Tiyanna Bueno, daughter of Malory Simpson and Jesse Bueno, learns to play slehal. Andrew Gobin/Tulalip News
By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News
Tulalip – Tulalip Youth Services hosts a culture night every Monday at 5:30 p.m. The evening often features lessons on traditional arts and crafts and always includes time for singing and dancing. Some nights, like March 24th, the cultural specialists, Tenika Fryberg and Taylor Henry, prepare an evening of culture and community through games and other presentation. On the 24th, they presented the traditional slehal game.
Slehal, translated as bone game or also referred to as stick game, is a traditional game that is played throughout the Salishan area, from Northern Oregon up to Haida Gwaii and as far east as Browning Montana. The goal is to win all of the stick by finding the unmarked bone, much like the children’s game ‘pick a hand.’ The number of sticks varies between seven and eleven, but the goal remains the same.
Bone Games mean many things for Salish peoples. There are origin stories about men playing against the animals to determine who will rule the world. This embodies two specific aspects of slehal, gambling and dispute settlement. Historically, slehal was a means to settle disputes. Whoever won the game, won the argument. Traditionally, slehal was a gamble, and still is today with many tournaments for prize money up to $10,000 cash.
Culture night is a chance to enjoy these aspects of our culture, coming together as a community to teach all people about our traditions. It is a place to learn the songs and the dances, and, like this week, the communal traditions.
Culture Night is held every Monday in the portable across from the old tribal center, now the youth center, at 6700 Totem Beach Rd. For more information contact Taylor Henry at (360) 716-4916.
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
Fire Crews spray foam to smother accelerants. Andrew Gobin/Tulalip News
By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News
Tulalip – Tulalip Bay, Stanwood, Getchell, and North County fire departments responded to a garage fire at Sunny Shores around 12:30 this afternoon. Firecrews arrived to find the structure fully engulfed in flames.
With limited water, fire crews were able to extinguish the fire, but not until the structure was almost completely gone. Andrew Gobin/Tulalip News
“There was nothing left of the roof, the walls were almost completely gone, the metal door had melted down, and the car was gone,” said Tulalip Bay Fire Chief Teri Dodge.
Water tenders brought water down the one-lane access road, because there are no hydrants in the area. After extinguishing the fire, crews sprayed foam on the scorched remains to prevent accelerants from reigniting the blaze.
Dodge explained, “Garage fires tend to burn very quickly. Once the fire breaches the roof or the walls, the oxygen feeds it. Most garages have accelerants inside as well, which make garage fires that much more devastating.”
In addition to limited access and limited water, there was a downed power line that crews had to work around until Snohomish County PUD was able to cut power to the line.
The garage burned completely to the ground, leaving only the floor and what remained of the vehicle inside.
Firemen test the burnt out floor to reach the remains of the vehicle. Andrew Gobin/Tulalip news
The fire was discovered by homeowner Heidi Atterson who then called 911. Her husband, Steve Atterson, arrived on scene shortly there after. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, though it is suspected to have began as an electrical fire.
Ruins of garage fire caked with extinguishing foam. Andrew Gobin/Tulalip News
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
Emergency response on-scene Information Center. Photo: Washington State Patrol.
BY MYNORTHWEST.COM on March 23, 2014 @ 11:10 am (Updated: 8:45 am – 3/24/14 )
Snohomish County’s hotline about reunification, evacuations, and shelters is 425-388-5088.
Residents impacted by the mudslide near Oso are urged to register on the Red Cross website safeandwell.org to list themselves as “safe and well” or to search for other people who are already registered.
You can donate to the Red Cross, any amount is helpful. Call 1-800-RedCross or donate online. You can also text the words RedCross to 90999 and $10 will be charged to your cell phone bill.
Snohomish County says a group of volunteers is helping people affected by the slide move their livestock and pets. The volunteers are located throughout Camano Island, Stanwood, Everett, Arlington and other cities.
Killer whales swimming in Prince William Sound alongside boats skimming oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Scientists report that orca populations there have not recovered and oil is still being found. | credit: (State of Alaska, Dan Lawn)
25 years ago today the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, Calif., ran aground in Prince William Sound.
11 million gallons of oil spilled out, polluting 1,300 miles of Alaska’s coastline.
At the time it was the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
Gary Shigenaka and Alan Mearns responded to the Exxon Valdez, and they’ve been studying oil spills ever since. They’re scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle.
