Forget about reading, writing and ’rithmetic. Reality, risk and response are the new three Rs, scientists say, and the situation is dire.
The incremental changes taking place in the global climate will in the not-too-distant future add up to irreversible damage, says a new report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Compiling all that is known to date about the changes taking place in Earth’s air, water and land, the U.S.’s top scientists are trying to get humanity to listen up.
“This new effort is intended to state very clearly the exceptionally strong evidence that Earth’s climate is changing, and that future climate change can seriously impact natural and societal systems,” said James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University and one of three chairs of a panel that issued the 20-page report, What We Know: The Reality, Risks and Response to Climate Change. “Even among members of the broader public who already know about the evidence for climate change and what is causing it, some do not know the degree to which many climate scientists are concerned about the risks of possibly rapid and abrupt climate change.”
McCarthy is one of 13 panelists offering expertise on the matter via lectures, testimonials on a new website accompanying the report, and outreach to fellow professionals, the AAAS said in its media release.
“We’re the largest general scientific society in the world, and therefore we believe we have an obligation to inform the public and policymakers about what science is showing about any issue in modern life, and climate is a particularly pressing one,” said AAAS CEO Alan Leshner in the group’s statement. “As the voice of the scientific community, we need to share what we know and bring policymakers to the table to discuss how to deal with the issue.”
The first new R is Reality, the AAAS said.
“Climate scientists agree: Climate change is happening here and now,” the AAAS said, emphasizing that 97 percent of climate experts agree.
“The second [R] is Risk—that the reality of climate change means that there are climate change impacts we can expect, but we also must consider what might happen, especially the small, but real, chance that we may face abrupt changes with massively disruptive impacts,” the association said. “We are at risk of pushing our climate system toward abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts.”
That leads to the third R.
“The third R is Response—that there is much we can do and that the sooner we respond, the better off we will be,” the AAAS said. “The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost.”
Inaction, however, could exacerbate extreme weather conditions and cause, for example, crop failure and thus famine. Although many factors—ranging from variations in the Earth’s crust, to changes in orbit and tilt toward the sun—can cause climate changes, this time human activity is the main driver, the AAAS report said.
“Decades of human-generated greenhouse gases are now the major force driving the direction of climate change, currently overwhelming the effects of these other factors,” the AAAS report said. “Many studies show that the combined effects of natural drivers of climate cannot explain the temperature increase observed over the past half century.”
The full AAAS report is available for download, along with a huge volume of information, at the What We Know website.
“Climate change is already happening. More heat waves, greater sea level rise, and other changes with consequences for human health, natural ecosystems, and agriculture are already occurring in the United States and worldwide,” said the AAAS report, released on March 18. “These problems are very likely to become worse over the next 10-20 years and beyond.”
AP Photo/The Spokesman-Review, Colin Mulvany Washington State University instructor David Warner is seen in Spokane, Washington on June 27, 2013. Warner was assaulted on March 30, 2013, in Pullman, Washington. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and has trouble speaking and getting around.
Alysa Landry, Indian Country Today Media Network
David Warner was not expected to survive.
The culture, gender and race studies professor at Washington State University suffered a traumatic brain injury March 30, 2013, when he was assaulted outside a bar near the Pullman, Washington, campus. Warner, 42, doesn’t remember trying to prevent a verbal confrontation close to 2 a.m. that day or being tackled to the ground and striking his head against the asphalt.
Warner, whose heritage comes from Canada’s First Nations, was transported by helicopter from Pullman to Spokane, a distance of about 75 miles. Surgeons discovered that Warner’s skull had cracked into three pieces and his brain was swelling. They removed a four-by-six-inch piece of his skull to manage the pressure.
“My skull shattered on impact,” Warner said during a phone interview this month. “They didn’t expect me to survive.”
Warner doesn’t remember the two weeks he was in critical condition at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, or the following two weeks at a separate facility for serious head trauma. He remembers waking up at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute and struggling to put words together.
“I lost about a month and a half,” he said. “My vocabulary was reduced to five words. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t come up with words except the five that were in my vocabulary.”
The situation was a new one for Warner, who earned his PhD in American Studies in August of 2012 and was teaching courses in gender and race. Before the injury, he was characterized as a prolific reader, writer and poet, said his mother, Cherie Warner.
