Tulalip News

Lummi Nation closes shellfish harvesting in part of Portage Bay because of pollution

Ralph Solomon holds clams at the sea sea pond on the Lummi Reservation in this 2003 photo, shortly before the tribe reopened shellfish beds closed in 1997 due to poor water quality. Fecal coliform contamination has again led Lummi Nation to close 335 acres of shellfish beds in September 2014.THE BELLINGHAM HERALD — Ralph Solomon holds clams at the sea sea pond on the Lummi Reservation in this 2003 photo, shortly before the tribe reopened shellfish beds closed in 1997 due to poor water quality. Fecal coliform contamination has again led Lummi Nation to close 335 acres of shellfish beds in September 2014.
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

LUMMI RESERVATION — Lummi Nation has closed 335 acres in Portage Bay to shellfish harvesting because of worsening water quality caused by fecal coliform bacteria.

The tribe consulted with the state Department of Health and volunteered to do so Sept. 3 after levels exceeded federal standards for commercial shellfish harvest.

Portage Bay is home to Lummi Nation’s ceremonial, subsistence and commercial shellfish beds.

Fecal coliform bacteria come from human and animal feces. The bacteria enter Whatcom County’s waterways in several ways — horse and cow manure, pet and wildlife waste, and failing septic systems — and indicate there could be pathogens absorbed by the shellfish that may sicken people who eat them.

The closure affects about 200 families on Lummi Reservation who make a living harvesting shellfish and as many as 5,000 tribal members who rely on Portage Bay shellfish for ceremonial and subsistence needs, according to the tribe.

This isn’t the first time the tribe has closed its shellfish beds in Portage Bay because of fecal coliform pollution. They did so in 1996 because of high levels of fecal coliform in the Nooksack River and streams that empty into Portage Bay.

At that time, the state Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency led a cleanup plan using state legislation approved in 1998 that required dairy farms to undergo routine inspections and create written plans for how they would contain manure and prevent it from washing into public waterways. Before 1998, dairy farms were inspected only if a complaint was made about a farmer.

Failing septic systems and municipal sewage systems also were addressed.

The effort cleaned up the Nooksack River and its tributaries and allowed 625 acres of tribal shellfish beds to reopen in 2003, and the last 115 acres to reopen three years later.

That decade cost the tribal community about $8.5 million in revenue, Lummi Nation said in a news release.

But in recent years, the Lummis have expressed concern about water quality once again degrading because cuts to budgets and enforcement created regulatory gaps.

“Everybody knows the reason that this is happening is there’s a lack of compliance and a lack of enforcement,” said Merle Jefferson, director of Lummi Natural Resources Department.

Lummi Tribal Chairman Timothy Ballew II echoed those concerns.

“Failure of our upstream partners to follow the policies developed to respond to the last closure has led to this disaster,” Ballew said in a news release. “Immediate actions are needed to right the problem. We are committed to doing the work required that will reopen the shellfish beds.”

Multiple agencies at the federal, state, local and tribal level are once again coordinating their efforts to lower fecal coliform in Whatcom County’s waterways, with county officials saying that the levels in the Nooksack River and Portage Bay have increased in the past five years.

That push includes a proposal for the County Council to create a locally driven, and ongoing, effort called the Whatcom County Pollution Identification and Correction Program. It goes before the County Council on Tuesday, Sept. 30.

“We feel like we’re making progress,” said Doug Allen, manager of Ecology’s Bellingham field office. “I’m still confident that we’re going to turn this around. It’s going to take all of us working really hard to do it.”

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/09/26/3879712_lummi-nation-closes-shellfish.html?sp=/99/100/&rh=1#storylink=cpy

It’s time to Pull Together

Heiltsuk-led No Enbridge rally in Vancouver, March 26, 2012. photo by Paul Hodgson http://phodgson.com

By Andrea Palframan, West Coast Native News, September 25, 2014

One year after the Reconciliation Walk brought 70,0000 people into the streets of Vancouver to walk with First Nations, another epic march took place. With a contingent of indigenous women from Canada and around the world leading the way, Sunday’s 400,000-strong People’s Climate March in New York City shone a spotlight on a different kind of indigenous leadership.

The sheer numbers and diversity of those marching alongside aboriginal people— together with countless others who took part in marches around the globe—was a powerful symbol of the shift towards climate justice within the environmental movement.

Some of the most popular images from the New York City march came from the indigenous block, where Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, and Mark Ruffalo walked, brandishing a “Shut Down the Tar Sands” banner. They want people to get the message that tarsands expansion— and pipelines across B.C. —will bring climate devastation to vulnerable communities the world over.

