EVERETT — Snohomish County has started mailing millions of dollars in property-tax refunds to building owners on tribal land, as a result of a court case with nationwide implications.
Big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot at the Tulalip Tribes’ Quil Ceda Village along I-5, plus some 1,200 homeowners, are in line for about $5 million in combined payments, county officials said
The money will come out of budgets for schools, fire departments and other taxing districts.
Local governments stand to recoup some lost revenue, but property owners who aren’t exempt from the ruling will be left with a larger share of the future tax burden.
“That will be a shift,” county Assessor Cindy Portmann said.
The changes under way here, and elsewhere in Washington, stem from a legal fight over a resort in Thurston County.
Thurston County had been collecting property taxes on Great Wolf Lodge, the water park resort midway between Seattle and Portland. Great Wolf Lodge occupies federal land held in trust for the Chehalis Tribe, which owns 51 percent of the local partnership.
Thurston County started assessing property taxes on the resort buildings in 2007. In 2008, the year the resort opened, the Chehalis Tribe sued, arguing the property should be exempt from property taxes. Though the tribe lost an initial battle in federal district court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year decided in its favor.
Tulalip tribal leaders view the court’s decision as a long-overdue correction to an injustice.
“(It’s) a great victory for Indian Country for the federal government to finally recognize its obligations under the treaties they established with Indian nations giving us the right to exist as sovereign nations,” said Les Parks, vice chairman of the tribes’ Board of Directors.
A 1955 federal law established that sovereign Indian nations are exempt from paying local or state taxes on federal lands held in trust for tribes. As a result, the land itself was exempt from county property taxes. Buildings and other improvements on that land also were considered exempt, if owned by Indians.
That wasn’t the case for buildings and other improvements owned by non-Indians. Counties considered that property taxable, and acted accordingly.
Last year’s federal court decision stopped that practice. It made property taxation uniform on the trust lands, regardless of who owns any buildings.
County assessors in Washington are just now figuring out how to comply.
The approximately 1,400 taxpayers in line for a refund include Seattle Premium Outlets, Wal-Mart and Home Depot, among other businesses located on Tulalip tribal land fronting I-5. Of the total, some 1,200 are homeowners, including non-tribal residents living on leased land around Tulalip Bay. What they have in common is that none are tribal members but all own improvements — mainly buildings — on land that the federal government holds in trust for the tribes.
“The buildings were taxable, but now they are exempt,” Portmann said.
The court decision is retroactive to the second half of 2011. It covers any 2014 property taxes already paid to the county.
Commercial properties on Tulalip property along I-5 are owed nearly $2.7 million combined, treasurer Kirke Sievers said. The total does not include the Tulalip Resort or Cabela’s buildings, which are owned by the Tulalips and were previously considered exempt.
A typical homeowner with one of the affected properties could receive a $2,500 refund for the three years.
“That’s strictly an eyeball look at what I’m seeing going across my desk,” Sievers said.
The treasurer said it likely will take his staff a few months to complete mailing all of the refunds.
The revenues now being returned had been collected for fire protection, education, libraries and a host of other countywide services.
Some districts have the ability to recoup the revenue in 2015 — but it would be borne by taxpayers in the form of higher bills. The potential revenue estimates are worst-case scenarios, because county hasn’t had time to calculate variables such as delinquent payments and exemptions.
A refund levy allows taxing districts to raise their levy amounts to recover past losses, if they don’t exceed their maximum rate.
The Marysville School District expects to make up most, if not all of its lost revenue through a refund levy, said Jim Baker, executive director for finance and operations.
“This issue should be a short-term ‘cash flow’ issue not a total loss of local property taxes for the district,” Baker wrote in an email.
The Marysville Fire District, on the other hand, probably doesn’t have enough levy capacity to make up much of its loss.
“We know we won’t be able to get all of it back,” finance manager Chelsie Reece said.
The Tulalip Tribes want to work with affected districts to help manage any negative impacts, Parks said.
“We’re all partners in the same community,” he said. “We’ll fully research what the impacts are going to be and minimize those impacts.”
The tribal government hopes to set up its own assessor’s office over the next few months to start collecting property taxes for government services, Parks said. Though they could have assessed property taxes in past years, he said, they opted against it to avoid double-taxing property owners.
Note: Being Frank is the monthly opinion column that was written for many years by the late Billy Frank Jr., NWIFC Chairman. To honor him, the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington will continue to share their perspectives on natural resources management through this column. This month’s writer is Ed Johnstone, treasurer of the NWIFC and Natural Resources Policy Spokesperson for the Quinault Indian Nation.
By Ed Johnstone, Quinault Indian Nation, NWIFC Treasurer
OLYMPIA – Our planet is talking to us, and we better pay attention. It’s telling us that our climate and oceans are changing for the worse and that every living thing will be affected. The signs are everywhere. The only solution is for all of us to work together harder to meet these challenges.
We are seeing many signs of climate change. Our polar ice caps and glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising. Winter storms are becoming more frequent and fierce, threatening our homes and lives.
It is believed that we are witnessing a fundamental change in ocean and wind circulation patterns. In the past, cold water full of nutrients would upwell from deep in the ocean, mix with oxygen-rich water near the surface, and aid the growth of phytoplankton that provides the foundation for a for a strong marine food chain that includes all of us.
The change in wind and ocean patterns is causing huge amounts of marine plants to die and decompose, rapidly using up available oxygen in the water. The result is a massive low oxygen dead zone of warmer waters off the coasts of Washington and Oregon that is steadily growing bigger, researchers say. Large fish kills caused by low oxygen levels are becoming common, at times leaving thousands of dead fish, crab and other forms of sea life lining our beaches.
Low oxygen levels and higher water temperatures are also contributing to a massive outbreak of sea star wasting syndrome all along the West Coast. It starts with white sores and ultimately causes the star fish to disintegrate. While outbreaks have been documented in the past, nothing on the scale we are seeing now has ever been recorded.
We are also seeing basic changes in the chemistry of our oceans. Our atmosphere has been steadily polluted with carbon dioxide for hundreds of years. When that carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, those waters become more acidic and inhospitable to marine life. Young oysters, for example, are dying because the increasingly acidic water prevents them from growing shells. Researchers say that ocean acidification could also amplify the effects of climate change.
Because we live so closely with our natural world, indigenous people are on the front line of climate change and ocean acidification. That is part of the reason that native people from throughout the Pacific region will gather in Washington, D.C. in July for our second First Stewards Symposium. Tribal leaders, scientists and others will examine how native people and their cultures have adapted to climate change for thousands of years, and what our future—and that of America—may hold as the impacts of climate change continue.
President Obama’s commitment to addressing adaptation to climate change in a real and substantive way is encouraging. Tribes stand ready to partner with the Administration and others any way we can to protect our homelands and the natural resources on which our cultures and economies depend. Only by all of us working together – supporting one another – will we be able to successfully face the challenges of ocean acidification and climate change.
An expert testifying in the federal voting rights trial in Anchorage said Monday it’s possible to trace Alaska’s current failure to provide full language assistance to Native language speakers to territorial days when Alaska Natives were denied citizenship unless they renounced their own culture.
“This represents the continuing organizational culture, looking at the law as something they’re forced to do, instead of looking at the policy goal of being sure that everyone has the opportunity to participate,” said University of Utah political science professor Daniel McCool. “It’s part of a pattern I see over a long period of time, a consistent culture — they’re going to fight this. When forced to do something, they’re going to do it, but only when they’ve been ordered to.”
