Sunday, March 21, 2010

Another blog from November 2007 - On Adhocracy


Back in 2007, I built several sites using Marc Andreesen's marvelous NING social network construction set, and one of them, the one which I had named ADHOCRACY, got the following editorial as a seed.
_____________________________________________________________________________

I've been doing politics in this town for decades and along the way, I have discovered some VERY interesting things.

The most serious thing I have observed is that after I help friends and allies get elected to public office or ensconced in positions of power, they pretty rapidly drift out of my circle of friends and quite often step wholeheartedly into a category that feels more like "enemy combatants" than allies, co workers, or confidants.

I find this both amazing and disturbing, and had it not happened to me so many times, at so many levels of government, I would consider it an anomaly or a fluke. But I think it is a reflection of something much deeper, not about me, but about how representative government actually works.

Which is to say: I don't think I can point to a single instance in history where it has really worked. Or where it has created a stable system that remained true to its intentions. Hence my interest in adhocracies.

A bit more about Adhocracies:

Almost exactly 10 years ago Phil Speser and I went out for venture funding of a system to do what this site does, and a lot more. It was better than this because it ran "peer-to-peer" which means it ran a "fat client" (as opposed to a "thin client") and as a result the network (and its data) did not have to reside on a server.

The "due diligence" guys the V-C guys brought in to assess our technology were Lotus Notes guys. And the guys they talked to were pretty much all hardened bureaucrats and Fortune 100 guys. And they all said "this is a BAD idea." The most prescient of their critiques was that It "would allow the development of decentralized systems and we will lose control" ...

Which is EXACTLY what happened a few years later when "peer-to-peer" networking was rediscovered and harnessed by some college kids as NAPSTER as a way to implement music sharing, and look what happened: they basically took down the RIAA and the music publishing business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhocracy

Adhocracy is a type of organization being an opposite of bureaucracy. The term was first popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler[1], and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations (particularly online organizations), further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg.

The word is a
portmanteau of the Latin ad hoc, meaning 'for purpose', and the suffix -cracy, from the ancient Greek cratein(κρατείν), meaning 'to govern'[1], and is thus a heteroclite. The term was first popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler[1] and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations, further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg.

Welcome to a WAY better way of doing things


Thursday, June 28, 2007

how we got here


Under what Authority are they doing all this?

That's what Edel Sokol asked at the October 19. 2005 Jefferson County Planning Commission meeting.

"Edel Sokol asked where the authority for the WRIA planning units came from. Kyle Alm replied that it was in the RCW. Ms. Sokol asked about the selection process. Mr. Alm replied that he did not know, although the tribes, the county, the PUD, environmental groups, and other entities were selected."

Here's some more background

HOUSE BILL REPORT
HB 2054

As Reported By House Committee On: Agriculture

& Ecology

Title: An act relating to water resource management.
Brief Description: Authorizing local watershed planning and modifying water resource management.
Background: Water Resource Management - General. With the adoption of the surface water code in 1917 and the groundwater code in 1945, new rights to the use of water are established under a permit system.
However, certain uses of groundwater not exceeding 5,000 gallons per day are exempted from this permit requirement. The permit system is based on the prior appropriation doctrine that "first in time is first in right." Other laws authorize the state to establish minimum flows and levels for streams and Lakes. The permit system and the state's laws for managing water resources are administered by the Department of Ecology (DOE).
 

Water Resources Inventory Area (WRIA) Planning. The Water

Resources Act directs the DOE to develop a comprehensive state water resources program for making decisions on future water resource allocation and use. The act permits the DOE to develop the program in segments. Under the act, the DOE has divided the state into 62 WRIAs.

Groundwater Planning. The groundwater code permits the DOE to

designate and manage groundwater areas, subareas, or depth zones to prevent the overdraft of groundwaters. In 1985, legislation was enacted that permits groundwater management studies to be initiated locally and allows local governments to assume the lead agency role in developing local groundwater management programs.

Interties. Public water system interties were expressly
acknowledged by statute in 1991, and new interties were authorized under
certain circumstances. By definition, interties do not include the development of new sources of supply to meet future demand.

