Tag: Tulalip Tribes

Monroe cow manure to help power PUD

Dan Bates / The HeraldFrom left, Qualco Energy treasurer Dale Reiner president Daryl Williams and systems operator Andy Werkhoven discuss the company's complex digester system that converts cow manure to electricity on Dec. 23. Qualco Energy recently signed a contract with the Snohomish County PUD.
Dan Bates / The Herald
From left, Qualco Energy treasurer Dale Reiner president Daryl Williams and systems operator Andy Werkhoven discuss the company’s complex digester system that converts cow manure to electricity on Dec. 23. Qualco Energy recently signed a contract with the Snohomish County PUD.

By Bill Sheets, The Herald

MONROE — For the past five years, 300 homes outside Snohomish County have been powered by cow manure from farms near Monroe.

For the next five years, that power will stay in the county.

Qualco Energy, which runs a biogas plant south of Monroe, has been selling its power since 2009 to Puget Sound Energy.

Now, Qualco has signed a five-year contract with the Snohomish County Public Utility District, effective Wednesday.

The PUD provides electricity to Snohomish County and Camano Island. Puget Sound Energy, based in Bellevue, provides electricity to parts of eight counties in the region but not Snohomish.

The PUD “was able to offer a better rate than PSE did,” said Daryl Williams, environmental liaison for the Tulalip Tribes and a Qualco board member.

The PUD will pay Qualco $47.84 per megawatt hour in 2014, steadily rising to $67.60 in 2018, according to the utility. The price is based on a complex formula established by the PUD.

Qualco is a nonprofit formed by three groups: the energy division of the Tulalip Tribes; Northwest Chinook Recovery, a salmon advocacy group based in Anacortes; and the Sno/Sky Agricultural Alliance, a farmers’ group based in Monroe.

Qualco was created after cattle farmer Dale Reiner wanted to use a piece of property he’d purchased but was concerned about flooding and environmental effects on nearby streams.

He worked with Northwest Chinook Recovery on a fish habitat restoration project. Haskell Slough — a former main channel of the Skykomish River that had been diked off to create farmland — was restored into a salmon spawning stream. The project also has served to prevent flooding on Reiner’s property.

The unusual alliance of a farmer and environmentalists clicked, and the participants looked for another project. They brought in the Tulalip Tribes for added perspective on salmon habitat.

The group realized that making use of cow manure could help farmers and fish. Clearing farms of animal waste would reduce pollutants running into streams and cut costs for farmers in complying with environmental regulations. This, in turn, could allow them to add to their herds.

Biogas was the way, the group agreed.

Qualco was formed. The group obtained, through donation by the state, a former dairy farm in the Tualco Valley run by the Monroe Correctional Complex. The group also received a federal loan for renewable energy and a grant from the state Department of Agriculture. The equipment cost more than $3 million.

The group nets about $300,000 a year, Reiner said. The money goes to bond payments, environmental projects and upgrades to the system.

“None goes into our pockets, not a dime,” he said.

The work at the plant is done by dairy farmers on a volunteer basis.

The biogas plant uses the waste from about 1,200 cows. About 900 of them are located at Andy Werkhoven’s dairy farm about a mile and a half away. That waste is mixed with water and sent to the Qualco site via pipeline. The other 300 cattle are located on site next to the plant. Their only job is to eat and put out fuel for the generator.

Qualco also accepts unsold foods and beverages from stores, blood from meat processors and restaurant grease and uses it all in the mix. Qualco collects fees from companies to take the waste.

These materials are dumped into a concrete pit 15 feet deep and about 25 feet across, into which the liquid manure is piped.

An agitator with propeller blades churns the material into a swirling, roiling mix.

It’s then piped into a 1.4 million-gallon underground tank — 16 feet deep, 180 feet long and 74 feet wide — where it bubbles and gives off methane gas.

That gas is piped into a generator in a neighboring building, creating the power. The electricity is sent to the grid through three transformers mounted on a pole outside the building. The PUD is planning to replace those transformers with larger ones, Reiner said.

Previously, the energy went into the PUD’s system and the utility sent an equivalent amount to Puget Sound Energy. Now the power will stay home.

Effluent and solids from the process are applied to several farms as fertilizer.

Qualco’s original agreement with the state requires the fuel mix to be at least 50 percent cow manure and no more than 30 percent food-and-beverage waste. Qualco uses cow manure for the remaining 20 percent, creating a 70-30 ratio.

The sugars in the food waste, however, generate methane gas at a much higher rate than the cow waste, Qualco members said. As a result, the plant produces more gas than it can convert into electricity, and burns it off through an exhaust system.

While the generator creates enough power for about 300 homes, the plant produces enough gas for 800 homes, according to the Qualco website.

