Lummi Nation Chairman Anthony Hillaire has rapidly become a nationally recognized Indigenous voice on the opioid crisis.
The 38-year-old leader addressed the U.S. Congress in November at a hearing on fentanyl in Native communities. The Lummi Nation declaration of a fentanyl crisis on the reservation in 2023 also provided a catalyst for Whatcom County and the City of Bellingham to make similar moves. He continues to press the federal government to make such a declaration.
In July, Hillaire led tours of the new medical facility, the Lummi Nation Health Center, stating “we want to be a healing campus,” with a funding goal of $10.6 million from federal partners to build a detox facility, scheduled to open in late 2025.
While Hillaire and the rest of the Lummi Indian Business Council roll out a multi-pronged effort to combat the impacts of the deadly drug, they are also fighting to restore salmon populations, secure off-reservation water rights, and protect their people and culture.
“We draw upon our strength from our elders, our ancestors and our families here to carry out work to address the needs of our people, as well as honoring and ensuring that treaty and trust responsibility is upheld by the federal government, as well as the state of Washington,” Hillaire said.
“That’s always an ongoing priority: ensuring that our needs are met by way of what was promised to us when we signed the Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855. That is hunting, fishing in our usual and accustomed areas, as well as health care and education,” he continued.
The chairman sat down with Cascadia Daily News in a wide-ranging interview about issues that are most important to him and the council as he looks at the accomplishments of the nation in the last year and future goals. The interview was edited for clarity and length.
Health care
Lummi Nation opened its new health center in June, serving infants to the elderly for primary care, physical therapy, dental care and behavioral health care. It is now working toward building a secure withdrawal management and stabilization facility.
“We have seen a great progression of drugs throughout our time, starting with alcohol, all the way to today, where we’re seeing fentanyl that is deadly to the Lummi people.
It’s been a big priority for the Lummi Nation for decades to build a Secure Withdrawal Management and Stabilization (SWMS) facility. We just got a call from Sen. Patty Murray a few days ago confirming that the full $10.4 million for our facility would be passed through the committee.
The SWMS facility will be somewhat next door to our new tribal health center facility. On the other side, we have our counseling services. We call it our Care Office, which provides medical-assisted treatment, OTP [opioid treatment programs] and more.
[There is also] the Life Center, a stabilization facility. We repurposed a modular that was sitting there during the pandemic. Now, it’s 24/7 service with beds.
That whole area, we’re looking at it as a healing campus.”
Salmon population restoration
Another long-standing priority of the Lummi Nation is salmon population restoration efforts, which received a boost in federal funding for hatcheries through the Inflation Reduction Act this year.
“Every year we have the First Salmon Ceremony. We give thanks to the salmon. Give thanks to everything that it does for us, everything that it represents at the very center of our culture and our way of life.
The health and the well-being of the Lummi people is undeniably bound to the health and well-being of the salmon. Protecting our salmon, bringing back our salmon and taking care of Mother Earth is a top priority.
I really want to commend our secretary, Lisa Wilson, who helped lead the effort in Indian Country to ensure that we weren’t forgotten and to ensure that there’s language in the [Inflation Reduction Act] that included salmon, as well as ensuring that there’s funding so that we can carry out the work that we’ve always been doing since time immemorial: taking care of this place, being good guardians, being good stewards of our home.”
Water adjudication
The Department of Ecology filed a water rights lawsuit in Whatcom County on May 1. The adjudication lawsuit of Water Resource Inventory Area 1 will determine whether each water right is legal, how much water can be used and what its priority will be during shortages. The decisions will impact tribes, as well as farmers, rural residents, cities and anyone else who potentially has water rights in the region.
“We have on-reservation water rights. So next we are working on off-reservation water rights. We are the first ones here. We believe we have right and say to how water is being distributed and our needs for water, especially when it comes to taking care of and protecting the salmon.
We have a team that will be doing all of the research and the data down to the specifics of what we believe we have right to.
We’re thinking [about adjudication] from different world views, I believe.
As we are on this reservation, we still believe we didn’t give up our right to our original territory throughout the San Juan Islands and throughout the mainland here in Whatcom County. It’s much more than just what we want outside of this reservation, it’s a statement that we’ve never given up our right to our home, to our original territory, to our aboriginal title.
This is where my ancestors raised their kids. This is where they took their children to learn how to fish, to learn how to live with this land and to protect it, and the responsibility that comes with this.
