With marijuana now legal in the state, police are prepared to crack down on users who drive under the influence.
“Specifically, we want people to know that marijuana doubles the risk of a fatal crash,” said Darrin Grondel, Traffic Safety Commission director.
“With new retail marijuana stores in the mix, we want to remind the public that prescription and over-the-counter drugs, as well as illegal and recreational drugs, can impair driving ability,” Grondel said.
Between Aug. 15 and Sept. 1 extra officers will be on the roads looking for drivers under the influence of alcohol, marijuana, or other drugs during the annual Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign.
Drivers are encouraged to find alternative transportation or ride with a sober designated driver.
“More people may be using marijuana recreationally, but that should never be mixed with driving,” said Lt. Rob Sharpe, commander of the Washington State Patrol Impaired Driving Section.
Additionally, law enforcement reminds young drivers that impairment laws are much stricter for anyone under the age of 21. A young driver who has any marijuana in their system or a blood alcohol concentration of .02 or higher is considered to be driving under the influence and is at risk for arrest.
During 2013 in Snohomish County, 3,121 people were charged with DUI. Arlington and Marysville police, along with the county and many other jurisdictions, are participating in the campaign.
Epoch Lacrosse Ty Thompson becomes Epoch Lacrosse’s first endorsed athlete
Indian Country Today
Minneapolis, MN – August 12, 2014 — Two-time Division I All-American and Rochester Rattler rookie Ty Thompson has signed an agreement with Epoch Lacrosse making him the company’s first endorsed athlete. The pride of the Mohawk Nation, and the fourth all-time leading scorer at the University at Albany, will be representing Epoch Lacrosse at camps/clinics nationwide and providing Epoch’s engineers with real world feedback in the development of future products.
Thompson uses Epoch’s Dragonfly Gen.5 C30 iQ5 shaft with a Thompson i6 head tied up with Epoch’s Otter Mesh. “The first time I picked up one of Epoch’s shafts I was blown away by how perfect it felt,” Thompson said in a news release.
“Plus, Otter Mesh is one of the lightest, easiest to string and most durable pieces of mesh out there.”
He went on to say, “When it came time to decide which company I wanted to work with it wasn’t a difficult decision at all. James and everyone at Epoch treated me like family. I am really looking forward to working with Epoch and Thompson Lacrosse to not only create the most advanced lacrosse equipment on the market, but products that honor the game of lacrosse and its heritage.”
Thompson finished his career at the University at Albany with 154 goals and will go down in history as one of the most creative scorers in Division I history.
He was acquired 28th overall in the 2014 MLL collegiate draft by the Rochester Rattlers and will also be playing for Team Adrenaline Lacrosse in the LXM Pro Tour this fall with Epoch equipment.
“Ty and his family’s heritage bring an authenticity to the game that other athletes can’t provide,” said Ryan Hurley, National Sales Representative at Epoch Lacrosse. “We are really looking forward to having Ty’s input into the development of our products and working with him to help grow the game of lacrosse.”
Although minority students this year will outnumber white students for the first time in American history, Native American students will continue to remain the minority among minorities through 2019, according to federal government projections.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports the percentage of Native American students within the U.S. Public School System for the 2014-15 school year is 1.1-percent, compared with white students who make up an estimated 49.8-percent, black students at 15.4-percent, Hispanic students at 25.8-percent, Asian/Pacific Islander students at 5.2-percent and bi-racial students at an estimated 2.8 percent.
According to federal projections, the number of Native American students in the U.S. Public School System will gradually decrease throughout the next five years. Beginning in 2015, the number of Native American students will drop from 1.1-percent to a mere 1-percent.
While NCES projects a drop in the student demographic, the U.S. Census expects the overall Native American population to grow rapidly throughout the next 40 to 50 years.
Currently, there is an estimated 5.2 million Native Americans in the continental U.S. On July 1, 2060, the population of Native Americans in the U.S. is projected to be 11.2 million, or 2.7-percent of the overall population.
Critics of the U.S. Census regarding demographics concerning Native Americans argue persons of non-federally recognized tribes are not always identified as Native Americans by the census, and non-Native Americans are routinely changing their race to indigenous cultures between censuses, according to Census Bureau investigators.
