OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – The Suquamish Tribe and Washington State Liquor Cannabis Board have signed what they say is the nation’s first state-tribal marijuana compact.
Board officials said in a news release the 10-year agreement signed Monday will govern the production, processing and sale of pot on the Tribe’s land located in Kitsap County.
The state negotiated the agreement in lieu of Board licensure. Under the compact, a tribal tax equivalent to the state excise tax will be applied to sales to non-tribal customers on Suquamish tribal lands.
Board chair Jane Rushford says the agreement is a model for future compacts.
The compact will head next to Gov. Jay Inslee for approval. A bill passed by the 2015 Legislature allows the governor to enter into marijuana agreements with federally-recognized tribes in Washington state.
“We were pretty amazed,” said archaeologist Robert Kopperl of the finds at the site. (SWCA Environmental Consultants)
Archaeologists working near Redmond Town Center have unearthed stone tools crafted at least 10,000 years ago by some of the region’s earliest inhabitants.
The project started off as nothing special — just a standard archaeological survey to clear the way for construction.
But it quickly became clear that the site near Redmond Town Center mall was anything but ordinary.
By the time excavations were done, crews had unearthed more than 4,000 stone flakes, scrapers, awls and spear points crafted at least 10,000 years ago by some of the region’s earliest inhabitants.
“We were pretty amazed,” said archaeologist Robert Kopperl, who led the field investigation. “This is the oldest archaeological site in the Puget Sound lowland with stone tools.”
The discovery is yielding new insights into the period when the last ice age was drawing to a close and prehistoric bison and mammoths still roamed what is now Western Washington.
The site on the shores of Bear Creek, a tributary to the Sammamish River, appears to have been occupied by small groups of people who were making and repairing stone tools, said Kopperl, of SWCA Environmental Consultants.
Chemical analysis of one of the tools revealed traces of the food they were eating, including bison, deer, bear, sheep and salmon.
“This was a very good place to have a camp,” Kopperl said. “They could use it as a centralized location to go out and fish and hunt and gather and make stone tools.”
Stone points excavated near Redmond Town Center have unusual concave bases. (SWCA Environmental Consultants)
The site was initially surveyed in 2009, as the city of Redmond embarked on an $11 million project to restore salmon habitat in Bear Creek, which had been confined to a rock-lined channel decades before. The work was funded largely by the Washington State Department of Transportation, as a way to mitigate some of the environmental impacts of building the new Highway 520 floating bridge over Lake Washington and widening the roadway.
The first discoveries were an unremarkable assortment of artifacts near the surface, Kopperl explained. But when the crews dug deeper, they found a foot-thick layer of peat. Radiocarbon analysis showed that the peat, the remains of an ancient bog, was at least 10,000 years old. That’s when things got exciting.
As they delved below the peat in subsequent field seasons, the crews started finding a wealth of tools and fragments. Because of the artifacts’ position below the peat, which had not been disturbed, it’s clear they predate the formation of the peat, Kopperl explained. Radiocarbon analysis of charcoal fragments found with the tools confirm the age.
Only a handful of archaeological sites dating back 10,000 years or more have been discovered in Western Washington. They include 12,000-year-old mastodon bones near Sequim and prehistoric bison remains on Orcas Island from about the same time period. But neither site yielded stone tools.
“It’s hard to find this kind of site west of the Cascades, because it’s so heavily vegetated and the Puget Lobe of the big ice sheet really affected the landscape,” Kopperl said.
A handful of sites have been discovered east of the mountains with tools dating back between 12,000 and 14,000 years.
So it’s clear that humans have lived in the area since soon after the glaciers retreated, but a lot of mystery still surrounds the region’s earliest occupants and their origins.
By 10,000 years ago, the ice that covered the Redmond area was long gone, leaving Lake Sammamish in its wake. But the lake’s marshy fringes extended much farther than they do today, Kopperl said. Pine forests were dominant instead of the firs that are now so common.
