Groups want to see Montana judge’s racist emails

In this June 23, 2011, file photo, Chief Judge Richard F. Cebull makes a speech during a naturalization ceremony at the federal courthouse in Billings, Mont. (AP Photo/Billings Gazette, James Woodcock, File)
In this June 23, 2011, file photo, Chief Judge Richard F. Cebull makes a speech during a naturalization ceremony at the federal courthouse in Billings, Mont. (AP Photo/Billings Gazette, James Woodcock, File)

 

By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A group of American Indians wants a court to preserve and eventually release an investigative file containing inappropriate emails sent by a federal judge, including a racist message involving President Barack Obama.

Two Indian advocacy groups from Montana and South Dakota and a member of the Crow tribe filed a petition in U.S. District Court in California asking for the file to be preserved as evidence.

The groups want to know if Chief District Judge Richard Cebull made biased decisions from the bench. Their next step will be to file a lawsuit seeking public release of the documents, plaintiffs’ attorney Lawrence Organ said Wednesday.

Cebull was investigated after forwarding a racist message involving Obama. A judicial review panel found he sent hundreds of emails from his federal account that showed disdain for blacks, Indians, Hispanics, women, certain religions and others. He was publicly reprimanded and retired last year.

The investigation found no evidence of bias in his rulings. Organ said the only way to know that for sure is through the release of the emails.

“The fundamental principles of our entire legal system fall apart if a judge doesn’t come in with a neutral position,” Organ said. “If there are other decision makers involved, we’re not asking for their private email accounts. All we want to see are the emails accounts they used as government officials.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has said its file on Cebull is confidential.

Plaintiffs in the case are South Dakota-based advocacy group Four Directions, Montana-based Indian People’s Action, and Sara Plains Feather, a member of southeastern Montana’s Crow Tribe.

Four Directions was involved in a voting rights lawsuit that sought to force several Montana counties to establish satellite voting districts on reservations. Cebull ruled against the Indian plaintiffs in that case, which was later settled after the 9th Circuit overturned his ruling.

Cebull himself and 10 others requested the misconduct investigation after The Great Falls Tribune reported the judge forwarded an email in February 2012 that included a joke about bestiality and Obama’s mother. Cebull apologized to Obama after the contents of that email were published.

The investigation looked at four years of Cebull’s personal correspondence sent from his official email account.

Cebull told the 9th Circuit panel that his “public shaming has been a life-altering experience.” Nominated by former President George W. Bush, he received his commission in 2001 and served as chief judge of the District of Montana from 2008 until 2013.

Named as defendants in the case were the office of 9th Circuit Executive Cathy Catterson and the Committee on Judicial Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Ninth Circuit spokesman David Madden said he could not comment on the pending petition.

The plaintiffs attempted in May to directly petition the 9th Circuit. That was rejected by the court’s clerk, who said the petition needed to be filed first at the district court level.

Task force fights back against drugs, gangs on tribal reservations

 

By Raeanna Marnati, KBJR 6

Red Cliff, Wisconsin ( NNCNOW.com)— It’s a rising problem on the Red Cliff Reservation. “We see a lot of marijuana, prescription medications are huge problem in our community, we’re starting to see heroin and methamphetamine come in, cocaine’s always been here,” said Red Cliff Police Chief Bill Mertig.

But tribal authorities are tackling the problem head first, thanks to the formation of the Native American Drug and Gang Initiative formed in 2007.

“We are able to focus on and share information on future gang trends, drug problems and then also to we can take these experts in the field and be able to work these investigations, knowing the community, knowing the players and be able to almost surgically identify and remove these threats,” said Bryan Kastelic, Native American Drug and Gang Initiative Task Force Commander.

The task force is made up of ten tribal police departments throughout Wisconsin.

It’s a collaboration between tribal, local, state and federal authorities to help with drug and gang identification on the reservation.

“It has the ability to shut the drug trade down be it for a few days or a few weeks but it still has the ability and it sends a signal that we will be back and that we are out there,” said Kastelic.

