The Obama administration is moving ahead with its plans to improve the federally funded schools that serve tens of thousands of American Indian students with an announcement of $2.5 million in grants to entice tribes to take more control over educating their children.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell—whose agency is responsible for the 47,000 students who are enrolled in Bureau of Indian Education schools—announced the competitive grants.
Last month,President Barack Obama rolled out his vision for a new and improved BIE, a long-troubled agency that directly operates 57 schools for Native American students and oversees 126 others run under contract by tribes. That”Blueprint for Reform” lays out steps to reorient the BIE from an agency that operates schools from Washington to a “school improvement organization” that provides resources and support services to schools that are controlled by tribes.
The competitive grants are the first concrete step in that direction.
Ranging from $100,000 to $200,000 per fiscal year, the grants are meant to assist federally recognized tribes that want to assume control over BIE schools that operate on their reservations. Interior Department officials said the grant funds will help tribes develop school reform plans that are tied to goals for improving academic achievement and operational efficiencies.
Tribal education departments that have three or more Bureau of Indian Education schools on their reservations are eligible for the grants. The administration’s overall plan to improve BIE faces strong skepticism in some parts of Indian Country, where distrust toward the agency runs deep among tribal leaders and educators.
Tribes won’t have long to put their proposals together. The deadline for the first grant cycle is Sept. 14.
Revisit Education Week‘s takeout on the state of Indian education for a deeper look at why schools that serve Native American children are among the lowest-performing.
Tulalip tribal member working towards Juris Doctorate
By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
TULALIP – For Michelle Sheldon, law has always been visibly present in her life. As a member of a tribe that borders the I-5 corridor in Snohomish County issues regarding jurisdiction, treaty fishing rights, and Indian gaming helped shape the environment she lives in. When it came time to choose an area of study, law was a natural choice.
Encouraged by her parents and with funding help from her Tribe’s higher education department, Sheldon enrolled in Seattle University School of Law’s evening program as a part-time student to earn her Juris Doctorate, which she will receive in December 2016. She plans to use her education in law to aid in the continued development of her Tribe.
“I have always wanted to learn more about the laws that govern the Tulalip Tribes. Because both my undergraduate and graduate studies were in criminal justice, it seemed like a natural fit to pursue a law education and to see how I can help benefit the Tribe one day,” said Sheldon, who currently works in the her Tribe’s legal department and previously was a court clerk at the Tulalip Tribes Tribal Court.
As a legal manager with the Tulalip Tribes, Sheldon sees first-hand how law is used to make contracts, enforce treaty rights, enact justice in criminal proceedings, and resolve housing issues. “I am exposed to a variety of different areas of legal work on a regular basis,” says Sheldon. “As I begin to advance in my legal studies, I am starting to understand how the law factors into each of these practice areas, which in turn, provides me with exposure and opportunities that I would not otherwise have if I worked elsewhere. I am very fortunate to be able to work in this department and apply what I learn from school to my everyday profession. It is truly a rewarding experience and opportunity that I am grateful to have.”
Discovering a passion for law while in her graduate studies, Sheldon says it is important for tribal members to know the laws that govern their tribe. “By having our tribal laws available online, for example, this provides a great resource and opportunity for the membership to read these laws and to perhaps to see what type of legal remedies are available to them.”
A law issue she is enthusiastic about is the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was recently spotlighted in the Supreme Court in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl in 2013, commonly known as the ‘Baby Veronica Case.’
“I have always been interested in the area of Indian child welfare as well as issues pertaining to tribal sovereignty, because of what they entail and what they promote, which are our rights to tribal children and the rights to maintaining and protecting our tribal sovereignty,” explained Sheldon.
Tulalip tribal member Michelle Sheldon Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Sheldon explains that because lands on reservations, or Indian country, fall under tribal jurisdiction, these laws can differ from laws outside of Indian country.
