AP Photo/The Bismarck Tribune, Tom Stromme This Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014 photo shows the Fort Yates, North Dakota mobile home where Debbie Dogskin was found dead Tuesday morning with an empty propane tank.
A Standing Rock Sioux member died from hypothermia, authorities believe, due to lack of heat during a propane shortage that recently prompted the tribe to declare a state of emergency. Nearly 90 percent of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation’s residents use propane to heat their homes, reported KFYRTV.com.
Debbie Dogskin’s adult son, who resided with his mother in the Sioux Village mobile home on the outskirts of Fort Yates, called an ambulance when he found her unresponsive early Tuesday.
When emergency responders arrived, Dogskin’s propane tank was empty, and the temperature inside her home matched that of outside, 1 degree below zero. Her portable heater also appeared to be broken, Sioux County Sheriff Frank Landeis told GrandForksHerald.com.
An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday, with results expected on Friday, Tribal chairman Dave Archambault told BismarckTribune.com.
Lack of propane and frigid temperatures have significantly impacted the Midwest, and the problem is exacerbated on the Standing Rock Reservation plagued by poverty and housing issues. Many tribal members can’t afford propane, which has nearly doubled in price per gallon. But costs are expected to decrease soon, Mike Rud, North Dakota Petroleum Marketers Association president, told BismarckTribune.com.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has opened shelters in Wakpala, South Dakota and Fort Yates, North Dakota, for those without heat. The American Red Cross is supplying hot meals to the shelters and providing cots and blankets.
Dan Bates / The Herald Artist James Madison carves amazing artwork, depicting his ancestral tribal culture, and stories passed down through the ages.
By Gale Fiege, The Herald
Computers, scanners and other bits of high tech play a part in what is produced at the studio of famed Tulalip Tribes artist James Madison.
At the heart of his carvings, paintings, glass and metal sculptures, however, is what Madison learned as a boy sitting at his grandfather’s kitchen table — the way to hold an adze, respect for Coast Salish and Tlingit cultural traditions, a good work ethic and an appreciation for beauty.
“Everything my grandpa knew, he taught me and my cousin, Steven. He was grooming us to carry on,” said Madison, now 40. “He taught us the stories and their messages, and how to carve. It was like learning to walk. It was just something that happened naturally.”
Madison’s artwork is displayed locally and throughout the state and country. It even has been featured on the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy.”
Named Snohomish County’s 2013 Artist of the Year by the Schack Arts Center, Madison is busy this week putting up a show at the Russell Day Gallery at Everett Community College.
“Generations 2,” which includes work by Madison, his grandfather, father, uncle, cousin and young sons, opens Feb. 10, with a reception set for 6 p.m. Feb. 13 at the college gallery. It will be exhibited through March 14. A previous show, “Generations,” also included artwork by family members.
“The show pays respect to the people who taught me and gave me the tools I use today,” Madison said.
Madison’s sculptural work can be seen on Colby Avenue in downtown Everett, on the community college campus, on the Tulalip reservation and in the form of a bronze husky in front of the University of Washington football stadium.
“That sculpture was important to me because football has always been a part of my life, too,” he said.
One of Madison’s major works is the 24-foot story pole in the hotel lobby at the Tulalip Resort and Casino. His sculptures also can be seen at the Hibulb Cultural Center, in Cabela’s at the Tulalip shopping mall, at Lighthouse Park in Mukilteo, Kayak Point County Park, Providence hospital, the Burke Museum and in the cities of Stanwood, Marysville, Shoreline, Whistler and New York.
Along with learning traditional arts, Madison was still a child when his father was attending art school and learning about abstract painting.
“Dad gave me the fine arts side,” Madison said. “It gave me the means to take what I do and give it a modern twist.”
After graduating from Everett High School and Everett Community College, Madison earned a degree in fine arts from the University of Washington.
“I am in a position now to publicly express our history to non-Indians, so they can know who we are,” Madison said. “I am trying to do my best to keep our culture alive. I bring my sons with me as much as I can, so they can learn in the same manner I did.”
Among other things, Madison currently is working on another story pole. It is being carved from the same 998-year-old, 135-foot cedar log — a blow-down from the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest — that was used for the story pole at the Tulalip Resort.
Looking around his warehouse-sized studio, Madison said sometimes his success feels “surreal.”
“This is a dream come true for all of us,” he said, motioning to friends and relatives working nearby.
