Tulalip News

Hundreds of Protesters Shut Down Oil & Gas Chemical Supplier to Protest Fracking

On the edge of the western mountain range, protesters with Croatan Earth First! are currently occupying an industrial manufacturing facility owned by Momentive and located at 114 Industrial Drive. North Carolinians, who have been fighting to prevent hydraulic fracturing from coming to central North Carolina are joined in this action by people from around the country who also oppose shale gas extraction nationwide. Momentive is one of the largest worldwide distributors of “resin coated proppants,” a necessary component for fracking. Each fracturing stage requires approximately 136 tonnes of proppants.

“We are here to send a message to the oil and gas industries: we will not stand idly by as you destroy this land, or any other, for your personal profit. Respect existence, or expect resistance,” said an Earth First! activist.

The North Carolina legislature plans to begin permitting frack sites as early as March 2015 in the Cumnock Shale Basin located underneath Lee, Moore, Chatham, and surrounding counties. Fracking has been tied to water aquifer contamination in Pavilion, Wyoming according to an EPA study and linked to high levels of methane in Pennsylvania water wells according to a study by Duke University. Researchers with Cornell University found that fracking operations nationwide released massive amounts of methane (a greenhouse gas) straight into the atmosphere, and concluded that, if not curbed, would speed climate change faster than carbon emissions.

The NC legislature is negotiating on the possibility of legalizing toxic wastewater injection in state or transporting it elsewhere. The process uses 1-8 million gallons of clean water each time a well is fracked.

“We are under drought conditions already, yet the oil and gas industry is allowed to pump millions of gallons of water out of our streams. This is devastating life in our rivers and streams. To make matters worse they send this water back into the riverways poisoned with radioactive materials,” said organizer Lydia Nickles. “Preserving our waters is preserving our lives and all life. We want an end to shale gas extraction everywhere.”

Activists with the Earth First! Movement are calling on people nationwide to resist fracking where they live and organize solidarity actions.

“Even if you don’t have a rig in your area to shut down, you can affect the industry. Momentive and other companies that create proppants for the gas industry have facilities nationwide as well as internationally. It’s time to disrupt the chain of supply. Go to www.frackindustry.org and organize to take action now!”

Momentive’s worldwide headquarters are located in Columbus, Ohio and other locations can be found online at: http://www.momentive.com/locations_home.aspx?id=293

A message from Croatan Earth First!: “We are acting in solidarity with and take inspiration from the courageous many who have been standing together to take action in the North Carolina capital during Moral Mondays, and we encourage everyone to continue to show our collective power, acting up against the repressive corporate and legislative powers for the liberation of all and the integrity of land, water and air.”

Global threat to food supply as water wells dry up, warns top environment expert

Iraq is among the countries in the Middle East facing severe water shortages. Photo: Ali al-Saadi/AFP

John Vidal, The Guardian

Wells are drying up and underwater tables falling so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, one of the world’s leading resource analysts has warned.

In a major new essay Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, claims that 18 countries, together containing half the world’s people, are now overpumping their underground water tables to the point – known as “peak water” – where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year.

The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: “Among the countries whose water supply has peaked and begun to decline are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. By 2016 Saudi Arabia projects it will be importing some 15m tonnes of wheat, rice, corn and barley to feed its population of 30 million people. It is the first country to publicly project how aquifer depletion will shrink its grain harvest.

“The world is seeing the collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a geographic region with nothing in sight to arrest the decline. Because of the failure of governments in the region to mesh population and water policies, each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed and less irrigation water with which to feed them.”

Brown warns that Syria’s grain production peaked in 2002 and since then has dropped 30%; Iraq has dropped its grain production 33% since 2004; and production in Iran dropped 10% between 2007 and 2012 as its irrigation wells started to go dry.

“Iran is already in deep trouble. It is feeling the effects of shrinking water supplies from overpumping. Yemen is fast becoming a hydrological basket case. Grain production has fallen there by half over the last 35 years. By 2015 irrigated fields will be a rarity and the country will be importing virtually all of its grain.”

There is also concern about falling water tables in China, India and the US, the world’s three largest food-producing countries. “In India, 175 million people are being fed with grain produced by overpumping, in China 130 million. In the United States the irrigated area is shrinking in leading farm states with rapid population growth, such as California and Texas, as aquifers are depleted and irrigation water is diverted to cities.”

Falling water tables are already adversely affecting harvest prospects in China, which rivals the US as the world’s largest grain producer, says Brown. “The water table under the North China Plain, an area that produces more than half of the country’s wheat and a third of its maize is falling fast. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, forcing well drillers to turn to the region’s deep aquifer, which is not replenishable.”

The situation in India may be even worse, given that well drillers are now using modified oil-drilling technology to reach water half a mile or more deep. “The harvest has been expanding rapidly in recent years, but only because of massive overpumping from the water table. The margin between food consumption and survival is precarious in India, whose population is growing by 18 million per year and where irrigation depends almost entirely on underground water. Farmers have drilled some 21m irrigation wells and are pumping vast amounts of underground water, and water tables are declining at an accelerating rate in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.”

