June 2015 - Page 3 of 7

Assuming the helm: Theresa Sheldon talks about the Quil Ceda Village Council

By Niki Cleary, Tulalip News

Quil Ceda Village is far more than the economic arm of the Tulalip Tribes; it’s a municipality in its own right. In fact it’s only the second federally recognized city in the nation. Founded in 2001, the QCV, like any other city, is governed by a city council and city ordinances. On June 16^th, the current council, including newly appointed president, Theresa Sheldon, was sworn in along with Marie Zackuse and Glen Gobin.

“Historically the board members who did not hold an executive seat on council where assigned to represent the Quil Ceda Village Council,” Sheldon explained. “Since I have no businesses myself, it makes me extremely unbiased when considering the types of development policies and laws that we should enact in the village therefore making it easier for me to accomplish the role of President of the city.”

The Consolidated Borough of Quil Ceda Village has undergone a metamorphosis in the last two decades. Once a munitions dump, then leased to Boeing, this 2,000 acres is now home to over 150 businesses and sees over 60,000 visitors a day.

“Thankfully our past leaders put this city into motion over two decades ago to ensure we have the prospering economic development of today,” Sheldon continued. “I’m grateful for the confidence of the board to fulfill this duty. Quil Ceda Village President is a one-year appointment, I was appointed with unanimous support from our tribal council.

“The role of the council and the president is laid out really well in the charter. My duties are very straight forward, I preside over the monthly QCV council meetings, I’m the spokesperson of the village council, but I have no regular administrative duties or authority in the day to day operations. However, unlike the chairman of the Board, who only votes in case of a tie, I am a voting member of the Quil Ceda Village Council.”

At the June 16^th meeting the discussion ranged over a variety of topics including roads and infrastructure, tribal enterprises, and police and court services.

“We received an update on the 116^th overpass construction project which will be an 18 month project and will begin in July,” said Sheldon. “We will begin to replace the existing bridge with a wider bridge to provide an additional through lane in each direction and a double left turn to the I-5 ramps.

“This work includes additional pedestrian pathways across the interstate, will improve LED lighting, new signals and signage. Tulalip has been working on increasing capacity on 116^th Interchange since 2001 and the Tribe has put in $23 million for this interchange. We have worked closely with WSDOT to ensure all safety measures will be covered as this project is considered massive with a lot of concrete, dirt, and gravel being brought in.”

The Tulalip Market, formerly a simple gas station located on 116^th Street at the North end of the Village, will now become the Tribes’ drive-through smoke shop, deli, and gas station.

“It was interesting to hear about the product choices and details of the enterprise,” said Sheldon. “We take for granted things like point of sale systems. When you go to a store, they just work. There are a lot of logistics that go into placing the systems. We use Chevron’s system for gas sales and a different system for merchandise. All those systems have to speak to each other and seamlessly integrate for accounting purposes.

“I’m so thankful that we have staff in place looking at all the details as well as the big picture; I want to raise my hands to our Quil Ceda Village staff for working together to ensure we have a successful opening and a successful store, t’igwicid. The store will officially be open for business during the second week of July.”

Like many other municipalities, the City pays for police and court services rather than retaining a city police force or operating its own court system. In this instance the Tulalip Police Department and Tulalip Tribal Court provide the services. In May alone, the Tulalip Police Department responded to 532 calls for services and conducted 72 traffic stops within the Village.

“From the beginning of the year until now, a lot of the calls were for suspicious vehicles (242 calls), shoplifting (279 calls), traffic stops (411) and trespass (110),” said Sheldon. “We averaged 3.6 assaults per month and 1.8 hit and runs. Anytime someone is hurt, it’s a big deal, but for the amount of visitors we see (60,000 daily), these are relatively low numbers.

“One of the ongoing concerns for tribal police is the transient encampments. Transient camps are a concern because they often have unsanitary or unsafe living conditions, and property damage can occur when squatters move into vacant buildings and properties. There’s also a safety concern from visitors about aggressive panhandling.

“The Tulalip Tribes and Quil Ceda Village staff believes in offering respect to every person, regardless of their path in life,” declared Sheldon. “We also absolutely support Tulalip Police in making decisions to address safety concerns.”

Of the cases filed at Tulalip Tribal Court approximately 28% of criminal cases, 33% of drug cases and 44% of “miscellaneous” criminal cases (mostly theft and trespass) originate in Quil Ceda Village.