At home in B.C., stopping the expansion of the tarsands means the Northern Gateway must never be built. Standing together with the First Nations along the pipeline and tanker routes is crucial to realizing that goal. The passion of thousands of British Columbians who have marched and signed pledges to stop the Northern Gateway is being channelled into a new initiative, Pull Together, launched this month.

“I came to New York to talk about the disproportionate vulnerabilities frontline communities face with relation to climate change,” says Melissa Daniels, a lawyer with Woodward & Company LLP and member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. She should know: her hometown is Fort Chipewyan, in the epicentre of the tarsands. Throughout her people’s traditional territory, fossil fuel projects are expanding at breakneck speed. The cumulative impacts of oil, gas, and coal projects—from extraction to transportation to climate change—are overwhelming.

“It’s crucial for us to tell our truth, that climate change is directly linked to violence towards indigenous people, violence on indigenous lands, and colonization,” says Erica Violet Lee of Idle No More. Lee’s home province, Saskatchewan, could become a new frontier of the tarsands if the Harper government realizes its agenda to double production by 2022. With tarsands expansion comes water and air pollution, loss of boreal forests and wildlife habitat, climate change and — less apparently— the destruction of indigenous ways of life. “It’s impossible to separate those things, those are our realities. In the environmental movement those discussions haven’t always been welcome.”

The Pull Together approach aims to change that paradigm. Indigenous leaders from across the north have invited help from all corners of B.C. to keep Enbridge out of their traditional territories. The campaign offers a chance to stand and be counted in one of the most important fights of our time.

Though they have invited help from the wider community, the message indigenous leaders are bringing is one of empowerment. Says Lee, who spoke at the opening plenary of the Climate Convergence, “There are so many people in our communities who are fighting these battles on the ground every single day. Connecting with other indigenous people from all over the world really strengthens my resolve in working on those issues. ” The solidarity being fostered—with the covergence of indigenous peoples and allies in initiatives like Pull Together— offers a way forward.

Susan Smitten, executive director of RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs), believes that First Nations constitutional rights are the strongest tool there is to fight run-away climate change in B.C. “With the dismantling of so much environmental legislation in Canada, the last —and hopefully inviolable— line of defence is First Nations’ Treaty and Constitutional rights,” says Smitten.

RAVEN are also in New York this week, to attend an international conference aimed at increasing indigenous philanthropy. One goal is to drum up support for a new campaign, Pull Together, that aims to raise $250,000 for five First Nations in B.C. who are taking legal action to stop the Northern Gateway pipeline project.

This new campaign invites the majority in BC who oppose Enbridge to unleash their potential and find fun, empowering ways to raise funds. Just weeks into the campaign, Moksha Yoga has pledged to raise $10,000 through their studios across B.C., while communities from Smithers to Salt Spring have pulled together to raise $25,000.

“Support for Pull Together offers a way for those who stand with First Nations in the fight for climate justice to put their commitments to reconciliation into action,” says Smitten. “It’s great to see people let loose their creative spirit in support of this campaign.”

Thanks to the millions of people who marched worldwide, and to the leadership shown by front lines aboriginal activists this weekend, the climate justice movement has gone viral. Grounding that energy are the commitments that spring from this historic convergence.

Says Melissa Daniels, “the only true reconciliation worth working towards is reconciliation with the natural world. Think in terms of responsibility: to care for the earth so we can sustain ourselves for time immemorial.”

The energy of the climate justice movement is contagious: there has never been a more urgent moment to pull together. To defeat the Northern Gateway project—and keep B.C.’s wild places, and people, alive and kicking—sign on to fundraise, donate, or organize an event at www.pull-together.ca

Native tribes from Canada, U.S. sign treaty to restore bison to Great Plains

Matthew Brown, The Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mon. — Native tribes from the U.S. and Canada signed a treaty Tuesday establishing an inter-tribal alliance to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains where millions of the animals once roamed.

Leaders of about a dozen tribes from Montana and Alberta signed the pact during a daylong ceremony on Montana’s Blackfeet Reservation, organizers said.

It marks the first treaty among the tribes and First Nations since a series of agreements governing hunting rights in the 1800s. That was when their ancestors still roamed the border region hunting bison, also called buffalo.

The long-term aim of Tuesday’s “Buffalo Treaty” is to allow the free flow of the animals across the international border and restore the bison’s central role in the food, spirituality and economies of many American Indian tribes and First Nations — a Canadian synonym for native tribes.