NADGI recently played a role in the arrest and apprehension of five people taking part in illegal drug activity on the Red Cliff Reservation.

Cash, guns, marijuana, and prescription pills were seized in the bust. But for the police, they have just scratched the surface

“We are not stopping at what we did, this is the start. We have a long way to get to the finish line,” said Mertig.

Officials with NADGI say a lack of support, manpower and funding among tribal police departments led to the formation.

Bringing the tree back to life

"Coast Salish Canoes," opened at the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve on June 27, with over 80 guests in attendance.
“Coast Salish Canoes,” opened at the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve on June 27, with over 80 guests in attendance.

New Hibulb exhibit gives an in-depth look at Tulalip’s canoe culture

By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

TULALIP- “Imagine you are at the shore of the Salish Sea where a grand ocean-going family canoe floats patiently, waiting for you and others to begin your journey. The rivers, lakes and seas are our earth’s arteries, carrying its life force of water. For thousands of years they functioned as our ancestors’ highways, connecting our people together,” reads the opening display panel in the new interactive temporary Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve’s exhibit, “A Journey with our Ancestors: Coast Salish Canoes.”

The new exhibit, on display through June 2015, explores canoe culture in Tulalip and in Coast Salish tribes. A soft opening for the exhibit was held on Friday, June 27, with over 80 guests in attendance. This interactive exhibit features over 70 items that guests can explore canoe culture through, such as videos on carving canoes, maps, display panels, paddles and tools used to carve canoes with, and a large canoe that guests can sit in.

Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

“We hope guests learn the importance of canoes and how they were tied to all aspects of our life,” explains Mary Jane Topash the center’s tour specialist, about what guests can expect from the new exhibit. “We hope to educate people on the types of canoes, anatomy, tools, what it takes to build one, and how they are still used to this day. This exhibit will encompass all aspects of the teachings, history, lifestyle, and how their importance hasn’t changed a whole lot over the years.”

Coast Salish Canoes highlights the roots of the Canoe Journey and the important role that canoes played in its revitalization during the 1989 Paddle to Seattle.

“It was a big learning process for us. It didn’t just happen in 1989,” explained Tulalip carver Joe Gobin, about the preparation involved in the Paddle to Seattle. “Frank Brown and Ray Fryberg Sr. got our [Tulalip] Board involved and the Board saw how this was something missing in our culture. They sent us to different reservations to learn, to Lummi and Makah, because none of us knew how to carve a canoe. We all talked about it and the tools we needed, and how when we were making the canoe we were bringing the tree back to life. And it did come back to life on the reservations, and it brought back so many things in our culture that were forgotten. I am glad to see this exhibit here.”

Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

Lena Jones, the center’s curator of education, says guests will leave knowing the importance of canoes in Coast Salish culture. “Our ancestors helped keep a rich environment with superb art. We hope the exhibit will help people appreciate the social gatherings of the Coast Salish people and help our young people recognize their community’s role in revitalizing important Coast Salish traditions that can, and do, help the region.”

For more information on “Coast Salish Canoes,” please visit the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve’s website at www.hibulbculturalcenter.org.

 

 

Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402: bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com

Macklemore joins group demanding Duwamish river clean-up

 

Macklemore-slideby GARY CHITTIM / KING 5 News

SEATTLE – A newly formed group of community leaders who say they represent residents, Tribes, workers, fishing families and others, is demanding a better cleanup plan for the Duwamish River.

The group kicked off its “River for All” campaign with a new billboard on Highway 99 South where it crosses the Duwamish. It features their celebrity member, Seattle hip hop artist Macklemore.

Macklemore released a statement on his website, saying “We are Seattle. No bridge, boundaries or invisible man-made lines divide us. This is our home, our people and our community. This is our city’s only river.”

