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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 2011)
1 . News from Indian Country P3ge 8 Spilygy Tymoo November- 30, 2011 mÊÊÊÊm Crazy Horse Memorial hits $5 million Sanford match goal SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - F u n d ra isin g for the C razy Horse Memorial in South Da kota has hit the $5 million goal set by a ph ilan thro pist who agreed to match donations to speed progress on the mam moth mountain carving, offi cials said. Work on the project has been going on since 1948. W hile Crazy H orse’s face had been peering across the southern Black Hills since 1998, retired South Dakota banker T. Denny Sanford said he wanted to see w ork on the fam ed O glala Lakota leader’s horse completed in his lifetime. Sanford pledged the $5 mil lion match in 2007. The m em orial h it the fundraising mark in October, on the an n iversary o f sculptor K orczak Z io lko w sk i’s 1982 death, with a $170,000 donation from San Diego investment con sultant Richard Woltman, me morial spokesman Pat Dobbs said. Dobbs said the memorial has had its share of large donations but there also have been numer ous smaller gifts ranging from kids' lemonade sales to in-kind donations from equipment com panies. One was a large bottle of dimes, $200 worth, from a former Black Hills resident. “We often talk about the large amounts, but what often get overloo ked are the sm all amounts,” Dobbs said. In sp ired by G utzon B o rglu m ’s nearby M ount Rushm ore carvin g, Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear pro posed a m em orial to Native American heroes with a granite carving near Custer. Ziolkowski was the longtime leader of the project and his survivors kicked their fundraising efforts into high gear after Sanford’s offer, while following Ziolkowski's ad monition to rely only on private enterprise. Crazy Horse played a key role in the 1876 defeat of the U.S. Seventh C avalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana. He died a year later after being stabbed in Nebraska. When completed, the carv ing o f his im age on a b lu ff about 10 miles southwest of Mount Rushmore will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high. The h o rse’s head w ill be the memorial's largest artistic detail at 219 feet high. Ruth Ziolkowski took over the project after her husband’s death and several of the couple’s Alleged Navajo fraud case on hold until new year W IN D O W RO CK , A riz. (AP) — A Navajo Nation case that accuses dozens of tribal of ficials of fraud is on hold until the new year. Judge Carol Perry granted a request from prosecutors to delay the case until Jan. 17. Pros ecutors say they need more time to review tens of thousands of documents in the civil case. Perry also stressed that any conflicts of interest must be dis closed. One defense attorney represents two dozen people, while another represents 14. The Rothstein Law Firm re cently took over prosecution of the case that alleges that 85 cur rent and former Navajo officials defrauded the tribal government in the use or management of $36 m illion in discretionary funds. children and grandchildren work at the memorial. A welcom e center, museum and small uni v ersity have opened on the property, which drew 1.2 million visitors to the southern Black Hills in 2010. It brings in mil lions o f dollars every year, mainly through admission fees. Sanford’s donation allowed the memorial to hire a team of rock mechanics engineers and a laser scanning expert to look at stability and composition of the rock. The work should help reveal possible conflicts between planned carving designs and the mountain’s rock seams, allowing for planning and making neces sary adjustments. Dobbs said any slight design changes will maintain the artis tic intent, but the main goal is to allow the mountain to stay put. Crews are beginning to block out the tenth of 11 stair-stepped tiers that will soon reach under the horse’s nose, 360 feet from the top. Work also is progress ing to finishing work on the pointing finger of Crazy Horse’s outstretched arm, which sits atop the horse’s mane. “We’re in the last stages of the blocking out,” Dobbs said. “We’re that close.” Suit alleges abuse at school YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - E ight N ative A m ericans have filed suit against the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, claiming the agency placed them in a m ission school w here they w ere sexually abused by a Jesuit priest de cades ago. Attorney Blaine Tamaki said last week that the plaintiffs were wards of the state when it failed to ensure their safety. The complaint centers on al legations against the Rev. John Morse at St. M ary’s M ission School in Omak. M orse has denied the allegations. Tamaki says Morse was never charged with a crime. John Wiley, spokesman for the health services depart ment, says his agency hasn’t seen the lawsuit yet. In M arch, the O regon Province o f the Society of Jesus agreed to pay $166 mil lion to hundreds of Native Americans and Alaskan Na tives who were abused at its schools in the Pacific North west. Permanent exhibit at Alcatraz SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A perm anent A m erican Indian cultural center at Alcatraz is in place some 40 years after Indian occupation of the San Francisco Bay landmark. Creation of a exhibit was one of the demands during the 19- month American Indian occu pation that ended in 1971. The form er prison's band practice room in the cellblock basement has been transformed into a multimedia exhibit. The prison shut down in 1963. The prison and the island is now part of a national park that draws 1.4 million visitors a year. Activists had seized the island with hopes of turning it into an Indian university or cultural cen ter. Up to 800 activists occupied the island. The p h o to s, video s and sound recordings were compiled by faculty and students at San Francisco State University and California State University East Bay and will become part of Alcatraz's permanent exhibit. Geo Quiz Water bottling plant okayed IN D IAN TO W N SHIP, Maine (AP) — The leader of the Passamaquoddies says the tribe has nearly completed lining up investors for a $25 million wa ter bottling plant. Gov. Joseph Socobasin says the proposed plant in Indian Township would provide 96 well-paying, full-time jobs. Duran Bobb/Spilyay Recognize this spot? Horses as well as people regularly walk this area of the reservation. $60M fish passage going up at Soda Springs Dam TOKETEE, Ore. (AP) (AP) — Depending on the weather, anywhere from 50 to 100 people are ham m ering, w elding and scrap in g aw ay at the Soda Springs Dam every