Excavations in the 1960s at what is now Marymoor Park, just south of Bear Creek, revealed abundant evidence of people living there about 5,000 years ago.
In fact, most of the region’s streams and waterways were probably occupied or used by early Native Americans — just as they were later used by white settlers and today’s residents, Brooks said.
“It just shows you that humans continuously use the landscape, and that the places that people use today are the same places that people used yesterday,” she said.
Among the most unusual artifacts from the Bear Creek site are the bottoms of two spear points. The points don’t display the graceful fluting characteristic of what’s called the Clovis method of toolmaking. Instead, they have concave bases, which has only rarely been seen.
So perhaps the tools represent an earlier style that’s still not well understood, Kopperl said.
While great for archaeology, the serendipitous discovery at Bear Creek added to the cost of the restoration and delayed the project’s completion by about two years, said Roger Dane, of the city’s natural resources division.
Officials worked with the Muckleshoot and Snoqualmie tribes, whose ancestors might have been among the actual toolmakers, to ensure that the site is permanently protected, Dane explained.
The goal of the restoration was to return the creek to a meandering bed and add vegetation, woody debris and shallow areas to make it more hospitable for salmon.
“For a creek that runs through an urban area, it’s one of the more productive salmon streams in the area,” Dane said.
When Kopperl and his team are done analyzing the artifacts, they’ll hand them over to the Muckleshoot Tribe for curation. There are no immediate plans to display the artifacts publicly.
Construction at the site was completed this year, including addition of a thick cap of soil and vegetation over unexcavated portions to protect and preserve remaining artifacts.
Signs explaining the restoration and the site’s archaeological significance will be added next year.
The excavation also uncovered a single fragment of salmon bone, testament to the fact that the Northwest’s iconic fish has made its way up local streams for at least 10,000 years.
“Since finding the site was based on a salmon-restoration project,” Kopperl said, “it’s kind of like coming full circle.”
By Shannen Kuest, Skagit Valley Herald, goskagit.com
A federal judge ruled Friday that a lawsuit filed by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community against BNSF Railway over oil train shipments may continue in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik denied a motion by BNSF to refer key questions to the Surface Transportation Board, a three-member board in Washington, D.C., that oversees railroad operations, according to a news release.
The Swinomish tribe sued BNSF in April for violating the terms of an easement agreement allowing trains to cross its reservation in Skagit County.
The lawsuit concerns train tracks laid along the northern edge of the reservation in the 1800s without consent from the tribe or federal government. The tracks serve two Anacortes oil refineries, and in 1976 the tribe filed a lawsuit for nearly a century of trespass.
In 1991, the tribe and BNSF signed an agreement settling that lawsuit and granting BNSF an easement with several conditions: BNSF would regularly update the tribe on the type of cargo, and only one train of no more than 25 railcars would cross the reservation in each direction daily. In exchange, the tribe agreed not to “arbitrarily withhold permission” from future BNSF requests to increase the number of trains or cars.
The tribe learned from media reports in late 2012 that “unit trains” of 100 railcars or more were beginning to cross the reservation. Today, BNSF is reportedly running six 100-car unit trains per week across the reservation, more than four times as many railcars daily as permitted by the easement, according to the release.
Each of these trains carry between 2.8 million and 3.4 million gallons of Bakken crude, a particularly explosive cargo that has drawn the attention of lawmakers and federal regulators.
The tribe never granted permission to increase the number of railcars and repeatedly demanded that BNSF stop violating the easement. So far, BNSF has refused.
BNSF argued it has a responsibility to provide service, even for hazardous commodities, and that the easement doesn’t give the tribe power to “dictate the commodities that BNSF can handle over the line,” according to the release.
Tribal attorneys argued that the tribe does not want to regulate BNSF operations, but wants BNSF to live up to its contractual obligations.
Lasnik agreed, writing in a six-page ruling that, “In the context of this case, referral to the (transportation board) is neither efficient nor necessary.”
