Click on the link below to download the August 6, 2014 Tulalip See-Yaht-Sub Issue
Author: Kim Kalliber
86 family members disenrolled from Oregon tribe
By: Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – An Oregon woman says 86 members of her family have been disenrolled from an American Indian tribe that operates the state’s largest tribal casino, as leaders review the tribe’s rolls and enforce new membership requirements.
Family spokeswoman Mia Prickett said she’s shocked about being stripped of membership from the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, since one of the family’s ancestors was a chief who signed an 1855 treaty that helped establish the tribe.
The council that governs the 5,000-member tribe had been considering disenrolling the family for nearly a year, saying they no longer satisfy enrollment rules.
The decision to remove the family was made after the council earlier this month changed the enrollment ordinance via “emergency amendments.” The amendments gave the authority to make decisions on disenrollment to an enrollment committee, which is an administrative body, and removed the council from the process.
Grand Ronde’s Stacia Martin, executive coordinator for the Tribal Council, declined to confirm the number of people removed or the exact reasons, citing the “confidential nature” of enrollment proceedings.
Those removed lose health care and housing benefits, educational assistance and about $3,000 annually in casino profits, among other benefits.
The contentious removal is part of what some experts have dubbed the “disenrollment epidemic” – a rising number of dramatic clashes over tribal belonging that are sweeping through the U.S.
These tribal expulsions, which started in the 1990s along with the establishment of Indian casinos, have increased in numbers just as gambling revenues skyrocketed. Critics say the disenrollments are also used as a way to settle political infighting and old family and personal feuds.
Most tribes base their membership criteria on blood quantum or on descent from someone named on a tribe’s census rolls or treaty records.
Grand Ronde officials previously said the tribe’s membership pushed for an enrollment audit, with the goal of strengthening the tribe’s “family tree.” They did not say how many people were tabbed for disenrollment.
Prickett says her ancestor chief Tumulth was unjustly accused of participating in a revolt and was executed by the U.S. Army – and hence didn’t make it onto the tribe’s roll, which is now a membership requirement.
“This is morally and ethically reprehensible,” Prickett said of the disenrollment.
The family can appeal the decision to the Tribal Court and the Tribal Court of Appeals.
At this year’s big climate rally, most of the people won’t be pale, male, and stale
By Ben Adler, Grist
More than 500 organizations are planning a historic event for Sept. 21 in New York City, what they say will be the largest rally for climate action ever. Organizers and ralliers will be calling on world leaders to craft a new international climate treaty, two days before those leaders will convene at a Climate Summit at the United Nations headquarters. Jamie Henn, spokesperson for 350.org, the main convener of the event, declined to offer a precise target for turnout, but the current holder of the largest-climate-rally title, a February 2012 march on the White House, drew around 50,000 people, so organizers are expecting more than that — possibly significantly more.
However many people show up, though, this march will likely be historic for another reason: its diversity and its focus on climate justice. More than 20 labor unions are among the organizations leading in the planning and turnout efforts. On Wednesday morning, representatives of a handful of them gathered in the Midtown Manhattan office of 1199, the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), for a press conference, and then they were joined in Times Square by more unions for a small pep rally to promote the September event. Other groups present included locals from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York (TWU), and local social- and environmental-justice organizations such as UPROSE and the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance.
These locals are larger than they sound. 1199 and 32BJ, another union also affiliated with SEIU, cover multiple large East Coast states including New York, Massachusetts, and Florida. 1199 alone has more than 400,000 members. And they are diverse — 1199 represents health care workers such as nurses, and 32BJ represents custodial workers. These are not like the overwhelmingly white male unions in the construction trades. They are predominantly non-white and largely made up of women. This includes their top leadership, and their representatives at Wednesday’s event.
Speakers at the press conference and the rally focused on the ways low- and middle-income New Yorkers like their members are affected by climate change. Hurricane Sandy loomed large. In the storm’s aftermath, hospital and transportation workers were tasked with trying to save lives and get the city running amid flooded infrastructure and prolonged blackouts. For people who care about being able to provide reliable transportation and health care, the threat of more frequent superstorms, heat waves, and floods is alarming. And the flooding of waterfront industrial districts like the South Bronx and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park caused major disruption for private sector blue-collar workers and nearby working class neighborhoods.
