It was here, at the base of the Bear’s Paw Mountains near present-day Chinook, Montana, that Heinmot Tooyalakekt made his brief speech of surrender that reportedly ended with, “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

According to the state’s biography, Heinmot Tooyalakekt “was never a war leader. He was, rather, a diplomat and a negotiator, and he made his greatest contribution in that role after the war.” The U.S. exiled the Nimiipuu to Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. For eight years, Heinmot Tooyalakekt campaigned for his people’s return to the Pacific Northwest. He spoke with the press, politicians and President Rutherford B. Hayes about the injustices committed against his people.

Finally, in 1885, the Nimiipuu were allowed to return to reservations in Idaho and Washington, but not to eastern Oregon. Heinmot Tooyalakekt visited, but never again lived in, the Wallowa Valley.

Heinmot Tooyalakekt, Chief Joseph, died in his home on the Colville Reservation on September 21, 1904. His grave, marked by a large monument, is in Nespelem on the reservation.

First statue placed in 1870

According to the Architect of the U.S. Capitol: National Statuary Hall, located south of the Rotunda, was the meeting place of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1807 to 1857.

In 1864, in accordance with legislation sponsored by Rep. Justin Morrill of Vermont, Congress invited each state to contribute two statues of prominent citizens for permanent display in the room, which was renamed National Statuary Hall. The first statue was placed in 1870.

“Today, National Statuary Hall is one of the most popular rooms in the U.S. Capitol Building,” according to the Architect’s website, “It is visited by thousands of tourists each day and continues to be used for ceremonial occasions. Special events held in the room include activities honoring foreign dignitaries and presidential luncheons.”

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/03/07/statue-chief-joseph-recommended-us-capitol-159499

Northwest Residents, With Wood To Burn, Among Top Polluters

KEITH RIDLER, Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Oregon, Idaho, and Washington residents are among the top polluters in the nation when it comes to fine particle emissions from burning wood to heat homes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists Oregon, Idaho and Washington as seventh, eighth and ninth respectively in per capita emissions.

The three states share chilly climates, a tradition of wood burning, and lots of national forest land with easy access and where U.S. Forest Service managers appreciate the removing of some trees to reduce potential forest fires.

“We have a very large fuel wood cutting program and a large public that takes advantage of it,” said Julie Thomas, spokeswoman for the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho. “For a lot of folks, it helps them reduce the cost of purchasing heat in the wintertime.”

Wood burning is also popular in Oregon, where that state’s Department of Environmental Quality found that a third of residents in the densely populated Portland region burn wood.

Marcia Danab, an agency spokeswoman, said southeast Portland as well as some other areas of the state that experience inversions have problems with wood smoke. Health agencies issue alerts when it’s unhealthy to be outside.

To alleviate the problem the state, she said, in 2009 enacted a law requiring uncertified woodstoves to be removed and destroyed when a home is sold.

“The newer stoves that conform to EPA standards put out far less particulates,” Danab said.

That’s the kind that a Washington state company called Rich’s For The Home sells at its five store locations in that state.

Beth Urban, an assistant manager at the company’s Lynnwood store, said the state has some of the strictest standards for wood stove emissions. To meet those standards, the new stoves use what Urban called secondary reburns that eliminate many of the particles.

She also said the stoves, while more expensive, in the long run save money because they’re more efficient, some models using half the wood to produce the same amount of heat as older stoves.

The stoves come in various materials, with soapstone being the most expensive. Urban said prices range from $3,000 to $4,000 for a soapstone stove, but they are also among the most attractive and effective at distributing heat.

“It cuts your consumption down quite a bit,” she said. “The newer wood stoves, you can load up the fire boxes to last six, eight, sometimes 10 hours. Nobody likes to babysit a wood stove.”

Washington Tribe’s Whale Hunt Proposal Gets First Look From Regulators

A gray whale breaching in the Pacific Ocean.Courtesey of NOAA
A gray whale breaching in the Pacific Ocean.
Courtesey of NOAA

 

by David Steves OPB

 

Washington’s Makah Indian tribe wants to resume its traditional practice of whale hunting.

The first step in winning federal approval came Friday, when NOAA Fisheries issued a draft environmental impact statement analyzing the tribe’s request.

The Makah tribe drew international criticism from animal rights groups in 1999 when it hunted a gray whale off Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. It was the tribe’s first whale hunt in more than 70 years.

