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 http://www.seattle-pi.com/local/clam15.shtml
Commercial harvest tonight by Suquamish is a first
Tuesday, February 15, 2000

By GORDY HOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

To the sound of a drum and ancient chants at low tide
tonight, a small group of clam diggers from the Suquamish
Indian Tribe will begin the region's first commercial
shellfish harvest on private, non-Indian tideland.

The dig will begin shortly before 6 p.m. near the tip of
Erland's Point, which juts into Dyes Inlet north of
Bremerton in Kitsap County. About 20 members of the tribe
will arrive by boat bringing short-handled rakes with
claw-shaped tines.

Robert and Sharon Tucker will bring their family. They own
the place.

"We don't live there right now -- we intend to remodel the
old house," Robert Tucker said yesterday. "But we did raise
our three children there, and all of us, including my
year-old grandson, intend to be there for (tonight's event).
There is a lot of history there."

The commercial Indian dig is the first to take place on
non-Indian tideland since U.S. District Court Judge Edward
Rafeedie ruled on Dec. 20, 1994, to enforce old treaty
rights, which called for a 50-50 split between Indians
and white settlers.

Rafeedie's ruling, which hinged on language nearly 150 years
old, covered the claims of 15 Western Washington tribes.

Upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals in January, 1998,
Rafeedie's decision riled many non-Indian property owners
including Barbara Lindsay, now executive secretary of the
umbrella United Property Owners of Washington. The
organization represents 165 owner groups and associations,
or about 200,000 individuals who own affected waterfront
from Olympia to the Canadian border.

"We don't have a lot of choice, here," Lindsay said
yesterday. "The judge said we have to comply. But we don't
like it."

Particularly galling to Lindsay and her groups, she said, is
a provision that immunizes tribes from property-damage law
suits and disallows a conflict-resolution process, issues
she hopes Congress will remedy one day.

"So for many of us," she said, "the issue is bubbling
strong, still."

The Tuckers do not count themselves within this group,
Robert Tucker said.

"I think overall that the Suquamish tribe has done just
about everything they could have done to do what they intend
to do correctly," he said.

This planning process, spelled out by Rasheedie, requires
that a shellfish count be taken, that harvesting occur no
more than five days a year on property with no more than 200
feet of shoreline and that property owners be kept informed.

Tucker said Suquamish representatives kept him regularly
informed of their plans.

"They intend to access properties by boat where they can,"
he said. "And in those rare instances where they can't reach
it by boat, they are to go to owners and ask permission to
cross, and give the owner an opportunity to set up a time
and a way to get across -- which I felt was a pretty
responsible way to go about it."

Tonight's dig isn't the first by Indian tribes on non-Indian
tidelands, but it is the first commercial dig, according to
Anthony Meyer, spokesman for the Northwest Indian Fishing
Commission in Olympia. He said subsistence clam digging on
non-Indian land was first done under Rafeedie's ruling on
Hood Canal in August 1997, by members of the Skokomish
Tribe. A group of Tulalips dug clams last June on a
non-Indian owned stretch of Hat Island beach.

The harvesters will collect about 2,000 pounds of Manila and
little neck clams sized at least an inch and a half across
tonight from land owned by the Tuckers and three nearby
property owners. Anything smaller than that must be left on
the beach to reburrow itself and live another year.

The harvest will be sold to a commercial shellfish dealer
who will transfer the clams to Hood Canal to await
marketing.

The transfer is required because Dyes Inlet does not contain
the Northwest's cleanest waters. Commercial shellfish
harvesting in Dyes Inlet is regulated by the state Health
Department which regularly tests its waters for fecal
coliform, a bacterial harbinger of raw sewage and animal
waste.

Parts of the inlet near tonight's harvest cannot be
harvested for health reasons, but the stretch eyed by the
Suquamish Tribe is listed as "restricted," a designation
that allows shellfish to be moved to clean water prior to
marketing.

Suquamish shellfish biologist Paul Williams said tonight's
event has long been anticipated by tribal members, whose
ancestors settled the shoreline 8,000 years ago.

"So this is kind of an historic thing," he said, "and we're
hoping to bring someone who can do a blessing."

Members of the Suquamish Tribal Police also will be on hand,
he said.

===

http://flash.oregonlive.com/cgi-bin/or_nview.pl?/home1/wire/AP/Stream-Parsed/OREGON_NEWS/o1527_PM_WA--Shellfishing

First Indian commercial shellfish harvest on private land goes smoothly
The Associated Press
02/16/00 6:55 AM Eastern

BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) -- The first Indian commercial harvest of shellfish
on non-tribal land in Washington state has come off without a hitch.

Working beneath a three-quarter moon Tuesday night, about 20 Suquamish
tribal members moved slowly through the sand and gravel of Erland Point,
raking the beach with claw-hooked forks at the edge of Dyes Inlet in an
attempt to gather 2,000 pounds of clams.

"This is a real stepping stone for us," said Merle Hayes, a tribal official.
"We're hoping people now will be less fearful about Indian diggers on
non-Indian land."

Several digs have occurred on private non-Indian beaches since Dec. 20,
1994, when U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie upheld a provision in the
1855 Point No Point Treaty that guaranteed the signatory tribes the right to
take shellfish from "usual and accustomed grounds."

The one Tuesday night, however, was the first in which shellfish were
harvested for commercial sale.

The clams taken from beachfront adjoining property owned by Robert and
Sharon Tucker and three other homeowners were sold to Chuck Dahman, a Hood
Canal shellfish grower and dealer, for shipment to retailers in Hawaii.

"It's a big deal for the Indians, no question," Dahman said. "They won in
court. Judge Rafeedie made the decision, not me.

"So these people who say to me they don't like it, well, the fight's over.
That's the way the pickle squirts."

In 1820, whites bought land in the area from the Indians for $1. Sharon
Tucker's grandfather, Paul Benjamin, later bought the land and a part of his
purchase remains in the family.

"A few years ago, I was the caregiver for a woman over on Oyster Bay who
didn't like the thought of Indians digging clams on her beach," Sharon
Tucker said.

"I thought then, well, gee, why not let them? I grew up here, but the
Indians were here for centuries before my grandfather got here. How could
anyone say no? "

An opposition group, United Property Owners of Washington, will watch the
digs closely to assure that property rights are respected, executive
director Barbara Lindsay of Camano Island said.
 
 

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