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Lucille Echohawk to Hold Holiday Family Fundraiser in Nation’s Capital

By Rob Caprioccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network

Lucille Echohawk, executive director of the Denver Indian Family Resource Center (DIFRC), found herself this holiday season needing to be in Washington, D.C. for a board meeting of the National Museum of the American Indian, so she decided to turn the trip into a chance to do good for vulnerable Native children and their families.

“My travel was already paid for, so I couldn’t resist using the visit to D.C. to help raise awareness of our cause and to raise some funds for our work,” Echohawk said. “I’m very excited to rub shoulders with some old friends and to meet many new ones.”

Echohawk, a Pawnee Nation citizen and longtime Indian and tribal advocate, has been director of the DFIRC for about a year now. The organization was founded in early 2000 as a child welfare agency focused on meeting the needs of Indian children and families in the Denver area.

RELATED: Lucille Echohawk’s ‘Big Vision’: To Strengthen Communication Between Denver and Tribes

Echohawk said the goal of DFIRC is to assist families to avoid involvement with the child welfare system and to support and advocate for families already involved by offering services that build up the strength of Indian families. She said, too, that it provides assistance for other organizations who would like to do the same.

“Our practice model is in place for anyone who needs to use it,” said Echohawk, who added that she is so grateful to be able to be helping others. She’s long been committed to doing so, but it took on a renewed meaning for her after a scary experience last year when she was doing a water aerobics class at the local YMCA and her heart stopped. Since her recovery, those who are close to her say she has been even more enthusiastic and happy in both her life and work.

Still, there are challenges. Being the director of the non-profit organization in times of dwindling private and federal support requires constant outreach and fundraising, said Echohawk, who formerly worked several years for Casey Family Programs as a senior Indian Child Welfare Act specialist and strategic advisor.

“It’s a lot of work, especially in this funding climate, but we are doing it for the children and families who need the most help,” she said.

But she is not deterred. Having worked in D.C. in the 1970s and having many family members who have been involved in the world of politics – including the retired Assistant Secretary—Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk at the Department of the Interior – she started listing names of folks she knows in Washington. She soon had an impressive list of invitees—some of whom turned out to want to help out as hosts and donors. LaDonna Harris soon helped make some connections, and fellow women warriors, like Kimberly Craven, Shannon Finley, and Rebecca Adamson were quick to follow suit, with longtime Indian advocate Ed Gabriel signing on to be committee chair. Invites have since gone out to many Indian-focused officials across Washington.

“Everyone has been so nice in helping out,” Echohawk said, noting this is the first time the organization has held an event of this nature outside of the Denver metropolitan area. “It shows how committed they are to caring for Indian children and youth.”

The reception, which Echohawk hopes will attract at least 50 guests with a suggested donation of $200, will be held at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse in downtown D.C. on December 2. To those who may be interested in attending, she suggested they contact staffer Diane Waters at dwaters@difrc.org.

Besides offering the opportunity to connect with Echohawk and friends, the event will feature a silent auction with the chance to purchase artwork by Navajo artist Pabilta Abeyta, Taos designer and Project Runway finalist Patricia Michaels, Pawnee/Ojibwe artist Raymond Nordwall, Crow artist Kevin Red Star, and Pawnee/Yakama Artist Bunky Echo-Hawk.

For those who can’t be in Washington for the event but who would like to help out, Echohawk pointed out that the organization is accepting donations through Colorado Gives. That effort is called the 7th Generation Campaign and is intended to increase understanding and support of Native families as they deal with today’s complex challenges and prepare for tomorrow.

“It would be nice to see a lot of goodwill at this time of year,” Echohawk said. “What a better holiday gift than to help Native children and families?”

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/11/27/lucille-echohawk-hold-holiday-family-fundraiser-nations-capital-152452

Small Business Saturday

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News writer

TULALIP, Wa -Thanksgiving has come and gone and with that comes plans for holiday gift giving. As you think up your gift giving list and begin planning for Black Friday sales and bookmarking Cyber Monday deals these are great days to score that one gift, if you know what you are looking for and are able to get it. But, between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is Small Business Saturday, a day to shop local and support small businesses.

Along with having mainstream gifts, a majority of the small business shops will have that neat and perfect gift that that isn’t made in mass quantities and can only be found within a small business shop. The best part is, these small and local businesses support local artists and offer unique gift ideas that have been hand made.

Generally, the small business shopping districts are found in small towns and are located in the old part of town. If you decide to venture out the day after Black Friday to continue your pursuit for the perfect gift, a few local and semi-local towns have a good selection of shops.

Click town names to follow a link to the list of businesses within the area and directions to get there.

· For many years, Snohomish was known for their large antique district on First St. Even though it is mostly boutiques now; it still has plenty of antique shops and both have unique gift possibilities.

