March 2014 - Page 3 of 19

California drought has migrating salmon hitching truck rides

By Michael B. Marois

Bloomberg News March 25, 2014

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California began hauling 30 million young chinook salmon hundreds of miles toward the Pacific Ocean in tanker trucks to save the fishing industry after a record drought left rivers too low for migration.

Three climate-controlled trucks, each bearing 130,000 silvery three-inch smolts, left a federal hatchery 180 miles north of San Francisco on Tuesday for a sloshy, three-hour drive to San Pablo Bay, where they are held in netted pens to acclimate before release. Officials had said they might need as many as four vehicles.

Visitors walk over Salmon Falls Bridge, normally submerged, at Folsom Lake in California last month. California began hauling 30 million young chinook salmon hundreds of miles toward the Pacific Ocean in tanker trucks to save the fishing industry after a record drought left rivers too low for migration.KEN JAMES — BLOOMBERG NEWS — Visitors walk over Salmon Falls Bridge, normally submerged, at Folsom Lake in California last month. California began hauling 30 million young chinook salmon hundreds of miles toward the Pacific Ocean in tanker trucks to save the fishing industry after a record drought left rivers too low for migration.
KEN JAMES — BLOOMBERG NEWS

“Water conditions, because of the drought, are going to be horrible for the fish,” said Harry Morse of the state Fish and Wildlife Department. “Depending on how far those fish have to go, the longer they must travel through the system, the higher the losses.”

The fish taxi is the latest in a series of emergency steps that state and federal authorities are rushing into place as reservoirs ebb one-third below normal and farmers idle thousands of acres. Gov. Jerry Brown has called for a voluntary 20 percent cut in water use and many areas have declared mandatory restrictions. More than 800 wildfires have broken out since Jan. 1, three times more than usual, according to state records, and smog in Los Angeles is worse without winter rains to clear the air.

California’s 38 million people endured the driest year on record last year. The most-populous state has only about a quarter of the average amount of water in mountain snow that melts in the spring to fill lakes and rivers.

The hatchery fish that typically migrate through the Sacramento River Delta to the sea are key to the state’s $1.5 billion commercial and recreational fishing industry, according to the Nature Conservancy. Fish released now will be part of the population that can be harvested in a few years.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, which helps set fishing seasons, predicted earlier this month that more than 630,000 fall-run Chinook salmon from the delta are in the Pacific Ocean now. That’s less than last year but more than enough for a normal commercial fishing season, the council said.

The lack of rainfall means that the Sacramento River will prove too shallow and too warm for the tiny fish to survive the 200 to 300 miles of river and tributaries some must navigate to reach the Pacific.

Convoys of four to seven trucks daily will make the trip from the federal hatchery for 22 days during the next two and a half months. In all, 12 million juvenile fish will be taxied from there, along with 18 million raised in four state-owned hatcheries in June. When released from the pens, the tiny fish will migrate to the ocean and mature. They return to the rivers as an adult to spawn.

“Our 2016 fishing season may be riding on the survival of the fish in these trucks,” said Roger Thomas, chairman of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, an advocacy group based in Petaluma. “We know that fish trucked around dangers lurking in the rivers and delta survive at much higher rates than those released at the hatcheries.”

While the state usually trucks some of its hatchery fish to the ocean, this year’s haul will be about three times the usual. It costs California taxpayers $1,500 a week to rent the tanker trucks, and the state expects to spend $150,000 on trucking, including fuel costs, Morse said.

The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation said last month that it won’t be able to deliver any of the more than 2.4 million acre-feet of water requested by farmers in California’s Central Valley, the state’s most productive agricultural region. An acre-foot is the volume needed to cover an acre of land one foot deep with water.

The Bureau of Reclamation supplies water to 1 million people and a third of the irrigated farmland in California through a 500-mile network of canals and tunnels.

About two-thirds of Californians get at least part of their water from northern mountain rains and snow through a network of state-managed reservoirs and aqueducts known as the State Water Project, which also has said it won’t be able to deliver any of the water requested.

