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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2019
Piece of sacred meteorite returned to tribe
By ERIN ROSS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
A small piece of Ore-
gon’s most storied rock
added a chapter to its his-
tory Friday when the Ever-
green Aviation & Space
Museum in McMinnville
returned it to the Confeder-
ated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
The meteorite Toma-
nowos, also referred to as
the Willamette Meteor-
ite, formed about 4.5 bil-
lion years ago, at the start
of the solar system. For an
unknown amount of time it
sped around the sun before
falling to Earth. Thirteen
thousand years ago, glacial
fl oods carried it to the Wil-
lamette Valley, near the city
of West Linn.
A little over a hundred
years ago, it was donated
to the American Museum
of Natural History in New
York City, and a few small
chunks were sliced off and
sold.
And on Friday, a 4.5
ounce piece of the sacred
meteorite fi nally returned
home.
Cheryle A. Kennedy,
Grand Ronde tribal chair-
woman, says she felt over-
whelmed by the event. “The
representation of a piece of
the meteorite being brought
back to the people is also
representative to us that
healing is occurring with
us,” she said. “That all the
parts are being returned, and
we as a people can come
home as well.”
Tomanowos is over
30,000
pounds ,
mak-
ing it the largest meteor-
ite found in North America
and the sixth-largest in the
world. Comprised of iron
and nickel, scientists think
it may have formed when
a long-gone planet shat-
tered. Because of its large
Hillsboro man
arraigned on rape,
sex abuse charges
her home without the
knowledge or consent
of her parents.
A Hillsboro man
Offi cers later deter-
found with a teenage mined Knox may have
girl in a snow-
sexually abused
bound
vehi-
the girl near her
cle earlier this
home in King
month pleaded
County, Wash-
ington,
and
not guilty Mon-
arrested him for
day to sec-
second-degree
ond-degree rape
attempted rape.
and fi rst-degree
Christopher
More infor-
sexual abuse .
Thomas
mation
about
The Clatsop
Knox
the case was
County Sheriff’s
revealed during
Offi ce fi rst made
investigation
contact with Christo- further
pher Thomas Knox, and led a grand jury
37, after he called to to indict Knox on sec-
request help getting ond-degree rape and
sexual
his rental car out of fi rst-degree
the snow near the Gnat abuse, Deputy District
Creek
Campground Attorney Beau Peter-
along U.S. Highway 30. son said. He was also
When they arrived, charged with luring a
deputies found through minor and online sex-
further
investigation ual corruption of a child
that the 13-year-old girl in the fi rst degree.
Knox’s bail was set
Knox originally intro-
duced as his daughter at $250,000. His next
was not related to him, court date is scheduled
and that she had left for March.
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
A piece of the sacred meteorite Tomanowos, also known as the Willamette meteorite. It was
returned to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde as a donation by the Evergreen Aviation
& Space Museum.
size and distinctive shape,
it’s become one of the best-
known meteorites in the
world.
But long before Toma-
nowos was donated to the
American Museum of Natu-
ral History, it had achieved
cultural importance to the
Clackamus people of the
Willamette Valley, whose
descendants are members
of the tribes of the Grand
Ronde. The Clackamus
knew that Tomanowos came
from the sky, and used the
water that gathered in its
divots and basins for cleans-
ing and healing.
In 1999, the tribes
attempted to regain the
meteorite under the Native
American Graves Pro-
tection and Repatriation
Act. In the end, an agree-
ment was reached with the
American Natural History
Museum, which recognizes
the cultural signifi cance of
the meteorite to the Grand
Ronde people, allows them
to conduct ceremonies at
Tomanowos, and says that
if it ever goes off display, it
will be returned to the tribes.
The Confederated Tribes
of Grand Ronde make a
yearly visit to Tomanowos,
where they hold a private
ceremony at the museum.
“We express our apprecia-
tion from the standpoint that
they are keeping something
which is very sacred to us,”
says Kennedy.