The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting BNSF from running more than one train of 25 cars in each direction and shipping crude oil from the Bakken region across the reservation. The tribe also seeks judgments against BNSF for trespass and breach of contract.
A nonprofit with close ties to a proposed coal terminal at Cherry Point is telling local and federal agencies that Lummi Nation plans to take over part or all of Cherry Point in an effort to “de-industrialize” an area that already includes two oil refineries and an aluminum smelter.
Lummi Chairman Tim Ballew called the claim a fabrication and a distraction from the tribe’s effort to halt Gateway Pacific Terminal through an exercise of its treaty rights to fish near Cherry Point and elsewhere in north Puget Sound.
“There’s just no way they could be blowing the cover on some plan we don’t have,” Ballew said.
Northwest Jobs Alliance wrote to the Whatcom County Planning Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last month, asking them to oppose a tribal takeover of Cherry Point.
“It has come to our attention that there are those who would de-industrialize the Cherry Point (industrial area), but this rather radical notion would not serve the public interest,” the Alliance wrote in an Aug. 12 letter to the Planning Commission. The letter was signed by Chairman John Huntley and President Brad Owens.
Not named in the letter was Craig Cole, who is listed in the state’s corporations database as the director of the Northwest Jobs Alliance. Cole also was hired to do public relations for Gateway Pacific Terminal’s proponent, SSA Marine.
Cole said on Friday, Sept. 11, he is one of more than 100 members of the Alliance.
“I am one of the directors and support its focus on family-wage job growth and retention,” Cole said, along with “the continued viability of the Cherry Point industrial area.”
The Alliance delivered its message to the public in a press release on Thursday, Sept. 10.
The release refers to “a plan by the Lummi Nation to annex Cherry Point to its reservation.” The Alliance equivocates on just how much land it believes the tribe would take, but in some of its statements the group assumes the worst.
“It would decimate the job and tax base of the county, in particular the budgets of the Ferndale and Blaine school districts and Fire District 7, for which Cherry Point industries carry much of the tax load,” Huntley said in the release.
“While the Lummi people themselves and their treaty rights deserve great respect, this ploy to snatch nontribal land is just plain wrong,” the Alliance said in an Aug. 20 letter to the Corps.
The Alliance points to a single page that it claims is a “Lummi Nation planning document” from 2012. The page describes a strategy that includes defeating the coal terminal, acquiring Cherry Point and placing it in trust.
Tribes can ask the federal government to acquire properties and hold them in trust for tribal use, even land outside a tribe’s reservation.
Lummi Chairman Ballew reviewed the document and said it did not come from the tribe.
“What they presented definitely has not been produced by the Nation,” he said.
Owens didn’t answer directly when asked by a reporter if the Alliance believed Lummi Nation wanted to tear down existing industries at Cherry Point.
“The indicators are that they’re in opposition to growth at Cherry Point, and that their goal is to acquire Cherry Point property and have it placed in trust,” Owens said.
Cole said the documented evidence of the tribe’s intentions said “in an unambiguous way” that the tribe is intent on taking Cherry Point land.
“Some of it is pretty direct,” he said.
Documents used by the Alliance to support its claim include a 2012 resolution by the Lummi Indian Business Council to acquire Cherry Point “in order to prevent any further projects” and protect the cultural value of the area “in perpetuity.”
The only property specifically mentioned by the tribe for acquisition was the terminal site, and only after the coal terminal project was defeated. The documents say any acquisition of the terminal site would happen through negotiations with its owner, SSA Marine — not through a forceful snatching of the land, as the Alliance stated.
Ballew, who was not chairman when the 2012 ordinance was approved but sat on the council, acknowledged that acquiring a portion of Cherry Point was “a part of the operative part of the resolution.”
“But the more significant policy statement in that resolution is to protect the site,” Ballew said. “That doesn’t mean necessarily that the tribe acquires the land.”
“As far as I know the property isn’t for sale, and we haven’t taken that into consideration,” he said.