The California Farm Water Coalition said March 17 that farmers probably will fallow as much as 800,000 acres of land because of the lack of water at a cost of $7.5 billion.

16 and pregnant in the Choctaw Nation

Stormy Davidson with her son Aiden in Rattan, Okla. She, and her husband Glen were teenagers when she got pregnant, they have had a characteristically up and down relationship. Ultimately Glen decided to take responsibility for their child and now counsels other young teenage fathers, an underserved demographic in the Choctaw Nation communities.Photo by Peter van Agtmael/Magnum for MSNBC — Stormy Davidson with her son Aiden in Rattan, Okla. She, and her husband Glen were teenagers when she got pregnant, they have had a characteristically up and down relationship. Ultimately Glen decided to take responsibility for their child and now counsels other young teenage fathers, an underserved demographic in the Choctaw Nation communities.
Photo by Peter van Agtmael/Magnum for MSNBC

03/24/14 msnbc.com

By Trymaine Lee

QUINTON, Okla.— “He’s still not talking yet,” said Autumn Sisco, staring down at the beefy little boy in the Buzz Lightyear sweatshirt playing at her feet. She scooped him up and swiped at his runny nose with her shirt sleeve.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she said, sinking back into her living room sofa, watching the two-year-old bounce like a pinball across the living room floor to the kitchen, down a hallway and back.

This isn’t what her life is supposed to look like. She’d imagined herself a college co-ed, partying somewhere with a drink in her hand, giggling with girlfriends, or pulling an all-nighter for an exam she didn’t study for.

Instead she’s an underemployed 19-year-old mother and wife, struggling to keep her young marriage together and raise a kid in a small rural town where opportunities are few and disappointments are many.

“Trouble,” she lamented quietly. “You’re always in trouble here. There’s nothing positive.”

Life as a teen mom could be difficult under any circumstances. But it’s even more so here in the Choctaw Nation, a vast, rural expanse in southeastern Oklahoma where poverty and unemployment are rampant and the teen pregnancy rate is nearly double the national average.

While the teen birth rate has fallen drastically among all racial groups over the last two decades, the pregnancy rate for American Indian teens between 15 and 19 years old is 36.2 per 1,000, 15 points higher than their white counterparts and about 5 points higher than the national average, according to the Center for Disease Control. American Indian teens also lead all other groups in the rate of repeat births.

With so many young parents in the Choctaw Nation— an area larger than the state of Massachusetts— tribal leaders have made outreach to teen parents a priority. Those efforts were given a boost recently when the Obama administration designated the Choctaw Nation one of its first five Promise Zones, a program aimed at strengthening the relationship between impoverished communities and the federal government.

The tribe hopes to use the designation to access grants they’ll use to bolster some of the work they’ve already been doing, particularly around youth and families.

“What we’re doing isn’t just about changing today’s parents,” said Angela Dancer, senior director of the Better Beginnings Program, which serves at-risk and high-needs families. “It’s about changing the parents of the future.”

Dancer’s program helps ease the burdens many of these families face, including food insecurity and access to adequate medical care. The outreach workers, all of whom are Choctaw, do at-home visits and try to walk young mothers through the uncertainty of new parenthood.

They give away free diapers and car seats. And they help overwhelmed teen parents deal with stress management, create a healthy environment and teach them skills to build stronger attachments to their babies, all of which are challenges in the small impoverished communities that dot the Nation.

“They’ve had people come in and out of their lives and tell them all of the negative things about their weaknesses. But we help them understand their strengths,” Dancer said. “If we didn’t go out and touch them where they are, there’s no way we could touch as many as we do.”

But the challenges of reaching this demographic, many of whom are high-school dropouts without much financial or emotional support from their families, can often seem unsurmountable.