Summary of Substitute Bill: WRIA Planning. The county with the
largest population residing within a WRIA may choose to initiate local water resource planning for the WRIA. If planning is conducted for the WRIA, one planning unit for the WRIA is to be appointed as follows: one member representing each county in the WRIA, appointed by the county; one member for each county in the WRIA (but not less than two) representing collectively all cities in the WRIA, appointed by the cities jointly; two members representing collectively all public water utilities in the WRIA, appointed by the utilities jointly; one member representing collectively all conservation districts in the
WRIA, appointed by the districts jointly; four members representing the general citizenry, appointed by the counties jointly; and six members representing various interest groups, appointed by the counties jointly. If one or more federal Indian reservations are in the WRIA, the planning unit includes a tribal representative of the tribes on the reservations, appointed by the tribes. Representatives of the departments of Ecology, Fish and Wildlife, and Transportation are nonvoting members of the planning unit. In addition, the largest water purveyor in a WRIA is to be represented on a planning unit for a WRIA in King, Pierce, or Snohomish counties, whether the main offices of the purveyor are or are not located in the WRIA. Except for multi-WRIA planning, the lead agency for WRIA planning follows: in western Washington, the largest
water utility in the WRIA; in eastern Washington, the county with the largest population residing in the WRIA. The lead agency provides staff support for the planning process.

Substitute Bill Compared to Original Bill: Added by the
substitute bill are the following provisions: adding state and tribal
representatives to the planning unit; requiring a planning unit to begin work once two-thirds of the appointments have been made; requiring the unit to seek consensus in decision-making; prohibiting planning units from setting instream flows for the Columbia or Snake rivers and limiting their authority to set instream flows to planning areas that are tributary to the Columbia or Snake rivers or to marine water; allowing the DOE to request a court decision regarding conflicts in a plan with state or federal law; preventing plans from interfering with federal reclamation projects; identifying circumstances under which interties may be used as a primary or secondary source of supply or may be used for the development of new sources; allowing pre-1991 interties to be used to full design or built capacity; and preventing relinquishment for nonuse if the nonuse is caused by water efficiency or processing of certain transfers.

Here is a map of our WRIA

Here is a map of the Planning Unit negotiating table

Timeline of Understanding

The Timeline of Understanding





1862: Smallpox Epidemic 14,000 Native Americans perished, about half the Indians living along the coast from Victoria to Alaska
1864-1868 bad fire period. One fire burned from Port Ludlow across Mt Walker, Mt Turner and Quilcene Ridge in a few days
Port Hadlock was founded as a lumber milling town by Captain Samuel Hadlock in 1870. It's located on the southwest shore of Port Townsend Bay.
1881 Port Townsend ssketch: Charles Nordhoff
1889 Statehood and Constitution, Riparian Doctrine
1891 agricultural land in cultivation, in timber Entire population about 200,000, not including British Columbia
1900 Tenth and Eleventh Annual reports of the Fish Commissioner
1902 Worst fire year of the past 275 years on the Olympic.
1904 Olympic Gravity Water System under construction
1904 Special election voted 445 - 2 to: "become indebted $250,000.
1904 Letter from U.S. Army ... no delay in the contract ...
1905 United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371
1905 Quileute Village at La Push
1908 Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564
1910 steel ingots at the Irondale works,
1910 Big Auction of Irondale Lots
1914 Fish hatcheries accepted as mitigation State Fish Commissioner
1915 Fort Worden, Port Townsend,
1916 salmon fishing season scene.
1917 Surface Water Code 90.03
1917 Slab Camp Fire 3000 acres, Duckabush Fire 4810 acres, Dosewallips Fire 2665 acres, Canyon Hill Fire 3000 acres
1918 Mt. Zion Fire 2000 acres, Duckabush - 2000 more acress,
1921 The Great Blowdown" windstorm strikes the Washington coast
1921 Thirtieth and THirtyfirst Annual Reports Fish commissioner
1924 Penny Creek Fire 1774 acres, Snow Creek Firs 3100 acres, Discovery Bay fire 5000 acres
1925 Green Mtn fire 9615 acres, Snow Creek Fire 3825 acres
1926 Penny Creek Fire 1774 acres
1928 Crown Zellerbachs Mill in Port Townsend in operation