Ballew emphasized the importance of protecting the tribe’s cultural heritage at the coal terminal location, which he said was the site of an ancestral village. For now, he said, the tribe is focused on protecting its fishing rights through its request to the Corps to stop Gateway Pacific Terminal.
“They’re fabricating a false conspiracy,” Ballew said. “This is a distraction to our request to the Corps to protect our treaty rights.”
The tribe says the terminal pier and up to 487 ships per year traveling to and from the port would do irreparable harm to tribal fishing. At full capacity, Gateway Pacific Terminal would export 48 million metric tons of coal a year to overseas markets.
In its letter, the Alliance asked the Corps to “publicly disassociate” itself from the tribe’s takeover plans and reject its request to halt the terminal project.
Corps spokeswoman Patricia Graesser said the agency continues to consider the tribe’s request.
“The Army Corps of Engineers is focused on evaluating the actual proposal we have in hand for the Gateway Pacific Terminal and not on speculation regarding what may or may not happen with regard to future property ownership at Cherry Point,” she said.
Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article34980117.html#storylink=cpy
Donna Louise Muir born October 1935 to Donald Sr. and Katherine Hatch, passed away September 7, 2015.
Leaving behind her husband, Richard Muir Sr. of 59 years, along with her son Richard Muir Jr. (Teena – with the red truck); daughters, Debra “George” Russell, Deanna Muir, Doreen Muir (Chris); grandchildren, Nicole Muir, Sabralee Muir, Shiloh Zackuse, Mitch M. Zackuse (Trisha), Daniel Muir, Michael Muir-Allett, Breanna Muir, Dakotah “Cody” Allett (Ashley), Christjan Braaten, Nana Lilja Braaten, and Jeremy Jablonski Jr.
She is also survived by 13 great-grandchildren with two more on their way. She is also survived by her siblings, Helen (Sally) Prouty, Donald (Penoke) Hatch Jr., Illene James (Chuck) and Cynie McGee (Max). She is also survived by numerous brothers and sister-in-laws; nieces and nephews. Donna was preceded in death by her parents, Donald and Katherine Hatch Sr.; her baby sister, Elma Hatch, her brother, Lawrence Hatch, sister Evelyn Hatch Cross, Paul “Spooky” Eric Shay Sr.; and grandson, Jared Lee Allett.
Donna enjoyed being on the Tulalip Enrollment Committee for several years, spending her time at the casino, going shopping, camping with the family, clam digging on the beaches of Ocean Shores, Bowling with family and friends, and travelling to Hawaii.
A very special thank you to the care givers Sherry, Tije, Carolyn, Jyl, Kari, Blair, and Beckey who provided love and support.
A Mass will be held on Saturday, September 12, 2015, 10 a.m. at St Anne, Tulalip, WA. Burial will follow at Mission Beach in Marysville, WA Donna will be missed deeply by all of those who knew and loved her.
Beatrice Isabel Reeves born February 1963 to Charles Myers and Alice Zackuse, passed away September 4, 2015.
She enjoyed spending time with her family and friends, beadwork, arts and crafts, woodworking, fishing, berry picking, and loved outdoor cooking.
Preceded in death by her parents. Bea left behind her loving husband, George Reeves Jr.; and her children, Dean Dan Jr (Trish), Lorna Dan (Victor), Albert Hood, Emerson Hood, Georgett Reeves, and Georgetta Reeves.; her grandchildren, Jordan Johnston, Victoria Morales; her brothers, Jeff Myers Sr., John Myers, Joseph Myers Sr., Randy Turner, Morris Zackuse, and Mitch Zackuse; her sisters, Michelle McCracken, Leona Gonzalez, and Brenda Zackuse. Bea is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews. She will be greatly missed by those she loved.
Viewing to be held at Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home on Thursday, September 10, 2015 at 12 (noon), followed by interfaith services at 6 p.m. at the Tulalip Gym, and funeral services will be held Friday, September 11, 2015 at 10 a.m. at the Tulalip Gym.