They’re geographically spread across very isolated communities within the nearly 11 counties that comprise the Nation’s service area. And emotionally, many are saddled with feelings of shame, guilt and the generational curse of teen pregnancy. Others are victims of domestic abuse.

“So many of them just close themselves off because they’re already worried about being judged – judged for getting pregnant in the first place,” said Hanna Wood, 29, an outreach worker who has worked with Sisco and her family.

The Nation also offers sex-education courses to schools within the Nation’s boundary, an effort that remains somewhat controversial in an area of the state dominated by conservative politics and where abstinence-only education is the preferred model. Outreach workers have found navigating the politics of teaching teens and pre-teens about safe sex and personal boundaries a delicate endeavor.

Nearly all Choctaw Indian students attend public schools where the majority of students are non-Native. And despite high rates of teen-pregnancy and a rate of sexually transmitted disease that is four times the national average, many public school districts within the Nation won’t allow the sex-ed courses taught in their schools.

For More on the Choctaw Nation see our photo essay: Hope on the Horizon for Choctaw Nation

Some schools will allow parts of the curriculum to be taught in their classrooms but won’t allow others, like condom demonstrations. On a recent evening nearly two dozen eighth graders whose school forbade such a demonstration gathered at Choctaw Nation outreach services headquarters, giggling and guffawing as an instructor urged them to slide a latex condom down their fore and middle fingers.

“We’re dealing with some pushback,” said Dancer. “But the statistics don’t lie.”

National politics have also become intertwined with the Nation’s efforts, as much of the funding for Better Beginnings is tied to the hotly-contested Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Last year, sequestration cuts and a shrinking number of grants, stripped funding from many of the tribe’s critical, government-funded programs. Better Beginnings was no different.

“I don’t care about the politics of it. I’m not a political person,” Dancer said. “But that’s what my funds are tied to. If that means it gets reinstated over and over, that’s just fine by me. “

While programs to help at-risk youth in the Nation have grown from just a few 20 years ago to dozens today, there still are major gaps. The nearest substance abuse treatment facility for juveniles is nearly 300 miles away, and there’s no in-patient mental health facility or homeless shelter. And there’s still a stigma around many of the issues these young people face, a hurdle outreach workers must handle with care.

“It’s the cycle. Their mothers went through the same thing,” said Shonda Shomo, an outreach worker with the Better Beginning program. “I was a teen mom. I was 18, so I know what they’re going through. I just keep encouraging them. And that’s something they don’t always hear from their mother figures.”

READ REST OF STORY HERE.

Tulalip man known for helping others needs help

Randy Ervin and family. , Photo by Alyson Pennant

Randy Ervin’s GoFundMe campaign opened to help deal with life changing stroke

By Niki Cleary, Tulalip News

Randy Ervin is a guy who loves life. Ask his many friends who have enjoyed, or lovingly suffered, his bizarrely funny bitstrips and constant Christmas countdowns. He’s also a friend, a mentor, a beloved co-worker and leader. He’s a beacon of hope for those in recovery, and a poster child for living better sober than addicted. Since February 25, Randy has been completely incapacitated after suffering a massive stroke. He is looking at returning to a two-story home and full time caregiving, with no prospects of returning to a normal life anytime soon.

Randy’s wife of 23 years, Tina Ervin, painted the picture.

“I left the house on February 25, I was only gone for about half an hour,” she explained. “I came home and he was sitting in the chair and he was just sitting there. He was non-responsive. I pulled up on his face, and I said, he’s having a stroke.”

Randy was in a medically induced coma for a week and a half. Doctors kept him breathing with a ventilator while they monitored the swelling in his brain. It took another two weeks to slowly bring him out of the coma.

“His right side is paralyzed,” Ervin said, describing her husband’s symptoms. “He’s learning how to speak all over again. He lost the ability to form words when he tries to talk and he’s learning to write with his left hand.

“If you write ‘apple, banana’ and leave an open space, he’s trying to figure out what to put in that open space, but he can’t tell you that the line of words means fruit. His brain is still not firing the way it should. Three hours a day he’s in physical and speech therapy, they’re teaching him how to use the other side of his brain.”

