Tulalip News

Fire Safety-NBSM Week 1

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer

Tulalip, WA – May is National Building Safety Month (NBSM) as proclaimed by President Barack Obama in 2013, as a way to “encourage citizens, government agencies, businesses, nonprofits, and other interested groups to join in activities that raise awareness about building safety.” For NBSM, the month of May is broken down into four weeks and the focus put on a new subject for each week, fire safety, disaster safety, backyard safety and green and sustainable building.

The Tulalip Tribes Community Development department is participating in NBSM and would like to make Tulalip residents aware of the hazards in and around the home as well as tips for prevention and safety. Community Development is providing pamphlet information that can be picked up at the Tulalip administration building for the entire month of May, see below for contact information.

The first week of NBSM is designated for fire safety in and around the home, Keeping Fire in its Place. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, each year throughout the U.S., 17,500 people are injured in fires and over 3,400 Americans perish in fires with about 1/3 of those victims being Senior citizens. A few things to consider during fire safety week are to check your smoke alarms, establish an evacuation plan, and purchase a fire extinguisher. It’s also a good time teaching children about fire safety. Annually, children of all ages set over 35,000 fires (U.S. Fire Administration statistic).

Fire Extinguisher information: There are multiple types of extinguishers used for specific flammable materials and what works for one may not work for another. In case of a fire, please do not rely solely on a extinguishing it yourself; call the fire department as soon as you notice the fire and make sure you can get to safety before trying to extinguish it on your own.

· Class A extinguishers put out fires in ordinary combustible materials such as cloth, wood, rubber, paper, and many plastics.

· Class B extinguishers are used on fires involving flammable liquids, such as grease, gasoline, oil, and oil-based paints.

· Class C extinguishers are suitable for use on fires involving appliances, tools, or other equipment that is electrically energized or plugged in.

· Class D extinguishers are designed for use on flammable metals and are often specific for the type of metal in question. These are typically found only in factories working with these metals.

· Class K fire extinguishers are intended for use on fires that involve vegetable oils, animal oils, or fats in cooking appliances. These extinguishers are generally found in commercial kitchens, such as those found in restaurants, cafeterias, and caterers. Class K extinguishers are now finding their way into the residential market for use in the kitchen.

· Multi-purpose fire extinguishers are also made that combine uses such as class “B-C” or “A-B-C” and can be used on two or more of the above type fires.

Some fire districts in Snohomish County offer free smoke alarm installations and fire extinguisher training. Please contact your fire district to schedule a home smoke alarm installation or fire extinguisher training.

Nearby local fire departments:

Tulalip Bay Fire Department Snohomish Co. Fire District 15, 7812 Water Works Rd Tulalip, WA 98271-9631, 360-659-2416

Marysville Fire District, 1094 Cedar Avenue Marysville, WA 98270, 360-363-8500

For pamphlet information about NBSM contact, Orlando Raez, Tulalip Tribes Community Development, 360-716-4214.

10 Important tips to remember for fire safety and awareness

Put a smoke alarm on every level of your home and outside each sleeping area. Put a smoke alarm inside every bedroom.

Make sure your smoke alarms work. Test your smoke alarms. Push the test button. You will hear a loud noise. If you don’t hear the noise, you need a new battery or a new alarm.

Make sure the smoke alarm always has a good battery. Put a new battery in the alarm every year.

Smoke alarms with long-life batteries will work for up to 10 years. You do not change the battery.

Smoke alarms do not last forever. Get new smoke alarms every 10 years.

Tell your family what to do if they hear the smoke alarm. Make an escape plan so everyone knows how to get out fast. Pick a meeting place outside the home where everyone will meet. Some children and older adults cannot hear the smoke alarm when they are sleeping. Make a plan for how to wake them up. Practice your escape plan with everyone in your family two times each year.

Install home fire sprinklers in your home. Home fire sprinklers and working smoke alarms greatly increase your chance of surviving a fire. Sprinklers are affordable and they can increase your property value and lower your insurance rates.

Portable heaters need their space. Keep anything that can burn at least three feet away.

If you live in an area where homes are located in or close to forests or vegetation areas, you should think about the following safety tips.

Install 1/8 inch or smaller mesh screening that cannot burn on attic/soffit vents and around wood decks to keep out embers. Install spark arrestors on fire place chimneys or wood stove vents.

