Caninermiut/Qaaluyat-llu Nunamta Meniutengnaqllerkanun Nunam Caliarat 4 th Quarterly Report

1. Caninermiut/Qaaluyat-llu Nunamta Meniutengnaqllerkanun Nunam Caliarat 4th Quarterly Report Caninermiut/Qaaluyat-llu Nunamta Meniutengnaqllerkanun Nunam Caliarat 4th Quarterly Report

2. Overview . TIMELINE (ALL OBJECTIVE): Getting started and organized was our main concern of what and where to start off from. Looking into objectives and tasks, we have figured out the process and it went as planned. Having meetings with the Consortium has made these projects possible and the village reps for the consortia have been working hard and finding ways to reduce wastes in their villages. We have been holding regular teleconferences with the Consortium (every Tuesday for 1.5-3 hours) to discuss our activities and project tasks and solutions to the issues our communities face. The plan for the fall and winter coming ahead is to start utilizing the tags which the Nelson Island and Chefornak has purchased. These tags are colored and each village will have their own colored tags. This is when all the villages start utilizing the hunting and fishing grounds in the Nelson Island main campsites which they share and share alike. The Nelson Island and Chefornak Consortium are also on the process of ordering signs for the campsites which will explain the care and usage of the camp, hunting and fishing grounds. The Consortia is on a planning process of hiring people to monitor the sites when the subsistence hunters start setting nets under the ice. We are using the intellectual Information our Elders have given us. • GIS: Mapping is the other form of information which the Nelson Island Consortium and Umkumiuts Tribal Administrator Andronik Kashatok is researching and looking into because mapping can help give out statistics of where the area of the hunting and fishing grounds are. The village of Chefornak has talked to the community about mapping and more than half of the residents has come to favor it. Andrew Boyscout from Chevak came to the Chefornak Special IGAP meeting and gave a presentation of the GIS mapping he has done. Boyscout has made a fascinating introductory of the Chevak Region and how he had done his documentation on the history of old village and the new relocation of Chevak. The documentation also included the nearby hunting and fishing camps grounds. The Consortia is also planning on doing aerial pictures of the camps and hunting/fishing grounds and plotting information to the GIS mapping.

3. Objective 1: Identify What our Problems Are: • To this day we are looking at the issues to our campsites and subsistence sites. The Nelson Island and Chefornak consortium held a meeting to present the alteration of the human activities on and at these campsites and subsistence sites that it shouldn’t be treated like this. Many of the villagers were concerned and a lot topics were discussed in the matter of those hunting and fishing. The Consortium and the villagers from around came to a conclusion to start a clean up. Not only this idea came from the Consortium and the villagers but from the elders of those different villages. Our ancestors and the elders are the ones that know our environment they knew how to handle their trash and wastes without the books. They knew that if you take care of the nature and its resources it will return to you with the same respect. DELIVERABLES: Waste characterization is going to be utilized in Nelson Island Toksook Bay and the Consortium is going to learn of how much of waste is dumped and also find out what is harmful and what is hazardous. • TASK 1,2,AND 3 COMBINED • The concerns that the Nelson Island and Chefornak has is the alterations of the subsistence sites and campsites which our people use as resource grounds. Keeping those resource grounds clean is their number one task. Also to our villages reps that are working for our communities are doing so much to communicate and educate our people and to let them understand what makes our people sick. Wastes in our subsistence sites are closely watched and were monitored before by our grounds supervisors in Nelson Island. Mapping is the other issue that the whole Consortium was talking about and how one village of Umkumiut Administrator Andronik Kashatok took a part on. He wanted to learn area’s of the old sites, hunting and fishing grounds and put them into a map and display them to all the villages. We have been learning from our Elders what are solid waste priorities are and what our solutions should be. This occurs at our Consortium meetings (our meeting in Chefornak occurred this report period) and also occurs through Elder interviews by the Nelson Island project reps. The Toksook representative in particular is video-recording Elders and translating the solid waste concerns onto paper in Yupik and English. The knowledge learned from our Elders will be incorporated into our plans.