Family and friends aren’t the same for Randy either, many of his memories are missing because of the stroke.

“He didn’t recognize his brother, his best friend,” said Ervin. “Our anniversary is the 23^rd of this month [March], and he didn’t even remember that. But he did recognize Pete Warbus from the casino. He loves his crew and his job. Other than his family, that’s his life.”

A family friend, Mike Pablo, helped Ervin set up a GoFundMe account to help raise money for Randy’s expenses, which are numerous. The stroke is the most recent in a cascade of medical complications. In 2013 Randy was diagnosed with a tumor in his colon. Because colon cancer runs in his family, the best option was to remove it surgically. After the surgery, things went downhill quickly.

“He was eating dinner and he coughed,” said Ervin. “His shirt started filling up with blood. By the end of the night it turned brown and started to smell really bad. He stood up and it just gushed out of his belly. I rushed him to the hospital and the surgeon said, ‘Why did you wait so long!’

“They said his small intestine blew out like an inner tube blows out if you fill it too much. From there, his kidneys shut down. He spent more than 48 days in the hospital. It was a long road, but he finally went back to work December 23^rd. The aneurysm came out of nowhere.”

Because of his ongoing medical care Randy has no paid time off remaining, leaving his family deprived of the primary breadwinner. Because his leave has been exhausted he will likely lose his job at the Tulalip Resort, a job that currently provides the medical insurance paying for his care. Ervin said they’re doing what they can, but she’s concerned about how to pay for ongoing medical expenses and the necessary remodel of their home.

“I talked to Jay Napeahi in housing because my house is not set up for a wheelchair and I don’t have a full-sized bathroom downstairs. In the meantime they’re going to put us up in a duplex. We’re trying to raise some funds, we’re going to have to buy a wheelchair and some other equipment and I’m not sure how much his insurance will cover.”

His co-workers are doing what they can.

“We are definitely feeling the loss of him not being here,” said friend and co-worker Ashley Hammons. “It was a mess here, and everyone was trying to hold it together. ”

Resort employee Aliana Diaz agreed.

“It was pretty bad to the point where we approached the Employee Assistance Program and let them know that several of our team members were affected by it. I was giving them a heads up that people might need them.”

Slot Assistant Director James Ham, who has known Randy for years, described the outpouring of support, “Randy did a lot to give back. He would talk to anyone in addiction and recovery, he was reaching out constantly. I’ve seen a lot of people donate hours, there’s definitely been an outreach here.”

Coping with medical bills, the trauma of becoming a full time caregiver and the unknown challenges of the future might seem overwhelming, but Ervin’s been too busy to dwell on it.

“Ever since this happened it’s been, ‘What’s the worst case scenario?’ I’ve just tried to get everything going rather than sitting around and crying all the time. Right now we need a different bed, probably just a full size, because our water bed is too big [for the duplex].”

If you would like to help Randy’s family, check out www.gofundme.com and search Randy Ervin. The family is hoping to raise $15,000 to remodel the family’s home and get Randy set up for full time caregiving. As of March 25, $1,270 has been raised towards that goal. Ervin said every bit helps.

—–

Crowdfunding is becoming the new hand up

At the Tulalip 2014 Annual General Council, Tulalip Tribal citizen Mike Pablo made a motion to create an emergency relief fund for tribal members who are in need, either due to emergent medical situations, or because of natural disasters, fire or other catastrophes beyond their control. When he made the motion he was thinking about Tulalip citizen Randy Ervin who recently suffered a life-altering stroke. The motion was tabled, so instead, Mike helped the Ervin family to set up a crowdfunding site.

Increasingly, crowdfunding has become a way for people to directly support their causes. Whether it’s Matika Wilbur’s use of Kickstarter to launch Project 562, a photo project documenting contemporary Native America, or Randy Ervin’s GoFundMe campaign, citizens are turning to their peers, rather than a government agency, for assistance.

