1/11 Snow?, Rena sinks, state transportation, bag ban, farm program, MV Coho Lake Whatcom, pipeline pushback, Discover Pass, Deepwater Horizon

Making A Splash (Laurie MacBride)

Ready? “The new forecast models are increasingly threatening for colder temperatures and lowland snow from Sunday through Wednesday of next week, although none of the forecast are ideal for a truly major event,” says Cliff Mass. Increasing Threat of Snow

New blog: “Putting A Price On Nature”   The blog subject is oil spills, and the Lady of the North offers her portrait from a few months back about Dall porpoises and the impact of the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan oil projects, “Making A Splash”

John F points out that House Bill 1508 will exempt all gun ranges from noise ordinances. Why is that in the public interest?

Awful to watch: Rena Sinks: Up to 100 tonnes of oil could still be on the sinking Rena, threatening to spill in to the ocean.

"Our oil companies are getting all the profit and leaving us with the bill. We can do better," Governor Gregoire said yesterday when proposing a $1.50 fee per barrel of oil produced in the state to pay for $3.6 billion in highway, bridges, city streets and ferries improvements and maintenance. Governor pushes transportation investment

"I want plastic out of the water," said Sen. Maralyn Chase, D-Shoreline, the prime sponsor of a Senate bill that would be the nation's first statewide ban of plastic grocery and retail bags. Legislators seek statewide ban on flimsy plastic shopping bags
Whatcom County Council members voted 5-2 to stay out of the state’s Voluntary Stewardship Program because they want to rely on the county’s own environmental laws and don't want to see local control given to the state. Whatcom County won't join state farm program    On Skagit County’s earlier adoption of the program, reader Rabbits’ Guy comments.

Black Ball Ferry Line, which operates the MV Coho ferry between Port Angeles and Victoria, is being purchased by its managers from the Oregon State University Foundation.  Meet the new owners of the MV Coho ferry

The origin of the totem pole that washed up at Ogden Point remains a mystery, but some answers may come today when the battered pole is inspected by Grant Keddie, archaeology curator at the Royal B.C. Museum. Museum curator may have answer to Vancouver Island totem-pole mystery  

Strong words from the Washington Growth Management Hearings Board on the inadequacy of Whatcom County's land-use regulations in Lake Whatcom: “The county's unsupported assertion that its regulations are adequate to provide the needed protection rings hollow," the board's ruling states. "The current report on Lake Whatcom water quality demonstrates that the existing regulations have not protected Lake Whatcom and that the problems are actual and proven, not speculative."  State board: County doesn't do enough to protect Lake Whatcom, orders county to toughen regulations

Conservative government PM Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver have lashed out at environmental groups taking “foreign money” from U.S. donors to build opposition to the $6.6-billion Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry oil-sands bitumen to the British Columbia coast. Foes of Northern Gateway pipeline fear revocation of charitable status  

Washington State Parks received $6.5 million from the new Discover Pass purchases in 6 months, way short of its hoped-for $15.6 million. As a fix to remove one big barrier, the Washington State Senate Energy, Natural Resources & Marine Waters Committee on Jan. 9 voted unanimously to refer a bill to the Ways & Means Committee that would make the Discover Pass transferable between two vehicles. Discover Pass expansion (one pass good for two vehicles) gets senate committee nod

Shoot ‘em, Dano. Brant goose numbers in Skagit County are high enough to allow an eight-day hunt, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Brant numbers big enough for hunt  

A new study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides a composite picture of the environmental distribution of oil and gas from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It amasses a vast collection of available atmospheric, surface and subsurface chemical data to assemble a "mass balance" of how much oil and gas was released, where it went and the chemical makeup of the compounds that remained in the air, on the surface, and in the deep water. Comprehensive Picture of the Fate of Oil from Deepwater Horizon Spill   See also Justin Gillis’ New York Times blog on Revisiting the Deepwater Horizon Plumes

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 900 AM PST WED JAN 11 2012
TODAY
E WIND 15 TO 20 KT...BECOMING SE 10 TO 15 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT. W SWELL 6 FT AT 11 SECONDS.
TONIGHT
SE WIND 10 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT. W SWELL 4 FT AT 13 SECONDS. PATCHY FOG.

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