“Tribal Court and the Prosecutors Office will be using the funding they receive from Quil Ceda Village to hire additional staff this year. Thankfully our court system runs effectively and our court staff does a great job making sure that all cases are processed and heard in a timely manner.”

Reflecting on the meeting, Sheldon said she looks forward to creating a new strategic plan for the Village and encourages more Tulalip citizens to become involved if they would like to learn more about the cities operations.

“All Quil Ceda Village Council meetings are open to the public,” she said. “We hold monthly meetings, typically the 2^nd Tuesday of each month. I want people to know we conduct these meetings in an open and transparent way and that we are constantly thinking of our future generation with every decision we make.”

Indian Country All Too Familiar With Rachel Dolezals of the World

By Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today Media Network

The story of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman posing as an African American, shines a light on the strange practice of ethnic fraud. Unfortunately, this practice is old news in Indian Country; non-Natives, mostly Caucasians, have been posing as Native people for years.

“Playing Indian” is so common that most Native peoples have grown inured to the cringe-inducing spectacle of white folks doing ungainly dances at hobby powwows all over the world. Not all participants at these events claim Native ancestry – many just want to be Indian for a day.

There are more and more individuals and groups, however, claiming Native heritage in order to reap benefits, either professional or monetary. Many of these imposters also present themselves to the general public as authorities and spokespeople for Native peoples. These practices are a line in the sand for some Native people like Ben Barnes, Second Chief for the Shawnee tribe of Oklahoma and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO). He and representatives from other Oklahoma tribes are joining together and taking action.

Barnes and leaders from the three federally recognized Shawnee tribal governments all located in Oklahoma (the Shawnee, Absentee Shawnee and Eastern Band Shawnee, as well as the Miami tribe), traveled to Illinois in May to oppose a state bill that would have conferred state tribal recognition to the Vinyard Indian Settlement. The group, located in Herod, Illinois, claims to be Shawnee.

George Strack, THPO for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma described the group as hobbyists.

According to a story on the Daily Register newspaper website in Harrisburg, Illinois the legislation recognizing the Vinyard Settlement would have made the group eligible to receive resources from the federal government and state agencies. The group expected to use that funding to create an elder living center, a daycare center and make improvements to the surrounding environment.

Illinois State Representative Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, introduced the bill into the Illinois House in February, where it passed unanimously and was headed to the Senate for what appeared to be easy passage until representatives from the Oklahoma tribes presented the legislature with historic documentation that called the Vinyard claims into serious question.

Tribal leaders from Oklahoma are hopeful that the bill will not resurface. “Groups like the Vinyard tribe take funding that is earmarked for genuine state and federally recognized tribes,” Barnes said. He also noted that states without federally recognized tribes have little experience in Native affairs and can easily fall victim to claims by hobby groups. “Some of the states are simply unaware of how to verify the claims made by these groups and are often misled.

“There are about 35 groups claiming Shawnee heritage who have formed 501 c 3 (non-profit) status with the government. Some conduct public presentations falsely claiming to present Shawnee culture and tradition,” according to Barnes.

Most of the 35 groups are located in Ohio. Some, such as the United Remnant Band (URB) of Shawnee claim to have formal state recognition.

Ohio has no state recognized tribes nor does it have a recognition process, according to Rob Nicholas Communications director for office of Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

In 2007, the U.S. Mint issued offered customer refunds for pouches produced by the URB for the 2004 Lewis and Clark Commemorative. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the Shawnee group was one of several Indian tribes hired by the federal government to manufacture pouches sold with the limited run of 50,000 silver dollars. The Ohio Shawnees were involved in making about 2,000 pouches, and were cited in the “certificate of authenticity” that came with each coin-and-pouch set.

The problem, the mint said, is that “neither state nor federal authorities recognize the Shawnee Nation United Remnant Band of Ohio as an official Indian tribe.” As such, “the pouch is not an authentic American Indian arts and crafts product.”

According to Barnes, the Shawnee tribe has found all of the claims by these groups to be unfounded. “These groups are misleading the public especially when they are associated with state museums, parks and schools,” he said.

He is concerned with activities at the Fort Ancient Archeological Park in Oregonia, Ohio, where he believes the museum relies on hobbyists, many of them from the 35 groups falsely claiming Shawnee citizenship, to present facts about Shawnee culture and history to visitors.

Fort Ancient is the site of a series of massive earthworks created by the Hopewell, an ancient Native American culture. Shawnee people believe they are descendants of these people. It is one of 58 historic sites and museums owned by the Ohio History Connection, a non -profit organization that serves as the state’s partner in preserving Ohio’s history.