· First St. in La Conner has nearly everything in one condensed area, boutiques, odds and ends, antiques, local artists and hobby shops.

· In Anacortes, on Commercial Ave there are a few odds and ends shops with a good mix of antique shops.

· Pike St and the University District in Seattle have many various shops to suit all interests.

· Port Townsend has a large down town strip on Water St. with many small businesses that range from boutique and quirky items to local artistry.

· Near the ferry landing in Port Angeles on Font St and 1^st St are hobby shops, odds and ends and local artistry.

· Although it is far and over Steven’s Pass, Leavenworth has a large downtown shopping area that has a variety of small business shops.

Telling Tulalip’s Story

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer

TULALIP, Wa – Tulalip’s Hibulb Cultural Center, on occasion, feature film screenings of films that star, are filmed by or are written by Native Americans, yet all tell one facet of the Native American life. Thursday, Oct 24^th’s featured screenings were of Jeff Boice’s work with the Tulalip Tribes. Jeff Boice, a videographer/editor, has been working with the Tulalip Tribes since 1990, has also done video shootings for large media companies such as The Discovery Channel and CNN.

The evenings screening were many short segments of the Walking Tour II with Ray Moses, History Minutes and a Williams Shelton’s segment. The Walking Tour follows Tulalip tribal member Ray Moses as he tells stories about significant locations on the Tulalip reservation. “He’s quite a historian. It was great working with Ray,” commented Boice.

History Minutes are under a few minutes, are produced for the museum and focus on one particular aspect of tribal life such as boarding school life or construction of summer homes that were used in the old days.

The William Shelton segment centered on the portion of William’s life when he carved the Sklaletut pole, a culturally important piece of artwork. Boice has a genuine interest in documenting the past of the Tulalip Tribes and states, “Our hopes are that this video will help generate enough interest to be able to do a longer documentary [on William Shelton] but not just that but to generate interest in preserving the Sklaletut pole.”

Most screenings events at the Hibulb are relatively intimate, are under a few hours and include a Q and A afterwards. For more about future film screenings at the Hibulb please visit their website or call 360-716-2600. To view the works of Jeff Boice, visit Boicetv.com.

November 27, 2013 syəcəb

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The Washington Redskins Had An Incredibly Awkward Tribute To Native American Veterans

Cork Gaines, November 26, 2013, Business Insider

The NFL is using the month of November to salute members of the military and veterans.

The Washington Redskins decided to use this as an opportunity to honor both the military and Native Americans during the Monday Night Football game.

During a commercial break, a video tribute (see video below) was shown honoring the Navajo Code Breakers of World War II. The video, which was only shown in the stadium and not on ESPN, included old clips of both President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush speaking about the veterans. After the video, four of the veterans were shown on the field.

The timing of the tribute raised a lot of eyebrows as it felt like a forced moment in the middle of the current controversy surrounding the team’s continued use of a name that many deem to be racially insensitive. The inclusion in the video of a Native American reciting “Hail to the Redskins!” felt scripted and the veterans on the field wearing jackets with Redskins logos added to the awkwardness of the moment.

Here is video of both the clip shown in the stadium and the scene on the field…

New Hope For An Endangered Deer

Source: Northwest Public Radio

Washington’s Columbian white-tailed deer have struggled to survive. In fact, their population fell so much they were once thought to be extinct.

Years ago, development claimed much of the Columbian white-tailed deer’s historical habitat. Most recently, a damaged dike threatened to burst and destroy one of their remaining refuges. (The Julia Butler Hansen Refuge for the Columbian White-Tailed Deer was established specifically to protect the species.)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service relocated 37 deer to the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge 60 miles away and brimming with prime habitat.

Now, those efforts are paying off.

In its five-year review of the deer, the service is recommending the Columbian white-tailed deer be downgraded from an endangered species to a threatened one.

That’s one step closer – in a long series of steps – to removing the deer from the endangered species list. However, the recommendation is only that, a recommendation, which is not always taken.

But biologists are pretty confident that the Columbian white-tailed deer will one day be fully recovered.

“Finally after 40 years, with this particular population segment in the Columbia River, we really are on the right track. Things are going to move quickly from here,” said Rebecca Toland, a wildlife biologist with the service.

Ten years ago, the service removed another Columbian white-tailed deer population in Oregon from the endangered species list. Biologists say that shows, given the right conditions, the Columbian white-tailed deer can make their way off the list.

“There’s a precedence for recovering and reclassifying and, ultimately, delisting under the endangered species act. But particularly for this species. There is a track record of the service doing that when warranted,” said Chris Allen, fisheries biologist with the service.