McCool testified as an expert on behalf of four tribal villages in Southwest Alaska and the Interior and two village elders with limited English skills. They’re suing Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and three officials in the Alaska Division of Elections which he oversees, saying the officials are not providing a full suite of election materials in their Native languages. They say amendments to the Voting Rights Act in 1975 require language assistance.
The state says it’s doing what the law requires, providing sample ballots and oral translations for some Native languages. The state has gone out of its way to consult with tribal councils, its witnesses have said.
Treadwell and the other officials are being defended by the Alaska Attorney General’s office. Before the trial began, the state lawyers attempted to prevent McCool from testifying, saying he wasn’t really an expert. They said he wasn’t familiar with Alaska and only spent four weeks or so researching how the state has treated Native voters over the years.
McCool said he may not be an expert on Alaska, but he knows how to study the issues. He said he reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documents, books, legal decisions, state and federal data and other material.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, a former state judge who’s hearing the case without a jury, disagreed with the state’s attorneys. She allowed McCool to take the stand and admitted the report he prepared for the Native plaintiffs.
McCool’s testimony came at the close of the Natives’ case, the sixth day of trial. The trial is expected to conclude this week.
McCool said that with some exceptions pushed by a few political leaders, Alaska’s history is rife with discrimination against Native voters. In 1915, the Territorial Legislature passed a law that said that for Alaska Natives to become citizens, “they had to give up their culture, their language, and live like white people,” McCool said. “They’re the only group in American history told to give up their identity in order to vote.”
In 1924, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, granting Native Americans full rights as citizens. The response in Juneau? The following year, the Territorial Legislature passed a literacy test that kept most Natives from voting, McCool said.
“There was a fear that if they all became citizens, they would all start voting in dramatic numbers,” McCool said. One local newspaper ran an ad warning, “We don’t want these ignorant savages to take over,” he said.
McCool said one effective opponent of racism against Alaska Natives was the territorial governor Ernest Gruening, sent to Alaska in 1939 by President Franklin Roosevelt.
Assistant Attorney General Margaret Paton-Walsh was poised to object to McCool’s testimony if he strayed beyond what he was allowed to say. She took to her feet while McCool was testifying about Gruening’s autobiography, when two pages of a book were projected on a screen in the courtroom.
“Objection,” Paton-Walsh said. Reading from the folio on the book’s pages, Paton-Walsh said McCool was actually reading from the book “At War” by author Mary Bettles.
After a moment of confusion, McCool clarified: The folio didn’t say Mary Bettles, it said “Many Battles,” the name of Gruening’s book. The chapter heading in the other folio was “At War.”
A moment later, Gleason declared a break. When she returned from chambers and trial resumed, she said of herself and her clerk, “We both enjoyed ‘Mary Bettles.’ ”
McCool noted that Gleason herself played a role in Native rights issues when she was a state Superior Court judge and ruled in the case Moore v. State. She held that the state had failed to live up to its duty in the Alaska Constitution to provide public education in rural Alaska in 2007. Two years later, when the state Department of Education asked her to declare it was in compliance with the law and end her supervision of its remedial action, she refused, using language similar to that in McCool’s description of the Division of Elections. She said the state was applying an “incremental, minimalist initial approach” that didn’t pass constitutional muster.
Education matters, McCool said, and poor schools in the Bush are closely connected to limited English proficiency among Alaska Natives.
McCool said Alaska didn’t abandon its literacy test until the U.S. Voting Rights Act required it to.
Under cross examination by Paton-Walsh, he acknowledged that the literacy test wasn’t as tough and discriminatory as ones in the South directed against African-Americans, but it had an intimidating effect.
McCool said he understood that the Division of Elections says it doesn’t have the resources to provide full language assistance for all Native speakers, but he said that’s only an excuse.
“These attitudes and behaviors don’t look to me like the behaviors of an agency that’s absolutely devoted to providing equal opportunity to all voters, even if it’s difficult,” McCool said. “The attitude is let’s do what the law requires and absolutely no more.”
Reach Richard Mauer at rmauer@adn.com or (907) 257-4345.
In comparison to predecessors who have led the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Jon Tester (D-Montana) is a different creature. He’s not too prickly, nor harsh with staff; he’s not seen as overly idealistic, nor super controlled. And he doesn’t appear to have a passing interest in Indian issues, either; in other words, he’s not intent on leaving them behind when he finds a bigger fish to focus on.
While he’s been in the Senate since 2007, he’s still a farmer. Before that, he was a music teacher, and he has a Bachelor of Science in music, too. His wife: also a farmer. He’s visited the reservations in his state. He knows why the Indian vote matters, especially now as the Senate – part of a currently dysfunctional Congress, he laments – hangs in the balance.
Visiting him in the Hart Senate Office Building, it’s clear that he is a comfortable, candid, common-sense man who is focused on Indian stuff because he cares about it, and he wants to get it right. In person, he seems nicer, more jolly, than one gets a sense during committee hearings. He seems good, normal, real—a tribal ally who has a chance to show real power in this domain for years to come if he so chooses and if the voters in his conservative state continue to keep him in office.
He has been in the Senate for a rather short time to already be leading a committee. But it was his destiny after senior Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus retired to become an ambassador to China, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) decided to move on at the beginning of this year to chair the Small Business Committee.
Cantwell has been criticized for not moving as much critical legislation as Indian country would have liked during her year holding the gavel, and Tester knows the score there. It’s one reason why he’s already passed 15 pieces of legislation through the committee on housing, education, water rights, and a sure-to-be complicated legislative fix to the 2009 Supreme Court Carcieri decision that limited the Department of the Interior’s ability to take lands into trust for tribes. With four hearings scheduled for July alone on some touchy subjects, including gaming and the Cobell settlement, at a time when many of his colleagues are prepping for summer break, perhaps his biggest challenge will be to not flood the engine.
On a late-June humid day in Washington, he wore a white dress shirt, top buttons unbuttoned, no tie, no suit coat. Famous crew cut front and center. Simple desk. No ornate decorations on the walls.
“Welcome,” he said, first looking at the reporter’s colorful tie, lamenting that he’s been instructed to wear toned down ties when he appears on television. “That’s a tie I’d like to wear on TV.”
And, with that, an interview began, touching on a range of pressing issues Tester says he wants to accomplish alongside his Indian allies—making clear that he can only be successful if Indians are willing to take responsibility and lead the way on improving their own prospects.
You have really started out of the gate running. How are you feeling at this point in your chairmanship?
I think we are in pretty good shape. We have pushed a lot of bills out of the committee. We really have taken some of the less controversial bills and moved down the line. I think our next challenge is taking the bills that we’ve gotten out of committee and the ones that don’t get taken up by unanimous consent, figuring out a strategy for the lame duck. Maybe an omnibus Indian bill going forward that could include a lot of stuff, including, potentially, a Carcieri fix. Secondly, particularly related to the hearings we’ve held on education, we need to write up an education bill, get it out of committee. The same thing may be true of economic development: get a bill that deals with economic development in Indian country, and get it out of committee.
Was Sen. Cantwell’s tenure last year – which some people criticized as moving too slow – necessary to get you to this point of action?
Maybe it was. I never thought about it that way. I think Maria did a great job as chairman of the committee. When she stepped aside and I took over the committee, knowing Mary [Pavel, staff director of the committee] for many years, I asked her to characterize the easy bills, the medium bills, and the tough ones. And we proceeded from there. Because we kept the same staff, it allowed Mary to have a solid scope of the landscape because she had worked a year with Maria on the committee.