Some web-scraped information related to George Gibbs

Editor's note: You need to know that George Gibbs was a polymath, not only one of the leading geologists in North America at the time, but a specialist in the languages of the northwest coast's Indian Tribes and not incidentally one of the translators who accompanied Isaac Stevens on both his survey of the route for the Pacific (Great Northern) Railroad, but on his treatying adventures as well, and his dictionary of the Chinook Jargon was dissected by The Hon. George Boldt and provided an essential component of the Boldt decision.
"In 1854 he received the appointment of collector of Astoria, which he held for several years, and on the expiration of his term of office remained in the west, devoting his attention to the study of Indian dialects and to geology and natural history. Later he was attached to the United States government boundary commission, where his knowledge of natural history made his services of great value, and he was also geologist under General Isaac I. Stevens on the survey of the North Pacific railroad. In 1857 he was appointed to the northwest boundary survey, and at the close of its work prepared an elaborate report on the geology and natural history of the country. He returned to New York in 1860, and was active in his efforts toward preventing secession. In 1861 he volunteered and did military duty in Washington. During the draft riots in New York, two years later, he offered to defend the residence of General John C. Fremont when a night attack was threatened. Subsequently he was secretary of the Hudson bay claims commission in Washington, and also was engaged in the arrangement of a mass of manuscript bearing on the ethnology and philology of the American Indians. His services were used by the Smithsonian institution to superintend its labors in this field, and to his energy and complete knowledge of the subject it greatly owes its success in this branch of science. He was an active
member of the New York historical society, and was its secretary from 184.2 till
1848. His papers on Indian dialects contributed to the various Smithsonian publications include numerous titles, and his separate publications are " The Judicial Chronicle" (Cambridge, 1834);" Instructions for Research relative to the Ethnology and Philology of America " (Washington, 1863); "A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon or Trade Language of Oregon " (1863); " Comparative Vocabulary " (1863) ; and "Suggestions relative to Objects of Scientific
Investigation in Russian America " (1867)."
http://famousamericans.net/georgegibbs/

Harvard Education
Gibbs had studied law at Harvard University, but was more inclined to literary pursuits, which led him to work as a librarian for the American Ethnological Society. In Oregon, he worked to draft treaties with the tribes in the Willamette Valley. Skilled in the study of languages, he compiled invaluable dictionaries of a number of native languages. His expertise in cartography produced the first accurate map of the region.

Stevens's Railroad Survey and Treaty Team
At age thirty-eight, Gibbs was hired by George McClellan, a family friend, to work on the Northern Railroad Survey. From 1853 to 1855, he studied rocks as a geologist and mapped the homelands and languages of native people as an ethnologist for the Pacific Railroad Survey under the command of Isaac Stevens.Gibbs was also instrumental in gathering and preserving geological specimens for the Smithsonian. He adhered to rigid procedures for the preservation of creatures of various sizes. The specimens he supplied to the Smithsonian became part of the zoological report of Stevens' survey report. In 1854, Gibbs reported to McClellan on the Indians of Washington Territory providing what he thought was comprehensive information on Native American societies prior to the treaty period. Once the railroad survey was done, he was hired by Governor Stevens to help with the treaties

The Treaty Process
Gibbs was by this time earning a reputation as the "most apt student of the Indian languages and customs in the Northwest," skills that earned him inclusion at the main table, with Governor Stevens, during the treaty councils. One issue placed before the treaty team and producing the most vigorous debate was the question of how many reservations should be created. Gibbs argued passionately that, due to the variety of the Indians' customs and languages, and their need for fishing rights, many small reservations should be created.

http://washingtonhistoryonline.org/treatytrail/context/bios/george-gibbs.htm

And what is truly remarkable, is that some of his most important writings are now online!