The plant would need another generator, or some type of expanded system, to take advantage of the remaining gas.

Qualco members plan to expand the plant, Reiner said. Options include steam power generation and compressing the fuel for use in cars.

“There are many directions we could go, and all of them are good,” he said.

Reiner believes the potential of biofuel is unlimited. Much more food waste and cow manure is available than is being used, he said.

Qualco could burn more food waste if it had the capacity and its agreement with state allowed it to do so, Reiner said.

He said any organic material that’s combustible could be turned into fuel.

“It’s just barely starting,” he said.

 

Tulalip Tribes partner with others to restore salmon habitat

Brett Shattuck, forest and fish biologist for the Tulalip Tribes, stands beside the wood debris that was installed during this fall’s restoration of Greenwood Creek to make it a better salmon habitat.— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner
Brett Shattuck, forest and fish biologist for the Tulalip Tribes, stands beside the wood debris that was installed during this fall’s restoration of Greenwood Creek to make it a better salmon habitat.
— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner

By Kirk Boxleitner, Marysville Globe, December 30,2013

STANWOOD — The coastal stream at 18510 Soundview Drive NW in Stanwood began as a “degraded straight ditch,” according to Brett Shattuck, forest and fish biologist for the Tulalip Tribes, but the gulch came to reclaim its old name of Greenwood Creek in the wake of its restoration as a salmon habitat this fall.

“We spent years studying all the coastal streams in the Whidbey basin, looking for which ones were used the most by juvenile chinook salmon, and we found the highest number of them here,” said Shattuck, who reported that Tulalip Tribal Natural Resources staff counted 280 chinook, out of a total of 600 juvenile salmon that also included coho and other species, during a single day’s electrofishing survey. “Even though this property is owned by Snohomish County and in a public right-of-way, it was an ideal restoration site, so we spent the past year pursuing that. Our neighbors were very supportive, and the county was willing to work with us and the Adopt-A-Stream Foundation to find a strategy that was beneficial to the county, the local residents, the Tribes and the fish.”

Shattuck explained that crews pulled back the banks of the stream to widen it, cleared out invasive species such as blackberry brambles, installed large wood debris to foster a better habitat for the salmon, and planted a dense variety of native vegetation to help hold back the stream banks and provide shade for the salmon.

“We’ve got about 300-400 trees and shrubs, not including the live stakes, all about two feet apart from each other,” said Shattuck, who listed willow, red cedar and red twig dogwood as among those species. “Volunteers and Tribal Natural Resources staff did most of the planting in about a day. The county donated the plants and wood debris, and their staff helped us with the permitting and engineering of the site. Again, the stream’s neighbors were really behind us, and it was good working with the Adopt-A-Stream Foundation’s contractor. Our funding source was the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund.”

According to Shattuck, the contractor work ended in September and the planting took place in October, and all that’s left now is to install the interpretive sign for the site — which he expects will be completed within the next couple of months — and to continue the monitoring work that led the Tribes to select the stream in the first place.

“We monitored this site for three years prior to implementing anything,” Shattuck said. “This is a pilot program, because there are plenty of other drainage streams in the basin that could be made into better habitats for their fish.”

“If we are truly committed to seeing salmon stocks rebound to harvestable levels, we must work together on recovery projects both large and small,” Tulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. said. “Greenwood Creek represents a small project with a huge benefit. The Tulalip Tribes look forward to working with Snohomish County on future projects to solve our salmon crisis.”

 

William Shelton revived Tulalip culture

J.A. Juleen's portrait of Tulalip artist and activist William Shelton was taken in 1913.
J.A. Juleen’s portrait of Tulalip artist and activist William Shelton was taken in 1913.

By Bill Sheets, The Herald

TULALIP — When it came to healing the rift between local Indian tribes and the white world that once stripped Snohomish County’s original inhabitants of much of their culture, there has been no more important figure than William Shelton.

Early in the 20th century, Shelton worked hard to restore and preserve early tribal traditions that had been banned on the Tulalip Indian Reservation for decades.

At the same time, he offered an olive branch to the non-tribal community, reaching out to speak at club meetings and schools. He attended fairs and gave radio interviews.

He served as an ambassador, a liaison between the two worlds.

A Tulalip tribal member, a historian and a filmmaker recently joined forces in hopes of making a documentary to spotlight Shelton’s effect on local tribal and non-tribal culture alike.

“I really think that people need to know about William Shelton,” said Lita Sheldon, the tribal member spearheading the project.

Her goal, she said, is to make an hour-long documentary to air on the History channel, Biography channel or PBS.

Sheldon, along with Everett-based historian David Dilgard and Bellingham video producer Jeff Boice, started the project in 2012 with a short video overview of Shelton’s life.