Group member BJ Cummings said the current plan proposed by the EPA properly addresses removal or capping of hot pockets of contamination in the river but calls for a natural recovery method for less contaminated sites. That depends on the river use its natural downriver migration of clean silt to cover the toxic areas over time.

Cummings said that is not good enough to protect the health of the residents along the Lower Duwamish who already face higher pollution exposure rates than most parts of the city.

The EPA is working on a response but has not issued it yet.

Resources

Duwamishcleanup.org

EPA Cleanup Plan

Win a kayaking trip with Macklemore

The heart of a cedar

CedarPulling6-27-14A from Brandi Montreuil on Vimeo.

Sisters continue tradition of cedar harvesting

By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

Tulalip tribal member Chelsea Craig separates the inner bark from the outer bark on a strip of red cedar she harvested during an annual cedar harvesting event organized by Tulalip Forestry on June 27-28.Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Tulalip tribal member Chelsea Craig separates the inner bark from the outer bark on a strip of red cedar she harvested during an annual cedar harvesting event organized by Tulalip Forestry on June 27-28.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

Leaning over a long strip of red cedar placed on her lap, Tulalip tribal member Cerissa “Pipud” Gobin, asked her 4-year-old daughter, Emmy “Pipud” Ramsey, if she knew what was in the center of the cedar tree.

“What is in the center of you? That is right; it is your heart. So in the center of the cedar tree is a heart,” said Gobin, as she continued her methodical rhythm of peeling inner bark from the outer bark on a strip of cedar that was recently cut from a nearby group of trees.

“When I first started pulling I had no idea what I was doing,” said Gobin.  “I learned as I went along. I learned to get the little pieces of bark left on the inside off before you leave, otherwise you are going to spend a lot of time trying to get it off later,” she continued, occasionally looking up from the long strip on her lap to watch her son, Coen, pull another strip of bark off a tall red cedar.

Clustered around Gobin and her sister, Chelsea Craig, also a Tulalip tribal member, were long strips of cedar waiting to have their inner bark stripped, which will be used to make cultural items. Outer bark is left for the forest to reclaim. Both women are educators who plan to use the cedar for in-class projects next year.

Gobin, a high school art educator at Heritage High School, uses the cedar to teach students how to make traditional headbands or bracelets, some of which are later used during graduation ceremonies. Craig, a teacher at Quil Ceda & Tulalip Elementary, uses the cedar to teach youth to make baskets, hats, and pins for potlatch giveaways. Although they teach students how to weave different items, together they weave a cultural foundation for Tulalip youth.

These women are part of a large group of Tulalip tribal members participating in a cedar harvest organized by Tulalip Forestry

Cerissa 'Pipud' Gobin harvested nearly 3 dozen bundles of cedar during the harvesting event organized by Tulalip Forestry on June 27-28.
Cerissa ‘Pipud’ Gobin harvested nearly 3 dozen bundles of cedar during the harvesting event organized by Tulalip Forestry on June 27-28.

Department on June 27-28. The event, and others like it, is made possible by a growing partnership between the Tulalip Tribes and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. The land is owned by DNR, with Sierra Pacific owning the timber. Department of Natural Resources notifies Tulalip Forestry when an area is scheduled to be cleared. This season, 83 acres were available for harvesting cedar.

“Tulalip Forestry worked in conjunction with both agencies’ representatives to coordinate the event and establish ground rules regarding allowable and non-allowable trees to be pulled,” explained Ross Fenton with the Tribe’s forestry department. “The relations Tulalip Forestry has established over the years for cultural cedar bark gathering has gone exceptionally well. Some tribal members base their sole incomes on products they make from cedar bark, so it’s very important we continue to maintain these positive relations.”

“Traditionally we would come out to harvest when the sap would run. That makes it easy to pull it off the tree. This stuff peels so nicely, I am loving it,” said Craig, pausing for a moment to survey the large expanse of trees swaying in the afternoon wind. “It is amazing to sit here and think about how our people used to do this. How they would all come together with their families and gather cedar. Of course they didn’t use the same tools we are using today, but they came out and gathered and made things, some of which we still have today.”

