Pure Imagination: Tulalip Burial Grounds

Dana Kinsey of Orcas Island, and formerly of the Conservation District, recently wrote an open letter to Councilmen Jarman and Hughes about her concerns regarding our Local Integrating Organization (LIO). In her letter, Kinsey alleges that Linda Lyshall has been shifting LIO funding to the Conservation Distict for her own benefit. Kinsey wrote:

It appears that [Lyshall] is determining projects, grantees and funding now. I thought she was originally hired by San Juan County to coordinate the LIO part time as a county employee. Now suddenly, in this new proposal all the work and money go to the Conservation District. Is it because [Lyshall] took a job there in May?

We agree with Kinsey that the Council should start asking the LIO a lot more questions ... everyone should. Even in a world where miscreant government is the norm, the LIO sticks out for being a freakish Franken-bureaucracy beyond compare.

The Trojan Heron will do an entire series of posts about the LIO in the near future, but for the moment, we want to provide some background about one of its governing members ... the Tulalip Tribes. 

First, we need to explain how the Tulalips fit into the LIO. The LIO is "governed" by an Accountability Oversight Committee (AOC) comprised of our County government together with three local tribes ... the Tulalip Tribes, the Lummi Nation, and the Swinomish Tribe. The LIO manages our local ecosystem, using the Puget Sound Partnership's Action Agenda for San Juan County as a plan.  That's right ... our local ecosystem is not managed by our elected County Council. Instead it is managed according to a blueprint (the Action Agenda) formulated by a State bureaucracy (the PSP) and then implemented by an intergovernmental panel consisting of 1 collective vote for 3 local tribes and 1 vote for our elected County government.

So what are our LIO tribal partners like? Here are some facts about the Tulalips.

As anyone who has driven down I-5 knows, the Tulalip Tribes have a reservation in Snohomish County. The 22,000-acre reservation is home to about 2,500 tribal members (another 1,500 live off the reservation) and about 8,000 non-tribal members. That gives the reservation a population density exceeding 3 times that of San Juan County. 

According to DSHS, tribal members are entitled to a $2,000 quarterly stipend, with a December bonus of $3,500. In 2012, tribal members received $11,500. The elderly and disabled receive payments of $1,000 per month. Tuition assistance is available for Tulalip tribal members attending college. Tribal members also receive an employment preference for jobs on the reservation.

Who gets to be a Tulalip tribal member? That is a very interesting question. These days, to become a Tulalip tribal member, a child has to be born to a tribal member who has lived on the reservation for at least 12 months prior to the child's birth. That means that a full-blood Tulalip born in Boston, New York City, or Portland is not a member of the tribe and can never be a member of the tribe. On the other hand, even a mostly non-Tulalip child born on the reservation to a tribal member is automatically a tribal member. These strange tribal membership rules are described by a Tulalip tribal member and blogger in the following way:

As a 20 year old Tulalip female, it disturbs me to know that there is no blood quantum to become a Tulalip tribal member. “The applicant must be a child born to any Member of the tribe, which Member is a Resident as defined herein.” [Sec.3.0] Since this is all you have to do to become a tribal member, the tribe ends up having a lot of non-native members. 

The rules provide a loop hole that permits whites and other non-natives to enroll. My cousin is a perfect example. He is less than one-eighth and is still an enrolled tribal member. His child is less than one-sixteenth because he is having a baby with a white woman. His child will surely be enrolled because he lives on the Tulalip Reservation and is a tribal member of the Tulalip tribes. The resident rule excludes some Native Americans from enrollment. 

For example, my younger sister didn’t have acceptable mail with her name and address on it. She needed it to prove residency which caused problems in enrolling her children. My sister is currently living on the Tulalip reservation with her children where they have been living since they were born. The rules also cause problems for Tulalip tribal members who move off of the reservation.

Other tribes tease the Tulalip tribes because many of our members are white. They call us white Tulalip because the large amount of white tribal members. A Native American tribe is supposed to be made up of Native American people not white or black people. If non-natives are allowed to be enrolled, they take money from the Native Americans.

