Kim Kalliber, Author at Tulalip News

Track canoes online in the 2013 Canoe Journey/Paddle to Quinault

Richard Walker, Marysville Globe

Some of the traditional Native cedar canoes participating in the 2013 Paddle to Quinault can be tracked online at www.tinyurl.com/K77zryw.

The site, which is updated every 10 minutes, features the progress of canoes from the Heiltsuk and T’Sou-Ke First Nations of Canada; and the Grand Ronde, Lower Elwha, Muckleshoot, Squaxin Island, Swinomish and Warm Springs.

Approximately 100 canoes are expected to arrive at Quinault for traditional welcoming ceremonies on Aug. 1, according to Quinault Nation President Fawn Sharp. Among the participants are canoes from Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and the Suquamish Tribe.

“It has been 24 years since [the] Paddle to Seattle first revitalized this long-held Northwest tribal tradition, and the event has gained momentum throughout the Northwest ever since,” Sharp said in a press release.

“The cedar canoe holds great meaning for tribes throughout the Northwest and western Canada,” she said. “The annual Journey reaches deep into the hearts and souls of our people — both young and old, and helps them fully realize the vitality and spiritual strength of their tribal identity, underscoring our hope for a sustainable and positive future.”

This year’s Journey is expected to draw an estimated 15,000 tribal and non-tribal visitors to the land of the Quinault. The destination is Point Grenville, a Quinault beach near Taholah, approximately 40 miles north of Ocean Shores. Canoes will be escorted by the tall ships Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain, recognizing the 225th anniversary of first contact between the Quinault people and the new United States of America.

Dignitaries expected to attend: Sen. Maria Cantwell, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; and Maia Bellon, Mescalero Apache, the director of Washington state’s Department of Ecology. Also in attendance will be tribal and state officials and hereditary chiefs.

“All visitors are welcome, as is our tribal custom,” said Guy Capoeman, Paddle to Quinault coordinator. “The Canoe Journeys have always provided a great opportunity for tribes to get together, share our thoughts, stories, traditional dance and song, and strengthen our bonds of friendship. They are a great means to teach our children about their roots, history and traditional ways. They also provide a good opportunity for non-tribal people to get to know more about us, and strengthen relations between Indian and non-Indian communities.”

This year’s Journey is significant in that it is being hosted by the home nation of Emmett Oliver, who organized the Paddle to Seattle in 1989 as part of the state’s Centennial Celebration, ushering in the modern Canoe Journey.

“The contemporary Canoe Journeys began in 1989,” Capoeman said. “Emmett Oliver, a Quinault tribal elder, organized the Paddle to Seattle as a part of [the] Washington State Centennial ceremony, revitalizing the canoe tradition, which had been lost for many years. We now know this as the Canoe Journey. The Canoe Journey has become [a] symbol of cultural revitalization on a national and even international level. We can expect anywhere from 90 U.S. Tribes, Canadian First Nations, and even New Zealand to join the celebration. In the past, we have seen canoes from Alaska and even Hawaii join in on this event. It truly has become an amazing part of revitalized Northwest culture.”

Sharp, who is also president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and a regional vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, said the Canoe Journey creates opportunities for indigenous people members to re-learn, strengthen and reinforce their canoe traditions. Many cultural values are learned from pulling in a canoe.

“Among these are positive pride, cultural knowledge, respect, and a sense of both personal achievement and teamwork,” she said.

For more information, including site maps and schedule, go to www.PaddletoQuinault.org.

Boy finds wedding ring, hopes to find the owner

Eric Stevick, The Herald

TULALIP —

was rummaging through the rocks and sand looking for creatures when his eyes happened on something shiny earlier this week.

It was one of those wonderfully warm sunny days of summer, idyllic conditions for a 10-year-old boy with plenty of time and curiosity.

Caleb found his spot to explore along the 3,300-foot shoreline that entices beachcombers to Kayak Point Park.

It was low tide, all that much better for poking around for sea critters and Caleb was near some pilings.

“I thought it was a fish hook,” the soon-to-be fifth-grader said of the gleam that caught his eye.