Crowdfunding isn’t new, in 1884 the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty ran short on money and Joseph Pulitzer launched an enormously popular fundraising effort. More than 125,000 people donated (mostly donations of less than $1) ultimately bringing in over $100,000. According to the website measuringworth.com, $1 in 1884 is equivalent to $24.50 today. So, a similar donation by modern citizens would mean about $25 each to raise around $2.5 million. This example is clear evidence that financial support for a cause doesn’t have to be a financial burden in order to be effective.

Crowdfunding quickly becoming a way for tiny businesses, broke inventors, and unknown musicians to launch a career. Unlike traditional investing, crowdsource funding doesn’t promise a return on investment, just the knowledge that your money is directly funding a cause that you support. According to the 2013 Massolution Crowdfunding Industry Report (http://www.crowdsourcing.org/research) crowdfunding is anticipated to bring in $5.1 billion in total global funding for the year.

Pollution From Home Stoves Kills Millions Of People Worldwide

Many people like these Tibetans in Qinghai, China, rely on indoor stoves for heating and cooking. That causes serious health problems.

By Linda Poon, NPR

Air pollution has become the world’s largest environmental risk, killing an estimated 7 million people in 2012, the World Health Organization says.

That means about 1 out of every 8 deaths in the world each year is due to air pollution. And half of those deaths are caused by household stoves, according to the WHO published Tuesday.

The fumes from stoves that burn coal, wood, dung and leftover crop residues as primary cooking fuels contribute to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and respiratory infections.

“What people have had available to them are primarily wood, dung and crop residues,” says , an environmental health researcher specializing in air pollution at Harvard University who wasn’t involved in the study. “These three fuels are the most polluting fuels on earth per unit of energy extracted.

“They don’t have a lot of energy, so you have to burn a lot of fuel, and that causes a lot of pollution in the process,” Powers told Shots.

People in low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific are most affected, with 3.3 million deaths caused by indoor air pollution annually.

But it’s not an easy problem to fix, despite new technologies like solar, gas and electric stoves that are more efficient and healthier than the biomass stoves many are using today.

“No matter how much you improve biomass stoves … you can have some health benefits but you can’t meet health targets,” she tells Shots.

The challenges, she says, lie in distributing less-polluting stoves to people in rural areas, and getting people to want them. Many of these people sit around the stove to keep warm or use the stove to heat their beds, so more efficient stoves may not be accepted if it forces them to change those habits.

“Even if they are given the stove for free, they end up not using it,” Powers says.

The bigger issue at hand is to get cleaner fuels to people, she adds, which will address not only the health hazards but also the environmental problems.

But because of population growth and increasing cost, the shift to cleaner and more efficient use of energy hasn’t made much progress. In fact, the shift has slowed and even reversed, to the International Energy Agency.

Puyallup Tribe Looking For Coho Family Tree

Mar 25th, 2014 Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Puyallup Tribe of Indians is building a library of genetic material from coho salmon to better understand the different populations throughout the Puyallup River watershed.

“The data behind how all these fish are related can give us a pretty clear picture of how many populations are actually here,” said Russ Ladley, resource protection manager for the tribe. “Are populations that have different run timings independent of each other, or do they interbreed?”

A winter coho is sampled for genetic material on the White River, a tributary of the Puyallup.

Winter run coho migrate through the Puyallup as late as February or even March while the earliest run fish are often seen as soon as July. “There isn’t much time when coho aren’t moving into the freshwater to spawn,” Ladley said.

“I would like to collect an adequate sample so we have a background from which to compare,” Ladley said. “I want to know, for example, if the late time coho we see in the White River are different from early coho we see there.”

“Thirty years ago the state Department of Fish and Wildlife sprinkle planted coho fry throughout the watershed, so I would like to find out if the fish are all the same or are still diverse,” he said.

