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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (June 24, 2004)
Page 6 Possible threat to fish from fire retardant was ignored, memo says GRANTS PASS (AP) - The Bush administration ignored advice from government agen cies that they should be con sulted about the potential harm to threatened and endangered fish from fire retardant dropped on wildfires, according to docu ments released in a lawsuit by forest services workers. The Forest Service Employ ees for Environmental Ethics obtained the documents, which it released last week, from the government as part of its law suit over fire retardant use filed last October in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. Salmon reintroduced to BAKER CITY (AP) - The black-speckled fish, most of a yard long and thick as a weightlifter's biceps, flops wetly in the net and then, with a single thrash of its tail, disappears into the murky currents of the Pow der River near downtown Baker City. It is a chinook salmon. And it is the first of its kind to swim in these urban waters since the Great Depression. Fifteen minutes later, about a dozen more salmon have splashed into the chilly Powder, which is running fast with irri gation water. Up on the river's east bank, Bob Becker climbs into a white Ford pickup truck, which rides a bit higher on its rear springs now that it has disgorged half its load of 10- to 15-pound salmon, plus a couple hundred gallons of water. Becker is the fish transport coordinator at the Oregon De partment of Fish and Wildlife's (ODFW) La Grande office. On this day, he is in Baker City with ODFW fish biologists Jeff Zakel and Nadine Craft. The trio's task is to reintro duce salmon to the upper Pow der, where they have not swum since Thief Valley Dam blocked Wild horse race memorial . for Thurman Squiemphen In conjunction with the Pi-Ume-Sha Rodeo this year will be the Thurman Squiemphen Wild Horse Race Memorial. The prize for this race is $3,000 added. There is a $150 entry fee, and 100 per cent payout. There is no con testant fee. There is a 32 team limit for this race. Thurman Squiemphen was a rodeo rider. He rode in the wild horse races, and the saddle bronc competition. Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days Sports SA Sanctioned Amateur Boxing Boxing "Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days Boxing" 4 p.m. Saturday, June 26 Warm Springs Community Center 2200 Hollywood Blvd., Warm Springs, Ore. This USA Amateur Boxing event will be a fundraising activity for the Warm Springs Nation Boxing Team traveling to the National Indian Boxing Tournament being held this year at Haskell Indian Nations University at Lawrence, Kansas. Total estimated distance is 1,718 miles from here. Please come and support this youth activity and boxing. Information: Call Austin Smith at 553-3243, or 553-3250. After 9 p.m. leave a message at 553-3094. PRINTING Tribal Business Cards Business Forms EnvelopesLetterheads Raffle Tickets aron graphics & promotions "The public needs to know that if the judge orders retar dant use to be stopped, it's be cause the government chose to break the law, and it knew bet ter," said Andy Stahl, director of the Eugene-based environmen tal group. "We could avoid that out come. The way to do that is for the government to agree it has to write an environmental im pact statement and involve the public in deciding how we man age fire on public lands, some thing the government has never done in 100 years." Fire retardant dropped from their path in the early 1930s. Before they left Baker City, the biologists poured 25 salmon into the river between Campbell Street and Hughes Lane. A sec ond truck hauled 75 more fish to the river just below Phillips Reservoir. Then, days later, ODFW of ficials released 78 more chinook - 26 in town, 52 below the res ervoir. The salmon, most of them 4 years old, were raised in a hatchery, Zakel said. They migrated down the Snake and Columbia rivers and lived in the Pacific Ocean for about 2 years before they heeded their genetic imperative and returned to the fresh water of the Columbia late this win ter. The salmon migrated up stream more than 300 miles, Zakel said, fighting through the fish ladders at eight dams on the Columbia and the Snake. This spring, the chinook reached an obstacle they could not conquer: Hells Canyon Dam. There they swam right into a trap below the dam's 300-foot-high concrete face. After spending a few days at the Oxbow hatchery, the salmon He passed away in an ac cident last year. The family put the memo rial race together in his honor. On tm cutalog imfTOInFl..C.lH.Ti)i For Conventions, Workshops Sports Awards. Pow-wow, Golf Toum Child Awards. Giveaways, Gaming in, peril, muifK tMy VL. (tmOrwdpy - Knen printing) Hand-painted murals and designing. Signage: Wood, plastic metal t vinyl CJi 923 -6377 Spilyay Tyrooo, air tankers contracted by the Forest Service contains sodium ferrocyanide, which breaks down to form hydrogen cya nide, which kills fish when it is jmixed with water and exposed to sunlight, the lawsuit contends. At least three fish kills from fire retardant falling in streams have been acknowledged by the gov ernment. In allowing timber interests to intervene in the lawsuit, Judge