To read the entire NCES enrollment and percentage distribution report, go here.
Educator’s Event is Friday, August 15, 2014 from 6:00pm-8:00pm. This is an open house to all educators, teachers, counselors, principals and will include tours, refreshments, curriculum, and crafts.
Fifteen-year-old Tulalip tribal member Demery Johnson, in her second year participating in the Tulalip Tribes Youth Employment Program, says her position in Tulalip Probation is helping her gain work skills she hopes to use in business administration one day. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
TULALIP – Each year Tulalip youth, 14 -18 years old, have a chance to gain work experience before graduation through the Tulalip Tribes Youth Employment Program. The program, funded by the Tulalip Tribes Youth Services Department, is designed to provide Native youth with a positive work experience to foster future growth.
This year funding was available originally for 70 positions with a stipulation that youth applying attend a three-day orientation and meet a 2.0 GPA standard. After receiving additional funding allocated by the Tulalip Board of Directors, the GPA restriction was removed and 30 additional positions added. The program, at the time of this article, had 75 youth employed.
“The most important role of this program in the community is that we are showing our youth that work and dedication is important. Starting work at a young age is a good thing, then they they turn 18, they are more prepared to get a job and be successful employees,” said Jessica Bustad, Tulalip Youth Services Education Coordinator.
The goal of the program she says “is to have youth gain skills, confidence and knowledge that they can use to obtain a full time job in the future.” This essentially puts youth who participate in the program ahead of their peers when applying for future jobs. These youth will have already established critical job skills that ensure success, such as abiding by professional standards, keeping confidentiality, and time management.
In fact, the Tribe has hired youth who have participated in the program said Bustad, due to the youth’s excellent work while in the program. “There have been several throughout the years and it is an awesome thing to see. Two years ago we had an 18-year-old start the Youth Employment Program and resign from it because she applied and received a regular position with the department she was assigned to.”
Youth are treated like regular employees, which means they are required to work a typical 40-hour workweek, a task that may seem daunting for those who are suddenly required to conduct themselves in a professional manner in a government setting, such as the Tulalip Tribes. However, many youth relish in the opportunity to be responsible. Demery Johnson is one of them.
Despite being only 15, and in her second year working in the program, she chose to work in the Tulalip Tribes Probation Department at the Tulalip Tribal Court, a position that requires strict confidentiality and professionalism.
“I chose this department because I wanted to get a more business feel,” said Johnson who worked last year at the Tulalip Boys & Girls Club and plans to open her own bakery one day. “I wanted to be able to put on my resume that I have worked in a professional environment. I have learned how probation works and how the court operates.”
Although a court house and a probation department may seem like high-risk positions to have youth work, Bustad explains the Tribe’s youth services education staff decide job placements based on surveys youth fill out that ask questions such as what their interests are.
“We provide the youth with a survey and look at what requests we have for youth. We try to place youth where they will be successful and interested. This can also be a challenge if we do not receive youth worker requests from departments that youth wish to work at,” said Bustad.
“This program helps in many different ways,” said Bustad. “Supervisors and co-workers provide youth with training and other learning opportunities within the departments. This program is teaching them good work ethics and how to communicate properly with others in the workforce.”
“This program benefits me and other youth in a way that we can actually experience what the real world is like and be put into real world situations and actually experience them with a little bit of training wheels instead of just being put into them without any guidance,” said Johnson, whose job duties include office tasks, such as answering phones, greeting clients, taking messages, and filing and data input. Her position in probation teaches her how court cases are processed and how to interact with clients in addition to how a probation department supervises clients during criminal proceedings
“What I like most about the probation department is that I am not treated like a child. I am treated like an equal. I thought it would be boring but what surprised me was going into court and seeing how it works. I am glad to be here and gain this experience. I would encourage everyone to participate,” said Johnson.“The GPA requirement wasn’t a problem for me. A 2.0 is a C-, and having a GPA requirement is a good thing. Last year there were many kids who didn’t want to work, and this is actually achieving a goal. They are hanging a paycheck in front of you saying you have to be able to at least get this, and it is doable. I think that it is a great thing to do. Just like making them take a drug test, which is perfectly normal, it is what you would do in the real world. It shows you that you have to actually work to get stuff in the real world. I don’t see what would hold anybody back. Other than amusement parks, I would be just sitting at home. There is nothing to lose, you get paid and you get experience.”