INDIANS TRIBES of WASHINGTON TERRITORY by George Gibbs originally published in the United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region Washington, 1877

including his census figures Estimate of Indian tribes in the Western district of Washington Territory - January, 1854. This is right before the Stevens Treatites



















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Names of tribes and bands. Where located.Men.Women.Total bands.Total tribes.Remarks.
Upper Chinooks - 5 bands, not including
Cascade band.
Columbia river, above the Cowlitz------200Estimate. - The upper of these bands are
mixed with the Klikitats; the lower with the Cowlitz
Lower Chinooks -

Chinook band,


Four others, (estimate.)


32

---

34

--

66

50

-----


116

One of these is intermixed with the Cowlitz
- the rest with the Chehalis
Chihalis.Gray's harbor and Lower Chehalis riverr----100---Estimate.
Do.
----200-----

300

Estimate.
Cowlitz and Upper Chihalis.On Cowlitz river and the Chihalis, above
the Satsop.
------165The two have become altogether intermixed.
Tai-tin-a-pam Base of mountains on Cowlitz, &c..------75
Quin-aik, &c.Coast from Gray's harbor northward.------500Estimate.
MakahsCape Flattery and vicinity------150Estimate.
S'KlallamsStraits of Fuca------

KahtaiPort Townsend6788155

Ka-quaitlPort Discoveryy242650

Stent-lumNew Dungeness7991170

All othersFalse Dungeness, &c., westward.----475

----

-----

850

The last estimated.







Chima-kumPort Townsend..---------70
To-an hoochHood's canal.123109265-----
Sko-ko-mishHood's canal - upper end.------200-----Sko-ko-mish estimated.




----465
Guak-s'n-a-mishCase's inlet, &c.192140

S'Kosle-ma-mishCase's inlet, &c..141327

Se-heh-wa-mishHammersly's inlet, &c.111223

Sa-wa-mishTotten's inlet, &c.213

Squa-aitlEld's inlet, &c.222345

Stell-cha-sa-mishBudd's inlet, &c.------20-----Estimate.
Nov-seh-chatlSouth bay.------12-----Estimate.




----170
Squalli-ah-mish - six bandsNisqually river and vicinity..84100184

Steila-coom-a-mishSteilacoom creek and vicinity------25





----1700
Pu-yallup-a-msihMouth of Puyallup river, &c.------50-----Estimate.
T'Qua-qua-mishHeads of ….do…….do……------50-----Estimate.




----100
Su-qua-mishPeninsula between Hood's canal and
Admiralty inlet.
215270485

S'slo-ma-mishVaston's island181533





----518
D'WamishLake Fork, D'Wamish river.8973162

Sa-ma-mish

S'kel-tehl-mish

D'Wamish lake, &c.7130101

Smul-ka-mishHead of White river..------8

Skope-ah-mishHead of Green river..------50

Se-ka-mishMain of White river.------30





----351
Sin-a-ho-mish
161138350-----
Qunk-ma-mish

Sky-wa-mish

Upper branches, north side Sinahomish
river.





Sky-wa-mish

Sk-tah-le-gum

Upper branches, N. side Sinahomish river.------300-----Estimate.
Snow-qual-mookSouth fork, north side Sinahomish river.------195





----275
Sto-luch-wa-mishSto-luch-wa-mish river, &c.------200

KikiallisKik-I-allis river, L. Whidbey’s island------75





----275
SkagitSkagit river and Penn’s Cove.------300-----Estimate.
N'qua-cha-mish

Sma-lih-hu


Mis-kai-whu


Sa-ku-me-hu

Branches of Skagit river.------300-----Estimate.