The Makah have cited the ceremonial and subsistence nature of whale hunting, which it negotiated as a right preserved under its 1855 treaty with the U.S. government.

On their website the Makah tribe says whaling and whales are central to their culture.

“The event of a whale hunt requires rituals and ceremonies which are deeply spiritual. Makah whaling (is) the subject and inspiration of Tribal songs, dances, designs, and basketry.” the tribe says. “For the Makah Tribe, whale hunting provides a purpose and a discipline which benefits their entire community.”

The Makah are seeking to hunt gray whales from the eastern North Pacific stock, which is fully recovered from the impact of historic whaling in the Pacific. The gray whale was removed from the list of threatened and endangered species in 1994. The eastern North Pacific population is estimated to number about 20,000 whales.

NOAA Fisheries has proposed several options. One would allow the tribe to take up to five whales per year. Another would continue a prohibition against hunting gray whales.

“This is the first step in a public process of considering this request that could eventually lead to authorization for the tribe to hunt gray whales,” said Donna Darm, associate deputy regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region. “This is the public’s opportunity to look at the alternatives we’ve developed, and let us know if we have fully and completely analyzed the impacts.”

The draft analysis and additional information is available online. The public can submit comments over the next 90 days.

Our Plants Are Our Medicine

 Hibulb’s Rediscovery Program offers new gardening class to connect Tulalip’s ancestors

 

native_planta_front_graphic

 

By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News 

The Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve’s Rediscovery Program is offering Tulalip tribal members an exciting new class to reconnect with their traditional culture. The class is part of a series of classes entitled ‘Native Plants and Medicinal Herbs’ that will be ongoing during the traditional harvesting season, early spring to late fall. The series of classes will focus on teaching tribal members how to collect, garden, harvest, and process native plants and herbs that are indigenous to the Tulalip region. The first of a full series of native plant gardening classes will take place Sunday, March 15, starting promptly at 9:00 a.m. and ending at 4:00 p.m., at the Center’s facility classroom.

“Our plants are our medicine. They nourish our bodies and feed our spirit,” says Inez Bill, Rediscovery Coordinator. “We want to see our people gardening and harvesting the plants and herbs that our people have used historically. So we are starting this brand new series of classes that will help pass on the values and teachings of our ancestors. Hopefully, by taking the classes, our people will begin to use these plants at their homes and grow them in their gardens for their own use.”

Over the past four years, the Rediscovery Program has hosted its ‘Gardening Together as Families’ classes that emphasized teaching our tribal membership how to grow their own organic vegetable gardens. The Rediscovery Program staff think that the time is right to shift from a general theme of organic vegetables to one that specifically tailors to the traditional gardening customs of our Tulalip ancestors. By reintroducing the Tulalip people to native plants and herbs that were once used by our ancestors for generations.

“We’ve been doing the ‘Gardening Together as Families’ classes for four years now. That was an opportunity for people to come get hands-on experience growing their own organic vegetables. Now, we are able to shift the theme of our gardening classes to accommodate the needs of our people,” explains Rediscovery staff member Virginia Jones. “We want to give the people an opportunity to learn about the uses of Tulalip native plants and to grow them at their own homes.”

Throughout this new series of native plant gardening classes, there will be a primary focus of working with and getting familiar with the many uses of five major native plants; the stinging nettle, fireweed, giant horsetail, the Nootka Rose, and mountain huckleberry. There will be other native plants worked with as well, to supplement the uses and knowledge that come from working with the five major native plants.

“These plants we will be working with are all traditional food sources. They are something that are ancestors would have had, and so we are really fortunate to have them still available to us,” says Jones. “Today these foods are no longer a part of our everyday diets. We are trying to reintroduce these native plants back into the diets of our people. We want to reach our people on that level because these plants were used as foods that healed us and kept our bodies full of all different types of nutrients that our bodies needed.”

To participate in the first class in this new series, to be held March 15, the Rediscovery Program staff ask that you please RSVP ahead of time by calling Virginia Jones at (360) 716-2635 and leave a brief message with your name and how many family members will be attending with you. The initial class will be accepting 20 tribal member participants, so RSVP your spot as soon as possible.

Also, all those who will be participating in the native plant gardening class should remember to bring garden gloves and paper bags.