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
With dangerously hot and dry weather driving fire danger to a new high, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is expanding the current statewide burn ban to cover all outdoor burning on all DNR-protected lands, with no exceptions, the agency announced today.
“All indicators are that we’ll continue to have high heat, low humidity, and storm systems with winds and lightning. That means huge potential for wildfires,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark. “We need to do everything we can to minimize danger to people, homes and habitat.”
Hot and dry conditions since early summer have caused very high fire hazard conditions throughout the state. These conditions have caused fires to spread rapidly and challenged firefighting efforts. More than $91 million has been spent so far battling wildfires in 2014, and more than 350,000 acres have burned across the state. There are many weeks to go in this year’s fire season, which usually runs into October.
All outdoor burning on DNR-protected lands is prohibited under this ban, including recreational fires in campgrounds or anywhere on DNR-protected lands. Fireworks and incendiary devices, such as exploding targets, sky lanterns, or tracer ammunition, are illegal on all DNR-protected lands. Charcoal briquettes are also not allowed.
In addition, DNR urges extreme caution around any activity that may cause a fire to start. Under these severe fire-hazard conditions, logging operations, land clearing, road and utility right-of-way maintenance, use of spark-emitting equipment, and other activities that create a high risk of fire ignition should be drastically curtailed.
Those who negligently allow fire to spread or who knowingly place forestlands in danger of destruction or damage are subject to possible civil liabilities and criminal penalties under state law. DNR, as well as anyone harmed by such a fire, may pursue damages that include loss of property and fire suppression costs.
The statewide burn ban will run through September 30, 2014. It applies to all lands under DNR fire protection, which does not include federally owned lands.
The U.S. state department claimed that the Keystone XL pipeline would increase world carbon emissions by 30 million tons. However, a recent study released by scientists from the Stockholm Environment Institute shows that number could be off – way off. Seth Borenstein writes in an article published by the Portland Press Herald:
The researchers estimate that the proposed pipeline, which would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, would increase world greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 121 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.,
The U.S. estimates didn’t take into account that the added oil from the pipeline would drop prices by about $3 a barrel, spurring consumption that would create more pollution, the researchers said.
Other scientists and organizations seem to be shrugging of this quadrupled number. The American Petroleum Institute (go figure) claimed that the study was pointless, because the pipeline itself would have nothing to do with the increase. Tar sands oil will reduce the price of oil per barrel, they claim, therefore increasing oil usage regardless of how it is transported. In his article, “Study: Keystone carbon pollution more than figured,” Borenstein interviews other scientists and academics all to happy to chime in their opinions:
Lower prices may be appealing at first, but there needs to be a balance between consumer happiness and environmental happiness, said Wesleyan University environmental economist Gary Yohe, who applauds the study’s findings.
A glass-half-empty perspective came from University of Sussex economist Richard Tol, who believes that 121 million is a “drop in the bucket” when compared to the 36 billion tons of carbon emissions released on 2013.
Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution of Washington, rode the fence, agreeing that 121 million tons is relatively small, but believes that we should be moving away from activities that boost carbon dioxide no matter the amount.
And, finally, independent energy economist Judith Dwarkin in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, blew off the study entirely, claiming that consumption of oil drives the price, not the other way around.
Whether millions or billions of carbon emissions, the Keystone XL pipeline will also damage a multitude of other environments. We need to see more studies that illustrate the whole impact of the pipeline and look at them as all interconnected, instead of relevant or irrelevant.
Keith Harper, a Cherokee Nation citizen,was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as the United State ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 3, 2014. Harper is the first citizen of a federally recognized tribe to reach the rank of U.S. ambassador. He arrived in Geneva a week after his Senate appointment and has been on the job non-stop since then.
