It’s a double-whammy kind of year for the Pacific.
An unusually warm winter in Alaska failed to chill ocean waters. Then this winter’s El Nino is keeping tropical ocean temperatures high. Combine these and scientists are recording ocean temperatures up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than average off the coasts of Oregon and Washington.
“This is a situation with how the climate is going, or the weather is going, that we just haven’t really seen before and don’t know where it’s headed,” says National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries biologist Chris Harvey.
This map shows sea surface temperatures off the West Coast. The darker the red, the farther the temperatures are above average.
NOAA Fisheries
Pacific Ocean temperatures regularly swing along a temperature spectrum. In fact, scientists have identified multi-decade cycles of warmer and cooler water.
“But right now, in the last couple of decades, we feel like we’ve seen maybe a little bit less stability in those regimes,” Harvey says.
This year, the temperatures are particularly high. The effects already appear to be rippling up and down the food chain.
When the ocean is warmer, it is less nutrient rich.
The humble copepod is a good illustration of this phenomenon. Copepods are small, crab-like organisms that swim in the upper part of the water column. They’re basically fish food for young salmon, sardines and other species.
But NOAA scientists have described the difference between cold-water copepods and warm-water copepods as the difference between a bacon-double cheeseburger with all the fixin’s and a celery stick.
Cold-water copepods are fattier and more nutrient-rich, making them a higher-value food for fish.
This warm-water copepod collected off Oregon this winter. They provided provide less energy to salmon and other fish than cool-water species. NOAA Fisheries/Northwest Fisheries Science Center
“The copepods that we associate with warmer water, which is what we’re seeing develop off the West Coast right now, tend to have lower energy content,” Harvey says. “There’s going to be probably an abundance of copepods out there, just not the high-energy ones we associate with higher fish production.”
Scientists are already making connections between these lower-nutrient waters and seabird die-offs in the Northwest and the widespread starvation of California sea lion pups, as well.
The warm water isn’t all bad news for Northwest fisheries. Some fish that like warm water, like albacore tuna, may be more abundant this year in waters off the Oregon and Washington coasts.
Harvey says the science suggests fisheries managers might want to take a more cautious approach when setting harvest rates in the coming years. But what these record-high temperatures say about the longer-term health of Northwest fisheries and other coastal wildlife is still unclear.
“For me the jury is out on this,” Harvey says. “We’re going to have to wait a couple years before we know if this was just a really, really bizarre bump in the road or if there’s more to it.”
Working with nettles in the Hibulb’s gardening class. photo courtesy Virginia Jones, Hibulb Culture Center
By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
On Sunday, March 15, 2015 the Hibulb Rediscovery Program held a native gardening plant class to give Tulalip tribal members the opportunity to connect with their ancestral roots. This class was coordinated by Rediscovery Program staff members Inez Bill, Joy Lacy and Virginia Jones.
“We were very glad to see the large volume of interest. The class filled up very quickly,” says Virginia Jones. “We are thankful for the interest and wish we could offer it to more people. We are glad that people understand why we need to offer this class to our tribal members. We were anxious to see what kind of turn out we were going to have considering it was pouring down rain, but, despite the terrible weather, we were grateful to have a full class.
“The people got to hear advice about working with plants that has been picked up over the years from different teachers. The group went out and endured the rain. They learned how to harvest, clean, and process stinging nettles. They got to learn some of the uses for stinging nettles and what type of areas to look for them in. It was exciting to see. The class really came together and did the work. After the work was done they shared a light lunch.
“One of the important messages I hope everyone was able to take home is that it’s our responsibility to take care of these plants and the world they live in. It is just like fishing, hunting, clam digging, and berry picking. If we don’t protect their environments then there won’t be any places for us to harvest them from. If we overharvest, then there won’t be enough to sustain themselves. This is something that our people did for thousands of years. Now it is all being threatened by pollutants, new development areas, and people. I think a lot of the older generation can agree that the ‘woods’ just aren’t what they use to be. If we are going to go out and take these living things, then it is also our responsibility to protect them.
“Again, we thank everyone for their interest in the class. We are glad that there are so many people willing to reintroduce these plants back into their lives. These plants are able to provide their body and spirit with so much more than store bought foods.”
