NativeBusiness NATIVEBUSINESSMAG.COM | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 | $8.95
HOW TO LAUNCH A NATIVE ENERGY STARTUP
ECONOMIC VISION: 40 YEARS OF TRIBAL PLANNING TO PURCHASE INDIAN KERR DAM ENERGY, LLC: EMPOWERING TRIBES TO POWER THEMSELVES NANA
Corporation Brings Solar Energy to Rural Alaska
AARON SCHUTT
DOYON, LIMITED & THE NEXT 100 YEARS THE BEST PART ABOUT OSPA? THE SIOUX OWN IT SELLING CARBON CREDITS & PRESERVING LANDS TURNING FOOD WASTE TO ENERGY TRIBAL ENERGY ATLAS: MEASURING POTENTIAL
“Our environmental standards on the north slope are the best in North America and probably close to the best in the world in terms of trying to prevent environmental impact, whether that’s surface use, or spills, or the standards we operate under,” Schutt said.
AARON By Andrew Ricci
On Doyon, Limited’s Growth and Planning for the Next Hundred Years
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PHOTO COURTESY DOYON, LIMITED
The reports list a number of industries vulnerable to climate change, including agriculture, fisheries, tourism, forestry, energy and recreation.
Yakama Tribal members fish in the Klickitat river for Fall Chinook salmon.
PHOTO COURTESY USFWS - PACIFIC REGION, HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/YD2H4JOC, NO CHANGES MADE.
HOW CLIMATE CHANGE IS IMPACTING NATIVE ECONOMIES Federal Report Reveals Risks and Opportunities for Tribal Economies in the Face of Climate Change By Clifton Cottrell
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he Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), a comprehensive report compiled by a dozen different federal agencies, dissects the ongoing effects and threats from human-caused climate change. NCA4 warned that without major ef-
forts to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the American economy would suffer impediments to growth and considerable losses. By the end of the century, the report calculated that economic losses could reach hundreds of billions of dollars, not to mention species extinc-
tion, land degradation, and irreparable harms to human health. More importantly, climate change is expected to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities in communities across the nation. The Alaska Native villages of Shishmaref and Kivalina have already begun the diffi-
EMPOWERING TRIBAL ENERGY SOVEREIGNTY PHOTOS COURTESY INDIAN ENERGY, LLC
By Debra Utacia Krol
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INDIAN ENERGY, LLC’S MISSION:
EMPOWER TRIBES TO POWER THEMSELVES
PHOTO COURTESY CADREAU FAMILY
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Opposite Page: Navajo Nation Leadership, Surviving Code Talkers, Marine Corp Leadership and Indian Energy during an Navajo Code Talker Ceremony at Camp Pendleton arranged by Indian Energy Center: Indian Energy’s Allen J. Cadreau and Allen G. Cadreau answer questions during a Microgrid Workshop Top Right: Cadreau Family Photo (L-R): Allen G., Nancy, Nicole, Jessica, Allen J.
llen G. Cadreau and his company, Indian Energy, LLC, has a lifelong mission: empower Tribal communities with the technical support to own and operate their own energy infrastructure to serve their own citizens and sell power to military installations and off-reservation communities. Military installations and Tribal reservations face a similar challenge: providing power service to members while meeting their core missions with ever-shrinking operating budgets. Indian Energy aims to solve these challenges with advanced energy solutions—including integrating microgrids into power delivery systems— with a focus on delivering cyber-secure energy solutions to the military and ultimately to Indian Country. The firm is 100 percent Native owned and is a certified small disadvantaged business. Indian Energy’s owners, including founder and CEO Cadreau; his son Allen J. Cadreau, the director of engineering; cousin Henry J. Boulley Jr., who serves as chief operations officer and chief information officer; and other family members are all citizens of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The Tribe also acquired a minority stake in the company. The firm’s principals bring a wealth of expertise to Indian Energy’s portfolio of capabilities. Cadreau senior has more than 45 years in the electrical industry, includ-
ing advanced microgrid design and utility scale power plant development expertise. He coordinated all technical efforts related to the acquisition of permits, project financing and construction for renewable energy projects located in the Southwest delivering more than $2.4 billion in electric service. He also holds an active California C-10 electrical contractor’s license. Boulley puts more than 25 years in information technology to work for Indian Energy. Boulley manages the day-to-day operations of the company and is responsible for overseeing all business operations. He previously managed the design, selection, purchase and installation of two world-class million-dollar telecommunication systems in Tribal communities. He’s also helped open several Tribal facilities and integrated new facilities into existing infrastructure and has master-planning expertise that’s invaluable in planning energy grids. Cadreau’s son Allen J. Cadreau has only been in the energy business a mere five years but has expertise in construction management overseeing large electrical substation upgrades. He is responsible for all project modeling including creating 3-D virtual fly-by tours of energy projects as part of the planning and permitting process. The younger Cadreau coordinates pre-development efforts involving project-siting, electrical one-line diagrams and project cost estimations for project
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TRIBES MAKE MILLIONS IN CARBON CREDITS
By Suzette Brewer
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Top Right: Yurok Chairman Joseph James
t’s an idea so simple that it sounds almost too good to be true: Tribes are using their forests and grasslands to generate income by selling carbon credits in the California emissions trading industry. Meanwhile, they’re preserving their lands for future generations. “A few years ago, I couldn’t get anyone to talk to me, but now more and more Tribes are beginning to ask important questions about greenhouse gases, climate change and adaptation plans, and how this process works,” says Bryan Van Stippen, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and program director for the National Indian Carbon Coalition. “Carbon sequestration projects and the offset credits they produce focuses on the preservation of Tribal natural resources while still being able to derive revenue even if a Tribal entity has a commercial logging operation.”