“Working with native plants is our culture,” says Bill. “It’s a delicate balance of going out and being with nature, gathering plants in prayer and working with them in a respectful way. We are one with nature at this time.”

 

Contact: Micheal Rios, mrios@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

What a Record-Low Snowpack Means For Summer In The Northwest

Scott Pattee, a water supply specialist with the National Resources Conservation Service, checks snow levels at Stevens Pass ski resort in Washington's Cascade Mountains. Ashley Ahearn/KUOW
Scott Pattee, a water supply specialist with the National Resources Conservation Service, checks snow levels at Stevens Pass ski resort in Washington’s Cascade Mountains.
Ashley Ahearn/KUOW

 

by Ashley Ahearn KUOW

 

Scott Pattee stands well over 6 feet, but he’s dwarfed by the tall white tube set up near the Stevens Pass Ski Area to measure snow depth.

Little black numbers marking inches of snow ascend the side of the tube. The top number reads 250 inches, an amount of snow that’s hard to imagine right now.

Most of the mountains around Pattee are green and brown, not white – even though it’s officially still winter until March 19 arrives.

And the snow depth, according to the tower?

“We have about 30 inches,” said Pattee, a water supply specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “Normally we would have closer to 150 this time of year. It’s not good.”

Actually, it’s really bad. Record-breaking bad.

Pattee has been monitoring snow levels in Washington for more than 20 years. The data he gathers helps scientist study climate trends, farmers plan their growing seasons, hydropower operators manage their reservoirs and municipalities provide water to citizens.

This year is on track to be one of the lowest snow years on record. Across Washington state, average snowpack is 71 percent below normal levels. In some places, including the Olympic Peninsula, snowpack is 90 percent below normal levels.

Things are looking even worse in Oregon. Statewide, average snowpack is 76 percent below normal levels.

“One of our longest-monitored sites, near Bend, has the lowest snowpack ever recorded, breaking the 1977 record,” said Julie Koeberle, a hydrologist in Oregon with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The Bend site has been monitored since the early 1950s.

“All eyes will be pointing on southern and southeastern Oregon if things don’t improve,” Koeberle said. Some of the lowest snow levels can be found in those areas, where water scarcity has created drought conditions in recent years.

However, despite dire warnings about low snowpack, things aren’t looking desperate, yet on all fronts. That’s because the Northwest is seeing normal or above-average amounts of overall precipitation, it’s just coming as rain instead of snow.

“The snowpack is bad but the overall conditions aren’t that horrible. It’s above normal precipitation all over the state, and so we’re in pretty good shape there for now,” Pattee said, adding that the region could see drought later in the summer.

The Bonneville Power Administration manages 31 federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers and provides one-third of the electricity consumed in the Northwest. Mike Hanson, spokesman for BPA, said things are looking normal.

“We’re doing just fine at the moment,” Hanson said, adding that the reservoirs above the dams are at normal levels. The Columbia River’s headwaters are in the Canadian Rockies, which are seeing normal snow levels this year.

“When we’re looking out our windows here and it seems very little snow, mild winter, conditions up at ski resorts are horrible, but that’s not really an indication of the total picture,” Hanson said. “Right now it looks like all systems are running normally and we are closely watching what is happening out there. We feel OK with where we’re at.”

The City of Seattle gets its water supply from the Tolt and Cedar rivers east of the city. Reservoirs managed by Seattle Public Utilities are currently above normal, and it plans to keep them full, even as it anticipates a warm dry spring with little additional rainfall.

“We don’t need snow to have a good water supply as long as it rains, which it has been,” said James Rufo-Hill, meteorologist and climate adaptation specialist with Seattle Public Utilities. “We’ll hold a little more water in our reservoirs and constantly manage that flow. We can meet demands throughout the summer.”

Resource managers, hydropower operators and others have referred to the snow levels and warm temperatures this year as “anomalous.” Amy Snover, director of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington, agrees, but she said it’s an anomaly worth noting.

“It’s a really useful year in the sense that this is the kind of year that all the climate models tell us to expect,” Snover said. “The future looks like this. The future looks like less snow because of warmer temperatures but not necessarily less precipitation.”

Snover said water managers and hydropower operators need to be nimble.

“In many cases, the water managers who are paying attention to conditions can change the way they manage their systems and catch that water as it’s going down the river because it fell as rain instead of snow,”  she said.