How are you getting along with these staffers who you didn’t choose?
They’re all really good folks. I like them. They all bring different levels of expertise to the table; like to have fun; easy to be around. It’s a very good staff.
One thing that some in Indian country were worried about given the rapid exit of Sen. Cantwell was that it might take you another year to build your own machine.
Thankfully I have known Mary since I got here [to the Senate]. And I was confident that she would not put substandard people around here, and she hasn’t.
You mentioned an omnibus Indian bill that would hopefully tie in several Indian-focused legislative efforts. When would something like that happen, and are you talking about a standalone bill focused just on Indian issues?
Yeah, there are two ways to approach it. We could look for different bills to attach things on as amendments. Or we could put a standalone together. To be bluntly honest with you, I’ve got to talk to Harry [Reid, Senate Majority Leader (D-Nevada)]. I haven’t talked to him yet, because we haven’t talked as a staff yet on what we want to do. If Harry says no, we can’t do an omnibus bill, then we fall back to tell him that we want to attach them to bills to get votes on them…. We didn’t do all this work just for show. We are going to try to get something functionally done at the other end.
Do you worry if it’s a standalone bill that would present too many opportunities for other senators to want to get their compromises in there; whereas if it is attached to another bill, it might be less likely to be tinkered with?
There are some advantages and disadvantages going both ways, and you have touched on them. The advantage of a standalone Native American bill is that it has never been done before, and you have some great Native bills out there right now that have been carried by both Republicans and Democrats. So I think we could have a truly bi-partisan effort moving forward here. I think the big issue is going to be whether there is going to be enough time. Will Harry give me enough time to do a Native American bill?
Majority Leader Reid has been vocal on Indian issues lately, leading the way against the Redskins team name, introducing legislation to expand trust lands for Nevada tribes.
Yes, he was very supportive when I took the gavel, and he told me to get to work and do some stuff. So I can always remind him of that when I go to ask him about this bill.
You recently held a hearing on tribal economic development. Everyone talks about wanting to fix the economies of struggling reservations, but that kind of talk has happened throughout American history, really. How do you change that?
I tell you how to change it. We don’t fix it from Washington, D.C., and they don’t fix it on the ground. We have to work together. That’s one of the reasons why we have tried to be as transparent and as encompassing as we can be on this committee. We need Native Americans’ input. The programs that we set up and potentially fund, they have to be held responsible for doing the right thing to be sure their kids are getting an education, or the money is being spent right for economic development.
If tribes think that I can fix their economy, I can’t. The whole Congress can’t fix their economy. The truth is, with good communication, working together, we can fix it together. I’ve also got to find Indian leaders who are willing to step up. And I think we’ve found some who are willing to step up and say this is what we need to do in Indian country to make things work, and then we [Congress] need to support it.
The principle of self-determination has been around for a long time, and some tribes have been able to more successfully take advantage of the opportunities involved with it. Why have some tribes not been able to take advantage of those opportunities?
I don’t know. Sometimes the federal government holds them back. Some tribes have done it better than others. We had a hearing in Montana on Indian healthcare, and it was very apparent to me that the tribes that were block granted the money were doing a better job than the others. That’s about self-determination and them taking responsibility.
The tribes that are doing very well have now been able to become a part of the American political system, hiring strong lobbyists, making big campaign finance donations. What is your role in thinking about all that and how it juxtaposes against the needs of the most struggling tribes?
Every one of those tribes that are struggling has opportunity, and I think we have to figure out ways that they can expand on that opportunity. But it really has to be driven from the local level. You know, I can’t walk on to [the] Crow [reservation] and say, you know, you guys have great opportunities in tourism, and we need to do this, this, and this. That isn’t going to work. They need to come with the program and ask if there is any way for the federal government to help out.
You want tribes, especially ones that are struggling, to be bold in taking advantage of self-determination opportunities.
Yes, that’s right. Make no mistake: I know how difficult it is. When you’re poor, you’re poor. It’s hard to come up.
Is the Congress being bold enough in pushing new economic endeavors?
No, and part of it has to do with the economic constraints we have on us due to the debt, wars, and everything that has transpired over the last 15 years. There are limited opportunities now, but we need to take advantage of the limited opportunities that we have.
Does this situation change for the better while you are serving in Congress?
Well, I hope so. But this is a pretty dysfunctional place. I wish I could tell you this place is running like a Singer sewing machine, but it ain’t. It’s pretty tough. We can have the best ideas, and somebody will put a hold on them, and then that’s that. But that doesn’t mean you don’t keep trying. And, by the way, if you keep trying, I think that sets a really good example for the folks in Indian country.
Is the administration being bold enough on tribal economic development?
I think they’re pretty good, but they’ve got a ways to go yet, too. I think they’ve done some really good work, but they are under the same fiscal constraints that we are.
Would you support the president creating a Cabinet level Native affairs position?
I think, absolutely, it would be a great idea. Number one: they would have a better understanding of the challenges in Indian country than I would. Second: that voice out there talking about what needs to be done is important because it not only helps Indian folks, it helps everybody.
Jodi Gillette and other advisors in this administration focused on Indian issues are not Cabinet level.
I tell you, Jodi Gillette has as much influence right now as any Cabinet person. She’s got the president’s ear. I think, regardless of what the position is called, you have to have someone that the president trusts and will listen to.
Would you like to see the president create a tribal economic development council composed of Indian leaders?
I think it’s a good idea. If in fact this is something that can happen, we will talk about it as a committee, and send a letter off.
You’ve said your clean Carcieri legislative fix that would help reservation economies still faces a lot of hurdles.
Yes, and it’s no different now than ever before.
What does that mean?
That means that we’ve got to find 60 votes, and there are people out there on the Democratic side who don’t like it, and I’m sure there are people on the Republican side who don’t as well. This is truly going to have to be a bipartisan effort, or it isn’t going to work to get a clean fix. Our challenge is going to be finding those 60 votes. I think a clean fix is the way to go, but I am not stupid about the legislative process. We need to get it through. I don’t think that two classes of Native Americans is a good idea. So we’ve got to find the 60 votes. We’ve got to do some serious talking with Sens. [Dianne] Feinstein, Jack Reed, [Chris] Murphy, [Richard] Blumenthal – these are all friends of mine – to let them know that I do not see the boogeyman out there in this bill that they do. We’ll see how effective I am in that.
Three SCIA chairmen before you have said the same thing about trying to build a coalition—
It’s never happened.
What makes you the one?
I’m a better guy. [laughs] No, I don’t know. A lot of it is timing; a lot of it is luck, too. Just as everything else, you push forward, and maybe the key will fit the lock.
So you’re working your Democratic friends?
We haven’t started yet. We’ve passed it out of committee. I have not had the hard conversation with Dianne [Feinstein] or any of the other four.
What is the hard conversation?
The hard conversation is to sit down with them and say I want to make this real. We need to figure out a way to allay their fears. If we’re successful in doing that, fine. If it comes to a point that we can’t be successful, then it becomes a little more difficult. Feelings get hurt and all that stuff. But I think that we’re all grownups here, and I think this issue has been around long enough that we should be able to get to the root problems and get them resolved.
Your vice-chair, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), how important is he in all this?