In other words, Tulalip tribal membership isn't the same as Tulalip heritage anymore, and the Tulalips are not the only tribe to view tribal membership in this way. In fact, a congressional study predicts that nationwide only 3% of "Indians" will be full blooded by 2080.

The Tulalips have been very successful economically. The reservation operates Quil Ceda Village (a 100-store mall), Quil Ceda Creek Casino, Tulalip Resort Casino, Tulalip Liquor Store and Smoke Shop, Tulalip Broadband, a fish hatchery, and a closed hazardous waste landfill that used to be a Superfund site ... more on that in a moment.

Tulalip operations earn hundreds of millions in revenue each year (estimated to be more than $200 million back in 2005). Only a very small proportion of tribal revenue is generated from fishing these days. Reportedly, 30 tribal members are licensed to fish, which is down from about 130 tribal members in the mid-1980s.

Getting back to the Tulalip Superfund Site, the EPA says the following:

Tulalip Landfill is a 147-acre site located on North Ebey Island, within the boundaries of the Tulalip Indian Reservation near Marysville, Washington. The landfill is surrounded by Ebey Slough to the north and Steamboat Slough to the south. Surface water from these sloughs flows into northern Puget Sound, a federally designated national estuary that is a recognized habitat for shellfish and some endangered species, including salmon. The Tulalip Tribe leased land to the Seattle Disposal Company from 1964 to 1979. During that time, an estimated four million tons of commercial, industrial, and hospital waste were deposited in the landfill. In 1979, the landfill was closed. An estimated 7,800 people obtain their drinking water from private and municipal wells that are within four miles of the site. The nearest drinking water source is within one mile of the site.

The site underwent cleanup about 15 years ago, and in April 2013, the EPA completed it's third 5-Year Review of the remedy. The remedy consists of an engineered 7-layer containment system to better isolate the waste and contamination, groundwater monitoring for at least 30 years, and institutional controls (e.g., land use restrictions and administrative controls such as warning signs).

Prior to landfilling activities, the land on which the landfill is located consisted of relatively undisturbed intertidal wetlands. After landfilling operations ceased, contaminated leachate was seeping out into the nearby wetlands causing concerns for human health and the environment, so the site was added to the National Priorities List (NPL) in April 1995. In an editorial from that year, Greg Wingard, President Waste Action Project Seattle, wrote the following:

EPA investigation of the site showed hazardous and bio-hazard waste was disposed of there. Leachate from the landfill was determined to be toxic and a danger to salmon in the nearby Quilceda Creek.  When EPA sent a team of divers in to investigate the landfill's impact on Puget Sound, they found body parts, bloody bandages and other medical waste.

Most of the divers contracted armpit and groin infections as a result of their exposure. Tests run on bacteria samples by EPA showed most of the samples were highly resistant to the 13 antibiotics tested. Some of the samples were 100 percent resistant to everything used against them. This information is contained in the EPA Region X file on the landfill.

From looking at the documentation and the data, I have to say that I truly believe the Tulalip landfill has an effective remedy in place now. In its current remediated state, I believe that the risks to human health and the environment have been mitigated. But if the remediated Tulalip landfill of horrors can safety exist directly adjacent to the shore of Puget Sound, so can an average home in the San Juans.

The Tulalips have a role in managing our ecosystem via the LIO. Tribal employees (e.g., Kit Rawson) have been long-term tribal representatives to our Marine Resources Committee. Tulalips have "usual and accustomed" fishing rights in our waters. When you encounter Tulalip environmental-ish policies and statements regarding salmon ... or regarding climate change and sea level rise ... or even their heritage ... take note that fishing is just one more line of business for the tribe and its tribal members ... take note that the Tulalip reservation has a delisted Superfund site sitting in wetlands barely above high tide on Puget Sound ... take note of who gets to be a Tulalip tribal member and who doesn't ... take note that the tribe is an economic and development powerhouse.

I believe Tulalip tribal government officials have been very effective advocates for the economic and cultural interests of their tribal members ... and we should expect our County Council to be no less effective at advocating for us.

An oblique aerial photo of the remediated Tulalip Superfund Landfill on North Ebey Island on the Tulalip Reservation.  Where is the buffer?