Harper’s ambassadorship caps two decades of legal work on behalf of Native Americans, including a partnership at the law firm of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, where he was chair of the Native American Practice Group; senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund; Supreme Court Justice on the Supreme Court of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians; and appellate justice on the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court.
ICTMN was pleased for the opportunity to conduct this interview. “This will be my first on-the-record interview since assuming my position so I wanted to be sure we did it with [a publication from] Indian country,” he said.
What is your mission as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council?
I represent the United States at the council. The council is a 47 member-state body elected by the member states of the U.N. and its purpose is to promote human rights, plain and simple. It’s one of the three principal institutions of the United Nations so it plays a vital role in promoting human rights and we assert the positions of the United States vis-à-vis human rights. And the mission is that we have interests in assuring the expansion of freedoms – freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, among others. Certainly, the United States has important interests in assuring that countries live up to their obligations regarding human rights internationally, and there are a variety of mechanisms at the council’s disposal in order to shed a light on bad actors and bad situations and to otherwise establish best practices and provide technical assistance where needed.
What’s your typical day like when the council is in session?
Council sessions are very busy. They are chock-full of meetings where we’re negotiating texts on resolutions especially ones the United States cares deeply about. That would include things like freedom of expression, women’s rights, rights of Indigenous Peoples and country-specific resolutions where, for example, in the case of Syria you have mass atrocities going on for extended periods of time the United States took a leadership role in passing a resolution not only condemning the atrocities, but laying the groundwork for ultimate accountability for those committing such atrocities. So the council sessions are a busy time when we’re going through the process of finalizing documentation in order to pass very sound, effective resolutions and at the same time we’re making interventions, meaning we are identifying subject areas in which we have something important to say. … [I]n the June session we thought it was critically important to highlight the scourge of violence against Native women, indigenous women worldwide, that in far too many places, far too often and for far too long indigenous women have been subject to extraordinary violence and too often it goes unabated. So we thought it was important to highlight that situation and press states to find better ways to address those circumstances.
Can you actually affect policy? Do you have real tools to work with—a budget, a means to impose penalties or sanctions on violators?
Absolutely. I think it’s a demonstrable fact that the U.N. Human Rights Council’s actions have made a difference on the ground in a number of countries. … One, there is an ability to document through mandate-holders whether they be a special rapporteur or commissions of inquiry appointed by the council to go out and actually find the facts because what’s critically important here is not to debate the facts [but] to understand what the facts are and then one can understand what to do about the situation. And this leads to the ability to hold accountable not only states but also individuals within those states for violations of human rights. It’s also within the council’s power to provide technical assistance. What we find often is that states have a willingness to do better and bring themselves in line with their human rights obligations but don’t necessarily have the capacity to do so. So this technical assistance is critical to aiding them and enabling them to do better with human rights whether that be expanding freedom of expression, ensuring freedom of the press, making sure that there’s not extra-judicial killings – a whole variety of issues. So I think the council’s role is critical. The other piece that I don’t want to lose here is where the council acts on what we call thematic issues – things like insuring the protection of women, expanding the protection of children, taking steps against human trafficking, addressing concerns regarding Indigenous Peoples, having protections in place for LGBT persons. There’s a whole variety of thematic issues that we work on as well and these are a way to establish best practices, to appoint special rapporteurs to ensure that we are highlighting countries in which the practices are less than what they should be and also finding places where best practices have been established so that other countries can do the same.
Will you have any role regarding climate change policy especially as it pertains to working with tribes?
Climate change, as Secretary [of the State Department John] Kerry has stated time and time again is a critically important issue and it’s one that should be on the top of our priority list. The question is not whether or not the United States and the State Department should deal with climate change. The question really is, who should deal with it? What institutions are best equipped to affect real change on climate change? And there’s a number of bodies within the U.N. system and multilateral organizations generally that are affecting climate change in a very effective and forceful way. So from our vantage point, rather than try to force a square peg into a round hole, it’s better to have the institutions that are charged with dealing with climate change do so. And so the approach of the United States is to empower those institutions to bring together states so that we can deal with this critically important issue. And from my vantage point it should go without saying, the impact of climate change on Indigenous Peoples generally, and tribes in the United States specifically, ought to be a top agenda item for those addressing climate change.