If Washington’s population is downgraded to a threatened species, the doors are opened up for more biologists and wildlife managers to work to protect the deer. Under federal law, there are many research restrictions when a species is classified as endangered. The threatened classification loosens those restrictions.

The service had several specific goals for the Columbian white-tailed deer to meet:

A minimum of 400 deer across the Columbia River population;
Three groups of at least 50 deer living in three different locations;
Two of those three groups had to be on protected, secure habitat.

Now, Toland said, biologists can put a check mark next to each of those items.

After biologists moved deer away from the eroding dike in southwestern Washington, the new Ridgefield population has begun to flourish, Toland said. Biologists have spotted two fawns at the refuge.

“They’re taking to the habitat,” Toland said. “It’s supporting them, and they’re finding enough cover and forage, and the things that they need in their new home. It’s always a challenge moving species to a completely new environment that they’re not familiar with.”

The dike near the Julia Butler Hansen Refuge is also being repaired. A one-mile setback dike was built this fall to prevent the refuge from flooding if the dike were to burst. Parts of the old dike will be removed next year, which will restore tidal connection and fish access to the refuge.

The service will likely decide whether to accept this recommendation in 2014. If the downgrade is officially proposed the public will then be able to comment.

Recovering ‘The Lost Fish’

Source: Northwest Public Radio

Pacific lamprey are the oldest known fish in the Columbia River System. Fossils indicate they were here 450 million years ago.

A Pacific lamprey, caught
at Willamette Falls in Oregon.

But in mid-20th centrury tribal fishers started noticing their numbers dwindling. Rivers once clogged with lamprey reached a historic low in 2010, said Brian McIlraith, lamprey project leader at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

The toothy, eel-like fish are an important part of tribal diets and a good indicator of ecosystem health. But salmon and steelhead recoveries have overshadowed the decline of the lamprey, which some non-tribal fishers considered a “trash fish.”

To help raise awareness about the lamprey CRITFC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Freshwaters Illustrated have released a documentary about efforts to recover the Pacific lamprey — before the fish are put on the endangered species list.

The documentary travels to all the Columbia River tribes to highlight different lamprey projects, from harvesting lamprey at Willamette Falls — which I can tell you is a wet, slippery, exciting job — to trucking the fish around dams.

Right now, CRITFC is holding screenings for the tribes. The East Oregonian reports about 35 people came to a showing in Pendleton, Ore. Organizers hope to screen the documentary around the Pacific Northwest in the future.

Stage 2 Burn Ban Remains in Effect for King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties

The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is maintaining a STAGE 2 burn ban for King Pierce, and Snohomish counties

These bans remain in effect until further notice.

Fine particle pollution levels continue to be high in areas throughout the Puget Sound region, especially in neighborhoods where wood-burning is common.

5 Unexpected Ways Climate Change Will Impact the Northwest

Native fishermen on the Pacific coast are seeing fewer cold water animals and reporting more sightings of warmer water species. Humboldt squid are being reported in waters off OR, WA, and BC. Ten years ago, sightings north of San Diego were rare. | credit: Katie Campbell | rollover image for more — Native fishermen on the Pacific coast are seeing fewer cold water animals and reporting more sightings of warmer water species. Humboldt squid are being reported in waters off OR, WA, and BC. Ten years ago, sightings north of San Diego were rare. | credit: Katie Campbell

Source: OPB

The top climate scientists in the Northwest have published a new report that surveys the many regional impacts of climate change.

It captures impacts large and small, from the hairy woodpecker which may enjoy more habitat, to smaller snowpack storing less water for the hydropower dams on the Columbia River. The report is the Northwest chapter of the third U.S. National Climate Assessment, a state-of-the-science update that Congress will receive next year. It was put together by the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University and the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington — with input from researchers, native American tribes and economists.

Read: What Climate Change Means For Northwest’s Rivers, Coasts and Forests

The main conclusions won’t surprise anyone who follows climate science, or who reads EarthFix regularly. The greatest risks in the Northwest fall into three categories: risks caused by declining snowpack and water storage, risks due to rising sea levels and coastal ecosystems, and risks related to forest fires and forest health.

But the report highlights some less familiar research as well. Here are five projected impacts of climate change you may not be aware of:

1. Rising Seas and a Falling Continent

Predictions of sea level rise in the Northwest are complicated by plate tectonics. For example, very little sea level rise has been observed on the Olympic Peninsula to date because the peninsula is uplifting at about the same rate that the sea level is rising. Scientists project that sea level rises will range from 4 inches to 4 feet along the Northwest coast. But that doesn’t take into account a major Cascadia subduction zone quake. OSU’s Philip Mote, one of the report’s editors, says when the big one hits, it could cause the entire coastline to drop by 3 feet, compounding the impact of rising seas.