Upon closer inspection, the object was smooth and round.

“He came running to me and said, ‘Look what I found,'” his mother, Jackie Goulet said.

Caleb had recovered not only a ring, but a symbol of love.

He and his mother brought it to the attention of park maintenance workers or WSU Beach Watchers near the ranger station.

The boy and mom were told a man had been looking for a lost ring the day before near the boat launch. He was about to celebrate his 44th wedding anniversary and was hoping to find the ring before the momentous date.

Snohomish County Parks operations supervisor Rich Patton said parks employees have little information about the man who lost his ring, except that he had trouble launching his boat and may have lost the ring at that time.

Now, Caleb is hoping to reunite the man with his ring.

“I was really excited to find the ring and I was really excited he would be happy to get it back,” he said.

How excited is Caleb? On a scale of one to 10, this drama ranks a nine in his book.

Jackie Goulet said there are some distinguishing features to the ring that only the owner would know about.

She has taken out a lost-and-found ad on Craigslist: http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/laf/3957638868.html

It reads:

Found Wedding Ring at Kayak Point

My son was digging for creatures and found a men’s wedding ring. One of the Beach Watchers told me that the owner was looking for it yesterday. If you are the owner, please contact me AND be prepared to describe it. I hope I get it back to the right person.

Join neighbors in night out to fight crime

Source: The Herald

Take back the night Aug. 6 by taking part in the National Night Out Against Crime.

Big cities, towns and neighborhoods all across the country, including Everett, plan evening activities for families.

The Evergreen Library and surrounding neighborhoods join together for an ice cream social from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

The evening’s activities include door prizes, a magician, balloon art, a face painter, craft making, and visits by Everett police and firefighters.

The Evergreen Branch Library is at 9512 Evergreen Way, Everett. For more information call 425-257-8250.

Check the city of Everett website at tinyurl.com/23ph5g6 for an updated list of neighborhoods planning events.

Night Out in Marysville events take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Comeford Park, 514 Delta Ave. Marysville and Tulalip Tribal police and Marysville Fire District officers will be on hand with information about the Neighborhood Watch Program and Marysville Volunteers Program crime prevention and fingerprinting kids.

Go to tinyurl.com/n226uqn for more about Marysville Night Out events.

Learn more about National Night Out at www.natw.org.

NWIC’s big athletics fundraiser tees off soon

Golfers will have a chance to win Seattle Seahawks tickets with sideline passes

Last year’s Northwest Indian College Big Drive for Education Golf Scramble garnered $19,000 and this year’s goal is to raise $25,000. Photo courtesy of NWIC

Source: NWIC

On Friday September 6, Northwest Indian College (NWIC) Foundation will host the 11^th Annual Big Drive for Education Golf Scramble, the college’s biggest annual athletics fundraiser that supports student athletes and athletic programs.

The scramble will begin with a 1 p.m. shotgun start, in which all golfers tee off at different holes at the same time. The event will take place at the Sudden Valley Golf & Country Club on Lake Whatcom in Bellingham.

Last year’s event garnered more than $19,000 and this year’s goal is to raise $25,000. The Golf Scramble provides financial resources, such as athletic scholarships, for NWIC student athletes, and supports the development of the college’s health and fitness programs.

NWIC sports include: women’s volleyball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, co-ed softball, cross country, canoeing, tennis, and golf.

Registration rates are $800 for teams of four golfers or $200 for individual registrants who would like to be placed on teams. Costs include registration, carts, green fees, range balls, dinner and raffle tickets.

This year’s Golf Scramble will include a silent auction and a raffle with prizes that include Seattle Seahawks tickets with sideline passes. Players will also have an opportunity to win the “hole-in-one” car.

Winning teams will receive the President’s cup trophy and NWIC Golf Scramble jackets. There will be a jackets awarded to the top women’s team as well as medals to the winners of the side games.