We’re thankful that we have this opportunity, because I think it’ll be able to hopefully provide some perspective of why we do what we do, and why it’s so important to us.”
Roberts Bank Terminal 2 impacts on fishing rights
Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is leading the development of the Roberts Bank Terminal 2, a future marine container terminal in Canada. The facility is slated to increase container terminal capacity by more than 30% on Canada’s west coast once built.
“[We’re] also working on ensuring that any decisions that are being made in this world that could impact our treaty right to fish, and also our culture and our way of life — we need to be consulted.
I’m speaking specifically about the Roberts Bank Terminal in B.C., Canada. A lot of our fishing happens at Point Roberts and has happened there for thousands and thousands of years — since time immemorial. The decisions that are being made up there in the name of development, we believe that we need to be consulted.”
Reservation jurisdiction to combat drugs
Addressing law enforcement jurisdictional confusion on the reservation is another priority for the Lummi Nation as they take a multi-pronged approach to tackling the deadly fentanyl crisis.
“If you drive around the reservation, these are county right-of-way roads and our reservation is kind of scattered between fee and trust land, tribal and non-tribal owners. So the question is asked: Who has jurisdiction when a non-tribal [person] on a county right-of-way road on fee land is selling drugs to our people?
You’ve got us, as Lummi law enforcement, you’ve got the county sheriff’s office and you also got the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs], the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] — and so it can get confusing.
We want to address a more clear pathway of ensuring that we have full jurisdiction on our own reservation.
We’re working on the Protect Act, a federal bill. Congressman Rick Larsen is introducing amendments to the law to ensure that tribes have sole jurisdiction over drug-related offenses, similar to the Violence Against Women Act.
That will hopefully at least provide some clarity and direct solution for us as a tribe to take action, but then we still need to partner with local and federal authorities to ensure these crimes are being prosecuted in the right way and in reflection of how serious it is and the impacts it’s had on the Lummi people.”
Power Paddle to Puyallup Youth Canoe Journey
The 12-day journey is an annual tradition of tribal youth traveling their ancestral waterways. It is seen as an opportunity for elders to share their knowledge, adults to guide and support, and youth to gain confidence as they prepare to step into leadership roles.
“I want to acknowledge the canoe journey that is taking place at the landing at Puyallup Tribe. I want to thank their leadership for hosting all of us, and really want to commend the next generation.
Our children, the ones who are leading this effort and leading the way — it’s really great to see that our future is bright. One of the best [pieces of] advice that we received from our elders and those that came before us is, no matter what we’re doing in our lives, to never forget who we are and where we come from. So, the canoe journey showing and practicing our culture, our way of life, is really, really important.
There’s a lot of atrocities, a lot of bad policies, a lot of deliberate efforts trying to get rid of us as a people. So we have moments where our children are reminding us who we are, where we come from, reminding us what’s important in this world.”
Limiting factors and increasing capacity for the Nation
One of the major hurdles the Lummi Nation and other tribal governments face when bringing projects and services to their people is the pace of the federal government, as well as the competitive nature of some of the grants open to federally recognized tribes.
“When it comes to building capacity and also ensuring that our needs are met, [the key] is to learn the history.
Know that an agreement was made between two sovereigns, an agreement was made in exchange and with promise, and these promises need to be upheld.
Through so much that our elders and our former leaders and our people have endured, have come great achievements in the acknowledgement of our sovereignty. One of them is self governance.
We have leaders that have forever told the federal government that we can do a better job than you. We can do a better job than the BIA. And look at what we have today: We have our own government. We have our own four-year college, K-12 school, and so much more because of those who fought for it.
[We want] to tear down these barriers by expanding mechanisms that are in place, like self governance and having direct funding for a lot of the work that we’re doing in MMIWP [Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and People], in addressing the drug epidemic, in bringing back our salmon, in so much more that we’re trying to do.
We have to depend on our own funding, like for the tribal health center facility. We paid for that on our own, because we could not wait for IHS [Indian Health Services]. We could not wait for the federal government to prioritize this facility.
We need to be able to have direct access to what was already promised to us. We understand the importance of auditing and checks and balances. We have our own processes here for that. But really, in honor of sovereignty and treaty rights, in honor of self governance, we believe we just need direct access to funding so that we can carry out the work that needs to be done.”
Clarification: The story was updated at 9:47 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2024 to revise this quote: “That is hunting, fishing in our usual and accustomed areas, as well as health care and education.”
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.