They told EarthFix’s Ashley Ahearn about their experience responding to the Exxon Valdez all those years ago.
Alan Mearns: Some places we’d go ashore and you’d see starfish that looked like they were sick, they were just kind of drifting around in the surf. And you could smell the oil too, in the places where there was plenty of it. It smelled like benzene, like you’re pumping gas at the gas station and you sniff that little bit of benzene as you pull the hose out of your car.
EarthFix: Gary, how were orcas impacted by the spill?
Gary Shigenaka: Two groups that frequent Prince William Sound crashed immediately after the spill. So since the time of the oil spill those populations have continued to be monitored and we can follow the trends and for the AB pod — the resident pod – there’s been a slow recovery. For the AT1 group, which is the transient pod, it’s been declining ever since the spill and the orca specialist for Prince William Sound, Dr. Craig Matkin, has predicted that that particular group is going to go extinct. It continues to decline with time. So it’s an unfortunate longterm legacy from the spill.
EarthFix: Some people thought the orcas would swim away, would avoid the oil spill itself, but that wasn’t actually the case, was it?
Shigenaka: What we all thought was that orcas are so smart. They will simply avoid the oiled waters. But we’ve got very good photographic evidence that shows that indeed they did not.
One photograph, an aerial photograph, shows orcas cutting through a slick and you can see where they’ve come to the surface right through the oil. There’s another shot of a pod of orcas right at the stern of the Exxon Valdez, right at the tanker.
EarthFix: What creatures were the most impacted or most harmed by the Exxon Valdez spill?
Mearns: Oh, birds. We’re talking about 200 to 300,000 I think, Gary.
Shigenaka: Yeah.
Mearns: Seabirds, mainly seabirds and some shorebirds. And of course that was the big thing you’d see in the news almost every day: pictures of an oiled bird, somebody picking it up, taking it to a wildlife rehabilitation station where they’d clean them and then hold them until they could be released.
Birds killed as a result of oil from the Exxon Valdez spill. Credit: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.
EarthFix: SO for people who weren’t alive, weren’t reading the paper when the Exxon Valdez spill happened, what were those animals going through? What happens to a bird when it interacts with an oil slick?
Mearns: Well, first of all, even though it’s in the spring and summer it’s still cold up there. If it’s not killed by being smothered by gobs and gobs of oil, if it’s a little bit of oil, it will succumb eventually to things like pneumonia-type diseases and things like that, so it suddenly causes birds that had good insulation not to have insulation and start suffering the effects of cold conditions.
Shigenaka: And the same holds true for another of the iconic wildlife species in Prince William Sound: the sea otters. They insulate themselves with that nice thick fur pelt and they are affected in the same way by oil disrupting their ability to insulate themselves during a spill.
EarthFix: 25 years later, how is Prince William Sound? What species have recovered, how does the place look?
Mearns: Well, 14 or 15 species or resource values have recovered. The recovery started a few years after the spill with things like bald eagles. A number of them were killed off but their population rebounded. The most recent recovery was just announced was of the sea otters that we were just talking about. So between 1991-92 when we started seeing reports of recovery of a few bird species and now we’ve had about 14 or 15 species recover but there’s still some others that haven’t yet.
EarthFix: Which ones are you most concerned about, Alan, or scientists are following most closely with concern?
Mearns: The orcas are really the ones we’re most concerned about now.
EarthFix: Is the oil gone?
Mearns: No. There are still traces of oil in the shorelines. When you go out at low tide and go into some of these back bay areas with gravel and sand overlying bedrock and dig down maybe a foot sometimes you’ll hit spots with oil that is still actually fairly fresh. We’ve encountered that at a few sites that we’ve monitored over the past 25 years.
Shigenaka: That’s been one of the 25-year surprises for us is that there are pockets of relatively fresh oil remaining both in Prince William Sound and along the coast of the Alaska Peninsula and that’s something that I don’t think any of us expected 25 years later.
EarthFix: What did this spill mean for your careers? You guys were both young bucks when this happened. And now, 25 years later, when you look back, what did it mean, the Exxon Valdez?
Shigenaka: I think overall, just the notion that we have a responsibility, both as responders and as scientists to try to communicate what we do and what we know in a way that’s understandable to the people who are affected.
EarthFix: There is more oil moving through this region now – more oil coming from the tar sands of Alberta and coming from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to refineries here in Washington state. If I talk to you guys 25 years from now, what do you hope we’re talking about?