The ABCs of Political Patronage

Lead Salmon Recovery Entity ... MRC ... LIO/AAOG ... Conservation District ... Stewardship Network ... Madrona Institute ... Friends of the San Juans ... ECONet ... PSP ... glossy Friends messaging brochures funded by State-government (PSP) Targeted Awareness Grants (TAG) ... millions spent on "salmon recovery" with no measurement of results and no accountability for failure ... frivolous and abusive Friends legal actions opposing everything from an 80-year old widow wanting to retire, to the CAOs -- whose passage and approval the Friends demanded.

You can cut the environmental phoniness in this county with a knife. We don't have "save the environment" groups. We have "save the environmental bureaucracy" groups.  Their primary interests are ensuring that they continue to get paid while they protect the political patronage system they've built.

The current titular heads of the patronage system are Jamie Stephens and Ron Zee. They are working in tandem to hold on to as much of the patronage system as they can, despite the election outcome.  So far, they're doing a pretty good job, and Stephens, in particular, is doing a superb job.

One of the greatest achievements of the patronage system is that we all take for granted that the County deserves a "seat at the table" with the tribes, the PSP, and even its own departments ... instead of actually running the County itself. The County has been demoted to being just another stakeholder, and the group-think of unelected employees and appointees has been promoted to government. That's how the LIO/AAOG works ... and the Stewardship Network ... and the ECONet ... the Lead Entity ... even the County's own MRC.  These groups are accountable to no one, and they represent no one but themselves. They reward themselves and their patronage cronies with money and multi-decade appointments while the County sits on its hands, convinced that it's just a "fiscal agent" or some other bureaucratic label that equates to "eunuch."

The congress of "environmental groups" operating here traces back to relatively few people who appear over and over again, but the proliferation of organizations, committees, and trusts makes it seem like the County is outnumbered. The County has been Delphi'd ... go along with the crowd ... behave ... fall in line ... be patient ... be part of a team ... you want to agree with the rest of us, don't you? ... DON'T YOU?!?!

Stephens has this down pat, and he is working the other two Councilmen for all its worth. Stephens' protection of the patronage system is nothing short of heroic. He got himself appointed Chair of the Council. Stephens sits on the MRC. He's the Council representative on the LIO/AAOG too ... all the key places the patronage system wants to protect. Also, despite the fact that major aspects of the patronage system should have been (and could have been) dismantled immediately, Stephens' has effectively used a series of delay tactics and other maneuvers to convince the other Councilmen that they're "part of a team" and reform "takes time" and we need "patience" ... let's get more "input." When you hear one of our politicians use those words, that's the patronage system talking ... that's a Delphi zombie courtesy of Stephens.

John Cleese recently wrote a satirical piece about terror alerts in various countries in Europe.  Here's what he said about the French.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Aside from that excerpt being terribly ironic given the positions taken by the UK and France over the last two days, let's hope it's not the role model for our new Councilmen as they contend with our system of political patronage.

Jamie Stephens, Chair of the San Juan County Council

Ron Zee, Chair of the San Juan Islands Conservation District

Conservation District Watch: The Stacked Deck

The San Juan Islands Conservation District has merged with the San Juan County Stewardship Network and the Puget Sound Partnership's ECONet. Moreover, the non-profit Madrona Institute and the PSP's Action Agenda Oversight Group (AAOG)/Local Implementation Organization (LIO) have incestuous links to the Conservation District too.

Let's play a shortened version of 20 questions ... let's try 6 questions:

1. Who is head of the San Juan Islands Conservation District?
2. Who is on the steering committee of the Stewardship Network?
3. Who is the founder and head of the Madrona Institute, which acts as the fiscal agent for the Stewardship Network, receiving a modest 5% to 10% cut on all grants?
4. Who endorsed Pratt, Stephens, and Byers for Council?
5. Who has been trying to take County programs and grants away from the County (e.g., Salmon Lead Entity Coordinator)?
6. Who has been discussing #5 above with Jamie Stephens in relative secrecy?