----600
Squi-na-mish

Swo-da-mish


Sin-a-ah-mish

North end Whidby’s island.----------300Estimate.
SamishSamish river and Bellingham bay.----------150
Nook-sankSouth fork of Lummi river.----------450
Lum-miLummi river and peninsula.----------450
Skim-i-ah-mooBetween Lummi Point and Fraser’s river.----------250





7,559


Later Population

Estimate of Boas

Anthropologist Franz Boas, whose studies of Indian life are respected,
visited the Peninsula in the 1890's. He estimated in 1870 the number of Native
Americans living in the Olympic Peninsula area as follows:

  • 400 Chimacum lived on the Quimper Peninsula and along what is now Hood
    Canal;

  • 2,000 Clallam (along with their sub tribes) spread in 17 villages from
    Discovery Bay to Clallam Bay;

  • 2,000 Makah and Ozette occupied the Neah Bay area and west of Lake
    Ozette;

  • 500 Quileute lived where the village of La Push is located;

  • To the south of La Push lived 250 Queet and Quaitso - both related
    linguistically to the Salish Clallam and Chimacum;

  • Additional smaller tribes, such as Hoh and Tsooe, resided on the coast

Boas estimated the main tribes at nearly 6,000 strong in the Olympic Peninsula area in 1870.

Chimacum is the reanglicization of a previous anglicized word "chemakum"

Franz Boas noted
"When George Gibbs studied the Chemakum, they had a population into the 90’s."

Of course, this story has come once again to the light as the PUD's LOSS
project at Beckett Point has hit the almost inevitable human remains.

Illigitimus non carburundum esse

The next major factor in our landscape, after the glaciers, has been erosion.

In a sense that is an oversimplification, because erosion was a major factor before the glaciers came, but almost all evidence of prior landforming aside for the obvious uplifiting was removed by the galciations, at least in the lowlands - but it was a crucial factor that erosion of the uplands continued DURING the glaciations and that will prove to be a really major thread as this this discussion of erosion unfolds.

Tabor and Cady decoded the matrix of rock and explained how the rivers consistently follow the easy routes to lower elevations, following and downcutting through the softer rock and spreading out into gravel banks when the encounter layers too hard to cut. You just heard something important, that you already know intuitively: the velocity of water in a river is a function of the gradient and the channel width. For a given rate of flow (governed by runoff from rainfall, snowmelt or simply the intersection of the stream channel with the water table) the velocity is clearly a function of the area of the channel.



You know this empirically, from holding a garden hose: obstruct the flow with your thumb and the velocity increases spectacularly.

In fact, the title to this piece is a multilevel pun, integrating erosion (carburundum) with Bernoulli's law and the "carburator" on the car you used to drive, that was based on Bernoulli's physics and used a "venturi" (the equivalent of the Dungeness River Bridge) and a throttle (the equivalent of your thumb on the hose) to neck down the airflowing into the manifold and thus increase its velocity in different areas to selectively pull fuel from different metering jets.






What you may not know is how particles or cobbles or boulders move downstream in a channel. The process is generally called "sediment transport" and in streams, "bedload transport" and the mechanism is called "saltation". John Downing, the author of one of the textbnooks I point to for this part of the discussion is an oceanographer and instrument designer, who also happens to be one of the world's great experts in this field. He designs and builds tools used by scientists all over the world who are studying sediment transport and monitoring sediment produicing projects.

John's diagram of the forces that make particles move


I have had the great pleasure of arguing the actual mechanics of this with John, drawing the same force vectors shown in his drawing at the whiteboard in his office, and we have been sponsored by USDA to do fundamental research in this area of science.




This discussion of mechanisms is essential because we have inherited a landscape that is dominated by what was left behind when the ice retreated, and almost everything we do, and the long-term consequences of what we do, are directly influenced by this.




Some of it is easy to recognize at the landscape scale - at least after some one points it out to you once or twice:


As you drive west out of WRIA 17, headed toward Sequim and you look up to the southwest, across Bell Hill, you can see a series of meadowed and forested terraces that end abruptly in steeper hillsides. These are best understood as reminders of the dozens of enormous debris flows that left criss-crossed mudflows as the fjords and glacial lakes that were once perched above the ice collapsed, over the thousands of years between glacial stades.



Here is a map from Easterbrook that shows how thick the ice was .at maximum extent of the glacier.