How much of your work on the council will focus on Indigenous Peoples?
It’s obviously a priority issue for me. I think that now that we’ve had virtually universal acceptance of the [UN] Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples there is a roadmap and a set of principles which states should move towards and I think with respect to that document, but also just ensuring that basic human rights of all peoples, which applies to Indigenous Peoples as well and indigenous individuals, should be lived up to and there are a number of respects in which they’re not, around the world. We can do far better. The other piece on Indigenous Peoples that I think we’ve had a very positive development on in the United States over the last four decades is this movement towards empowering indigenous communities themselves to address the challenges they face. So, for example, in the Violence Against Women Act, that was a circumstance in which the President supported and ultimately signed a bill that provided criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians who commit violent crimes against women on the reservation. That is a watershed development because it empowers the tribe to deal with that challenge. And we think that’s a model that can be adopted in many other places where Indigenous Peoples are empowered either legally or through a provision of resources to address their economic, political or social challenges.
What, if any, will your role be in moving the federal government to implement the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples?
Let me start by saying the United States from what I’ve seen of the internal dialogue regarding Indian policy has looked at the Declaration as a guiding source for implementing policy. I know that’s come up time and again in internal deliberations among federal officials and indeed if you look at some of the policies of the present administration whether it be the increased focus on consultation with tribes, insuring that there’s better economic development or empowerment of tribal governments or seeking protection of cultural resources – I think there’s a variety of ways in which the Declaration has informed policy already. My role is to encourage that and I will encourage that and have encouraged that… We think it should inform policy development everywhere and certainly in my experience it has already and should continue to inform policy development in the United States.
I think one of the things that made people uncomfortable was the language that was used when the federal government announced it was “lending its support” to the Declaration … and the State Department’s white paper said that the Declaration calls for “the development of a concept of self-determination for Indigenous Peoples that is different from the existing right of self-determination in international law.” Is there any evidence to support that claim?
Let me take each one of those questions separately. With respect to “lending support” I think it’s very clear from the President’s statement that he endorses the Declaration. You have to recall that the Declaration is indeed a declaration, meaning it’s not a legally binding instrument, it’s not covenant, and it’s not a treaty. Under international law, it declares certain principles by which we agree policy should be developed. And that’s very important! The Universal Declaration on Human Rights – when it was endorsed universally by states certainly the provisions were not universally complied with. Well, they’re still not universally complied with but I think there’s a push toward universal compliance with the Universal Declaration. So Declarations serve a critically important role but they are different from binding legal instruments. We just have to make that distinction, so when we say “lending support” or endorsing that’s an absolutely critical development. There was a thorough review of the Declaration. This president, who should be commended for it, decided to endorse the Declaration.
The second question goes to the issue of self-determination. I think there’s been an unfortunate tendency to get caught up in theoretical aspects of this… The scholars are pretty clear on one point – that self-determination has to be determined in a contextual manner based on the context in which it arises. So, for example, there may be in certain states, certain peoples who don’t have a right to secede because of concerns for territorial integrity and the important and vital central principle that is under international law. So self-determination is always to be viewed in a contextual manner and I think the thrust of that is to say that it should be viewed contextually here as well. But let’s really get down to the nitty-gritty here because what I think the Declaration says and the important message that it has is one that has been fully adopted by this President and that is that the relations between the United States and tribes should be nation-to-nation. He’s repeatedly said that and I think his actions and the actions of his administration have lived up to that ideal of being a nation-to-nation relationship where it’s not a top-down approach but far better to empower tribal communities to address the challenges that they face.
The U.S. has consistently said that the U.N. Declaration must remain consistent with existing U.S. Indian law but we know that’s not perfect. How can the Declaration be the basis for reforming what’s wrong with U.S. federal Indian law and policy when the U.S. insists that the Declaration must be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with existing U.S. federal Indian law and policy?