Sponsorship opportunities for this year’s Golf Scramble are:

Premiere: $10,000

Reserved table and seating for eight at golf awards banquet
Name listing and logo in promotional literature
Golf registration for two teams of four (eight golfers)
Signage with logo at the event
Honorable mention throughout the event

Soaring Eagle: $5,000

Reserved table and seating for eight at golf awards banquet
Name listing and logo in promotional literature
Golf registration for two teams of four (eight golfers)
Signage with logo at the event
Honorable mention throughout the event

Hawk: $2,500

Reserved table and seating for four at golf awards banquet
Name listing in promotional literature
Golf registration for one team (four golfers)
Signage at the event
Honorable mention throughout the event

Birdie: $1,250

Reserved table and seating for eight at golf awards banquet
Name listing and in promotional literature
Golf registration for on team (four golfers)
Signage at the event
Honorable mention throughout the event

Tee Sponsors

$500: Name listed in promotional materials, signage at tee and green
$250: Signage at tee and green
$150: Signage at tee OR green

For sponsorship and registration information or for questions, email mariahd@nwic.edu or call (360)392-4217.

Teaching Indigenous Solutions to Modern Agricultural Problems

Alex Jacobs, Indian Country Today Media Network

For 18 years, Clayton Brascoupe, director of Traditional Native American Farmers Association, has taught a course called Indigenous Sustainable Communities Design. The stories of how people and communities have been affected are powerful.

• There were the South American students who took back their knowledge and heritage seeds to create gardens and build a new community house. They grew a certain yellow watermelon and when presented to the elders at a fiesta, they began to cry because they hadn’t tasted the fruit since they were children. They were also recognized at the national level for this community work.

• Then there was the phone call Clayton received from the mother of a young man from Arizona. She asked what they had done to her son, because he had completely changed from a game-playing couch potato into an engaged busy gardener.

• Another young man returned home to Los Angeles to start urban gardens, but his story was not quite that simple: As it turned out, he was hard-core gang member who took it upon himself to change his community by providing fresh food.

• On another occasion, the course provided a natural solution when mother nature wreaked havoc: A Mayan group from Belize learned to preserve surplus garden-grown food and marinated chicken. When hurricanes damaged everything, they still had the preserves to feed the community.

Clayton Brascoupe. Photo by Alex Jacobs

Clayton Brascoupe — known around Turtle Island as Clayton or “Scoobie” — is Mohawk and Anishnabe, and was raised in Tuscarora, NY. He married Margaret Vigil from Tesuque Pueblo, NM and they have four daughters, which is also the name of their farm “4 Sisters”. He served an appointed position on the Tesuque Pueblo Tribal Council, and has been involved in community gardens and marketing for years. We travelled together with White Roots of Peace/Akwesasne Notes on the 1973 Wounded Knee trip; Clayton returned to NM to marry Margaret, and our fellow traveler Tom Cook returned to Pine Ridge, SD to marry Loretta Afraid of Bear. I went on to become an editor of Akwesasne Notes, co-founder of Indian Time and Akwekon, Tom is now a respected member of his Lakotah community and participates in the Sun Dance. Clayton’s older brother Simon Brascoupe, was an important artist in the early development of marketing Canadian Native Arts.

Clayton’s course is a two-week hands-on grassroots workshop — it’s also, frequently, a life changing experience. Class size ranges from 20 to 25, with the most ever being 35. Locals from New Mexico, Arizona, and elsewhere in the southwest make up most of the class. There are urban Natives, as well as Natives from Canada, Central and South America. Many students return to become instructors — the staff is 98% indigenous, and many of are women. Recently there’s been a Midwifery component — the thinking being, if we can grow clean food in a non-industrial way, then why not our children?

Traditional foods ready to eat. Image courtesy Clayton Brascoupe.

What Clayton says is important for these students, is it to develop a resource base of knowledge in the affected communities and to become experts in their respective communities. Identify resources, land bases, elders’ knowledge, youthful energy, water sources, urban parks, markets and outlets, recycling discarded resources and discarded people too. Identify problems and solutions and use local resources to fix them, and if there aren’t enough local resources, go out in wider and broader networks to find more. Its base knowledge is agriculture, but it’s not just about planting gardens. Health care is everyone’s biggest issue and expense, but fresh food dramatically changes diet and lifestyle, positively affecting diabetes and heart disease. Food, health, economies, energy, housing, spiritual well-being, elder care, raising children, education — it all becomes inter-related.