Many Tulalip youth participated in the two-day cedar-harvesting event, gathering strips for elders and learning techniques of separating the smooth inner bark from the rough outer bark. For many, this was their first trip gathering cedar.

“Do you know how the cedar is related to us?” asked Craig to her nephew and nieces, who were struggling to bring the long cedar strips up the steep incline. “She is our grandmother and she is giving us this gift of cedar and we need to thank her.”

“I love being out here,” said Gobin, as she tightly wound her cedar into a bundle tying it off with a scrap of thin cedar. “It is really addicting to be out here stripping the cedar, it is one of my favorite things to do.”

“Yes, grandpa would be proud of us,” remarked Craig.

For more information regarding future cedar harvesting events, please contact Tulalip Forestry at 360-716-4000.

 

Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unintentional state waiver lets FERC pre-empt state Coastal Zone rules

 

The Hydro Review

WASHINGTON, D.C.

06/26/2014

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a declaratory order that FERC hydropower licensing under the Federal Power Act pre-empts state regulation under the Coastal Zone Management Act in an instance in which the state of Washington unintentionally waived its CZMA permit authority.

The June 19 ruling blocks a state-imposed stay of construction and allows work to begin on the 600-kW Admiralty Inlet Pilot tidal project (No. 12690) to be installed in Washington’s Puget Sound. FERC issued a hydrokinetic pilot project license to Admiralty Inlet on March 20. FERC and the state of Washington agreed in 2009 to coordinate procedures and schedules for reviewing hydrokinetic energy projects in state waters of Washington.

As a pre-requisite for FERC licensing, a state agency has six months from application in which to issue a shoreline management permit under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

While license applicant Snohomish County Public Utility District No. 1 filed a CZMA application with the Washington Department of Ecology in March 2012, Snohomish and Ecology advised FERC by joint letter in September 2012 that they had agreed to extend the state’s review period. However, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which administers the CZMA, found extension of the review period did not comply with federal regulations and, as a result, Ecology waived its CZMA authority.

In May 2014, Ecology issued a shoreline permit for Admiralty Inlet incorporating conditions set by Island County, Wash., under state CZMA regulations including a requirement that project construction be delayed until appeals of the permit are concluded.

“The district argues that this stay would prevent it from implementing the terms of its license, which authorizes immediate construction of the project after the commission grants the necessary pre-construction approvals,” FERC said. “Because Article 410 of the license and biological opinion require that construction can only occur during a work window of July 16 to October 14, the district argues that it could miss this work window and construction could be delayed by one to two years.”

FERC agreed to Snohomish PUD’s request for a declaratory order upholding Federal Power Act pre-emption of state regulation.

“Because Ecology waived its consistency certification under the CZMA, a Shoreline Permit under Washington’s Shoreline Act is no longer required as a matter of federal law,” the commission said. “Therefore, we grant the district’s petition and declare that the FPA pre-empts any supplementary or inconsistent state or local requirements under Washington’s Shoreline Act. The district need not comply with the state-imposed stay provision of condition 23 of its Shoreline Permit. To hold otherwise would be inconsistent with the FPA, because it would allow the state permit to stay a commission hydroelectric license.”

FERC noted that Snohomish has informed Ecology and Island County that it intends to comply voluntarily with all provisions of the shoreline permit except the stay of construction.

“As a general matter, the commission encourages licensees to comply with state and local requirements to the extent that they do not conflict with the commission’s requirements or frustrate the purposes of the FPA,” FERC said. “We recognize, however, that under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, federal law pre-empts state and local laws when Congress occupies the field by enacting comprehensive legislation that leaves no room for supplemental state or local regulation.”

“This is significant for licensees who attempt to implement license obligations but are barred or delayed by state and local regulatory authorities with standards that conflict with the license,” said Mike Swiger of law firm Van Ness Feldman, which represented Snohomish.

