The Wild Fish Conservancy sued the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, contending that the agency’s planting of early winter hatchery steelhead violates the Endangered Species Act.
In response, agency officials have decided not to release more than 900,000 juvenile Chambers Creek steelhead in Puget Sound rivers.
Kurt Beardslee is co-founder of the wild fish advocacy group. He says that’s a good sign that fishery managers are taking the lawsuit seriously.
The lawsuit claims that planting this highly domesticated species of ocean-going trout will endanger wild steelhead, chinook and bull trout.
Fish and Wildlife officials say they plan to continue to rear the fish in hatcheries until they are old enough to be released in trout-fishing lakes. That could change, depending on the outcome of the lawsuit.
A two day conference allows a newly created organization to demonstrate its work and research on various health-related issues facing Native Americans in the United States. The sixth annual Tribal Epidemiology Center Public Health Conference’s theme isWhere We Have Been, Where We Are, And Where We Are Going.
Where We Have Been
In the mid 1990’s, Native American tribes saw the need to write their own health stories and maintain their own data banks on health statistics. Funding from the Indian Health Service helped to create the first two epidemiology pilot centers, or EPI Centers.
In 2004, the Oklahoma City area received similar funding to create what is one of twelve centers currently serving the United States’ indigenous population.
Where We Are Now
Tyler Snyder is the epidemiologist at the Tribal Epidemiology Center in Oklahoma City. Snyder says this center is not just about a traditional view of epidemiology.
“What we do here, instead of doing just disease outbreak and surveillance, we provide EPI services in the form of helping people develop surveys, implement the surveys, doing analysis and we also provide training, like tobacco cessation training, intervention training, and training on a number of other health issues,” said Snyder.
“We also provide some community health profiling,” Snyder said. “We look at data from the national level, state level and also some locally collected data and put those together to form a picture for a tribe so we can say ‘here’s what your tribe’s health looks like right now.’
Dr. Tom Anderson (Cherokee), is the director of the so-called EPI Center in Oklahoma City. Anderson said part of the Affordable Care Act reauthorizes the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, and sets some specific goals.
“Tribal epidemiology centers are to be considered as public health authorities for the area tribes,” Anderson said. “The EPI centers were to carry out seven specific functions including disease surveillance, data collections, evaluation of delivery systems, assist tribes in identifying highest priority health status, recommendations for targeting services, and so on.”
Where We Are Going
Patricia Yarholar (Sac and Fox) is the public health coordinator at The Tribal Epidemiology Center. Yarholar sees the conference as a way to implement some of those directives. The two day conference will hold several behavioral workshops and suicide prevention workshops imbued with native sensibilities.
“We also have the health policy track, we’re going to be having a workshop on incorporating taking culture into policy. Making tribal health programs and employees work with American Indians so it will be culturally appropriate information,” Yarholar said.
“A workshop on accreditation for public health as well as another one on the tribal public health institute is very new and I think a lot of people will be very interested in what this workshop has to share with us,” Yarholar said.
“What it does is reach out to tribes and provides market analysis, organizational and financial analysis in working with Native American tribes,” Yarholar said. “An assessment to determine needs and the potential role that the tribal health public institute has in order to go along the line of organizational structure, and operating costs can be done.”
The AARP will be holding a round table on transportation.
“This relates to a lot of the health disparities people experience because they don’t have transportation to go to appointments or maybe to go to different areas to pick up medication or to pick up proper foods,” Yarholar said.
Other workshops will go over the Affordable Health Care Act, the Health Insurance Marketplace, diabetes in Cherokee children and diabetes in the Kickapoo tribe.
Keynote speakers include Michael Bird(Santa Domingo/San Juan Pueblo), the first Native American to serve as president of the American Public Health Association, and Dr. Jessica Rickerts(Prairie Band Potawatomi), the first female Native American dentist. Rickerts will present a workshop on the dental health of American Indian/Alaska Native Veterans
The 6th Annual Tribal Epidemiology Center Public Health Conference takes place April 29 & 30 in the Fire Lake Grand Casino in Shawnee and is free and open to the public.
Reuters6:10 a.m. CDT, April 3, 2014
A bison walks in Yellowstone National Park. (Photo: Lucy Nicholson, Reuters / August 15, 2011)
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – The Nez Perce tribe once hunted bison in what is now Yellowstone National Park, and some tribal leaders want to revive the practice, which ended with Western settlement and the near total extermination of the once-vast U.S. bison herds.
Today, remnants of the bison, or buffalo, herds still roam the grasslands and river valleys of Yellowstone, a huge park that covers parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
The park lands, in which hunting is illegal, once made up a key segment of the Idaho tribe’s traditional hunting grounds, and some Nez Perce leaders say they should again be able to hunt buffalo inside the park.