According to the Fort Ancient website, “the sites mission is to provide visitor and educational services focused on archaeology, Native American culture, and heritage stewardship as they relate to the site.”

Fort Ancient site archaeologist Jack Blosser says thousands of school children tour the site each year, where they are presented with information about the site’s history as well as information about contemporary Native culture.

Fort Ancient also sponsors the annual Fort Ancient Celebration that is structured like a powwow with drum groups singing under a central arbor with attendees clad in various interpretations of Native regalia dancing in a circular direction around the arbor. According to the Fort Ancient website, the Celebration features Native heritage experts from whom visitors can learn about ancient and current Native Americans.

Indian Country Today Media Network (ICTMN) recently published an article about controversy surrounding the event.

Barnes noted that the Ohio History Connection has reached out to the three Shawnee tribes for discussions about pursuing status as a world heritage site with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for some of the earthworks sites. Fort Ancient, however, has not sought any tribal involvement in creating public programs purporting to present facts about the Shawnee.

Barnes believes that the general public is being misled by the information presented at Fort Ancient.

Its managers may be taking note of those concerns; ICTMN visited Fort Ancient’s Celebration earlier in June and observed that several vendors displayed signs indicating that their goods were “Native inspired.”

This was presumably done in response to tribal concerns regarding violations of federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act that prohibits misrepresentation in marketing of Indian arts and crafts.

Additionally Lynn Hanson, vice president of the Dayton Society of Natural History, the organization that manages the Fort Ancient site for the Ohio History Connection said that managers of the site are grappling with a way to address concerns by federally recognized tribes. “Ohio has so little contact with Native peoples, their issues and concerns that we know little about them. We need to address this,” she said.

Hanson indicated that the Dayton Society hopes to follow the lead of the Ohio History Connection and begin to involve leaders of the federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma in conversations about Fort Ancient programming. “We want to work on a way to fix this while still making the site open and available to everyone,” she said.

When fantasy takes over

While people of color may see ethnic fraud as the ultimate luxury of choice for white people, it speaks to a darker psychology that serves a strange need for some. According to an article in Thinkprogress, such self-deception allows people to avoid uncomfortable parts of their lives. It could also be an indication of body dysmorphic – a condition in which people are preoccupied with their appearance and go to great lengths to change it.

The article further noted that humans have the unique ability to keep absolute truths out of their mind so they can lead more pleasant lives.

As we’ve seen in the Rachel Dolezal case, however, the pursuit of a more pleasant and interesting life may wreck havoc on the lives and cultures of others.

Sherri Clemons, THPO for the Wyandotte tribe of Oklahoma the genuine descendants of the ancestors found in Danbury, found out about the reburial two years after the event. “When we unearthed the remains we found they had been buried in plastic garbage bags and an old whisky box,” she said.

“When news of archeological finds gets out to the public, these fake groups come out of the woodwork and try to lay claim to remains,” she said. “This has been going on in Indian Country for a long time. We have to fight these fake organizations every time and convince state governments we are the people they should be dealing with.”

The Wyandottes were finally successful, two years after finding out about the remains, in giving their ancestors a proper burial.

Why do so many people claim to be Native American? ICTMN recently published an article about a new report by the Pew Research Center on the growing number of multiracial adults in the U.S.

The Wyandottes were finally successful, two years after finding out about the remains, in giving their ancestors a proper burial.

Why do so many people claim to be Native American? ICTMN recently published an article about a new report by the Pew Research Center on the growing number of multiracial adults in the U.S.

According to the report, 6.9 percent of the adult population “could be considered multiracial,” and that biracial adults who claim to be white and Native American “comprise half of the country’s multiracial population – by far the country’s largest multiracial group.”

“Everybody wants to be Indian these days,” Clemons noted.

“I think people want to know where they belong. They come to us with stories handed down through their families about a Wyandotte ancestor,” she said.

“Nine times out of 10 we can’t offer them any proof of their stories and they are disappointed,” said Clemons.

This story was originally published in Indian Country Today Media Network

For second year in a row, bid for tribal casino blocked in Maine Senate

By Christopher Cousins, Bangor Daily News

AUGUSTA, Maine — A bill that would have allowed Maine’s Native American tribes to open and operate a casino in Washington or Aroostook County died Monday in the Senate by a vote of 18-16.