“Being named artist of the year last February, at age 39, made me proud of all of our hard work. It was an accolade that gave me satisfaction and made me feel that it is possible to do anything.
“I push myself because that is how I was raised. And the more I do, the more I can acknowledge my people and my family.”
“Generations 2” also will include the work of the late Frank Madison Sr., Steve Madison, Frank Madison, Steven Madison and James Madison’s sons, Jayden, 8, and Jevin, 6.
The Russell Day Gallery, 2000 Tower St., is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays, noon to 4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fridays.
Pilot Projects Allow Tribal Prosecution of Non-Indian Abusers
For the First Time in More Than Three Decades
Press Release, Office of Public Affairs Tulalip Tribes
Tulalip, WA—February 6, 2014–The Tulalip Tribes will be one of three American Indian tribes in the nation to exercise special jurisdiction over certain crimes of domestic and dating violence, regardless of the defendant’s Indian or non-Indian status, under a pilot project authorized by the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA 2013). The two other tribes are the Umatilla in Oregon and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona.
“The Tulalip Tribes is honored to be among those chosen for the Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction (SDVCJ) pilot program. Getting justice for our tribal members, where it concerns domestic and intimate partner violence, has been a long time coming,” said Tulalip Chairman Mel Sheldon. “Together, with our fellow Tribal nations, we celebrate the fact that the reauthorized VAWA of 2013 has recognized our inherent legal jurisdiction to bring all perpetrators of domestic violence against our members, on our lands, to justice. We lift our hands to all those who fought for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, including our own Tulalip Tribes councilwoman, Deborah Parker.”
“The Tulalip Tribes has shown great leadership with a robust and comprehensive justice system,” said U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan. “This special criminal jurisdiction will translate into better protection for members of the tribal community and their families, and ensure that all offenders are appropriately prosecuted and sanctioned in tribal court. I am grateful for the strong leadership exercised by the Tulalips, particularly Chairman Mel Sheldon, Councilmember Deborah Parker and Judge Theresa Pouley. We look forward to continuing our important work with the Tulalips.”
Deborah Parker, Vice Chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes, worked alongside Senator Patty Murray, and many others, to advocate for the new tribal provisions included in VAWA 2013. “It’s amazing to be at this time and place and to witness such a critical change in law. Justice will now be served because we have the necessary legal tools to prosecute those who perpetrate against our tribal members on our reservation, regardless of race, religion or affiliation,“ she said.
Although the provisions authorizing the special jurisdiction take effect generally in March 2015, the law also gives the Attorney General discretion to grant a tribe’s request to exercise the jurisdiction earlier, through a voluntary pilot project. The authority to approve such requests has been delegated to Associate Attorney General Tony West. Associate Attorney General West today congratulated tribal leaders of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, and the Umatilla Tribes of Oregon, on this historic achievement in letters to the three tribes.
“This is just the latest step forward in this administration’s historic efforts to address the public safety crisis in Indian country. Every day, we’re working hard to strengthen partnerships with tribal leaders and confront shared challenges – particularly when it comes to protecting Indian women and girls from the shocking and unacceptably high rates of violence they too often face,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “With the important new tools provided by the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, these critical pilot projects will facilitate the first tribal prosecutions of non-Indian perpetrators in recent times. This represents a significant victory for public safety and the rule of law, and a momentous step forward for tribal sovereignty and self-determination.”
“The old jurisdictional scheme failed to adequately protect the public – particularly native women – with too many crimes going unprosecuted and unpunished amidst escalating violence in Indian Country,” stated Associate Attorney General West. “Our actions today mark an historic turning point. We believe that by certifying certain tribes to exercise jurisdiction over these crimes, we will help decrease domestic and dating violence in Indian Country, strengthen tribal capacity to administer justice and control crime, and ensure that perpetrators of sexual violence are held accountable for their criminal behavior.”
Since the Supreme Court’s 1978 opinion in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, tribes have been prohibited from exercising criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian defendants. This included domestic violence and dating violence committed by non-Indian abusers against their Indian spouses, intimate partners and dating partners. Even a violent crime committed by a non-Indian husband against his Indian wife, in the presence of her Indian children, in their home on the Indian reservation, could not be prosecuted by the tribe. In granting the pilot project requests of the Tulalip, Pascua Yaqui, and Umatilla tribes today, the United States is recognizing and affirming the tribes’ inherent power to exercise “special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction” (SDVCJ) over all persons, regardless of their Indian or non-Indian status.
