12/12 Salish Sea News and Weather: Bag ban, shellfish initiative, dog poop, Hood Canal, Fisheries and Oceans, Bob Hooton, burn ban, closing fishing, sea turtle, Colquitz spill, sewage power, Whaling People

Zoolights (Peter Haley/News Tribune)

Bring on Jaws. New draw at Zoolights this year: Santa swimming with the sharks

Go Mukilteo. Mukilteo could decide Monday to ban plastic grocery bags

More money and a new initiative to increase jobs, clean up the environment and provide more "healthy, tasty food." $4.5 million from the National Shellfish Initiative and the Washington Shellfish Initiative. State, federal governments work together to increase shellfish populations

Skagit Leeks blogs on following the money in the Samish watershed with the Acronym Gang (CSI, PIC, EPA, DOE, DOH, CD, SCEA), Acronym Gang Holds Taxpayers Hostage

Maybe this will help: Samish Bay continues to close to shellfish harvesters routinely after heavy rains, so Skagit County government has proposed declaring the entire Samish watershed a marine recovery area, which would require everyone in the watershed to have an annual or every three year septic system inspecting, depending on the type of system. County seeks extra watershed protection

Real scoop on the poop. Officials in New Taipei City say that more than 4,000 people have collected 14,500 bags of excrement. For each bag they turned in, they were given a lottery ticket. A woman in her 50s won the top prize - a gold ingot worth $2,200 (£1,400). A Taiwanese city is keeping dog mess off its streets by offering prizes to owners who clear up after their pets.

More money for salmon. Chris Dunagan of the Kitsap Sun reports that restoration of the Dosewallips River estuary on the west side of Hood Canal continues next year with a $506,000 grant approved by the state's Salmon Recovery Funding Board. Restoration grants have been given to the Dowewallips, Union River Estuary and 12 other Hood Canal projects. Hood Canal salmon projects total nearly $4 million

About 400 of Canada’s Fisheries and Oceans employees will be affected by reductions coming out of a strategic review. More than 200 are biologists and scientists working in ocean management, fish habitat management, hydrography and aquaculture. Fisheries and Oceans employees bracing for cuts

Retired Skeena steelhead biologist Bob Hooton made a lot of enemies as a staunch advocate for reducing steelhead take and retired in 1999. Now he’s back with a book, Skeena Steelhead – Unknown Past, Uncertain Future, naming names. Mark Hume reports, Steelhead’s plight brings retired B.C. biologist back in the game

We are what we breathe. For the past four years, air quality officials have been using the carrot approach to bring Pierce County’s wood stove polluters into compliance with national health standards. Now they’re getting ready with the sticks.  Tacoma-Pierce County group looks to toughen burn-ban regulations, crack down on violators

Low halibut stocks have led the International Pacific Halibut Commission to cut combined commercial fishing catches by 17 percent in 2012. Guided sport fisheries saw a catch-limit decline of 15 percent. In southeast Alaska limits may be set at one fish per person.  Tightened catch limits alarm halibut fisheries  Meanwhile, New England cod fishing may be shut down from Cape Cod to Canada because of population declines but fishermen say the cod population is recovering.  Scientists Say Cod Are Scant; Nets Say Otherwise

For the third time in the past two weeks a green sea turtle has washed ashore on the west side of Vancouver Island. Third sea turtle in three weeks washes up on Vancouver Island  

The cost of investigating and cleaning up the spill of 1,000 litres of heating oil from a home into the Colquitz River in Saanich has cost $20,000 thus far. Who pays and who is really responsible? Oil spill turns homeowner's life into a 'nightmare'

Like holiday lights? The West Sound Utility District has installed a small turbine generator at the sewage treatment plant and it spins from the flow of treated wastewater and powers Christmas lights. Pilot project lit by sewage waterfall in Port Orchard

Dave Obee in the Times Colonist reviews the book, The Whaling People of the West Coast of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery, by Eugene Arima and Alan Hoover, about the 20 First Nations who live along the sea-- - Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, Pacheedaht and Makah among them  Book revisits the history of West Coast First Nations  

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 837 AM PST MON DEC 12 2011
TODAY
E WIND 5 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 2 FT. W SWELL 6 FT AT 13 SECONDS.
TONIGHT
SE WIND 5 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 2 FT. W SWELL 5 FT AT 12 SECONDS. PATCHY FOG.

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