“He was a voracious reader his whole life,” Cherie said of her son. “He would go through books and remember them. He has a library that would rival the town’s library.”
David Warner is seen here before the assault. (Courtesy Warner family)
Warner always wanted to be a teacher, his mother said. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in American Studies at Washington State University. When the university offered him a teaching position, he jumped at the opportunity to teach classes about gender and race and to research topics like tribal sovereignty, self-determination, genocide studies and critical race theory.
“He’s very passionate about that subject area and the marginalization of minority people,” Cherie said. “He has a lot of knowledge in that. He knows and understands it.”
Warner’s life changed when his head hit the ground. During the weeks in the rehabilitation hospital, speech and physical therapists worked every day to help him relearn skills that at one point were second nature. He returned home at the end of May, still facing a long road to recovery.
A year after the injury, Warner is able to live alone and take care of himself, his mother said. He goes to conferences with colleagues and attends classes at the university. Some of the lingering effects include problems remembering names and difficulty with reading and comprehension.
“I can read books and understand words,” Warner said. “Before, I could read a book and remember all of it. I’m not retaining it now. I can’t recall the words and get the message. At the present time, my brain needs to heal some more.”
As Warner was in initial stages of recovery, Pullman police arrested five people who were connected with the assault. According to the police report, Warner was drinking with a friend that night at a bar called Stubblefields. Just before 2 a.m., Warner’s friend confronted a group of people and began insulting them.
Surveillance footage shows Warner trying to prevent the confrontation from getting physical. He stretched out his arms between the parties as his friend advanced and threw a punch. Warner and his friend were tackled, but cars obstruct the video and it is unclear whether Warner was injured when he hit the ground or if one of the assailants kicked him in the head.
David Warner is seen here after the assault. (Courtesy Warner family)
Because the video surveillance was inconclusive, prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges, said Bill Gilbert, an attorney representing Warner in a civil suit. Gilbert is in the process of investigating the incident. He may file civil claims against the people involved in the assault or against the bar and seek damages topping $250,000 to cover medical bills and expenses.
“It was a drunken, stupid episode,” Gilbert said of the incident. “The value in this case, you can’t put numbers on it. You’ve got a guy who’s brilliant, who has a PhD, who’s going to be messed up for life.”
Warner believes that, in time, he will heal and once again teach at Washington State University.
“There’s a quote I give my students,” he said. “I tell them I constantly think about hope. It makes me stronger and filled with life.”
A pre-conference tour of Grand Coulee Dam on Monday kicked off a conversation about restoring salmon to the Upper Columbia Basin. Tom Banse, Northwest News Network
Once upon a time, salmon and steelhead swam over a thousand miles upriver to the headwaters of the mighty Columbia River, at the foot of the Rockies in British Columbia.
Salmon and steelhead have been absent from the upper Columbia River for 75 years. But tribes on both sides of border still miss the fish. Colville tribal member D.R. Michel senses an opportunity “to correct a lot of wrongs.”
“The tribes never surrendered to the loss of salmon,” he says. “You see old photos of the chiefs standing on the reservation side looking down on the project with all of those promises of, ‘We’ll take care of you. You’ll have your fish. We’ll put in hatcheries.’ None of that stuff ever really happened.”
The Bureau of Reclamation’s Lynne Brougher led a tour Monday of Grand Coulee Dam for tribal leaders and biologists from British Columbia and the U.S Northwest. She stopped the tour van in the center of the enormous concrete span so the group could peer over the edge at the torrents of water plummeting down the spillways.
“What you’re looking at here is a 350 foot difference between the water at the base of the dam and uplake in the reservoir,” Brougher explained over the din of rushing water.
Nobody has built a fish ladder on a dam this high according to Canadian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission biologist Will Warnock of Cranbrook, British Columbia.
“It would be going into uncharted waters to build that kind of passage facility. There’s other things you can do to get salmon past dams this high, though. You can trap them and manually truck them around the dam.”
That’s one idea. An elevator actually is another. A long fish ladder would be very expensive and a last resort, if tried at all.
A separate suite of technologies would be needed to help juvenile salmon migrating downstream get past the hydropower turbines and long stretches of slack water behind the upper Columbia dams.