The answer to all of the above is Ron Zee, who is part-creator, part-manipulator of a giant hairball bureaucracy that is a wolf (PSP) in Conservation District clothing. At the end of this post is an effort to depict this hairball with a graph, but honestly, it's an impossible task. Complexity is their disguise. It's a Gordian Knot of bureaucratic self-interest and conflicts of interest. Nevertheless, I hope readers begin to get an idea who the real power is behind this bureaucracy ... and it's not our elected officials.

The Stewardship Network is comprised of 24 organizations, including 5 separate County entities. The Steering Committee for the Stewardship Network is comprised of 4 people: Zee, Linda Lyshall (who works for Zee at the Conservation District), Stephanie Buffum of the Friends, and Lincoln Bormann of the Land Bank. This Steering Committee recently appointed Julia Vouri to be the coordinator of the Stewardship Network/ECONet "under the umbrella of the Conservation District."  The Conservation District Board had no say in the matter. Julia Vouri is the wife of Mike Vouri, who happens to be on the Advisory Board of the Madrona Institute. The Madrona Institute was founded and is headed by Zee. He has put together a 4-person Madrona Institute Board (himself, Land Bank Commissioner Jim Skoog, League of Women Voters member Sarah Crosby, and Elaine Kendall of the Ag Guild ... Zee's wife). In addition, Zee has assembled an 18-member Madrona Institute Advisory Committee that includes Linda Lyshall (again), Lincoln Bormann (again), the previously mentioned Mike Vouri, Nick Teague (National Monument/BLM Manager), and Katie Loring, wife of Friends' attorney Kyle Loring who Zee appointed as Associate Board member of the Conservation District.

Given the weight of all these heavily-networked advisors and board members, anyone who thinks the measly Conservation District Board has any power is at best an optimist and at worst a damn fool. The Conservation District Board consists of 5 members, two of whom are appointed by the State. There are just three elected members to the Conservation District Board in an otherwise sprawling complex of self-appointed greased-palm special interests.

And that's not even including the links between the Conservation District and the AAOG/LIO, whose links to the Conservation District are so cozy that the Conservation District has an office reserved for them in their new building. Who's on the AAOG/LIO, aside from the Conservation District itself? Let's see ... the Implementation Committee of the AAOG/LIO consists of a further 12 organizations, including the Marine Resources Committee (again), the Salmon Lead Entity Coordinator (again), the Stewardship Network (again), three County departments (Public Works, CD&P, Health), the Water Resources Committee, the Town, and 3 tribes.

In this impossible-to-follow Gordian Knot, self-appointed Zee-cronies are represented multiple times while the public is shut out. Let's look at the Salmon Lead Entity (SLE), for example. The Salmon Lead Entity Coordinator is Barbara Rosenkotter, who was the Treasurer for Byers campaign (endorsed by then-Democratic-Party-head Zee). Although Rosenkotter ostensibly works for the County, she represents the Stewardship Network, the MRC, and the AAOG/LIO Implementation Committee ... and she has been working stealthily with Zee, the Northwest Straits Commission/Foundation, and the tribes to move her position and State funding to the Conservation District.

There you have it ... 24 organizations in the Stewardship Network, 18 advisors to the Madrona Institute, 4 board members of the Madrona Institute, 13 members to the AAOG/LIO Implementation Committee, 2 State appointees to the Conservation District ... and just 3 elected members of the Conservation District Board. No independently elected official to the Conservation District or even to our County Council has a clue how they're being played by this bureaucracy of mass destruction. No matter how improved the Conservation District electoral system might become as a result of anticipated reforms and lawsuits, the fix is already in ... the elected positions don't even matter anymore ... the Conservation District is machine headquarters where the business of the PSP and Friends is done. The Conservation District is hopelessly broken as a representative body.

And this cabal will pass judgment on whether we, as a County, are good Puget Sound Partners. That's important because whether we are good Puget Sound Partners will matter when our County tries to obtain funding from the State. There is statutory language to that effect. Given the hearings this past week about Conservation District funding, the County Council may be under the misapprehension that they are funding the Conservation District, but in reality, it's the reverse. The County is being set up to be squeezed by the Conservation District, the PSP, and the Friends over State money. If we don't follow their whims, our State funding will be threatened.