For more information about Hibulb Cultural Center events visit www.hibulbculturalcenter.org
University of Washington officials and Elders Committee members cut a cedar ribbon, symbolizing the grand opening of wəɬəbʔaltxʷ. Photo/Micheal Rios
by Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
On Thursday, March 12, the University of Washington held the open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the brand new longhouse-style building named Intellectual House. In the Lushootseed language its wəɬəbʔaltxʷ and is phonetically pronounced “wah-sheb-altuh”.
The modern interpretation of a Coast Salish longhouse on the University of Washington Seattle campus fulfills a 45-year-old request by Native Americans to construct a building where Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Indigenous students from around the world can gather and share their unique cultural interests.
wəɬəbʔaltxʷ is the third longhouse-style facility to be built on a Washington State college campus. The other two are located on the Evergreen State College in Olympia and on the Peninsula College in Port Angeles.
Ana Mari Cauce, University of Washington President, stated, “I’m very deeply honored to meet the elected leaders of our region’s tribal governments who have made the journey to join us here today. We stand on traditional Duwamish land and it is very apt that we have wəɬəbʔaltxʷ here. The University of Washington is very, very dedicated to serving the educational needs of our Native American undergraduate and graduate students. This is a historic day for both the University of Washington and for the Native tribes of our region. It’s our sincere hope that this place be a home for indigenous people across the Northwest, the U.S. and indeed around the world.”
Built on university grounds that once belonged to the villages and longhouses of the Duwamish people, the Intellectual House represents a dream over four decades in the making. It will provide a comfortable Native environment to assist and contribute to the cultural comfort level of Native/Indigenous students who attend the prestigious Seattle campus.
UW officials and tribal leaders from the 22 federally recognized tribes in the Washington State held their annual tribal summit in the Intellectual House. Photo/Micheal Rios
The $6 million, 8,400-square-foot longhouse-style building is designed with the architectural elements of a traditional Coast Salish longhouse, including cedar planks and posts. It features a gathering space that can seat 500 people, a large kitchen suitable for teaching about Native foods and medicines, a smaller meeting room, and an outdoor area with a fire pit where salmon can be cooked in the traditional way.
“I don’t want people to walk by and think, ‘That’s where the Indians go,’” said Intellectual House Director Ross Braine, who is Apsáalooke. “I want it to be, ‘That’s our longhouse.’ That’s what I want to hear.”
Intellectual House was designed by Johnpaul Jones, architect and founding partner of Jones & Jones and a Cherokee-Choctaw Indian. The main feature of Intellectual House is a large, open room paneled in cedar, with benches that run along one side.
Hundreds of Native American officials, University of Washington faculty and staff, and casual observers convened at 3:00p.m. on March 12 for the open house of Intellectual House, followed by an annual summit of Native and UW leaders. All those in attendance were treated to a complimentary meal featuring a twist on traditional Native American foods, such as teriyaki Pacific salmon skewers, trio of deviled eggs: fresh herbs, classic and smoked salmon, chipotle grilled sweet corn, and roasted green beans with sea salt.
Native Americans are one of the smallest minority groups on the Seattle campus, with only 394 undergraduates. That’s about 1.3 percent of all undergraduates, a number that is similar to the national percentile of Native American students attending collegiate universities. It’s the Universities hope that with the creation of the wəɬəbʔaltxʷ they can being to see those numbers increase as Native Americans can see the commitment and dedication to their culture. The longhouse will help with recruitment and graduation rates of Native American students.
“We’ve always kept it in our hearts what drove this project,” said Charlotte Coté, a UW American Indian Studies associate professor and member of the Nuu-chah-nulth people. “And that was to have a cultural and intellectual space here on campus that honors us as Indigenous peoples, that recognizes us as Indigenous peoples. A place where we can come and feel safe, we can feel comfortable, we can feel at home, and we can be together. That’s what ωəɬəβʔαλτξʷ represents, that’s what it symbolizes. This place just isn’t a building, it has a spirit. It is alive. wəɬəbʔaltxʷ represents a spirit of sharing, of cooperation, but above all that community. A place where you will see the University committed to Indigenous education, to Indigenous knowledge, and to community here on campus.”
Contact Micheal Rios at mrios@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov
(Gobin) July 11, 1936-March 15, 2015 Betty J. Taylor (Gobin) was born on July 11, 1936 to Joseph and Ruth Gobin. She passed away peacefully surrounded by her family and friends as she began her last journey to see our Lord, her husband, son and daughter on March 15, 2015.