Such a sweeping vision could take many years to realize, particularly in the face of potential opposition from the livestock industry. But supporters said they hope to begin immediately restoring a cultural tie with bison largely severed when the species was driven to near-extinction in the late 19th century.

“The idea is, hey, if you see buffalo in your everyday life, a whole bunch of things will come back to you,” said Leroy Little Bear, a member of southern Alberta Blood Tribe who helped lead the signing ceremony.

“Hunting practices, ceremonies, songs — those things revolved around the buffalo. Sacred societies used the buffalo as a totem. All of these things are going to be revised, revitalized, renewed with the presence of buffalo,” said Little Bear, a professor emeritus of Native American studies at the University of Lethbridge.

Bison numbered in the tens of millions across North America before the West was settled. By the 1880s, unchecked commercial hunting to feed the bison hide market reduced the population to about 325 animals in the U.S. and fewer than 1,000 in Canada, according to wildlife officials and bison trade groups in Canada. Around the same time, tribes were relocated to reservations and forced to end their nomadic traditions.

There are about 20,000 wild bison in North America today.

Ranchers and landowners near two Montana reservations over the past several years fought unsuccessfully against the relocation of dozens of Yellowstone National Park bison due to concerns about disease and bison competing with cattle for grass. The tribes involved — the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation and the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes of the Fort Belknap Reservations — were among those signing Tuesday’s treaty.

Keith Aune, a bison expert with the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the agreement has parallels with the 1855 Lame Bull Treaty, a peace deal brokered by the U.S. government that established hunting rights tribes.

“They shared a common hunting ground, and that enabled them to live in the buffalo way,” Aune said. “We’re recreating history, but this time on (the tribes’) terms.”

The treaty signatories collectively control more than 6 million acres of prairie habitat in the U.S. and Canada, an area roughly the size of Vermont, according to Aune’s group.

Among the first sites eyed for bison reintroduction is along the Rocky Mountain Front, which includes Montana’s Blackfeet Reservation bordering Glacier National Park and several smaller First Nation reserves.

Miami Dolphins Stadium Built on Top of Native American Remains

Indian Country Today, 9/24/14

In 1985, the Associated Press reported that the Miami Dolphins were building a stadium on top of ancient remains that allegedly belonged to deceased members of the Tequesta Indian tribe. The team’s Vice President Don Poss told the AP that construction over the remains was “definitely not a deal breaker,” and they proceeded to dig them up.

In 1987, Sun Life Stadium cost $90 million to build, according to the wire service. And the football team still plays its games at Sun Life stadium today.

The Los Angeles Times reported in 1987 that archaeologists claimed that the Tequesta Indians had used the site about 800 A.D., and then, the Seminole Indians occupied the grounds in the mid-19th century. “The burial grounds were excavated in 6-inch increments as experts sifted through the diggings,” the report said.

The Miami New Times recently wrote that the Dolphins were cursed and that is why they have not been to a Super Bowl since 1985, which was several months before the remains were discovered.

Here’s the New Times’ analysis:

Could the Miami Dolphins really have their own Curse of the Bambino on their hands? Could it be that we have found the root of all this pain and disappointment? Before you laugh it off, consider some of the facts:

– January 20,1985: Dolphins lose 38-16 to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XIX.

– May 1985: Tequesta Indian artifacts and remains are discovered on the land where the Dolphins now play.

– May to December 1985: The Dolphins hire experts to sift through the site, recover, and remove every artifact they find.

– December 1, 1985: Less than 11 months later, the Dolphins continue construction on what is now known as Sun Life Stadium.

– 1985 to present: The Dolphins have not returned to the Super Bowl since.

You can read the rest of the paper’s article here.

Tribes Get copy1.3 Million in Federal Grants to Combat Chronic Disease

Indian Country Today, 9/26/14

Twenty-two tribes and indigenous organizations in 15 states will receive a total of copy1.3 million in grants from the Centers for Disease Control to combat chronic diseases commonly plaguing Indian country, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on September 25.

The biggest winner is the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which got copy.1 million, HHS said in a release. The smallest award went to Santa Ana Pueblo, for copy20,000.

It is part of overall grants totaling about $212 million awarded to all 50 states and the District of Columbia “to support programs aimed at preventing chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. “This new initiative aims to prevent heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and associated risk factors in American Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages through a holistic approach to population health and wellness.”

These are all prevalent problems in Indian country.

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The grantees will work within their communities using culturally appropriate measures to reduce exposure and use of commercial tobacco, improve nutrition and exercise, support breastfeeding, boost health literacy and strengthen team-based care by linking community resources with clinical services, HHS said. Half the awards are going directly to tribes, while the other half will be used to support tribal organizations that provide services, training, assistance and leadership in various areas to tribes and villages. The program is financed by the Prevention and Public Health Fund of the Affordable Care Act, HHS noted.