Mearns: One thing that I worry about and I think Gary has some other things that he worries about is a lot of this new oil is going to be going through the Aleutian Islands, the great circle route, more and more tankers leaving here or in Canada and heading across. And in the Aleutian Islands, we thought Prince William Sound was remote, well the Aleutian Islands are even more remote. Getting equipment there, getting staff, we’ve had a few experiences with spills. I guess I’m concerned that there will be more spills in that region from this increased traffic out there.
EarthFix: Or elsewhere.
Mearns: Yeah.
Shigenaka: 25 years from now I’m hoping that we have a much better handle on how these novel new oils like the tar sands oil and the Bakken crude oil from North Dakota, how they behave in the environment and what their potential impacts are to exposed organisms because frankly right now we don’t really know how the stuff behaves, both types of oil, once it gets loose in the environment and we’re only beginning to understand what potential impacts there might be for the exposed communities.
Gary Shigenaka and Alan Mearns are scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. They responded to the Exxon Valdez spill 25 years ago.
File photo of the fish ladder at John Day Dam on the Columbia River. The fish ladders at the Wanapum and the Rock Island dams are dry. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The ongoing issue with the cracked Wanapum Dam in central Washington is now creating a problem for migrating salmon.
The drawdown of water between the Wanapum and the Rock Island dams to relieve pressure on the crack means the water levels are down about 25 feet at the base of both dams.
That leaves fish ladders high and dry.
Now, government fish scientists and engineers are trying to figure out just how to get adult salmon by both hulking concrete structures. At Wanapum, engineers plan to pump water into the fish ladder and create a sort of waterslide for salmon.
Russell Langshaw, a fisheries scientist with Grant County utility district that owns and operates Wanapum, says record numbers of fish are headed that way, so they have to get it figured out by mid-April.
“We have a lot of fish coming back this year, and we agree it’s an absolute necessity that we have safe and effective passage at both Wanapum and Rock Island dams.”
Langshaw says the smaller, juvenile fish are expected to be fine. They’re going downstream, and can move through the spillways and turbines.
Langshaw also says juvenile bypass systems are still operational at the Wanapum and the downstream Priest Rapids dam to help the small fish get downriver.
Team members of the 17 Mile Road Project included, from left, Leticia Black of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and Colette Friday, Nadine Vasquez and Wildene Trosper all of the Shoshone and Arapaho Department of Transportation. Photo provided by WyDOT
The Wyoming Department of Transportation’s 17 Mile Road Project Team will be recognized with a national award for its work on right-of-way issues during the final reconstruction on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials will recognize this group of state and federal workers and Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribal transportation officials with the 2014 Federal Highway Administration Excellence in Right-of-Way Leadership Honorable Mention Award.
The following individuals were recognized for their work: Kevin Lebeda of Cheyenne of WyDOT, Letitia Black of Bureau of Indian Affairs, Howard Brown of Shoshone and Arapaho DOT, Wildene Trosper of Shoshone and Arapaho DOT, Colette Friday of Shoshone and Arapaho DOT, Nadine Vasquez of Shoshone and Arapaho DOT, Nicole Brown of Shoshone and Arapaho DOT, Emily Underwood of Shoshone and Arapaho DOT.
WyDOT’s Right-of-Way Program in Cheyenne, Shoshone and Arapaho Department of Transportation, and U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs also were honored.
“Leadership qualities were magnified by everyone on the team,” said Tim Payne of Northern Engineering and Consulting of Arapahoe, who wrote the award nomination. “In order for all right-of-way issues to be resolved, every individual at one time or another spent a remarkable amount of energy, effort, perseverance and commitment to the greater good of the team.”
Award winners will be recognized during the AASHTO Subcommittee on Right-of-Way, Utilities, and Outdoor Advertising Council Control conference April 27 to May 1 in Salt Lake City.
“The FHWA Excellence in Right-of-Way Awards recognizes outstanding innovations that enhance the right-of-way professional’s ability to meet the challenges associated with acquiring real property for federal-aid projects,” said Gloria M. Shephard, associate administrator for planning, environmental and realty with the Federal Highway Administration in Washington, D.C.
Join NPCA on April 19, 2014 as we partner with other environmental groups to remove debris from Washington beaches. Household plastics, garbage and other manmade debris are polluting our ocean, killing our marine wildlife, and spoiling our beaches and collectively we can do something about it!