She was a lifelong member of the Tulalip Tribes and worked for Tulalip Elementary School until she retired after 33 years, at which time her last grandchild graduated from the Tulalip Elementary School. She enjoyed retirement and spending time with her husband of 63 years. One of her favorite passtimes was going to the casino. She loved going on trips to the ocean with her children and grandchildren, taking long rides and having family dinners. She always opened her home to her Seone family and the new baby dancers. Her family was the most important things in her life especially raising her great grandson “Nico”.
She was preceded in death by her husband of 63 years, Curtis G. Taylor; daughter, Kim (Taylor) Simpson; son, Gordon Lyn Taylor; granddaughter, Shannon Morning Sun; grandsons, Jamen Henry and Dallas Kane Taylor; her parents Joe and Ruth Gobin; brothers, Bernie and Tom Gobin; sisters, Harriett Erickson and Lavon Schneegan, Violet Parks, Ida Schlosser.
She will be missed by all who had the opportunity to know her. Services at the family home were held at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18, 2015. Funeral services were held Thursday, March 19, 2015, 10:00 a.m. at the Tulalip Tribal Gym with burial following at Mission Beach Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home
OLYMPIA…The state Medal of Merit and Medal of Valor will be presented during a joint session of the Legislature Wednesday at 11 a.m. in the House Chambers in the state Capitol. Gov. Jay Inslee will award the medals.
The Medal of Merit will be presented to Gretchen Schodde and posthumously to Billy Frank Jr.
Schodde, of Union, Mason County, is receiving the award in honor of her work as founder of Harmony Hill Retreat Center in Union, which focuses on wellness and renewal for individuals and families affected by a cancer diagnosis.
Frank, a longtime Olympia area resident who died last May, is being honored for his tireless work as a Nisqually tribal leader and dedication to the plight of Northwest salmon, the environment and peace between diverse cultures. Frank’s sons, Willie and Tobin Frank, will accept the medal on his behalf.
The Medal of Valor will be given to the communities Oso, Darrington, Arlington and Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe for their recovery and relief efforts following the Oso landslide tragedy last March.
The Office of Secretary of State oversees the Medal of Merit and Medal of Valor program.
A cancer treatment clinic is under construction on the first floor, lower left, at the Trans-Pacific Trade Center, 3700 Pacific Highway East in Fife. LUI KIT WONG — Staff photographer
Cancer, beware. A new player has joined the fight.
The Puyallup Tribe of Indians has purchased the Seattle Cancer Treatment & Wellness Center, a Renton clinic owned by Cancer Treatment Centers of America. The tribe will move the operation to Fife.
The new facility — at the Trans-Pacific Trade Center at 3700 Pacific Highway E. — will offer traditional and alternative methods of treatment to native and non-native patients.
“If there’s any way to fight this disease, we’ll do it,” said Puyallup Tribe Chairman Bill Sterud during a recent tour of the building.
“This may be the most important thing I’ve been involved with,” said Alan Shelton, clinical director and a veteran medical adviser with the tribe.
“We’re not saying conventional medicine is no good,” he said. “We want to include that.”
According to the tribe, this will be the “first tribal-owned cancer care center in Indian Country and the United States.”
The facility will initially occupy part of the building’s first floor and will be known as the Salish Integrative Oncology Care Center.
BEGINNINGS
As Shelton tells the story, Cancer Treatment Centers of America had been trying, unsuccessfully, to secure approval to build a hospital in the Puget Sound area.
The company contacted the tribe, Shelton said, with an idea to build a facility on reservation or trust land controlled by the tribe.
Shelton recalls something Sterud said during a tour of a CTCA hospital in Arizona some two years ago.
“We can do this,” Sterud said.
“I felt we could do it by ourselves,” Sterud said last week. “There’s always room for another place to fight cancer.”
The tribe will not reveal the price paid to buy the CTCA operation. Records from the Pierce County Auditor’s Office indicate the tribe bought the Trans-Pacific Trade Center in June 2014 for $11.9 million. The tribe has paid for the project with revenues from various tribal enterprises, including profits earned by the Emerald Queen Casino.
The tribe will host an opening ceremony April 7, and doors will open to patients April 13.
Treatments will be offered on an outpatient basis only and will combine traditional chemotherapy and other, alternative therapies.
“We have a strong ancestral bond with nature and creation,” Sterud stated in a news release announcing the center.