As described in the Department of Justice’s Final Notice on the pilot project, today’s decisions are based on a diligent, detailed review of application questionnaires submitted by the tribes in December 2013, along with excerpts of tribal laws, rules, and policies, and other relevant information. That review, conducted in close coordination with the Department of the Interior and after formal consultation with affected Indian tribes, led the Justice Department to determine that the criminal justice system in the Tulalip, Pascua Yaqui, and Umatilla tribes have adequate safeguards in place to fully protect defendants’ rights under the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended by VAWA 2013.
The Department of Justice is posting notices of the pilot project designation on the Tribal Justice and Safety Web site (www.justice.gov/tribal/) and in the Federal Register. In addition, each tribe’s application questionnaire and related tribal laws, rules, and policies will be posted on the Web site. These materials will serve as a resource for those tribes that may also wish to participate in the pilot project or to commence exercising SDVCJ in March 2015 or later, after the pilot project has concluded.
For more information on VAWA 2013, please visit www.justice.gov/tribal/vawa-tribal.html. Media inquires contact Francesca Hillery, Office of Public Affairs Tulalip Tribes, (360) 913.2646.
About the Tulalip Tribes
The Tulalip Tribes are the successors in interest to the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish and other tribes and bands signatory to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. The 22,000-acre Tulalip Indian Reservation is located north of Seattle in Snohomish County, Washington. Tribal government provides membership with health and dental clinics, family and senior housing, human services, utilities, police and courts, childcare, and higher education assistance. The Tribe maintains extensive environmental preservation and restoration programs to protect the Snohomish region’s rich natural resources, which includes marine waters, tidelands, fresh water rivers and lakes, wetlands and forests both on and off the reservation. Developable land and an economic development zone along the I-5 corridor provide revenue for tribal services. This economic development is managed through Quil Ceda Village, the first tribally chartered city in the United States, providing significant contributions and benefits tribal members and the surrounding communities. The Tribes have approximately 4,400 members. For more information, visit www.tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.
Kickstarter Finale Celebration
Sunday, February 16, 2 pm
Tacoma Art Museum
Source: Tacoma Art Museum
Matika Wilbur, Seattle artist and member of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes, has taken on the prodigious task of photographing every federally-recognized tribe in the United States and to unveil the true essence of contemporary Native issues. The artistic and spiritual journey called Project 562 has already taken Wilbur on a 1,000-mile adventure across the country.
Join us for an unique opportunity to meet Matika Wilbur as she wraps up the final days of Project 562‘s Kickstarter campaign. Hear stories from the road, learn where she’s headed next, and support this historic undertaking.
Learn more and support the journey on Project 562’s Kickstarter page.
Orleans, CA – Local youth are making plans to travel to Brazil to lend a hand in the fight against the world’s most destructive dam proposal, Belo Monte. The Belo Monte Dam Resistance Delegation includes indigenous tribes and river activists from Northern California who will travel to Brazil to work with indigenous people in the Xingu basin, the heart of the Amazon, making a strong bond through mutual efforts to preserve and protect inherited cultures and natural resources from short sighted projects like the Belo Monte Dam.
The Belo Monte project, would be the third largest hydroelectric dam ever built. This project would affect 40,000 people and inundate 640 square kilometers of rainforest. Belo Monte Dam is the first step in a larger plan to extract the Amazon’s vast resources through additional dam building.
Belo Monte is one of many dams proposed for the Amazon that would affect hundreds of thousands of indigenous people, including some of the world’s last un-contacted tribes, allowing further destructive mining and deforestation practices. The Amazon Basin, about the size of the continental U.S., is home to 60 percent of the world’s remaining rainforest, and holds one-fifth of the world’s fresh water.
In Northern California and Southern Oregon a diverse coalition of Native Americans and river activists have campaigned for the removal of four dams on the Klamath River. Currently, dozens of key Klamath Basin stakeholders, including dam owner PacifiCorp, have agreed to remove 4 Klamath River dams pending congressional action.
This project represents the largest dam removal in world history and is poised to restore one of North America’s largest salmon runs, allowing indigenous people to repair broken cultures and communities.
Our delegation will discuss the correlation between the struggles of indigenous people of the Amazon, and the lessons of indigenous struggles in North America, as well as the environmental hazards that dams have caused in the Klamath Basin. Native youth activists that have long fought for their culture will travel to the Amazon to learn about indigenous struggles in the Amazon Basin, engaging lifelong partners for the protection of the Amazon and its indigenous people.