4. Objective 2: Evaluate What We Are Doing That is Causing These Problems • Summary: The consortium has come to terms of where they are banning the use of these plastic shopping bags in our local businesses, schools and entities. They have made resolutions to those companies and schools from their environmental departments. Their community Tribal Council were supportive of the resolutions their environmental departments made. Our community is polluting and the environmental department is doing everything they can to address these pollutions which our community is developing. How much effect it can cause the community and their health. The point of all this is to clean up what our community has altered to our environment. • TASK 1 DEVELOP A TABLE/DOCUMENT THAT LINKS OUR ACTIONS AND HOW THEY LEAD TO THE CONCERNS WE HAVE: • We are communicating with our elders and are also receiving inputs from them at the same time and we are keeping track of what they say. On how we can better or environment our community as well as ourselves. The wastes we have is still unthinkable and still is hard to measure with count. Our elders know what to do but the question is “Can our community follow what our elders want?” It’s really simple but getting the whole community involved is the other part that the Environmental Department is working on. It’s what our alteration that causes our wildlife and mammals to develop deformity. We are still trying to clean up our environment with the help of our community through education of what’s harmful and hazardous. Our water becomes polluted from what we throw into it . I.E: used batteries, plastic’s little discarded oils from our outboard motors and telling it to the community is important but our people doesn’t really understand what lies ahead of them. Keeping our rivers clean is important because it is our cultural resources. We still have time to clean up and do studies and find ways to better our environment.

5. OBJECTIVE 3: DEVELOP A LOCAL STRATEGY TO FOLLOW • Summary: Address our people of what we are trying to do in our village and let them know what we are doing to clean up our environment. Utilizing our elders are our number one issue to find ways to better improve our community as well as our cultural resources. The main topics of the consortium is to clean up our subsistence sites and our subsistence grounds as well as our native village with the help of the community that is. Idea’s and solutions come from our not just the environmental Departments but from our people that have concerns of the environment. But, to keep in mind it is our elders concerns that we are working with. Their inputs are the tools that we are using to address our communities and other communities that are working with us. Use our elder’s and we’ll find ways to identify problems and work them out with the help of our communities support. TASKS 1, 2 & 3 • Conclusion: The consortium has already understood what their problems were in their villages : USED BATTERIES and they are collecting them and shipping them out to the recyclable center which is located in Bethel. The place of shipping those used batteries is: BETHEL NAPA AUTO. Combined with villages the count of these used batteries are enormous and still rolling in. Thanks to the recycling center in Bethel its reducing the batteries slowly but surely. Also, only on availability do we only ship in the batteries with commercial flights. Even though the process is slow we eventually have those used batteries shipped out. The consortium has purchased fish tote’s regardless of size to package and secure the used batteries before shipment but not to the extend which will be hard to handle. The long term issue for the consortium to do is to keep on collecting the used batteries so their communities will start helping with the programs. It’s teaching by doing, and listening to elders tell stories that have lessons in a context meaning not in “instruction’s” Tununak has purchased lime for their sanitation workers and also for those that self haul which is their demonstration project. Newtok did a village clean up. Chefornak has also done a village “green up clean up” and used old drums as trash bins which is another demonstration project. Also the consortium has looked into the clean up of their subsistence sites and camp sites and to make signs for those campsites and subsistence sites. Monitoring status will come in when the consortium agrees with the planning and also to fund it. Overall the consortium is addressing their communities about the disposal of used batteries to bring them to their Environmental Departments so their waste technicians can package them up and get them ready to ship out. Community involvement is what the consortium wants, so each village will see what the Nelson Island and Chefornak is trying to do.

6. Objective 4: Identify Regional and Local Long-term Primary Disposal Options and Costs Summary: This component will be performed with us working with the consultant. Our consultants are learning about our needs and situations and they have begun background research on options and costs. Their research will continue in the next quarters. The consultant will work with us to be sure that they are looking at options in the way that we need. Conclusion & Goal: Consultants have started this task and are continuing to work on it. Our consultants have also helped our Villages write grants to help our solid waste situations. They have helped us write the following grants free-of-charge in this reporting period: Nightmute – Denali SW Grant for cleaning up their waste into supersacks and purchase of a burnbox Toksook- BIA Water Resources Grant to help protect subsistence Newtok – BIA Honeybucket grant to help protect health and subsistence and EPA Tribal Hazardous waste grant Tununak – BIA Honeybucket grant to help protect health and subsistence

