Salish Sea News Week in Review
May 31 2019

Aloha Smile Friday
You've probably heard that it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. But, somehow, over the years, most people tend to forget this. Babies smile about 400 times a day, while the average adult only smiles 20 times. Today is a day to fix this and to smile as much as possible. National Smile Day was created by Dr. Tim Stirneman and Jim Wojdyla of Compassionate Dental Care in Lake in the Hills, Illinois, to "share with the world what the power of a healthy smile can do."


Ferry hits whale in Elliott Bay while on Bainbridge Island run
Passengers on the ferry Wenatchee were shaken Tuesday night after the vessel collided with a whale in Elliott Bay. Whale-ferry collision in Seattle’s Elliott Bay a byproduct of humpback revival, and could become more common  Incidents like the collision Tuesday between a Washington state ferry and a juvenile humpback whale are likely to be repeated because whale migrations and ship traffic in the Salish Sea are both increasing, a veteran scientist predicts.

Washington First Nations oppose Canadian shipping terminal plan
Lummi, a Coast Salish nation near Bellingham, is one of four Indigenous communities from the state just south of B.C.'s Lower Mainland sending members to present their case at a federal review panel hearing on the proposed Roberts Bank terminal expansion on Saturday.


Conservation groups sound alarm over another sea lice outbreak in Clayoquot Sound
Conservation groups that monitor Clayoquot Sound are sounding the alarm for the second spring in a row about high levels of a parasite that can harm juvenile wild salmon.

Chinook bust on the Columbia: Spring returns worse than forecast on Northwest's largest river
Fish managers have had to downgrade their forecasts regarding spring chinook returning to the Columbia River twice, from an already gloomy outlook with returns so far at 30% below initial projections, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW)



These news clips are a selection of weekday clips collected in Salish Sea News and Weather which is compiled as a community service by Mike Sato. To subscribe, send your name and email to msato (@) salishseacom.com. Your email information is never shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

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Salish Sea News:
Week in Review May 24, 2019

Aloha Asparagus Friday!
Asparagus, from the genus family Asparagaceae, is made up of more than 200 species. The most common and economically important is garden asparagus, which is usually green with a purple-tinged top, but white asparagus is another common variety and is often grown in Europe. Asparagus was a delicacy of the ancient Romans and Greeks, and its name comes from the Greek word "asparagos." The name first appeared in print in English around 1000 CE.


Inslee signs budget, tax bills and orders $175M more to help salmon  Gov. Jay Inslee, determined to put more money toward helping salmon survival, on Tuesday directed the state to boost funding for court-ordered culvert repairs by $175 million over the next two years.


Low snowpack, hot spring lead to drought declaration for nearly half of Washington state 
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared drought Monday for nearly half of Washington watersheds, as the mountain snowpack that churns through hydropower dams, irrigates our state’s orchards and provides for fish continues to dwindle well below normal.


Drought: low snowpack, dry weather a concern across B.C., prairies
Drought forecasts from Agriculture Canada show most of British Columbia is abnormally dry or enduring some level of drought, similar to dry conditions that are being experienced across a swath of Western Canada.

Hostile Waters,Part 4: How our noise is hurting orcas’ search for salmon
Booming ships, boats and other traffic interfere with orcas' search for food. Calls and echolocation clicks are drowned out, making all their other problems worse.


Battle over orca whale-watch restrictions heats up in San Juan County
An initiative has been filed to increase the distance whale-watch boats must keep from endangered southern-resident orcas — followed immediately by a lawsuit earlier this week from several whale-watch companies to keep the measure off the ballot.

Vancouver Aquarium sues city, park board over cetacean ban
The Vancouver Aquarium is suing the city of Vancouver and the Vancouver Park Board over the 2017 cetacean ban, claiming it resulted in millions of dollars in lost revenue, and constituted a breach of contract.

Whales vs. trade: Environmentalists push back against proposed port terminal in Delta
A proposed new marine container terminal in Delta, B.C., is facing pushback from environmentalists who believe the project will threaten whales and the salmon they depend on for survival.

Southern resident orca matriarch J17 continues to decline, new photos show 
Concern is heightened for the survival of J17, an endangered southern resident orca who is continuing to decline, new photos show. Researcher John Durban, of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in his spring survey of the southern residents detected further emaciation in J17 since his last survey in fall 2018.

These news clips are a selection of weekday clips collected in Salish Sea News and Weather  which is compiled as a community service by Mike Sato. To subscribe, send your name and email to msato (@) salishseacom.com. Your email information is never shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

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Follow @savepugetsound

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Salish Sea News Week in Review May 17 2019

Tapanuli orangutan [Tim Lehman]

Aloha Endangered Species Friday!
In 1973, President Richard Nixon, a Republican, signed a piece of monumental environmental legislation, the Endangered Species Act, into law. The United States Congress created Endangered Species Day in 2006 to be celebrated on the third Friday in May. The day is for learning why it's important to protect endangered species, for learning how to take part in protection efforts, and for celebrating species that have recovered as a result of these efforts.