Who would pay?
Who would pay for this? Nearly all of us, as D.R. Michel sees it. He directs the Upper Columbia United Tribes of North Idaho and Eastern Washington.
“It’s potentially a shared cost between ratepayers, the federal government, farmers and irrigators,” says Michel. “Some of the folks who benefit directly from use of this water and what comes out of this dam should help pay for this also.”
The unknown costs of reintroduction could add up, and that worries the Public Power Council’s Scott Corwin. He represents public utilities who get electricity from Columbia River dams.
“There are just a lot of questions about whether that is even possible and how it would impact other species. Yeah, we have a lot of questions.”
The U.S. and Canada are about to open negotiations to renew the 50-year-old Columbia River Treaty. That is the forum chosen by fish advocates to advance their idea. But last week, British Columbia’s government declared it doesn’t want to discuss it at the treaty talks.
A position paper forwarded to Ottawa reads, “British Columbia’s perspective is that the management of… salmon populations is the responsibility of the Government of Canada and that restoration of fish passage and habitat, if feasible, should be the responsibility of each country regarding their respective infrastructure.”
“We are very respectful of the importance of salmon to First Nations,” said provincial Energy Minister Bill Bennett, using the Canadian term for native tribes. But during an interview, Bennett also maintained that ratepayers of BC Hydro should not have to pay more for fish passage. “Our (electricity) rates are already going up in B.C.,” Bennett noted.
Tim Personius, deputy regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, says Canada’s position could be a problem.
“The position of the United States is that we should not move forward without Canada participating. I think that’s a good idea.”
Personius says it looks like a lot of the spawning habitat for upper Columbia River fish is in Canada. He says it would not make a lot of sense “for the United States to spend millions or billions of dollars on fish passage” only to have the salmon run to British Columbia and “stub their noses” on a Canadian dam.
The U.S. government is taking an open-minded position in Personius’ telling. But given the many unknowns, “We should kind of approach this cautiously and probably in small steps.”
The Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps think say they are willing to investigate, but unknown costs could be a problem later.
TULALIP — A Snohomish man who died in a lawn-mower accident on a Tulalip-area golf course last week has been identified by friends and family as James “Jim” Pulliam, 58.
Pulliam was a member of the Professional Golfers’ Association of America. He’d worked as the head golf professional at the Battle Creek Golf Course, and was on the grounds crew there for the past five years, said Fred Jacobson, director of golf at Battle Creek and at the Snohomish Golf Course.
Pulliam was working at the Battle Creek course on Friday when the lawn mower apparently flipped over and landed on him, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. He died at the scene. The state Department of Labor and Industries is investigating, a standard step in workplace fatalities.
Jacobson and Pulliam both grew up in Snohomish. They graduated from Snohomish High School, worked for a time as lifeguards and served in the U.S. Marine Corps, Jacobson said. Jacobson hired Pulliam in the 1980s to work at the Snohomish Golf Course.
Pulliam came from a big family and had two grown daughters. Pulliam helped build the Battle Creek course, Jacobson said.
“He liked to play golf a lot. He played a lot more golf in this life than I did,” Jacobson said. “His main passion was going out and playing and probably the highlight of his golfing career was he won the Washington State Open Pro-Am with his team.”
Pulliam’s family on Monday declined to comment for this story. They are planning to place an obituary in the coming days, according to his brother.
Pulliam loved teaching others the game of golf, and he also liked to cook, Jacobson said.
Before getting the job at the golf course, Pulliam worked as a bank teller and in construction.
“He knew a lot of people over at Battle Creek and (Snohomish),” Jacobson said. “He grew up in this area. He was a veteran. He came home and went to work and raised girls. He was a good man. I’ll miss him.”
Hundreds of Indigenous Peoples from the state and throughout the country gathered with a crowd of over 4000 people at the State Capitol in Sacramento on March 15 to send a clear message to Governor Brown: ban fracking, an environmentally destructive oil extraction practice that pollutes groundwater, rivers and the oceans.