According to Mahlija Florendo, a 16 year old Yurok Tribal member who will be going to the Amazon, “Our River is here to give us life, and we were created to keep the river beautiful and healthy. We need to keep every river alive because we cannot live without them. We cannot destroy life and if we don’t fight to keep them healthy, then we are killing ourselves, and any other life on the planet. The Amazon River is a huge bloodline for life of the Amazon indigenous as the Klamath is ours.”
Amazon Watch’s Brazil Program Coordinator, who knows the area, issues, and people, will accompany the delegation, providing guidance and on the ground support. Along with documenting the early stages of dam construction, the group plans to meet with several local tribes such as the Arara, Juruna, and the Xikrin, learning how they can best support efforts to preserve their homeland and way of life.
The Klamath group will connect Native Americans and grassroots activists from North America with tribes and organizations working in the Amazon to help them maintain their unique, rare and endemic cultures. They hope to return to the U.S. with information and firsthand knowledge to hold fundraising and advocacy events. These efforts will raise money for existing Belo Monte resistance groups and local tribes to travel and deliver their message to venues like the upcoming World Cup in Brazil in June and July 2014.
In the words of Zé Carlos Arara, a leader of the Arara people, “For us the river means many things. For everything we do, we depend on the river. For us to go out, to take our parents around, to get medical attention, we need the river for all these things. If a dam is constructed on the river, how will we pass through it? We don’t want to see the river closed off, our parents dying in inactivity. For us the river is useful and we don’t want it to wither away – that we not have a story to tell, that it become a legend for our children and grandchildren. We want them to see it with their own eyes.”
When the federal government shut down last fall, it wasn’t just monuments and national parks that closed as a result. Funding streams for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were also reduced, and, in turn, Indian programs meant to feed hungry families were stretched thin.
“It was a canary in the coal mine for what we’re going to see next,” says Janie Simms Hipp, director of the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the University of Arkansas School of Law, who predicts that the new cuts by Congress to SNAP will be difficult for many Native American families to bear.
On February 4, the Senate passed a farm bill by a vote of 68 – 32 that calls for $8 billion in cuts to the SNAP food-stamp program over the next decade; the Senate vote followed a 251-166 affirmative vote on the same bill in the House January 29. It’s a smaller cut than the $40 billion House Republicans passed last September, but still big enough to have Indian food and nutrition specialists worried about the net result.
According to federal statistics, SNAP in 2008 served an average of 540,000 low-income people who identified as American Indian/Alaska Native alone and 260,000 who identified as American Indian/Alaska Native and White per month. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) says that 20 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native households receive food stamps.
Tod Roberson, president of the National Association of Food Distribution Programs on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), says that the reduced federal funding resulting from the October shutdown, combined with new federal rules affecting FDPIR that went into effect around the same time, led to an increase in participation at nearly every tribal FDPIR site. FDPIR is a federal program that provides U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) foods through tribes to low-income Indian country-based households; it served approximately 80,000 individuals per month in fiscal year 2011, according to administrative data. Over 275 tribes currently participate in FDPIR, but there are 566 federally recognized tribes, so many tribal citizens don’t have access.
“One tribe has already seen an additional 1,000 plus new participants,” Roberson says. “The monthly participation levels are being closely monitored in comparison to past trends.”
If the immediate past is prologue, Roberson says it is “extremely plausible that additional resources will be needed” for FDPIR as a result of the SNAP cuts, which are expected to soon be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
The hope of many tribal advocates is that the FDPIR program can pick up the slack for most Indian families, but whether there are enough resources for that to happen is unknown right now.
“We’re going to see a ripple,” says Hipp, who founded the USDA’s Office of Tribal Relations before joining the University of Arkansas in 2013. “If you take the lesson of the shutdown as an example of what could happen upon full implantation of cuts to SNAP, we (tribes and tribal citizens) really need to be prepared.”
On another worrisome note beyond food stamps, tribal leaders with the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes are lamenting that the farm bill includes language inserted by Rep. Frank Lewis (R-Oklahoma) that continue to keep traditional tribal homelands away from the tribe. The tribe unsuccessfully called on Congress to remove the language, which was first inserted in 2002, once more in 2008, and now again in 2014.