“Before there was a park, there was a tribe,” Nez Perce Chairman Silas Whitman said. “Some of our members already feel we have the right to hunt in the park, but it hasn’t been exercised because we feel it would be remiss in going forward that way.”
After asserting hunting rights tied to historic treaties in recent years, the Nez Perce and three other tribes already hunt those bison that follow ancient migration routes outside the park and into Montana in search of winter range.
The Nez Perce have not yet formally requested hunting rights inside the park. Such a request would require extensive federal review, major changes to Yellowstone policies, and congressional action to modify a founding law that banned hunting or killing of buffalo and other wildlife there.
The prospect of hunting any of the 4,000 buffalo within Yellowstone boundaries is strongly opposed by animal advocates, who decry an existing culling program that allows hundreds of bison to be hunted and shipped to slaughter annually.
“Yellowstone is against any proposal to hunt in the park,” said David Hallac, chief of the Yellowstone Center for Resources, the park’s science and research branch.
BISON MANAGEMENT CONTROVERSY
Whitman said the tribe would not force the issue by violating any of the park’s regulations but may seek to broach the topic with the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the national park system, or perhaps lobby Congress “to request those changes be made”.
Management of Yellowstone bison has stirred controversy for decades. Killing of animals that wander into Montana in winter in search of food aims to keep in check a herd population whose size is determined by social tolerance rather than the ecosystem’s carrying capacity, Yellowstone officials said.
The culling is also designed to ease the worries of Montana ranchers who fear bison will transmit the cattle disease brucellosis, which can cause animals to miscarry, to cows that graze near the park.
That could put into jeopardy Montana’s brucellosis-free status, which allows ranchers to ship livestock across state lines without testing.
Marty Zaluski, Montana state veterinarian and member of a state, federal and tribal team that manages bison in and around Yellowstone, is a proponent of hunting in the park and told Reuters in February it needed to be “looked at more seriously as a possible solution”.
He said it would bring the herd closer to a population target of 3,000 to 3,500 and lessen the public outcry tied to slaughter of wayward buffalo.
But Yellowstone’s Hallac contends that hunting in the park, which draws 3 million visitors a year because of tourist attractions such as the Old Faithful geyser and the bison, would further complicate matters.
“Even a proposal to hunt in the park causes more problems than the dilemma it intends to solve,” he said. “These are America’s wildlife and a crucial part of our national heritage. To propose to hunt in a place established specifically to prevent animals from being hunted is bizarre.”
Marshall Elementary students were invited to come help plant in the new rain garden. Photo by Valerie Streeter
By Monica Brown Tulalip News
Tulalip, WA -Spring is here and it’s a prime season to put in a rain garden. Imagine your yard with a rain garden that is full of native plants attracting butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. Now envision that same rain garden being low maintenance and capable of preventing flooding or ponding of water in your yard and having the ability to capture pollutants before they reach the Puget Sound.
Photo by Monica Brown
Recently, Tulalip Natural Resources hosted a three-part workshop, teaching about rain water management and finishing with an actual rain garden installation. Natural resources partnered with Tulalip tribal member Glendy and husband Grant Morrison to install a rain garden at their home creating a hands-on learning experience for the community and the Marshall Elementary Marysville Cooperative Education Partnership.
To begin, the Morrison’s had the utility lines in their yard located, estimated the rain garden size, and created a budget. Because the Morrison’s have a raised garden in their backyard they decided to harvest rain water from the back half of their roof into barrels for summer watering. Rain water from the front half will be routed to flow away from the home’s foundation and into the rain garden.
Adding an overflow prevents the water from ponding after flask flooding. Photo by Monica Brown
There are multiple ways to manage rain water run-off, but the more aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly option for homeowners is the addition of a rain garden. From now until 2016 the Puget Sound Rain Garden initiative wants to help install 12,000 rain gardens in the Puget Sound area. The website www.12000raingardens.org, is full of useful information, and local resources along with a place to register your rain garden as part of the initiative to keep the Puget Sound clean.
Tulalip Natural Resources staff is available to help anyone located on the Tulalip reservation with any questions about rain water management and has a free handbook available for pick up. Contact Valerie Streeter of Natural Resources with any questions or for a free Rain Garden Handbook, at 360-716-4629 or by email vstreeter@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.
Pros of installing a rain garden
Rain Gardens are easy to maintain for years to come since they only require occasional weeding, watering and new mulch every year. If the garden contains native plants they will be easier to care for, cheaper to buy and some attract butterflies, hummingbirds and bees.