But for other basins or municipalities that are heavily reliant on surface water, without reservoirs to store it, the lack of snow this year presents a challenge. Places like Sequim and Port Townsend on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula are heavily reliant on rivers that are largely fed by snowpack from the Olympic Mountains, which are at record-setting low snow levels.

In drier parts of the region, meeting irrigation demands for agriculture could also prove challenging later on in the summer and early fall.

Pattee with the Natural Resources Conservation Service also cautioned that the wet, warm spring has started an early growing season, which could provide more fuel for wildfires later on in the dry season. For now he said the biggest impacts of low snow levels this year will be felt by recreationists and fish.

Without the strong pulse of cold snow melt, some Northwestern rivers could prove less hospitable to spawning salmon and their out-migrating young, Pattee said.

Regional water managers  will brief  Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on the snow situation early next week. Pattee said it’s too early to say if a drought declaration is in order but it is a concern.

“We’re going to have to sleep with one eye open this spring and summer and really keep a close eye on conditions and see which way the wind blows,” he said.

Tribal Governments Able to Take Criminal Action on Non-Indians

vawa_mostimportantworkslider

 

By National Congress of American Indians

 

Washington, DC- On March 7, 2015, Tribal governments may elect to begin exercising jurisdiction over non-Indians who commit crimes of domestic violence, dating violence, or violate a protection order against a Native victim on tribal lands.

“This is a major step forward to protect the safety of Native people, and we thank all Members of Congress for passing the Violence Against Women Act of 2013 and recognizing tribal authority,” said Brian Cladoosby, President of the National Congress of American Indians and Chairman of the Swinomish Tribe.

So far three Tribes, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and the Tulalip Tribes have been able to exercise jurisdiction over non-Indians under a Pilot Projectsince February 6, 2014. To date the Tribes have charged a total of 26 Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction cases.

“I want to encourage all tribal governments to get this law on their books,” said Juana Majel, Chair of the NCAI Task Force on Violence Against Women. “The main goal is deterrence of domestic violence. On most reservations there are a handful of bad actors who have figured out how to slip between jurisdictional boundaries.  They need to get the message.  If they continue to assault our women we will prosecute and put them in jail.”

Violence against Native women has reached epidemic proportions. The root cause is a justice system that forced tribal governments to rely on distant federal — and in some cases, state —officials to investigate and prosecute misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence committed by non-Indians against Native women. However, outside law enforcement has proven ineffective in addressing misdemeanor level reservation-based domestic violence. The Justice Department has found that when non-Indian cases of domestic violence go uninvestigated and unpunished, offenders’ violence escalates. The 2013 VAWA Reauthorization authorizes tribal governments to investigate and prosecute all crimes of domestic and dating violence regardless of the race of the offender.

Tribes choosing to exercise Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction must provide the same rights guaranteed under the Constitution as in state court.  This includes the appointment of attorneys for indigent defendants and a jury drawn from the entire reservation community.  “Many tribal courts are already providing these protections to defendants, and it isn’t a big step to provide indigent counsel to all.   Just like county courts, tribal courts can contract for public defenders on a case-by-case basis,” encouraged President Cladoosby.

Key Statistics:

For an overview on tribal VAWA, and more information please see: http://www.ncai.org/tribal-vawa.  The Tribal Law & Policy Institute has developed a Legal Code Resource for implementation at www.TLPI.org.

Northwest Indian College builds Lummi workforce, values tradition

 

BY TIM BALLEW II, Courtesy to The Bellingham Herald

 

For thousands of years, along the shorelines of the Salish Sea, the Lummi people have dug deep into the earth to harvest clams, oysters and mussels. We have set our reef nets between our canoes to catch salmon from the Salish Sea. For many of us, our most important education has been alongside our elders at the beach or on the water, learning firsthand by doing, and doing again, to understand the ways of our people and the history of our tribe.

But even as we hold fast to traditions, we’ve also embraced changing times, new technology and the advanced training that’s needed to support a productive shellfish harvest. What we’ve learned through the years is that a skilled workforce — and a bountiful harvest — are possible if we make the right investments in training and education.

In 1973, our tribe established the Lummi School of Aquaculture as a way to train a new generation of native technicians to staff the growing number of Indian-owned fish and shellfish hatcheries in the U.S. and Canada. From this single-purpose school, a foundation was built for what later became the Lummi Community College that gave Pacific Northwest natives the opportunity to earn an associate’s degree. In 1989, in recognition of the changing and growing needs of students, the community college became Northwest Indian College.