He is very important. He and [Sen. Jerry] Moran [R-Kansas] are the two keys to this puzzle. Moran because he is a co-sponsor. And if Barrasso were to come out hard against it, it would make this thing very difficult to pass.
In your ideal world, would he be working arm and arm with you on this?
In my ideal world, he would be.
And he’s not?
Well, we haven’t had that conversation yet, either. I don’t know where he’s at. I know where Jerry is. And Jerry is willing to go to the mat for us. Hopefully he will go to the mat with Barrasso. At the very least, Barrasso has to be neutral. If he’s opposed to it, we’ve got a problem. We don’t absolutely need him, but it would make life easier if we have him.
In committee, Sen. Barrasso recently proposed an amendment to study Carcieri and its effects on tribes, and it passed. More study?
Yeah, that’s something we do here all the time. We study stuff all the time, and then we study it some more. I think Carcieri is a known entity, and I don’t think it necessarily needs to be studied anymore.
Turning to your focus on Native education, all these hearings—is it because you were a teacher?
Yes, I think that’s fundamentally the root of it all. My folks strongly believed in public education, that it was a key to success. My grandmother moved to this country because of education. My mother and her three sisters and brother got degrees. Both my brothers have degrees. Education was pound into us as being very important. It is the key to our democracy. It is the key to economic development. It is the key to our future. If we are able to unleash the minds in Indian country, Indian country will flourish.
And you have proposed a Native language restoration bill. I know you didn’t grow up speaking a Native language, so why was that component meaningful to you?
It’s because of the information I have learned since sitting on the committee. Native language speakers do better in school, and they stay in school. Those are two big problems in Indian country—academic achievement and dropping out. If we can fix those two with language, we need to push language.
You held a higher education hearing that pleased many Indian higher ed advocates because they have felt their issues have been neglected by the administration to date.
It’s low hanging fruit, from my perspective. Tribal colleges are sitting there, ready to give skills to people to fill the jobs that are needed in Indian country. I think the tribal colleges are a huge asset. We are very fortunate in Montana because all seven tribes have tribal colleges. If we are able to leverage that tribal college system throughout the country, it will help with unemployment rates.
Over at the Indian Health Service, is Dr. Yvette Roubideaux going to be re-confirmed as director?
I don’t know. I think there are some communication issues that need to be worked out, and I’ve told her exactly that. There needs to be a lot better communication between tribes and her. I think she is trying to do that. But the well may be a bit soured because there are a lot of Native folks out there who don’t like her. I believe from a personal standpoint that I don’t have a problem with her. She is a delightful woman. But the Indian Health Service is in tough shape, and there needs to be the leadership there that pushes the envelope and listens to the people on the ground—tells them no when they have to tell them no, but comes up here and tells us [Congress] no when we need to hear that, too.
The reason I say I don’t know if she’ll be confirmed is I don’t know if she has the votes on the committee. That’s the problem. By the way, when Sylvia Burwell [the new director of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Roubideaux’ new boss] was in here, I talked to Sylvia specifically about her and asked her to do an assessment.
At the Department of the Interior, Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn has pushed some progressive proposals lately – improving the federal recognition process, wanting to get lands put into trust for Alaska tribes, thinking about Native Hawaiian recognition – what do you think about all that?
I think it’s very, very, very good. I think Kevin Washburn is a great guy. I wish other members of the agency would push us harder at the congressional level, because I think there are people here who want to be pushed harder. [Sen. Heidi] Heitkamp [D-N.D.] is a prime example. I’m a prime example. If you come in and demand more, we’re probably going to deliver more.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
American Indian leaders and Native-focused legislators are pushing President Barack Obama to use his executive powers to establish a tribal economic development council made up of actual tribal leaders.
Such a move, say advocates of the seemingly common-sense idea, would illustrate that Obama and his administration are serious about creating an overarching economic plan for Indian country, and it would put more weight behind a series of disjointed initiatives his team has already offered.
They note, too, that the President of late has been willing to face scrutiny from Republicans by expanding his use of executive powers on immigration reform, health care, and other issues, so they wish he would add this pressing area to his agenda. And there’s already a model in place for him to do so, exemplified by his creation of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology through executive order in 2010.
“It’s time to diversify the conversation,” says Gary Davis, president and chief executive officer of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, who noted the idea was seriously discussed at the organization’s recently-concluded Washington, D.C.-based Reservation Economic Summit. “We need the Native people who are advancing economic develop in Indian country every single day weighing in, making sure that the proper tribal perspective is being offered.”
Indian leaders know full well that the president has already created a White House Native American Affairs Council, but they widely lament that it is made up mainly of non-Indian agency officials spread throughout the vast administration who don’t have the on-the-ground experience rooted in the realities of tribal economies.
It makes for a good photo op when the administration’s council gets together, Tex Hall, chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes, has said, and agency officials can therefore say they are focused on tribal economic development, as well as a bevy of other tribal issues. However, given the limited tribal input built in to this system, tribal leaders have feared that the council misses major opportunities to improve struggling reservation economies.
To be fair, the administration and the council have indeed reached out to tribal leaders to solicit their ideas for bold and wide-sweeping improvement. During last year’s White House Tribal Nations Summit, for instance, Obama held a meeting with a small group of Indian leaders who suggested that the federal government encourage more collaboration between private business and tribes by convening a gathering of such entities. Ray Halbritter, Oneida Nation representative and CEO of Nation Enterprises, parent company of Indian Country Today Media Network, said after that presidential meeting, which he attended, that an advantage in having the administration facilitate such an endeavor is that it has power that tribes and Indian organizations lack.
“If the administration backed such a plan, there would be an automatic serious nature to it,” Halbritter said at the time. “Businesses would perhaps feel more obliged to collaborate and to find ways to partner with Indian nations.”
The administration has already made tentative and limited progress in improving reservation economies. During the president’s June trip to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the White House noted in a press release that the administration has in several instances already partnered with Native communities by granting multi-millions of dollars in funding, by providing increased technical assistance on various federal-tribal programs, and by pushing for legal and regulatory tribal economy-focused improvements.
New initiatives are also in the pipeline, the White House said, noting that the administration wants to remove regulatory barriers to Indian energy and infrastructure development, increase tribal land development opportunities, and make federal data focused on tribal economic development easier to find and use by tribes. Encouraging the use of tax-exempt bonds for tribal economic development, growing Native small businesses, and supporting Indian veterans were also on the agenda.
Brian Patterson, president of the United South and Eastern Tribes, says he is supportive of the administration’s efforts to date and its plans for the future. “However,” he adds, “none of this will transform the situation without the full engagement of Indian country as an equal partner.”
Says Chris Stearns, a Native affairs lawyer with Hobbs Straus: “[W]ithout the direct input of tribal leaders, scholars, and activists into federal policy, you tend to wind up with piecemeal fixes that are not linked together in a way that makes them effective.
“I can’t imagine that a Council on Native American Affairs led by the tribes themselves wouldn’t be able to come up with 10 times more than what a roomful of federal officials has been able to do so far,” Stearns adds.
One of the reasons the administration has been reluctant in some cases to solicit stronger tribal input on economic development issues is the fact that many tribal leaders want federal laws that they feel impact their growth relaxed or removed. Progressive laws, like the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), are hindrances to development on many reservations, several tribal leaders have testified before Congress.