Much of the Puyallup coho’s historic habitat has been degraded in the past century and is still disappearing, making an analysis of interrelationships vital. Coho salmon spend an extra year in freshwater as juveniles compared to other salmon species, making them more vulnerable to declines in freshwater habitat.

For example, low summer flows have been dropping throughout the watershed for decades. “Coho are their most vulnerable when we get to summer low flows,” Ladley said. “Despite a prohibition of new water withdrawals, we’ve seen a continual decline in summer flows because of unregulated wells being allowed to spread across the watershed.”

Low flows reduce the amount of habitat available for coho rearing and can cut fish off completely from valuable habitat. “When it comes down to it, fish need water to survive,” Ladley said.

“Currently, we see a fairly broad range of return timing and coho utilizing habitat from near sea level to 3,000 feet of elevation in Mount Rainier National Park,” Ladley said. “It will be interesting to learn if this is one homogenous stock or whether clear genetic differences exist.”

“This genetic data will give us a clearer picture of exactly how diverse they are, and hopefully give us information we can use to better manage the stock,” he said.

More information on the decline in salmon habitat in the Puyallup River watershed can be found at: http://go.nwifc.org/puyallup and for all of western Washington, here: http://nwifc.org/publications/sow/

(END)

For more information, contact: Russ Ladley, resource protection manager, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, (253) 845-9225. Emmett O’Connell, South Sound Information Officer, NWIFC, (360) 528-4304, eoconnell@nwifc.org

Outrage in Indian Country as Redskins Owner Announces Foundation

Associated PressWashington Redskins owner Dan Snyder. — Associated Press
Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder.

Indian Country Today Media Network

With a four-page letter released late in the day on Monday, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has taken his stubborn defense of the team’s name to a new level.

The early reaction from Indian country: We’re not buying it.

The campaign to quell controversy over the name of the Washington Redskins football team has in recent months included photo ops with Navajo code talkers and a highly suspect Native pro-Redskins grassroots campaign. Now Snyder has announced the creation of the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation.

Snyder’s letter begins by affirming that he has no intention of ever changing his team’s problematic name, referring to a letter he wrote to fans in the fall: “I wrote then–and believe even more firmly now–that our team name captures the best of who we are and who we can be, by staying true to our history and honoring the deep and enduring values our name represents.”

The Redskins owner then describes his campaign of outreach to American Indian communities, and cites facts about poverty, health, and standard of living in Native communities that everyone in Indian country is all too familiar with.

Snyder’s conclusion: Clinging to his team’s racial-slur name is a noble gesture, but isn’t enough to solve Indian country’s problems. Or as he puts it: “It’s not enough to celebrate the values and heritage of Native Americans. We must do more.”

The letter is rife with self-satisfaction and misdirection, repeatedly emphasizing all the wonderful ways the Redskins, through the Foundation, might help Indian country, with no mention of the elephant in the room: The widespread objection in Indian country to the team’s name. For instance, here’s another interesting tap dance, bolded and italicized as in the original:

“Our efforts will address the urgent challenges plaguing Indian country based on what Tribal leaders tell us they need most. We may have created this new organization, but the direction of the Foundation is truly theirs.”

Such willingness to let Indians say what is most beneficial for Indians does not, obviously, extend to his football team’s name.

The announcement has met with harsh criticism in Indian country.

“We’re glad that after a decade of owning the Washington team, Mr. Snyder finally says he is interested in Native American heritage, but this doesn’t change the fact that he needs to stand on the right side of history and change his team’s name,” Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter, said in a statement to ThinkProgress.

Suzan Shown Harjo, who has led the legal charge against the name for decades, shared stronger words with Think Progress: “Native America is impoverished? He just now figured that out? We know what the pressing issues are. We’re the ones who’ve been dealing with them all our lives. What an insult. The whole thing. This is a stunt. To me, it’s a stunt. But we’ll see. Supposedly it’s a change of heart, but it’s not a change of mind. And it’s not a change of name.”