Keep all items that can burn away from your home. Clean leaves from your gutters. Clear dead leaves and branches from shrubs and trees.

Tribes and First Nations Unite to Halt B.C. Mine That Threatens Salmon Habitat

Tongass Conservation SocietyThe headwaters of the Unuk River, where a company called KSM wants to build a humongous open-pit mine for cold, copper and other metals. — Tongass Conservation Society
The headwaters of the Unuk River, where a company called KSM wants to build a humongous open-pit mine for cold, copper and other metals.

Paula Dobbyn, ICTMN

It has become an all-too-familiar story: Pristine waters. Salmon habitat. Sacred significance. Mining.

The Unuk River watershed, straddling the border between British Columbia and Alaska, is on track to become ground zero in a struggle to stop the world’s largest open-pit mine, Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM). The fight against it is uniting First Nations and Alaska Natives as they battle to preserve stewardship of the pristine region. And it is just one of five massive projects proposed for the region.

If KSM secures the financing and the regulatory go-ahead, the giant mine would turn 6,500 acres of pristine land into an industrial zone that would generate more than 10 billion pounds of copper and 38 million ounces of gold, according to a project summary. As with any large mine, it would employ a hefty workforce—in this case mostly Canadians—and create taxes and royalty payments for Canada. But it would also produce a slew of waste. And that’s what critics say downstream Alaska communities stand to take on: none of the economic benefits but much of the environmental risk.

With its remote headwaters in British Columbia, the Unuk River is one of the world’s most prolific salmon waters. An international river, the Unuk flows into neighboring Southeast Alaska and its temperate rainforest, the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest, a place of towering coastal mountains, tidewater glaciers and fog-shrouded islands. The Unuk empties into Misty Fjords National Monument, an attraction for cruise ship passengers viewing glaciers, bears and whales that dot Alaska’s Inside Passage. The Unuk, known as Joonáx̱ in Tlingit, supports large runs of king salmon, a cultural icon prized by commercial, sport and subsistence fishermen alike.

“The consequences for salmon runs on both sides of the border could be devastating, yet Alaskans would see none of the economic benefit,” wrote National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Michael Fay in a 2011 letter to British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, signed by nearly 40 other scientists.

Seabridge Gold, the mine developer, expects KSM to generate more than two billion tons of acidic waste rock called tailings, a byproduct of the mining process than can be lethal to fish. The tailings would be held behind two huge dams—each taller than the Hoover dam—built in the headwaters of the Nass River, one of British Columbia’s most important salmon rivers.

Because KSM is located in sensitive fish habitat, it has raised the ire of Southeast Alaska tribes, fishermen and some Canadian First Nations. They joined forces in early April, forming a cross-border working group to develop a unified strategy to protect their interests.

It’s not just KSM that worries them. KSM is one of more than a dozen mines planned for northern B.C., including five located in salmon-bearing watersheds that arise in Canada and drain into Alaska. The British Columbia government is encouraging the mines’ development, offering tax breaks and relaxed environmental rules. Also spurring development is the construction of a new power line extending electricity into the northwest corner of the province, bordering Alaska. The transboundary projects include Red Chris, Schaft Creek, Galore Creek and Tulsequah Chief. The international rivers they could affect are the Taku, Stikine and Unuk, some of Southeast Alaska’s top salmon rivers.

“These projects could not be in a worse location. Salmon is our traditional food. If anything happens to them, we would be in a world of hurt,” said Ketchikan fisherman and tribal leader Rob Sanderson Jr.

Fishing, seafood processing and tourism are key economic drivers in Southeast Alaska. The seafood industry produced $641 million worth of fish in 2011, which created 17,500 jobs and $468 million in wages. A million visitors tour the area every year, spending about copy billion.

Tribes have passed numerous resolutions of concern about how KSM and the other transboundary mines could potentially contaminate the region, including their traditional fishing grounds. Recently a delegation of tribal leaders and fishermen flew to Washington, D.C. to lobby for State Department intervention. They delivered a letter signed by 40 businesses, groups and individuals asking for help.

Alaska’s congressional delegation got the message. Shortly after the Alaskans flew home, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, along with Congressman Don Young, contacted the office of Secretary of State John Kerry by letter asking him to get involved to protect Alaska’s interests. Because the mines are located in Canada, Alaska tribes feel they have less influence over the outcome than if they were on U.S. soil.