“I think what is most interesting about laws that govern Indian Country is that they are created based on their community and enforced to meet the traditions and needs of the community,” said Sheldon. “A good example is our Tulalip Court Elder’s Panel, who offer first-time, non-violent offenders the opportunity to have their charges dismissed in court once they have successfully completed the one-year requirement of this panel. This panel is a healing panel of sorts, by often requiring many of its participants to write letters of apology to those they have wronged and to sometimes engage in substance abuse treatment for example. Most importantly, these individuals are required to be accountable to our tribal elders, who have taken the time to voluntarily participate on this panel. I think this is an excellent example of how Indian country can differ from our non-Indian country counterparts.”
Despite juggling full-time employment in a busy legal department and her part-time studies, Sheldon says she is determined to finish school and credits her biggest motivators, her parents, in helping her continue.
“They provided me with the inspiration to pursue my goals by always encouraging me that I could do it, no matter how hard or challenging it was. Once I decided to pursue a degree in law, they offered me endless amounts of encouragement and support, which in turn gave me the confidence to pursue my goals. I will always be thankful to them for this,” said Sheldon, who also credits the educational opportunities provided by her Tribe as a factor in her ability to obtain her Juris.
“I will always be thankful to the Tribe and to the Higher Education department for always looking out for me and for making sure that I have everything that I need to have the most beneficial educational experience as a student, so that I can continue to pursue my educational goals,” Sheldon said.
Sheldon advises anyone embarking on their own higher education goals to talk with the admission office at the school they are interested in, as they can help you prepare for critical documents you will need while applying.
“Another opportunity that I think would be beneficial for any tribal members who are thinking about attending law school is to ask your school of choice to visit an actual class session. It is also a great way to interact with the law professors and other law school students who are always willing to share their experiences with you and to share great tips on what to expect once you are admitted to the school.”
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
Citizens trying to stop the piping of tar-sands oil through their community wore blue “Clear Skies” shirts at a city council meeting in South Portland, Maine, this week. But they might as well have been wearing boxing gloves. The small city struck a mighty blow against Canadian tar-sands extraction.
“It’s been a long fight,” said resident Andy Jones after a 6-1 city council vote on Monday to approve the Clear Skies Ordinance, which will block the loading of heavy tar-sands bitumen onto tankers at the city’s port.
The measure is intended to stop ExxonMobil and partner companies from bringing Albertan tar-sands oil east through an aging pipeline network to the city’s waterfront. Currently, the pipeline transports conventional oil west from Portland to Canada; the companies want to reverse its flow.
After an intensely debated, year-and-a-half battle, the South Portland City Council on Monday sided with residents like Jones who don’t want their city to end up as a new “international hub” for the export of tar-sands oil.
Dan WoodProponents of the Clear Skies ordinance, wearing blue, packed a South Portland city council meeting on July 9.
“The message to the tar sands industry is: ‘Don’t be counting your chickens yet,’” said Dylan Voorhees, clean energy director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine. “There is a pattern of communities saying ‘no’ to the threat of tar-sands oil.”
A clear signal
The ordinance could have global implications. The Canadian government expects the nation’s oil industry to be producing 4 million to 6 million barrels of tar-sands bitumen a day within a few years, and it’s pinning its hopes on somehow getting all that oil to coastal ports, said Richard Kuprewicz, president of Washington-based pipeline safety consulting firm Accufacts Inc. Indeed, a recent report from the International Energy Agency found that the industry needs export pipelines in order for its boom to continue.
South Portland’s move is just the latest setback for plans to pipe the bitumen out to international markets. Another big hurdle is the long delay over the Keystone XL pipeline. And in Canada, pipeline plans have met with opposition from indigenous peoples (known as First Nations), who are taking the lead to stop projects like the Enbridge Northern Gateway tar-sands pipeline through British Columbia.
Now, there is a clear signal that communities along the U.S. East Coast will fight tar-sands expansion too.
“Do not under estimate the power of a local government,” said Kuprewicz.