Subsea cable operator challenge pending

FERC said it would address in a subsequent order a challenge by Pacific Crossing, owner of PC-1, a subsea telecommunications cable linking the United States and Japan, to the licensing of Admiralty Inlet.

Pacific Crossing unit PC Landing Corp. previously requested rehearing of the licensing order, saying the project would pose a risk to its nearby fiber-optic cable in Washington’s Puget Sound.

FERC also denied a requested stay but said it would address a rehearing request by the Tulalip Tribes of Washington who contend the project would affect access to its fishing grounds.

 

Quapaw tribe announces discovery of historic burial site in Arkansas

By The Associated Press

QUAPAW, Okla. — Members of the Quapaw tribe are teaming up with descendants of African-American slaves to research and preserve an archaeological site that contains the remains of their ancestors.

The burial sites were discovered on land that the Quapaw Tribe purchased in 2013. The land was part of the Thibault Plantation near the Little Rock Port Authority. Before that, it was part of the Quapaw’s historic reservation.

John House with the Arkansas Archaeological Survey estimated that the Native American graves at the site date back to 1400 to 1600, while the African-American graves in the same location probably date back from before the Civil War to the early 1900s.

House also said it is not uncommon for a prehistoric grave site to later serve as a grave site for other cultures.

“This is a very special place on the landscape,” House said in a statement. “So much of Arkansas’ history is told only through the lens of what occurred after white Europeans came here. But there were centuries of prior history, very much of it involving the Quapaw Tribe and other Native American tribes.”

John Berrey, chairman of the tribe, said, “We aren’t sure yet exactly what we will do at the site, so the immediate desire is to simply not disturb it.”

Tribal members recently met with members of the Preservation of African American Cemeteries to discuss the preservation of the site, but both groups said they wished to keep the burial site’s exact location a secret to prevent looting for historic artifacts.

This discovery comes on the heels of a similar one last summer, this one near Osceola, in northeastern Arkansas.

Berry said at that time that it was a Quapaw settlement, part of the area where Quapaws made contact with Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1541, their first contact with Europeans.

Berrey also said that increased revenue that tribes have now from casinos and other businesses aids them in protecting tribal artifacts and cultural sites.

Big Victory As Court Upholds Small Towns’ Right To Ban Fracking

New York Court of Appeals says local communities can ban controversial oil and gas drilling methods. such as fracking.

 

Perforating tools, used to create fractures in the rock, are lowered into one of six wells during a roughly two-week hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Corp. well pad near Mead, Colo. (AP/Brennan Linsley)
Perforating tools, used to create fractures in the rock, are lowered into one of six wells during a roughly two-week hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Corp. well pad near Mead, Colo. (AP/Brennan Linsley)

 

By Nadia Prupis, Mint Press News

 

In a victory for fracking opponents, towns in New York today won the right to ban oil and gas production operations from their communities. The ruling may have widespread effects on the drilling industry as towns continue to file moratoriums on the environmentally harmful process.

The decision sets a precedent for environmental activists in New York as more than 170 of the state’s other municipalities wait for legal action to be taken on anti-fracking measures in their communities as well. Towns in Colorado, Ohio, California, Pennsylvania and Texas are also beginning to pursue oil and gas production bans, public interest law firm Earthjustice reports.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled 5-2 that the communities of Dryden and Middlefield can use zoning laws to prohibit heavy industry within municipal borders. The decision rested in large part on preserving the quality of life and “small town character” of both towns, which are situated in rural areas of New York and have not been historically associated with the oil and gas industry.

Industrialization, particularly fracking, would “irreversibly overwhelm” the rural character of these communities, the court stated.

The seven-judge panel said that its ruling was not a statement on the safety of the controversial practice of fracking, but about the division of state and local government power.

“These appeals are not about whether hydrofracking is beneficial or detrimental to the economy, environment or energy needs of New York, and we pass no judgment on its merits,” Associate Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote for the majority opinion.