“It’s happening in a foreign country. We don’t have a lot of control over it,” said Sanderson. “They don’t even have to consult with Alaska tribes.”

The U.S. Environmental Protect Agency has raised issues regarding the KSM project, mirroring the tribes’ concerns. The U.S Interior Department has urged Seabridge Gold to consult with Alaska tribes regarding fishing and clean water.

Recently Seabridge sent its vice president for environmental affairs to Alaska to participate in a tribal meeting on Prince of Wales Island near Ketchikan regarding KSM. Seabridge’s Brent Murphy told the Juneau Empire that “the overwhelming design philosophy for the KSM project is the protection of downstream environments and that is ensuring protection also for Alaskans.”

On its website, Seabridge notes that KSM has undergone extensive review by environmental and technical experts over the past five years to see that salmon and other wild resources are protected.

But Seabridge’s assurances have done little to allay skepticism on the U.S. side. Since the meeting on Prince of Wales in late March, the newly elected president of Alaska’s largest tribe, the Juneau-based Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, has elevated the matter.

“This is a direct threat to the lifestyle and culture of our tribes’ 29,000-plus members,” said Richard Peterson, tribal president.

At Peterson’s urging, the Central Council adopted a resolution giving Southeast Alaska’s 19 federally recognized tribes the green light to work with First Nations to try to slow the development of the transboundary mines.

“We need a collective call to arms,” said Peterson.

Not all B.C. First Nations oppose the KSM mine or the other transboundary projects. The Gitxsan and Nisga’a Nations support the mine’s development. But others, including the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, who live downstream from where the KSM waste facility would be located, are opposed.

“Nass River fish are critical for the food security of the Gitanyow,” said Kevin Koch, a fish and wildlife biologist with Gitanyow Fisheries Authority. “KSM poses a major threat to the Gitanyow way of life.”

Koch noted that the Gitanyow have constitutionally protected aboriginal rights to fish in the Nass. Seabridge maintains that any ill effects from mine waste on Nass River salmon would be minimal.

Peterson is unconvinced.

“I think John Kerry should be sitting in my office talking to me right now,” he said. “We need face-to-face consultation on this. We’re a sovereign nation.”

Interior Department rule would set aside ‘Indian country’ lands in Alaska

By RICHARD MAUER

rmauer@adn.comApril 30, 2014

The Interior Department announced Wednesday it will consider taking Alaska tribal land into trust, a move that could lead to pockets of “Indian country” in the state where tribal governments and courts would have authority to create their own laws and justice systems.

The move is opposed by the state, which has said that Indian country exists only on the state’s sole reservation, Metlakatla, in Southeast. Alaska Native tribes, supported by nonprofit law firms, said the Interior Department should have been taking land into trust years ago and had sued in federal court to affirm that belief.

A judge in Washington, D.C., agreed last year. The state has appealed to the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, but the Interior Department acted on the ruling by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras.

The Interior Department is opening a 60-day comment period on the proposal.

“Everyone’s going to weigh in,” said Matthew Newman, an Anchorage attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. He expects the state, the Alaska Federation of Natives, Alaska Native corporations and tribes to submit comments, among others. Based on comments, Newman said, it’s possible the proposed rule won’t be adopted.

“I would not be bold enough to say it’s a sure thing,” Newman said. But even if the regulation is adopted, it would only authorize the Interior Department to accept applications for trust status. Approvals could take a long time and are not guaranteed, he said.

“We’re years away from a particular parcel being placed into trust status,” Newman said.

Acceptance of Indian country in Alaska was a key recommendation last year of the Indian Law and Order Commission, a bipartisan presidential and congressional task force. The commission attributed high rates of domestic violence and sexual assault in rural Alaska to the state’s top-down, centralized law enforcement and judicial systems. It recommended that tribes get increased authority to create their own local laws and to enforce them in tribal courts.

“Recent blue ribbon commissions have emphasized the need for the (Interior) Department to be able to take land into trust in Alaska,” the Interior Department said in announcing the proposed rule. “The basic thrust of the Indian Law and Order Commission’s recommendation is that the state of public safety for Alaska Natives, especially for Native women who suffer high rates of domestic abuse, sexual violence and other offenses, is unacceptable; providing trust lands in Alaska in appropriate circumstances would provide additional authority for Native governments to be better partners with the State of Alaska to address these problems.”