“A lot of perseverance”
In early 2013, residents formed Protect South Portland to try to stop the Portland-Montreal Pipeline reversal. They put an initiative on the November 2013 ballot to block the project, but it lost narrowly at the polls.
So the city council took up the cause. In December of last year, the council voted to impose a six-month moratorium on shipping tar-sands oil out through its port. Then a council-appointed committee crafted the Clear Skies Ordinance to permanently block tar-sands shipments, which is what the council officially approved this week. The law also changes zoning rules to block the construction of twin smokestacks that would be needed to burn off bitumen-thinning chemicals before the oil could be shipped out.
Over the past few months, concerned residents met in homes and Protect South Portland grew. Meanwhile, the group Energy Citizens, backed by the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s largest trade group, ran ads that said “It’s just oil. From Canada.” The oil companies hired a number of lawyers and brought public relations firms on board.
Protect South Portland spokeswoman MJ Ferrier estimates that the grassroots group was outspent by at least 6 to 1.
So how did residents win over Big Oil? “A lot of perseverance and a lot of community engagement,” Voorhees said.
After the vote, supporters of the ordinance went to a local bar, and “we raised our glasses,” Jones told Grist.
Cautious celebration
But while local activists are celebrating this week’s win, they know “this is not the end,” said Jones.
South Portland Councilor Tom Blake, who’s been a champion of the effort to protect the city from tar sands, said a legal challenge seems imminent, by either Portland Pipe Line Corp., a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, or by the Canadian government. Blake had this message for the oil company and Canadian officials Monday evening: “This ordinance is the will of the people,” he said. “Do not spend millions of dollars and force the city of South Portland to do the same.”
But the oil interests are unlikely to heed his warning.
Tom Hardison, vice president of Portland Pipe Line, told reporters that the city had made a rush decision and bowed to environmental “off-oil extremists.” He added that the zoning changes amounted to a “job-killing ordinance” that prevents the city’s port from adapting to meet the energy needs of North America.
Matthew Manahan, attorney for Portland Pipe Line, told the city council before the vote that its ordinance is “illegal” and “would clearly be preempted by federal and state law.”
“The council is ignoring the law” and “ignoring science,” the lawyer added.
Air and water worries
Like the process of extracting tar-sands oil, the process of transporting it takes a huge toll on the environment. Before the heavy, almost-solid bitumen can be sent through pipelines, it has to be thinned with a concoction of liquid natural gas and other hydrocarbons. And then before it can be loaded onto ships, that concoction has to be burned off. ExxonMobil currently holds permits to build two smokestacks on South Portland’s waterfront that would do the burning.
Ferrier, a retired psychologist and a nun, joined Protect South Portland largely out of concern for what the oil companies’ plans would do to air quality in an area that has already received a “C” for ozone pollution from the American Lung Association. The proposed smokestacks would emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs). “We know there is benzene in it, a known carcinogen,” said Ferrier.
Resident Andrew Parker had similar concerns. “Tonight is about children,” he said at Monday’s city council meeting. “The oil company will put poison in the air, that is a fact.”
For Mayor Gerard Jalbert, who also sits on the city council and voted in support of the ordinance, it came down to concerns about water quality. The risk of water contamination in the case of a spill far outweighed the nebulous claims about job creation.
“When I look at the economic benefit, which no seems to be able to detail, the risk seems to outweigh the benefit,” Jalbert told Grist.
The easternmost 236-mile stretch of pipeline crosses some of the most sensitive ecosystems in Maine, including the Androscoggin River, the pristine Crooked River, and Sebago Lake, which supplies drinking water for 15 percent of the state’s population.
Blake, the council member, is worried that using old pipes to transport heavy bitumen could lead to a spill like the one that happened in Mayflower, Ark., in March 2013, when an ExxonMobil pipeline built in the 1940s ruptured and spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of tar-sands oil.