First thing I’d say is the Declaration, again, is a non-legally binding instrument; it’s a set of principles that states agreed to and that states’ policies should be guided by. And as I mentioned earlier, the Declaration has been and should continue to be considered as a guiding light. That is its critical importance. The second thing I’d say is we have vacillated over the last 200 years of Indian policy from times when there has been greater respect for tribal communities and tribal self-governance, whether that be during the IRA [Indian Reorganization Act] or now in the self-determination period since the late 1960s. But there have been other periods like allotment, termination where there were much more assimilation-oriented policies, much more disrespect for tribal self-government. What the Declaration does is say that we all agree that these are the principles and the principles include the principle that tribes should have a key role in their own destiny. And what that does is makes it much more difficult politically to have regression back to the more difficult policies that end up hurting tribes.
How do you respond to criticism that the U.S. has a less than stellar human rights ranking according to the United Nation’s own agencies and processes?
There’s no official rankings, I think that would be a misunderstanding. Look, the United States would be the first to admit that no state gets it right all the time. We all have our challenges. And that’s why we have treaty bodies like CERD [Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination] and the Human Rights Council. That’s why the Human Rights Council has what’s called the Universal Periodic Review, meaning that every state goes under review on its human rights record because we believe that no state should be free from scrutiny and every state can do better on human rights. Having said that, I think we have to recognize that in so many ways the United States is the high water mark whether you’re looking at freedom of expression or freedom of assembly, or if you look at the movement that’s been made on securing the protections of LGBT people and the advancements in addressing standard discrimination, in preparing tribal communities to resolve their own challenges. There is no other state in the world that I’m aware of where Indigenous Peoples have been empowered to have criminal jurisdiction in their own court systems over non-members of that community, for example. So I think what we have to say is there are challenges, we need to continue these processes which are vitally important to holding up a mirror on every state so we can identify the challenges. And certainly no state is perfect and the United States has its challenges, but the important thing is that we have a robust and vibrant domestic dialogue to make sure we make progress day after day, month after month, year after year.
How does your identity as an indigenous person inform your perspective on human rights?
Well, you know, given our history there’s no doubt there have been really tragic and difficult times. With the Cherokee Nation of course we have the Trail of Tears and even more recently than that when our lands were taken away and there were attempts to extinguish our tribal rights. I think what it does is it puts you in a place of having great empathy towards communities and individuals who are also striving to empower their own people… and to better connect with them in trying to resolve their human rights situations.
Could you please comment on the Washington football team’s use of the name Redskins?
On a personal level, I find the term “redskins” to be disparaging. I think it should have no place and if I owned the team I would change the name. It’s pretty clear cut to me – nobody would walk down the street and call me a redskin unless they were intentionally trying to insult me.
Once again, the United Nations has taken a strong stance in condemning what the Human Rights Council has described in its July 23 resolution as the “widespread, systematic and gross violations of international human rights” by Israeli forces in Gaza. (Among other things, the resolution included a provision to create an independent, international commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and particulary in the occupied Gaza Strip during the military operations conducted since June 13.) Yet Israel, with the support of its lone international ally the United States, persists in following a policy that has resulted in an extraordinary number of civilian deaths. Since the statement was made, almost 1,400 more civilians have been killed. What possible tools do you have as U.S. human rights ambassador to stem a war policy that targets all Palestinians as hostiles, much in the way the indigenous nations of the Americas were targeted for centuries?
First, I would caution against comparisons that may not apply. In this situation we are dealing with a group, Hamas, which by their own admission, are sending indiscriminately into civilian areas rocket after rocket after rocket in the thousands. They’re building tunnels for the purpose of kidnapping … I don’t agree that that analogizes to Indian struggles. With respect to the situation in Gaza what we first should acknowledge is whether there are deaths on the Israeli side or the Palestinian side, they’re tragic and I’m personally heartbroken by how many deaths there have been, including children. Having said that, we have to ask ourselves how we can be constructive and what approaches are we taking that are going to be most constructive and having increased condemnation of one side – the state of Israel – while not mentioning Hamas in my personal judgment doesn’t make any sense. So, going back to the Human Rights Council’s actions we were the sole vote against that resolution. I think it was the right vote because that resolution was not constructive, it was going to make it more difficult to get a ceasefire, which should have been the goal of all of us. In addition, the resolution was extraordinarily one-sided, it did not mention Hamas rocket attacks, for example, and so because of the biased nature of that resolution there was no reason to support it. I’ll also say this: There’s already an investigative mechanism in place – the special rapporteur, a respected diplomat from Indonesia – and so now to have another commission of inquiry did not make much sense to us. We also have to realize there’s a long history with the council taking action against Israel time and time again.