The rule barring the Interior Department from taking Alaska tribal lands into trust dates back to 1980, when the program was created for Native Americans in the Lower 48. It is one of several “Alaska exceptions” on the books denying Alaska Natives the same rights as Indians in the Lower 48 and in part is the legacy of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Four village tribes sued in 2006 to overturn the rule — Akiachak and Tuluksak in the Kuskokwim River region, the Chilkoot Tribe in Haines and Chalkyitsik in Northwestern Alaska. They argued that the rule discriminated against Alaska Natives, and cited laws going back to the treaty under which Russia ceded Alaska to the United States that guaranteed land rights to the aboriginal people.

Newman said that if the new Interior rule is adopted and the department begins to take Native lands into trust, it would affirm the notion that Indian country exists in Alaska.

“It’s the embodiment of what Indian country is — geography upon which a tribe exerts its sovereign authority,” he said.

In a prepared statement, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said Wednesday he had been urging the Department of the Interior to accept trust applications from Alaska Natives.

“In my view, DOI’s actions today are an important step to ensure Alaska tribes are self-determined and can adequately address public safety, economic development, and other priorities on tribal lands,” Begich said.

Reach Richard Mauer at rmauer@adn.com or (907) 500-7388.

Geophysicists link fracking boom to increase in earthquakes

By SEAN COCKERHAM

McClatchy Washington Bureau May 1, 2014

WASHINGTON — The swarm of earthquakes went on for months in North Central Texas, rattling homes, with reports of broken water pipes and cracked walls and locals blaming the shudders on the hydraulic fracturing boom that’s led to skyrocketing oil and gas production around the nation.

Darlia Hobbs, who lives on Eagle Mountain Lake, about a dozen miles from Fort Worth, said that more than 30 quakes hit from November to January.

“We have had way too many earthquakes out here because of the fracking and disposal wells,” she said in an interview.

While the dispute over the cause remains, leading geophysicists are now saying Hobbs and other residents might be right to point the finger at oil and gas activities.

“It is certainly possible, and in large part that is based on what else we’ve seen in the Fort Worth basin in terms of the rise of earthquakes since 2008,” William Ellsworth, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist, said in an interview Thursday.

Ellsworth said the Dallas-Fort Worth region previously had just a single known earthquake, in 1950.

Since 2008, he said, more than 70 have been big enough to feel. Those include earthquakes at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport that scientists linked to a nearby injection well.

Ellsworth briefed his colleagues on his findings Thursday at the Seismological Society of America’s annual meeting in Anchorage.

Researchers also are investigating links between quakes in Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio and elsewhere to oil and gas activities. USGS seismologist Art McGarr said it was clear that deep disposal of drilling waste was responsible for at least some of the quakes in the heartland.

“It is only a tiny fraction of the disposal wells that cause earthquakes large enough to be felt, and occasionally cause damage,” McGarr said. “But there are so many wells distributed throughout much of the U.S., they still add significantly to the total seismic hazard.”

While causes are under debate, it’s established that earthquakes have spiked along with America’s fracking boom. The USGS reports that an average of more than 100 earthquakes a year with a magnitude of 3.0 or more hit the central and eastern U.S. in the past four years.

That compares with an average rate of only 20 observed quakes a year in the decades from 1970 to 2000.

Regulators in Ohio found what they said was a probable connection between small quakes in the northeast corner of that state and the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which high-pressure water and chemicals are pumped underground to break up shale rock and release the oil and natural gas inside.

But the USGS considers it very rare for fracking itself to cause earthquakes. Far more often the issue is quakes caused by the disposal of the wastewater into wells.

Fracking produces large amounts of wastewater, which companies often pump deep underground as an economical way to dispose of it. Injection raises the underground pressure and can effectively lubricate fault lines, weakening them and causing quakes, according to the USGS.

USGS seismologist Ellsworth said that near Fort Worth, two disposal wells were close enough to the earthquakes to be responsible. He said more research was needed.

Ellsworth and his colleagues, including seismologists from Southern Methodist University, in their presentation Thursday ruled out the idea that the falling level of a nearby lake might be contributing. But he said they couldn’t entirely reject the possibility of other natural causes — despite earthquakes being virtually unheard of in the region before 2008, which matches the start of the fracking boom.