The 11-minute video, supplemented with historical photos and footage, features an interview with Dilgard in which he describes how Shelton revived tribal art on the Tulalip reservation by carving his “sklaletut” pole in 1912.

Shelton interviewed tribal elders about their encounters with spirit helpers, including animals, birds and people, and depicted them in carvings on both sides of a 60-foot pole.

Sklaletut is the word for spirit helpers in Lushootseed, the language of Puget Sound-area Indian tribes.

“There is a broken link between my race and the white people,” Shelton wrote in “Indian Totem Legends of the Northwest Coast Country” in 1913, an article originally printed for an Indian school in Oklahoma and later in The Herald.

“So I thought I better look back and talk to the older people that are living and try to explain our history by getting their totems and carve them out on the pole like the way it used to be years ago,” Shelton wrote.

The pole has deteriorated over the years, but part of it still stands in front of Tulalip Elementary School on the reservation.

Shelton carved several other poles, including one that stood for decades at 44th Street SE and Evergreen Way in Everett — for which the Totem restaurant was named.

Herald file, 2011These two poles carved by William Shelton stood in his original longhouse and now are at the cultural center.
Herald file, 2011
These two poles carved by William Shelton stood in his original longhouse and now are at the cultural center.

The pole deteriorated and was taken down in the late ’80s or early ’90s. It’s now being preserved in a warehouse on the Tulalip reservation.

About 200 of the 1,000 items in the collection of the recently built Hibulb Cultural Center either were made by Shelton or came from among other items stored on his family’s property, assistant curator Tessa Campbell has said.

Shelton ran the sawmill on the reservation and served as a translator for tribal elders who did not speak English. He supervised timber sales, served for a time as police chief and sold war bonds during World War I.

He spoke at the dedication of Legion Park in Everett shortly before his death from pneumonia in 1938 at age 70, according to the city.

In the 1990s, Lita Sheldon worked with Boice, the filmmaker, on short historical and Lushootseed language videos on the reservation.

Boice, a former videographer, editor and producer at KVOS-TV in Bellingham, did freelance video work for the Tulalips for several years, including recording tribal events.

Recently, Sheldon contacted Boice and Dilgard about her idea and the short video was made. The video won best overall film and best documentary short film at the Hibulb Cultural Center Film Festival last January.

Later, it was shown at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco in November and at the Red Nation Film Festival in Los Angeles, Sheldon said.

Sheldon said she needs to raise about $60,000 to fully fund the documentary. The cost would include travel to locations in the East and Midwest where William Shelton sent some of his poles, she said.

The film project had a “kickstarter” web page last summer but received only a little more than $2,800 in pledges, so the idea was shelved temporarily.

Sheldon hasn’t given up, though. She said she hasn’t asked the Tulalip Tribes for funds.

Niki Cleary, a spokeswoman for the tribes, said the project could be eligible for funding as a tribal endeavor, but Sheldon’s group would have to apply. The group also could gain nonprofit status and apply through the tribes’ annual charitable contribution program, she said.

Photo courtesy of the Everett Public LibraryThe Tulalip Longhouse interior is shown during a "Treaty Day" celebration in January 1914. Posts inside the longhouse were ornamented by William Shelton with clan and family symbols.
Photo courtesy of the Everett Public Library
The Tulalip Longhouse interior is shown during a “Treaty Day” celebration in January 1914. Posts inside the longhouse were ornamented by William Shelton with clan and family symbols.

Lita Sheldon, 61, works as the librarian at the Hibulb center but stressed that she is doing this project on her own.

She said it’s not just a matter of money but also of gathering more information about the former tribal leader.

Much of the history about Shelton came through his daughter, Harriette Dover, who died in 1991, as well as from other surviving relatives.

Sheldon is hoping more people with knowledge of William Shelton come forward.

“There’s not a definitive tribal history written,” she said. “This is the closest thing to a tribal history.”

 

 

The project

Anyone interested in the William Shelton documentary project may contact Lita Sheldon at litasheldon@yahoo.com.

 

Endangered Species Act: a 40-year fight to save animals

Photo courtesy Howard Garrett / Orca Network, JuneMembers of L pod, one of the Salish Sea's resident orca pods, heads north up Boundary Pass to Georgia Strait.
Photo courtesy Howard Garrett / Orca Network, June
Members of L pod, one of the Salish Sea’s resident orca pods, heads north up Boundary Pass to Georgia Strait.

By Bill Sheets, The Herald

Forty years after the passage of the federal Endangered Species Act, the state and Snohomish County remain squarely on the edge of that preservation frontier.

More than 40 animal species in Washington are listed by the federal government as either endangered or threatened under the law, signed by President Richard Nixon on Dec. 28, 1973. Many others are listed as species of concern.

Among creatures found in waters in and around Snohomish and Island counties, seven species of fish or marine mammals are listed under the act.

