Outdated science and bureaucracy is standing in the way of a clean Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and thousands of other toxic spill sites throughout Earth’s lands and waters.

 ALASKA'S  BIG VILLAGE NETWORK is a proud member of
Change Oil Spill Response Global Alliance
 http://protectmarinelifenow.org/alaska-alliance

Change Oil Spill Response Now! The Lawrence Anthony Earth Organization Science & Technology Advisory Board

The Alaska Regional Response Team (ARRT), consisting of federal and state agency officials responsible for protecting and safeguarding Alaskan lands and waters, is ready to give the green light to chemical dispersant preauthorization plans that were  presented at their May 22 meeting in Valdez, Alaska.
Fearing the ARRT’s dispersant plan approval, Alaskan groups and tribes led by the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council (AITC) have begun enacting statewide, legally binding tribal resolutions opposing the use of chemical dispersant substances in oil spill contingency planning throughout Alaska. With more than 200 indigenous tribes living in remote wilderness, many without grocery stores, and, who have no direct representation at the ARRT table, a decision to apply chemical dispersants to mitigate oil spills has untenable trade-offs impacting their fisheries and polluting their food and water sources.
While this tribal feud with federal agencies has been going on for years, the AITC  has joined forces with the Lawrence Anthony Earth Organization. This coalition is a newly-formed regional partnership for Alaska and part of LAEO’s Change Oil Spill Response (COSR) Global Alliance initiative.
The AITC coalition of Alaskan tribal representatives and groups now formed as the Change Oil Spill Response Global Alliance Delegation prepared documentation and scientific studies supporting the complete elimination of chemical dispersants in Alaskan spill response. They have delivered  18 Tribal Council resolutions currently in hand to the committee co-chairs: Mr. Mark Everett, U.S. Coast Guard, and Chris Field, EPA Coordinator. 
Chief Michael Stickman of Nulato, International Chair of the Arctic Athabascan Council and a leading member of a newly established Arctic Council Task Force working to substantially improve procedures for combating oil spills in the Arctic, endorsed the Alliance formation stating: “Committing to clean up oil spills after they happen is insufficient. Precaution and nation-to-nation Tribal Government Consultation and free, prior, informed consent must be enacted before hasty implementation of a policy of pre-authorizing toxic chemical dispersants substances in oil spill contingency planning. Why have less toxic bioremediation methods with a 20-year track record of effectiveness been ignored by the Alaska inter-agency Regional Response Team?”
Consolidated Alaskan Tribes have a straightforward demand — they require clean water and healthy fisheries, which are critical to their survival as people living in an arctic environment. Tribes have treaty rights as sovereign nations and have considerable authority over what affects their ability to hunt, fish and sustain their lifestyles as Native Americans.
LAEO’s Science and Technology Advisory Board released a 44-page position paper last month outlining an entirely new approach to oil spill problems associated with drilling, transport, pipelines, and storage mishaps, entitled  A Call for a Twenty-First-Century SOLUTION in Oil Spill Response. 
The Alaska Inter-Tribal Council requested LAEO’s assistance and are now using their materials to educate tribal governments and communities on the chemical dispersant issue throughout Alaska. Many tribes are in remote locations, not connected to broadband and have little to no representation for protecting fishing, hunting, gathering and bartering interests. Tribes and Coastal communities are disproportionately impacted by federal, and state decision makers who gift to outside multi-national corporations large entitlements and easy access to Alaska’s waters, land, air and salmon streams often ignoring pre-existing rights of indigenous Alaskans and other citizens.

Read and Download Documentation from the Alaska Alliance.

• Formal Request  ARRT 
  Download

• Addendum 1: Proposal for Criteria Assessment
  
  Download

• ARRT Submission Documentation Summary 
  Download

• Overview-Bioremediation Enzyme Additive – 3rd Party Endorsements and EPA Testing 
  Download

• Region IV Bioremediation Response Plan
  
  Download

 http://protectmarinelifenow.org/alaska-alliance

 http://protectmarinelifenow.org/

 

Please send this communication to anyone you know who is able to reach Oil & Gas Industry Leaders, EPA and other agency officials at Fed, State levels responsible for Environmental Health, Quality and Protection. 