“These and other laws create conflicting allegiances for the federal Indian trustee, bogging down tribal development decisions to the point that tribes cannot compete fairly in most private sector markets,” says Philip Banker-Shenk, a Native Affairs lawyer with Holland & Knight. “It may be audacious to think the role of the federal Indian trustee should trump laws like the APA, NEPA, or ESA, but it is no more audacious than the present paralysis caused by how those laws now neuter the federal Indian trusteeship.”
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs, is one who believes the administration has been slow in supporting economic self-determination for tribes because that goal often conflicts with its more progressive ideals. For instance, the congressman’s recent Native American Energy Act received tribal support from its conception to its passage in the House as part of a larger bill, yet the administration has opposed it all along the way. The bill, if ever signed into law by the president, could open up many opportunities for tribal energy development – both of the renewable and non-renewable type – yet it would also give tribes more of an ability to challenge NEPA and other regulations that hold them back from such development. Thus, the administration has been opposed—a major source of consternation to tribal advocates who note that Indian oil, gas and construction in aggregate garnered copy5 billion for a select group of tribes in 2013. Many more tribes could be able to benefit if Young’s legislation became law.
“The administration continues to focus on endless discussions, but rarely takes actions,” says Matt Shuckerow, a spokesman for Young. “Truly promoting economic self-sufficiency for tribes takes more than hosting a tribal summit each year. The administration should actively work with Congress to allow for responsible development of natural resources on tribal lands.”
Such criticism from a Republican is perhaps expected in partisan Washington, but Jon Tester (D-Montana), chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (SCIA), agrees that the progress of both the administration and current Congress has been too sluggish and not focused on supporting true tribal self-determination.
Tester says that the federal government sometimes holds tribes back from self-determination opportunities, adding that he has tended to see more economic successes from tribes that have been able to take increased responsibility over programs that support their lands and citizens. How to get all tribes to be able to take increased responsibility is one of the major dilemmas of this situation, he says. “Make no mistake, I know how difficult it is,” he adds. “When you’re poor, you’re poor.”
A step in the right direction, Tester says, would be for the president to create a permanent Cabinet-level Native affairs advisor position that could elevate these issues to the highest level of federal government in conjunction with appointing a tribal economic development council to inform such an advisor.
“If in fact this is something that can happen, we will talk about it as a committee, and send a letter off,” Tester says.
Davis, fresh from testifying before SCIA on economic development challenges facing tribes in late-June, says he’d be more than willing to join such a council. “As it is now, I worry we may not be looking as far to the left as we can, nor as far to the right as we can,” he says. “We need to be open-minded, we need to take responsibility, and we need to have a real seat at the table.”
Les James, right, who is Miwuk-Chukchansi, beside two examples of traditional housing called umachas with tribal elder Bill Tucker, a Miwuk-Paiute, seen to the left, on a tour of a village site in Yosemite Valley just a few yards from the main loop road driven by thousands of visitors. A umacha is constructed with a frame of cedar poles covered by cedar bark using wild grape vines to tie joints together, according to Tucker and James. Photographed on Monday, June 9, 2014 in Yosemite National Park. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA — Fresno Bee Staff Photo
Editor’s note: Information in the third and fourth paragraphs has been revised to clarify details.
Two little American Indian girls hid motionless in a cave, covered in brush as soldiers passed through Yosemite Valley.
Older members of their Yosemite tribe made a quick escape up a steep, rocky canyon, and the girls were temporarily left behind, told not to make a sound.
This was the mid-1800s during the era when armed soldiers marched into Yosemite Valley not as explorers, but as men out for blood. At the first, they burned villages and stores of acorns, meat and mushrooms. Later on, they patrolled, yet the fear of them remained.
One of those concealed girls, Louisa Tom, lived to be more than 100 years old. She never got over those early images. Into old age, when uniformed park rangers entered her village in Yosemite Valley, she would run and hide behind her cabin, recalls great-granddaughter-in-law Julia Parker, 86, who has worked in the Yosemite Indian museum for 54 years.
For many American Indians, the inspiration for Yosemite National Park did not start with flowery prose from John Muir or a romantic vision of Galen Clark in the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias as its “first guardian.” It began with murder and destruction.
For them, the story of Yosemite since the mid-1800s is tragedy and tears, yet resilient Native Americans have survived and still live in this mountain paradise.
“We’re still here, living in the Yosemite Valley,” Parker says. “So you can’t keep a good people down.”
On Monday, many descendants of these “first people” will attend a ceremony in the Mariposa Grove to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Yosemite Grant Act — precursor to national parks. Les James, 79, a tribal elder active in Yosemite’s native community, will say a blessing, but he won’t be celebrating.
“The changes, the destruction, that’s what I don’t like about it. You destroyed something that we preserved for thousands of years. In 150 years, you’ve ruined it.”
For most of his life in the Yosemite area, James has worked to return cultural activities. He also had a 31-year career in Yosemite, starting in 1959, making trail and warning signs. Over his lifetime, there have been 24 park superintendents.
Helen Coats, 87, is the great-granddaughter of that little girl hiding in the cave. Coats, born in Yosemite Valley, lived in its last native village, destroyed by the Park Service by 1969.
She now lives down Highway 140 in the Mariposa area. She sees “busloads after busloads” of tourists pass by every day. Sometimes, it makes her sad.
“They are just trampling my home to death.”
A dark chapter
To understand the viewpoint of Yosemite’s first people, go back to March 27, 1851 — about 13 years before the Yosemite Grant Act was signed.
On that spring day, during a hunt for Indians who were rumored to be living in a mountain stronghold, the first publicized “discovery” of Yosemite happened.
The natives living in this ethereal place were called the Ahwahneechees, and they already were competing with the Gold Rush to survive. In 1849, there were 100,000 miners swarming the foothills, wrote Margaret Sanborn in “Yosemite: Its Discovery, its Wonders and its People.”
After an attack on a trading post on the Fresno River near Coarsegold owned by pioneer James Savage, 23 natives were killed by a volunteer company. The group, led by Savage, became the Mariposa Battalion. Federal Indian commissioners — eager to make treaties — told Savage to not “shed blood unnecessarily.”
The battalion discovered Yosemite searching for Indians. During early military expeditions, some natives were shot and killed or hung from oak trees in Yosemite Valley.
Lafayette Bunnell, a battalion member, recorded Chief Tenaya’s reaction finding his son shot in the back trying to escape.
“Upon his entrance into the camp of volunteers, the first object that met his gaze was the dead body of his son. Not a word did he speak, but the workings of his soul were frightfully manifested in the deep and silent gloom that overspread his countenance.”
Later, Tenaya tried to escape by plunging into the river, but was spotted. “Kill me, sir captain! Yes, kill me, as you killed my son; as you would kill my people, if they should come to you! … Yes, sir American, you can tell your warriors to kill the old chief … you have killed the child of my heart …”
The assault would splinter the Ahwahneechee tribe — some fleeing over the Sierra, others rounded up in the foothills.
Their descendents live on. Today, at least seven organized Native American groups have traditional ties to Yosemite, according to Laura Kirn, Yosemite’s cultural resources program manager.
But the pain of their past lives on, too.
Jack Forbes, a former American Indian studies professor at the University of California at Davis, writes about the previous era in “Native Americans of California and Nevada.” He suggests few chapters in U.S. history are more brutal and callous than the conquering of California Indians.
He writes: “It serves to indict not a group of cruel leaders, or a few squads of rough soldiers, but, in effect, an entire people; for the conquest of the Native Californian was above all else a popular, mass enterprise.”
Weight of difference
Coats was born in Yosemite Valley in May 1927.