Southern resident killer whales and bocaccio rockfish are listed as endangered. Puget Sound chinook salmon, Puget Sound steelhead, bull trout, yelloweye rockfish, canary rockfish and Pacific smelt are threatened.

Nationwide, 645 species of animals and 872 plants or trees native to the U.S. are listed as threatened or endangered, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Of the local fish species and orcas, salmon and bull trout were listed in 1999, the killer whales in 2005 and the other fish species in 2010.

Reasons cited for the decline of the fish are many, including pollution, overfishing and loss of habitat. In the case of killer whales, dwindling supply of their diet staple — chinook salmon — is a major contributing factor, officials say.

Supporters claim many success stories for the Endangered Species Act, with bald eagles and peregrine falcons among the more prominent examples.

Gray whales were taken off the list in 1994 and steller sea lions just this year.

According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, 99 percent of the hundreds of species listed since the Endangered Species Act became law have been prevented from going extinct.

The law protects species by preventing them from being harmed or captured and by regulating human activity in their habitat areas.

Perhaps the best feature of the Endangered Species Act, some say, is that it keeps the species’ problems in the public spotlight.

“It has pulled people together to talk about what to do,” said Daryl Williams, environmental liaison for the Tulalip Tribes.

Recovery for many species, however, is slow and not guaranteed.

“Listing is a way of sort of planning for recovery, if you will,” said Brent Norberg, a marine mammal biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle.

The southern resident orca population, for example, had 88 whales in 2004, the year before it was listed under the ESA. The population now is down to 80, according to the Orca Network, a Whidbey Island-based group that tracks the whales.

“Because they’re so long-lived and their recruitment is so slow and their numbers are so small, it’s going to be quite a lengthy process,” Norberg said.

William Ruckleshaus, the first director of the Environmental Protection Agency under Nixon in the early 1970s, is 81 and lives in Medina.

The EPA was created and Endangered Species Act was passed after pollution and declines in species had reached alarming levels, Ruckleshaus said. The Cuyahoga River in northeast Ohio, for example, famously caught fire in 1969.

“The public demanded something be done about it and the president responded,” he said.

He said the endangered species law might have overreached.

“We passed laws that promised levels of perfection that probably weren’t possible. It’s hard to do it, to be honest with you,” Ruckleshaus said. The law has been refined over time, he said.

Ruckleshaus works part-time for Madrona Venture Group, a venture capital firm, and has served on the boards of the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council and the Salmon Recovery Funding Board.

“The motivation behind the ESA couldn’t have been any higher — we want to preserve all living things on Earth. Who’s against that?” Ruckleshaus said.

“I think it’s been very positive overall,” he said. “It’s shown how what we believe to be innocent acts can have devastating effects on species.”

The Endangered Species Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental group, has issued a report titled “Back from the Brink: Ten Success Stories Celebrating the Endangered Species Act at 40.”

Among those stories is perhaps the most high-profile recovery: the national symbol, the bald eagle.

The eagle’s numbers in the 48 contiguous states declined from roughly 100,000 in the early 19th century to only 487 nesting pairs in 1963, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife website.

Several measures were taken to help the eagle, beginning with the 1940 Bald Eagle Protection Act, which made it illegal to kill an eagle. The pesticide DDT, found to have thinned the eggshells of eagles and other birds, was banned in 1972.

Still, “listing the species as endangered provided the springboard” for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to accelerate recovery through captive breeding, law enforcement and nest-site protection, according to the agency’s website

Bald eagles rebounded and they now number about 10,000. The eagles were taken off the list in 2007.

The Endangered Species Act’s effect on salmon is not so clear, the Tulalips say.

Development that destroys habitat is not restricted enough to offset the losses, Williams said.

“We’re still losing habitat faster than we’re gaining it from restoration,” he said.

The problem is inconsistency in rules among various agencies involved in environmental protection, said Terry Williams, fisheries and natural resources commissioner for the tribes.

Also, because of the ESA, some habitat restoration projects have to jump through the same hoops as other construction, causing delays in measures that could help fish, Daryl Williams said.

“I kind of have mixed feelings about it,” he said.

Those restrictions may be a necessary evil, said Norberg, of the fisheries service.

For example, if creosote-soaked logs are being removed from a waterway, if it’s not done properly, it could result in creosote finding its way back into the water, “so it does as much harm as it does good,” he said.

Restrictions also can affect landowners’ use of their property. This not only angers some property owners but can defeat the intent of the law, said Todd Myers, environmental director for the Washington Policy Center, a right-leaning think tank in Seattle.

Because the law governs use of land where a listed species is found, some landowners take steps to eliminate habitat for a species on their property so it won’t be seen there, Myers said.