Many of the union members live in public housing, which is often located in waterfront neighborhoods like the Lower East Side, Red Hook, and Far Rockaway. Those low-lying projects were among the worst-hit areas during Sandy. “Twenty percent of public housing in New York City was affected by Sandy,” said Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. “It’s about community health, it’s about jobs, and it’s about justice.”
The unions also see moving to a sustainable clean energy economy, instead of one based on extracting fossil fuels, as a matter of economic self-interest. 1199, unlike some construction unions, opposes approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline because, says spokesperson Chelsea-Lyn Rudder, “We want long-term jobs, not the short-term jobs that Keystone might create.” Cutting down on auto emissions and oil consumption by expanding mass transit, instead of building an oil pipeline, would create permanent jobs driving buses and trains. “Mass transit is green jobs,” noted LaTonya Crisp-Sauray, an official from the TWU.
The concerns for these communities go beyond extreme weather events like Sandy. A custodian from the Bronx who gave her name only as Mary, and was there on behalf of 32BJ, pointed out that asthma could be worsened by climate change, and it is already an epidemic in heavily polluted, lower-income communities like the Bronx. “The Bronx has a 20 percent childhood asthma rate, one of the highest rates in the nation,” she said. “[Combatting climate change] is about saving lives.”
At the little pep rally in Times Square, the group of about 100 was filled with union members sporting their locals’ T-shirts and waving their banners. Even the United Auto Workers had a few members present. And the social-justice groups brought out everyone from older women to teenagers.
The result was a remarkable sight. Here was a rally for addressing climate change — an issue so often dismissed by conservatives as of interest only to out-of-touch affluent elites like Hollywood actors and former vice presidents — where both the speakers and the crowd were mostly black and Latino. These were members of the most affected communities — including Roberto Borrero from the International Indian Treaty Council, which works for indigenous rights throughout the Americas — talking about how the issue affects them.
The environmental movement is often criticized for being mostly white, male, wealthy, and college-educated. As Grist’s Brentin Mock just noted, it is the leaders of environmental organizations who come from that demographic, even though the neighborhoods with the worst pollution are disproportionately low-income and non-white. Sure enough, some of the only white male speakers at Wednesday’s event were the ones from environmental organizations. But at least they recognize the importance of communities of color and blue-collar workers in the movement, and they have successfully partnered with civil-rights, social-justice, and labor organizations.
The images from the march on Sept. 21 probably won’t conform to the snarky stereotypes about Vermont liberals wearing Birkenstocks and driving Volvos. Of course, inconvenient truths have never stopped conservatives from casting unfair aspersions. But even if those conservatives won’t admit it, the movement is diversifying.
Victims of Brutal Joy Killing Had Come Looking for Work
The two Navajo men murdered July 19 in Albuquerque were homeless only when they were in the city.
Kee Thompson and Allison Gorman, who were beaten to death with cinder blocks while they slept on a mattress in an open field, had homes on the Navajo Nation, said Mary Garcia, executive director of the Albuquerque Indian Center. Although their individual circumstances varied, both men left those homes in search of other lives and instead found themselves living on the streets of New Mexico’s largest city.
RELATED: Teens Murder for Fun; Smash Heads of Homeless Men With Cinder Blocks
“They leave the reservation for better opportunities,” Garcia said. “But once they get here, the opportunities aren’t here because of lack of training or lack of transportation. Then the bad things start happening.”
Both men sought services at the Indian Center, which offers hot meals, counseling, phone and computer services and referrals. Staff at the Indian Center helped identify the men, who were beaten so badly they were unrecognizable.
Gorman, 44, had a card in his pocket listing his mailing address at the Indian Center, Garcia said. “That was the only thing on his body that could identify who he was,” she said.
In the days following the murders, details about who the men were have trickled in. Gorman, of Shiprock, New Mexico, moved to Albuquerque earlier this year looking for work. When he couldn’t find a place to live, he ended up on the streets, his sister, Alberta Gorman, told reporters.
“We are all in shock and we just can’t make sense of all this that has happened,” Alberta Gorman told a KOB-TV reporter. “My brother Allison was a son, a brother, a father, an uncle and a grandfather, and he was a very kind, loving man.”