Donald W. Molloy wrote that if the environmental group wins its lawsuit, the Forest Service will have to stop using fire retardant until it complies with the law. upper Powder River - about half male, half female -were ensconced in Becker's wa terlogged truck and on their way to Baker City. Their lives in the Powder will be brief, Zakel said. The females will try to lay their eggs late this summer, Zakel said, and it's possible some will be fertilized. But whether or not they spawn successfully, the adult salmon almost certainly will be dead by Halloween, he said. Zakel, however, hopes most of these fish will die with hooks lodged in their mouths. Anglers landed at least five salmon Memorial Day weekend. Giving anglers a chance to catch these fish, which are sev eral times larger than the Powder's diminutive trout, is the reason ODFW officials decided to dump these salmon into the Powder, Zakel said. "These are eatin fish," he said. "They're in pretty good shape." Biologists aren't trying to es tablish salmon runs in the Pow-' der, he said. The river can't support an nual runs of chinook, Zakel said. And although there's a slight chance these stocked salmon will produce offspring, the baby fish can't reach the ocean (four dams, none with fish ladders, stand in the way), and they would not survive long in the river, he said. Zakel predicts anglers will catch most, if not all, of the salmon now swimming in the 553-3274 Small Hands to Hold Love ... Fact: Children from age two to seventeen start fires that endanger lives, cause injuries, death and burn millions of dollars in property. Fact: Children under the age of three cause a majority of these fires and lose their lives in the process. This does not have to happen. Parents need to teach their children about the dangers of fire and create a fire-safe home. Install Smoke Detectors ... Plan an Escape Route AMERIND offers Home and Fire Safety Training to Children in Indian Country. Contact AMERIND'S Loss Prevention Team for more information: AMERIND: Warm Springs, Oregon The lawsuit claims the For est Service has violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to go through a public review of the environ mental effects of dropping re tardant. It also argues the Forest Ser vice violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries, which have jurisdiction over threatened and endangered fish, on the lethal effects of fire re tardant on bull trout and salmon. Powder. The fish are so focused on spawning that they don't eat, so anglers who try to tempt the salmon with tasty baits such as worms or fish eggs probably won't get even a nibble. But the chinook might bite at things that bother them, Zakel said. "They're biting because they're annoyed," he said. "Throw something at them that's ugly or that makes noise. They're definitely fish that can be caught." Complete Exhaust Shop & Tire Sales & Service & Auto Sales - Pre-owned - Towing High Performance Parts & Work Diesel Repair & Performance - RV Repair Domestic & Foreign Cars - Engine Overhauls 475-6618 www.amerind-corp.org 800-352-3496 A Consortium of Tribes Protecting Tribes Siletz Tribes bless the returning salmon with ritual EUGENE (AP) - Agnes Pilgrim presided over a rite once common among West ern Oregon Indian Tribes on the banks of the Applegate River where her ancestors lived. At 79, Pilgrim still leads the annual sacred salmon cer emony she helped revive a decade ago. An honored elder with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, she normally uses a motorized wheelchair because of a herniated disc and an atrophied foot. But she is so energized by this event and this place that she gets around here with only a cane. Rising at dawn at last weekend's ceremony, she hollers a wake-up call to sum mon sleepy campers to a sun rise prayer circle. Pointing with her crooked cane, she directs details of a 200-person feast, down to making sure there are clean white tablecloths and vases of flowers. Raising her hand and chanting a prayer, she waves a smoldering braid of sweet-grass over ceremonial utensils. Salmon were important to the survival of dozens of Northwest tribes, including Cliff 's Repair Auto Sales June 24, 2004 the Kalapuya who lived in the Eugene-Springfield area. More than two dozen differ ent bands formed the Con- federated Tribes of Siletz, and many of their descen dants conduct salmon cer emonies, says Selene Rilatos, the tribes' cultural activities coordinator. As granddaughter Tonya Nevarez Rilatos watches closely, Pilgrim blesses the freshly spaded fire pit, the obsidian blade to cut the fish, the sharpened redwood stakes used to bake it. Later, as the first cooked salmon comes off the fire, Pilgrim slices a bite for each of the participants, who re turn the bone and skin to her. Drums thump as four young men emerge from a sweat lodge, skin flushed by the heat of the purification rite. Each holds cedar boughs to wrap up the bone and skin offering. As they run to the frigid river to dive in and leave their bundles on the bottom, the women dance in a circle. "We bless the female salmon," Pilgrim prays, "for her long, dangerous journey up the river to spawn, still nurturing as she dies." 330 S.W. Culver Hwy. Madras, OR 97741 Not Hre and Their Families ' If V.?' A