Cons of installing a rain garden
Planning and actual installation can take three or 4 weekends. The homeowner will need to create a budget, locate any utility lines on the property and perform a soil test for drainage before you begin. Afterwards, calculate the size and depth of garden for the surface runoff water.
Aerial view of the rain garden Photo by Monica Brown
Veterans from all military branches supported each other during the first Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans celebration, organized by Tulalip veteran marine Andy James. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
by Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
TULALIP – U.S. Vietnam veterans have been home for more than 40 years, but due to anti-war sentiment with the American public, returning soldiers quietly rejoined their communities without receiving a national welcome home.
In 2011, the U.S. Senate, decided to change this. The Senate unanimously passed a resolution to provide Vietnam veterans a chance to be properly welcomed home by designating March 30, Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day. The designated day marks the final withdrawal of all combat and combat-support troops from Vietnam on March 29, 1973.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Although veteran organizations across the nation have been celebrating the day since its passing, only three states, California, Oregon, and Washington, have recognized the day officially, including flying the POW/MIA flag in addition to the U.S. flag and state flags on all government buildings.
Last year Governor Jay Inslee deemed March 30 for Washington State after Rep. Norm Jackson (Yakima) (R) introduced 2013 House Bill 1319 on January 23, 2013. The bill passed 97 to 0 in the House and again passed 48 to 0 in the Senate and was signed by Gov. Inslee on March 29, 2013.
This year, Tulalip hosted their first annual Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans celebration in honor of their fellow veterans. Attendees included tribal and non-tribal veterans who gathered at the Tulalip Boys & Girls Club to mark the official homecoming.
Tulalip veteran Andy James, pictured in cedar hat, served during the Vietnam Conflict with the Marines, organized the celebration. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Tulalip veteran and tribal member Andy James, who served with the Marines during the Vietnam conflict, organized the event.
“I am extremely thankful and grateful for my elders, particularly the ones who put on uniforms in defense of this country before I did. We have one here today that did,” said James, referring to Tulalip tribal member and Korean War veteran Ray Moses (Te-at-mus).
“I wanted to do something to mark this day, so I organized a potluck,” continued James. “I am thankful for every veteran, and we realize it was all for the cause. We did what we had to to defend our country, and I am glad to celebrate this day and welcome home my fellow veterans.”
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-9135402; bmontreuil@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov
Traditional Southern Grass dancer Jeff Brown danced for visiting veterans during the Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Summit Participants hang their group’s discussion notes on the wall. From student needs, school improvement, and dreams of what the Marysville School District and its students should look like, the ideas were all shared, and often echoed. Andrew Gobin/Tulalip News
By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News
The Marysville School District hosted an education summit on Saturday, March 29, at Getchell High School to secure success for Marysville schools and students. The summit is the culmination of months of planning and information gathering, bringing together educators, community members, students, families, and business leaders to map out possible futures for the Marysville School District. Speakers at the summit highlighted opportunities in the local economy as a key driver of education and success. Those opportunities should be had by all Marysville students, and the Marysville School District is working towards that reality.
“Snohomish County is first in the state in manufacturing. We are second in the technology field. There are many successful economies in the state, but what makes us different is, in Snohomish County, we build things,” said Troy McClelland, president and CEO of the Economic Alliance of Snohomish County (EASC).
McClelland is a strong proponent of the STEM program in education. STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, is a curriculum focused on developing critical skills that students need to succeed in modern economies.
“There is a place for every student to succeed, if they find their passion, and if we continue to provide the competitive economy,” he added.
Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring said, “We need competitive students for a competitive economy. I want Marysville kids to have those jobs, I don’t want to import and outsource. I want our kids to have those high paying jobs.”
Mayor Nehring noted the importance of education, with reform taking center stage in the local political discussion.
“We cannot afford to opt out of supporting education. It is an investment well worth the principle,” he said.
Throughout the day, groups consisting of educators, families, and business leaders discussed what they dream for the Marysville School District. Ideas ranged from helping students become passionate about education and developing a drive to pursue education beyond graduation, to changing the way education is structured. There was large discussion on the current education system, and the need to change the system for the modern age. Determining what that might look like includes an understanding of the local communities and economies.
“It takes all of us together, working for our students’ future,” said Mel Sheldon Jr., Chairman of the Tulalip Tribes.
As leaders in education, business, and industry come together with leaders in the community, the district hopes to bring balance between the learning needs of students and the skills they will need to succeed as they choose careers, which is a manifestation of the district’s mission of 100% graduation, on time, and college or career ready.