Clayton had originally started the course as Permaculture Design but each group had different issues, so the course grew outward and became its own living organism, adapting and changing. Citing examples around Indian country, he talked about ecology and borders and what he terms eco-tones, where two environments come together. These “edges” are where things happen and exchanges are made, where there is more diversity of plants and animals. It’s the difference between a riparian area with a meandering river or a re-created “seaway”, dug out and made straight for industrial traffic. Communities become just like these traffic lanes — dollars don’t stay, they leave immediately like out a pipeline fast, instead of percolating around families. In most communities, dollars are replenished in grants instead of recycling via local diverse economies. Just like a riparian wetland or our own digestive system, there needs to be more meandering, more edges where things meet, interact and exchange, to yield more nutrients, more bang for the buck, rather than having everything of value be extracted by corporations and outside markets.

Growing heirloom seeds. Photo courtesy Clayton Brascoupe.

Although the course is designed for and made up of indigenous peoples, non-Natives have been students and there are usually around 5 spots for non-natives who pay the full course fee. Sometimes Native organizations or benefactors will sponsor individuals to come and learn and then go back to Native communities to teach. Participants can camp nearby, children are allowed but there’s no daycare, and there’s local food catering from San Juan (Ohkay Ohwingeh). The 2013 session of Sustainable Communities Design runs from July 28 through August 9 in Santa Cruz, New Mexico. Those interested should visit tnafanm.org/TNAFA.html for more information.

One final story: An El Salvadoran farmer comes every year driving his cooking-oil fueled pick-up truck. He fills up at restaurants (which usually have to pay to have their oil picked up), the best fuel oils are from Taiwanese, Chinese, and Mexican restaurants. The McDonalds waste cooking-oil clogs his vehicle’s engine, it won’t run; so think about that for awhile.

Alex Jacobs, Mohawk, is a visual artist and poet living in Santa Fe.

Claws and effect: Climate change turns lobsters into cannibals

By James West and Tim McDonnel, Grist

Noah Oppenheim’s plan was simple: Rig a young lobster underneath a waterproof, infrared camera; drop the contraption overboard off the coast of Maine; and see who comes along for a bite to eat. The takers, he expected, would be fish: Cod, herring, and other “groundfish” found in these waters that are known to love a good lobster dinner. Similar experiments conducted in the 1990s showed that apart from being snatched up in one of the thousands of traps that sprinkle the sea floor here — tools of this region’s signature trade — fish predation was the principle cause of lobster death. Instead, Oppenheim, a marine biology graduate student at the University of Maine, captured footage that looks like it comes straight from the reel of a 1950s B-grade horror movie: rampant lobster cannibalism.

lobster-graphs-combined-640_4 — Tim McDonnell

Warming waters can cause lobsters to grow larger and produce more offspring, and the last decade has been the warmest on record in the Gulf of Maine. That, combined with overfishing of lobster predators and an excess of bait left in lobster traps (see info box below), has driven the Maine lobster harvest to thoroughly smash records that stretch back to 1880. One of the side effects of this boom, Oppenheim says, is cannibalism: There are countless lobsters down there with nothing much to eat them and not much for them to eat, besides each other.

Lobsters are known to chomp each other in captivity (those rubber bands you see on their pincers are more for their own protection that the lobstermen’s), but Oppenheim says this is the first time this degree of cannibalism has been documented in the wild (oh, yes, we’ve got the footage; check out the video above). From his remote research station on rocky Hurricane Island, floating in the lobster-grabbing chaos off nearby fog-shrouded Vinalhaven Island (one of Maine’s top lobstering locales), Oppenheim has seen that young lobsters left overnight under his camera are over 90 percent more likely to be eaten by another lobster than by anything else.

lobster-boom-infographic-MJ — Tim McDonnell

While the lobster boom is clearly a terror for the lobsters themselves, it’s no picnic for the people here whose families have made their livings off lobster since before the Revolutionary War. Lobster prices are down to lows not seen since the Great Depression, taking a serious pinch out of profit margins already made slim by high labor and fuel costs. Even more unsettling is the prospect that the boom could go bust: Southern New England saw a similar peak in the late 1990s, followed by a crash that left local lobstermen reeling for years. Maine’s lobster experts worry that their state is next.