The Senate’s vote contradicts a 114-26 House vote last Thursday in favor of the bill, which was written by the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee. The two chambers of the Legislature are now at odds on the bill, which means it faces more votes but won’t be successful without attracting additional support

The bill, LD 1446, would have allowed a competitive bidding process followed by the development of a casino in Washington or Aroostook county. Bids would have been weighed depending on to what degree they would benefit Maine’s four federally recognized Indian tribes.

Rep. Henry John Bear of the Houlton Band of Maliseets said Monday that given the close Senate vote against it, he is still hopeful that the bill will survive.

“I’ll be hopeful that maybe we can work an amendment and that we can find something that’s acceptable to the Senate,” said Bear, who is the only tribal representative left in the Maine Legislature since the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes pulled their representatives out of the Legislature in May.

That decision was driven by clashes over fishing rights, judicial jurisdiction and environmental conflicts, though the fact that Maine has not allowed the tribes to operate a casino — and benefit from the revenues — has been a sore spot for tribal-state relations for years. In 2014, a group of six gaming bills — three of them which would have benefitted the tribes — were all killed in a single night in the Senate.

The tribes and other casino proponents thought an opening for gaming expansion was created last year with the release of a market study that suggested the state could support one or two more casinos.

“This bill is not a bill that has come out of this legislative session,” said Bear. “This is a bill that has been in the works for decades in a continued effort to try to create jobs in a region that’s the poorest of the state.”

Meanwhile, another casino bill, LD 1280, is still awaiting debate and votes in the House and Senate. As currently written, that bill would allow for a casino in Cumberland or York County.

Chinook Indian Nation elects new leader

Chinook Indian Nation chooses new leader at annual meeting; former tribal council chair Ray Gardner died earlier this year.

By Katie Wilson, Chinook Observer

DAMIAN MULINIX/dmulinix@chinookobserver.comTony Johnson tells the Chinook legend of Coyote and the first salmon Friday. — DAMIAN MULINIX/dmulinix@chinookobserver.com
Tony Johnson tells the Chinook legend of Coyote and the first salmon Friday.

As the Chinook Indian Nation continues to push for federal recognition, it does so with a new leader in place.

On June 18, tribal members present at an annual meeting elected Tony Johnson as chairman of the 10-member tribal council. Johnson ran unopposed and will take over the leadership role formerly held by Ray Gardner, who died in February after a

long struggle with lung disease.

“There’s a long chain of chairmen for the Chinook Indian Nation and it’s an absolute honor to be now one of the links of that chain,” Johnson said in a phone interview June 22. “I can’t say enough how privileged I feel to be trusted with that role and the significance of it doesn’t escape me.”

The Chinook Indian Nation represents a range of people who traditionally resided in the Lower Columbia region, including the Cathlamet, Clatsop, Lower Chinook, Wahkiakum and Willapa.

Vice Chairman Sam Robinson’s name was also down for nomination as chairman, but Robinson, who had taken on the role of acting chairman as Gardner’s health declined, said he felt it was time to hand off that position to someone else, preferably someone in Pacific County.

“It’d be hard to fill our former chairman’s shoes,” Robinson said. “He was my cousin, my friend, my mentor and my tribal leader as well. … He had a style all his own.” He had numerous contacts at the state and federal level and was well-known in the region.

“It might take Tony a few months to get his feet settled in, but I think he’ll be just fine,” Robinson said, adding that though Johnson and Gardner differ in their leadership styles, Johnson brings a wealth of contacts and knowledge from his time spent working with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Shoalwater Bay Tribe to his tenure.

A member of the tribe since he was 3-months old, Johnson is steeped in the culture, speaking the language and singing traditional songs at tribal ceremonies. He has been the member of the tribe’s culture committee for 20 years and that committee’s chairman for most of that time.

His father, Gary Johnson, also a member of the tribal council, said he is proud and happy.

“We look forward to having a very strong council that’s going to continue to make more progress for our tribe,” he said in a phone interview June 22.

At the meeting, the tribe also voted to fill several open council positions: Devon Abing and Jessica Porter were elected to the council, while Gina Rife and Gary Johnson retained their seats.

Former Chairman Gardner was 59 when he died. He had been an active participant in tribal leadership for 13 years. During his time as leader, he oversaw a successful effort to have the tribe’s Middle Village included as prominent unit within Lewis and Clark National Historical Park and the tribe also came close to attaining official tribal status within the U.S. federal system.