Gordon Yawakia, prevention coordinator at the Albuquerque Indian Center, remembers Gorman as a “big, tall guy” who dressed in Levi’s, boots and a cowboy hat.
“He was a regular, down-to-earth cowboy,” Yawakia said. “With a backpack on, he reminded me of the Marlboro man.”
Gorman last visited the Indian Center on May 5. According to sign-in records, he was there at 9:30 a.m. and again at 1:30 p.m. He kept a mailbox at the center, saying he wanted a “place to call home,” Yawakia said.
Thompson, who was either 45 or 46, left his home in Church Rock, New Mexico, in 2005. His family said he moved to Albuquerque after his 19-year-old nephew died of a heart condition.
Thompson’s aunt, Louise Yazzie, told reporters she raised him after his mother died.
“He’s the only son I have,” she said. “I told him, ‘I want you to stay here with us.’”
Thompson returned home periodically, Yazzie told a KOB-TV reporter. But he always returned to his street family.
Although Garcia hadn’t seen Thompson at the Indian Center for several years, she remembers he was always well-dressed and had his hair neatly trimmed.
“He always had a real good-looking hairstyle,” she said. “The reason I found it interesting is because he didn’t look like a street person.”
And really, he didn’t belong on the street, Garcia said.
“A lot of the guys who come here are homeless, but only in the city,” she said. “They have homes on the reservation.”
Police arrested three teenagers in connection with the murders. Alex Rios, 18, Nathaniel Carrillo, 16, and Gilbert Tafoya, 15, each are charged with two open counts of murder, tampering with evidence, three counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and robbery. Bail was set at $5 million for each of them.
The Albuquerque Indian Center organized a peaceful march last Friday to memorialize the two men and call on city and state officials to step up. About 200 people participated in the march, Garcia said.
“I always like to make the point that because the people are homeless, that doesn’t mean they have to be treated with less respect,” she said. “What happened to these men is beyond comprehension and no one should have to go through that.”
Alex Rios, 18, Nathaniel Carillo, 16, and Gilbert Tafoya, 15, are suspects in the brutal deaths of two homeless Navajo men in Albuquerque on July 21. (Courtesy Albuquerque Police Department)
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/07/30/victims-brutal-joy-killing-had-come-looking-work-156119
Tulalip Hosts National Night Out, Aug 5
For Rare Languages, Social Media Provide New Hope
by Lydia Emmanouilidou, NPR
At a time when social media users, , are trading in fully formed words for abbreviations (“defs” instead of “definitely”), it may seem that some languages are under threat of deterioration — literally.
But social media may actually be beneficial for languages.
Of the estimated that are spoken around the world, UNESCO projects half will disappear by the end of the century. But social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are in a position to revitalize and preserve indigenous, minority and endangered languages, linguists and language-preservation activists say.
Facebook is available in over 70 languages, ranging from Ancient Greek to French. Facebook
One of the reasons some indigenous languages are endangered is that increased connectivity through the Internet and social media have strengthened dominant languages such as English, Russian and Chinese, says Anna Luisa Daigneault of the .
Endangered languages stand a greater chance of survival when they are used online.
“Having a Web presence for those languages is super important for their survival. Social media are just another connection point for people who want to stay connected to their language,” says Daigneault, Latin America projects coordinator and development officer at the institute.
Today, Facebook — the world’s most popular social networking site — is available in . The list includes indigenous languages like Cherokee and Quechua. This year, Facebook says it launched 13 news languages, including Azerbaijani, Javanese, Macedonian, Galician and Sinhala.
Facebook through the website; if there is enough demand, the language will then appear in the and the Facebook community can begin translating the interface.
, a community of 16 volunteers in Bolivia, is working on translating the Facebook interface in Aymara, one of the three official languages in Bolivia.
An Aymara woman prepares to take part in a pageant in La Paz, Bolivia, in 2013. Jaqi-Aru, a community of volunteers is working on translating the Facebook interface in the indigenous language of Aymara. Juan Karita/AP
Elias Quispe Chura, the group’s Facebook translation manager, says the effort involves young Aymara people from different Bolivian provinces. “We promote use of our mother tongue on the Internet through translation projects and content creation,” he says. “With that, we want to contribute and enrich the content of our language in cyberspace.”