The large Tribal contingent included members of the Miwok, Maidu, Winnemem Wintu, Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Ohlone, Pit River, Cahto, Round Valley, Tule River, Pomo and Chumash Nations and other Tribes from throughout the state, as well as members of the Dakota, Lakota Sioux, indigenous communities, native organizations and activists in the Idle No More Movement and Klamath Justice Coalitions. Many Tribal representatives emphasized the direct connection between fracking and the Shasta Dam raise and the Governor’s peripheral tunnels plan, which will provide water for fracking.
“We should call the Governor ‘Westlands’ Brown,” quipped Chook Chook Hillman, a member of the Karuk Tribe and the Klamath Justice Coalition that has organized many direct action protests to remove the Klamath dams, halt the violation of tribal gathering rights under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected areas,” and to stop the Westlands Water District legal attempt to raid Trinity River water.
“Brown is setting aside all the environmental rules in order to ship water south,” said Hillman, who held a banner proclaiming, “Stop Fracking Around – Undam the Klamath,” with other members of Klamath Justice Coalition. “Fracking will take good water, put chemicals in it and then it will come out toxic forever. Fracking will affect all us – fracking is a terrible use of water, water that could be used for people and fish.”
The event, organized by the Californians Against Fracking, featured diverse speakers including environmental justice advocates, farmers, student activists and other groups opposed to fracking. Hundreds of organizations, ranging from grassroots groups to large NGOs, helped to organized the rally.
Chief Caleen Audrey Sisk, Tribal Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu, led the opening ceremony and prayer. She took aim at the Governor’s peripheral tunnels plan – the “Brown Water Plan,” as she calls it.
She emphasized, “Here at the Capitol a lot of Brown water planning is going on. This water is our medicine – it comes from the sacred places where the medicine comes from. We struggle to continue to take care of our waters – there is no other place we can go to practice our religion.”
Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, opens the rally with a ceremony and prayer. (Photo by Dan Bacher)
After the rally was over she led a group of Winnemem Wintu and their supporters down to the Sacramento River at Miller Park take the “Water Challenge” to defend waters, rivers and fish population. Around 20 people cautiously waded into and then swam in the muddy waters.
“When we accept the winter water challenge and go down to our rivers, springs, lakes and oceans to make a heartfelt commitment and challenge others to do the same it makes the waters happy,” she said. “All over California the water ways are waking up with good blessings! Now accept the challenge to take the message you got to the Capitol and tell the world…no fracking chance will your Brown Water Plan destroy our sacred waters.”
Warrior Woman, a Dakota Indian woman holding a sign saying, “Mother Earth Does Not Negotiate,” said, “We’re here to stop fracking and the rape of Mother Earth. Water is the life blood of Mother Earth. The governmental system can’t continue to oppress the people and Mother Earth any longer.”
Mike Duncan, Round Valley Reservation Tribe member, described fracking as “another broken treaty.”
“I’m here for tribal water waters and to stop the raising of Shasta Dam. It’s the future – it’s our responsibilities as tribal people to stop fracking. Fracking is another broken treaty as far as I am concerned,” he said.
Penny Opal Plant, an organizer of Idle No More, pointed out that the battle against fracking and other destructive methods of oil and gas extraction is a worldwide struggle, including Lakota resistance to the XL pipeline, the resistance of Canadian First Nations to fracking and battles of indigenous people against destructive resource extraction throughout Latin America.
“We are not Mother Earth’s failed experiment. We are her immune system. All of the our two legged relatives must stand up for Mother Earth,” she stated.
Penny Opal Plant of Idle No More explained how California fracking occurs in the context of indigenous struggles against fracking across the globe. (Photo by Dan Bacher)
She noted that the oil industry is planning ship dangerously explosive crude oil through Richmond, California – and vowed direct action to stop the trains.
“We will put our bodies on the line and we may have to sit in front of the those trains,” Plant said.
“What time is it?,” she shouted to the crowd. “It’s time to transition!”
In a press release before the rally, Corrina Gould, Elder, Chochenyo/Karkin Ohlone, stated, “We are the ancestors of the future and it is our responsibility to be the care takers of the earth, as was given to us in our original teachings by our ancestors. We must not allow the continuous devastation and degradation of our Mother, Earth. We must be the voices for our children and our grandchildren. Fracking must stop by any means necessary.”