Today, the four-year college provides a high-quality post-secondary education for 1,064 students at our main campus on the Lummi reservation, plus six satellite campuses in Washington and Idaho. We offer bachelor and associate degrees, plus certificate programs in areas that include environmental science, tribal governance, native studies, hospitality and construction.

At the heart of the Northwest Indian College is the understanding that as native people, we must provide for all levels of learning within our own community. According to the American Indian College Fund, fewer than 13 percent of American Indian and Alaska native students earn a college degree, compared to 28 percent of other racial groups. The reasons for this are complex, ranging from poverty and low rates of high school graduation, to students’ perceptions that college is out of reach academically, too far from home, or not aligned with their values and culture. One answer to this challenge is to provide an education for native students on the reservation, where they can have the support of their community and the comforts of home.

At Lummi Nation, we know we have a responsibility to build our workforce and provide an education that is steeped in the values of our traditions and history. As a member of the larger community of Whatcom County and the Pacific Northwest, we’re also pleased to provide a degree to all students, regardless of whether they’re tribal members. We’ve done this, in part, by partnering with Western Washington University and Washington State University to provide an even broader learning experience for our students.

Our strong focus on education is why we’ve been able to grow a small school for hatchery technicians into a college that serves more than 1,000 people looking to further their education and careers. I would love to see the day when the college becomes Salish Sea University, flying a flag printed with the Lummi-invented reef net, where students from across the nation and world come to learn.

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/03/04/4163046_northwest-indian-college-builds.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

 

Chippewa Cree tribal chair ousted again

This April 17, 2013 photo shows Kenneth Blatt St. Marks at his home in Box Elder. St. Marks, the former chairman of the Chippewa Cree tribe, is participating in a federal investigation into corruption on the reservation that includes money missing from a $361 million pipeline project to bring fresh drinking water to the reservation. Matt Volz/Associated Press
This April 17, 2013 photo shows Kenneth Blatt St. Marks at his home in Box Elder. St. Marks, the former chairman of the Chippewa Cree tribe, is participating in a federal investigation into corruption on the reservation that includes money missing from a $361 million pipeline project to bring fresh drinking water to the reservation. Matt Volz/Associated Press

By The Associated Press

GREAT FALLS (AP) — The executive body of the Rocky Boy’s Chippewa Cree tribes in north-central Montana voted Monday to expel chairman Ken Blatt St. Marks for the third time.

The Great Falls Tribune reported that in an opinion issued Monday, the Chippewa Cree Business Committee said they found St. Marks has “committed gross misconduct and neglected his duty.”

The on-again, off-again chairman was first elected chair of the committee in 2012 and since that time has been ousted by the committee on two other occasions after theft, fraud, sexual harassment and other allegations. St. Marks has been reinstated after lengthy court battles and re-elections. He was most recently elected by voters again in February.

St. Marks has never been officially charged in tribal, state or federal court based on allegations in the committee’s opinion. He has said the committee’s actions are in retaliation for his cooperation with federal authorities investigating corruption.

The U.S. Interior Department ruled to that effect in December, saying the Chippewa Cree Business Committee violated federal whistleblower laws when it terminated St. Marks as its chairman in March 2013. The department determined there was sufficient evidence to indicate St. Marks was removed by the tribal council at the time because he was cooperating with a federal corruption investigation on the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.

About a dozen people have been convicted or pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges over the awarding of construction contracts and kickbacks paid to tribal officials.

In this week’s dismissal, the Chippewa Cree Business Committee said St. Marks has defrauded the tribe of more than $2.3 million in fraudulent charges and shoddy or incomplete work performed by his construction company, Arrow Enterprises. St. Marks is also charged with attempting to improperly “freeze” tribal bank accounts and with interfering with an ongoing bankruptcy proceeding.

“They just keep on making up lies, they keep on saying I stole money and I keep on telling them the same thing — ‘Go get me indicted,'” St. Marks told the Tribune on Tuesday. “I’ve never went through the tribal court on these charges. The courts have never, ever charged me with anything. It’s the tribal council that keeps acting like judge, jury and executioner.”

The most recent termination of St. Marks means the reservation will need to schedule the fourth election since November 2012.