Hobbs, of Eagle Mountain Lake, Texas, said she’d lived in the area since 1967 and never even considered the possibility of earthquakes.

“It’s spooky,” she said.

Learn about “Spirit of the Ojibwe” on Tulalip TV

By Roger Vater, Tulalip TV

Premiering on Tulalip TV this week is a new episode of Native Report # 808.

Native Report is an entertaining, informative magazine style series that celebrates Native American culture and heritage, listens to tribal elders, and talks to some of the most powerful and influential leaders of Indian country today.

In this edition of Native Report we learn about “Spirit of the Ojibwe,” a special book devoted to the elders of the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation in Wisconsin. We visit the Chathlopotle Plankhouse, a traditional Chinookan-style cedar structure. And we learn about how the best practices toward revitalizing the Maori Language can also be applied to other language preservation efforts. We also learn something new about Indian country and hear from our elders on this edition of Native Report.

You will be able to watch Native Report Episode – 808 and many other Native programs on Tulalip TV, Channel 99 on Tulalip Broadband or Live on www.TulalipTV.com on a PC, Mac or any ‘Smart’ device such as phone or tablet.

Native Report – 808 can be watched at either of these times: 1:00 p.m. or 9:30p.m.

For a current schedule of Tulalip TV, you can always visit: http://www.tulaliptv.com/tulaliptv-schedule/

Climate Change is Real, Let’s Fight It Together

Quinault Nation Press Release

President Fawn Sharp of the Quinault Indian Nation says she is happy to participate on the Carbon Emissions Reduction Task Force Governor Jay Inslee created by executive order yesterday [April 29], but advises that “genuine state-tribal cooperation, communication and government-to-government relations will be essential to the success of any effort to address the many challenges posed by climate change.”

Sharp, who is also President of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, encompassing six Northwest states, and Area Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians, is the only tribal member of the Governor’s task force.

President Sharp said, “Climate Change is the greatest environmental disaster of our generation and its impacts are felt both near and far. The fact is that tribes have preceded other governments in addressing climate change issues, and it is time for our words to be heard, our warnings to be acknowledged and our programs to be recognized.”

She said the reason tribes have moved forward with programs to address the effects of climate change while other governments have been stymied is that it is embedded in the tribal culture to care for the land in a sustainable manner. “Stewardship of our natural resources and environment is something we learn at a young age. We understand the big picture—the economic, policy, environmental and cultural values of sustainability and the responsibility we all have to our children and future generations. Those are the values that must be prioritized if we are to meet the climate change challenge.”

In signing the order, the Governor outlined a series of steps to cut carbon pollution in Washington and advance development and use of clean energy technologies, and said, “This is the right time to act, the right place to act and we are the right people to act. We will engage the right people, consider the right options, ask the right questions and come to the right answers — answers that work for Washington.”

“Whether it’s the warming of the Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Sandy, the tornadoes across the country or the Oso landslide, the melting of our Mt. Anderson Glacier or the breaching of our Taholah seawall, the link to climate change is clear to us. It has been for a long time. And so is the absolute need to take action,” said Sharp.

“It’s a primary reason why I have agreed to work with the Governor on his Carbon Emissions Reduction Task Force. It’s a key reason why we have taken a strong stand against the proposal to build oil terminals in Grays Harbor and substantially increase the number and frequency of oil trains and tankers. It’s why we are reaching out to strengthen alliances with neighboring communities and entities of all kinds and it’s why we have been so heavily engaged in the effort to resolve the climate change challenge for many years — through political, education and habitat-related programs.

“Quinault is a nation of people who, like their ancestors for thousands of years, fish, hunt and gather. The core of our economy is based on health and sustainable natural resources—a clean and vibrant ecosystem. We are also a nation blessed with thousands of acres of forest land. We do not manage our forests to the detriment of our fishing and hunting, but the other way around. Managing holistically, with respect for our descendants, and their needs is the key. These are the lessons of our ancestors, lessons that oil tycoons and timber barons never learned to appreciate.

We are a people who are determined to practice good stewardship. Sometimes that means doing habitat work in the Quinault River, something we have done extensively for many years. Sometimes it means taking part in international climate change summits—providing a leadership role in such efforts as the United Nations’ Conference of Parties (COP 14) in Poznan, Poland in 2009 or the First Stewards Summit in Washington D.C.,” said Sharp.