In the US, farmers are overpumping in the Western Great Plains, including in several leading grain-producing states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Irrigated agriculture has thrived in these states, but the water is drawn from the Ogallala aquifer, a huge underground water body that stretches from Nebraska southwards to the Texas Panhandle. “It is, unfortunately, a fossil aquifer, one that does not recharge. Once it is depleted, the wells go dry and farmers either go back to dryland farming or abandon farming altogether, depending on local conditions,” says Brown.

“In Texas, located on the shallow end of the aquifer, the irrigated area peaked in 1975 and has dropped 37% since then. In Oklahoma irrigation peaked in 1982 and has dropped by 25%. In Kansas the peak did not come until 2009, but during the three years since then it has dropped precipitously, falling nearly 30%. Nebraska saw its irrigated area peak in 2007. Since then its grain harvest has shrunk by 15%.”

Brown warned that many other countries may be on the verge of declining harvests. “With less water for irrigation, Mexico may be on the verge of a downturn in its grain harvest. Pakistan may also have reached peak water. If so, peak grain may not be far behind.”

DNA study ties B.C. First Nations groups to ancient ancestors

By Scott Sutherland | Geekquinox – Thu, 4 Jul, 2013

Thanks to a team of researchers from Canada, the U.S. and China, First Nations groups living along the coast of British Columbia now have proof that they are the direct descendants of people who lived in the area up to 5,500 years ago or longer.

Anthropologist Ripan S. Malhi linked ancient and present-day First Nations groups in British Columbia

This research, led by University of Illinois anthropology professor Ripan S. Malhi, examined the mitochondrial DNA of people living in the area now and from Native American remains going back thousands of years.

Mitochondrial DNA is different from the DNA that resides in the nuclei of our cells. Firstly, it’s far more abundant, so even though DNA decays over time, having more of it gives scientists a better chance at being able to piece together more of the information. Also, mitochondrial DNA is solely passed from mother to child in humans, and since it doesn’t ‘recombine‘ — meaning it doesn’t exchange genetic information with other DNA — it remains roughly the same throughout the generations. Thus, the scientists were still able to compare the DNA from remains to people living in the region now, and find matches between them.

According to the study, matching mitochondrial DNA sequences (also called ‘mitochondrial genome’ or ‘mitogenome’) were found in three participants — the remains of a young woman who lived 5,500 years ago on the Lucy Islands, the remains of another woman who lived on Dodge Island around 2,500 years ago, and a woman currently living in the area. This DNA evidence shows that the living woman is the direct descendant of either these other two women, or of their mothers.

Another mitogenome from Dodge Island remains, from 5,000 years ago, were found to match three other living participants from the area.

“Having a DNA link showing direct maternal ancestry dating back at least 5,000 years is huge as far as helping the Metlakatla prove that this territory was theirs over the millennia,” said Barbara Petzelt, an author and participant in the study, according to a University of Illinois news release. TheMetlakatla are just one of the First Nations groups in the area, that are part of the Tsimshian, Haidaand Nisga’a people.

Studies done in the past have looked at a small number of mitochondrial DNA sequences (apparently less than 2%), but this is only the second study that looked at all mitogenomic sequences (the first was of an Inuit man who lived in Greenland between 3,400 to 4,500 years ago).

As Malhi points out, the introduction of European DNA — from European men producing children with Native American women — complicates DNA studies of the Native American population, but examining the mitochondrial DNA makes it much easier to see the purely Native American lineages.

“This is the beginning of the golden era for ancient DNA research because we can do so much now that we couldn’t do a few years ago because of advances in sequencing technologies,” Malhi said in the statement. “We’re just starting to get an idea of the mitogenomic diversity in the Americas, in the living individuals as well as the ancient individuals.”

[ More Geekquinox: New crime scene technology can find hidden fingerprints ]

One aspect of the study that helped with the DNA evidence was the rich oral history kept by these B.C. First Nation tribes, which trace family lineages back through the mother. So these histories could be directly compared to the results from the mitochondrial DNA.

“It’s very exciting to be able to have scientific proof that corroborates what our ancestors have been telling us for generations,” said Joycelynn Mitchell, a Metakatla co-author and participant in the study. “It’s very amazing how fast technology is moving to be able to prove this kind of link with our past.”

(Photo courtesy: L. Brian Stauffer/University of Illinois)

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Lacrosse, Shinney & Double Ball: How Games Can Beat Historical Trauma

Jack McNeel, Indian Country Today Media Network

Native games, neuroscience, and historical trauma–they sound like an odd trio but collectively may provide answers to problems across Indian country. Educators, researchers, and youngsters from Alberta, Saskatchewan, the western U.S. and Alaska, even as far away as Delhi, India gathered at the First International Traditional Native Games Conference in Pablo, Montana on June 26-28.

Gregory Cajete, Tewa from Santa Clara Pueblo and director of Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico, has authored five books dealing with Native games. “We see young children as they’re growing up, especially the first few years of their life. Everything is play. The human propensity to be athletic is a very integral part of natural forms of education. It’s also the way the brain develops.”

Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Washington State University, has studied games and their effect on the brain. “The most sophisticated emotion built into our brains is play,” he said. “If we take play out of the lives of our children we will have children that cannot grow up to be normal, vibrant, positive human beings that respect others and know how to interact with them. Play is the bridge to a full human life.”

The third element, historical trauma, is well documented among Indigenous Peoples. Native Americans have been subjected to it in many ways, including the period of boarding schools that altered tribal life–and tribal games. “Early on Native games were targeted to erase them,” Cajete said. “If you’re trying to subjugate a people you begin to go for those institutions that bring people together and have an influence in terms of how well they can be controlled. Native games were the focus of many agents at that time.”

A game of double ball elicits many smiles and much laughter. (Jack McNeel)

The loss of games at boarding schools was illustrated when 17 elders from the Blackfeet Nation were invited to watch as youngsters took part in some games, and to offer comments as tribal protocol dictates. In some cases the youngsters knew much more about the games than did the elders, most of whom had spent time in boarding schools during their early years.

Recovering and restoring those traditional games, getting them reintroduced in Native communities and in schools, is the goal of the International Traditional Games Society, hosts of the conference.

Young people, teens and pre-teens, came to the conference to learn and to compete in various games. Jeremy Red Eagle, Sioux, is a board member of the International Traditional Games Society. He brought 10 young people with him from Helena, Montana. “We focus on the positive things: our language, our ceremonies and culture, our song and dance-and our games.” Then Red Eagle commented on two weeks of traveling with these young people and how they were sticking together without fighting or arguments. “These games are the foundation of what started our youth program. These kids will be leaders in our communities.”

Many games are played on a field while many others can be played in a classroom or at home. Most are quite simple and can be played with materials readily available: rocks, limbs, sticks, balls of buckskin or yarn. The list goes on. Some are games of skill or endurance while others may be of intuition.

Lacrosse seemed to be the game of choice but shinney was not far behind. Double ball is another favorite, somewhat similar to the other two but using straight sticks with double balls made of two stuffed pouches and joined together by a short band, usually of tanned buckskin.

Nicole Johnston, Inupiaq, chairs the World Eskimo Indian Olympics. She brought two young athletes to the conference to demonstrate games played in the far north. She is also a record holder in the women’s two-foot high kick. Their games are all designed for survival in the arctic north and thus very different from those which originated farther south.

The World Eskimo Indian Olympics ear pull event (Courtesy World Eskimo Indian Olympics)

The youth who participated in the games were honored at the final ceremony. Gifts were distributed including sets for shinney and double ball The visitors from Alaska gave gifts of an Indian stick pull stick and a kick-ball to the host organization.

President Ted Nugent? We Have Nothing to Fear But… uh, Everything!

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

On news today that rocker Ted Nugent, the Motor City Madman, may run for president in 2016, ICTMN asks one question: How would a President Nuge be for Indian country?

Well, we know he’d protect your Second Amendment rights.

And as ICTMN reported in April, he’s boldy stated his credentials for being an authoritative voice for Indian country (albeit in defense of his supporting the Washington Redskins logo). “Because of my clean and sober, hands-on conservation bowhunting lifestyle and song ‘The Great White Buffalo,’ Native American tribes have invited me to teach their young people how to reconnect with the land and teach them how to bow hunt the mighty American bison. It was in their midst that I learned firsthand about the terrible problems facing my Indian BloodBrothers.”

He’s also this guy. Not looking very presidential. But very intense. Edward Snowden would never have gotten away if there was a President Nuge.

Read The Washington Post Magazine article that moves the Nuge into contention for 2016 HERE.

Leaders Praise Supreme Court Decision to Uphold Voting Rights

Tanya Lee, Indian Country Today Media Network

Tribal leaders in Arizona praised the Supreme Court’s June 17 decision to strike down Arizona’s Proposition 200, which effectively restricted the voting rights of American Indians in the state.

The Hopi Tribe, the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and other groups in the voting rights case, Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, were represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which characterized the Arizona law as a “state voter suppression measure.” The law would have required potential voters present proof of citizenship in order to register to vote by mail.

Hopi Tribal Chairman LeRoy N. Shingoitewa says the tribe took the case to the country’s highest court because “no tribal member should be required to come in and say, ‘I’m a citizen of the United States.’ We’ve always been here. Many tribal members were born in homes. Many have no birth certificate. It’s not right for anyone to deny us the right to vote.”

Yavapai-Apache Nation Tribal Councilwoman Lorna Hazelwood also welcomes the ruling. “As a sovereign Indian tribe in Arizona, we recognize that the Supreme Court’s ruling on voter’s rights is a victory for Arizona tribes. Our people have been challenged for decades in engaging in the voting process, just based on the historical segregation of demographics. The 2004 voter approved Prop 200, continued to further discourage election participation of our people. The Supreme Court’s decision eliminating this provision is commended and welcomed by our Tribal Leader’s and eliminates the discouragement and challenges of our tribal voters.”