This is your opportunity to be a part of the largest coastal cleanup event of the year. Last year a combined 1,000 volunteers removed over 15 tons of oceanic garbage!
We will meet at the Kalaloch Campground Saturday morning and carpool to South Beach for coastal debris removal. Olympic National Park is providing free camping at Kalaloch Campground both Friday and Saturday evenings. The event organizers, CoastSavers, will host a barbeque cookout at the campground Saturday afternoon. We encourage everyone to stay and explore the breathtaking coastlines and rainforests found in this area.
Event Details WHAT: Washington Coastal Clean-Up 2013 hosted by CoastSavers. WHEN: The clean-up is Saturday, April 19 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. FREE camping will be available on Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19! WHERE: Kalaloch Beach, Olympic National Park. Meet at the Kalaloch Campground in the main parking lot. WHO: Anyone interested–-families welcome! RSVP: Please RSVP to Shannon Brundle, sbrundle@npca.org or 206.903.1444 ext. 704, by Monday, April 14.
OTHER INFO: Remember to bring your work gloves and camping gear if you plan to camp overnight. Food is provided on Saturday at the cookout; please bring your own food and water for the rest of your stay. Also, the free camping is limited and available on a first come, first served basis– plan ahead to make sure you have a site.
Greenberg Traurig LLP
Jeffrey Leacox, Martha A. Sabol and Parke D. Terry
USA March 20 2014
Two coalitions have introduced rival bills in the California Legislature marking a third year of debate among state lawmakers over how to license and regulate on-line poker.
Previous Internet gaming legislation stalled when stakeholders could not reach consensus on the scope of games, which entities would be permitted to apply for licenses, or how licensees and subcontractors would be vetted for suitability. Also at issue in the dueling bills is the extent to which the State will attempt to impose burdens on tribal sovereign immunity in connection with any online gaming activities.
Although some differences remain, there is a sense amongst observers of the legislature that there is an emerging consensus among some stakeholders that could allow a bill to move forward. Additionally, a change in the chairmanship of one of the key legislative committees that controls gaming-related bills brings a more favorable dynamic to the discussions. The new Chair of the Senate Governmental Organization Committee, Senator Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), is the author of one of the new bills (SB 1366) and has displayed willingness to understand and accommodate stakeholder concerns.
The Correa bill is backed by a coalition including the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians, the United Auburn Community, and the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, among others. The other bill (AB 2291) was introduced by Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), a relative newcomer to on-line gaming. AB 2291, has the support of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuila Indians, and the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, as well as others.
Both bills legalize on-line poker only, and require that all players be physically located within the state boundaries. Both bills limit operator licensing to: (i) federally-recognized California tribes that have conducted on-premises casino gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) for a minimum period of time or (ii) licensed card rooms that are in good standing with the California Gambling Control Commission. Both bills provide for expedited background checks for license applicants that currently operate tribal casinos or card rooms. Both bills also exclude racetracks and advance deposit wagering providers that were included as potential licensees in previous legislation.
Significant differences between the two bills include license application procedures, eligibility and suitability requirements for licensees and subcontractors, permitted methods for presenting poker games to players, the number of websites or online gaming portals each licensee may operate, and whether the state could opt-in to any future federal framework for regulating Internet gambling.
The two bills take different approaches to the ability of licensed operators to contract with game technology, marketing, or service providers that accepted on-line wagers from players in the U.S. after December 31, 2006, the date the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) became effective. As gaming purveyors have begun to partner with providers of on-line gaming technology and marketing services, those partnerships and service arrangements have also given rise to some controversy about what sorts of entities might be excluded from participation in on-line gaming under California law has become one of the most contentious unresolved issues.
The Correa measure requires a finding of unsuitability for persons or entities that knowingly and willfully accepted a bet on any form of Internet gambling not affirmatively authorized by U.S. law, or for persons or entities that held a direct or indirect financial interest in a person or entity accepting the bet. The Correa bill further prohibits a licensee from entering into an agreement with a third party for marketing purposes that utilizes any brand or business name, trademark, software, or technology of persons or entities that knowingly and willfully accepted bets on any form of Internet gambling from persons located in the U.S. after December 31, 2006. However, the Correa bill also permits the California Gambling Control Commission to grant waivers where the person or entity demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that it did not act in an unlawful manner.
