Native Americans and allies celebrate ‘World Water Day’

Marchers with protest signs during World Water Day to demand the cleaning of contaminated waters.

PORT ANGELES, WA—“World Water Day,” March 22, was celebrated here by hundreds of Lower Elwha Klallam tribal members and other nature lovers who gathered at a downtown beach to bless the Salish Sea, the lakes, and the Elwha River that provides all the drinking water for this city and region.

The crowd was a rainbow: Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos and white people, women and men, children and youth. Members of the Lower Elwha Klallam and Jamestown S’Klallam tribes joined Lummi Nation visitors from across the Salish Sea, some in tribal regalia. Women dressed in Orca whale costumes fighting to save the endangered Orca whales mingled with members of the Elwha Legacy Forest Defense Coalition, who helped organize three days of grassroots action.

Richard Solomon (Hutch-AK Wilton), an Elder of the Lummi tribe, wearing a cedar bark hat, said a tribal prayer. Young drummers pounded out a rhythmic beat. Charles Creed, leader of the First Nations Club at Peninsula College, an Ojibway-Chippewa from Minnesota, recited the Lord’s Prayer in English followed by a prayer in his tribe’s language.

As if on cue, the Coho ferry from Victoria, B.C., idled into the harbor. Loud blasts from its steam whistle greeted the crowd. Lummi Tribal Elder Freddie Lane, who was M.C., turned toward the ferry. “How is that for perfect timing!” he exclaimed as the crowd erupted in cheers.

Francis Charles, Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, welcomed the crowd to Hollywood Beach. “This used to be the site of one of our villages,” she said. “It reminds us of what we are and what we need to do….Right now, there is a lot of wrong. More wrong than right. There are those who contaminate these waters. We have been working for many years, struggling to clean up the contamination of Rayonier.” She gestured up the shore where the Rayonier mill once stood. Rayonier reaped millions of dollars and then closed the mill in 1997, leaving Port Angeles harbor poisoned with tons of heavy metals, dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls, and other toxic chemicals. Rayonier has refused to clean up the mess, which is one of the worst Superfund sites in the nation.

Charles told the crowd that her tribe is hosting the “Paddle to Elwha” this coming July 31 through August 1, when canoe paddlers up and down the west coast will arrive here paddling their dugouts. “The theme of this year’s paddle journey is the Elwha dam removal,” she said. “We are seeing the fish return….Climate change is a challenge not only for now, it is for our future.”

The Lower Elwha tribe fought for decades, demanding that the federal government take down the dams on the Elwha that were driving the salmon to extinction. The government finally did remove the dams in 2012 at a cost of $350 million, the largest dam removal in history.

Wendy Rae Johnson and Peter Stedman, legacy forest defenders, urged the crowd to drive out to join one of two hikes—one through the Power Plant timber parcel in the Elwha watershed saved from logging thanks to fully mobilized fightback, the other the Doc Holiday timber parcel twenty miles further west still slated for clearcut even though it is a legacy forest with many varieties of trees over a century old. The crowd marched on the waterfront to Pebble Beach carrying hand-lettered signs like “We All Live Downstream.” They then drove west on Highway 101 to join the walks demanding that DNR halt the logging of legacy forests.

The night before, a big crowd gathered at the Field Arts & Events Hall nearby for the “Indigenous Cinema Showcase,” a showing of eight brief documentary films on the leading role of the Native American tribes in fighting to preserve forests, rivers, and endangered species. The crowd warmly applauded all the films, especially Last Stand: Saving the Elwha River’s Legacy Forests by filmmaker John Gussman, who joined a panel on stage after the showing. The film reveals the role of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe in the decades-long struggle to remove two dams on the Elwha.

Yet now, the DNR that controls over 9 million acres of timberland in Washington State has put 850 acres of legacy forest in the Elwha watershed on the auction block to be logged. Scientists warn that legacy forests, mature stands of many varieties of trees, are vital to preserving water in rivers for salmon to spawn and for humans to drink. They also sequester millions of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, a crucial factor in the struggle against global climate change.

Someone in the crowd asked the panel, “How do you respond to the Administration in Washington? Trump and Musk, their attack on democracy?”

Artist Linda Weichman, an Elder of the Lower Elwha tribe, replied, “We need to speak up. If we don’t speak up, it won’t stop. This is our home. Just because he is President. There are more of us than there are of him.”

Elizabeth Dunne, Legal Director of the Earth Law Center—one of the main organizers of the celebration—told the crowd, “We must stay hopeful. We’re a small coalition. There are things we cannot do. But there are things we can do. We can save these legacy forests!” The crowd cheered.

Port Angeles City Councilwoman LaTrisha Suggs, a member of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, said, “Five separate times we sent letters, signed unanimously, to the Department of Natural Resources asking them to protect the Elwha watershed. Every time, they turned us down. We don’t have a backup. This is our source of water.”

Suggs pointed out that the lack of fresh, clean water, is a nationwide and worldwide danger. “We see this happening nationwide,” she said. “Water is important. We must protect the watershed. That is why we, as the Port Angeles City Council, oppose any logging in the Elwha watershed.”

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CONTRIBUTOR

Tim Wheeler

Tim Wheeler has written over 10,000 news reports, exposés, op-eds, and commentaries in his half-century as a journalist for the Worker, Daily World, and People’s World. Tim also served as editor of the People’s Weekly World newspaper.  His book News for the 99% is a selection of his writings over the last 50 years representing a history of the nation and the world from a working-class point of view. After residing in Baltimore for many years, Tim now lives in Sequim, Wash.