He says Aymara native speakers in Peru, Chile, and Argentina are waiting anxiously to see their language as an option on Facebook. The group started the project in 2012 and is more than halfway done translating 24,000 words, phrases and sentences.
But the task hasn’t been free of challenges.
“There are many words that there aren’t in Aymara, for example: mobile phone — ‘jawsaña,’ password — ‘chimpu,’ message — ‘apaya,’ event — ‘wakichäwi,’ journalist — ‘yatiyiri,’ user — ‘apnaqiri’ and so on,” Chura says. “In some cases, we had to create new words taking into account the context, the situation, function and their meanings. And in others, we had to go to the .”
Facebook provides some support to the volunteer translators, offering stylistic guidelines on its page.
The website can be used to revitalize and preserve indigenous, minority and endangered languages in more ways than one.
Pamela Munro, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has created a to post words, phrases and songs in Tongva, a language formerly spoken in the Los Angeles area.
Munro, a consultant to the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, says the language hasn’t been spoken by a native speaker in about 50 years. She hopes to reach people who are interested in learning about the language through the Facebook page.
“We have readers all over the world … people post on the page from all over and ask questions like, ‘I found this word in a book. Can you tell me about it?’ A lot of the people that interact with the page are ethnically Tongva but a lot of the people are not,” she says.
The creators and contributors of — a website that seeks to preserve Anishinaabemowin, an endangered Native American language from Michigan — use Facebook in a similar manner.
Ojibwe.net contributor Margaret Noodin is an assistant professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The language has 8,000-10,000 speakers, she says. But most of the native speakers are over 70 years old, placing the language under threat.
“That’s the most dangerous thing. There are very few young kids that are growing up in a fluent environment,” Noodin says.
Although the group doesn’t rely solely on social media to disseminate content, Noodin says that gives the group a chance to reach younger generations.
“It’s how kids communicate now. It’s little moments here and there. And that adds up … . If we don’t use the language creatively into the future then what we’re doing is documenting a language that’s dying … . Our language is alive and it’s staying alive,” she says.
Other social networking websites such as Twitter can also be used in similar ways. The website is currently available in just under 40 languages
Kevin Scannell, a professor at Saint Louis University, has consulted for Twitter on how to make the website friendlier to speakers of minority languages.
Scannell is also the creator of , a site that tracks tweets in indigenous languages. It can help people who want to find others who are using their language online.
“Having endangered languages on the Internet has a really strong impact on the youth because it shows that their language is still relevant today,” says Daigneault of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. “When people use their language it shows that they’re proud of speaking … it.”
At a time when companies like Facebook are trying to grow in the developing world, having the interface available in other languages can be a great benefit.
“Just even making the website itself available in other languages in a huge part of reaching the ,” Scannell says.
John Hobson, the director of Graduate Indigenous Education Programs at the University of Sydney, agrees.
“It is … essential that as new technologies are integrated into majority societies and communication, they should be equally integrated into minority ones,” he says.
But Hobson says the best results will come when the conversation continues outside of social media.
“They are not magical devices that will do the learning or communicating for folk,” he says. “Living languages are those used for meaningful communication between real people … . So, tweet and Facebook in your language … . But make sure you keep speaking the language when you put the device down.”
Lydia Emmanouilidou is an intern with NPR News.
After burglary, lawmaker pushes for power to ping
By Eric Stevick, The Herald
TULALIP — A burglary at his home earlier this month has strengthened a state lawmaker’s resolve to let police more quickly track cellphone signals to catch crooks and look for people whose lives might be in danger.
Sen. John McCoy got a firsthand demonstration of how the power of pinging cellphone towers can combat crime.
On July 13, someone broke into his Tulalip home. Early that morning, the burglar stole keys, McCoy’s iPhone, and a rental car parked in the garage.
The couple was home at the time, but didn’t hear the intruder.
McCoy called Tulalip police. When an officer arrived, McCoy used an iPad to electronically track the whereabouts of the missing phone. He relayed to a Tulalip police officer the phone’s movements as it traveled from Snohomish to Everett. The Tulalip officer, in turn, contacted police from other agencies.
State law prevented the officers from pinging the phone on their own and without a warrant, McCoy said.
“I kept them updated because they couldn’t do it” without jeopardizing the investigation, McCoy said.