“Fracking” is a method of oil and gas production that involves blasting millions of gallons of water, mixed with sand and toxic chemicals, under high pressure deep into the earth to extract oil and gas but it can also pollute local air, water, and endanger the lives of people and wildlife, according to Corine Fairbanks, director of American Indian Movement Southern California Chapter.
Fracking exposes people to radioactivity and numerous toxic chemicals such as lead, arsenic, methanol, and benzene. The chemicals used in fracking have been linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer.
“Fracking is also known to trigger seismic activity and earthquakes,” said Fairbanks. “Anti-Fracking efforts have been led by California Native Nations throughout the state and on February 28th, 2014 the Los Angeles City Council passed a ban on fracking within its jurisdiction. This makes Los Angeles the first oil-producing city in California to call a halt to the practice.”
Fracking has been documented in 10 California counties — Colusa, Glenn, Kern, Monterey, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Sutter, Kings and Ventura. Oil companies have also fracked offshore wells in the ocean near California’s coast, from Seal Beach to the Santa Barbara Channel. Fracking may have been used elsewhere in California, since state officials have monitored neither or tracked the practice until recently, according to Fairbanks.
Fairbanks pointed out that Indian people have been fighting against hydraulic fracking and toxic dumping for many years.
“Toxic dumping and hydraulic fracking like efforts have been happening on and around Reservations for decades, causing a multitude of problems for our people; birth defects, and twisted strands of cancer,” said Fairbanks. “ No one took notice or interest when Native people wanted this stopped, now all of a sudden when it is becoming more of threat in non-Native communities, there is alarm and action.”
Gary Mulcahy, a member of the Winnemen Wintu Tribe, emphasized the connection between the raising of Shasta Dam, the peripheral tunnels and building of new dams that many tribal members and Delta folks made with their signs and banners at the event.
“It is interesting how fracking would bring out 4,000 to 5,000 people to a demonstration because this fracking, one way or the other, will hurt the water supply,” he noted. “But when you talk about agribusiness taking water drip by drip and drop by drop by building canals, raising dams or building more dams supposed to supply more water than the system can deliver in the first place, only a few voices are heard like a candle in the darkness.”
“Fracking involves your water from north to south, from east to west, water that is ultimately controlled by big corporations, including agribusiness and oil companies. If fracking is bad, then so is raising dams, building new dams and building the tunnels,” he concluded.
Hopefully, this highly successful rally will be followed by even bigger rallies and demonstrations in Sacramento and throughout the state opposing fracking, the peripheral tunnels, the Shasta Dam raise and the building of new dams.
Adam Scow of Food and Water Watch, one of the co-founders of Californians Against Fracking, said anti-fracking activists will keep building the movement to put pressure on Brown to ban fracking.
“Water is a human right and fracking is a violation of that human right, as are the twin tunnels,” Scow concluded.
Caleen Sisk: “We call to Olebis to look down on us and send down the good blessings. We call on sacred Mt. Shasta to help bless us with this sacred water, so it will continue to bring us and our children’s, children and so on in to the future with good health and long life for all our relations. We are calling on the water and fire spirits to help bring back the balance in our world, as wild salmon, wolves, beavers and giant trees make their way back. We sing to the water that flows from the sacred spring on Buliyum Puyuk (Mt. Shasta) to the ocean and back again…..waters from Mauna Kea come back and answer the call and the lakes of fire send their blessings. We ask the fires inside of Mt Shasta and all the sacred fires inside the mountains of the world to help us bring understanding and balance to our way of life and change our lives to the good again. Bring back the original taste of water to guide the people and all relatives back to healthy thinking and acting. For nothing will be here with out fresh clean healthy WATER. No air can be produced without waters to grow the trees, the Kelp, ……this world was created in the most perfect functioning way…..but now so much destruction and toxic waste ….for mega money for a few. We pray that our words will be heard and the August Fire and Water Ceremony be good in sending our prayers up the Creator!!!”
Background on fracking and oil industry money
For those not familiar with the practice, fracking blasts massive amounts of chemical-laced water into the ground to crack rock formations in order to extract oil and natural gas, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. The process routinely employs numerous toxic chemicals, including methanol, benzene and trimethylbenzene.
