KWSO News Sep. 26, 2018

Warm Springs Tribal Council today will approve a proposed 2019 tribal budget. District meetings on the budget will follow in October.  A final General Council meeting will then be held for input, prior to the posting of the approved 2019 Tribal Budget.  Tribal Members will receive additional information in the mail in the upcoming weeks.

A Zone 6 fall fishery began this morning and will be open through 6pm Friday. Allowed gear is set and drifts gill nets with an 8-inch minimum mesh restriction. Allowed sales are salmon, steelhead, shad, yellow perch, bass, walleye, catfish and carp which may be sold or kept for subsistence use.  Fish may be sold after the period ends caught during the open period.  Sturgeon may not be sold but may be kept for subsistence use.  Size limits are 38-54 inches fork length in the Bonneville Pool and 43 to 54 inches fork length in The Dalles and John Day pools. Sanctuaries applicable to gillnets are in effect, the Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery sanctuary is reduced to 150 feet around the hatchery ladder.

This coming Monday October 1^st an Agency District meeting has been set to discuss the upcoming referendum which will ask tribal members if Resolution 12,157 determining the blood quantum for the purpose of automatic enrollment should be approved. Tribal members should plan to attend to learn more. The referendum will take place February 15, 2019.

SEATTLE (AP) — Federal officials have determined that commercial fishery failures occurred for salmon in Washington, Oregon and California, making those fisheries eligible for federal disaster assistance. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Tuesday also announced a commercial fishery failure for the sardine fishery in California but not for the state’s red sea urchin fishery. The governors from Washington, Oregon and California and multiple Native American tribes had requested the determinations between July 2016 and March 2018. Their requests noted unusually warm and poor ocean conditions that affected fish. The disaster determinations make salmon and sardine fisheries eligible for some portion of $20 million in NOAA Fisheries fishery disaster assistance. The Commerce Department is figuring out how to allocate that money to eligible fisheries.

Madras High School will honor its third group of Distinguished Alumni this Friday. This year’s honorees are Elaine Henderson, Class of 1952; Pat Courtney Gold, Class of 1957; Glenn Rodriguez, Class of 1972; Alan Watts, Class of 1978; and Joel Neilson, Class of 1992.

The Trump administration has finalized a roll back of Obama-era regulations for oil trains. The rules, which date back to 2015, required railroads carrying crude oil or other flammable liquids to outfit their trains with more responsive electronic braking systems. The rules came in response to concerns about explosions and spills from mile-long trains of crude and ethanol. In the Northwest, those trains move along the Columbia River and through cities to coastal refineries. The U.S. Department of Transportation, which has been working on rescinding the rules since last December, said in statement this week that its analysis showed the cost of requiring railroads to equip trains with the new brakes outweighed the potential benefits. The rail industry has resisted the new braking requirements.