As a child, she loved to roam and pound berries atop boulders in her village, where women pounded acorns. Sometimes she would dress in buckskin and beads to visit grandmother Lucy Telles weaving baskets for tourists.
It was a good childhood, Coats says, but she couldn’t help notice being treated differently than white children. She recalls that at her Yosemite school, she drew pictures or made dolls, and then was met with an encouraging “Oh, that’s so nice” from the teacher.
“They didn’t try to teach us,” Coats says of schooling for natives. “I guess they thought we wouldn’t make a good pupil maybe for reading and writing.”
Coats was born in the “old Indian village,” tents by current-day Yosemite Village, which now includes a large gift shop, market and pizzeria. In the early 1930s she was moved to a new Indian village near Camp 4, more than a mile away with 17 small cabins. Kirn says the move was to provide more privacy and better housing.
But Coats sees it differently. “The old village, we were too visible. People could really see us there, the way we lived in tents, you know. We were the poor people of Yosemite.”
The Indian cabins lacked what other park houses had, like private bathrooms, warm water, bigger windows and second stories, Coats says.
Feeling the power
Walking through a Yosemite Valley meadow, Bill Tucker, 75, points to plants his Miwuk and Paiute people ate. Many also were used for healing.
Coats recalls a doctor who said her great-grandma would die overnight, but family members placed cooked wild onion on her chest. “Next morning, she was fine.”
In the meadow, Les James looks up at the cliffs. “I can feel that power.”
“Everything is living on Mother Earth,” he says, and even the rocks have stories. Like El Capitan, the world’s largest granite monolith. The name “captain” was thought fitting for this massive stone, but according to native legend, it was named after one of the smallest creatures: An inchworm.
This comes from a tale about the rock’s creation, much like the “Tortoise and the Hare.” The story goes that two children sleeping on a stone awoke to find it grown. All kinds of animals tried to scale its sheer face to rescue them. Then came a little worm.
“This little guy, he’s the underdog,” James says, “and they laugh at him about what he’s going to do, inch his way up and save the kids.” But the worm succeeds. “Even if you’re a little guy, don’t worry, you’ll be famous someday,” James says with a smile.
El Capitan is not El Capitan. It’s the “Measuring-Worm Stone.”
Many visitors today miss Yosemite’s wonder, says Lois Martin, 70, who grew up in the native village and is chairwoman of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation. “It’s so commercialized.”
But many hold to a hope that in Yosemite, humanity might still connect to indigenous roots shared by all. The late David Brower, the Sierra Club’s first executive director, once said people need places to be reminded that “civilization is only a thin veneer over the deep evolutionary flow of things that built him.”
Meadow manhole
Walking through green grass in Yosemite Valley, James and Tucker come upon concrete. Tucker, a retired park plumber, says it’s part of an old sewer line — a manhole in the meadow.
It gets him thinking about his 30-year career in the park. Memories of burst sewer lines and the wastewater treatment ponds in Tuolumne Meadows, in the high country, give him chills.
Many of Yosemite’s American Indians also worry about species management: the killing of “non-native” fish and plants considered invasive in Yosemite Valley, such as blackberry bushes, which have been sprayed with pesticides. Over five years, 40 acres have been treated with a weed killer, Kirn says. “We believe that if an animal does digest it, it’s about as safe as a chemical can be.”
Yosemite’s first people weren’t trying to preserve an untouched wilderness, but they understood nature and lived light on the land. They had the advantage of thousands of years of experience.
The park often has glossed over the native role in the evolution of Yosemite’s meadows, says University of California at Davis lecturer M. Kat Anderson in “Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources.” For example, the natives regularly set fires to help oaks produce more acorn.
“They told us how many mushrooms to pick, how many fish to catch,” James says of the Park Service. “They think we didn’t know that. We taught them that.”
Park officials over the years gradually have come to recognize the value of native stewardship.
Some of the natives, however, question how the Park Service manages things.
In the Camp 4 parking lot, James and Tucker spot a new paved trail leading toward Yosemite Falls. They don’t understand how the park is touting removing pavement in the Mariposa Grove as more is laid down in Yosemite Valley.
Yosemite National Park spokesman Scott Gediman said the native community has many legitimate concerns, but the park gets almost 4 million visitors a year, and managing the place is “always a balancing act.”
But, he said, “our highest calling and our No. 1 priority is always preserving the natural environment of Yosemite, and the less development the better.”
Coats says she understands why the Park Service does some construction: “The park is kind of like Disneyland. There’s so many people in there. I can kind of relate to them fencing off things because in the old days they didn’t have to do that.”
What, then, is the value of the indigenous perspective in this new, much more populated and modern Yosemite? Maybe it boils down to this, says James: “For thousands of years, we were here before them. That’s because we lived by nature’s law. If you don’t live by nature’s law, you are not going to survive. That’s really the bottom line.”
Losing home
Archaeological evidence shows people in Yosemite Valley about 7,000 years ago, Kirn says. In areas bordering the park, evidence dates back 9,500 years. That’s about the time people perfected hunting woolly mammoths.
That residency in Yosemite ended for many in the 1960s when descendants of those original people, like Coats, were told to leave.
A bed of pine needles covers the place where Coats’ cabin once stood, but the 87-year-old still can find her way to this spot, following the boulders.
This was the park’s last native village. In the 1960s it was decided only natives with full-time work could live in Yosemite. As many lost seasonal employment, like Coats, who did tourists’ laundry, their homes were destroyed by the Park Service.
A few families with full-time work were moved elsewhere. Parker says, “When they separated us, I couldn’t go out there and sing a song, I’d be disturbing the neighbors.”
Today, the community is rebuilding its village. Included in the 1980 general management plan, it will be used for ceremonies and gatherings.
The project hit a rough patch a few years ago. Roundhouse beams were deemed unsafe and the park put a stop to construction. Yosemite’s native community needed to follow building codes.
“They’ve got codes for churches, bowling alleys, everything else, but not for roundhouses,” James says. “The white man is trying to tell us how to build a roundhouse when he doesn’t know how to build it himself.”
This month, a compromise was reached. An American Indian engineer will be hired.
Kirn is eager to see the roundhouse built. “It’s a place in which they can continue to be present in the park and work in partnership with all of us to maintain the sacred nature of Yosemite.”
Preserving culture in national parks is taking on growing importance, says William Tweed, retired chief park naturalist at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, in “Uncertain Path: A Search for the Future of National Parks.”
“In this new century, where nothing natural or wild seems beyond the threatening reach of humankind, the cultural values associated with national parks may ultimately be their most important feature.”
The return of culture
In the last half century, spiritual camps were started — ceremonies for healing and honoring all life, and an annual spiritual walk, tracing ancestors’ steps over the Sierra.
The walk is important to Tucker, as it’s a time of learning. Like above Mono Lake, when children see the sunrise for the first time, glittering on distant water. And watching kids turn into young adults, helping elders carry backpacks and pitching tents before thundershowers.
There also are sunrises over Tenaya Lake, known by the first people as “Lake of Shining Rocks” for granite domes rolling above the water. Tucker thinks of those mornings. “Pretty soon that good ol’ fog comes up out of that lake, and just kind of dances out there.”
Tucker also helps with bear dances, ceremonies held three times a year in Yosemite to honor the bear as it awakes from winter, forages in the summer and returns to hibernation with the onset of new snows.