Inslee, Ferguson denounce EPA move to ease water standards for Washington state
The Environmental Protection Agency proposes to ease Washington water-quality standards for chemicals discharged into state waterways, a move embraced by industry groups that sought the change and denounced as “illegal” by Gov. Jay Inslee and state Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Canada: Sanctuaries and food for our endangered killer whales
Canada has announced big-scale measures to safeguard and feed endangered killer whales in the Salish Sea, a day after Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law measures to protect endangered orcas on the U.S. side of the border.

Public environmental assessment hearings underway on proposed Roberts Bank container terminal
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has kicked off the public hearing process on the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority's proposed $2 billion to $3 billion Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project.

North Dakota to sue Washington state over oil train standard
North Dakota is preparing to sue Washington state over a new Washington law requiring oil shipped by rail through that state to have more of its volatile gases removed, which supporters say would reduce the risk of explosive and potentially deadly derailments.

It was 84 degrees near the Arctic Ocean this weekend as carbon dioxide hit its highest level in human history
Over the weekend, the climate system sounded simultaneous alarms. Near the entrance to the Arctic Ocean in northwest Russia, the temperature surged to 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29 Celsius).


These news clips are a selection of weekday clips collected in Salish Sea News and Weather  which is compiled as a community service by Mike Sato. To subscribe, send your name and email to msato (@) salishseacom.com. Your email information is never shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Salish Sea News: Communicate, Educate, Advocate

Follow @savepugetsound

Salish Sea Communications: Truth Well Told

A Deadly Wind: The 1962 Columbus Day Storm

A Deadly Wind: The 1962 Columbus Day Storm

Reviewed by Floyd McKay

The icons that define us are all around in this land west of the great mountains: the mountains themselves, the miles of giant trees, the powerful ocean. Our friends. Until they come to destroy us.

As they did on October 12, 1962, the day of the greatest windstorm in the modern history of the Pacific Northwest. We call it the Columbus Day Storm, a monster that killed as many as 65 people, destroyed billions of dollars of our built world and made permanent changes in the way we live.

John Dodge was 14 years old when the storms broke over his Olympia home, and he remembers the falling trees and flying debris of his neighborhood. A worse terror was waiting just a few miles away in Spanaway; seven-year-old Charley Brammer was outside his home when he was attacked by an adult African lion, liberated from a neighbor’s holding pen by the crashing trees. Ray Brammer wrestled with the lion and with the aid of a baseball bat saved his son’s life. Perhaps the most spectacular of many heroisms that harrowing night.

During his four-decade career on the Olympian, Dodge became a specialist in natural disasters, including the Mt. St. Helens eruption. He turned to the storm upon retirement, and has combined riveting personal stories with exhaustive scientific research to produce a book important to the entire Cascadia region—for the winds came ashore at San Francisco Bay and blew themselves out on Vancouver Island two days later.

Dodge reminds us of the pioneering nature of storm forecasting in 1962, using as a key example the Portland meteorologist Jack Capell, who sensed the approaching danger before his former U.S. Weather Bureau colleagues were willing to make the call. Capell’s breathless warning to his KGW radio and television listeners barely preceded the storm at it roared into the mid-Willamette Valley, the ultimate center for storm damage in the state. “The Columbus Day Storm was a freak of nature, a weather outlier, a beastly wind that caught weather forecasters flat-footed and dumbfounded,” Dodge declared.

Typhoon Freda was at the root of the Columbus Day storm, swooping ashore in northern California and southwest Oregon on Thursday, Oct. 11; five deaths were already recorded. None of today’s whiz-bang electronic systems were in place; Navy picket ships at sea were the major warning systems and communications were easily lost.

Oregon suffered 27 deaths, Washington 11; 17 were caused by falling trees. The region’s forests were clearcut in a 24-hour orgy of roaring noise and crashing timber. An estimated 15 billion board feet—enough to frame a million homes—was felled in the storm. Cleanup was massive, and dangerous, and the replacement forests were managed under a new paradigm called The Managed Forest. Many of the salvaged logs were shipped to Japan, where growth in wood-frame homes opened a new market. 

Prune and filbert orchards were destroyed in Oregon, and the prune industry never recovered—it was replaced by pinot noir grapes, a new industry growing in the rubble of the old. Dodge explains all this, in what is really quite a remarkable overview of a storm for the ages. Many witnesses are now gone; this book will remind their heirs of a remarkable natural disaster and the people who survived and built in its wake.