Andrew Gobin is a reporter with the See-Yaht-Sub, a publication of the Tulalip Tribes Communications Department. Email: agobin@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov Phone: (360) 716.4188
John McMillan/NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center A wild steelhead, relocated to the Little River, a tributary of the Elwha River, and tagged so it can be tracked. Notice the radio tag.
SAN FRANCISCO –– A confederacy of wild-fish advocates has asked a federal appeals court to stop the release by federal agencies of hatchery steelhead into the Elwha River, saying they could damage wild populations.
The appeal was filed after the advocacy groups failed to stop a release of hatchery salmon last week.
Lower Elwha Klallam tribal hatchery managers released 77,000 coho smolt into the river, beginning the process just before a judge ruled that federal agencies and conservation groups should discuss how many smolt should be released.
Last Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle rejected seven of the advocacy group’s eight motions to stop a hatchery plan that had been developed by several federal agencies to help Elwha River fish runs recover after the removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams.
Settle did rule that federal agencies must review their plans, saying they had not adequately studied the effects of large-scale release of hatchery-reared salmon on wild-fish populations.
Settle ordered the two sides to confer to find a compromise between the government’s plan to release 175,000 hatchery steelhead and 425,000 hatchery coho and the conservation groups’ proposed release of 50,000 of each species before the spring fish runs begin, and to establish a plan for the fall runs.
According to emails filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday and Friday of last week, attorneys for the conservation groups were informed of the hatchery coho release when they attempted to set up a meeting to discuss release numbers.
Court filings showed that tribal fisheries managers began releasing coho smolt March 24 and finished March 27.
Since then, conservation groups Wild Fish Conservancy, Conservation Angler, Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead Committee and Wild Steelhead Coalition have asked the U.S. 9th District Court of Appeals to issue an emergency injunction to stop the planting of steelhead, a large seagoing trout, from a $16.5 million hatchery built to stock the river.
Settle rejected such an injunction March 12.
“Hatchery fish, even those from wild parents, are far less successful surviving and reproducing over time than wild fish,” said Kurt Beardslee, executive director of the Duvall-based Wild Fish Conservancy.
“Left to their own devices, wild fish are already making it through the sediment plume and reaching spawning grounds.”
The release of the coho was “unfortunate,” Beardslee said, adding that the groups now are focused on the steelhead appeal.
Attorneys for several federal agencies and the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe told the court in responses filed Monday that wild species of Elwha River fish could die off without the introduction of hatchery fish.
“Numerous reviews and a broad consensus of scientists have found that hatcheries are necessary during dam removal to prevent the wild Elwha salmon and steelhead populations from being extinguished by sediment as the dams come down,” said Jim Milbury, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s West Coast fisheries program.
The groups’ original lawsuit, filed in February 2012, named the federal National Park Service, Department of Commerce, Department of the Interior, NOAA’s Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying they should stop planting fish reared in the hatchery.
The groups’ claim against the tribe was dismissed in February 2013.
As part of the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history, federal and tribal agencies developed a plan to restore the fish runs and built a $16.4 million hatchery west of Port Angeles.
The Elwha River once produced 400,000 spawning fish, a number that declined to fewer than 3,000 after the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams were built without fish passage structures in the early 20th century.
In a declaration to U.S. District Court filed Friday, Larry Ward, manager of the tribe’s hatchery, said the coho released in March were “of optimal size and coloration for release” last week. He added that conditions of the river were favorable.
Lower Elwha Klallam attorney Steve Suagee said the goal of the hatchery is to provide a “gene bank” for the wild species.
“The fish that are being produced in the hatchery are all native genetically to the Elwha,” Suagee said. “If we don’t release the smolts and the wild fish are killed by the sediment, then you’ve lost the wild fish.”
Suagee said Tuesday a decision on the injunction could come as soon as next week.
Suagee said the fish were released then to avoid putting them in the river while it was filled with sediment that had built up behind the dams and is now being carried down the river, what he called “the single biggest threat to the fish.”
“For the coho, everything came together last week,” Suagee said. “It was time to go.”
A new tribal Internet gaming consortium is steadily taking shape as part of growing movement of such efforts that are sure to capture the attention of federal regulators and, probably, the courts.
The effort, called the Tribal Internet Gaming Alliance (TIGA), is pursuing what organizers say is the most conservative approach of a recent batch of tribal online gaming pioneers that include the Inter Tribal Gaming Association (ITOGA), founded by several already successful California, Michigan and Oklahoma gaming tribes, and Great Luck LLC, championed by the Alturas Indian Rancheria Tribe of northern California.