Saying “no” to tar sands is part of a bigger shift to a greener future in South Portland, Blake added. “Being a community that has been heavily dependent on petroleum, this turns a tide,” the councilor said.
He pointed to a new electric-car charging station at the city’s community center and potential plans to build a solar farm on an old landfill as steps toward a sustainable future. “I think we are starting to walk the talk,” Blake said.
Roger Drouin is a freelance journalist who covers environmental issues. When he’s not reporting or writing, he is out getting almost lost in the woods. He blogs at rogersoutdoorblog.com.
A photo taken immediately after the March 22 slide that killed 43 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Oso, Washington. A new scientific reports says a history of landslides and a huge volume of precipitation were big contributors to the slide. | credit: Washington Department of Transportation
SEATTLE — Scientists have concluded that rain, groundwater seepage and a long history of big landslides likely contributed to the massive landslide of March 22 that killed 43 people and destroyed dozens of homes near Oso, Washington.
Those findings came out Tuesday, the result of a scientific team’s rapid-fire assessment of geology and localized factors.
Joe Wartman, a University of Washington associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and a co-lead author of the study, said rainfall very likely played a key role in the slide.
“It mobilized as the water entered the landslide mass. It raised the water pressure in that mass,” Wartman said, “And as a result the landslide mass lost its strength and it became a fluidized mass of earth and material.”
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 7.6 million cubic meters of earth slid down across the Stillaguamish River, spreading out for more than a kilometer.
The researchers also looked further back in history, reviewing evidence from a number of large landslides in the Stillaguamish Valley around Oso during the previous 6,000 years. The team estimated that, based on a review of carbon dating and maps of 15 similar historic landslides nearby, slides such as the March event have happened in the same area as often as every 400 to 1,500 years historically.
“The real different thing about that particular spot was how much it had failed in the very recent past,” said Dave Montgomery, a geomorphologist with the University of Washington and co-author of the report. “It had been chewed on a lot by prior failures.”
A 2003 lidar map of ground conditions where the Oso slide occurred.
The report authors said the landslide occurred in two phases. The first slope failure was a repeat of previous slides that had been documented as far back as the 1950s at that site. The most recent one to contribute to the March slide took place in 2006.
The second phase of the March 22 event tapped into a much deeper landslide history at the site.
“You have the really big ones from thousands of years ago,” Montgomery said, “But why did the piece of the slope fail that did? It was different from some other areas up and down the valley due to the history of failure in recent decades, which exacerbated the stability problem.”
The report raised a question that was brought up in the immediate aftermath of the slide: what role did logging play? But the authors said that they were “not in a position to answer the question of what degree forest practices contributed to this slide.” Any conclusions would require further modeling and were beyond the scope of this four-day reconnaissance effort, they said.
Logging can contribute to weakened root strength, allowing hillsides to slough off in heavy rain. But Montgomery said the team was pretty comfortable ruling out that idea because the slide was too big and roots would have been too thin to make a difference in preventing the massive amount of earth from loosening.
Another potential connection to logging is from the removal of trees that would otherwise have absorbed some of the precipitation, preventing it from seeping deep into the soil and loosening it. Groundwater seems to have been a key contributor to the destabilization of the slope near Oso, the report authors concluded. Montgomery said the team saw seeps of water coming into the exposed face, or scarp, of the landslide from neighboring creek basins to the east.
“We located five or six groundwater seeps where water is coming out of the wall of the slide and forming a little stream that is running across the scar,” Montgomery said. That stream could have destabilized the earth far below the surface of the slide, contributing to its size and extensive runout zone.
The authors concluded that methods to identify and predict potential landslide runout zones need to be revisited and re-evaluated. The use of LIDAR imagery could also provide a great deal of assistance in gathering historic evidence that landslides of this magnitude have run across the valley before, said Jeff Keaton, a principal engineering geologist with AMEC Americas, who contributed to the report.
“That would be a really helpful step in understanding how widespread this kind of process actually is,” he said.
