Gateway-Pacific-Terminal

Featured image: The 22-foot western cedar totem pole, which features animals and symbols important to the Northern Cheyenne people was created by Master Carver and Lummi Elder Jewell James and the House of Tears carvers, of the Lummi Nation. The totem pole is a gift from the Lummi Nation to members of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in southeast Montana as a symbol of solidarity between two tribes whose homelands are threatened by proposed coal export projects. A dedication ceremony for the totem pole was held on January 22, 2016, outside the Northern Plains Resource Council building in Billings, Montana, where the totem pole will stand until a more permanent home is found on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Photo courtesy of the Northern Plains Resource Council. By Sandy Robson / Coal Stop Author’s note: Today, one hundred and sixty-one years ago, the Treaty of Point Elliott was signed on January 22, 1855, by Isaac Stevens, then-Governor of Washington Territory, and by Duwamish Chief Seattle, Lummi Chief Chow-its-hoot, Snoqualmie Chief Patkanim, and other chiefs, subchiefs, and delegates of tribes, bands, and villages. ...

Featured image: September 21, 2012: Members of the Lummi Nation protest the proposed coal export terminal at Cherry Point by burning a large check stamped “Non-Negotiable.” The tribe says they want to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the site. Photo by Indian Country Today Media Network. By Sandy Robson / Coal Stop The Lynden Tribune newspaper made the decision to publish a December 23, 2015 opinion piece submitted by Chair John Huntley and President Brad Owens of the Northwest Jobs Alliance (NWJA). The NWJA advocates for the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) project. Their op-ed leveled unsubstantiated, defamatory allegations at unnamed “leadership” of the Lummi Nation, a self-governing Indian Nation, and those allegations could easily be perceived as having been leveled at Lummi Nation as a whole. ...

NATIVE AMERICAN TREATY RIGHTS UNDER ATTACK By Sandy Robson, Coal Stop On her September 12, 2015 program, Whatcom Tea Party board member and host for the weekly “Saturday Morning Live” (SML) talk radio show on KGMI, Kris Halterman, interviewed Northwest Jobs Alliance (NWJA) President Brad Owens. Halterman’s program afforded Owens a platform to promote the same idea that NWJA previously purported in its August 20, 2015 letter to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works). That idea advanced by NWJA in the letter, is that there is “an apparent motive behind the Lummi Nation’s opposition to the Gateway Pacific Terminal project (and completion of the EIS process) not connected with treaty rights.” [italicized emphasis theirs] ...

Editor’s Note: An original, unabridged version of this article is available at Coal Stop. You can read more and sign up for updates on the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal at their website. By Sandy Robson / Intercontinental Cry United States Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) is on a mission to do whatever it takes to get the Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT), a 48 million metric-ton-per-year coal export terminal, permitted and built. The GPT project is proposed in Whatcom County, Washington, and would be sited at Xwe’chi’eXen (Cherry Point), along the shoreline, which is part of the Lummi Nation’s traditional fishing area. The company proposing GPT is Pacific International Terminals (PIT), a subsidiary created for the project by SSA Marine. ...

By Rachel / Deep Green Resistance Cascadia In the arid Powder River Basin of Northern Wyoming and Southern Montana, the long roots of sagebrush draw water from deep beneath the soil. The ability to access water in this way makes sagebrush an important star of the Basin’s biotic constellation. Species of grasses and herbs are allowed to thrive on the moisture that the sagebrush draws toward the surface. Elk, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope access the water stored in the plant’s pale gray, three-pointed leaves. Greater sage-grouse eat the sagebrush too, while making their nests and performing their complex courtship rituals among the plant’s low branches. The soil is the basis for the lives of these creatures and countless others, and the precious moisture within the soil is thread that connects them in a web of relationship. ...

By Terri Hansen / Intercontinental Cry A fleet of boats piloted by Native and non-Native fishers gathered today in the waters off Xwe’chi’eXen (Cherry Point, Wash.) to stand with the Lummi Nation in opposition to the proposed Gateway Pacific coal terminal at Xwe’chi’eXen. “We have to say ‘no’ to the coal terminal project,” said Cliff Cultee, Chairman of the Lummi Nation. “It is our Xw’ xalh Xechnging (sacred duty) to preserve and protect all of Xwe’chi’eXen.” ...