This last is a fight the council plans to continue.

“It’s all about clarifying our status and putting in place some of the key pieces that we need for a successful future,” Johnson said.

Already, he has helped organize and launch a campaign called “The Chinook Executive Justice Recognition Project,” which sends a letter a day to President Obama, building a case for Chinook recognition. Despite appearing in numerous first-person accounts by early explorers including the famed Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery, the tribe is not federally recognized.

After fighting for recognition for more than a century, the tribe attained formal federal status in 2001 in the final days of the Bill Clinton administration only to have it disappear again when incoming appointees of the George W. Bush White House determined the tribe did not meet all the criteria required by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The BIA last year revised the criteria and the methodology it uses to evaluate tribes seeking recognition so the Chinook have redoubled their efforts.

“One of the things we’ve said consistently is that we have all the problems associated with ‘Indian Country’ and Indian communities,” Johnson said.

Keeping the faith

The tribe struggles to maintain its cultural heritage in world that, officially, doesn’t recognize it. Unlike other Pacific Northwest tribes, the Chinook have no land rights or fishing rights. The tribe’s office is minimally staffed and can only provide bare-bones services to the Chinook community. The council chairperson position — and virtually every leadership position within the tribe — is volunteer-based.

“It’s all about survival, finding the funds and making the contacts,” Robinson said.

Johnson hopes to focus some of his time ono pursing grants to help fund and expand the community services provided by the tribal office.

“We’ve often said our folks are quiet folks and we’re not ones that typically jump up and bang the table out in public for what is right and what needs to happen,” Johnson said. “There are a few of us who have been put in that role and I want to speak up for those folks (who) have passed away or are still with us who, because of traditional values or from having been pushed down and out of the way for so many years, haven’t been able to say what’s the truth: that the Chinook have been pushed aside.”

Inslee asks that Kennewick Man be returned to tribes

By the Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Gov. Jay Inslee has sent a letter requesting that the remains of “Kennewick Man” be returned to Native American tribes.

Inslee’s letter was sent Tuesday to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Kennewick Man was discovered in 1996 in the water along the Columbia River in Kennewick.

Radiocarbon dating revealed the bones were about 8,500 years old. DNA analysis now shows a genetic link to modern Native Americans.

Inslee is asking that the remains be given to the appropriate tribes as soon as possible.

He says tribes in Washington have waited nineteen years for the remains to be reburied.

Inslee asked the corps to provide a timeline for the return of Kennewick Man and offered assistance from the state Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation.

DNA links Kennewick Man to Native Americans

By Julia Hill, BioNews 807

New DNA evidence has reignited a longstanding debate over the ownership of a 9000-year-old skeleton, known as Kennewick Man.

After its chance discovery in 1996, Kennewick Man was claimed as an ancestor by local groups of Native Americans, who wanted to rebury the remains. However, they were blocked from doing so by a group of scientists who questioned their assertion and won the legal right to study the skeleton.

Genetic analysis has now shown the skeleton to be more closely related to Native Americans than to any other group.

‘The trail from past to present is often poorly marked in the archaeological record,’ commented co-author David Meltzer from the University of Dallas. ‘With the recovery and careful analysis of ancient DNA, we can better follow that trail: in Kennewick’s case, it leads unerringly to Native Americans.’

During the study, published in Nature, scientists extracted fragments of DNA from 200 milligrams of a hand bone and patched them together to construct a whole genome. They then sequenced this genome and compared it with samples from across the world.

Although the DNA within the bone was highly degraded and mixed with DNA from soil bacteria and other sources, the scientists are confident that the results are correct: the DNA from the skeleton is closer to that from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Federation than to any of the other samples they compared it with.

The results were supported by matches in the autosomal DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and the Y chromosome.

Kennewick man was originally found in the Columbia River, near Kennewick, Washington. Over 350 bones and bone fragments were found, and the skeleton is one of the most complete for its age.

Anthropologists originally determined that the skeleton had ‘Caucasoid’ features and was a historic-period Euro-American. However, radiocarbon dating placed the skeleton of Kennewick Man at 8500-9000 years old, making him pre-Columbian.

This led to a legal battle between scientists who wished to study the remains and local Native American tribes who believed the skeleton – whom they call the Ancient One – to be an ancestor.

Under the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), five tribes requested the bones be returned to them for burial. However, anthropologists argued that the skeleton could provide a unique insight into America’s early inhabitants, and in 2004 it was ruled that scientists had the right to study the remains because the origin of the skeleton could not be proved.