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PHOTO BY MARTIN CATHRAE, FLICKR, HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/YBFXMPUQ/ NO CHANGES MADE
WHILE CONSERVING THEIR FORESTS
PHOTO COURTESY YUROK TIRBE
“The National Indian Carbon Coalition is working on a grassland project with the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe in South Dakota under the Plan Vivo standard to develop carbon credits on the voluntary market,” says Van Stippen. “Their project will be the first of its kind in Indian Country and the U.S.”
Over the last 150 years, the negative environmental and health impacts of railroads, mining, dams, deforestation and drilling on Tribal lands have left many Tribes riskaverse and even opposed to extractive industries, says Van Stippen. So the notion of making money while conserving their natural resources is big news for land-based Tribes, who control hundreds of millions of acres in forests, wetlands and grasslands from Alaska to Maine. In fact, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), it is estimated that indigenous communities manage approximately 300 million metric tons of carbon stored in trees, roots and soil worldwide. Into the Woods In 2013, the Yurok became the first Tribe in the country to participate in California’s carbon trading program, an environmental initiative launched with the goal of reducing greenhouse emissions to pre1990 levels by 2050.
The Yurok, who are the largest Tribal nation in California with over 6,000 members, once owned over a million acres of prime land in Northwest California. During the Gold Rush that began in 1849, nearly 75 percent of the Tribe was decimated due to disease and massacres by white settlers. Subsequently, the Tribe’s land holdings were substantially whittled away by the federal government to approximately 3,000 acres in the late 20th century. Since joining the carbon trading market, the Yurok have obtained over 2 million offset credits, the income from which the Tribe has used to buy thousands of acres of their original homelands, protect their salmon habitats, improve water quality in the creeks and rivers, create jobs and preserve their culture. “We are a natural resource-based Tribe and we manage our lands in the traditional way, so this is a program that has worked well for us,” says Yurok Chairman Joseph James. “We are reinvesting the income from our carbon credits into our roads, our infrastructure, our land management, our
businesses, as well as our cultural and language preservation programs, which is the backbone of who we are as a Tribe.” Ultimately, however, James says the Tribe intends to reacquire all of its original homelands—over a million acres—in northwest California. “We are determined to exercise our economic sovereignty,” says James. “We don’t want to depend on the federal government. It is our job to continue the way of life that our grandparents and parents passed down to us so that we can pass it on to our children.” Currently, eight Tribes from Alaska to Maine have received approval to participate in the program. Ahead of the Curve California, which has the fifth largest economy in the world, modeled its program on the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) that was enacted in 2005 to fight global warming. That same year, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
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OCETI SAKOWIN POWER AUTHORITY
Apex Clean Energy team on CRST site visit with Ryman LeBeau (Cheyenne River Tribal Council Rep, and OSPA Board Director)
HOW A SIX-TRIBE COALITION IS DEFINING A NEW AND BIGGER BUSINESS MODEL By Josh Robertson
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PHOTOS COURTESY OSPA/APEX CLEAN ENERGY
out a deal and took it to the Tribal Council, and they approved it. We were going to lease the land, put no money down and just collect lease and royalties. Which was standard back then." It wasn't that simple. "As with any Tribal agreement, you have to go to the BIA for approval. So we sent it on to the BIA. And at that time, it was so new, that no one knew what the fair market value of wind energy was. And [the BIA] had to determine what was fair payments to the Tribe, because of their trust responsibility to the Tribe. So they sat on it for about a year and a half." The potential partner couldn't wait that long. "You know, time is money," Jack says. "They said, 'We're sorry, but we have to move on.'" The obvious failure of the process made Lyle Jack want to try it again — the right way. "I stayed with it, because it intrigued me," Jack says. "I thought, here’s a resource where we don’t have to drill, we don’t have to dig for it or tear our land up, we don’t have to pollute the air. And it’s very abundant here on the reservation."
