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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says she is willing to help a northern Wisconsin town get reimbursed for money it paid to access roads.
As Danielle Kaeding reports, the town of Lac du Flambeau made payments to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa for access to four disputed roads.
Three years ago, the Lac du Flambeau tribe barricaded four roads after negotiations failed over expired easements on roads crossing tribal lands.
While roads later reopened, the town paid the tribe to maintain access. In a House judiciary committee hearing this month, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) called the payments extortion.
“They ultimately got $600,000 from the town of Lac du Flambeau.”
In the hearing, Tiffany asked Bondi if she would seek compensation for the town in the longstanding feud. Bondi had this to say.
“We would more than welcome working with you.”
The tribe said the payments were not extortion.
Lac du Flambeau Tribal President John Johnson Sr. says Tiffany’s statements were false and a direct attack on tribal sovereignty and treaty rights.
The tribe says it remains committed to working with local, state, and federal officials to resolve road access issues in a way that respects residents’ safety and laws governing Indian lands.
The Arctic continues to warm faster than other parts of the world, and is experiencing record high temperatures and record low levels of sea ice.
That is according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which released its report card for the region in December.
As the Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA reports, those findings directly affect Alaska Indigenous communities.
The Arctic Report Card has been documenting changes in snow and sea ice cover, as well as air and ocean temperatures in the northern part of the globe for the past 20 years.
It has shown that, in that time period, the Arctic’s annual temperature has increased at more than double the global rate of temperature changes.
Hannah-Marie Ladd is the director of Indigenous Sentinels Network.
“These changes cascade directly into people’s lives, affecting fisheries, coastal safety, and subsistence harvests. We are no longer just documenting warming. We are witnessing an entire marine ecosystem, which is tied to our economies and culture, transform within a single generation.”
The report highlights an emerging phenomenon called rusting rivers. That is when permafrost thaw causes ground water to seep deeper and interact with mineral deposits, which likely turns some streams and rivers to a rusty orange color.
Abigail Pruitt says that, in Alaska, over 200 streams turned orange in recent years.
“Within Kobuk Valley National Park, we observed the complete loss of juvenile Dolly Varden and Slimy Sculpin, in a tributary to the Akillik river when it turned orange. Beyond the effects on fish, rusting rivers may impact drinking water supplies to rural communities as well.”
The report highlights how Indigenous communities have been observing the changes in their environments and wildlife and collaborating with scientists to better understand those changes.
Ladd, with the Indigenous Sentinels Network, describes one example of such work.
She says that St. Paul residents collect samples of harvested traditional foods – like seabirds, marine mammals and halibut. Those samples are tested in a tribally owned lab and analyzed for contaminants like mercury.
“Indigenous leadership, local workforce development and community driven observing are not optional. They’re essential to understanding the Arctic that we have today and preparing for the Arctic we are moving into.”
In response to a question about how federal cuts to climate science might affect the future of the Arctic Report Card, NOAA officials said that they will continue their efforts to observe the changing environment.
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