The other tribal grantees were the InterTribal Council of Arizona, Inc., which got $850,000; the California Rural Indian Health Board, Inc., whose grant was $788,972; United Indian Health Services, Inc., in California, with $650,000; the Nez Perce Tribe in Idaho, which is awarded $200,000; the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, with copy94,876; the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan, which gets $325,000; Fort Peck Community College in Montana, with $317,039; also in Montana, the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, which got $648,124; the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, netting copy78,493; the Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board, Inc. of New Mexico, which received $850,000; Oklahoma City Area Inter-Tribal Health Board, with $850,000; two grants in Oregon, with $850,000 going to the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and copy99,159 to the Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center; the Catawba Indian Nation of South Carolina got copy99,804; the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board in South Dakota netted $650,000, while the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe received $200,000. In Tennessee the United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc. (USET) got $849,998, the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, Inc. in Wisconsin received $850,000, and, also in Wisconsin, the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians got $200,000.

Swinomish Tribe Prepares For A Changing Climate

EPA Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran meeting with Swinomish Tribal Council Chairman Brian Cladoosby at the Swinomish Reservation to discuss a new $750,000 grant to help the tribe prepare for climate change. | credit: Ashley Ahear

by Ashley Ahearn, KUOW

La Conner, Wash. — The Swinomish people have lived near the mouth of the Skagit River north of Seattle for thousands of years. Now, climate change threatens their lands with rising seas and flooding.

The Obama administration recently awarded the tribe a large grant to help cope with climate change.

The entire Swinomish reservation is pretty much at sea level, on a spit of land tucked into Skagit Bay.

Tribal chairman Brian Cladoosby says that as the waters rise, his people have been some of the first to feel the effects.

“We are experiencing it,” Cladoosby said Thursday. “We are witnessing it. For us here on Swinomish, we live on an island.”

The tribe has nowhere else to go. Flooding has put the tribes commercial areas and infrastructure at risk.

So, more than a decade ago, the Swinomish started planning.

Larry Campbell Sr., the tribal historic preservation officer, remembers.

READ: The Northwest’s Salmon People Face a Future Without Fish

“We took the stance where at the federal government level the scientists were still arguing, ‘is climate change a reality?’” he recalled. “We said ‘no, it’s a reality. What are we going to do to mitigate it?’”

The federal government took notice of the tribe’s climate change preparations.

“The Swinomish is a tribe that has shown leadership on climate in the past,” said Dennis McLerran, the Northwest Regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has awarded the Swinomish a $750,000 grant. McLerran met Thursday with tribal leaders to discuss their plans.

The money will be used to map where sea level rise will affect tribal infrastructure and sacred places. It will also fund an assessment of how climate change will impact tribal health and natural resources – like salmon.

“We think this is money well spent. The work that they’re doing here is work that we think will be valuable in a variety of other places and particularly for vulnerable communities and for tribal communities,” McLerran said.

Scientists project that sea levels could rise by more than 3 feet by the end of the century.

October 1, 2014 Tulalip See-Yaht-Sub

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ENRIQUE JOSE SEDANO Jr.

Enrique Jose Sedano Junior, better known by loved ones as ‘E.J. and SonSon’, passed away on Sunday, September 21, 2014.

He was an extremely strong, determined child and put up a good fight until the end when he passed at OHSU/Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon after a tragic accident.

Enrique Junior was a beautiful ball of energy who could keep you on your toes and make you excited about the workout. He was loving to his whole family, protective of his cousins, outgoing to melt the heart of the world and adventurous to complete the whole package we knew as EJ. His beautiful, big brown eyes told stories and his drive and emotion taught us all more than his short time should have allowed. He was such a smart and in tuned child, his voice and thoughts could always be heard.

He is survived by his parents, Charlotte Ike and Enrique Sedano; a sister, Alexandrea; maternal grandparents Ronda Metcalf and Renaldo Minjarez; and fraternal grandparents, Adrienne and Daniel Vielle and Samuel Sedano; great grandmother, Phyllis Enick; as well as a numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. E.J. was preceded in death by his great grandfather, Charles Calflooking Sr.; his uncle, Robby Kublic; cousin, Keemani Conklin; great grandmother, Charlotte Quinelle; great grandfather Ricardo Minjarez; and great-great grandmother, Gertrude Perry.