“We believe that natural healing through traditional roots, berries, herbs and traditional healing can blend with modern oncology practices. We are building upon traditional oncology — chemotherapy, radiation and other pharmaceutical treatments — with whole person integrative medicine, such as naturopathy, Native American treatments, acupuncture and Chinese medicine,” he said.
DETAILS
Kim Sunner, slated to act as administrator at SIOCC, said last week that many details are still being identified and solved.
“There’s a lot of things up in the air right now,” she said.
She said she expects perhaps 17 employees to join the Fife operation after working in Renton. Positions in Fife include physicians, naturopaths, nurses and nurse practitioners, and pharmacy workers, technicians and administrative support staff.
She said there has been outreach to current patients, including focus groups, and that the reaction has been generally positive.
She said the new clinic will likely be able to accept more insurance programs than were available to patients in Renton, and that contracts with insurance carriers were still being negotiated.
Shelton was in the Washington, D.C., area last week to discuss details with the Indian Health Service, and he said in a phone interview that he expected eligible patients would be able to use Medicare and Medicare coverage to help bear the cost of treatment.
For the tribe, the clinic will be a nonprofit enterprise, he said.
Sunner noted that as many as 85 percent of patients at the Renton clinic were living with a diagnosis of at least Stage 4 cancer. She said she hoped eventually to be able to provide care to patients living at all levels of diagnoses.
“I really hope we have the opportunity to serve patients at an earlier stage,” she said.
Subir Mukerjee, Fife city manager, said last week of the new clinic, “We welcome it. It’s a good medical facility in our community. Having a medical facility is always a good thing. It adds a mix of use, not just retail. It adds to easier access to medical facilities for our residents.”
The American Cancer Society, in the “Native American Healing” section of its website, says that “the communal support provided by this approach to health care can have some worthwhile physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits.”
“Although Native American healing has not been proven to cure disease, individual reports suggest that it can reduce pain and stress and improve quality of life. The communal and spiritual support provided by this type of healing could have helpful effects.
“Like other complementary therapies, Native American healing practices may be used in relieving certain symptoms of cancer and side effects of cancer treatment,” according to the website. “People with cancer and other chronic conditions should talk to their doctors before using purification rituals or herbal remedies.”
PHILOSOPHY
“We’ll have physicians working side-by-side with naturopaths, acupuncturists, traditional healers. These people meet as a team,” Shelton said. “We’re very interested in having not just the conventional medicine, but also spirit work. The team will refer patients needing radiation therapy or surgery to local hospitals or specialists.”
Osteopathic residents from the Puyallup tribal clinic might also rotate through the facility, he said.
“There’s just a general feeling that this is special, needed, wanted,” he said. “Everybody knows somebody who has suffered from cancer. If there is a better way, we want to explore it. We expect that in Indian Country there will be a lot of people interested in this.”
“With the success of our facility, I would hope to see other tribes join the fight against cancer,” Sterud said. “This is a head-on attack. It makes me proud. It makes me happy. It also makes me emotional. It might save a life, or two, or 1,200. If we save one life, that’s a giant success.”
Sterud said he sees the clinic as a tribute to other struggles, other “battles that our elders fought in years past. Our success is based on their endurance in dealing with adversity. It’s an honor to be able to bring a cancer treatment center to the public in their memory.”
“I’ve had this vision for a long time,” he said. “The tribal council has been nothing but supportive, and all the staff, and the membership. It’s almost like it’s been blessed. Everything seems to be working out.”
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2015/03/12/3685165_puyallup-tribe-buys-seattle-area.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
Charles “Red” Sheldon (98) passed away peacefully on March 15, 2015.
Born in Tulalip to Robert and Sarah (Charles) Sheldon, Charles served in the Army during WWII, after surviving Indian boarding school and the depression where both he and Thelma gained skills that gave them the ability to be self-sufficient.
Married to his first wife Thelma Townsend, he raised her 1st born Marlene as his own. After their divorce he found a loving partner in Helen Forrest and he treated her children as his own; Nan (Harold) Lippoid, Suzie (Craig) Thompson, and Ken Forrest.
Charles was a member of VFW#13 of Everett, and was still attending dances there until recently. Charles was also a proud member of the Tulalip Tribe and served on the board of directors for 17 years.
Charles enjoyed traveling and saw the world throughout his life, after retiring from (Norm) Buse Mill after 36 years.