Jim Boyd of the Colville Tribe told the BBC that he is very pleased with the outcome of the genetic analysis: ‘We’ve maintained the belief at the Colville Community tribes that the Ancient One is a relative of ours. This is proven now and we are very happy about this.’

It is not yet known what impact these findings will have on the fate of the remains, but the Colville tribe and others are continuing their legal case and hope that the study results will strengthen their case.

‘We need the Ancient One to be respected and returned to the ground,’ Boyd said.

Celebrating the 4th Safely

by Mara R. Hill, Tulalip News

It’s that time, summer is here and it’s only getting hotter. With the 4^th of July approaching, people of all ages will be gearing up to pay a visit to Boom City to purchase bundles of exciting, noisy, eye catching fireworks. It can be fun to watch and light off fireworks, but it needs to be done safely.

According to statistics on the Washington State Patrol Office of the State Fire Marshall website, just last year there were 432 fireworks-related emergency incidents in Washington, resulting in 320,240 in property loss, 277 injuries and 155 fires.

To prevent firework related injuries or incidences pay attention to your surroundings, be aware of where the firework(s) may land, since the weather has been hot, the plant life and vegetation is dry. One mistake and there could be a fire. So be safe, have a bucket of water and a hose on hand, keep 20 feet between you and a discharging firework, light fireworks on flat hard level surfaces, read the instructions, have fun and play safe.

To Tackle Food Waste, Big Grocery Chain Will Sell Produce Rejects

by Allison Aubrey, NPR

It’s easy to blame someone else for food waste. If this is really a $2.6 trillion issue, as the United Nations estimates, then who’s in charge of fixing it?

Turns out, we the eaters play a big role here.

When we shop with our eyeballs in the produce aisle, our expectations for perfection contribute to the problem.

We’ve come to expect a dazzling array of eye candy with beautiful displays of cosmetically perfect fruits and vegetables.

But, of course, nature serves up much more variation.

And now, a big grocery chain in the West called Raley’s is taking a swing at the food waste problem by trying to get customers to embrace the differences.

Raley’s announced Tuesday it will begin selling less-than-perfect fruits and vegetables in July.

But let’s go back to where it all begins: the farm. As part of a collaboration with PBS NewsHour, we hit the fields of Salinas Valley, Calif., for a reality check.

On a cauliflower field, we found lots of slightly yellow heads of cauliflower.

“You see how it just has that yellow tinge to it?” Art Barrientos of Ocean Mist Farms points out. “This is not marketable.”

There’s nothing wrong with these heads of cauliflower. The yellow tint comes from sun exposure. It’s crunchy and every bit as nutritious as white cauliflower.

“But this just doesn’t meet our standards,” Barrientos says as we give it a taste.

The marketplace demands white, blemish-free, perfectly sized heads. So, these heads are plowed under.

The story is similar with misshapen crowns of broccoli and peaches that aren’t perfectly shaped or colored. Harold McLarty of HMC Farms in Kingsburg, Calif., says 35 percent of his crop never makes it to market. Much of his surplus goes to cattle feed.

The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that depending on the crop- anywhere from 1 to 30 percent of farmers’ crops don’t get to the grocery store.

And, as we’ve reported, food is wasted at every step in the supply chain — during transportation and processing and once it gets to our refrigerators.

So think of everything that goes into growing crop: the water, fertilizer, fuel to run the tractor. Ultimately if these crops don’t measure up to standards they’re often plowed under in the field.

“80 percent of our water, 10 percent of our energy, 40 percent of our land is used to grow our food,” says Peter Lehner of the NRDC. And, according to this NRDC report, up to 40 percent of the food produced never gets eaten. “It’s crazy,” Lehner says.

Food waste is among the biggest contributors to landfills in the U.S. And Lehner says, this creates another problem: “When [food] rots, it emits methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas.” Food waste is responsible for a significant portion of methane emissions.

There are new efforts underway to reduce food waste. The Environmental Protection Agency has a Food Recovery Challenge that diverts about 375,000 tons of food waste.

And some producers, including Ocean Mist and HMC Farms, donate some of the less-than-perfect produce to the California food banks.

Over the last decade, the California Association of Food Banks says it has doubled the amount of produce it distributes, thanks in part these kinds of donations.

“This year, we hope to grow the California Farm to Family program by over 70 million pounds,” says Paul Ash, executive director of the San Francisco Marin Food Banks. And he hopes to expand the program to other parts of the country.