Backlash on Twitter from Natives, many of whom have been united by the #NotYourMascot hashtag, has been forceful.

Frank Waln ‏@FrankWaln “Dan Snyder is scum of the earth”

Lauren Chief Elk ‏@ChiefElk “Countdown until ‘Dan Snyder is trying to help you and you guys aren’t even grateful!'”

Johnnie Jae ‏@johnniejae “Apparently visiting 26 of 300+ reservations & bribing 400 tribal leaders means we should bow to our new savior Dan Snyder #notyourmascot ”

What TRIBE ‏@WhatTRIBE “When redeeming racist brands, hire brand management experts from secret service to create pity press for penance/ not repentance @Redskins ”

Dani ‏@xodanix3 “Whats most frustrating about Snyder’s strategies is just how petty they are. Its insulting they even take it there.”

julia good fox ‏@goodfox “‘@Redskins: It’s not enough to celebrate the values and heritage of #Native Americans, we must do more’ <— not The Onion.”

Sarah ‏@eyesnhearts “I’m pretty sure I don’t need the white savior industrial complex to help me with my reality #NotYourMascot ”

Adrienne K. ‏@NativeApprops “What kind of choice is that for communities? Here, have some desperately needed resources. Shhh, just say you don’t mind the racial slur.”

Aura Bogado ‏@aurabogado “Synder understands #Natives so well that he mentioned Redskins 24 times, and tribal sovereignty 0 times”

Jacqueline Keeler ‏@jfkeeler “Dan Snyder, helping is not dictating. Being a friend means listening not buying silence. #NotYourMascot ”

Snyder’s letter is below; the original pdf is available at files.redskins.com/pdf/Letter-from-Dan-Snyder-032414.pdf

Oso landslide death toll now stands at 14

Snohomish County Public Works Director Steve Thompson, left, explains the relative stability of terrain at the Oso landslide site on March 24, as Snohomish County Executive John Lovick looks on.— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner — Snohomish County Public Works Director Steve Thompson, left, explains the relative stability of terrain at the Oso landslide site on March 24, as Snohomish County Executive John Lovick looks on.
— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner

By Kirk Boxleitner, Source: Marysville Globe

ARLINGTON — Snohomish County Executive John Lovick described Monday, March 24, as “a day of progress and sadness,” as six more were confirmed dead as a result of the Oso landslide on Saturday, March 22, bringing the disaster’s total death toll to 14, and reports of missing and unaccounted for persons in the area escalated from 108 at the start of the day to 176 by the time county officials conducted their third and final press conference of the day, outside of the Arlington Police Station.

Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots reiterated that firefighters and law enforcement personnel have been joined in their efforts by search and rescue crews, search dogs and heavy equipment from the state Department of Transportation, the latter to move mud out of the way, and he added some words of appreciation to locally based responders, who have provided insights on whether certain homes were likely to have been occupied at the time of the landslide.

“Crews up there are up against enormous challenges,” Hots said. “The debris fields are like big berms of clay and quicksand. One of the folks out there told me, ‘You know, Chief, sometimes it takes five minutes to walk 40-50 feet and get our equipment over these berms.'”

Hots noted that the challenges of working in, much less walking across, such debris have been further complicated by the presence of septic tank materials, as well as gasoline, oil, propane and other contaminants.

“It’s very tedious and slow-going,” said Hots, who relayed another responder’s experiences with “void spaces,” such as houses, out in the field. “He said it’s very tough to even search those buildings, because they’ve been collapsed and compressed with all that material that’s come down. He best described it as like cement, that’s gone into those void spaces, and it’s very, very difficult to get in there and actually search. One of them even told me, ‘You know, Chief, I sat there for an hour, moving material, and only moved maybe about four buckets of material in about an hour.'”

Hots was disappointed to report that crews found neither any survivors nor any signs of survivors during the day, and Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management Director John Pennington likewise acknowledged how discouraging it must sound to hear that the number of reported missing and unaccounted for had increased by so many in a single day, but Pennington emphasized yet again that those consolidated lists of reports are not entirely synchronized yet, and could include duplicates.