The natives share a special connection with the bear, says Jay Johnson, 82, a Miwuk and Paiute instrumental in the native community and who worked in park forestry for 41 years.
Johnson’s aunt once spoke to a bear lying in the road after a line of angry motorists failed to clear the path. “Uncle, you’re going to have to move,” she told the bear in her native language. “We have to go down after groceries, after food.” The bear moved.
Johnson has worked to get the Miwuk tribe federally recognized. But an application, submitted in the early 1980s, remains before the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Many suspect their homeland being in a national park has played a role in the delay.
“As long as they keep pushing us back, we’re like a lost tribe,” says Coats, who is Miwuk and Paiute.
Finding a voice
After basket weaver Lucy Telles died, Parker, her granddaughter-in-law, was asked by the Park Service to fill her place in the Indian museum.
But Parker said she “wasn’t scholarly,” couldn’t make baskets and wasn’t from Yosemite. The orphaned Pomo and Coastal Miwok woman moved to the park at age 17 and a year later married a native to Yosemite.
Yet she gave it a shot and learned to weave when she was about 20. One day, she heard things said of natives that weren’t correct, “so I thought I better answer the question and put my basket down. And now my grandchildren say, ‘You can’t stop talking, Grandma!’ ”
Today, four generations of women in her family weave baskets and share native stories. Parker’s baskets have been given to the queen of England, king of Norway and the Smithsonian Institution.
In earlier years, Parker also worked in the gift shop of glamorous Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley. “I was probably one of the first Indian ladies to work in the gift shop. When I worked in the gift shop, they had me stand in the corner like a wooden Indian. They didn’t think I could handle any of the cash register.” One day she filled in for a cashier but was told she couldn’t handle more than $10.
Eventually, she was made manager of a new Indian shop. Parker’s request that five American Indians work there was granted.
At 86, she still is in the museum. Earlier this month, Parker was awarded the Barry Hance Memorial Award, an honor presented annually to a park employee for strong work ethic, good character and love for Yosemite. Over 54 years, “sometimes I think, is it worth all this? Having people ask you, ‘Are you a real Indian?’ ”
But then, “If I wasn’t here, who would be here?”
Parker makes a point to connect with children when they visit. They like her stories, baskets and games. She likes helping them think about grandmas. She wants them to know a grandma’s stories are important.
Coats feels the same. “Ask your grandparents. They are not going to tell you nothing unless you say, ‘What happened in your day?’ They are going to think you’re not interested. … The way you learn our history is through us. You don’t read this in books. You have to read it through the elders.”
Making peace
Walking from Yosemite’s last native village, Coats thinks about what happened to her ancestors, the killings and the displacement.
“They came and took what they wanted, as they did all over America. … There’s always going to be a little anger inside.”
But, she adds, “What good is it to get angry? You can’t do anything with anger. Some things you have to accept — but you never forget, you pass on your history.
“The more people become aware of some of the background of the Native Americans, the more I think they try to understand. I think understanding can bring people closer together, to maybe work together, instead of being prejudiced — and that goes both ways.”
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/06/27/4000788/an-ancient-connection.html?sp=%2F99%2F217%2F&ihp=1#storylink=cpy
Uncertainty best sums up the mood as fishermen and processors await the world’s biggest sockeye salmon run at Bristol Bay. In fact, it’s being called the riskiest season in recent memory in the 2014 Sockeye Market Analysis, a biannual report done by the McDowell Group for the fishermen-run Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association.
As presaged by buyer pushback at seafood trade shows earlier this year in Boston and Brussels, for the first time since 2010 the starting price for the first sockeyes from Copper River took a $0.50/lb dip. At an average $3.50/lb, it was down 13 percent for fishermen from 2013.
“Probably more so than any recent year, processors are having pressure from both the buying side with more competition for fish in Bristol Bay, and on the selling side there is a very large sockeye forecast from the Fraser River (in British Columbia). And that fishery takes place in August well after Alaska’s sockeye fisheries are done,” said Andy Wink, seafood project manager at McDowell Group.
“If buyers hold off and there is a big Fraser run, it could leave Alaska processors holding some high-priced sockeye inventory. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with wholesale prices, but in general, there are more downside risks this year,” he added.
The expected catch at Fraser River is about 10 million sockeye, but it could be double that if fishermen and processors have the capacity to handle it.
Of course, farmed salmon remains a big market competitor – and in play this summer is red salmon from Russia. That fish is making big inroads into markets where it hasn’t been before.
“It wasn’t till 2013 when we really saw Russian sockeye going in any significant volume to markets outside of Japan,” Wink explained. “As our sockeyes become more expensive, Japan has been buying more from Russia. But last year we saw Russian sockeye exports outside of Japan go up 580 percent!”
On the upside, Wink said Alaska sockeye is an ever more popular brand, especially in the U.S.
“There is still a lot of demand, especially for fresh and frozen products, and there is strong demand from salmon smokers in Europe, and a growing market in the U.S. market. That’s really supported the entire Bristol Bay fishery over the last several years,” he said.
Sockeye salmon are Alaska’s must valuable species by far, usually worth two-thirds of the total statewide harvest. The 2014 Alaska sockeye harvest is projected at 33.6 million fish; roughly 18 million of the reds should come from Bristol Bay.
Find the easy-to-read 2014 Salmon Market Analysis at www.bbrsda.com.
Worker relief
Alaska seafood processors will soon get relief from worker shortages with the reinstatement of the J-1 Visa Summer Work/Travel Program. The J-1 program allows companies to recruit workers from outside the US when they can’t find enough Alaskans or workers from the Lower 48 during the busy salmon season. The State Department dropped seafood industry workers from the J-1 program two years ago.
Sens. Murkowski and Begich were successful in getting seafood workers added back into the J-1 Visa program. On Friday, the measure passed as part of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill, and it now heads to the full Senate.
Salmon skin cream
A chance discovery by farmed salmon hatchery workers has spawned a line of skin care products that keep skin softer and younger looking.
“Aquapreneurs” in Norway became curious several years ago after they noticed that hatchery workers who spent long hours handling salmon fry in cold seawater had softer, smoother hands. Researchers at Norway’s University of Science and Technology discovered the skin-softening component came from the enzyme zonase, found in the hatching fluid of the salmon eggs. The enzyme’s task is to digest the protein structure of the tough egg shells without harming the tiny fish. The scientists hailed this dual ability as the secret behind the beneficial properties for human skin.
Now, Norway-based Aqua Bio Technology, which develops marine based ingredients for the personal care industry, has launched the zonase-infused product as Aquabeautine XL. Another personal care product using salmon hatching fluid is set to be launched at the end of the year, according to ABT’s website.
Death by sunscreen
All that sunblock being slathered on beachgoers around the world is causing major damage to ocean coral. A study funded by the European Commission revealed the mix of 20 compounds used to protect skin from the harmful effects of the sun causes rapid bleaching of coral reefs.
The World Trade Organization reports that 10 percent of world tourism takes place in tropical areas, with nearly 80 million people visiting coral reefs each year. The WTO estimates that up to 6,000 tons of sunscreen is released into reef areas each year – and that 10 percent of the world’s coral reefs are at risk of ‘death by sunscreen.’
While Alaska’s deep-sea corals face threats from ocean acidification, they are safe from sunscreen. Unlike tropical varieties, Alaska corals don’t form reefs – they grow into dense gardens and can live for hundreds of years. The waters surrounding the Aleutian Islands are believed to harbor the most abundant and diverse cold-water corals in the world.