Charles is preceded in death by his parents; Robert and Sarah Sheldon; his previous wife, Thelma (Townsend) Sheldon; and loving partner Helen Forrest; and his siblings, Angelina Brown, Sebastian “Sub” Williams, Martin Williams , William “Taft” Sheldon, Louise Ledford, Bernie Williams, Katie Gates, Lawrence “Buster” Sheldon, and Linnette “Nettie” McKay, and granddaughter Sarah Ann Wilson.
Charles is survived by his children, Charles R. Sheldon Jr., Marlene (Tobey) Beltran, William “Sonny” Charles Sheldon, Byron Lee Sheldon, Lita Jane “Koko” (Jack) Mowrer, and Karen (Morris) Zackuse; grandchildren, Brandon Bryant, Morgan Bryant, Julie Wilson, Emily Wilson, Rachel Mowrer, JD Mowrer, Max Mowrer; and great grandchildren, Tycen, Aiden, Avery, Harley, and Henry.
A very special thank you for those who help care for Charles: Marlene Beltran, Roberta “BN” Belanich, Brianna Cordova, Emily Wilson, Ryan Negrete, and Providence Hospice. Charles will be deeply missed by those who loved him.
Viewing service was held on Tuesday March 17, 2015 at 1 p.m. with an interfaith service following at the Tulalip Gym. Services were held Wednesday March 18, 2015 at 10 a.m. followed by burial at Mission Beach Cemetery.
The Port of Seattle has agreed to a lease with Royal Dutch Shell that would allow the petrochemical giant to bring its Arctic Ocean drilling rigs to the city’s waterfront. Credit Evan McGlinn for The New York Times
SEATTLE — The environmental messaging never stops here, whether from a city-owned electric utility that gets nearly 98 percent of its power from sources untainted by carbon (and is not about to let residents forget it) or the fussy garbage collectors who can write tickets for the improper sorting of recyclables.
So when a lease was signed allowing Royal Dutch Shell, the petrochemical giant, to bring its Arctic Ocean drilling rigs to the city’s waterfront, the result was a kind of civic call to arms. A unanimous City Council lined up alongside the mayor to question the legality of the agreement with the Port of Seattle, a court challenge was filed by environmental groups, and protesters, in bluster or bluff, vowed to block the rigs’ arrival — though the exact timetable is secret, for security reasons — with a flotilla of kayaks in Elliott Bay.
“You have signed a lease that will amount to a crime against the planet,” said Zarna Joshi, 32, a Seattle resident who was first to speak at a raucous three-hour public meeting this week before the port’s commissioners. The meeting was packed mostly with opponents and punctuated by the occasional dissenter, pointing out the hypocrisy of protesters who had arrived to denounce Shell in vehicles running on gasoline.
aground in the Gulf of Alaska while being towed to Seattle for maintenance. Credit Ted S. Warren/Associated Press
Officials at the publicly owned port, which has branded itself as a global maritime gateway “where a sustainable world is headed,” have strongly defended the lease, saying the two-year contract would bring in millions of dollars of revenue and create hundreds of good jobs on 50 acres that Shell would use just west of downtown. The decision to allow oil exploration in Arctic waters is in any case federal policy, noted Peter McGraw, a port spokesman, not anything that the port or the city or the State of Washington can alter.
“The port did everything right,” said a lawyer for the Port of Seattle, Patrick J. Schneider, at a court hearing on Friday defending the lease. “It is an outstanding steward of the environment.”
At the center of the dispute lies a tangle of questions about the politics of climate change. Since Shell will not be drilling or exploring for oil anywhere near Seattle, but merely parking for the night, so to speak, can or should the company be denied a berth because of what might or might not happen thousands of miles away off the north coast of Alaska, or what could take place years in the future if burning fossil fuels — maybe produced by Shell, maybe not — raises sea levels or causes other havoc? Lawyers for the port, in court filings, have said opponents are waging an “intense” political campaign that will falter on the rocks of a narrow contractual dispute.
Opponents of the contract, though, said that protecting Seattle’s environment, in the broadest sense, means taking on the fight everywhere. Whether there may be harm from greenhouse gases, or possible environmental damage from an oil spill or other accident in Alaska, to which Seattle is deeply connected in its economy and history, what Shell does in the Arctic, they say, will not stay there.
“Hosting the Arctic drilling fleet in the city of Seattle is an activity that, if successful in drilling and extracting oil from the Arctic, will almost certainly mean that all of the industrial land in Seattle will be under water, and is completely inconsistent with the region’s and even the port’s goals,” said Mike O’Brien, a Seattle City Council member.