A crash here could have devastating results. Starting in the late 1980s, lobsters began to dominate Maine’s seafood catch: In 1987, they made up 8.6 percent of the total haul; by last year, that number had climbed to more than 40 percent. In part, the industry’s dependence is due to the fact that, increasingly, there’s an abundance of lobsters and a deficit of anything else. But at the same time, the state’s fishing permit system favors single-species licenses, so many lobstermen are locked into that product, a change from earlier decades where fishermen changed their prey from season to season.

In order to survive, experts say, Mainers will need to get creative with their tastes. For that, maybe they can take a cue from the lobsters themselves.

This story was produced as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

James West is a Climate Desk producer. Follow him on Twitter.

Tim McDonnell is a Climate Desk associate producer. Read more of his stories here or follow him on Twitter.

Big Oil sued for destroying wetlands around Gulf of Mexico

John Upton, Grist

Coastal Louisiana would like its wetlands back. It needs them to protect itself from rising seas and raging storms.

The agency charged with protecting New Orleans-area residents from floods is suing Big Oil, claiming it should repair damages that it caused to wetlands that once buffered the region from tidal surges.

The oil companies have recklessly torn out the marshes and plants that ringed the Gulf of Mexico as they laid pipelines and other infrastructure to serve their decades-long oil- and gas-drilling bonanza. From The New York Times:

The lawsuit, to be filed in civil district court in New Orleans by the board of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, argues that the energy companies, including BP and Exxon Mobil, should be held responsible for fixing damage caused by cutting a network of thousands of miles of oil and gas access and pipeline canals through the wetlands. The suit alleges that the network functioned “as a mercilessly efficient, continuously expanding system of ecological destruction,” killing vegetation, eroding soil and allowing salt water to intrude into freshwater areas.

“What remains of these coastal lands is so seriously diseased that if nothing is done, it will slip into the Gulf of Mexico by the end of this century, if not sooner,” the filing stated. …

Gladstone N. Jones III, a lawyer for the flood protection authority board, said the plaintiffs were seeking damages equal to “many billions of dollars. Many, many billions of dollars.”

Mr. Jones acknowledges that the government, which has strong protection against lawsuits, might bear some responsibility for loss of wetlands. But, he noted, Washington had spent billions on repairs and strengthening hurricane defenses since the system built by the Army Corps of Engineers failed after Hurricane Katrina. By taking the oil and gas companies to court, he said, “we want them to come and pay their fair share.”

That seems only fair.

Poland’s shale gas bubble ‘bursting’

Villagers from Zurawlow protesting in Warsaw. The banner says “Shale gas = the death of farming”. Photo: Claudia Ciobanu/IPS.

By Claudia Ciobanu, Inter Press Service

Since Jun. 3, inhabitants of the village Zurawlow in Grabowiec district in southeastern Poland have been occupying a field in their locality where the U.S. company Chevron plans to drill for shale gas. The farmers’ resistance is just the latest blow to shale gas proponents in the country.

Chevron, one of the world’s top five publicly owned oil and gas companies (the so-called “Big Oil”), owns four out of the 108 concessions for exploration for unconventional gas currently awarded by Poland (data from Jul. 1, 2013).

Over the past years, Poland has been perceived as one of Europe’s most promising locations for shale exploration. The U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration estimated two years ago that the country holds 187 trillion cubic feet shale gas resources, 44 trillion of which are in the Lubin Basin where Zurawlow lies. This year, the body revised those estimates downwards, to 148 trillion cubic feet for the country and nine trillion for the Lubin region, after applying tighter methodology.