Part of that growth has been fueled by a novel way of collecting surplus produce. For cauliflower and broccoli growers, who pack their products in the field as they’re being harvested, there’s now a co-packing system. As the workers slice and harvest the crop, they pack the premium heads in boxes headed to grocery stores. And they separate out the less-then-perfect seconds and pack them in crates destined for the food banks.

It’s a simple process. But it’s tough to recruit more farmers to join in. Only three out of 25 broccolli and cauliflower growers in California participate.

Why? “It’s a lot easier and cheaper just to basically throw [unmarketable produce] away,” says Harold McLarty of HMC Farms. He says he’d like to donate more of his peaches to the food banks, but, “there’s got to be an economic incentive.”

The state of California offers tax credits to farmers who donate produce, but the food banks are lobbying for bigger deductions. And, there are only six other states besides California that give tax breaks to growers for donating food.

As food banks work to expand their programs, some entrepreneurs say there are so many seconds to go around, they see a whole new business model: selling imperfect produce at discounted prices.

As we’ve reported, a French supermarket chain launched a campaign last year to sell what they dubbed: “the grotesque apple, and the ridiculous potato.” The concept has so far worked well in France.

Here in the U.S., entrepreneurs behind a venture called Imperfect Produceare betting they can turn Americans on to less-than-perfect produce, too.

In this promotional fundraising video, the start-up’s co-founder Ben Simon explains how it works: “You get a box of seasonal ugly produce delivered to your door every week and because this produce looks a little funky on the outside you get it for 30 to 50 percent less.” They plan to start delivery in the San Francisco area sometime this summer.

And, it seems at least one major grocer chain may give it a go. Imperfect has just inked a deal with high-end chain, Raley’s, which has more than 100 stores in California and Nevada. The chain says it will launch a pilot program, “Real Good” produce, in 10 Northern California stores in mid-July.

Raley’s Megan Burritt says she’s working on in-store education. When customers are picking up a funky looking double cherry or an apple that may look like a reject, she wants them to see it in a new way. Perhaps she’ll market them as the underdogs of the produce aisle. “Who doesn’t love an underdog story!” Burritt says.

New Judge To Hear Arguments On Columbia River Dams And Salmon

The first powerhouse of the Bonneville Dam, 40 miles east of Portland, on the Columbia River.WikiCommons — The first powerhouse of the Bonneville Dam, 40 miles east of Portland, on the Columbia River.
WikiCommons

by Cassandra Profita, OPB/EarthFix

The longstanding legal battle over maintaining dams and salmon in the Columbia River is back in court this week. On Tuesday, a new judge will hear arguments on the Obama administration’s latest salmon plan.

Conservation groups along with the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe have challenged the 2014 biological opinion, or BiOp, that guides dam operations. They’ll argue their case before Oregon U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon, who took over the case when Judge James Redden retired.

The question behind the case: how to offset the impacts of Columbia River dams on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead. That question has been subject to more than 20 years of legal conflict. Tuesday’s hearing is a continuation of a lawsuit that was filed in 2001.

Federal agencies that run the Columbia River hydropower system have submitted several salmon protection plans under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, but they’ve all been challenged and ultimately rejected in court. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration will defend their 2014 plan on Tuesday.

Supporters of the plan say strong salmon returns in recent years prove the latest plan is working. But opponents say it doesn’t do much more to protect salmon than previous plans already struck down by the courts.

Before retiring, Redden rejected the Obama administration’s 2011 salmon plan. After announcing he would step down from presiding over the case, he said in an interview that the four dams on the lower Snake River should be removed as a way to help struggling salmon runs. He also supported spilling more water over dams and increasing water flows to help young salmon and steelhead migrate to the ocean.

Joseph Bogaard, executive director of the plaintiff group Save Our Wild Salmon, said the administration’s new plan doesn’t consider Redden’s recommendations, and it actually allows the government to reduce the amount of water spilled over dams to help fish.

“So, they’re moving in the wrong direction,” he said. “In many ways this plan is simply just a recycled version of the plan that was invalidated by the court in 2011. Though, this plan actually allows for a reduction in spill. So, in that regard the new pan is actually weaker than the plan it seeks to replace.”

Terry Flores of Northwest RiverPartners represents commerce and industry groups that defend dams on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers. She said the current salmon plan does a lot to help salmon, including investing around $100 million a year in habitat restoration. High rates of salmon survival show that the plan is working, she said, including the amount of water being spilled over dams to help fish.