Outdated science and bureaucracy is standing in the way of a clean Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and thousands of other toxic spill sites throughout Earth’s lands and waters.  Many members of the US EPA, interagency response community and industry professionals do care and are looking for a better way forward, we want to help. 

The Science & Technology Advisory Board of the Lawrence Anthony Earth Organization (LAEO) has just published a significant position paper entitled A Call for a Twenty-First-Century Solution in Oil Spill Response.   The goal of this effort is to get safe, non-toxic, cost-effective, oil-spill response plans adopted for all future incidents in U.S. navigable waters and around the world. 

The material contained in this analysis and guide is a constructive offering for oil and energy industry professionals and every oil-producing nation in the world to better manage potentially contaminated ecosystems. The work brings a new analysis and assessment of oil-spill response and offers effective alternative technologies for replacing dispersant chemical application in an oil spill or deep-water drilling crisis like the 2010 BP blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It contains guidelines for the selection process for cleanup agents, along with an evaluation process (evaluating toxicity, effectiveness, speed, and cost) that can be used to grade potential effectiveness of cleanup agents being considered for removing spilled oil from the environment.

Alongside publishing this paper, LAEO has launched a government and public education awareness campaign. The campaign, headquartered at www.protectmarinelifenow.org seeks to bring critically important reforms to oil spill cleanup guidelines to improve response methodology for protecting marine and wildlife, sensitive habitats and human health.

Tax payers, oil companies and their shareholders and many other stakeholders stand to save billions of dollars in cleanup costs as well as irreparable damages of natural resources, secondary remediation and litigation costs.  

We recommend that your first step in the education process would be for you to read the Overview.

If you agree with the position we lay out in these documents please contact me to join the Change Oil Spill Response Global Alliance to help in this effort to open the worldwide industry discussion and build a consensus for safe, non-toxic, efficient, lower-cost, oil-spill response methods. 

----

·         Read: LAEO Position Paper Overview: http://protectmarinelifenow.org/preamble-summary

·         Study: Revised Fact Sheet: BIOREMEDIATION TECHNIQUES, CATEGORY DEFINITIONS, AND MODES OF ACTION IN MARINE AND FRESHWATER ENVIRONMENTS at http://protectmarinelifenow.org/295-2

·         Forward the position paper to others: Link to the Complete 44-page Position Paper: A Call for a Twenty-First-Century Solution in Oil Spill Response.

·         What can you do?  Help educate others, forward these links.

Thank you! 

http://protectmarinelifenow.org/alaska-alliance

Alaska's secret agenda to access the riches of Alaska: JAIL ALASKA NATIVE MALES!

"Among Alaska Natives, incarceration patterns are as disturbing as they are intransigent: even though Alaska Natives comprise only about 18% of the state's general population, they make up 36% of Alaska's prison population." 

State of the Judiciary: 2012  

February 29, 2012

Chief Justice Walter L. Carpeneti

"Too many of Alaska's young men - particularly our young men of color - are spending their early adulthoods in our prison system. Their futures are being shaped not by the normative influences of their families, homes, and communities, but by the rules and rituals of life behind bars. As the years go by, they will be less and less able to function as productive citizens - less and less likely to forge a healthy course for themselves and their families. Too often, this legacy passes to the next generation, where the tragic pattern continues.

Letter: Parnell should be working for us,

 not for the oil companies

Published: March 22, 201  ADN

I looked Sean Parnell up in Wikipedia. Here is part of the listing. “Parnell left the Alaska Senate to become director of government relations in Alaska for the oil company ConocoPhillips. In 2005, he joined the lobbying firm Patton Boggs, where he advised clients on state and federal regulations governing development of major oil and gas projects. Patton Boggs represented ExxonMobil in the Exxon Valdez oil spill litigation.”

As our governor, he is supposed to be working for us now, not the oil companies. The State Retirement System is not fully funded, our schools are laying off staff and he wants to give up billions to further fatten the oil companies. I consider this thinly disguised robbery. We will be the losers if we allow it to happen. Call your representatives and tell them that a vote for this fiasco is their ticket to a new line of work!