Oil companies have also fracked offshore wells over 200 times in the ocean near California’s coast, from Seal Beach to the Santa Barbara Channel, according to a Freedom of Information Act Request and media investigation by the Associated Press and truthout.org last year. WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd served on the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Forces during much of the time that this fracking of our marine waters was taking place.
The Center cited two studies documenting the harm fracking poses to human health. Birth defects are more common in babies born to mothers living near fracked wells, according to a new study by researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health. In California, a recent Center report found that oil companies used 12 dangerous “air toxic” chemicals more than 300 times in the Los Angeles Basin over a period of a few months.
Besides posing a big threat to human health, the pollution to California groundwater supplies, rivers and the Delta that will result from fracking and acidization will devastate already imperiled populations of Central Valley Chinook salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species.
The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the most powerful corporate lobbying organization in Sacramento, spent over $4.67 million, more than any other interest group, while lobbying state government in 2013, according to data released by the Secretary State’s Office and compiled by the Capitol Morning Report.
Another oil company giant, Chevron Corporation and its subsidiaries, spent $3.95 million, the third most spent by any group on lobbying state government in 2013. Chevron also spent much of its money on lobbying against bills that would ban or regulate fracking in California.
Since it is the most powerful corporate lobby in Sacramento, the oil industry is able to wield enormous influence over state and federal regulators and environmental processes. The result of this inordinate money and influence is the effective evisceration of the Marine Life Protection Act of 1999 during the MLPA Initiative process and the signing of Senator Fran Pavley’s Senate Bill 4.
A report recently released by the American Lung Association revealed that the oil industry lobby spent $45.4 million in the state between January 1 2009 and June 30, 2013. The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) alone has spent over $20 million since 2009 to lobby legislators. (http://blog.center4tobaccopolicy.org/oil-lobbying-in-california)
Courtesy Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s Office Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, right, was in attendance for the Champions for Change ceremony in Washington, D.C. recently. Heitkamp is pictured with office intern and one of the five Champions for Change Danielle Finn.
U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp is the first female elected from North Dakota. Since taking the oath of office on January 3, 2013, Heitkamp has shown herself to be a strong advocate fighting for the needs of Indian country as she has been since her role as state Attorney General beginning in 1990.
As a member on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Heitkamp has pledged to stand for Native American families and has worked to ensure the U.S. government lives up to treaty and trust responsibilities.
Last October, Heitkamp introduced a bill to improve the lives of Native American children that has received bipartisan support as well as another bill with Republican Senator Moran that would end the IRS’ practice of taxing crucial programs and services that aim to support the health and safety of Native families. Additionally she is an advocate for the Violence Against Women Act and better transportation and infrastructure on reservations.
In a conversation with ICTMN, Heitkamp shared her stance on the importance of working for the betterment of Indian country and why we should all fight for the needs of our children.
Can you tell us about your bill regarding the Commission on Native Children?
I don’t think there’s any aspect of Indian country that would be left untouched as we talk about children. It really comes to me from the words of Sitting Bull, who said “Let us now sit down and decide what kind of life we can make for our children,” I am paraphrasing, but if we stay focused on kids and our children we will make good choices and we will hopefully get better attention to the challenges for Native American families.
The important part of this commission is that we need to be looking at it from a holistic standpoint. You see people talk about Indian education or protection of our children or health care for our children or making sure that we have good transportation so that our kids can get to school. All of these things have a direct effect, but we worry about the programs and not about the outcomes.
For instance, I feel that Native languages are a huge component of the child bill because I think it is a way that we begin to grasp that cultural connection to heal families to provide the pride to move forward.
You played a key role in the Violence Against Women Act, you specifically pushed for tribal governments to gain authority to prosecute non-Native perpetrators, how are things going?
Currently three tribal courts have been selected as a sort of first pass – from there we will learn what tribal courts need to do as a court that has the authority and the jurisdiction to act over non-Native offenders.
We are taking those first steps but it is not enough to pass legislation. We have to be vigilant about making sure that that legislation is given its full effect. I think at this point, We are all grateful this is on track but we need to make sure that these test pilot tribal courts work.
None of these courts are in my state, I am really looking forward to seeing this implemented in my state so that Native American women do not and are not treated as second class citizens as it relates to the pursuit of justice.