This map is significantly enhanced by the detail found in W.A. Long's field notebooks:

EXTENET OF THE VASHON PUGET LOBE GLACIATION -FROM  EASTERBROOK



I want to call your attention to the three major river systems on the northeastern peninsula, the Dungeness, the Quilcene and the Skokomish, all draining the Olympic mountains. They were still doing that when a mile of ice was covering the Puget Sound lowlands, just about like they do now.
The big Quilcene River actually changed its course significantly over the millenia that ice choked the sound: It was eventually deflected Northward along the edge of the ice - but it apparently used to discharge to saltwater on the other side of Mt Walker. Look at the Dungeness, flowing North: nearly half of that river's length is running through the area that was at least once a glacial moriane, a river of water running through another river, a river of stone. Same for the Skokomish, and the lower reach of the Quilcene. Strip back the thn layer of vegatation covering most of the landscape an this is what you'd see:




retrating glacier - from Dave Nazy


The generallly repeated fiction is that native Amrericans walked here either across remnants of this sea of ice or walked across a land bridge that appeared as a result of dramatic fluctuations in sea level (hundreds of feet) associated with the ice and the rebounding crust. Regardless of the path they followed, there is plenty of archeological evidence to place them here when a lot of the landscape still looked very much like the last pair of images in the next series.




25,000 years ago 20,000 years ago 18,000 years ago 16,000 years ago 6000 years ago



25000 years ago20000 years ago 18000 years ago16000 years ago






What you have to remember from this is that the glaciers left behind an almost incomprehensible amount of gravel, distributed along the margins of the ice, and pockets of clay that slowly developed from weathering of the terrestrial rocks above the ice, that accumulated in lake bottoms (remember: Puget Sound was a landlocked lake for thousands of years).



These clay layers, interspersed with gravel from glacial moraines and streamchannels formed during the retreat of the icesheet provide the basis for many of our aquifers.

The glacial landscape also extends into the saltwater regions in our bays and estuaries: our beaches and sandspits are continually formed and reformed according to predictable dynamics, governed by the same fundamental sediment transport processes that apply to our rivers and streams.

John Downing offers some profound advice to developers in his book The Coast of Puget Sound, its processes and development that applies every bit as well to terrestrial development and work around streams as to shorelines:


"In the past, siting and construction decisions have been based upon local knowledge of the sedimentation patterns in a coastal
area and quite frequently they were correct. New developments, however, now occur in areas of Puget Sound which are inappropriate for a
planned usage or where local knowledge is unreliable simply because existing information covers a short time span. Key project decisions in
the future will necessitate more complex engineering evaluations than ever before. The basis for these evaluations consists largely of ideas
about sediment transport acquired from studies conducted in other parts of the world and must be adapted to the Puget Sound region."







Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Under what Authority are they doing all this?

HOUSE BILL REPORT
HB 2054

As Reported By House Committee On: Agriculture

& Ecology

Title: An act relating to water resource management.
Brief Description: Authorizing local watershed planning and modifying water resource management.
Background: Water Resource Management - General. With the adoption of the surface water code in 1917 and the groundwater code in 1945, new rights to the use of water are established under a permit system.
However, certain uses of groundwater not exceeding 5,000 gallons per day are exempted from this permit requirement. The permit system is based on the prior appropriation doctrine that "first in time is first in right." Other laws authorize the state to establish minimum flows and levels for streams and Lakes. The permit system and the state's laws for managing water resources are administered by the Department of Ecology (DOE).


Water Resources Inventory Area (WRIA) Planning. The Water

Resources Act directs the DOE to develop a comprehensive state water resources program for making decisions on future water resource allocation and use. The act permits the DOE to develop the program in segments. Under the act, the DOE has divided the state into 62 WRIAs.

Groundwater Planning. The groundwater code permits the DOE to

designate and manage groundwater areas, subareas, or depth zones to prevent the overdraft of groundwaters. In 1985, legislation was enacted that permits groundwater management studies to be initiated locally and allows local governments to assume the lead agency role in developing local groundwater management programs.

Interties. Public water system interties were expressly
acknowledged by statute in 1991, and new interties were authorized under
certain circumstances. By definition, interties do not include the development of new sources of supply to meet future demand.