On the other hand, Gila River Indian Community Gov. Gregory Mendoza says that the ruling, while allowing “voter registration drives and individual registrations to continue without eligible voter registrants being burdened with providing documentation of citizenships,” still leaves open the possibility of voter discrimination. “The Court provided that Arizona cannot require individuals registering to vote to provide evidence of citizenship when they register [to vote] using a federal form. Nevertheless, the state can require individuals to prove their citizenship with documents such as a driver’s license or passport when registering with a state form…. The ruling left in place a dual-registration system; a federal system and a state system. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Community members predominately use the state form.”

Gov. Mendoza’s concern that voter discrimination could continue in Arizona was underscored when on June 25, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Shelby County v. Holder. Shelby County, Alabama, argued that the special circumstances under which the federal government assumed the authority to approve changes to state voting procedures, among them lower voter turnout among minorities, specifically African Americans, no longer exist 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Justice Clarence Thomas, in an opinion concurring with the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, wrote, “Regardless of how one looks at that record, no one can fairly say that it shows anything approaching the ‘pervasive,’ ‘flagrant,’ ‘widespread,’ and ‘rampant’ discrimination that clearly distinguished the covered jurisdictions from the rest of the nation in 1965.”

The court, in its 5-4 decision, agreed and struck down the part of the law that determined what criteria would be used to put a state under federal oversight in regard to voting rights in elections for everything from choosing a U.S. president to choosing local school board members.

In their dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justices Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote that “second-generation barriers,” such as gerrymandering district boundaries to put a majority of whites in each voting district and at-large voting, which dilutes the voting power of minorities, still exist. They noted that “between 1982 and 2006, DOJ [U.S. Department of Justice] objections blocked over 700 voting changes based on a determination that the changes were discriminatory.”

Arizona was among the nine states that were covered by the Voting Rights Act and that had to seek preclearance before it could make any changes to its voting procedures, which included how districts were drawn, where polling places were located and when they were open. That is no longer the case. What the Supreme Court gave with one hand, it may have taken back with the other.

Tribal Membership Revocations: Dialing For Dollars?

Article By:

Dennis J. Whittlesey

Patrick Sullivan

Dickinson Wright PLLC

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Over the past several years, there have been a series of publicized tribal enrollment revocations of enrolled members – including former tribal leaders – and their entire families. While this phenomenon was extremely rare in the past, it is becoming increasingly and disturbingly common.

Many in Indian Country openly trace this activity from the date on which the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act became law in 1988 and tribes too often spending large amounts of their casino revenues in per capita payments to tribal members. In some cases, as tribal populations grew, revenue distributions were accordingly reduced to continue payments to all members. In other cases, the economic downturn that dates back to 2007-08 led to reduced casino revenues and, in turn, reduced individual payments. Still, many have linked dollar reductions in per capita payments to the increase in expelling members.

These facts are well reported and discussed below in some detail. The casual reader will ask how this could be possible, or even legal. Various legal challenges to disenrollments have been unsuccessful, whether they directly challenge the tribes themselves or seek to compel the Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”) to intervene.

Tribal Challenges usually are made in the face of tribal sovereign immunity and are routinely dismissed. While the federal Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 ostensibly offers legal protections to the victims of enrollment revocations, the reality is that the law is toothless and is not the vehicle through which individual Indians have gained much of anything in the way of rights protection.

BIA Challenges are the alternative, and they involve asking the BIA to intervene to protect the rights of those being banished from their tribal membership, but that agency officially takes the position that the issue of tribal membership is purely a tribal matter and not something in which the federal government will – or even should – become involved.

It is worth noting that the BIA has interceded in enrollment disputes in some unusual cases, the most noteworthy of which is probably that of the Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of Amador County, California. The Buena Vista is a recognized tribe that until a few years ago consisted of one adult named Donnamarie Potts. For reasons that are not altogether clear, the BIA examined Ms. Potts’s status as a descendant to the single Indian family formerly residing on the Buena Vista Rancheria and concluded that she has no ancestral tie to the land and, accordingly, was not a lawful member of the recognized Rancheria tribe. Indeed, the BIA concluded that a second adult named Rhonda Morningstar Pope was the sole adult descendant of the resident Indian family and thus the only person entitled to lawful tribal membership in the Rancheria tribe. As a result of that BIA administrative action, Potts was removed and Pope’s family has subsequently constituted the entire tribal membership.

It is also worth noting that the Rancheria tribe has been attempting to develop a casino on the former Rancheria lands for some 10 years but without success as of this date.

Possible Connections Between Tribal Casino Revenues and Membership Revocations

While there are a number of tribes that have disenrolled members, these writers are not aware of any non-gaming tribes that have done so. Disenrollments are reality, but an established connection between reduced casino revenue distributions and disenrollments is somewhat hypothetical. Nonetheless, examining the facts is enlightening.