And despite the high-minded labels (e.g., Salmon Lead Entity) and the strident, tearful pleas of bureaucratic insiders crying about the environment, absolutely none of the bureaucratic whims have anything to do with improving ecological health. The taxes and grants devoted to bureaucratic eco-efforts aren't funding on-the-ground "save the salmon" or "save the planet" initiatives ... they're funding "save the bureaucracy" initiatives.

Support the Conservation District and save a self-interested bureaucrat ... and maybe even earn a modest 5% to 10% cut for Zee at the same time.  Now that's environmental stewardship San Juan style.

Click to enlarge. Right-click to download.

Conservation District Ploy

Yesterday afternoon at 1:02 pm the County Council discussed the possibility of moving grant funding for all or part of the PSP LIO/AAOG and AOC together with the MRC and Lead Entity to the CD. Make sense?

This is why the average citizen has no hope of tracking County shenanigans. Even the jargon is an insider's game, and when you add in the artful half-truths and deception that are the hallmarks of our zombie-Friends staffers ... you get an impenetrable web of eco-deceit.

If you watch the linked video, you will see that not even Jamie Stephens (our County Chair) can keep the acronyms and responsibilities straight. He struggles like grasshopper while Barbara Rosenkotter rattles off acronyms and committee names as if she were a shaolin priest of eco-bureaucracy.

The Puget Sound Partnership (PSP), which is funded by the State and the Feds, is embodied on the local level by an organization created by our County Council, the Local Implementing Organization (LIO). What does it implement? It is supposed to implement the PSP's Action Agenda for San Juan County, which is the PSP's local plan for cleaning up our local waters. If you actually read the PSP's Action Agenda, you will note that they plan to clean up our local waters by having endless grant-funded coordinating meetings. The LIO is also known as the Action Agenda Oversight Group (AAOG), and so you often see the acronyms LIO and AAOG used interchangeably or written as "LIO/AAOG." Subordinate to the LIO/AAOG are two policy-making bodies:  the Implementation Committee (which helps draft the County Action Agenda) and the Accountability Oversight Committee (AOC), which is a committee comprised of the County in league with the Tribes. Both the County and the Tribes have veto votes regarding policy initiatives associated with the AOC.

Rosenkotter, Lyshall, and Zee hatched a plan to move this alphabet soup out of the County offices and into the enlarged quarters of the Conservation District (CD). In addition, they want to take with them the Lead Entity Coordinator role for salmon recovery (a watershed-oriented program funded by the State). Up until now, this whole shooting match has been jumbled together with the County's Marine Resources Committee (MRC). However, with greater scrutiny being placed on County Advisory Committees, especially the MRC, Rosenkotter, Lyshall, and Zee want to take the meat of the MRC's funding and "authority" and stash it in the Conservation District.

Why should we care?

We should care because these people are sneaky, because they are thinking several steps ahead of the rest of us, and because they have a pervasive influence on the lives of everyone who lives on our shorelines. For example, let's take a look at the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) TACT grant to San Juan County for a moment. TACT stands for "Trouble shooting, Action planning, Course correction, and Tracking and monitoring." Via this grant, the MRC jumble was working in boats with the Friends and armed enforcement officers from the Department of Ecology to map possible shoreline violations. Even Pictometry got mixed up with the activities associated with this grant, since sources suggest that Amy Windrope (from WDFW), Stephanie Buffum (Friends), Rosenkotter, and Lyshall were eagerly anticipating the synergies that would accrue from having Pictometry support the TACT pre-enforcement mapping. The County Council didn't authorize this work, and when certain County staffers threatened to bring these activities to light, their jobs were threatened. These are the kinds of things that happen in our County now when we supposedly have control. What would it be like if these roles and responsibilities were to be splintered?

Although the Conservation District is purportedly a non-regulatory body, the scheming that's going on right now is an effort to transform the Conservation District into grant central for facilitating enforcement actions against shoreline owners. The CD may not do the actual enforcement, but they figure they can support enforcement by others.

Thankfully, at least in the discussion yesterday, Jarman and Hughes saw the ploy for what it was.