“We’re seeing incredible results,” she said. “The federal agencies did look at the spill program and reached the conclusion that it’s working very well. It wasn’t like they didn’t look at it. They looked at it and said it is absolutely working.”

Flores said only Congress can address the removal of the lower Snake River dams.

How to save wild salmon with a fork and knife

Copper River salmon from Alaska (Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times)

If we demand wild salmon on our plates, we are demanding healthy habitat where wild salmon can thrive in perpetuity.

By Mark Titus and Tom Douglas, Seattle Times

IT’S time to save wild salmon — by eating them.

This seems counterintuitive. Why would we kill wild salmon if we are hoping to save them? The fact is, salmon are big business and consumers wield tremendous power through their purchasing decisions. When you buy and eat wild salmon, you are investing your dollars in our nation’s sustainable wild-salmon fisheries.

On June 4, U.S. District Court Judge H. Russel Holland released a ruling in a lawsuit filed by the Pebble Partnership against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Pebble has plans to build North America’s largest open-pit copper mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay in Alaska — home to North America’s largest remaining wild-salmon runs. The EPA’s involvement in Bristol Bay came at the request of tribes, commercial fishermen, sportsmen and business owners, but the court ruling earlier this month temporarily keeps efforts to protect Bristol Bay through the Clean Water Act on hold.

So what can be done in the meantime to protect this world-class resource?

First, educate your family and friends about wild salmon.

This spring, in partnership with commercial and sport fishermen, Alaska Native residents, chefs and conservationists, we completed a national tour of “The Breach,” a documentary film about the history and future of our last great wild-salmon runs. As a filmmaker and former Alaska salmon fishing guide, and a chef who serves wild salmon, we are both motivated by wild salmon economically. But it’s more than that.

We, like most people living in this part of the world, revere salmon as the iconic keystone species they are. They’re not simply a product to be pumped out of a factory — they are the very lifeblood for 137 different creatures when they return to our rivers and streams with the ocean’s nutrients inside them. They are an irreplaceable part of our Northwest landscape — they’re even inside the trees. And yet their future here remains uncertain.

As “King of Fish” author David R. Montgomery says in the documentary film, “We haven’t done a particularly good job of protecting the resource when it comes to wild salmon.” That’s true.

Historically, European and American settlers overfished wild salmon until their numbers crashed. Worse, salmon spawning rivers were destroyed when they were dammed, polluted and scoured by rapacious logging and mining practices. Hatcheries and open-net-pen fish farms designed to mitigate this damage have in the long run actually caused more.

Thankfully, there are some healthy runs of wild salmon left — and great strides under way — such as the removal of the two Elwha River dams, which provide real hope for seeing wild salmon return. But of all the fully sustainable wild-salmon runs remaining in North America, none are as strong or as vital as the runs in Bristol Bay in Alaska.

Unfortunately, instead of listening to science and the opinions of 65 percent of Alaskans, the Pebble Limited Partnership decided to sue the EPA and delay the protection process that millions of Americans have asked for.

When we purchase wild salmon, we’re purchasing a food source that is the same as it’s been for millennia — fed by the krill and currents of the open ocean. It’s nutritious and sustainable — and in Bristol Bay alone, provides 14,000 jobs on the West Coast, to the tune of $1.5 billion to the American economy. That simply can’t be said about other non-wild salmon options in the marketplace.

The choices we make with our forks and our dollars will affect what remains for future generations. If we demand wild salmon on our plates, we are demanding healthy habitat where wild salmon can thrive in perpetuity. And wild Bristol Bay sockeye can be purchased year-round, flash frozen or canned, with the same nutrients, quality and flavor as the day it was pulled out of the water — for a price affordable to most.

At the end of “The Breach,” Montgomery finishes his statement about human interaction with wild salmon by telling us, “If we don’t get Alaska right, we may have a clean sweep of getting it wrong.”

So what can else can we do?

Telling the Obama administration how we feel about wild salmon in Bristol Bay is the next best thing. But fundamentally, if we revere wild salmon — as 90 percent of us say we do here in the Pacific Northwest — we need to pick up our fork and insist they remain, by eating them.

A writer and director, Mark Titus recently directed “The Breach,” an award-winning documentary about wild Pacific salmon. Tom Douglas, a chef and owner of a diverse group of Seattle restaurants, co-produced “The Breach.”