— Mark Beaudin

Anchorage

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/03/22/2836668/letter-parnell-should-be-working.html#storylink=cp

deltadiscovery.com 4/10/2013/speakyourmind:

"Our Republican governor would like you to think that his “choose respect” campaign is all about the feel-good concept of ending violence. But in reality his actions come down to one thing: more jail. Bush Alaska should be horrified. More jail time, more prosecutors and more criminal laws will not help Bush Alaska, but instead his attack is crippling our youth.

I have worked in Bush Alaska for more than 20 years. I started in Nome working for the public defender agency, and then for a Tribal consortium. I worked as a prosecutor in Bethel for almost two years, and then moved to my own practice where I travel and represent those in Bush Alaska. I regularly travel from Barrow to Unalaska, and most people I represent live in small villages off the road system. I’m married to a Yup’ik Eskimo and have three young children enrolled in the local Tribe, who also attend school in Bush Alaska. I have never been more frightened for their future.

Instead of improving education, helping Tribes develop their courts or curbing problems like alcohol addiction, our Governor has really only given these villages one legacy: more jail time for young Alaska Native males.

More jail time does not, and will not, help the youth of Bush Alaska.

Take my friend from Napakiak. He just went to jail for a felony driving while intoxicated, where once again he drank and drove his ATV in the village. He is in his twenties. His house would be called a shack in Anchorage. His first language is Yup’ik, and he was raised dirt-poor by a grandmother because of numerous tragedies involving both parents. He dropped out of school by tenth grade and has addiction problems. But he is a great worker, smart and helps anyone who asks. He is really well liked by everyone in the villages. His sentence by the State of Alaska: two and a half years in jail, largely due to mandatory sentencing that our governor so loves.

Take my friend from Gambell. He is a terrible drinker, whose mind and body shuts down after just a few sips. He is a loving father of five children. His values are exactly the opposite of most urban citizens: he’s non-aggressive, very humble and freely shares everything. He was prosecuted by one of our governor’s rural prosecution unit (to clean up crime in the Bush), and got caught making homebrew. He did not hurt anyone and did not commit any violence, but the outside Trooper just found the bucket and my friend admitted everything. He is also very honest. Under our presumptive sentencing law, his sentence: three years in jail and a $10,000 fine.
These are typical of the people I represent every day, and none have been made better by our governor’s campaign. Let me tell you exactly why.

First, jail only works when it’s worse than your home. Running water, good food and entertainment is far better than what most have in their villages. Our governor never goes to Tuluksak or Teller. He needs to see how my Gambell friend lived and how his family now survives. He needs to get out and see that too many of our citizens live in third-world conditions. Until we raise the standard of living in Bush Alaska, jail will never be a deterrent.

One village I’m very familiar with has stopped enforcing State law but has turned to punishing its young men in Tribal Court. This village could care less what the Governor is doing as they want to enforce their own rules and control their own destiny. One of the reasons given to me: “One week emptying honey buckets is far worse than the luxury of being in jail and eating all that good white-man food.”

Second, jail only works when it is in combination with strong community condemnation. This is the idea that your community has a vested interest in correcting misbehavior. Community condemnation begins with the idea that the village has agreed to all these laws, and wants to punish its citizens for violations. All of the laws the State imposes on these rural areas were passed in a foreign land by foreign people. The principles and values behind the laws rarely apply to Bush Alaska, and I constantly hear the complaint that no one in these communities had a choice for more laws and more jail. Instead, they are simply watching their young people leave for longer periods of time, and then hear it’s called “choose respect.”

When my Napakiak and Gambell friends committed their crimes, they were arrested in their villages by non-native, foreign troopers from the outside. They were taken to a jail run largely by non-native, outsiders. They were then taken outside their village to a Court, where each was defended and prosecuted by non-native, outsiders. Finally, they were sentenced by Judges, also non-native, from somewhere else. No one spoke their language, no one from their villages participated, and no one even discussed this crime or its impact on their communities.

Compare this to what happens in Tribal Court. The offender is taken to a judge or judges who live in the same community and share the same values. The laws are created and imposed by the community. He is lectured by concepts and words that he can actually understand and then he is shamed, punished and eventually made better by his community members.

Our governor has been one of the fiercest opponents of tribal rights and jurisdiction. His “choose respect” campaign really just wants more jails, more troopers, more prosecutors, and more convictions for domestic violence. But without the actual village’s support and input, this arrogant and paternalistic policy will continue to be a terrible failure.