For the purposes of this article, it is useful to examine the three tribes currently embroiled in “enrollment reductions” that have received the greatest attention. They are (1) the Pala Band of Mission Indians of California, (2) the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians of California, and (3) the Nooksack Tribe of Washington. They all have operated tribal casinos for a number of years. They all have been making per capita payments to tribal members. They all have disenrolled hundreds of members over the past several years. And they all apparently began disenrolling members shortly after experiencing downturns in casino cash flow that finance the members’ distributions.

The question is whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between revenue declines and revocations of membership. The known facts speak for themselves, as does the high level of acrimony now infecting each tribe. However, in each case, the tribes are relying on conclusions as to enrollment entitlement that the BIA has the expertise and experience to determine, but declines to do so. The professional historians and genealogists at the Department of the Interior could resolve the disputes with finality, just as they did at the Buena Vista Rancheria. Thus far, they have elected to do nothing, leaving tribes in chaos and disenrolled members in distress.

Pala Band of Mission Indians

The Pala Indian Reservation is in Southern California, and it houses the Pala Casino which opened in 2001. The casino has been immensely successful, to the point that each tribal member currently receives about $150,000 in per capita payments annually from gaming revenues, as well as housing subsidies, health care, and educational benefits. When the casino’s revenues dropped in 2012, the Tribe’s per capita payments dropped by $500 per month, and the membership grew disenchanted with the decline in each member’s income. The drop in revenue resulted in financial pressure on members who relied on the payments, with the result that a long-simmering membership dispute flared into open hostility and ultimately a massive disenrollment revoking the membership of one-sixth of the Tribe’s population.

The Tribe’s membership rules require at least 1/16 Pala ancestry. Such “blood quantum” membership rules necessarily lead to an evershrinking tribal membership as members frequently marry outside the tribe. The dispute centered on a single woman named Margarita Britten, who is an ancestor of all of the disenrolled members. The Pala Executive Committee determined on its own that Britten’s father was white and not Pala, meaning that all members tracing their Pala ancestry solely to Britten as a great-great-grandparent went from 1/16 to 1/32 Pala blood and no longer qualified for membership. With that decision, more than 160 Pala members were disenrolled, an action that cut off per capita payments, as well as access to health care and all other tribal benefits. Tensions continue to run high on the reservation, with the disenrolled claiming the decision was made solely to prop up per capita payments, while members not affected respond that the disenrollment was an overdue resolution of a preexisting problem.

As for appeals, the Pala leadership took care of that by terminating what might have been a venue for the ousted members to seek judicial relief. In California, tribes may voluntarily settle disputes in the Intertribal Court of Southern California, a tribal “circuit court” providing a neutral forum for appeals of tribal decisions. The Pala Executive Committee voted to withdraw from that court before enacting the disenrollments, so the decision was never subject to review in that court.

The Pala enrollment case was closed before it even was ripe for hearing in that court.

Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians

In Northern California’s Madera County, the Chukchansi Indians operate Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino, a popular and profitable operation conveniently located on a major gateway route to Yosemite National Park. While the Chukchansi per capita payments are small, they are supplemented by tribal payments covering utility and food bills, as well as academic tuition.

Chukchansi has reportedly disenrolled at least 400 members in the past five years, reducing the total membership to less than 1,000. The acrimony over the financial situation has grown so toxic that three separate factions are struggling for control of the tribe after a disputed election and continuing disenrollments.

Last year, then Tribal Council Chairman Reggie Lewis and his supporters voted to disenroll dozens of tribe members. Subsequently, Lewis lost his reelection to Morris Reid in December 2012, but he contested the results on the basis that Reid was ineligible to run. Later that same month, in a chaotic tribal council meeting, Lewis refused to seat the new members, announced that he would remain Chairman until a new election was held, and changed the locks on the tribal government offices. In February, a “tribal referendum” elected Council member Nancy Ayala as Chair and removed Lewis from the Council. Supporters of Reid broke into the tribal offices and refused to leave. Lewis’s supporters responded by cutting power to the building and throwing a smoldering log and bear spray inside to forcibly eject them. The Madera County Sheriff observed the activity but did not act, citing a lack of jurisdiction. On the following day, the scene erupted into a violent melee, prompting the Sheriff to intervene along with more than 100 officers from various law enforcement agencies.

Since then, the Tribe has remained in turmoil. In March, the casino’s bank froze the Tribe’s gaming revenue funds due to an inability to determine rightful control over the account, and in the process halted bond payments and put the Tribe in danger of default on its $300 million obligation to lenders. In May, the BIA rejected grant proposals filed by Reid on the basis that he was not a rightful representative of the Chukchansi Tribal Council. An April tribal referendum reinstated Lewis and removed Ayala. However, in June, the BIA administratively recognized Ayala as Chairperson and Lewis as Vice Chairman, although the two continued to wage their very public dispute. Ayala sought an injunction in federal court to cut off Lewis’s access to the bank account and force the bank to continue to pay bondholders, but the federal judge did not intervene, citing a lack of jurisdiction over the matter. It remains to be seen how the painful dispute will end.