Alongside the negatives, there are a few new provisions in the farm bill that are cause for celebration in Indian country. One of these provisions requires
a feasibility study from the Secretary of Agriculture on the tribal administration of federal food assistance programs. “FDPIR is already managed by tribes [and] FDPIR has proven that tribes can effectively run these programs and in most if not all cases do so with greater attention to the needs on the ground of their people,” Hipp says of the provision. “I’m all in favor of turning over these programs to be run by tribes for the benefit and service to their people.”
The farm bill also creates a new demonstration project for the FDPIR to include traditional and locally grown foods by Native farmers, ranchers, and producers. “This shows that Congress is acknowledging that local, traditional foods continue to be important to our people,” says Hipp, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.
Both the feasibility study and the demonstration project still need to receive funding from congressional appropriators, but tribal advocates, including those at NCAI, say the authorizing language is a positive – and long fought for – first step.
For both provisions to be successful, Hipp says that the input of FDPIR tribal managers and other Indian food and agricultural experts will be important. “Such a study and demonstration project must be handled in a way and by entities that truly understand Indian country agriculture from farm to fork, and tribal governments must be involved as they have the authority to set policy within their jurisdictional borders that would form the ongoing cradle for local and traditional food production, “ she says. “The study should not be done by an entity without that intimate level of knowledge, or we won’t uncover all the issues that should be included in a comprehensive report on the topic.”
A third new provision of the farm bill related to Indian country allows for the use of traditional foods in public food services programs such as schools, elder care facilities, and hospitals and makes tribes explicitly eligible for Soil and Water Conservation Act Programs.
While the pro-Indian provisions in the final legislation are exciting to advocates like Hipp, the cuts are still tough to swallow. “I’m not excited about any cuts to hunger programs—we have a whole bunch of hungry people,” she says. “But at the end of the day I’m also a student of agriculture policy, and farm bills have always been an exercise in compromise.”
TULALIP – Dust off your shovels, favorite gardening gloves and garb because it is time for some greenhouse gardening.
A working partnership between the Tulalip Tribes and the Washington State University Snohomish County Master Gardeners Foundation is making available a series of classes for interested gardeners of all levels. Classes will be held at the Tulalip Hilbulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve.
In addition to classes, the crops grown this year will be used to aid local food banks, such as the Tulalip Food Bank, and other Snohomish County master gardener food bank gardens.
Gardening will be done in the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve’s demonstration garden, ‘Gardening Together as Families’. Classes will begin with a two-part series on seedling, followed with a two-part series on transplanting.
Through a hands-on approach, participants will work together to learn the “how-to’s” of greenhouse gardening and grow organic vegetables and herbs that will focus on traditional native food and medicine plants. Participants will also learn the benefits of healthy living through gardening, and how to reduce the impact of invasive species.
Classes are open to the public and there is no fee to attend.
Greenhouse Gardening kicks off February 12, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. Seedling class will be held Sunday, February 23, 1 -3 p.m. and again on Wednesday, February 26, 1-3 p.m. Transplanting class will be held Sunday, March 16, 1-3 p.m. and again on Wednesday, March 19, 1-3 p.m.
The WSU Extension Master Gardener Program train volunteers to be effective community educators in gardening and environmental stewardship. They also enhance communities through demonstration gardens and donation of produce to local food banks.
For more information about the classes or the ‘Gardening Together as Families’ program at the Hibulb Cultural Center, please contact Veronica Leahy at 360-716-5642 or vleahy@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov
SEATTLE — A Marysville woman was sentenced Monday to nine years in federal prison for trafficking guns and drugs.
Heather Chancey, also known as Heather Lee Slater, 34, was indicted in July along with three other suspects, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle.
She was convicted of conspiracy to illegally deal in firearms, being a felon in possession of a firearm and distribution of methamphetamine. Prosecutors said she sold dozens of high-powered guns without keeping records or conducting background checks.
Chancey sold guns to undercover police officers multiple times in the parking lot of the Tulalip Resort Casino, as well as other parking lots in Marysville and Arlington, according to prosecutors.
Chancey also has a 2001 conviction for possessing meth.
A national park ranger helps other law enforcement agencies eradicate a marijuana growing operation discovered in the park. | credit: David Snyder for the NPS
As marijuana has become more mainstream, the business of cultivating the plant has boomed. That’s true nowhere more than in coastal northern California. There, the so-called Emerald Triangle of Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties is believed to be the largest cannabis-growing region in the US.