I spent a lot of my time as Attorney General with domestic violence programs and it was one of the reasons why I ran for AG.
Can you speak on transportation infrastructure on reservations?
Obviously we are always road challenged in North Dakota. It doesn’t matter if you are at Township – We have issues with roads just given our weather patterns. One of the concerns that I have, Are the stories such as roads not getting plowed so that children cannot go to school or maybe grandma needs to get in for her diabetes treatment, but she cannot get out for groceries.
The frustration that I have is that we probably could see better cooperation between County and State officials along with tribal authorities – but the federal highway folks need to step up and do a better job allocating resources.
There is a great deal of concern about retention of overhead costs, so that these dollars don’t actually go back to the tribes, but are retained within the programs in Washington, D.C.
I realize that when we talk about roads, it is not going to fill up the room, but it might be (what is) most important to a Native American family. It is so important that we talk about this now as we’re looking at, again, reauthorizing the Highway Bill.
You are working to end the taxation of tribal programs through the IRS with Sen. Moran, can you explain?
We are very concerned about an IRS agent questioning the judgment of a sovereign entity as they relate to what constitutes general welfare. I think there’s a fair amount of a lack of understanding as to what tribal governments do and how culturally significant a lot of this is. To suggest that a family who receives funeral dinner and funeral services aught to be taxed on those services is to ignore the pervasive poverty on a reservation, but also it ignores the cultural significance of that expenditure.
I think that this is a great bipartisan effort. We hope that the IRS is starting to get it, but it is more important that we are not fighting this fight a year from now or two years from now and that we get some federal legislation that makes the intent of Congress clear in that it respects tribal sovereignty as it relates to their expenditure decisions.
One of the 2014 Champions for Change is your intern Danielle Finn.
She is a star! We are a little biased in that she is an intern in our office. She is going off to law school; she has tons of options. We are so proud of her and her family is so proud of her. We are just excited to see across the board that these champions for change are part of a hopeful program.
We see all of this wonderful opportunity for expansion of tribal leadership and it really makes us hopeful that there are so many people. I think we need to remember that there are some kids who are getting left behind. We need to celebrate these superstars and amazing kids, but we also need to know there are also very many students And young people who with the right set of circumstances could have equal achievement.
That motivates me as well. When you see these Champions For Change and think that it is not just them but there are probably hundreds of champions for change when given an opportunity.
We just need to keep that in mind and this is what my child’s commission bill is all about.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife A federal judge has ruled an Oregon state fish hatchery must limit the number of hatchery-bred fish it releases. The goal is to protect wild salmon and steelhead stocks, which could interbreed with the hatchery fish.
A new court decision reduces the number of hatchery fish releases into Oregon’s Sandy River this year.
The Sandy River Hatchery will be allowed to release 200,000 coho salmon this year. That’s less than the 300,000 coho hatchery managers were planning to release.
Liz Hamilton, executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, said in a statement that the reduction won’t harm sport fishers.
“This is good news for our industry,” she said. “We are very happy the anglers and businesses that rely on fishing on the Sandy River will not be negatively impacted by this ruling. This is great news for hatcheries in Oregon and for anyone who fishes in the Northwest.”
Judge Ancer Haggerty said hatchery managers needed to do more to ensure the hatchery fish released into the Sandy weren’t going to put protected wild fish at risk.
His latest decision issued Friday follows up on that ruling. It allows the hatchery to continue releasing fish -– but not as many as planned.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the Native Fish Society. Michael Moody, executive director of the Society, said his group had asked the court for a larger reduction in hatchery releases – not just for coho but for chinook and steelhead, too.
“We’re disappointed,” he said. “We don’t think it was beneficial to wild fish as much as we’d hoped.”
Developers of the Morrow Pacific coal export project on the Columbia River already have land leases with the Port of St. Helens and the Port of Morrow.
But according to the Oregon Department of State Lands, they’re going to need a couple more.
In Oregon, the state owns all the land submerged in water -– including riverbeds.
In a letter sent Friday, DSL operations manager Lori Warner-Dickason told project developers that a portion of their project will be taking place over state-owned submerged lands. That means they will need to lease additional state land before the project can operate.
Project opponent Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, said the new lease requirements offer the state a new way to stop the project.