Quinault Nation established a comprehensive set of climate change policies in 2009, before Congress considered introducing its national policies. We have advocated and advanced our climate change-related interests locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. “We have asked the President and Congress to understand the connection between climate change and such impacts as the decline of our Blueback salmon run and the destruction that is now occurring with shellfish and other species in the ocean due to acidification and hypoxia. Other tribes have worked alongside us, pushing for action by the State of Washington, the United States and the United Nations, for many years. It is our heritage, and right, to do so,” said Sharp.

“We believe it’s time to call to end the nonsensical debate in the Legislature and in Congress about whether it exists. It does, and it is very serious.

“Year in and year out we are all facing the deadly consequences of a century of environmental contempt, and ignoring that fact will not make the challenge go away. It is time for people to treat our natural environment with the respect it deserves,” she said.

Wash. Port Releases New Lease Details For Oil-by-Rail Terminal

The Columbian

The Port of Vancouver on Wednesday released an updated version of its lease for the Northwest’s largest oil-by-rail transfer terminal, featuring fewer censored details but maintaining redactions of key issues the port considers sensitive.

The port released the updated version of its lease (429 pages in electronic format) with Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies in response to multiple requests made in April by various parties, including the Columbian and The Oregonian newspapers, Theresa Wagner, the port’s communications manager, said Wednesday.

In the original version of the lease, the port had kept secret a total of 22 pieces of information. In the updated rendition, the port revealed 11 of those 22 pieces of information, Wagner said.

One revelation: The port is allowed to terminate the lease if Tesoro and Savage fail to launch construction within four months after both parties are presumed to have fulfilled certain other contractual obligations.

Previously, the port had censored the companies’ construction timeline.

Still kept a secret, however, are the number of months — since the effective date of the lease — the port and companies have to cancel the lease early if either party fails to meet their contractual obligations.

Exactly how those obligations, known as “conditions precedent,” work isn’t entirely clear. An obvious allowed reason for cancelling the deal is if Tesoro and Savage fail to obtain permits from state regulators.

The companies submitted their permit application to the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council on Aug. 29, seeking to handle as much as 380,000 barrels of oil per day for eventual conversion into transportation fuel. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has the final say over the project.

Another disclosure the port made Wednesday: If Tesoro and Savage move a certain average volume of oil per day for 30 months after they start making rent payments to the port, then the companies get to keep exclusive rights to run an oil terminal at the port.

The port, under that scenario, wouldn’t be able to lease property to a new tenant who also wants to handle crude oil.

Previously, the port had censored how long the companies would have to maintain certain oil volumes to keep their exclusivity rights.

However, the oil volumes — and the date on which the companies start paying rent to the port — are still unknown, because the port kept them redacted in the updated version of its lease.

The port also maintained redactions of the amounts of wharf and dockage fees it will charge Tesoro and Savage. Those unknown fees are in addition to lease revenue that’s already known: The agreement involves 42 acres and is worth at least $45 million to the port over an initial 10 years.

The port is maintaining certain redactions under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, saying that if certain pieces of information were made public, it would harm the port in various ways, including damaging its competitiveness and its ability to negotiate

Wagner said the port chose to reveal certain pieces of information because they’ve either become known from the Tesoro-Savage permit application or by way of public presentations given by the companies.

However, a Vancouver city attorney has questioned the port’s redactions. In a Feb. 18 email to the port, two weeks after he’d received and reviewed the lease, Bronson Potter, chief assistant city attorney, wrote that it’s “doubtful that any of the information redacted would qualify as being a ‘trade secret.’?”

The port’s lease also gives Tesoro and Savage first rights on leasing additional property to expand if the average amount of oil moved by the first facility exceeds certain barrels-per-day targets. Those targets remain unknown, because the port kept them secret in the updated version of its lease.

Tesoro and Savage would have to seek another round of permits to expand or build another facility.

Swinomish Tribe measures changes to shellfish over decades on Kukutali Preserve

Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.com

Apr 29th, 2014

The never-realized plans to build a nuclear power plant on Kiket Island has a legacy that’s proven useful to the Swinomish Tribe.