Finally, jail does not work because it is not making our youth better. Time and time again, I see that when my young Native clients get of jail they are lazier, angrier and more criminal-like than when they went in. Jail is not making our youth better – it is destroying their personalities and any chances of living a productive life.

The governor aggressively seeks convictions for domestic violence, regardless of the circumstances. The deals offered by his prosecutors are too good to pass up, and too many plead guilty without attorneys at their first appearance in court. But the results of such plea are devastating – this Native male will now have what’s called a “barrier crime” on his record, which will preclude him from ever working for what little jobs are in town (clinics/schools). These convictions, like jail, are not making Alaskans better.

Our jails are filled with young Native males, and it is not slowing down. Want to know if this “choose respect” campaign is working – just spend a day at Court watching the cases in Bethel, Dillingham, Barrow, Nome or Kotzebue. Or ask anyone who works at any jail in Bush Alaska. They know jail is not making them better, and they know we don’t have enough beds to even keep them in Alaska. Native young men are being sent to Colorado in droves. The cost of this is shocking.

It’s never been worse to be a young Native male living in 

Bush Alaska. With mandatory

 sentencing, more criminal laws and more outsiders to

 enforce these laws, the “choose

 respect” campaign is working to place an entire generation

 behind bars.

The 2014 election can’t get here fast enough. We can continue on this destructive path, or we can instead spend our resources in improving the living conditions, education and treatment options. We can and must stop opposing tribal jurisdiction and allow Tribes and communities to pass and enforce their own laws, and sentence their citizens according to their own values. We should not allow any young man to plead to a domestic violence offense until after he has spoken to an attorney. Finally, we must stop passing laws simply because politically it sounds good to be tough on crime and presumptive sentencing, where no option is given to the Judge but imposing years of jail time.

The choose respect campaign is a failure. My 82-year-old friend from Kipnuk said it best: “State of Alaska created these laws somewhere else. They send people from somewhere else to arrest our young men. They are going away longer and longer to live with the non-native people. And when they come back they’re worse, and fat.”

Jim Valcarce is a resident of Bethel, AK."

Robert J. M. Gregory 
The poor have become the enemy.”
 A line from Irish Dement’s song “Living In The Wasteland Of The Free. Circa 1996.

I just overviewed Mr. Valcarce’s writ from deltadiscovery.com 4/10/13 Speak Your Mind, of “Choose Respect”

Granted that the way this country has deteriorated in ways of living-- where equality is just a word in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. More of a reflection of the status-quo mindset is an extension of Chris Hedges book titled, “American Facism: The Christian Far Right And Its War On America.” That I read five years ago. Evidence: The Moral Majority.
This self-righteous group that bases its beliefs on intolerance to the other ways of living that is not easily accessible by others not in their following of an autocrat.

The condemnation of ones who are not in their fellowship is based on fear of an extension from the paternalistic force from last century’s Europe.
That mindset may be a basis of what Jim’s overview of the anti-native-male concept of the Alaska Judicial System’s modus operandi.

To follow the concepts that teach not love, care, or nurture (indigenous beliefs) but to condemn, punish, and think they will go to Heaven, while the rest of not within their beliefs, go to Hell.
With that concept that they are sinless in the eyes of their god, gives them permission to persecute with no mercy toward whom-ever that is not with their group.

Such the way-- here in the Last Frontier. From the 1800’s to the 1900’s in early American History was the slaughter of the Red Man beginning the Dakota’s (Lakota). Such were the victims of colonization to be later assimilated to The United States of America.
Then the Midwest on to the West, where “The Good Guys” at the Alamo were demolished my Mexicali. (Can’t win-em-all).

This may be an attempt to finally reap the cliché “The only good Indian is a dead Indian. Not with a sword and bible carried in each hand; then, is a man coming to kill; but this time with a gun and a badge to continue with condemnation native male Alaskans..

This thinking began over 200 years ago and is finally here in my hometown Bethel, Alaska for the last 20 years or so. As the conservative continue migrate here to fulfill the promises of The American Dream… as in Irish Dement song continues, “…justice has fell to the bottom of the sea…”

Bobby Gregory
Bethel, Alaska