Given Poland’s annual gas consumption (currently over 600 billion cubic feet annually), the original EIA estimate has been translated to mean that shale gas resources would be enough to meet the country’s needs for 300 years, a figure often quoted by media and politicians.

The Polish centre-right government headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been depicting shale gas as a way to both reduce Poland’s dependency on Russian gas imports (two-thirds of Polish gas demand is covered from Russian imports) and to make a transition away from dirty coal, which at the moment covers 60 percent of energy demand in the country.

Past the political rhetoric, facts on the ground are less rosy. Despite around 40 wells being drilled in the country since 2010 (including by Halliburton contracted by Polish state company PGNiG S.A.), no company has to date announced that it can extract gas for commercial purposes.

Over the past year, ExxonMobil and two other companies, Marathon Oil and Talisman, announced they would withdraw from Poland, doubting the gains they could make. The government appears to be in damage control mode, telling international media that Exxon still holds on to one out of six concessions and that Marathon has not yet submitted official requests to pull out.

Tusk’s team is also working on legislative changes to make the companies’ lives easier: in addition to tax breaks until 2020, firms would have the possibility to turn exploration licences into production licences automatically as well as to increase the depth of drilling without extra permits.

Yet the shale gas lobby thinks changes do not go far enough. According to the Polish Exploration and Production Industry Organisation (OPPPW), clearer wording is needed to ensure those who explore can automatically exploit (without the fields being put up for tender if gas is discovered), longer exploration permits are necessary, and too big a role is envisaged for a state company which is planned by Poland to have a stake in all exploitations.

“OPPPW members all wish to progress their projects in Poland,” Marcin Zieba, the industry group’s executive director told IPS. “But, as demonstrated by ExxonMobil, Talisman and Marathon stopping their operations. they can change their minds. We have yet to see a project in Poland that has demonstrated commercial flow rates – so this activity remains high risk, with no guarantee of success.”

Meanwhile, local opposition to fracking (pumping water and chemicals into the underground to release gas from rocks) is posing unexpectedly strong obstacles.

In 2012 already, Chevron had to stop operations in Zurawlow because locals successfully argued in courts that the company’s operations at the time were breaching the EU Birds Directive.

The occupation this year started when the company renewed attempts to begin work, beginning with trying to fence off one area. Protesters say that Chevron is treating the concession like private property whileaccording to them “the concession was awarded for public purposes – searching for hydrocarbons – and activities in the area must be conducted with the knowledge and acceptance of society.”

In a controversy that might be telling of the murkiness of the Polish legislative framework, villagers argue that while Chevron has the concession, it has not received supplementary approvals from local authorities to do anything more than seismic testing in the region. Chevron retorts that they do have all necessary approvals.

In a response to protesters, the ministry of environment says the right to build (including wells) on the concession land must be further regulated by state authorities and does not derive automatically from the concession.

The legalistic battle, however, is just a facet of the fundamental conflict between villagers and Chevron: in the predominantly farming area of Zurawlow, people fear fracking will forever destroy their water and lands, endangering their livelihoods.

“If they go ahead with drilling thousands of metres underground, our water will be affected and there will be no more life in our fields,” villager Stefan Jablonski told IPS during a protest in Warsaw last week. “Not to mention that we might end up with no gas and no water too.”

Villagers complain that an assessment of environmental impacts for shale exploration has not been conducted for Zurawlow. According to Polish legislation, state authorities can decide on a case by case basis if such an assessment is required.

Asked to respond to the claims of the protesters by IPS during a press conference Jul. 15, Polish Minister of Environment Marcin Korolec said: “Shale gas constitutes an enormous opportunity for Poland. The majority of environmental issues are extremely emotional, as we see with the people of Zurawlow, but we have to keep our route and realise our policy.”

“Unfortunately, our ministry of environment is behaving like a representative of companies,” Agnieszka Grzybek from the Polish Green Party told IPS. “In the legislative pack discussed at the moment, there is a proposal that says that new NGOs cannot send comments and engage in the debate unless they have existed for more than a year. This would effectively exclude groups like the farmers from Zurawlow from having a say on shale gas.”