2. Your Health Is At Stake

Mote says the Northwest doesn’t have the kind of extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes that tend to end with a high death toll. But rising temperatures are expected to make us more vulnerable to a whole range of troublesome and potentially fatal illnesses, from respiratory disorders to heat stroke to paralytic shellfish poisoning. If you want to learn more, check out EarthFix’s timely multimedia series, Symptoms of Climate Change: Will a Warming World Make Us Sick?

3. Hot Potatoes

Projected changes in temperatures, carbon dioxide levels, and the availability of irrigation water make the impact of climate change on agricultural crops surprisingly complicated to predict. The yield of winter wheat, for example, is expected to increase by up to 25 percent.

Potato yields are expected to increase until the middle of the century and then begin to decline, in some places as much as 40 percent. Mote says one reason agricultural yields may increase in the short term is the higher levels of CO2 in the air. “Carbon dioxide is plant food. It’s one of the nutrients that plants take in to grow structures and fruits and vegetables. For most plants, having more food allows them to grow faster,” he says. However, for many crops that positive effect may be offset by the impact of longer summer droughts with less water available for irrigation.

4. Thin shells

Climate change is tough news if you’re a marine creature with a shell or exoskeleton.
The Northwest already has some of the most acidified oceans in the world, and climate change is projected to reduce the pH of the oceans even further. Scientists predict that as a result of all the lower pH, mussels will form shells 25 percent more slowly and oysters will form shells 10 percent more slowly by the end of the century. EarthFix has reported extensively on this.

Other ocean critters may fare better; sea grasses and northern elephant seals may find more habitat available in a warming ocean. Paul Williams, who studies climate science and shellfish management for the Suquamish Tribe, says that while the big trend is clear, far more research is needed to understand how marine life will respond to acidification.

“If you want to ask, are the crabs going to disappear in Puget Sound, it’s hard to be that specific. What’s very clear is that we’ve changed the fundamental chemistry of the ocean,” he says.

5. Tribes

Climate change could affect many of the treaty rights reserved by tribes in the northwest, from water rights to shellfish gathering to the use of forests. And decreased summer water flows and increased stream temperatures could add to the stress that dams have placed on the region’s salmon runs, which are culturally and economically critical to many tribes. Several of the tribes in the Northwest have developed their own climate change research and mitigation and adaptation plans.

The Takeaway

I asked Philip Mote what he thinks the takeaway from the science is. He paraphrased John Holdren, a science advisor to President Obama. Holdren has suggested that three things will happen as we contend with climate change: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering.

“The less we try to mitigate and the less we try to adapt, the more that plants, animals, and other humans will fare negatively,” Mote says.

Comments On Longview Coal Export Project Reach 195,000

Millennium Bulk Terminals has proposed to export 44 million tons of coal per year through this site in Longview, Wash. | credit: Courtesy of Millennium Bulk Terminals | rollover image for more

Source: OPB.org November 21, 2013

More than 195,000 public comments have flooded the environmental review of the Millennium coal export terminal proposed for Longview, Wash.

That’s the number of letters, emails, and statements read aloud at public meetings as of Friday. It exceeds the 125,000 comments agencies received on the environmental review of the Gateway Pacific coal export project in Bellingham, Wash., earlier this year.

Monday was the deadline for the public to comment on the Millennium project during this phase of the environmental review. The total could climb even higher with the addition of comments post-marked Nov. 18, according to Linda Kent, spokeswoman for the Washington Department of Ecology. People can read all the comments online.

Ecology is one of three agencies taking comments on which environmental impacts they should study before permitting begins along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Cowlitz County. Kent said her agency hasn’t set a timeline for reviewing all the comments.

“Obviously this is a large number of comments to review, so there is really not a specific set time frame,” she said. “We’re going to be doing that as effectively and efficiently as we can.”

The Millennium project would export 44 million tons of coal from Wyoming and Montana to Asia. It would receive coal by rail at a terminal in Longview, Wash., and transfer it onto vessels.

Many people have asked the agencies to consider the health impacts of coal dust and diesel emissions along the delivery route.

On Sunday, 160 Oregon and Washington physicians submitted comments asking the agencies to do a health impact assessment of the project as part of their environmental reviews.

Regna Merritt of the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility says that makes for a total of 3,000 health professionals and advocates who have made similar requests in comments on the Millennium project.

Merritt said the comments submitted Sunday mirror those of a group called the Whatcom Docs, who asked for a health impact assessment on the Gateway Pacific coal export project in Bellingham.

Ecology announced earlier this year it would consider the health impacts in its environmental review of that coal export project.

“At the very least we need the same consideration for Longview,” Merritt said.

How do public officials manage to review 195,000 public comments? Here’s a story that explains.

Category: News