“That number is about individual names reported,” Pennington said. “They’re not individuals that are deceased. They’re not individuals that are injured. They’re not individuals that are missing. They’re 176 reports.”

Pennington described the crews’ “strongly enhanced and coordinated response” as improved over their previous two days, and extended his thanks to Gov. Jay Inslee and President Barack Obama for declaring this situation an emergency on the state and federal levels, thereby facilitating assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“They’ve dispatched us a mobile command vehicle from the Mobile Emergency Response System, otherwise known as MERS,” Pennington said. “That’s going to be dispatched out to Darrington to help them establish communications. At the same time, I’m happy to announce that we’ve established an Emergency Operations Center in Darrington, in conjunction with the town of Darrington and the Department of Emergency Management.”

According to Pennington, the federal government is finalizing the details to send a Type 1 federal search and rescue team, in addition to the Incident Management Assistance Team that’s already arrived from FEMA.

“Today, we were able to secure National Guard assistance, in the form of a 50-person search and extraction team,” Pennington said on March 24. “That team is en route here, and they will assist with our search and rescue efforts as well, with very technical expertise that we believe will be very effective in the days to come. The Northwest Incident Management Team — the local regional team from the Pacific Northwest and the northwest part of Washington state — remains on scene and continues to manage this incident, and for that, we’re eternally grateful.”

Pennington not only repeated his request, that members of the public report the names of missing or unaccounted for people to the Department of Emergency Management Call Center at 425-388-5088 if they have not done so already, but he also asked that they send in photos of those who may be missing or unaccounted for, via email at DEMCallCenter@snoco.org, and include the individuals’ first and last names, as well their distinguishing marks or features.

“There is an awful lot of grieving out there in this community,” Pennington said. “There is an awful lot of unknown. That is completely expected. No information at the Call Center can be given out, and what we’d ask of the media and the public is, especially with shelter operations, and those individuals that are in these very tight-knit, very small communities where neighbors know neighbors, and families know each other very, very well and help out, that we would respect the privacy of those individuals as they begin the extensive grieving process.”

Although Pennington acknowledged that it is increasingly unlikely that any survivors will be found at this point, he nonetheless expects crews to proceed as though they’re conducting rescue rather than recovery operations, until such time as they feel the need to stop.

Snohomish County Public Works Director Steve Thompson clarified that certain crews had been pulled out of the area between approximately noon to 1 p.m. and 2:30-3 p.m., due to concerns that the landslide might still be moving, but assessments by three geologists on site determined that there was no additional risk.

“It just turned out to be some sloughing off the edge of the slide,” Thompson said. “Some trees were falling, but nothing deep, nothing to worry about, so we gave a green light to let the rescue commence.”

“Currently, the search effort is directed where there’s most likely to still be people that may need rescuing,” Hots said, before adding that pockets of vehicles, buildings and other structures are most likely to contain any remaining survivors. “There’s other areas of the scene where it’s not probable that there’s going to be anybody, areas where there were no houses. We’re checking the areas where the two neighborhoods were, and along the road on SR 530, both from the Darrington side and the Oso side.”

While the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River is currently flowing in an orderly fashion as it carves a new channel for itself on the north end of the Oso landslide blockage, the National Weather Service’s Flash Flood Watch remains in effect through Tuesday, March 25, due to the instability of the debris dam and the materials in it, as well as the unpredictability of how the new river channel will cut through it.

Culture night, more than crafts

Young girl learns to play slehal. — 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 destroys Sunny Shores garage and car on the Tulalip Indian Reservation

Fire Crews spray foam to smother accelerants. Andrew Gobin/Tulalip News — 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 — 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

Oso mudslide emergency information

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.

Shelters are open at Post Middle School in Arlington and at the Community Center in Darrington.

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.