Undercover police crash anti-shale gas press conference, activists remain in woods along ‘Line 5′

Yesterday, Upriver Environment Watch called a press conference at the Super 8 motel in Dieppe, New Brunswick. Attended by about 50 people, including 4 representatives from the media, the anti-shale gas action group from Kent County hosted a panel of speakers with a variety of expertise and experience.

“Impunity is the word we’re working with today,” said Anne Pohl, host of the press conference.

Pohl had, on July 19th, sent an open letter to New Brunswick Premier David Alward. The letter was at once an invitation to Alward to attend the press conference (neither he nor any member of his caucus attended) as well as a point by point description of the experienced hardships that those continuing to call for a moratorium on shale gas exploration in New Brunswick have experienced in their dealings with the RCMP, SWN Resources Canada as well as their elected government representatives.

If there was a continuous thread to the press conference, it was a general sense of frustration.

“We feel it is time for your government to stop directing the RCMP to harass us and to throw us in jail,” read the open letter to Premier Alward from the Upriver Environment Watch.

“It is time for your government to start talking with us. We have been trying to communicate with you for a long time. We have tried petitions, letters, requests for meetings, protests and everything else we could think of to get your attention. Your avoidance of us has been complete. We are extremely disappointed in your government’s failure to respond and acknowledge our concerns. We ask for you to respect and recognize the legitimacy of our concerns.“

Chris Sabas, one of two members of the Christian Peacemakers Team that has been invited to document the anti-shale actions by Elsipogtog War Chief John Levi, was the first presenter. Her information focused on her recent excursions visiting post-testing areas along ‘Line 5′, the backwoods seismic testing line that has for weeks now been the focus of SWN Resources Canada’s testing efforts.

Sabas’ had photographic evidence of unplugged ‘shot holes’, as well as disturbing photographs of animal tracks that she noted appeared in large numbers around post-explosion zones.

Willi Nolan, a long-time resident of Kent County, as well as a member of Upriver Environment Watch, focused her presentation on the dangers of the chemicals already being used in SWN’s exploration processes.

Nolan noted that while information was not readily available, SWN was most likely using a TNT explosive to detonate it’s shot holes. Having already detonated dozens of shot holes throughout the backwoods along ‘Line 5′, Nolan noted that there was no evidence of independent monitors looking after post-testing zones.

Celianne Cormier, another lifelong resident of Kent County, recounted her personal story of being bullied by SWN and Stantec Engineering when it came time for her water to be tested leading up to testing in 2011.

Cormier related a situation where it did not appear that Stantec, ostensibly a third party independent water testing company, was acting at an arm’s length from SWN, the company required to do the water testing. In fact, every time a “water tester” called the Cormier residence, she noted that they claimed to be calling on behalf of SWN. Cormier felt increasingly skeptical when water testers consistently refused to produce identification that they were in fact Stantec employees.

“Why were the callers introducing themselves as calling from SWN and why was SWN calling the shots if the testing was being done by an independent or third party?” asked Cormier. “I lost all confidence in the process, I felt violated and bullied because I felt I was not asking for anything special. In fact I felt I was only insisting on the world class safe ans secure practices as promised by our provincial government.”

Ann Pohl spoke about the difficulty of having the concerns of the citizens of New Brunswick properly heard and represented by a mainstream media almost completely controlled by the powerful Irving empire. Pohl noted that Irving, who stands to benefit from shale gas extraction in any number of ways; from trucking, to shipping, to processing, and on, was knowingly marginalizing the message of those opposed to shale gas extraction, often framing it as a ‘Native issue’.

After fielding questions from the media, the press conference then turned into an open forum, with various concerned citizens from around the province voicing their concerns about the increasingly obvious signs of industrial hostility, whether in disregard for the natural environment, complicity with law enforcement bodies, both public and private, and lack of concern from elected officials.