But there’s more digging to be done, literally, said Joe Wartman.
“The hole we have at this point is understanding what was going on underneath the ground surface,” Wartman said. “I think the next big thing is drilling holes into that landslide and the nearby vicinity to get an understanding of what is underneath that large landslide.”
The authors called for further modeling in order to better understand to what degree logging or the Stillaguamish River, which was eating away at the toe of the slope, may have contributed to the catastrophic slide.
The USGS and others will be conducting field research in the coming months. You can read the full report here.
Some tribal leaders and environmental groups say a water-pollution cleanup plan proposed by Gov. Jay Inslee this month is unacceptable because while it tightens the standards on some chemicals discharged to state waters, it keeps the status quo for others.
Inslee is drafting a two-part initiative to update state water-quality standards, to more accurately reflect how much fish people eat, and to propose legislation to attack water pollution at its source. The fish-consumption standards have the effect of setting levels for pollutants in water: The more fish people are assumed to eat, the lower the amount of pollution allowed.
Inslee decided that lowering some standards wouldn’t create a big-enough benefit to human health to justify the economic risk for businesses, said Kelly Susewind, water-quality program manager for the state Department of Ecology.
“The realistic gains on the ground didn’t warrant that concern and disincentive to invest in our state,” Susewind said.
That’s because the rules regulate state permits for dischargers, such as industrial manufacturers and wastewater-treatment plants — but that isn’t where most of the pollution is coming from.
Setting tougher standards for some pollutants would also result in levels too low to detect or manage with existing technology — but would create a regulatory expectation that could cloud future business investment, Susewind said.
“The concern is that we set in motion a chain of events where it is inevitable they can’t comply. If they are worried they will cease to invest in 30 years, they are not going to invest today; that is the long-term picture that caused the uncertainty.”
In the case of PCBs — polychlorinated biphenyls, industrial chemicals used as coolants, insulating materials, and lubricants in electric equipment — setting a limit below the existing limit of 170 parts per quadrillion wouldn’t improve people’s health, Susewind said. That’s because most PCBs are entering waterways from other sources, including runoff. “It is not the most effective place, to put the pinch on dischargers,” Susewind said.
The problem is that the Clean Water Act, under which the standards are issued, doesn’t reach beyond so-called point sources: pollution in water discharged from pipes by industries and others regulated by Ecology and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“A lot of our challenge is finding ourselves with only one tool,” said Carol Kraege, who leads toxics reduction at Ecology. “Getting toxics out of our water with just the Clean Water Act is not enough.”
To gain new tools to clean up state waters, Inslee has asked Ecology to put together legislation to expand its authority to ban certain chemicals, to keep them from getting in the water in the first place. The legislation, which is still being drafted, is intended to address so-called non-point sources of pollution.
The governor has said he won’t submit a final water-quality rule to the EPA for approval until after the legislature acts.
Christie True, director of King County Natural Resources and Parks, which runs the county’s wastewater-treatment plants, said she was encouraged by the governor’s approach. “We have to be focused on outcomes,” True said.
“The thing I was really happy about was he said we can’t just rely on regulating the same old sources if we want to improve water quality. I know it is going to be very challenging to take these issues to the Legislature, but that is where we need to head to have a better outcome.”
The debate now under way arose from the state’s need to update the water-quality standards that address health effects for humans from eating fish. The state’s rules today assume a level of consumption so low — 6.5 grams a day, really just a bite — that it is widely understood to be inadequately protective, especially for tribes and others who eat a lot of fish from local waters.
The standard also incorporates an incremental increase in cancer risk in that level of consumption.
Inslee has proposed greatly increasing the fish-consumption standard in the new rule, to 175 grams per day, a little less than a standard dinner serving. But he also upped the cancer risk, from 1 in 1 million under current law, to 1 in 100,000 in the new standard. That was to avoid imposing tighter standards for some pollutants.