“You get a regulatory stick that puts landowners at odds with habitat recovery,” he said.

A better way, he said, is to reimburse landowners for measures taken to preserve or promote habitat, he said.

“That at least takes a step toward making a landowner a partner as opposed to an opponent.”

Despite the ESA’s flaws, “it is working well in terms of bringing all the various parties together to talk and to plan accordingly,” Norberg said.

The decline of the salmon might not be reversed without it, Ruckelshaus said.

“It is an extraordinarily complex problem,” he said. “But for the ESA I doubt we would have paid the attention to it we have, and I think that is absolutely necessary for it to recover.”

 

Tulalip Tribes turn “gulch” into Greenwood Creek

Tulalip biologist Brett Shattuck strolls along the recently restored, and named, Greenwood Creek.
Tulalip biologist Brett Shattuck strolls along the recently restored, and named, Greenwood Creek.

Source: Northwest Indian Fishieries Commission

The Tulalip Tribes recently improved rearing habitat in a small coastal stream popular with juvenile chinook.

Known to locals as “the gulch,” the unnamed stream had one of the highest densities of juvenile chinook of all the coastal streams sampled in the Whidbey basin by the Tulalip Tribes and Skagit River System Cooperative. During one electrofishing survey, natural resources staff found 280 chinook among a total of 600 juvenile salmon that also included coho and other species.

“They can live there for many weeks, so it’s more than just acclimating,” said Derek Marks, Timber Fish and Wildlife manager for Tulalip. “They’re actually rearing and growing in there.”

Despite those numbers, the tribes saw room for improvement. At the time, the gulch was little more than a ditch overgrown with invasive plants. Old county stormwater assessments referred to it as Greenwood Creek, probably named for a nearby grange.

A degraded culvert partially impeded fish passage upstream. “The culvert was rusting and on its way out,” said Tulalip biologist Brett Shattuck, project manager for what became the Greenwood Creek Stream Enhancement Project. “The stream was lined with rocks that created more of a flume than a channel.”

Greenwood Creek is county-owned and in a public right-of-way. The tribes and Snohomish County worked with Adopt-a-Stream to replace the culvert, clear the invasives and realign about 250 feet of habitat.

Interpretive signs are planned to help the public understand the importance of small coastal streams to migrating salmon. Before the restoration, people may not have realized that the small drainage ditch was being used by juvenile salmon.

“We want to show people how successful restoration can be in coastal streams, and to raise awareness that these streams have value for fish,” Shattuck said. “We monitored fish use for three years before the project and will continue to monitor it for several years after construction.”

The debate: Indian names, mascots for sports teams

Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III turns out of the pocket during the first half of an NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers in Landover, Md., Monday, Nov. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III turns out of the pocket during the first half of an NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers in Landover, Md., Monday, Nov. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By Rich Myhre, The Herald

As a former student at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, home of the Tomahawks, Dr. Stephanie Fryberg remembers seeing a fellow student clad in a headdress of feathers and watching as other kids participated in the Tomahawk Chop.

Fryberg, a Native American and member of the Tulalip Tribe, said she always found those displays disturbing.

“I was an athlete in Marysville and I was definitely part of the sports culture, but I always felt weird about that,” said Fryberg, who received a PhD from Stanford University in 2003 and is today an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona, where she is also affiliate faculty for American Indian Studies (she is on leave in the current academic year).

“If you’d go and watch (those displays at Marysville-Pilchuck events),” Fryberg added, “you’d never see Native students participating.”

The use of Native American sports nicknames and mascots has been a controversial topic for many years, and one recently rekindled when President Barack Obama said he would “think about changing” the name of Washington’s NFL team, the Redskins, if he owned the ballclub.

“I don’t know whether our attachment to a particular name should override the real legitimate concerns that people have about these things,” Obama added in an interview with The Associated Press.

Fryberg agrees, and said she backs her position with research that proves those nicknames and mascots have a negative effect on the self-perception of Native American students. “I’m a scientist,” she said, “and from that level, absolutely, the data is concrete.”

Team names like Indians, Chiefs and Braves, among others, are “a stereotype that’s playing with someone’s identity,” she said.

Likewise, Fryberg finds the Redskins nickname particularly offensive “because it very much has race connotations, though that’s not my area of (research) expertise,” she said.

This issue has always been particularly relevant at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, which serves the Tulalip reservation. There have been periodic discussions over the years about dropping the Tomahawks nickname, and one of the most intense debates occurred in the 1980s when Marysville High School and Pilchuck High School merged to form Marysville-Pilchuck.

Some in the community urged the school board to use Pilchuck’s nickname, the Chargers, for the newly merged school. But among those arguing otherwise was Don Hatch, a member of the Tulalip Tribal Council and a man who later served 16 years on the Marysville School District board.