The suspect, 35, was stopped and arrested in north Everett within three hours of the break-in. Based on information relayed from cellphone towers, it appeared the burglar took an illegal U-turn on U.S. 2, drove to Snohomish and Everett and stopped at 23rd Street and Broadway for a spell.
Ultimately, an Everett patrol officer pulled the car over in the 3800 block of Rucker Avenue. The suspect has previous felony convictions for theft, identity theft, forgery and possessing stolen property. His lengthy misdemeanor history includes three drug offenses.
“It was, ‘Hey, we caught the bad guy. Good. And technology was used to do it,’” McCoy said.
Three months earlier, McCoy’s wife had a cellphone stolen, snatched right from her hands. Police were able to catch up with the suspect that same day after the family used pinging technology to track the missing phone.
McCoy hopes to use his recent experiences to gather more support for legislation that would require wireless companies to provide call location information to police in cases of emergencies involving risk of death or physical harm.
That was the gist of House Bill 1897 during the last session. It didn’t become law.
It is another wrinkle in the ever-evolving debate on how to investigate crime and protect civil liberties in the digital age.
McCoy followed the story of a Kansas family whose daughter was killed in 2007 after she was kidnapped in a department store parking lot. Kelsey Smith, 18, had been in possession of a cellphone that could have revealed her location. It took three days before the telecommunications company provided that information to police.
Laws inspired by the Kelsey Smith case have been passed in more than a dozen states.
Privacy advocates have mounted some opposition.
In Washington state, the American Civil Liberties Union remained neutral on McCoy’s legislation.
“We understand there are valid reasons in an emergency,” said Doug Klunder, an ACLU attorney specializing in privacy cases. “Just as in any emergency situation, cops don’t need to get warrants. Because of that we did not take a position on the bill.”
Washington’s state constitution has strong privacy protections.
A staff analysis of the bill during the last session found: “Although some federal court decisions have held that the government does not need a warrant under the Fourth Amendment to obtain cell phone location data, the analysis under the state Constitution may be different.”
As it stands, prosecutors across Washington advise police to obtain search warrants before seeking cell phone location data from service carriers, the analysis found.
Klunder said it is important to define what is and isn’t an emergency so police don’t overstep their authority.
“In non-emergency situations we do believe a warrant is required and almost certainly a warrant is required by our state constitution,” Klunder said. “…If it’s just the police on a hunch that’s problematic.”
Tester Takes a Hard Look at Disaster Relief in Indian Country
Indian Affairs Committee Assesses Impact of Amendments to the Stafford Act
Source: United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
U.S. SENATE – At a hearing today on the state of disaster response in Indian Country, Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs had one message: more work needs to be done.
Tester authored changes to the Stafford Act in the last Congress that allow federally-recognized Indian tribes to directly request a Presidential disaster or emergency declaration through Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Before the change, tribes were required to make requests through their State governors.
“After listening to the needs of Indian Country, I changed the Stafford Act to allow tribes to request a disaster declaration directly from the President,” Tester said. “While that was an important step for tribes, there is more work that needs to be done”
Hearing witnesses echoed Tester’s sentiment in their testimony.
Ronda Metcalf of the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribal Council, sought more coordinated responses among relief agencies, “The tribe understands that on-the-ground personnel in these disaster response situations face significant challenges and pressures. This is all the more reason why FEMA must better coordinate with Indian tribes to provide accurate information and improved delivery of services. FEMA must also provide closer supervision over organizations like the Red Cross to ensure that they are properly carrying out services for which they seek FEMA reimbursement.”
Matt Gregory, Executive Director of Risk Management for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, spoke about concerns many tribes have over the damage threshold for federal support. “The Stafford Act set $1 million in damage as its threshold for applying for a declaration. This may not work well for a tribe like the Choctaw Nation, with small communities spread out over a wide rural area. We are faced with a number of disasters throughout the year, and without quick and specific direction, our new-found Stafford Act authority lacks some practical effect.”
Jake Heflin, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Tribal Emergency Management Association, said, “When a catastrophe strikes, the Federal response to natural disasters in Indian Country is slow, tedious, and in significant need of a comprehensive overhaul. Despite providing pre-disaster support, technical assistance, and planning before a disaster strikes, at the time of the incident, FEMA steps away from tribes until monetary thresholds are met by the disaster. Even when FEMA responds to a disaster, FEMA does not support the tribes operationally.”