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ith a massive wind power project, Tribes in South Dakota are raising the stakes for energy production on Tribal lands. The Oceti Sakowin Power Authority (OSPA) is a joint venture of six Sioux nations that has pulled in unprecedented startup funding without sacrificing economic sovereignty. The Tribes are looking to use their land’s natural resources — wind, specifically — to generate significant electrical power. The project will bring revenue to the various Sioux peoples who are participating, as well as economic stimulus to the Tribal territories, which are situated in some of
the poorest counties in the nation. The best part about OSPA? The Sioux own it.
The idea of a wind farm on Sioux land isn’t new. Lyle Jack, the chairman of the OSPA board, says his interest goes back to 2004, when he was a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribal Council. A Chicago-based renewable-energy firm came to the Tribe with a proposal for a 280-megawatt wind farm. "We didn’t know much about [wind power]. We did a little research and thought it was a good deal. We worked
The next breakthrough came in the form of a phone call from Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney and activist from Standing Rock. Jack recalls Iron Eyes' radically sensible idea. "Lyle, I'm sitting here with a bunch of Tribes, and all these Tribes are interested in doing wind energy," Iron Eyes said. "They've all tried to do projects on their own, but they were all failures. We'd like to get together and just share ideas. We're all running into the same problems, so let's see what we can do to help each other." It wasn't long before Jack found himself in a meeting at Eagle Butte, the Cheyenne River Sioux headquarters, that was also attended by representatives from several other Sioux Tribes. Those gathered described their Tribes' frustrations at trying to bring wind power to their lands. This was, in a way, the beginning of the Oceti Sakowin Power Authority, though those in attendance didn't know it. When it came time for Jack to tell of the Oglalas' misfire, his story was hopeful. "I told them, 'Maybe the BIA sitting on our deal, and practically killing it, was a blessing for us. Because it allowed us to research it and learn more. And what we determined was we want to develop our own project, but we also want to wholly control it, not just sit back and collect royalties. I think that's the path [Oglala is] going to take.'"
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NANA Reaches For
By Renae Ditmer
Installing the solar array
The Closest Star
“We’re hoping for July 2019 to be completely there. If we get Buckland done, then we’re looking at heat pumps to heat with low-cost electricity rather than diesel fuel.”
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l “Sonny” Adams, NANA Corporation’s Director of Energy, can almost hear eyes roll when he starts talking about bringing solar energy to bush Alaska. But it doesn’t take him long to convince listeners that maybe that’s not as crazy as it sounds at first to deliver renewables to this sparsely inhabited region accessible only via plane or boat. The impetus for looking at renewables in the region? The outrageous cost of home heating and the desire for clean energy. Residents of the eleven remote Tribal communities in this Northwest Artic Borough are paying through the nose — some more than $1,000 per month — for natural gas and heating oil, and they’ve had enough. Enter NANA Regional Corporation, Inc., a for-profit corporation, and one of the 13
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Regional Native Corporations created as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. NANA’s stated mission is: “improve the quality of life for shareholders by maximizing economic growth, protecting and enhancing our lands, and promoting healthy communities with decisions, actions and behaviors inspired by our Iñupiat Ilitqusiat values consistent with our core principles.” It does so via operation as NANA Development Corporation, which provides services to the oil and gas industry, mining, hospitality sector, federal contracting and Tribal services. As part of its commitment to the Alaska Native Tribes, NANA has a social responsibility as well as a fiduciary one. As such, it must provide employment opportunities and lifestyle support to its largely subsis-
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tence-focused Tribes. This includes ensuring the survival of its Tribal members, including economic survivability, in some of the globe’s harshest living and working conditions. But such a lifestyle doesn’t come cheap. With the cost of living 61 percent more than Anchorage — already 37 percent higher than the U.S. average — Tribal villages are now seeking cheaper energy that is also more consistent with their core environmental values. Exorbitant energy prices derive from, according to NANA data, liquified natural gas and fuel oil which can run from $4.49 to $10.29 per gallon, or roughly two to three times the price in the continental United States—and for a much longer, colder winter, it should be noted. NANA also shows electricity pricing at $0.45 to $0.75 per kWh after the first 500 kWh, which are subsidized by the state, compared to the average cost of a kWh at $0.13 in the lower 48. Part of the problem, according to Sonny Adams, is that fuel must be purchased three to six months in advance, making buying akin to gambling. Moreover, fuel
PHOTOS COURTESY NANA CORPORATION
INFRASTRUCTURE