In the latest development, a Madera County Judge cited a specific tribal waiver of sovereign immunity and ordered the County Sheriff to enter the Chukchansi casino and physically remove cash to pay a former casino manager owed $725,000 under a settlement of a suit resulting from his termination before his contract expired. Ayala’s faction has vowed to fight the “till tap,” and no per capita payments are currently being distributed.

Nooksack Indian Tribe

In Washington State, the 2,000-member Nooksack Indian Tribe is near the Canadian border, almost 100 miles north of Seattle. In February, six of the eight members of the Tribal Council, including the Chairman, voted to commence disenrollment proceedings against 306 Nooksack members, including the two tribal council members who did not vote in favor of the action.

The Nooksack disenrollees are descendants of a woman named Annie George. Tribal membership rules require that members either (1) trace ancestry to those appearing on a 1942 tribal census, or those who received allotments of tribal land, or (2) prove that they possess 1/4 Indian blood and any degree of Nooksack ancestry. George’s name did not appear on either list, and her descendants must go before the Tribal Council and present evidence of their claim. The disenrollees appealed the Tribal Council’s decision to the Nooksack Tribal Court, asking for an injunction to the disenrollment, but the Chief Judge denied the injunction citing the Tribe’s sovereign immunity from suit and deferring to the Tribal Council’s broad authority over membership matters.

Shortly after voting to disenroll the 306 members, the Council voted to initiate an election to amend the Nooksack Constitution to “close a loophole” and remove the second path to Nooksack membership. This change clearly would further obstruct the disenrollees’ claims. After the BIA approved the election, the two disenrolled Tribal Council members sought to enjoin the election in federal court, but the Judge declined to stop the election citing the lack of “applicable law” making it unlawful for the Nooksack Tribe to define its membership by race or ancestry. The Constitutional amendment went to a vote of the entire Nooksack membership, the outcome of which has not been announced as of this date.

Concrete Indians Working Hard to Find Work

Duane Champagne, Indian Country Today Media Network

More than two-thirds of American Indians are now living off reservation in urban areas. During World War II, many Indians migrated to urban areas to contribute to manufacturing during the war effort. During the subsequent Cold War period and U.S. economic expansion, Indians were attracted to urban areas, and supported by Bureau of Indian Affairs relocation programs.

Most reservation Indians migrate to urban areas because they need employment to support themselves and their families. Some research indicates that many Indian migrants would remain at their home reservations, if there were enough jobs.

Like most urban migrants, many Indians do not plan to stay in urban places and often maintain ties to their reservation communities. Many return to the reservation to visit during the summers, and many often return for ceremonies. Moving to an urban area does not necessarily mean that tribal members have forgotten their communities and tribal nations.

How well are urban Indians doing? There is no systematic national data about the economic well-being of urban Indians. For the last couple of decades researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles and Indian community members within Los Angeles urban Indian organizations have carried on analysis of Indian employment based on U.S. Census data for Los Angeles County. Census data is one of the few places where systematic information about urban Indian employment can be found. In the last Census count of 2010, the data suggest that urban Indians in Los Angeles are among the working poor. The participation of Indians in the Los Angeles County labor force is about 60 percent, and similar to other ethnic groups.

However, American Indians show higher rates of unemployment and have average salaries that are less than half the salaries of non-Hispanic white workers. Los Angeles County urban Indian workers have significantly less job security and are significantly less rewarded for their efforts. Indian workers are willing to work, but often are last hired and first fired, and on average make about $22,000 annual salary. The low level of financial remuneration makes life difficult for many Los Angeles urban Indians because the cost of living in Los Angeles is high.

In contrast to the stereotype of lazy Indian workers, Los Angeles Indian workers are willing to work, but face problems getting and maintaining employment, and find that the economic rewards for working are relatively minimal. Poverty rates for Indians in Los Angeles County are about 22 percent, which are similar to other traditional urban ethnic minorities such as blacks and Latinos.

However, the lower the poverty rates on reservations, which are often above 30 percent, and significantly higher than in urban areas. Urban Indians may be doing better economically on average than reservation Indians, but the economic circumstances for urban Indians, based on the Los Angeles data, suggest urban Indians are struggling economically. While there is a significant urban Indian business community in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, and an emergent middle class, it sometimes takes generations before Indians move up the economic ladder.

The urban area continues to hold a relative economic attraction for reservation Indians. In economic terms, life in urban areas may be better than on reservation, and reservation Indians continue to look for employment in urban areas. The significant employment difficulties for Indians in the urban economic environment suggests why many Indians would prefer to remain on their home reservations, if there was sufficient employment. Tribal communities offer social, cultural and political support, but often offer few stable or enduring economic opportunities. Indian workers are pushed to relatively difficult economic lives in urban areas. The future of tribal nations will depend on culture, community, and political sovereignty, but jobs and economic opportunity for tribal members will play a major role in keeping Indian workers and talent at home and in the service of tribal nations.

Plan on spending more to ride state ferries

Bill Sheets, The Herald

Come October, and again in May 2014, it could cost more to ride the ferry.