Summary of Substitute Bill: WRIA Planning. The county with the
largest population residing within a WRIA may choose to initiate local water resource planning for the WRIA. If planning is conducted for the WRIA, one planning unit for the WRIA is to be appointed as follows: one member representing each county in the WRIA, appointed by the county; one member for each county in the WRIA (but not less than two) representing collectively all cities in the WRIA, appointed by the cities jointly; two members representing collectively all public water utilities in the WRIA, appointed by the utilities jointly; one member representing collectively all conservation districts in the
WRIA, appointed by the districts jointly; four members representing the general citizenry, appointed by the counties jointly; and six members representing various interest groups, appointed by the counties jointly. If one or more federal Indian reservations are in the WRIA, the planning unit includes a tribal representative of the tribes on the reservations, appointed by the tribes. Representatives of the departments of Ecology, Fish and Wildlife, and Transportation are nonvoting members of the planning unit. In addition, the largest water purveyor in a WRIA is to be represented on a planning unit for a WRIA in King, Pierce, or Snohomish counties, whether the main offices of the purveyor are or are not located in the WRIA. Except for multi-WRIA planning, the lead agency for WRIA planning follows: in western Washington, the largest
water utility in the WRIA; in eastern Washington, the county with the largest population residing in the WRIA. The lead agency provides staff support for the planning process.

Substitute Bill Compared to Original Bill: Added by the
substitute bill are the following provisions: adding state and tribal
representatives to the planning unit; requiring a planning unit to begin work once two-thirds of the appointments have been made; requiring the unit to seek consensus in decision-making; prohibiting planning units from setting instream flows for the Columbia or Snake rivers and limiting their authority to set instream flows to planning areas that are tributary to the Columbia or Snake rivers or to marine water; allowing the DOE to request a court decision regarding conflicts in a plan with state or federal law; preventing plans from interfering with federal reclamation projects; identifying circumstances under which interties may be used as a primary or secondary source of supply or may be used for the development of new sources; allowing pre-1991 interties to be used to full design or built capacity; and preventing relinquishment for nonuse if the nonuse is caused by water efficiency or processing of certain transfers.

Here is a map of our WRIA

Here is a map of the Planning Unit negotiating table

Come and Get It!

Settlement period
George
Gibbs' Census
Census of Western Territories Indian Tribes

Gibbs was a Harvard educated geologist/polymath - a linguist who was determined to learn the languages of the west coast Indians. He traveled with Isaac Stevens on the Pacific Railroad survey and then continued with him on the "Treaty Trail, when Stevens met with trinbes to install the treaties that quieted title to the land. I used to have copies of his journals as well as his census. In one journal he bemoaned being confined to the tent while the Treaty was negotiated in Chinook, a trade jargon of 122 words that was substantially lacking in abstract constructs, which he considered preposterous, since in the entourage at that moment was a team of translators capable of accurate real-time communication across the "native" dialects spoken by all of the participants. His census is now online: http://www.wellpinit.wednet.edu/sal-hist/gibbs_toc.php#Q10

"
Among their articles of manufacture are blankets and capes, made of the inner bark of the cedar, and edged with fur. Their houses are of considerable size, often fifty to a hundred feet in length, and strongly built. They sometimes place their dead in trees, at others bury them. Their marriages are said to have some peculiar ceremonies, such as going through the performance of taking the whale, manning a canoe, and throwing the harpoon into the bride's house. The superior courage of the Makahs, as well as their treachery, will make them more difficult of management than most other tribes of this region. No whites are at present settled in their country; but as the occupation of the Territory progresses, some pretty stringent measures will probably be required respecting them.