That isn’t good enough for tribal leaders who say they want tougher protection now — for all pollutants, not just some. “Holding the line isn’t good enough,” said Dianne Barton, water-quality coordinator for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission.
Counting on the Legislature to grant new authority to Ecology and money to back it up is also a shaky proposition, some said. “That is a big gamble,” said Chris Wilke, executive director of Puget Soundkeeper, a nonprofit environmental group that sued the EPA to force Washington to update its standards. Delay, meanwhile, “is more business as usual,” Wilke said.
Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Association of Washington Tribes and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, said tribes are going to take their case directly to the feds both at Region 10 EPA and in the EPA administrator’s office in Washington, D.C., and insist no change be made in the cancer risk.
“In our minds, the bar hasn’t moved that much,” Cladoosby said. “It took 100 years to screw up the Salish Sea; hopefully, it won’t take another 100 years to clean it up. But we have to start somewhere.”
Vaccination, testing and treatment can limit liver damage
SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. – Liver damage and liver disease caused by viruses kill more people in the U.S. each year than HIV/AIDS. Hepatitis C is the most common of those viruses that attack the liver. In Snohomish County, 649 people were found to have hepatitis C last year. Hepatitis B affected 263 local people in 2013.
Most people with a liver virus don’t know they have it until the disease has caused serious liver damage. New medications for treating hepatitis C can cure the disease and prevent the need for liver transplants or liver cancer treatment in the future.
Testing for hepatitis C can be as easy as a prick of your finger and 20-minutes for your results. Testing is recommended for everyone born between 1945 and 1965, since baby boomers are five times more likely to have the virus. The cost is covered by health insurance.
People who inject illegal drugs – even just once years ago – are another group at risk for getting viral hepatitis.
The Snohomish Health District works to prevent and limit the spread of viral hepatitis by testing and offering vaccines to people most at risk. A nurse regularly visits the Snohomish County Needle Exchange, jails, treatment centers, and homeless shelters as part of the agency’s public health outreach program.
“A discouraging trend is an increase in hepatitis C among young people who use drugs,” said Nurse Kathy Perkins, of the Hepatitis Outreach Program. “People with hep C die 23 years earlier than average. Doctors need to talk to their patients, assess risks, test for and treat viral hepatitis.”
Vaccines to prevent hepatitis A and B are recommended for people at risk. There is no vaccine against hepatitis C.
The Snohomish Health District will have information about viral hepatitis in its Everett building and at local libraries to recognize World Hepatitis Day on July 28. Learn more at www.worldhepatitisday.org.
Incorporated in 1959, the Snohomish Health District works for a safer and healthier community through disease prevention, health promotion, and protection from environmental threats.
WASHINGTON – Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today applauded President Obama’s intent to nominate Jonodev Osceola Chaudhuri to be the chair of the National Indian Gaming Commission, the federal agency tasked with collaborating with tribes and states to regulate Indian gaming.
“Jonodev brings a wealth of legal expertise and administrative and policy experience to this position, having served on the National Indian Gaming Commission, in tribal government and private practice Indian law,” said Jewell. “His broad perspective on American Indian affairs makes him a highly qualified candidate as commission chair where he will provide strong strategic leadership as the commission tackles the complex issues associated with supporting economic opportunities for Indian nations.”
The National Indian Gaming Commission is committed to the prompt and efficient regulation of the Indian gaming industry, which spans more than 420 gaming establishments, associated with nearly 240 tribes across 28 states. The Commission’s dedication to compliance with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act ensures the integrity of the $27 billion Indian gaming industry.
Jonodev Osceola Chaudhuri is currently Vice Chairman and Associate Commissioner of the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), positions he has held since 2013. He also served as Acting Chairman of the NIGC from 2013 to April 2014. Prior to this position, Mr. Chaudhuri was Senior Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior from 2012 to 2013. He served as an Associate Judge on the Puyallup Tribe of Nations Court from 2011 to 2012, an Appellate Judge on the San Manuel Mission Band of Indians Appeals Court from 2009 to 2012 and an Appellate Judge on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court from 2006 to 2012.