But as the hills have sprouted thousands of new grow operations, haphazard cultivation is threatening the recovery of endangered West Coast salmon and steelhead populations.
The Eel River runs through the heart of the Emerald Triangle, draining California’s third-largest watershed. And it’s a key battleground in the struggle to save once-abundant Northwest coastal salmon runs.
Over the decades, poorly-regulated fishing, grazing and logging have all taken their toll on the fish that spawn in the river. Drought and ocean conditions likely related to climate change are making life hard, as well.
But Scott Greacen, who heads the conservation group Friends of the Eel River, says there’s a newer and growing threat to the salmon.
“I think it’s pretty clear that the marijuana industry at this point is the biggest single business in terms of its impact on the river,” he says.
After California voters approved medical marijuana in 1996, the Emerald Triangle’s culture of small-scale, homestead pot cultivation that dates back to the 1960s found itself increasingly overwhelmed. Many local growers, plus thousands of newcomers, geared up to take advantage of the profits to be made in the so-called Green Rush.
That’s led to an explosion in the number and size of pot farms dotting the hills. And that’s meant more water being pulled from the streams, and more sediment, pesticides and fertilizers draining back in.
Greacen says what he’s seen reminds him of an earlier era, when poorly-regulated logging caused extensive sediment damage to salmon-bearing streams.
“The dirt in the creek doesn’t care if it came off a logging truck or a grower truck. It’s dirt in the creek and that’s bad for fish,” he says.
Scott Bauer works on salmon recovery for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. He says research has shown huge amounts of water are being diverted from streams and rivers across the region.
“It’s possible that in some watersheds, marijuana cultivation is consuming all the water available for fish,” he says.
But Kristin Nevedal, who heads the Emerald Growers Association, says as the rural region has become more suburbanized, the blame can’t be laid just on pot farmers.
“This is also water that’s going to livestock, it’s going to lawns, it’s going to veggie gardens, it’s going to showers,” she says.
Still, Nevedal concedes commercial marijuana cultivation is a big part of the problem. A contributing factor, she says, is that growing medical pot is allowed under state law, but there are no rules overseeing how it’s grown. Plus, growing is still a felony under federal law.
“So what we have with cannabis is this agricultural crop that’s produced for human consumption that’s likely the number one cash crop in the state that has zero regulations attached to it,” Nevedal says.
Fish and Wildlife’s Bauer agrees many of the environmental problems stem from that legal gray zone.
“The timber industry is heavily regulated. Farmers are regulated,” he says. “All these different industries that could have impacts are regulated. And this is the only one that isn’t.”
In an effort to fill that gap, Bauer says his office will issue permits to people who want to divert water for agricultural purposes, with no questions asked about their crop.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re growing avocados or oranges or grapes for that matter,” he says. “We don’t really care what it is. What I’m concerned about are impacts to salmon and steel head, coho in particular.”
So far, Bauer says this “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy has coaxed only a handful of cannabis farmers to get permits to meet higher environmental standards.
Environmental consultant Hezekiah Allen says that shouldn’t be surprising.
“There’s just this tremendously complicated legal environment which makes it really hard for farmers who would like to come into compliance, who would like to use best practices on their farms to make progress,” he says.
The third-generation Humboldt County resident says the decades-long history of heavy-handed law enforcement efforts to eradicate pot from the Emerald Triangle has left a legacy of suspicion.
“The culture of prohibition has really damaged the farmers’ trust in the government and government agencies so there’s a lot of reconciliation work that needs to take place to rebuild trust in the minds of the people we’re that asking to comply,” he says.
Nonetheless, Allen says he’s confident most farmers want to do right by the land and the salmon. As part of a project with several community groups, including the Emerald Growers Association, he’s helped develop a manual of best practices for growers. It offers suggestions for using less water, for minimizing erosion and for keeping runoff out of streams.
A first run of 2,000 of the guides was distributed free around the region, and an expanded version is in the works. Allen is optimistic this kind of voluntary community effort will help.
“There’s probably no such thing as a perfect, zero impact farm,” he says. “But if we give people the information and the knowledge they need, they will make improvements.”
Allen says what’s really needed is a proper set of rules. But while the need to regulate this burgeoning industry is widely acknowledged, there’s little visible sign of movement in that direction in Sacramento.
For now, the future of northern California salmon runs seems to depend at least in part on the good intentions of cannabis growers in the Emerald Triangle.
