Spilyay Tymoo
Coyote News, est. 1976
April 10, 2019 - Vol. 43, No. 8
May – Xawit’an – Spring - Wawaxam
Miss Warm Springs 2019 Charisse Heath
C harisse Heath gave a demon-
She first became interested in
being Miss Warm Springs some
years ago. “When I was younger
we would go to the powwows, like
Lincoln’s Powwow,” Charisse says.
“And I always looked up to the
powwow royalty.”
Her friend Thyreicia
Simtustus, 2018 Miss War m
Springs, suggested Charisse give
this year’s Pageant a try. And the
judges agreed that she would
make a great 2019 Miss Warm
Springs.
stration of skills—one of them rare
and potentially life-saving, the other
lighter and more familiar—at the
recent Miss Warm Springs Pageant.
She first demonstrated her skill
in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, a
life-saving technique she learned at
school. She followed this with the
more familiar Native youth skill of
basketball, which Charisse excelled
at in high school.
At the Pageant last week she also
gave a talk on traditional foods, and
food preser vation techniques.
Charisse is the 2019 Miss Warm
Springs.
A graduate of Yakama Nation
Tribal School in Toppenish, she now
attends Yakima Valley Community
College.
See Miss Warm Springs on 5
Miss Warm Springs 2019
Charisse Heath with aunt
Colleen and uncle Roosevelt
Johnson.
Jayson Smith/Spilyay
Plan forms
for new
water plant
The tribes have made recent
improvements to the domestic
water treatment plant, located in
Dry Canyon on the Deschutes
River.
These significant improve-
ments have allowed the tribes to
continue to provide the safe
drinking water that currently
serves the membership.
The improvements—a coop-
erative effort of Council and
management, Utilities and fed-
eral agencies—were designed to
prolong the life of the treatment
plant. The long-term solution
for the growing community,
though, will be a new treatment
plant.
The process to answer some
initial questions about the new
plant began in 2017, said Alyssa
Macy, Chief Operations Officer.
Ms. Macy, tribal Utilities man-
ager Travis Wells, and Mathew
Martison and Derek Hancey of
the Indian Health Services re-
ported this month to Tribal
Council.
The new plant will cost at least
$30 million, Macy said. There
are outside funding sources—
IHS, HUD and the BIA, for in-
stance—but the tribes will share
ECR WSS
Postal Patron
U.S. Postage
PRSRT STD
Warm Springs, OR 97761
Members
choose new
Council
In choosing the Twenty-Eighth
Tribal Council of the Confederated
Tribes, the membership elected an
almost wholly new Council.
Six new Council members will join
two members who were re-elected,
plus the three Chiefs who serve for
life.
The turnover on the new Tribal
Council is the biggest among at least
the past several recent Council elec-
tions.
This week the Tribal Council and
Election Board are finalizing the
overall final tally. This will process
will not effect the outcome in terms
of who was elected.
Swearing-in of the new Council
is planned for the first Monday in
May. These are the members of
the Twenty-Eighth Tribal Council of
the Confederated Tribes:
Agency District: Anita Jackson,
Glendon Smith and Lola Sohappy.
Simnasho District: Captain
Moody, Lincoln Jay Suppah and
Raymond Tsumpti.
Seekseequa District: Brigette
McConville and Wilson Wewa.
First Chamber
business
conference
Dave McMechan/Spilyay
Steve Courtney knows the water plant as well as anyone, as he has worked there since it opened.
in some of the costs. And once
the new plant is online the Utili-
ties Branch would need a budget
to reflect the added responsibil-
ity.
Utilities has seen a mostly flat
budget of $2.2 million for many
years, Macy said. This in itself
has led to some problems associ-
ated with deferred maintenance,
ultimately costing more to address,
she said.
According to the timeline, con-
struction of the new plant would
begin in 2022, and come online the
following year. In the meantime
will be the work on funding, plan-
ning and design. “So the time
frame is short,” Macy said.
After their report, the project
team asked Tribal Council for ac-
tion on some preliminary ques-
tions. For instance, Council ap-
proved the recommendation that
the new plant use the
Deschutes River for the water
source. This was the viable
option of several that were
looked at.
Other decisions: The new
plant will be located next to the
existing one; and will use the
best available technology in
order to provide the member-
ship and businesses with “safe
and pleasing water.”
Book examines legacy of Cascade Locks project
A new book—Power in the
Telling by Brook Colley—examines
the story of the Warm Springs
Tribes, inter-tribal relations, and
the effort to build a casino on
Ceded Land at Cascade Locks.
The author is now the assistant
professor of Native American
studies at Southern Oregon Uni-
versity. Brook spent several years
researching and writing Power in the
Telling. She is known to many on
the reservation, as she interviewed
many members for the book. Her
heritage is Wasco/Eastern Chero-
kee, enrolled in the Eastern Band
of Cherokee Indians.
PO Box 489
Warm Springs, OR 97761
Since its publication, Power in
the Telling, published by the Uni-
versity of Washington Press, has
been well reviewed. The opening
sentences set the stage for the nar-
rative that follows:
This story begins with a place.
The Cascade Falls is a geographic
location in the Columbia River
where it flows westward between
present-day Oregon and Washing-
ton states, in an area known as the
Columbia River Gor ge. It was
identified in two treaties negotiated
in the 1850s between the United
States and Native peoples who
would afterward become the Con-
federated Tribes of Grand Ronde
and the Confederated Tribes of
Warm Springs. The section of
the river that contains the Cas-
cade Falls, sometimes called the
Cascade Rapids, runs alongside
the present-day city of Cascade
Locks, located approximately
halfway between Portland and
the city of The Dalles, accessible
from Interstate 84. It was here,
in Cascade Locks, that the
Warm Springs tribe proposed to
build a casino, the Bridge of the
Gods Columbia River Resort
Casino, in a bid that would ex-
tend for fifteen years....
The Warm Springs Area Cham-
ber of Commerce will host its
Inaugural Business Conference on
Saturday, May 4 at the War m
Springs Community Center. Top-
ics for discussion will be:
Small businesses on the reser-
vation; business success; and re-
sources available for business suc-
cess on the reservation. The con-
ference begins at 8:30 a.m.
For more information contact
Dustin Seyler at the Warm Springs
Community Action Team, where
he is the small business coach and
financial counselor, 541-553-3148.
In another item with Commu-
nity Action Team, the Tananáwit
community of Warm Springs art-
ists will host their membership
kick-off event on Thursday, April
18 at the Museum at War m
Springs. Dinner will be at 5 p.m.
The evening will include a si-
lent auction, vendors, artists recipi-
ents awards ceremony, and guest
speaker to be announced. Call the
Action Team for information.
No flood damage
Consecutive days of rain early
this week caused some worry about
flooding on the reservation. Riv-
ers and creeks were running high,
but there were no reports of seri-
ous damage.
During a peak river time this
week, Power and Water Enterprises
reported the Deschutes River flow-
ing at 9,750 cubic feet per second.
For comparison: The flood of 1996
saw 19,000 cubic feet per second
at the re-regulating dam.