Previously, he served as a Deputy Public Defender in the Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office from 2010 to 2011 and as Managing Attorney at the Chaudhuri Law Office, P.L.L.C. from 2006 to 2010. Mr. Chaudhuri also held Appellate Judge Appointments on the Gila River Indian Community Court of Appeals from 2008 to 2010 and on the Yavapai-Apache Nation Court of Appeals from 2005 to 2009. From 2001 to 2006, he served as an Associate at Snell & Wilmer, L.L.P. Prior to this, he served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Noel Fidel on the Arizona Court of Appeals from 2000 to 2001 and a Judicial Clerk for the Honorable James Ackerman on the Arizona Court of Appeals from 1999 to 2000. Mr. Chaudhuri received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Cornell Law School.
The NIGC was established by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 and comprises a chair and two commissioners, each of whom serves on a full-time basis for a three-year term. By law, at least two of the three commissioners must be enrolled members of a federally recognized Indian tribe, and no more than two members may be of the same political party. The chair is appointed by the President and must be confirmed by the Senate. The Secretary of the Interior appoints the other two commissioners. The NIGC is authorized to conduct investigations; undertake enforcement actions, including the issuance of notices of violation, assessment of civil fines and/or issuance of closure orders; conduct background investigations; conduct audits; and review and approve tribal gaming ordinances. For more information, visit www.nigc.gov.
Residents of San Juan Island, Washington, the original home of the Lummi, Samish and Songhees peoples, are raising money for the care and preservation of house posts that overlook the harbor in the port town of Friday Harbor.
The house posts were carved by noted artist Susan Point, Musqueam, and acquired by residents 10 years ago to publicly honor the indigenous heritage of the island. The house posts, titled Interaction, tell the story of the interdependence of humans and animals in caring for the environment that sustains them.
“From the time of its unveiling, Interaction has become a gathering place for islanders and visitors—especially children, awed by the sculpture’s size, engaging motif, and deep, colorful carvings,” Barbara Marrett writes, in an article posted to SanJuanJournal.com. “Because children are drawn to touching the cougar scratches on the woman’s leg, over the years the paint and wood [have] been worn down in this area and other places where they have been loved and climbed upon.”
‘Interaction’ house posts by Susan Point. Source: susanpoint.com.
Interaction, which cost $65,000 in 2004, is now estimated to be worth $400,000, according to Marrett.
The house posts will be restored and repainted by a team of artists from Point’s studio. A community/Tribal celebration will follow the completion. Questions: Linda@sjihome.com.
Tracy Rector/Longhouse Media The Heiltsuk First Nation is hosting 31 canoes from Pacific Northwest indigenous nations. That number was provided by the manager of the Paddle to Bella Bella Facebook page. Canoes arrived July 13; the week of cultural celebration continues through July 19.
En route to the territory of the Heiltsuk First Nation, pullers in the 2014 Canoe Journey traveled through territory so beautiful it will be impossible to forget: Rugged, forested coastlines; island-dotted straits and narrow, glacier-carved passages; through Johnstone Strait, home of the largest resident pod of orcas in the world, and along the shores of the Great Bear Rainforest, one of the largest remaining tracts of unspoiled temperate rainforest left in the world.
They also traveled waters that are increasingly polluted and under threat.
Pullers traveled the marine highways of their ancestors, past Victoria, British Columbia, which dumps filtered, untreated sewage into the Salish Sea. They traveled the routes that U.S. energy company Kinder Morgan plans to use to ship 400 tanker loads of heavy crude oil each year.
Canoes traveling from the north passed the inlets leading to Kitimat, where heavy crude from Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline would be loaded onto tankers bound for Asia, a project that Canada approved on June 17.