The state is planning increases on all routes to meet its budget for the next two years.

The cash-strapped system must raise $328 million in fares for 2013-2015, according to the state Transportation Commission — about 6 percent more than it’s collected the past two years.

If approved, passenger fares would rise 2 percent and vehicle fares would rise 3 percent on Oct. 1. Passenger fares would rise another 2 percent and vehicle fares 2.5 percent on May 1, 2014. Increases would be higher for routes in the San Juan Islands.

For a car, pickup or SUV (between 14 and 22 feet long) and driver, for example, the one-way, low-season fare for the Mukilteo-Clinton route would increase from its current $7.85 to $8.10 in October and $8.30 next May.

For Edmonds-Kingston, the fare would rise from $13.15 to $13.55 to $13.90.

For Coupeville-Port Townsend, the change would go from $10.20 to $10.50 to $10.75.

Other changes would reduce fares to reward riders who take up less space on the boats. For example, fare for cars under 14 feet will be charged 70 percent of the vehicle fare charged for standard vehicles.

The oversize motorcycle surcharge would be eliminated. Those who currently pay the surcharge would, depending on their motorcycle’s size, pay either the under-14-feet vehicle fare or the motorcycle fare.

Also, the youth discount would be become half price of a full fare, a bigger savings from the current 20 percent discount.

Members of the Ferry Advisory Committee on Tariffs, made up of riders and other interested parties, had input on the plan, according to the ferry commission.

A series of public hearings are planned and a decision is scheduled for July 30. The hearings nearest to Snohomish County are scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday in at the Island County Courthouse Annex, 1 NE Sixth St., Coupeville, and 6 to 8 p.m. July 15 at the Bainbridge Island Commons Senior Center, 402 Brien Drive.

Written comments will be accepted at transc@wstc.wa.gov, on the web at [URL]http://tinyurl.com/lou9m42;http://www.wstc.wa.gov/ContactUs/feedback.htm[URL] and over the phone at 360-705-7070.

For more information, go to the commission’s website [/URL]http://tinyurl.com/l9pox2v;http://www.wstc.wa.gov/WhatsNew/FerryFareRateSettingPublicOutreach.htm[URL].

Can bringing wetlands back to our coasts protect us from future megastorms?

ShutterstockBeach house in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Far Rockaway, N.Y.

By Jared Green, Source: Grist

Kevin Shanley says too many cities have an outdated approach to storm protection that makes them vulnerable to the coming mega-storms. The CEO of SWA Group, an international landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm, Shanley is an advocate of using “green infrastructure” — human-made systems that mimic natural ones — as bulwarks.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, people are taking note. Some experts believe New York City would not have sustained such severe damage had the original wetlands that lined the coasts not been uprooted by development. In fact, some parts of Staten Island remained relatively unscathed because they were protected by the massive Fresh Kills Park and its wetlands.

What’s needed, Shanley says, are policy shifts “rooted in a natural system-approach that work with nature’s tremendous forces.” Beyond policy changes though, Shanley has also worked on projects, in Texas and elsewhere, that show how these human-made systems could work. But he cautions that more research is needed if communities’ lives and livelihoods are to rely on human-made nature.

Shanley was recently in Washington, D.C., speaking at the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation on improving the resiliency of our coasts in an effort to protect them from increasingly damaging storms and sea-level rise brought on by climate change. I caught up with him there.

Q. What were the lessons of Hurricane Sandy?

A. There are real-world lessons and then “should-be” lessons. The real-world lesson is that everybody is at risk. These storms don’t just happen to Florida or Bangladesh. They can hit New York City. The storm could have hit Washington, D.C., with disastrous results. We’re not ready.

The other lesson we need to learn is quite important: We forget really quickly. Katrina happened, now eight years ago. Some structural changes were made to the levee system, but all of the really great plans to rebuild New Orleans as a more sustainable community, a better community, a more integrated community came to nothing.

The key is finding a way to rebuild strategically and learn lessons from these disasters to shape our future plans.

Q. New York City’s new climate adaptation plans calls for both “hard” infrastructure, like seawalls, and “soft,” green infrastructure. In a recent Metropolis magazine piece, Susannah Drake described soft infrastructure as “transforming the waterfront from a definitive boundary into a subtly graded band.” How well will this work?

A. Soft green infrastructure along coastal fringe areas can play a really important role in restoring ecological functions to our coastlines. Our coastlines have been severely degraded from an ecological point of view. But using these systems to protect urban areas needs really serious science and engineering studies. Just how effective is a coastal marsh of several hundred yards wide? We’re not talking about miles wide. We’re talking probably several hundred yards or hundreds of feet. What is the benefit to, say, Manhattan? Can we take a blended approach to soften our edges and create redundant and resilient strategies?