Laine Welch has been covering news of Alaska’s fishing industry since 1988. She lives in Kodiak. Visit her website at www.fishradio.com
We all know that a healthy lifestyle can keep heart disease at bay. But if like many of us you spent your 20s scarfing down pizza, throwing back a few too many beers and aggressively avoiding the gym, don’t despair.
People who drop bad habits in their late 30s and 40s can reduce their risk of developing coronary artery disease, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Circulation.
“And by the same token, if you get to adulthood with a healthy lifestyle, that doesn’t mean you’re home free,” says Bonnie Spring, director of the Center for Behavior and Health at Northwestern University and the lead author of the study. Those who pick up unhealthy behaviors in middle age up their risk of developing heart disease, the study found.
The researchers looked at data from 5,000 participants in the larger Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. They evaluated the participants’ body-mass index and diet, checked how much they exercised and whether they smoked or drank excessively.
To gauge heart health, the researchers also measured calcium buildup in people’s arteries and the thickness of inner artery walls — both early signs that heart disease may be on its way.
The participants were first assessed when they were between 18 and 30 years old and then again 20 years later. Forty percent picked up bad habits as they aged. But 25 percent made heart-healthy lifestyle changes. And that’s great news, Spring tells Shots.
“These changes were not that dramatic,” Spring says. Even slight increases in physical activity or slight adjustments in diet had an effect. “These are the kinds of things mere mortals can do,” she says. In other words, there’s no need to suddenly take up CrossFit or go vegan.
This also doesn’t mean that 20-somethings should give up on exercise and start on an all-bacon diet. “To be continuously having a healthy lifestyle is the best,” Spring says. “But the problem is, almost nobody does.”
Only 10 percent of young adults in this study were healthy by all five measures the researchers evaluated.
Too often, Spring notes, medical professionals think that by middle age the damage has already been done. “That kind of perfectionism can be very demoralizing,” she says. “We wanted to give a more encouraging message.”
The Department of the Interior has reaffirmed its commitment to restore bison to “appropriate and well-managed levels on public and tribal lands” by working with states, tribes and other partners.
“The Interior Department has more than a century-long legacy of conserving the North American bison, and we will continue to pursue the ecological and cultural restoration of the species on behalf of the American public and American Indian tribes who have a special connection to this iconic animal,” said Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell in a June 30 statement announcing the release of a report, DOI Bison Report: Looking Forward, which outlines plans to work with tribes, states, landowners, conservation groups, commercial bison producers and agricultural interests to restore the bison population to a “proper ecological and cultural role on appropriate landscapes within its historical range,” the DOI statement said.
“This report reaffirms our commitment to work with many partners to ensure healthy, ranging bison contribute not only to the conservation of the species, but also to sustainable local and regional economies and communities,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Rachel Jacobson in the statement.
A key component of the report addresses recent developments regarding brucellosis quarantine that could allow for the relocation of Yellowstone bison outside the Greater outside the Greater Yellowstone Area, if they are quarantined and determined to be brucellosis-free. A new protocol developed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and introduced in February strongly suggests that this is indeed possible.
“The results of this study indicate that under the right conditions, there is an opportunity to produce live brucellosis-free bison from even a herd with a large number of infected animals like the one in Yellowstone National Park,” said Dr. Jack Rhyan, APHIS Veterinary Officer, in a WCS statement in February. “Additionally, this study was a great example of the benefits to be gained from several agencies pooling resources and expertise to research the critical issue of brucellosis in wildlife.”
The new information “raises the potential that for the first time in over a half century, Yellowstone bison could once again contribute to the broader conservation of the species beyond the Greater Yellowstone Area without spreading brucellosis,” the DOI said in its statement. “When evaluating whether to implement a brucellosis quarantine program in the future, Interior will follow all necessary processes to ensure full involvement by states, tribes, and the public.”
As such, the department said it was unwaveringly committed to working with tribes to restore bison on public and tribal lands “because of its cultural, religious, nutritional, and economic importance to many tribes.”
The American buffalo, which numbered an estimated 40 million when Europeans first arrived on Turtle Island, had been reduced to 25 by the late 19th century, Interior noted. Since then many parties have worked hard to bring them back from the brink of extinction and reintroduce them to tribal lands.
“Interior lands now support 17 bison herds in 12 states for a total of approximately 10,000 bison over 4.6 million acres of Interior and adjacent lands, accounting for one third of all bison managed for conservation in North America,” the department said.
Hail to the Potomacs? If the owner of the Redskins wants to put the controversy over his team name to rest while keeping a Native American theme, he’ll likely have one local tribe’s blessing.
“I was just telling my wife the other day, ‘Why don’t we write to Dan Snyder and suggest changing the name to the Washington Potomacs?” said John Lightner, chief of the Patawomeck tribe of Virginia.
The Patawomecks (or Potomacs), native people of the region, gave their name to the river that flows through Washington, D.C. In the 1600s they belonged to the tribal confederation headed by the great chief Powhatan, from whose war club daughter Pocahontas, legend has it, saved John Smith. (Pocahontas’s mother was a Patawomeck.) Today the tribe counts some 1,500 members, most in Stafford County, Va.
If — and that’s if — the Redskins wanted to style themselves the Potomacs, after the local tribe and the great waterway that shares their name, the tribe likely would endorse the move, Lightner, said.
It has a certain ring to it. It would evoke a sense of place as the name of the river as well as the tribe native to the region. The team’s colors wouldn’t have to change. Nor, for that matter, would the logo.
And this strategy, adopting the name of a local tribe with that tribe’s blessing, is what has saved the Florida State University Seminoles, the University of Utah Utes, and the Central Michigan University Chippewas from charges of racism. The local Stafford High School Indians drew criticism for their mascot, but the tribe wrote to express support for the name, and even helped redesign the logo from a Plains Indian in headdress to an Eastern Woodland Indian reflective of local tribes.
Not that Patawomecks are necessarily offended by the Redskins name, mind you — despite what critics in the media, Congress, and the U.S. Patent Office say.
“I do not find the title of the Washington Redskins offensive in any way,” said William L. Deyo, Patawomeck tribal historian. “I cannot speak for the whole tribe, but I can honestly say that I have never heard of anyone in the tribe having a problem with the name of Redskins used by the team.”
Chief Lightner agreed, in much the same terms. “We’ve got to the point where political correctness has gotten to be ridiculous — everything is offensive to somebody,” he said. “I would venture to say it would be shocking to see how many Native Americans are not opposed to the Redskins’ name.”
Bonny Newton, Patawomeck tribal secretary, recalled the joy taken in the team by her late mother-in-law, Polly Sullivan Newton, who passed away this spring at age 93. “She was the most loyal of all Redskin fans,” Newton said. “She watched every game. I really enjoyed watching Miss Polly watch the Redskins. From her recliner she told the team how to play, what to play, and who to play the entire three-plus hours every Sunday. She knew all the team members, the coach, and this little woman had the rules of the game down pat.”
Activists pressing the name-change campaign condemn Indian team names and mascots as an appropriation and mockery of native culture. The Redskins, for their part, staunchly defend their 80-year-old name as an expression of honor for Native American pride, strength and bravery.
“I would prefer to keep the name of the team as the Washington Redskins, as it is a longtime name of pride for area people,” said Deyo, the Patawomeck historian. But if the team were to switch to the name of his tribe, he said, “I would find the name of Washington Potomacs an honor.”