“We have immediate, short-term, and long-term goals,” says Jeffrey Nelson, a lawyer with the Indian affairs firm Kanji & Katzen who has played a major role in organizing the TIGA endeavor over the past year. “Immediate: A networked virtual currency play platform where tribes will not have to share their player databases, yet can benefit from shared costs and attract online players into their casinos. Short-term: Development of class II real-money games (poker, slot-like bingo and traditional bingo) where TIGA will take bets from the collective gaming eligible Indian lands of our member tribes. Long-term: Better ability to lobby and compete in statewide, national and international online gaming markets.”
Rather than making an immediate large cash profit, TIGA organizers want to establish a coalition of tribes pursuing the likeminded-interest of shaping federal Internet gaming policy. With signals coming frequently from legislators in Congress indicating they want to tinker in this field, TIGA organizers think the right approach is to have a foot in the water, while not rocking the boat.
Small tribes that have not been able to establish major gaming enterprises to date may be especially interested in joining TIGA, Nelson says, for the relatively safe leverage it provides in getting involved in this field without much legal risk at zero cost to join.
As opposed to ITOGA and Great Luck, TIGA does not plan or even want to take wagers from places that are not in its reservation-based network, which currently includes two tribes, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Tribe and the Bad River Band Chippewa Tribe. Six council representatives from the two tribes have elected Duane Chapman from Lac du Flambeau as the TIGA Interim Chairman—an interim title because the group does not yet have the three tribes necessary in TIGA’s treaty to make its business committee formally operational.
“Geofencing technology is robust enough to allow TIGA to take real-money bets only from the collective gaming eligible Indian lands of its member tribes,” Nelson says, noting that geofencing refers to different types of technology where platform operators can verify the physical location of the customer, whether that person is sitting at a desktop or on a mobile device; some examples are GPS, cell phone signal triangulation and ISP identification. “With that comes the ability to fence certain areas where you either will not take bets, or conversely where you will only take bets,” he adds. “So TIGA can have a database of gaming eligible Indian lands of its collective member tribes, and [it can] take bets only from customers who are physically present within those areas.”
TIGA also has some international ideas brewing. Letters of support for the alliance have already come in from the Isle of Man and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission in Canada, which means that tribes in TIGA could have avenues of performing gaming within these nations in the future.
Some tribal Internet gaming entrepreneurs and even tribal leaders have questioned why TIGA is choosing a long-term approach to taking part in an online gaming field that is ripe for development right now.
Nelson responds that TIGA is operating under the current parameters of federal law, while also preparing to help shape and compete in any new legislative initiatives.
“If there are any legal challenges, I would expect to win them,” Nelson says. “We are offering a way for tribes to get involved and get ahead of the competition without jeopardizing anybody’s gaming license or future ability to get a gaming license in other jurisdictions.”
Nelson says that it was important to tribal organizers that tribes in TIGA also be able to participate in other Internet gaming activities, and they may belong to groups like ITOGA and Great Luck as well.
Like TIGA, ITOGA and Great Luck organizers believe they are operating within the parameters of the law, yet they are admittedly taking more chances than TIGA.
Lee Helper, an organizer with Great Luck, explains that the class II games his venture offers are available to “anyone anywhere” and “do not have to be on Indian lands.” Great Luck organizers think they are legally sound in offering this service because their online gaming servers are located on sovereign Indian lands, and the games they offer are all web browser accessed and electronically enabled.
ITOGA, meanwhile, has built itself up based largely on the four tribal safe harbor provisions of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGA). Like Great Luck, ITOGA depends on Internet servers based on Indian reservations, and for a while it intended to it go farther by accepting wagers as loan transactions through tribal-owned payday lending operations. But as scrutiny of the tribal payday lending field has increased, ITOGA decided to shelve that plan, according to a November article in the Washington Post.
Rob Rosette, a lawyer for ITOGA, has made the case that since the federal government has not explicitly said that tribes cannot operate class II gaming over the Internet—and the UIGA provides a path for doing so—it is worth being aggressive here.
Still, some Congress members appear unhappy with the early Internet gaming efforts of both tribes and commercial entities. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) recently introduced bipartisan legislation that would reestablish the 2006-11 federal interpretation of the 1961 Wire Act. Under that interpretation, licensed online gambling in states including New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware would become illegal. Joe Valandra, CEO of Great Luck, said in a press release that tribal jurisdiction over class II games could be “severely compromised” as well if the bill were passed.
In light of such hurdles, Nelson says TIGA members are happily taking the safe road, yet he notes that it has taken longer than he expected to get three tribes to sign on as founding treaty members.
“Tribes are being careful and doing their due diligence,” Nelson says. “[I]n Indian country, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