One of the many tribes facing the long-term effects of climate change induced disasters is the Santa Clara Pueblo. Their Governor, J. Michael Chavarria said, “Given the realities of life in the Southwestern United States and the increasing effects of climate change, disaster relief policies must be shifted to focus on long-term response such as addressing Santa Clara’s post-fire, periodic flooding, which will remain a great hazard to our well-being for perhaps a decade.”
Mary David, Executive Vice President of Kawerak, Inc., a tribal consortium in the Bering Strait region of Alaska said, “The impacts of global climate change, severe arctic storms and arctic shipping on marine life is of high concern. The Stafford Act is a response when a disaster happens, which is important. But due to changing climate conditions, our communities are in imminent danger and preventative measures are needed.”
Tester concluded that better coordination between FEMA and the tribes must occur. “For this to be an effective partnership, FEMA must understand the unique needs of Indian Country. Based on what I heard today, some progress has been made, but there is a lot more work to be done and we’re going to get it done.”
Background
The President can issue major disaster declarations after a natural disaster to provide certain types of federal disaster assistance depending upon the specific needs of the stricken areas. Such declarations give broad authority to federal agencies to provide supplemental assistance to help state, local, territorial and tribal governments, families and individuals, and certain nonprofit organizations, recover from the incident.
Ontario First Nations ready to die defending lands: chiefs
5 chiefs serve notice that they’ll assert treaty rights over their traditional territory
By Maria Babbage, The Canadian Press Posted: Jul 30, 2014
Aboriginal people in Ontario are prepared to lay down their lives to protect their traditional lands from any unwanted development, a group of First Nations chiefs said Tuesday.
Five aboriginal chiefs served notice on the Ontario and federal governments, developers and the public that they’ll assert their treaty rights over their traditional territory and ancestral lands.
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That includes the rights to natural resources — such as fish, trees, mines and water— deriving benefit from those resources and the conditions under which other groups may access or use them, which must be consistent with their traditional laws, said Ontario Regional Chief Stan Beardy.
“All those seeking to access or use First Nations lands and resources have, at a minimum, a duty to engage, inquire and consult with First Nations with the standards of free, prior and informed consent,” he said.
“We will take appropriate steps to enforce these assertions.”
‘No respect’ for agreements with ancestors
Tuesday’s declaration follows a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in late June which awarded 1,700 square kilometres of territory to British Columbia’s Tsilhqot’in First Nation, providing long-awaited clarification on how to prove aboriginal title.
The ruling also formally acknowledged the legitimacy of indigenous land claims to wider territory beyond individual settlement sites.
But in a separate decision a few weeks later, the court upheld the Ontario government’s power to permit industrial logging on Grassy Narrows First Nation’s traditional lands. Grassy Narrows is different from the Tsilhqot’in decision because it involves treaty land, not aboriginal title.
Grassy Narrows argued that only Ottawa has the power to take up the land because treaty promises were made with the federal Crown.
The high court ruled that the province doesn’t need the federal government’s permission to allow forestry and mining activity under an 1873 treaty that ceded large swaths of Ontario and Manitoba to the federal government.
The Ontario chiefs who spoke out on Tuesday said the provincial and federal governments haven’t respected the agreements their ancestors signed more than a century ago, which gives First Nations the right to assert jurisdiction over lands and resources.
‘Land has become sick’
Aboriginal communities have seen what Canadian and Ontario laws have done to their land over the last 147 years, Beardy said.
“The land has become sick,” he said. “We become sick. We become poor, desperate and dying.”
The people of Grassy Narrows First Nation are still suffering from mercury poisoning decades after the Wabigoon river around their land was contaminated by a local paper mill, Beardy added.
Grand Chief of Treaty 3, Warren White, argued that Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognizes the state of Israel, but not the lands of Canada’s aboriginal peoples.
“He needs to have the same principles that he’s saying about Israeli lands to Treaty 3 territory and native lands in Canada,” White said.
“Clean up your own backyard before you go and spill a lot of money into disasters in other countries.”
Grand Chief Harvey Yesno of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation added that the province’s aboriginal people will draw a line in the sand, put a stake in the ground and tie themselves to it if that’s what it takes to protect their land from unwanted resource development.