I’ve seen some beautiful renderings of the edge of Manhattan as it could be. There would be dramatic changes in ecological performance and a transformation in public perception about the city as a green place. There are a lot of wonderful aspects to this. But from a surge and hurricane risk-protection standpoint, we need to be careful not to set up false expectations. To what extent do coastal marshes protect us when a surge comes in that is 15 or 20 feet above those marshes? The green infrastructure could impede the wave action and the movement of the water, or even exacerbate the run-up of a surge in shallow waters. The Gulf Coast of the North American continent has a long, shallow coastal run-up, which tends to exacerbate wind-driven surge.

Also, rising water levels drown coastal marshes. That’s what has happened in the Galveston Bay complex in Texas. Because of subsidence caused by groundwater withdrawal, we lost square miles of emergent coastal marsh. The bottom dropped out and it drowned the marshes. One can say, “Well, the marsh will just march inland.” Well, will it? Does the actual geography allow it to just march inward? These are important questions.

Q. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to spend $400 million to buy up homes in New York City, demolish them, and then preserve the flood-prone land as undeveloped coastline. Does this approach make sense?

A. It’s a potentially very powerful tool. Speaking globally, the British and Dutch have been at it for decades. It’s called “managed retreat.” It’s about getting out of harm’s way. FEMA has been funding buyouts like that for a while now. It’s a really good program to remove the most at-risk structures, particularly federally insured structures that time after time are repeat sinks for federal flood insurance claims.

What needs to be thought about, however, if you’re talking about scaling it up, is how to replace the economic value of the development that’s being removed from harm’s way. There are sales taxes based on the occupants, all kinds of revenue to the community. This revenue pays for schools, sewer systems, security, and all of the other things that we take for granted in government. Coastal real estate is expensive because it’s attractive. If you take that out of the equation, you’ve got to be ready to think how to replace that.

That’s the challenge facing all of us. Great ecological strategies need to be considered economically, and vice versa.

Q. Respected scientists argue that sea levels could rise four feet by 2100. How does this change the timeline for action on improving coastal resiliency?

A. Sea-level rise is like watching the hour hand move. We are like grammar school students: The hour hand doesn’t seem to move during class. Our time horizons are measured in just a few years at best. If we’re forward-thinking, we might think out 10 years. Will public policymakers be able to think out beyond a year or even 10 years to 100-year thresholds? The dialogue is there, but I don’t see it coming down to meet real public policy changes yet.

Q. What’s holding back these policy shifts? Where are the biggest obstacles at the federal and local levels?

A. The biggest obstacle is the lack of public awareness … there needs to be clear communication about the risks. That can be through things like flood insurance rate maps, but it also needs to be through public education and policy. There needs to be clear disclosure on every real estate transaction. There was an effort in the Clear Lake City area, which is in the Houston metro region where NASA’s Johnson Space Center is located. They actually put up signs, little colored pylons, that indicated “This is the water level for a category four storm. This is the water level for a category five storm.” You see it there and you would wonder, “Gee, should I buy a house here?” or certainly “Gee, should I make sure I renew my flood insurance?” A local politician, at the behest of the real estate community, insisted they be taken down.

Q. The Buffalo Bayou Promenade in Houston really set the example for how to turn a trash-soaked eyesore into a beautiful piece of parkland that also supports flood control. What led to the changes in Houston’s approach to its waterways and green space?

A. In Houston, the new riverfront has been the result of years of work by lots of individuals, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. Each main bayou in the city has its own citizen advocacy organizations. Some of them are fairly significant and have permanent staff, whereas others are purely volunteer citizen groups. There have been willing ears in the public agencies. More recently, there has been support at an elected official-level, including a very supportive mayor right now. That’s very encouraging. But we have a long ways to go. We’re just starting on this effort. We have 2,000 miles of open stream channels in Harris County alone, so we’re just beginning.

Q. You’ve done a lot of work in China. What is your impression about how the Chinese are approaching coastal resiliency? Is there a uniquely Chinese approach to these issues that we can learn from in the West?

A. The country is doing great wetlands restoration projects. Wetland parks are all the rage across China. Kongjian Yu, FASLA, principal at Turenscape and professor at Beijing University, probably has a dozen wetland parks on his desk in his office at any given time. We’re working on a number of them. It puts to shame anything we’re doing here. On the other hand, one has to balance that against the unbelievable rate of urbanization and its impact on the environment in China. It’s maybe only a drop in the bucket toward mitigating the impacts of urbanization that are going on right now.

You take the whole climate issue in China. China’s doing some of the most progressive carbon-capture energy production in the world. For a while, they were the largest producer of solar cells. They’re the largest producer of wind generating equipment. There are all these sort of extremes of what they are doing. Yet in the global sense, they’re producing more carbon dioxide than anybody on a more rapid basis. They’re increasing their carbon and energy footprints. They’re still below us on a per-capita basis, but they’re working very hard to catch up to our own huge footprints. So you will find a really mixed bag in China.

What can we learn from China? We ought to be studying what they are doing right and trying to learn from their successes. To the extent they’re interested in partnering so they can learn from us, we ought to be sharing those solutions with them. It’s a wild ride, like a rollercoaster, and one whose end we can’t see from our vantage point.