“These are major policy questions for the coordinate branches of government to resolve. The discrete issue before us, and the only one we resolve today, whether the State Legislature eliminated the home rule capacity of municipalities to pass zoning laws that exclude oil, gas and hydrofracking activities in order to preserve the existing character of their communities,” she said.

Still, many activist groups see the decision as a victory for the environment.

“The decision by the Court of Appeals has settled the matter once and for all across New York State and has sent a firm message to the oil and gas industry,” said Earthjustice managing attorney Deborah Goldberg.

Dryden recently garnered the attention of the natural gas industry for its proximity to the Marcellus Shale, a methane-heavy formation that covers large areas of land in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Middlefield, while not in shale territory, is primarily an agricultural community that was recently evaluated as a potential natural gas resource.

EarthFix Conversation: Is There Hope For Salmon In Northwest Cities?

Alan Yeakley is the director of the School of the Environment at Portland State University and co-author of Wild Salmonids in the Urbanizing Pacific Northwest. | credit: Courtesy of Portland State University
Alan Yeakley is the director of the School of the Environment at Portland State University and co-author of Wild Salmonids in the Urbanizing Pacific Northwest. | credit: Courtesy of Portland State University

By Cassandra Profita, OPB

 

Swimming through cities is a fact of life for many salmon in the Northwest. With all their pavement and pollution, cities add to the challenges salmon face as they make their way to the ocean and back to their spawning grounds.

Alan Yeakley is the director of the School of the Environment at Portland State University and co-author of Wild Salmonids in the Urbanizing Pacific Northwest. The book sets out to answer a key question: Can wild salmon populations coexist with humans in urban areas?

EarthFix reporter Cassandra Profita sat down with Yeakley to talk about exactly why cities are such a problem for salmon and steelhead in the Northwest, and what urban-dwellers can do about it.

Cassandra Profita: Tell me what got you interested in this topic. I think of it as salmon in the city.

Alan Yeakley: When the focus has been so strongly and of course rightly so on the wild land areas, agricultural areas, forested areas, the hinterlands. That’s most of the land surface, the land area, but yet it has always been recognized that these fish have to go through these lethal urban areas. So, any fish going through the entire Willamette Basin has to go through Portland. Any fish going in the Columbia Basin has to at least go through the area between Portland and Vancouver, and with those toxics coming off the streets with the sediments coming in the higher temperatures that city environments create, it’s quite a challenge for fish to go through those areas and yet it represents such a large part of the Pacific Northwest that they have to pass through twice in their lifetime.

Profita: So, are you looking at what challenges salmonids have in urban environments?

Yeakley: Yes, they range across a whole suite of issues. And it ranges from physical impacts from sediment coming into the streams at higher rates coming off of our roads, the toxic elements that are coming in either from automobile exhaust or waste, or from fertilizer that people are applying to their yards, from industrial sites. Just all manner of – you know that toxic soup that is produced from cities that hits these streams.

Every time somebody steps on the brakes in their car – including me. Today I drove my car in so that had some impact on salmon. And we’re all doing this. We’re all having these tiny little impacts that add up. We know from copper in the brake pads that has a sub-lethal effect. In other words, it’s an effect that won’t kill the fish but it will reduce their ability to function, just having some presence of copper in the water that’s coming off those brake pads. So, these everyday practices that we do, watering our lawns too much so that the water doesn’t just soak into the lawn but goes out into the street and moves into the street, particularly if we put too many pesticides, herbicides or insecticides. The insecticides affect the insects in the stream and those insects are part of the salmon’s diet. So any extra insecticides we’re putting in our yards that go into the stream will then affect the fish. These are indirect effects, but they’re still effects.

Profita: Did you look into how salmonid populations are actually doing in urban environments? Did you look at their numbers?