What do you hope to achieve as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council?
What I hope to achieve is the promotion of human rights writ large. There are also some specific areas in which I think we can make significant progress. One area that I think is of particular importance is this whole space of women’s rights whether we’re talking about gender equality, the importance of assuring access to education or capital for women, addressing female genital mutilation, addressing child marriage and forced marriage – this whole space of protecting women to enjoy their human rights. What we find if we look at the empirical data is that when states get that correct – when they protect the rights of their women – they set the foundation for empowering their entire nation politically, economically, and socially. And when they fail to protect women’s rights they undermine their ability to get almost anything else right. And so this is a place where we can be particularly successful, in my view.
Supporters raise their fists in solidarity to protect our Salish Sea, our Puget Sound waters. Photo: K. Kalliber
By Kim Kalliber, Tulalip News
Crowds of peaceful supporters came together at Seattle’s Sculpture Park on Monday, August 11, standing in solidarity to protect the Salish Sea and decrease oil train traffic in the Northwest. Proposed terminals include Cherry Point, located on the Lummi Nation’s sacred grounds.
After welcoming friends that arrived from water and land, members of the Duwamish tribe led the group in a healing song for the waters.
Native Americans, environmental groups and concerned citizens joined in the opposition with singing, dancing, prayer and strong words.
Photo: K. Kalliber
Water is one of the first things to go,” said Michael Evans, Snohomish Tribe of Indians Chairman. “We’ve already noticed that some of the fish are starting to die. If the fish can’t live in the fresh water, neither can man. We really need to pay attention to what we are doing to ourselves and to the land, it all affects the Salish Sea.”
One young supporter at the event said it was “all about Indian solidarity” and stressed the importance of standing together to oppose the increase of fossil fuels in our Puget Sound waters.
Monday’s rally was organized by Idle No More Washington, 350 Seattle, Protect the Sacred and Backbone Campaign.
By: Kathryn Batstone-Boyd, Ben Stone, and Karina Ordell, OPB
NETARTS BAY, Ore. — Mark Wiegardt steps slowly through knee-high water, pausing over some jagged lumps of brown-gray shells with a bent flat-head screwdriver.
He picks up a clump of oysters and rests it on his thigh, stabbing and wrenching until the shellfish crack apart.
The creatures inside are more valuable than ever, so Wiegardt tries his best to make them look nice by bashing off the sharp edges.
Oysters are biologically simple. But nothing is simple about the water in which they live. The Pacific Northwest’s ocean chemistry is changing. A phenomenon known as ocean acidification has shocked the Northwest oyster industry, causing farmers and hatchery owners to modify decades-old ways of cultivating oysters and to reconsider the murky future of their industry.
“Our business has definitely been altered by this changing water chemistry,” Weigardt said.
He understands the concern surrounding ocean acidification better than almost anyone. Wiegardt’s a fourth-generation oyster farmer and one of the managers of Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Netarts Bay, Oregon.
Like many hatcheries on the West Coast, Whiskey Creek grows Pacific oysters — a Japanese species introduced to America in the early 1900s. Farmers grow oysters in enclosed waters connected to the ocean, known as estuaries. But the coastal waters of the Northwest are too cold for Pacific oysters to spawn naturally. So, oyster seed suppliers like Whiskey Creek act as incubators.
Whiskey Creek houses huge vats of seawater that serve as swimming pools for young oyster larvae to develop. When the larvae are mature enough, the hatchery packs them in balls of paper towels before sending them to independent oyster farmers along the coast.