7. Objective 5: Compile a Draft Regional Working Plan for SWM • Our elders are being interviewed. Their words and stories are our tools for us to utilize, distribute to our community and continue to use. Our elders concerns today is our environment how we will need to protect our subsistence grounds as well as our campsite sites. • Each village is working on their own plan • Waste proposals are being determined • Documents are being gathered and demonstration projects are being written up. • We are still receiving feedbacks from our community • Nelson Island policies are being determined

8. Objective 6: Keep to grant requirements, recordkeeping, reporting, etc,. • The consortium is working to keep up with grant requirements. The demonstration projects have gone underway and we the consortium are tracking what we said we would. Also prepare for up coming conferences and training to attend to. Our lead village coordinator’s already know what to do and they inform what and where we are at in each meeting. Our consultants who are on retainer basis are working with us. They are helpful in many issues and help us keep informed about upcoming conferences and trainings. • We know how to manage big projects in our traditional ways with our elders inputs, which we use as tools to finish the jobs. • We are also working with our Administrative clerk keeping the administrative records for the contracts and subcontracts. • OUTCOME/DELIVERABLES • We appreciate the extension given on this report. We are learning more about report writing and we are building our reporting skills with each report we write. We have been short one staff person and we’re trying to re-hire so we needed a little extra time due to stretched resources. We are keeping up with our grants accounting on a regular basis.

9. Objective 7: Build SWM capacity for sustainable safe SWM programs and policies • We organized and held our HAZWOPER course in Toksook during this reporting period. We hired Bud Bennett as the course trainer and the course topics included: Overview of HAZWOPER regulations, Respiratory Protection, Regulatory Differences, Monitoring and Sampling, The Hazard Communication Standard, Decontamination, Chemical Properties, Site Control and Work Zones, Hazard Recognition (incl Biological), Safe Work Practices, Chemical Toxicology, Confined Space Safety, Hazard & Risk Assessment, Emergency Procedures, Medical Surveillance , Incident Command System, Personal Protective Equipment, Health & Safety Planning • We now have seventeen people trained in HAZWOPER in our Nelson Island Villages. We will be able to use this knowledge to safely handle hazardous wastes in our communities.

10. Miscellaneous • As you all know, the village of Newtok holds a youth clean up every year in the beginning of the summer. Thanks to Nelson Island Consortia, this year we are holding another youth clean up in the village of Newtok. Other companies I would like to thank is the Newtok Native Corporation. They are donating three bicycles and picnic materials. When the clean up is done, we are planning to hold a picnic for the kids thanking them for the job well done. Tom’s Store for donating a Bike and sandals for all the kids that have participated in the clean up effort for the village of Newtok. We would also like to thank the local clinic for their donation for the rubber gloves and a hand sensitizer to wash their hands after the day is over. And last, we would like to thank the Coastal Village Corporation for their donation of 1,000 dollars. That money will help hire two trash haulers to bring trash the trash the kids picked up, bring over to the dumpsite properly. • The clean up went well, the kids filled bags totaling to 422 bags. The crew started of cleaning around the sidewalks, and then after that inside the village. How it was organized worked well, it made cleaning up easy. The kids, when they were cleaning up had lots of fun, and we provided them with beverages to drink. After the village was done, on the last day, the crew did some brush ups back trailing their steps and picked up what was left behind. To clean up the village it took about five days. • There were some spots missed like the small ponds because we were told that the ponds were mossy, deep and dangerous, so we left them alone to be on the safe side. • Thanks to all our supporter who made this happen, and especially the kids how cleaned up the village, the village of Newtok is cleaner then it was before. • Harry Nevak Environmental Tech. Newtok Traditional Council Newtok Alaska

11. Miscellaneous The Chefornak Environmental Department held a Nelson Island Special IGAP Meeting in the month of August which included the environmental staffs from the five different villages with elders and some youth. During the Special IGAP meeting the consortia mainly discussed their hunting and fishing grounds and how they want to keep them from getting altered by human activities. Also, the villagers were talking about the main cultural resource grounds which are named “Cakcaaq, Uuruumangnaq, Ciilugan and etc.” We are finding ways to reduce and decline trash in the campsites. Many Elders gave out intellectual information to the consortia and residents also gave out useful information during the Special IGAP Meeting.