As if on cue, as one woman was describing the difficulties of trying to continue to live alongside a pot ash mine in Penobsquis, it became apparent that two undercover RCMP officers had been taking notes throughout the entire press conference. When asked what they were doing, constable Dave Matthews noted that he was taking notes on “the mood” of the press conference. When cameras were trained on the officers, they quickly fled the conference.

Rogersville heats up

It may well be that the blatant disrespect of laying seismic testing equipment immediately adjacent to a cemetery where family members and war veterans lie has begun to galvanize Rogersville’s Acadian population into action.

Today, only two days after the RCMP lied to activists attempting to park on parish land adjacent to their cemetery, telling those attempting to gather that it was private property, an emboldened crowd of about 60 Acadians, Anglophones and Indigenous people – united in their purpose – gathered in the pouring rain next to an active testing line.

Fearless of the potential danger of un-exploded ordinance, a number of people ventured southward down the active testing line, heading away from Pleasant Ridge Road towards Salmon River Road. With the constant hum of a helicopter transporting bagged geophones as a backdrop, activists wandered the freshly cut seismic line. Many noticed the presence of traditionally used medicinal plants growing directly next to un-detonated shot holes.

While most people exited the seismic test line by nightfall, as of press time an unknown number of individuals remain in the woods near the ordinance.

Common agricultural chemicals shown to impair honey bees’ health

Source: University of Maryland

Commercial honey bees used to pollinate crops are exposed to a wide variety of agricultural chemicals, including common fungicides which impair the bees’ ability to fight off a potentially lethal parasite, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The study, published July 24 in the online journal PLOS ONE, is the first analysis of real-world conditions encountered by honey bees as their hives pollinate a wide range of crops, from apples to watermelons.

The researchers collected pollen from honey bee hives in fields from Delaware to Maine. They analyzed the samples to find out which flowering plants were the bees’ main pollen sources and what agricultural chemicals were commingled with the pollen. The researchers fed the pesticide-laden pollen samples to healthy bees, which were then tested for their ability to resist infection with Nosema ceranae – a parasite of adult honey bees that has been linked to a lethal phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.

On average, the pollen samples contained 9 different agricultural chemicals, including fungicides, insecticides, herbicides and miticides. Sublethal levels of multiple agricultural chemicals were present in every sample, with one sample containing 21 different pesticides. Pesticides found most frequently in the bees’ pollen were the fungicide chlorothalonil, used on apples and other crops, and the insecticide fluvalinate, used by beekeepers to control Varroamites, common honey bee pests.

In the study’s most surprising result, bees that were fed the collected pollen samples containing chlorothonatil were nearly three times more likely to be infected by Nosema than bees that were not exposed to these chemicals, said Jeff Pettis, research leader of the USDA’s Bee Research Laboratory and the study’s lead author. The miticides used to controlVarroa mites also harmed the bees’ ability to withstand parasitic infection.

Beekeepers know they are making a trade-off when they use miticides. The chemicals compromise bees’ immune systems, but the damage is less than it would be if mites were left unchecked, said University of Maryland researcher Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s senior author. But the study’s finding that common fungicides can be harmful at real world dosages is new, and points to a gap in existing regulations, he said.

“We don’t think of fungicides as having a negative effect on bees, because they’re not designed to kill insects,” vanEngelsdorp said. Federal regulations restrict the use of insecticides while pollinating insects are foraging, he said, “but there are no such restrictions on fungicides, so you’ll often see fungicide applications going on while bees are foraging on the crop. This finding suggests that we have to reconsider that policy.”

In an unexpected finding, most of the crops that the bees were pollinating appeared to provide their hives with little nourishment. Honey bees gather pollen to take to their hives and feed their young. But when the researchers collected pollen from bees foraging on native North American crops such as blueberries and watermelon, they found the pollen came from other flowering plants in the area, not from the crops. This is probably because honey bees, which evolved in the Old World, are not efficient at collecting pollen from New World crops, even though they can pollinate these crops.

The study’s findings are not directly related to colony collapse disorder, the still-unexplained phenomenon in which entire honey bee colonies suddenly die. However, the researchers said the results shed light on the many factors that are interacting to stress honey bee populations.