Next to the Makahs are the Clallams, or, as they call themselves, S'Klallams, the most formidable tribe now remaining. Their country stretches along the whole southern shore of the Straits to between Port Discovery and Port Townsend; besides which, they have occupied the latter place, properly belonging to the Chimakum. They have eight villages, viz: Commencing nearest the Makahs, Okeno, or Ocha, which is a sort of alsatia or neutral ground for the runaways of both tribes; Pishtst, on Clallam bay; Elkwah, at the mouth of the river of that name; Tse-whit-zen, or False Dungeness; Tinnis, or Dungeness; St-queen. Squim bay, or Washington harbor; Squa-que-hl, Port Discovery; and Kahtai, Port Townsend. Their numbers have been variously estimated, end, as usual, exaggerated; some persons rating them as high as 1,600 fighting men. An actual count of the last three, which were supposed to contain half the population, was made by their chiefs in January, and, comprehending all who belonged to them, whether present or not, gave a population of only 376 all told.. The total number will not probably exceed 800. That they have been more numerous is unquestionable, and one of the chiefs informed me that they once had one hundred and forty canoes, of eighteen to the larger and fourteen to the smaller size; which, supposing the number of each kind to be equal, gives a total of 2,240 men."

There is LOTS more including great stuff about the Chemakums

Isaac Stevens' Treaties

Tribal water rights claims "vest" here, in 1855, 45 years before Statehood:

But in fact they predate even the U.S. Constitution, because the tribes - at the point in time when the treaties were signed - still held title to the land. Much of this title they knowingly ceded to the US Government. But what is most important to understand is that they RESERVED from what they ceded to the United States certain rights, and therefore what they reserved was never granted and hence, were never available to the US to bestow on its citizens.

The "iron fist" in the Boldt decision is in the conclusion that the Tribal Rights to water (as required for fish habitat) are protected by the U.S. Constitution, and that therefore any claims of the settlers to rights granted through Riparian Doctrine or other basis under the Homestead Act of 1862 or acts that followed it, are not so protected. This is my brutish paraphrase of Fay Cohen's thesis, but I believe that this interpretation is accurate.

Subsequent attempts to reinvent the meaning of this deal, through reinterpretations of Winans and Winters, and the MCarran Amendment need discussion. This is a good place to start talking about it.




Old Fort Townsend


Civil War

Homestead Act of 1862

1889

Statehood and Constitution, Riparian Doctrine until replaced by State Surface Water Code 1971

(Some water rights claims vest here)


Fishways required on all dams


There is an excellent discussion of the intial problems that were unfolding around water access and water rights in the western states under the Homestead act of 1862, that provides context for understanding the laws that were enacted later, such as Washington's Surface water Code

" In Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado, homesteading cut into the access of the
large ranches to water. In response,
ranchers (themselves or their cowboys) homesteaded prime spots to reserve water
access. At times, tensions escalated into violent conflicts called range wars, for example, the Johnson County
War
in Wyoming.

The Homestead Act helped create more than 372,000 farms. By 1900, settlers
had filed 600,000 claims for more than 80 million acres (320,000 km²) of land in
the West under the Homestead Act. The historian Paul Gates has concluded, "their
noble purpose and the great part they played in enabling nearly a million and
half people to acquire farm land, much of which developed into farm homes, far
outweigh the misuse to which they were put". [2]

The intent of the Homestead Act was to grant land for agriculture. However, in the arid areas west of the Rocky Mountains, 640 acres was generally toolittle land for a viable farm (at least prior to major public investments inirrigation projects). In these areas, homesteads were instead used to controlresources, especially water. A common scheme was for an individual acting as a front for a large cattle operation to file for a homestead surrounding a watersource under the pretense that the land was being used as a farm. Once granted, use of that water source would be denied to other cattle ranchers, effectivelyclosing off the adjacent public land to competition. This method could also beused to gain ownership of timber and oil-producing land, as the Federal government charged royalties for extraction of these resources from public lands. On the other hand, homesteading schemes were generally pointless for land containing "locatable minerals", such as gold and silver, which could be controlled through mining claims and for which the Federal government did not charge royalties.

There was no systematic method used to evaluate claims under the Homestead Act. Land offices would rely on affidavits from witnesses that the claimant had lived on the land for the required period of time and made the required improvements. In practice, some of these witnesses were bribed or otherwise collaborated with the claimant. In any case the land was turned into farms."

Why Me?

My photo
port townsend, washington, United States
My diverse career paths all share a common thread. They all involve putting tools and an understanding of how to use them into the hands of people who generally know what they want to do, but do not necessarily know how to do it.