Hear author John Dodge at Bellingham's Chuckanut Radio Hour on May 21, 7 PM, at Whatcom Community College's Heiner Center.

Reviewer Floyd McKay resides in Bellinghan and is the author of Reporting The Oregon Story: How Activists and Visionaries Transformed A State.

*Old enough to remember the Columbus Day Storm? Share your memories and stories here.*

Salish Sea News Week in Review May 10 2019

Aloha Fintastic Friday!
"Fintastic Friday: Giving Sharks a Voice" was created by WhaleTimes, along with help from the Shark Research Institute. WhaleTimes director Ruth Musgrave...believed they needed a new voice and that kids could be that voice. Rightfully, the day celebrates and raises awareness for sharks, and is geared towards children.... Not only is the day dedicated to sharks, but to other elasmobranchs like rays and skates as well.


Inslee signs bills bringing Washington state closer to zero-carbon electricity
Gov. Jay Inslee signed a package of bills Tuesday to combat climate change headlined by legislation to rid Washington’s electric grid of fossil-fuel-generated power by 2045, a move that makes the state a leader in the national clean-power movement.


Gov. Jay Inslee speaks out against LNG plant in Tacoma, methanol facility in Kalama
Washington’s governor is changing course on his support of two fossil-fuel projects in the state.

After decades of debate, Victoria is building a sewage treatment plant
Along the rocky south coast of Vancouver Island, hundreds of construction workers are building a nearly $800 million dollar wastewater treatment facility — a project that has been debated for decades and described as long overdue by some, and completely unnecessary by others.

Gov. Inslee signs range of bills aimed at helping orcas
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed several bills Wednesday designed to help the Pacific Northwest's endangered orcas, measures that he said gave him hope the species might be saved.

National parks group sues U.S. Navy in pursuit of information on Growler jet training
A national parks organization filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Navy last week, related to jet training at Air Station Whidbey Island.



These news clips are a selection of weekday clips collected in Salish Sea News and Weather which is compiled as a community service by Mike Sato. To subscribe, send your name and email to msato (@) salishseacom.com. Your email information is never shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Salish Sea News: Communicate, Educate, Advocate

Follow @savepugetsound

Salish Sea Communications: Truth Well Told

Salish Sea News Week in Review May 3 2019

Aloha World Press Freedom Friday
World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO's General Conference. Since then, 3 May, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day.  "No democracy is complete without access to transparent and reliable information. It is the cornerstone for building fair and impartial institutions, holding leaders accountable and speaking truth to power." — António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

Environmentalists win historic gains in Legislature despite a few stumbles
Environmentalists scored big victories — of historic size, especially on climate-change — but also suffered a few significant setbacks at the Washington Legislature’s 2019 session.

State budget scrimps on replacing salmon-blocking culverts
Washington faces a federal court order to fix under-roadway pipes that block migrating fish by 2030, but a budget passed by lawmakers puts the state at risk of missing the deadline and could delay salmon recovery even as the Pacific Northwest’s endangered orcas are starving.

Cooke Aquaculture agrees to pay $332,000 fine after net pen failure
Cooke Aquaculture has agreed to pay the $332,000 fine for the negligent release of thousands of Atlantic salmon in August 2017, the state Department of Ecology announced Monday.

B.C. ready for court battle as Alberta proclaims turn-off-the-taps law
Alberta has proclaimed a law that allows it to slow the flow of oil and gas to B.C. For its part, the B.C. government says it is ready to fight in court right away.

Vancouver to postpone ban on straws, Styrofoam and other single-use items
With Styrofoam takeout containers, plastic straws and disposable coffee cups everywhere in the food industry, the speed of the move to ban single-use items in Vancouver is running into resistance.

Washington Budget Funds Group To Study Snake River Dam Removal
Tucked into Washington’s $52.4 billion operating budget passed Sunday night by the Legislature is controversial funding for a “stakeholder group” tasked with looking into what would happen should the four Lower Snake River dams be removed or altered.


'Best day ever.' Scientist celebrates recovering sea stars
Earlier this week, a scientist in the San Juan Islands tweeted: “Best day ever." What triggered her joy? Sea stars. Hundreds of healthy, colorful sea stars.


SeaWorld publishes decades of data to help wild orcas
SeaWorld, which displays orcas at its parks in California, Texas and Florida, has recently published data from thousands of routine blood tests of its orcas throughout two decades, revealing the most comprehensive picture yet of what a healthy orca looks like.

These news clips are a selection of weekday clips collected in Salish Sea News and Weather which is compiled as a community service by Mike Sato. To subscribe, send your name and email to msato (@) salishseacom.com. Your email information is never shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Salish Sea News: Communicate, Educate, Advocate

Follow @savepugetsound

Salish Sea Communications: Truth Well Told