deliveries can only take place after the ice has broken up. Worse, once fuel supplies are exhausted, emergency fuel must be brought in by air, exacerbating the cost of energy. This seems ironic in fuel rich Alaska, but the closest refineries are located on its southern coast. What started was a thinking out loud exercise, with knowledge that Germany had done something similar with much less annual light available. In fact, Alaska has 219 more hours of light than countries at the equator. Although Buckland, Alaska, sits at roughly 66°N latitude — nearly on the Arctic Circle — the land of the midnight sun also averages between 10 and 17 minutes more sunshine year-round than
any state in the lower 48. This makes solar a reasonable energy option from April through September. Even longer as global warming extends Alaska’s use of solar to cover the decreasing temperature gap during its increasing warmer weather season. NANA’s job? How to capitalize on that. According to Adams, the planning dates back to the 2009 NANA Strategic Energy Plan (SEP), which led to an energy analysis to identify renewable energy resources located in proximity with the 11 Tribes in the 38,000 square miles of this Northwest Arctic Borough. They looked at everything — solar, wind, batteries, geothermal — “anything that would hold down energy costs,” Adams told Native Business Magazine. NANA also held an energy forum the same year to better understand the challenges they might face and to render solutions for various options. A survey of the villagers provided the last piece of the puzzle: Would they support it? The answer was a resounding “yes,” as long as it didn’t impact their subsistence living and traditional practices. NANA then formed a regional energy committee which included all stakeholders and generated an energy plan that forms the basis for the solar program today. While geothermal was also identified as a possible source of renewable energy, the $450,000 per mile price tag for the transmission line was prohibitive. The Kotzebue wind farm, the largest in Alaska, has been running since the late 1990s, and a proven source that has been expanded several times. Solar was also determined to be feasible. It was a matter of money — and collaboration — from that point onward. The total program price tag was $2,000,000, with the Department of Energy (DOE) through the National Energy Renewable Laboratory (NREL) kicking in $1,000,000 to launch the program in three villages: Buckland, Kotzebue and Deering. Each village had to come up with a portion of the balance in matching funds, with Buckland coming up with the funds first. Their stakeholders also came up with in-kind contributions to move things along (grav-
el, equipment), with the only request being that funds be used to pay City of Buckland employees that performed the work. The Buckland solar installation is now complete and producing. A video of the project can be viewed at www.boxpower. io. “The goal here is once you have solar, wind and batteries, to go ‘diesel off.’ We’re hoping for July 2019 to be completely there. If we get Buckland done, then we’re looking at heat pumps to heat with lowcost electricity rather than diesel fuel.” And once they have batteries, they’ll have year-round supplemental energy to further cut costs. It’s a long reach, but Adams is encouraged. He relayed that when he briefs the project around the country that he always surprises people in how quickly the project was implemented. “I can tell you, though, that people are amazed that we went from making a regional energy plan and getting it implemented tangibly in Alaska.” He chalked that up to the incredible collaboration they had amongst stakeholders across the region — and the lack of infighting. They just wanted success. He also credited Launch Alaska, a business accelerator working in the energy industry, for their solid support. Erik Weber, Supervising Operator of the Buckland Water System, lauded the cooperative spirit of the stakeholders as well. “Everyone in the community and on the council was so supportive. We had easy-to-assemble, well-designed products from Box Power, great local management from David Rolland, an excellent electrician named Tim Weidensee, and an educated, hardworking local crew. Everyone pitched in. The mayor Tim Gavin, Jr., as part of the City’s in-kind services, led a crew, building fences around the utility complex. Everything went smoother than any construction project I’ve ever seen. The time line was accelerated by months from what was projected!” Other governments could take a page from that book. Weber reiterated that they want to be “diesel off” on schedule. At the rate they’re moving, they just might make it — and a bit of history at the same time.
There will be more Native welders in the energy industry as a result of a training deal between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and Pipeliners Union Local 798. Shown here: grinding away at Big Elk Energy Systems, a Native-owned manufacturer of pipeline parts in Tulsa.
How To Launch A
NATIVE ENERGY STARTUP
Below: Geoff and Alma Hager went through a few challenges getting the successful Big Elk Energy Systems off the ground.
By Mark Fogarty
PHOTOS COURTESY BIG ELK ENERGY SYSTEMS
Geoff Hager has some advice for potential Native entrepreneurs who want to follow his lead in starting up a successful energyrelated company: they have to really want it. Really, really want it. “You have to know that you know that you know that this is what you’re supposed to do,” he said. JAN UARY/ F E B RUARY 2 0 1 9
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