Yeakley: From the city of Portland we work with Chris Prescott. He and others are doing comprehensive surveys of these salmonid populations. They do them on a routine basis every year. trying to understand population levels of salmonids. And recently Chris sent me some data about a month ago, actually, from some some encouraging results for native fish populations in Portland urban streams including salmonids that are on the uptick. So there are some encouraging results from Portland. There are also encouraging results from other cities such as Boise and Seattle and some of the other surrounding metropolitan areas in the Pacific Northwest in terms of some of the salmon numbers coming back. Of course, they’re not in any substantial numbers yet, but at least there is some presence of salmon in some of the area streams now.

Cassandra Profita: Can you tell what kinds of environments are seeing the uptick in salmon and what kinds of areas are not?”

Yeakley: “Yes, where municipal efforts have been most successful and most intense we’re seeing the best return. For instance in the Johnson Creek watershed, there have been a number of very large restoration sites, recovery sites that have been conducted by the city of Portland, the city of Gresham and with some help from other entities. All of these people working together have been able to recover stream segments’ entire floodplain areas, and that’s really notable so they’re to be lauded.

The big challenge, of course, is these habitats are not sufficient still to recover very large populations of salmonids. And they sometimes are not connected together well enough. So there will be a big stretch of nice habitat and then they’ll go through a concrete, very narrow concrete passage like an LA stream-type channel where you don’t have any riparian, any side channels, any overhanging vegetation. So it’s kind of like a Mario game where you have little stretches where the fish are really doing OK and suddenly it gets really tense again and the numbers are not going to not come back very strongly until we reconnect and get rid of some of these really lethal habitats that still remain in their path.

Profita: What have you found needs to change to accommodate fish in urban areas and what’s realistic?

Yeakley: The realistic question is really the challenge. Part of what needs to be done is just what municipalities like the city of Portland are already doing. It just needs to be continued. More of it. Because it’s working but it’s not sufficient for full recovery.

So that’s the first thing. We just need to continue what cities like Seattle, Portland and others are already doing. But then more needs to be done in the same area, so all the streams still in damaged conditions have lots of toxics going into them have lots of nearby homes that don’t have a lot of mitigation, a lot of bioswales or other retention ponds to intercept the pollutants as they come off these urban lawns. Those still need to be continually upgraded in terms of adding more interception of those toxic pollutants and more reduction of the toxic impacts of either the urban residents or of the commercial areas or industrial areas.

Alan Yeakley is the director of the School of the Environment at Portland State University and co-author of Wild Salmonids in the Urbanizing Pacific Northwest.

Obama Signs Northwest Lawmaker’s Bill For Toxic Algae Research

Algae bloom in the Pacifi Northwest. credit: Ashley Ahearn, 2012
Algae bloom in the Pacific Northwest. credit: Ashley Ahearn, 2012

By David Steves, OPB

A Northwest lawmaker’s battle against toxic algae blooms won the support of President Barack Obama Monday, when he signed into law a bill aimed at controlling such outbreaks.

Oregon congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici and Florida Sen. Bill Nelson co-sponsored the bill, which authorizes $82 million dollars for new research meant to control toxic algae blooms nationwide.

The advocacy group Ocean Champions applauded the effort from Congress and the White House. The group’s president, David Wilmot, issued a statement saying it costs the nation about $100 million dollars a year to deal with toxic algal blooms.

Bonamici said during her floor testimony in the House that she got behind the legislation after learning that toxic algal blooms were leading to yearly die-offs of Dungeness crabs in Oregon. She also said climate change was making the problem worse.

“This will become increasingly important as coastal populations increase and changes in the environment, such as warmer water temperatures, have the potential to alter the growth, toxicity and geographic distribution of algal blooms,” Bonamici told her House colleagues.

Northwest waters have been hit by a number of these outbreaks in recent years. Toxic algae has contaminated Washington’s Puget Sound and several lakes in Oregon, including Fern Ridge and Lost Creek reservoirs.

Algal blooms have also made shellfish unsafe to eat and have been harmful to salmon. Public health agencies have had to close beaches to shellfish harvesting and issued no-swimming restrictions for lakes in the Northwest because of such outbreaks.