Hatch says that Native American nicknames and mascots “are not derogatory,” and he believes it so strongly that he purchased Redskins sweatshirts, hats and other team merchandise when he visited Washington while representing the Tulalip Tribal Council.

“I’m proud of the Redskins,” he said. “I support them, just like I do the Tomahawks. … I think it brings to light us as Indian people.”

Years ago, Seattle’s Blanchet High School considered changing its nickname from Braves. Hatch said he visited the high school and spoke to the students at an assembly, urging them to retain the nickname. His words evidently had an impact as Blanchet teams are still called the Braves.

Likewise, Marysville-Pilchuck remains the Tomahawks and that nickname is a tribute to the Tulalip history, culture “and pride we have,” Hatch said. Likewise, the school colors remain red and white, which is emblematic “of the red man and the white man,” he said.

Tulalip Tribes Chairman Mel Sheldon could not be reached for comment, but in a statement released by a tribal representative he said: “It’s time for sports teams to change mascot designations that use Native American names and cultural imagery. Stereotypes, no matter how innocent they seem, help to perpetuate certain perceptions about Native Americans that obscure our history, and the contributions we’ve made to American society.

According to Fryberg, those nicknames and mascots also demean the people they are purported to esteem. “People say they are honoring Natives,” she said. “No, they’re not.

“Given the difficulties Native students have had being successful in mainstream schools,” she went on, “I just don’t think it’s a place where we need to add one more stereotype and one more barrier for Native students to (overcome). … Negative stereotypes are playing with people’s identity, and at the end of the day, how many Native students have to say it bothers them before we care?”

The striking thing about this issue, of course, is how vigorously people disagree, including many Native Americans themselves. While some see nicknames like Indians, Chiefs, Braves and even Redskins as symbols of disrespect, others like Hatch believe those same nicknames help to preserve the historical dignity, pride and heritage of all Native Americans.

Keeping those nicknames “is very important,” he said. “And I’m proud to have (sports teams) named after our Indian people.”

 

38th District Rep John McCoy transitions to senate

Facebook photo
Facebook photo

By Niki Cleary, Tulalip News

A Tulalip Tribal member and Washington State Legislator, John McCoy has had a significant impact on the reservation simply by being successful. He was elected to serve in the House of Representatives in 2003, and was one of two Native American Representatives in Washington State. On November 27th, 2013, McCoy was unanimously selected by the Snohomish County Council to fill a Senate position left vacant by Senator Nick Harper’s resignation.

“John has always been a mover and shaker,” said Tulalip Chairman Mel Sheldon. “He’s helped change the way the legislature views Native Americans and has paved the way for our young men and women to follow in his footsteps. He’s brought hope that in the near future we’ll see the face of state politics change to reflect importance of tribes, both as economic drivers in the state and as an important part of the history and culture of this land.”

His resonance with tribes is part of what got McCoy elected, but what’s kept him in office, and made him the frontrunner for the senate seat is his dedication to the everyman.

“My priorities haven’t changed,” said John. “My priorities have always been elders, children and the working adult. During this last interim I worked a lot on migrant, low income and mental health housing. I’ll continue that work. There are dental access issues that I’ll be working on.

“I’ll continue working hard for the 38th Legislative District, Snohomish County and Washington State as a whole,” continued McCoy. “WSU (Washington State University) is coming to Everett, so that’s another thing I’ll be working on. There are some environmental things I’ll be working on. Again, whatever is best for the district, the county and the state, it’s the same stuff, different chamber.”

Tulalip Board of Director and Business Committee Chairman Glen Gobin described McCoy’s appointment by saying McCoy is simply the best man for the job.

“Congratulations to John,” said Gobin. “John has stayed very active and involved, not just the legislative district he is elected to, but all across the state as well as this nation. John also has served, unofficially, as an ambassador for Washington State Tribes, helping to educate those he serves with, and his constituency, about Native American issues as well as misperceptions about Native Americans. John’s commitment to serve the people is reflected in the vote from the Snohomish County Council. I am proud of John. He is well suited to do the work that is needed, and I know well he will do a great job.”

For those who haven’t thought about State governance since high school civics class, McCoy described the differences between the House of Representatives and the State Senate.

“There aren’t as many senators. Each district has two representatives and one senator, 98 representatives and 49 senators,” he explained. “The representatives serve two-year terms and senators serve four-year terms. The house side gets through processes faster, the senate is designed to be more constrained. The Washington State Legislative House cranks out between 3,000 and 5,000 bills a session. Consequently, some are good and some are not. The Senate is more pragmatic and selective, they work the issues more. That’s by design.”

That pragmatism is a good fit for McCoy who believes his popularity in politics are a result of being honest and caring, but blunt.