The 1969 power plant proposal attracted researchers to study the island’s ecology. Among these was then-graduate student Jon Houghton, who established permanent transects around Kiket Island to study intertidal ecology and measure, among other things, clam density and biomass. In 2011, Swinomish shellfish biologist Julie Barber worked with the tribe’s water resources program to survey the same transects as Houghton to quantify ecological change over the past four decades.

Tiffany Hoyopatubbi, water resources specialist, uses a quadrat to sample shellfish species on the beach on Kukutali Preserve

In the decades since the power plant plans were scrapped, Kiket Island was privately owned. For at least the past two decades, tribal members were discouraged by upland owners from harvesting on the tribally owned tidelands. This long-term lack of harvest pressure now provides Swinomish with the unusual opportunity to study unharvested clam populations.

In 2010, the Swinomish Tribe and the state of Washington purchased the island and now jointly manage it as the Kukutali Preserve.

At the time of Houghton’s surveys, butter clams were the preferred shellfish harvested on Kiket Island. Since no one had been harvesting there for two decades, Barber was not surprised to learn that the number and size of butter clams has increased substantially since the 1970s.

The biomass of native littleneck clams, on the other hand, has declined significantly, and researchers don’t know why.

Comparing the data from Kiket Island with other nearby beaches shows that the littleneck clam decline appears to be a trend. The increase in butter clams is believed to be a trend on these other beaches as well, but Barber doesn’t have enough data yet to know for sure.

Barber is working with other tribes and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to compare data throughout the region. Her eventual goal is to create a Puget Sound map that shows the temporal change in bivalve biomass by bivalve management region.

“That would help us at least map out where these changes are occurring,” she said. “You can’t easily find out why this is happening until you know where these changes are happening.”

Swinomish staff who assisted in the surveys included Todd Mitchell, Tiffany Hoyopatubbi, Tanisha Gobert, Courtney Greiner and Jennifer Ratfield.

For more information, contact: Julie Barber, shellfish biologist, Swinomish Tribe, 360-466-7315 or jbarber@skagitcoop.org; Kari Neumeyer, information officer, NWIFC, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

Prosecutors on Navajo seek to combine trials

The Associated Press

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) — Prosecutors investigating the use of discretionary funds on the Navajo Nation are seeking to try a handful of defendants together.

In a request Wednesday to tribal Judge Carol Perry, prosecutors said consolidating the trials would save tens of thousands of dollars in court expenses, jury fees and prosecution.

Perry has not ruled on the request.

Jury trials aren’t common in Navajo courts. According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report on tribal courts, eight were held on the Navajo Nation between 2007 and 2011 among 51,000 civil and criminal cases. At the time, none of the tribe’s 10 district courts had set aside funds for jurors in their budgets.

Prosecutors are seeking to combine trials for two current and three former tribal lawmakers who are facing bribery charges.

RCMP uncover over 1,000 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women

30. Apr, 2014 by APTN National News |

Kenneth Jackson
APTN National News
An RCMP project aimed at tallying the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women has uncovered “over 1,000” cases, APTN National News has learned.

The RCMP was able to determine over a 1,000 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women with the help other police forces across the country, according to a person with knowledge of the project, who asked not to be named because they’re not the official spokesperson on the project.

As part of this project, the RCMP reached out to over 200 police forces across the country to get a peek in their files to compile their statistics.

APTN was told the project was complete and the report’s release is being held up by the federal ministry of public safety Canada and was supposed to come out March 31.

However, RCMP Aboriginal policing Supt. Tyler Bates denied a report was done when contacted on his cellphone Wednesday afternoon but not the tally.

“There is no report as of yet that has been disseminated,” said Bates. “There will be a publicly available document down the road.”

When asked about the tally of over 1,000 Bates said he couldn’t confirm or deny any number.

“I’m not going to speak to a specific number to confirm or refute anything at this juncture,” he said. “I don’t have any comment right now. All I can tell you is there is work that remains ongoing.”

The purpose of the project was to give the RCMP clear data on the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women Bates told APTN in December.

The tally of over 1,000 cases would shatter anything officially compiled up until this point. The Native Women’s Association of Canada released a report in 2010 with nearly 600 cases.

Then just recently an Ottawa researcher said her work put the number at over 800.

The RCMP questioned NWAC’s numbers in the past, but, until the recent project, the federal force only tallied information from within its own files.

A call the public safety minister’s office wasn’t immediately returned.

– with APTN files