Conversely, the Jones-Sawyer bill requires a finding of unsuitability, with no possibility of waiver, for persons or entities that accepted a wager from any person in California on any form of Internet gaming prior to an unspecified date. However, his bill does not prohibit a licensed operator from utilizing the brands, technology, or customer lists of persons or entities that would automatically be deemed unsuitable.
It is likely that both bills will be significantly amended as they work their way through the legislative process. The current legislative session is scheduled to end on August 31st and Governor Jerry Brown will have until September 30th to act on any bills reaching his desk.
With an estimated one million poker players residing within its boundaries, the Golden State would become by far the single largest Internet gaming market in the U.S. with gross poker wagers likely exceeding one billion dollars and generating potential state revenues of $250 to $400 million annually.
Sunny, high 50s, and just a light breeze: It’s a perfect California December morning for rock climbing at the Owens River Gorge and Alex Honnold has just offered to give me a belay — meaning, he’s offered to attend to the safety rope for me on a climb. The official reason I’m here is to get the scoop on Honnold’s environmental foundation. But, for a climber, getting offered a belay by Honnold is probably the closest thing we have to getting thrown a ball by Peyton Manning or LeBron James.
Because his crazy free-solo (climbing without ropes) ascents in places like Zion, Utah, and Yosemite, Calif., have landed him front-page features in Outside, National Geographic, and on 60 Minutes, Honnold has probably done more than anyone else to bring the historically fringe sport of climbing into the U.S. mainstream. When he started climbing full-time in 2005, he got used to living the dirtbag life of a rock-obsessed vagabond on about $8,000 a year. Now, the 28-year-old does stuff like star in commercials for Citibank and Dewar’s Scotch.
So, in considering whether to take him up on the offer to do the climb, I’m intimidated. I step back and tell myself I’m here to learn about what he’s up to away from the crag, anyway. Through his namesake foundation, he’s dropping some of his extra cash into environmental projects like Solar Aid and Grid Alternatives.
He’s bringing a can-do attitude to it, too: Instead of looking down at how far the planet could stumble, he’s looking for the next hold. “I feel like a lot of the traditional environmental stuff is sort of depressing,” he says. “You know, ‘the world is fucked, things are going downhill, we’re going to have to drastically change our lifestyles in order to keep the world from being so fucked.’ I’m not really that pessimistic by nature … There are so many solutions that only take, like, doing it,” Honnold says.
For now, he sees the next handhold as solar power, hence his next trip: a 2.5 week tour he’s embarking on Friday that will combine climbing desert towers, biking, and working for his foundation installing solar panels in Navajo Territory. The Honnold Foundation will work with Eagle Energy to install solar power systems into the homes of 30 Navajo elders who are currently living without access to electricity, and a total of 200 solar lights into five schools.
“There’s something like 18,000 households on reservations there that don’t have access to power,” Honnold told me over the phone recently. “And, in sunny Arizona, especially, solar is the ideal solution. It seems like we should be powering people who are on the grid with it, let alone people who are off the grid.”
For the record, I did suck it up and do the climb. Later in the day, a hush came over the crowded crag — everyone around me was looking up. There was Honnold, at the top of that same climb, totally solo.
Here’s some footage I took of Honnold on the climb:
Honnold and Wright leave for their trip on Friday. Look out for their movie Sufferfest 2.0about it next year.
Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.
Charles E. Russell Jr., 73 of Tulalip, WA passed away March 18, 2014. He was born April 5, 1940 to Charles and Ellen Russell in Coffeyville, Kansas. Charles worked as a Parts manager at Pacific Diesel. He married Marilyn Ross on July 7, 1958 and they were married for 53 years before she passing in 2011. He is survived by his daughter, Elizabeth Miller; brother, Roy Russell; five grandchildren, Randy Hudson Sr., Leta Hilliard, Michelle Miller, Sarah Miller, and John Miller; and eight grand-children, Shoshanah Hudson, Gracelyn Hudson, Randy”Moose” Hudson Jr., Jess Moses, Kiley Miller, Evalea Cortez, Angel Cortez, and Taleen Enick; and his cousins, Sam and David Shaw. He was also preceded in death by his daughter, Myra A. Hubbard; and brother, Larry Russell. Services will be held Friday, March 21, 2014 at 10:30 a.m. at the Tulalip Tribal Gym with burial following at Mission Beach Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Schaefer-Shipman Funeral Home.