Although we will miss him every day, he will forever remain in our hearts. Visitation will be on Thursday, September 25, 2014 at 1:00 p.m. at Schaefer-Shipman with an Interfaith service to follow at 6:00 p.m. at the Tulalip Gym. Funeral will be held Friday at 9:30 at the Tulalip Gym with burial to follow at the Marysville Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Schaefer-Shipman, Marysville.

Coastal First Nations Support NDP Bill to Protect Pacific Northwest

By: Derrick, West Coast Native News

(Vancouver, Sept. 23, 2014) – The Coastal First Nations supports a federal NDP [New Democratic Party] bill aimed at putting in place a law that would prohibit supertankers from on the North Coast.

Skeena-Bulkley Valley NDP MP Nathan Cullen introduced a private members bill, An Act to Defend the Pacific Northwest, that would also give communities a stronger voice in pipeline reviews and consider impacts of projects on jobs.

Executive Director Art Sterritt said for too long the concerns of our people and the majority of British Columbians have been ignored. “The bill addresses some of our major concerns with Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline.”

The pipeline review process with First Nations has been lacking. “This bill will ensure that our voices and concerns are heard.”

Sterritt said the bill will allow for more sustainable and long-term jobs. “We have spent more than a decade developing a sustainable economy.”

The Coastal First Nations are an alliance of First Nations that includes the Wuikinuxv Nation, Heiltsuk, Kitasoo/Xaixais, Nuxalk, Gitga’at, Haisla, Metlakatla, Old Massett, Skidegate, and Council of the Haida Nation working together to create a sustainable economy on British Columbia’s North and Central Coast and Haida Gwaii.

Tribal chief: No FedEx until Redskins change team name

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

(CNN) — A Native American chief has asked all tribal employees not to use FedEx until the Washington Redskins changes its team name.

“Until the name of the NFL team is changed to something less inflammatory and insulting, I direct all employees to refrain from using FedEx when there is an alternative available,” Osage Nation Chief Geoffrey M. Standing Bear penned in his directive to all employees.

The tribe also issued a news release saying that Redskins owner Daniel Snyder “chooses to stick with a brand which dictionaries define as disparaging and offensive. FedEx chose to endorse that brand through their sponsorship of Mr. Snyder’s organization.”

It concludes, “The Osage Nation chooses not to use FedEx services. We encourage other tribal nations to consider similar actions.”

Standing Bear was not available for an interview, but Assistant Chief Raymond Red Corn said the tribe would “stand-pat” on the press release.

“It was not our intention to become a news item,” he said, adding that “ethics” drove the tribe’s decision.

The Redskins play their home games at FedExField, to which the shipping giant purchased the naming rights in a 27-year, $207 million deal in 1999, Forbes reports. Fred Smith, FedEx’s chairman, president and CEO, is part of the team’s ownership group.

Patrick Fitzgerald, FedEx’s senior vice president of marketing and communications, released a statement Wednesday saying that his employer values its sponsorship of the stadium and “we are proud that FedExField is a venue that is used by a wide range of community groups.”

“FedEx has closely followed the dialogue and difference of opinion concerning the Washington Redskins team name, but we continue to direct questions about the name to the franchise owner,” Fitzgerald said.

Snyder has repeatedly defended the name and wrote in a March letter that the name “captures the best of who we are and who we can be, by staying true to our history and honoring the deep and enduring values our name represents.”

The team has employed Native Americans to defend the name and launched a site called Redskins Facts to promote its stance that the names honors Native Americans rather than disparages them.

The team also has created a foundation to provide resources to tribal communities.

The good deed hasn’t stemmed the controversy as opposition to the name persists, and President Barack Obama said last year that if he were Snyder, he might change the name.

In June, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled six trademarks belonging to the team, saying they were offensive. The team appealed the decision, saying it spent millions defending the trademark, and the patent office ruled the Redskins could use the logos until the years-long appeals process was complete.

The National Congress of American Indians has spoken out against the use of Redskins and other Native American mascots, and the Native Voice Network, which represents numerous Native American organizations, has targeted FedEx in its effort to convince Snyder to change the team name.

The Native Voice Network says use of “R-word” has a negative, dehumanizing effect on children, a major concern when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Native American people between the ages of 15 and 24.

Chrissie Castro, the Native Voice Network’s “network weaver,” says her group “definitely” supports Osage Nation.

“We’re very proud of their position and we’d love to see other tribal communities do the same,” she said.

The Oklahoma tribe has about 18,000 members and is situated in Osage County, the setting for the Meryl Streep movie, “August: Osage County.”

CNN’s Devon M. Sayers contributed to this report.