Shell used a private shipyard here for repairing its arctic equipment in 2012, which required no public hearings. The difference this time is the involvement by the port, where the commissioners run for office and contracts are public documents. The city’s Department of Planning and Development, under a request sent this week by the City Council and the mayor, is looking at whether the port’s lease, signed with a local company, Foss Maritime, which would manage the terminal site with Shell as the tenant, is consistent with the legal designation of the terminal’s use for “cargo” handling. That decision is expected in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit by the Puget Soundkeepers Alliance and other groups, including the Sierra Club, is challenging the process under which the port reached its decision. In a hearing on Friday before a King County Superior Court judge, the opponents argued that Shell’s use will not be for cargo handling, which is the defined use for the terminal.
The judge, Mariane C. Spearman, pressed lawyers on both sides to explain what exactly Shell would be doing at the site and whether fears of environmental harm were real or speculative, particularly because the rigs are not actually here yet. She said she would rule within the next week whether the case could proceed.
If the lease is revoked, there would probably not be another space on the waterfront big enough to hold the huge rigs, said Mr. O’Brien, the City Council member. A spokesman for Shell, Curtis Smith, said the company had not looked at alternatives. The two rigs Shell plans to bring in — the Noble Discoverer and the Polar Pioneer — are enormous, one more than 320 feet tall and the other more than 500 feet long.
Mr. Smith said the company also remained committed to exploring for oil in the far north. “We have reason to believe the acreage offshore Alaska is home to some of the most prolific, undeveloped hydrocarbon basins in the world,” he said in an email. “As a result, we are advancing our plans to drill in Alaska in 2015 — dependent, of course, on successful permitting, clearing any legal obstacles and our own determination that we are prepared to explore safely and responsibly.”
Shell has spent more than $4 billion on its efforts in the Arctic, but last drilled there in 2012 after a series of setbacks, including the grounding of a drilling rig, the Kulluk, off an island near Kodiak in the Gulf of Alaska. That mishap has also given fuel to opponents like Ian Siadak, who spoke at the lease hearing on behalf of a group formed within the last few weeks called the Coalition for Port Accountability.
“It is up to you whether you will be known as the commissioners who stayed true to their enthusiastically green campaign promises, or the commissioners who sold the planet to Shell Oil,” he said, in demanding that the lease be revoked — within a deadline of two weeks. If that does not occur, he said, “your position will be clear, and we will take further public action.”
Mr. Siadak declined in an interview to specify what action that might be.
The Lummi Nation’s shellfish hatchery is adding an all-night feeding system to its algae-growing operation.
For years, the hatchery has grown its own algae to feed growing manila clam, geoduck and oyster larvae. The new system installed this winter consists of 60 algae-filled bags in glowing Gatorade shades that pump directly into the raceways.
One of the hatchery’s three geoduck systems consists of 11 raceways that hold about 6 million geoduck seeds, which can go through 30,000 liters of algae a day.
“The new algae bag system will operate 24-7,” said Flavian Point, Lummi shellfish hatchery manager. “Overnight, it can produce an amount of algae that is equivalent to one of the hatchery’s 15,000-liter algae tanks.”
The geoduck operation has a total of 20 raceways when all three systems are online, having expanded from five raceways since 2010.
The expansion has provided new job opportunities. In addition to eight full-time staff, AmeriCorps provides five employees for 20 hours each week, and two tribal members have been hired through the Dislocated Fishers Program, which helps fishermen earn a living between fishing seasons.
The shellfish hatchery used to support itself through seed sales until the Lummi Nation took over operating costs in exchange for manila clam and oyster seed to enhance the reservation tidelands for tribal harvest. Only the geoduck seed is sold commercially.
Concerned about increasing water temperatures as a result of climate change, some of the geoduck seed customers, which include the Squaxin Island Tribe, have started seeding their beds earlier, which required the hatchery to spawn geoducks a month earlier.
“The goal is to get the seed planted before the water temperatures get too warm,” Point said. “The seed is looking good and the larvae on schedule to be ready in April.”
This map shows sea surface temperatures off the West Coast. The darker the red, the farther the temperatures are above average.
This warm-water copepod collected off Oregon this winter. They provided provide less energy to salmon and other fish than cool-water species. NOAA Fisheries/Northwest Fisheries Science Center