“I don’t beat around the bush,” said McCoy, “I had a couple meetings this morning with some folks who wanted money. I said, ‘I support your issues, but I don’t know that we can get you money this year.’ It’s about being up front with people and letting them know where you stand. I can’t make everybody happy, but at least they can understand why I can’t make them happy. They generally feel good as long as they know where they stand.”

When the term for his Senate seat ends, McCoy plans to run for election.

“This is a natural step for me,” he said.

Tulalip Tribes establish first Native American aquatic resource program of its kind in the nation

Col. Bruce Estok, district commander and engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Seattle District, joins Tulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. and David Allnutt — director of the Office of Ecosystems, Tribal and Public Affairs for Region 10 of the Environmental Protection Agency — in signing the first Native American In-Lieu Fee Program in the nation for Quil Ceda Village on Nov. 26.— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner
Col. Bruce Estok, district commander and engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Seattle District, joins Tulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. and David Allnutt — director of the Office of Ecosystems, Tribal and Public Affairs for Region 10 of the Environmental Protection Agency — in signing the first Native American In-Lieu Fee Program in the nation for Quil Ceda Village on Nov. 26.
— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner

Kirk Boxleitner, Marysville Globe

TULALIP — Representatives of the Tulalip Tribes, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency sat down together on Tuesday, Nov. 26, to officially establish the first Native American In-Lieu Fee Program in the nation, for aquatic resource impacts and compensatory mitigation.

Tulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. was joined by Col. Bruce Estok, district commander and engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Seattle District, and David Allnutt — director of the Office of Ecosystems, Tribal and Public Affairs for Region 10 of the EPA — in signing an ILF Program Instrument for Quil Ceda Village, with the purpose of providing compensation for unavoidable impacts to wetlands and other aquatic resources, resulting from construction projects within the boundaries of Quil Ceda Village itself.

“This is a very significant event,” Estok said. “With the Tribes’ leadership, this will allow high-quality mitigation for their aquatic resources, to help them develop their environment.”

Sheldon credited Terry Williams, the Fisheries and Natural Resources Commissioner for the Tulalip Tribes, with seeing this program through since he started working with the Tribes.

“This represents the culmination of years of work,” Sheldon said. “This gives us the flexibility to pursue our other economic programs, and shows respect for the Tribes’ sovereignty.”

Sheldon went so far as to describe the Quil Ceda Village ILF Program as vital to the future of the Tulalip Tribes.

“Only by protecting and restoring our tribal watershed lands do we fulfill our obligations to future generations, to leave them a healthy, productive environment, while also allowing us to develop and manage our lands, to yield a stronger and even more diverse tribal economy,” Sheldon said. “Our In-Lieu Fee Program is the first by a federally recognized tribe, and we believe that our record on environmental restoration, protection and natural resource management has prepared us to implement and administer this smart and effective program, by providing high-quality mitigation within a watershed approach.”

The ILF Program will use a watershed approach to locate mitigation projects, and provide consolidated mitigation targeting specific priority habitat, water quality and hydrology functions, based on the critical needs of each sub-basin within the Quil Ceda Creek watershed.

“The Corps believes that effective ILF Programs are vital to helping it protect the aquatic environment, efficiently administer our regulatory program, and provide the regulated public with fair, timely and reasonable decisions,” said Gail Terzi, a mitigation specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers. “ILF Programs are very intentional in how they embrace a watershed approach and, as such, are optimal tools for addressing watershed needs.”

“The EPA commends the Tulalip Tribes for this proactive move to protect the Quil Ceda watershed,” Allnutt said. “Watersheds and aquatic resources are a valuable part of the broader ecosystem in this area, and this program will result in thoughtful decision-making to protect this tribal resource.”

“We may not realize how big this is now, but generations down the road will be thanking us,” Sheldon said.

After nearly 80 years, Native American story pole is coming home

The 37-foot story pole was originally carved by Tulalip Tribe leader and artist William Shelton. It stood in a park in Illinois for more than 70 years until weather and bugs forced it to be taken down. Now the Burke Museum is working to bring it home. (Photo courtesy Freeport Park District)
The 37-foot story pole was originally carved by Tulalip Tribe leader and artist William Shelton. It stood in a park in Illinois for more than 70 years until weather and bugs forced it to be taken down. Now the Burke Museum is working to bring it home. (Photo courtesy Freeport Park District)

By Kiersten Throndsem, kimatv.com

SEATTLE – For more than 70 years a pole stood watch over a Boy Scout park in Freeport, Ill. This pole shared a story, carved in wood, of a Native American culture to those who visited the park until it was removed.

And, now the Burke Museum wants to bring this story pole – created by in the Northwest by Snohomish Tribe leader William Shelton — home.