day. The workers are building a $60 million fish passage to open up for the first time in 60 years spawning beds on the upper reaches of the North Umpqua River. The fish passage, expected to be completed before the end of 2012, also will be the last word in a 17-year debate on whether to build a ladder or tear out the dam. But the debate will close with a few lingering complaints from conservationists who hope the ladder w ill work but rem ain skeptical. “It’s an amazing amount of engineering and when you look at it, it’s kind of awesomely cool. But if fish can truly make it up the ladder, I will be stunned and amazed and pleased,” said Diana Wales, president of the Umpqua Valley Audubon Society. “I think it was a mistake not to remove the dam.” The dam was put into opera tion in 1952 as part o f the North Umpqua Hydroelectric Project, a network of hydroelec tric generators in the Umpqua N ational Forest that creates enough pow er for 40,000 homes. The dam regulates the natu ral flow of the river to generate electricity during times of peak dem and, m aking the pow er “more valuable” to PacifiCorp, said Monte Garrett, who over sees the project. But the dam also prevents fish from swimming upstream to historic spawning grounds. In 2003, federal regulators renewed PacifiCorp’s license to operate the dam on a public waterway, but the utility com pany was required to build the fish passage. “This is a good facility. (Fish passage is) in the best interest for our customers and social values,” Garrett said. Construction began in June 2010, and the weather, confines of the canyon and the geology o f the North Umpqua River have put the project a year be hind schedule and increased costs many tim es above the original estimate. “It’s an engineering challenge that leaves everyone amazed that it can be done,” Garrett said. C onservation groups had pushed for the dam's removal, arguing that the dam not only blocks spawning grounds but also keeps gravel and woody debris from replenishing down stream spawning beds. “Spawning gravel is as impor tant as fish passage. What’s be hind the Soda Springs Dam is a lot of good spawning ground material that would benefit the whole river,” said Stan Vejtasa of the Umpqua Valley Audubon Society. “We’re all hoping this works. I’ve sort of made peace with them now, but I’ve had frustrations over this process in the past.” Conservation groups in the 1990s accused PacifiCorp o f underestim ating the cost o f building a fish passage and over estimating the cost of remov ing the dam. The company estimated in the mid-1990s that a fish lad der would cost between $8 mil lion and $10 million. “Our people kept saying they were low-balling the cost to sell (fish passage) to FERC (Federal E nergy Regulatory Com m is sion), but they dism issed us. Now that the cost estimates are coming in way more than they said, I get angry,” Wales said. Garrett said the company’s estimates in the late 1990s were closer to $12 million but seemed to double every few years for various reasons. “A project doubling or qua drupling when it’s this size is not uncommon. The original cost estimates were based on ideal situations, and we did everything we could to keep costs down,” he said. G arrett said the company b elieves rem o ving the dam would have cost as much as the fish passage and also would have raised electric rates more because of the lost hydropower. Besides the $60 million fish lad- Despite a 50-year exile from those upper spawning grounds, the fish should find their way up the ladder... der, PacifiCorp estimates that over the 35-year license period it will spend another $60 million on maintenance and other capi tal improvements on the North Umpqua project. Still, PacifiCorp estimates the fish passage will increase rates by less than 1 percent, spokes man Monte Mendenhall said. The increase h asn ’t con cerned the C itiz e n s’ U tility Board, a Portland-based rate payer advocacy group. “At this point Soda Springs is not something that has hit our radar. It’s a relatively nominal cost. For something that's an ongoing project like this, I doubt this would make our list of con cerns,” said the group’s organiz ing director, Jeff Bissonnette. The project has meant much- needed work for construction companies. Todd Weekly, co-owner of Weekly Bros. Inc. of Idleyld Park, has 32 workers on-site doing concrete, excavation and mechanical work as a subcon tractor. Weekly, whose company spe cializes in construction projects in remote areas and is the larg est subcontractor to the general contractor, Todd Construction o f T u alatin , said the Soda Springs fish passage has been an “anchor point” for the company since June 2010. The company, which had 80 workers on the job in the sum mer, hired extra employees for Soda Springs, Weekly said. “We’ve been fortunate to have work when work has been hard to get right now, so that’s been a blessing for us,” Weekly said. With the project well under way, rancor over Soda Springs has dulled, though Garrett said he believes there are still “hard feelings” among some conser vation groups. If the fish passage works, it will open up habitat for steel- head, spring chinook and coho salmon and Pacific lamprey. “I’m optimistic that they’ll find the ladder,” said Dave Har ris, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife official moni toring the project. The new habitat includes three miles of Fish Creek and almost four miles of the North U m pqua R iver up to Slide Creek. “From a habitat view, there’s lots of room (for more fish),” Harris said. PacifiCorp aquatic scientist Rich Grost said the new spawn L ing grounds are expected to pro duce hundreds of steelhead and spring chinook salmon. Grost said a small number o f coho salmon and an unknown num ber of Pacific lamprey also will come from the new beds. Despite a 50-year exile from those upper spawning grounds, the fish should find their way up the ladder, Grost said. He said fish are used to adapting to shifting spawning beds caused by beaver dams, rock slides and changing river channels. “So boundaries aren’t always the same, and in any given spe cies of anadromous fish, some will hit those upper boundaries,” he said. Soda Springs is 180 miles in land for the fish who swim in from the P acific O cean to spawn. “The extra three miles up Fish Creek is a tiny percentage of how far they travel,” Grost said. Once the dam and fish pas sage are functioning again, Pa cific Power will conduct a year long evaluation to make sure fish are making it up and down the passage, Garrett said. Grost said it’s hard to antici pate how many fish will use the ladder. “We’ll be at the mercy of the fish,” Grost said. “So it's tough to say for sure.” J \ I