The museum’s interim
executive director indicated
in a prepared statement that
the meteorite’s sacred nature
for the Grand Ronde was an
important factor in the deci-
sion to return it.
“It is a great honor for the
Evergreen Aviation & Space
Museum to return this cul-
turally signifi cant artifact
to the Grand Ronde Tribe,
so they may share it with
generations to come,” John
Rasmussen, the interim
executive director, said.
This is the second piece
of the meteorite to be
donated to the Grand Ronde,
and there are thought to be
over a hundred of pieces of
the meteorite owned by pri-
vate collectors across the
country. Kennedy hopes
there will be more returned.
“I think that when folks
hear the story, they will
come forward and donate
their pieces back,” Ken-
nedy says. “Recognizing
that as all of the meteorite
is returned, it helps make a
people whole.”
This piece, along with the
second, will be on display at
the Chachalu Museum and
Cultural Center as part of an
exhibit called “Witness.” It
opens in late spring .
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Oregon fi sh may be removed from endangered list
A rebound for the
Borax Lake chub
By JES BURNS
Oregon Public
Broadcasting
An Oregon fi sh is being
proposed for removal from
the federal list of endan-
gered species. The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service
started the delisting process
Monday for the Borax Lake
chub.
The chub is a tiny golden
minnow that only lives in
one place — southeast Ore-
gon’s Borax Lake. The lake
is small, hot, alkaline and
a rather surprising place to
fi nd fi sh.
The fi sh are believed to
have been isolated there
after the lake that covered
the current-day Alvord Des-
ert began to shrink more
than 10,000 years ago. They
took refuge around a hot
spring that maintains Borax
Lake year round.
Unlike
many
spe-
cies, the Borax Lake chub
wasn’t listed as endangered
because its population was
in decline. It was extended
protections in the early
1980s, when geothermal
energy exploration threat-
ened to disrupt the spring
that provided the fi sh’s only
habitat.
Since listing, the 10-acre
lake and land around it was
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The tiny Borax Lake chub is being proposed for removal from
the endangered species list.
purchased and protected by
T he Nature Conservancy.
“By doing that, it meant
that there was no more graz-
ing right up to the edge of
the lake. It meant that the
land in close proximity
to the lake was not avail-
able for mineral or geother-
mal development, and it
also restricted access to the
lake,” said Fish and Wild-
life Service biologist Chris
Allen.
The federal Bureau of
Land Management then
added an extra buffer by
designating the public land
around the lake an area of
critical environmental con-
cern. Allen said the state
of Oregon also secured the
water rights for the spring,
making irrigation diver-
sions a thing of the past.
The Fish and Wildlife
Service says it has been put-
ting an emphasis on reclas-
sifying and delisting species
when they’ve met recovery
goals.
Because
the
Borax
Lake chub is only found in
one small lake in Harney
County, over the course of
40 years, wildlife manag-
ers were able address most
of the threats to the species.
“It is always to easier to
work on recovery actions
on species with more nar-
row distributions. And you
can’t get too much more
narrow than the Borax Lake
chub,” Allen said. “The
smaller the range of the spe-
cies the more you have the
ability to control conserva-
tion management of that by
land ownership.”
But that same limited
species range also presents
a more dire situation.
“This is it. This is the
only place on Earth where
that fi sh lives, the only hab-
itat that’s available,” said
Garth Fuller, E astern Ore-
gon conservation director
with T he Nature Conser-
vancy. “It can’t disperse. It
can’t move. There isn’t a
standby. You don’t have a
second chance.”
That’s part of the rea-
son that Fuller would rather
see the minnow downlisted
to “threatened” instead of
being removed from the
endangered species list
completely, as is being
proposed by the Fish and
Wildlife Service. He says
there are still some threats
remaining to the chub.
“I think the largest hur-
dle is the remaining poten-
tial for geothermal develop-
ment on the private lands in
the area. And even though
it may seem unlikely, that
geothermal reservoir that
feeds the lake, that’s so crit-
ical to the habitat, is still
vulnerable to development
impacts,” Fuller said.
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