“It’s an important pole for us because we don’t have a pole from that period,” said Robin Wright, with the Burke Museum. “William Shelton really initiated the totem pole carving for the Coast Salish.”

After being carved by Shelton, the 37-foot pole was sent to Illinois in 1935. There it stood in Krape Park until 2008 while weather and bugs led to its decay. The story pole was taken down five years ago and has remained in a warehouse ever since.

“The bottom of it where it went into the ground is completely rotten, and other portions of the pole need some loving care,” Wright said “It’s in pretty poor condition.”

Not sure what to do with the pole, the Freeport Park District contacted the Burke Museum to see if it might be interested in taking it. The museum is home to a large Northwest Coast collection and very familiar with works of Shelton and the Coast Salish culture.

However, getting the pole here is tricky and will cost thousands of dollars. To help offset some of those moving expenses, the museum turned online, to a crowd sourcing fundraiser in hopes of raising $7,500. The money will help pay for a truck and flatbed trailer to haul the pole across the country.

Shelton is recognized for carving a number of poles between 1910 and the 1930s, and this particular pole, Wright said, tells the same kind of story found on all his poles.

“The whale at the bottom and the eagle at the top” Wright said.  “Whales are very important for the original story of the Tulalip Tribe. It goes back to a time when people were starving and whales would help herd the salmon up the stream so people could get food.”

The Burke Museum plans to work with representatives from the Tulalip Tribe, as well as Shelton’s family, who happen to live in Snohomish County, to interpret the pole once it arrives. It’s unknown how much it will cost to actually restore the pole, and it will need to be fumigated. The hope is to hire Tulalip carvers trained in story pole restoration.

Shelton’s pole will be tallest pole in the museum’s collection and will be mounted inside.

More information about the museum’s fundraising efforts can be found online.

Tulalip Tribes donate $6.9 million to community

Tulalip Tribal Board Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. thanks the surrounding community for supporting the Tribes’ efforts to support organizations that support the surrounding community in turn.— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner
Tulalip Tribal Board Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. thanks the surrounding community for supporting the Tribes’ efforts to support organizations that support the surrounding community in turn.
— image credit: Kirk Boxleitner

By Kirk Boxleitner, Marysville Globe

TULALIP — The Tulalip Tribes announced a record-setting $6.9 million in donations this year, to more than 280 Washington state nonprofits and community groups, during their 21st annual “Raising Hands” celebration, in the Orca Ballroom of the Tulalip Resort Hotel and Casino, on Saturday, Oct. 26.

“We’re here to share stories of goodwill, and of how we came to journey together,” Tulalip Tribal Board Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. said. “We look back on how much progress we’ve made, thanks to the leaders of the past, who built our foundations. We’re so grateful to be able to follow their example, and to share in the goodwill and work that you do. Look around you,” he told those seated in the Orca Ballroom that evening. “We’re all doing the same work, which is bettering the community. It wasn’t that long ago that Tulalip needed help, and we appreciated the helping hands we received, so now that we’re in a position to do so, we’re proud to help those who help others.”

After a performance by Quil Ceda Elementary student singers, Tulalip Tribal Board member Glen Gobin noted that the Tribes’ financial generosity is a sign of their growing fortunes.

“We’ve given more than $57 million to different charities over the years,” Gobin said. “Fifty years ago, the Tribes’ total budget was $200,000 for the whole year. We had 750 organizations request funds from us in the past year. There’s a lot of good organizations out there, but we can’t give to everybody.”

Tulalip Tribal Board Vice Chair Deborah Parker told the representatives of those recipient organizations to take pride in being “hard workers who contribute to the community every day,” just as she expressed pride in being able to “stand beside you and help celebrate your successes.”

Tulalip Tribal Board member Theresa Sheldon thanked a number of organizations in attendance for helping to educate the public on the larger problems facing the world, “just as we’ve had to re-educate people, to correct them about our history as Native Americans, to let them know that Columbus Day isn’t something that should be celebrated, and that dressing up as a Native American for Halloween is inappropriate. We have to do that re-education because so much of our history is not taught in books.”

The Tribes support regional efforts to improve education, health and human services, cultural preservation, public safety, the environment and the economy. This year’s local recipients included the Arlington Community Food Bank — which received a donation in an amount between $7,501 to $10,000, to help with their construction of a new food bank, providing emergency food assistance to 12,000 people of all ages — and to the Marysville School District, which received a donation of more than $10,000, to support educational programs at Quil Ceda Elementary and Totem Middle School. The Cascade Valley Hospital Foundation received a donation in an amount between $2,501 to $5,000, to help fund their purchase of an advanced medical simulation manikin, with which to train hospital staff in crucial emergency responses.

“And of course, our most importance resource is our youth,” Mel Sheldon said. “It’s the little ones of today who will lead us down the road to the future. We’re all in this together.”