The farmers take the oyster “seed” to their nurseries and dump it into giant tanks, where the larvae “set” onto vacant oyster shells. When they are mature enough, the farmers remove the shellfish from the tanks and chuck them into the bay. The oysters will stay here for a couple years, fattening up by filtering algae and other nutrients out of the water. Eventually, the farmers will return and gather their harvest so the full-grown oysters can be bagged and sold.
Why Are The Larvae Failing?
In the late summer of 2007, the oyster larvae at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery didn’t make it to the bay. Without warning, the larvae began to fail by the millions inside the vats.
“Everything was dying. The larvae were pink. Every larva in the place was not feeding,” said Sue Cudd, owner of Whiskey Creek.
Whiskey Creek couldn’t supply its customers with seed. No one could understand why the larvae were dying.
“The changes were so dramatic, we thought there was a very strong possibility that we were going to go out of business,” Wiegardt said.
A year after the first die-offs, Whiskey Creek engineer Alan Barton scrambled for clues explaining why Whiskey Creek’s methods were suddenly not working. Barton discovered that an upwelling of ocean water with unusually high acidity was corroding the oysters’ shells, causing the larvae to die while trying to form an exoskeleton. He was eventually able to stem the die-offs by adapting simple aquarium chemistry to equalize the pH in Whiskey Creek’s tanks.
Since then, Whiskey Creek has learned to sustain healthy brown larvae in its vat water with a system that constantly buffers the water. However, the effectiveness of buffer chemicals is limited to hatchery tubs.
The die-offs made 2007 a defining year for West Coast oyster farmers.
Hedging Bets In Hawaii
Kathleen Nisbet, a manager of Goose Point Oyster Company in Willapa Bay, saw the die-offs as a signal to change. In 2009, Goose Point began constructing its first oyster hatchery in Hilo, Hawaii, in order to lessen its dependence on hatcheries like Whiskey Creek, which draw water from the Northwestern tides. Though the Nisbets had long done business with Whiskey Creek, and still do, they felt they had to set themselves apart geographically to insulate their business from the acidic waters.
“I employ 70 employees; I’m responsible for 70 families. That’s a big deal to me,” Nisbet said. “I can’t just say, ‘We’ll figure it out.’ I’ve got people I have to feed and it was our responsibility to look at what we needed to do.”
But even as one crisis seems resolved, another one looms. There’s a new concern that mature oysters may soon be at risk. Roberto Quintana, an engineer at Ekone Oyster Company on Washington’s Willapa Bay, has begun to see health defects in oysters out in the bay that he can’t correlate with natural events.
“Last year was when I first heard some of the old-timers from around here who were like, ‘We don’t know what the hell happened,’” Quintana said.
There is no consensus on what to do if water chemistry in the bays turns inhospitable for mature oysters. Quintana says there are a few options: genetically engineer a more hardy oyster species; try to apply buffer chemicals directly into the bays; or perhaps just give oysters more time in their safe nursery tanks.
Can The Oyster Industry Survive?
But for some, the thought of such dramatic changes to old farming techniques makes them question the long-term survival of the Northwest oyster industry.
“Those are big, philosophical questions,” Jambor said. “Do you get out of this business because you think it’s going to go down in 30 years? I don’t know.”
Whiskey Creek’s Wiegardt, however, is not about to idly watch the Northwest oyster industry go down in his lifetime. In the last few years, he has travelled many times with other Northwest shellfish producers to Washington, D.C., to tell their stories and ask lawmakers to pay for monitoring stations that would measure the water’s acidity.
“Farmers in general, I think we all like to complain a little more than we should,” he said. “[But] any time you know a little bit about something that may have a huge impact, you need to communicate that.”
Wiegardt thinks he has been well received in the Capitol, and he accepts these trips as his responsibility to the small community of Northwestern oyster farmers who know each other by first name.
“It’s not all doom and gloom,” Wiegardt said. “We’re solving a problem here as we speak.”
Kathryn Batstone-Boyd, Karina Ordell and Ben Stone are students in the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication. This report was produced as a class project. Video produced by Batstone-Boyd; photography by Ordell; article written by Stone.