“We’re no longer just going to be civilly disobedient. We’re going to defend our lands, and there’s a big difference there,” he said.
“Our young people are dying, our people are dying. So let’s die at least defending our land.”
Aboriginal communities don’t want to harm others, said Beardy. But they’ll do what they must to stop an incursion on their lands, such as forming human blockades to stop the clearcutting of trees, he said.
“Anything that happens on our aboriginal homeland now, they must consult with us,” said Roger Fobister Sr., chief of Grassy Narrows First Nation. “Even if they’re going to cut down one tree, they better ask us.”
2nd UPDATE — Problems persist after Bainbridge ferry breakdown — backups at Edmonds-Kingston
Tugboats bring the M/V Tacoma to dock after it lost power while traveling from Seattle to Bainbridge Island.
Source: Peninsula Daily News
FOR FERRY ALERTS: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/schedule/bulletin.aspx
EDMONDS —
The state ferry system continues to grapple with backups and commuters’ flaring tempers after one of its largest vessels lost power Tuesday in Puget Sound.
The breakdown of the jumbo ferry Tacoma caused major delays Tuesday on the Seattle-Bainbridge Island ferry route, triggering huge backups that lasted for hours on end.
And now on Wednesday, it is causing big backups on the Edmonds-Kingston route, after one of the two vessels on that route was pulled off to replace the broken-down Tacoma on the Bainbridge Island run.
A number of commuters on the Edmonds-Kingston route left early Wednesday after hearing that the route would be down to a one-boat schedule. By 9:15 a.m., there was a 2½-hour wait for vehicles at the Kingston ferry terminal
The breakdown of the Tacoma could not have come at a worse time – because one of the state’s other jumbo ferries, the Wenatchee, is also out of service for maintenance work.
KOMO’s Air 4 was overhead Tuesday afternoon when the Tacoma was towed back into Bainbridge Island’s Eagle Harbor after losing power with hundreds of passengers and more than 100 vehicles aboard.
The breakdown created a huge backlog – with long lines of cars and passengers at the Colman Dock ferry terminal in Seattle. Combined with the sun and the heat, the mess created some tension as drivers honked their horns and passengers yelled.
“We’re vanpool. We got here on time. We kept up our end of the bargain. What is the deal?” said one driver headed for Bainbridge Island.
“That’s unbelievable. I just don’t understand it,” said George Dickinson, who was also headed for Bainbridge.
“It’s hard to concentrate because there’s a lot of yelling in the background,” said commuter Kathy Brown as she waited in a line of more than 1,000 people.
Now on Wednesday it is the Edmonds-Kingston route’s turn to suffer. The next sailings on that run is scheduled for 12:50 p.m. from Kingston.
KOMO-TV is a news partner to the Peninsula Daily News. For further information: www.komonews.com
OUR PREVIOUS STORY:
By The Associated Press
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — A state ferry lost power on the ferry system’s busiest route Tuesday, stranding hundreds of passengers on Puget Sound until the vessel could be towed to the dock.
The Tacoma was traveling from Seattle to Bainbridge Island with 405 passengers and 138 cars on board when it lost propulsion shortly before 1 p.m., Washington State Ferries spokeswoman Marta Coursey said.
The Tacoma dropped anchor in the water to await help and was eventually towed by tugboats to Bainbridge Island.
Another ferry that was on the Bremerton-to-Seattle run, the Sealth, had been rerouted to be on standby status next to the Tacoma.
The Tacoma docked at about 3 p.m.
Engineers at a repair dock will try to determine why it lost power, ferry officials said.
A passenger, Van Badzik, told The Associated Press that passengers first noticed lights flickering on and off for several minutes, then the vessel lost power and started drifting.
Badzik said the captain kept passengers informed and the crew acted professionally.
The passengers who were delayed would receive vouchers good for one trip on the ferry system.
Washington State Ferries operates the largest ferry fleet in the United States, carrying about 23 million passengers annually.
More than 6 million riders travel between Seattle and Bainbridge Island each year.
The Tacoma, one of the largest vessels in the fleet, is 460 feet long and can carry up to 2,500 passengers and 202 vehicles.
The ferries are part of Washington’s state highway system, linking Seattle and other populous cities to the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas as well as the San Juan Islands.
Last modified: July 30. 2014 11:29AM