“Oregon has tremendous discretion as the landlord to approve and deny leases,” he said. “Like any landlord, Oregon can say no to a coal company as a tenant, and we think they should.”
The Morrow Pacific project would export nearly 9 million tons of coal from Wyoming and Montana to Asia. It would transfer coal from railroad cars to barges and ships on the Columbia before sending it overseas.
The first transfer site is at the Port of Morrow, where coal would be loaded onto barges. The second stop is at the Port of St. Helens, where the coal would be transferred from barges to a larger ship at a dock near Clatskanie.
Warner-Dickason wrote that both transfers sites will be taking place in areas that require state land leases. At the Port of St. Helens, the company will need a lease for marine industrial use in a “yet to be determined area.”
“The department requests a meeting with you to discuss the details of the operation at both locations so that we can clearly understand what is being proposed,” Warner-Dickason wrote.
Liz Fuller, spokeswoman for Morrow Pacific, said the company is reviewing the letter and “will be consulting with the Port of Morrow and Port of St. Helens.”
The Morrow Pacific project is the smallest of three proposed coal export facilities that mining and shipping interests want to build in the Pacific Northwest. The Gateway Pacific project proposed north of Bellingham Washington would ship 48 million tons a year and the Millenium Bulk terminal in Longview would ship up to 44 million tons of coal. All three projects would receive Wyoming or Montana coal hauled in by train. The terminals would transfer the coal to ocean-going vessels bound for Asian markets.
Read the Department of State Lands letter to developers of the Morrow Pacific project:
SEATTLE – Two people were killed and one was critically injured when a news helicopter crashed and burned Tuesday morning on Broad Street only yards away from the Space Needle.
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Two cars were struck in the crash. One man could be seen running from from one of the cars with his sleeve on fire, and he was extinguished by officers at the scene.
Huge flames and plumes of black smoke poured from the burning wreckage, about 50 yards from the base of the Space Needle. Fuel gushing from the wreckage caught fire and burned for a block from the crash scene.
The Seattle Fire Department said two people were found dead in the wreckage. A third person was rushed to Harborview Medical Center for treatment of critical injuries.
Fire crews were able to extinguish the flames within a half-hour. Traffic was diverted from the area.
Marvin Oliver is one of the Northwest Coast’s foremost artists with a 40-year career of working in a variety of media. “Most of my ideas involve something from the sea,” says the one-time Alaskan commercial fisherman, whose heritage is Quinault and Isleta Pueblo. While many of his creations are manageable in size, others are monstrously large — for instance, there are the two glass whales, 20 feet long and 18 feet high, weighing in at 8 tons that now belong to Bill and Melinda Gates. Or the 26-foot-long suspended steel and glass Mystical Journey piece at Children’s Hospital in Seattle. Then there’s a 23-foot-tall mixed media totem pole (Tetons) housed in Wyoming’s National Museum of Wildlife Art that incorporates elements of cast glass, etched copper, and cast bronze inlaid with abalone. Not to be overlooked is his cast bronze 26-foot-tall orca whale fin (Spirit of Our Youth) decorated with images of leaping salmon and rising above rolling grass meant to simulate ocean waves. To learn more about Oliver and see more of his work, visit marvinoliver.com.
How did you decide to become an artist, and how does your upbringing influence your work?
I was surrounded by Native American art growing up and started producing artwork early on. My works merge the spirit of past traditions with those of the present…to create new horizons for the future.
Your work has found its way to places far removed from the Pacific Northwest — where has it traveled?
I’m on display throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, and Italy where a city near Rome hosts a unique totem [30 feet tall, and made of bronze instead of wood], two thunderbirds going up to heaven carrying the sun in their beaks. I was the first non-Italian artist to be commissioned in 2,000 years.
How does your creative process work?
It comes from within, from my spirit, my inner feelings. I’m an edgy artist, somewhat eclectic. My creations belong in the category of art in evolution with a foundation of traditional spirit. People don’t say I’m a Native American glass artist, they say I’m a glass artist who happens to be Native American.
You’re also a teacher — what do you get out of that experience?
Teaching revitalizes me and takes me out of the studio to reflect and refresh my own perspective. But I can only teach the tools. From there, individuals have to supply their own creativity.