Canoes from the Lummi Nation near Bellingham passed Cherry Point, a sacred and environmentally sensitive area where Gateway Pacific proposes a coal train terminal; early site preparation was done without permits and desecrated ancestral burials.
Canoes from Northwest indigenous nations arrived in Bella Bella, British Columbia on July 13; the gathering continues until July 19 with cultural celebrations, a rally against Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, and an indigenous economic summit. The ceremonies are being livestreamed online at Tribal Canoe Journeys 2014 :: Qatuwas Bella Bella.
Mike Williams Sr., chief of the Yupiit Nation and member of the board of First Stewards, noted that the Canoe Journey route calls attention to the fragile environment that’s at stake. First Stewards, an indigenous environmental advocacy group, will host a symposium on “Sustainability, Climate Change & Traditional Places” from July 21–23 in Washington, D.C.
“The Canoe Journey is a really big statement to us to hang onto our culture and our way of life, and to bind people together,” said Williams, who is also a well-known musher. “In the Iditarod, there are pristine places but there are also old mining towns [on the route] where we’re told not to drink the water.”
The parallels between the water issues encountered on the Iditarod and the Canoe Journey are unmistakable, he added.
“In the Canoe Journey, there are pristine waters and there are waters that contains toxic substances,” Williams said. “There’s oil and the continuous leaking of pipelines. It happens.”
Not only does it happen, but it does not go away. Prince William Sound has never totally recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Williams said. Likewise, he added, if the Northern Gateway pipeline, the coal trains and increased shipping come to fruition, an environmental disaster is inevitable.
“It’s going to happen,” Williams said. “There has to be total, thoughtful conversation for everyone—consider all the possible impacts. And there has to be meaningful consultation with the tribes. They have to weigh in on that. We’ve got to make it 100 percent fail-safe or don’t do it.”
The Heiltsuk First Nation’s hosting of the 2014 Canoe Journey included a rally against the Enbridge pipeline. Canoes arrived in Bella Bella, B.C., on July 13; the week of cultural celebration continues through July 19. (Photo: Tracy Rector/Longhouse Media)
State Senator John McCoy, D-Tulalip, is a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes. He is the ranking member of the Senate Energy, Environment & Telecommunications Committee, which focuses on such issues as climate change, water quality, toxic chemical use reduction and cleanup, and management of storm water and wastewater.
“I think the message is, pollution is occurring everywhere,” McCoy said of the takeaway from the Canoe Journey. “It’s a worldwide problem, and it needs to be addressed. If we keep polluting our water, we’re going to be in big trouble. Water is the essence of life.”
Canoes were underway for Bella Bella on July 9 as Governor Jay Inslee announced that he wants to increase the recommended fish-consumption rate in the state from 6.5 grams to 175 grams a day—that’s good news for indigenous peoples, for whom fish is important culturally, spiritually and as a food. But for 175 grams of fish to be considered safe to eat, businesses that pollute will have to conform to tougher pollution control standards.
Inslee’s plan for how toxic substances will be controlled in expected in December. It will require legislation, McCoy said.
Jewell James is coordinator of the Lummi Treaty Protection Task Force and a leader in the effort to prevent a coal train terminal from being built at Cherry Point, a sacred area for the Lummi people and an important spawning ground for herring, an important food for salmon.
James said environmental degradation is just part of a series of historical traumas set upon Indigenous Peoples: First, the diseases that came after contact; then the treaty era and the relocation to reservations; then the cultural and spiritual oppression of the boarding school era, and then the termination era.
“Yet we continue to exist,” James said. And the Canoe Journey, now in its 23rd year, has helped “revitalize and breathe new life into our cultural knowledge” given that journey gatherings are venues for the passing down of stories about how the ancestors lived in and cared for the environment that sustained them.
James hopes people on the Canoe Journey connect with and carry on those stories and values.
“There are messages in those stories,” he said. “And within those stories there are sacred symbols that mean something—that you have to be careful with what you do, and others have to be careful with what they do, to Mother Earth.”
