5/30 Coal vote, pipeline battle, Samish septics, Kent side channel, mooring plan, caterpillars, Harbor porpoise, Lonesome Larry, seagrasses

Anna's hummingbird (Kevin Mack)

Thank You, City Council! The Seattle City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday opposing the development of coal-export terminals in the state after raising concerns about increased train traffic and potential harm to health and the environment. The vote came as the federal government is reviewing the first of at least six port facilities proposed in Washington and Oregon to ship coal from the Powder River basin of Montana and Wyoming to hungry markets in Asia.  Seattle City Council opposes coal-export terminals in state  

Take a look at these pix: There are things that people don't get to appreciate. They're busy. And baby hummingbirds grow up and fly away too fast. "The things that happen under our noses are incredible," said Kevin Mack, a PAWS naturalist, who spent this spring photographing a hummingbird nest he found on the nonprofit animal rescue center's property. Lynnwood naturalist closely followed hummingbirds  

The battle for the hearts and minds of British Columbians over a proposed oil pipeline has ramped up after Enbridge Inc. launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign – and Greenpeace Canada responded by unfurling a giant, eye-catching banner on Lions Gate Bridge. The tactics revealed on Tuesday by the opposing sides in the debate are dramatically different.  Enbridge ad campaign intensifies pipeline battle  

Skagit County Commissioners approved an expansion of the Marine Recovery designation in the Samish Bay Watershed Tuesday with the aim of encouraging higher inspection rates of septic systems in the watershed. Designating almost all of the watershed as a Marine Recovery Area allows the county Health Department to use state and federal funding to contact owners of the septic systems in those MRAs and ensure they’ve had an inspection of their septic systems. The MRA designation also means that property owners who don’t respond to repeated notices from the county Health Department to have their systems inspected could start incurring a $75 per day fine.  Commissioners approve recovery area expansion in watershed  

The city of Kent and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have begun construction of a side channel at Riverview Park in Kent to restore salmon habitat and reduce potential flooding on the Green River. TProject manager Beth Tan said construction of the side channel will create summer rearing habitat and a high flow refuge for multiple endangered salmon species including Chinook, steelhead and bull trout.  Green River project in Kent to improve salmon habitat, flood protection  

The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is working to map out specific places where mooring buoys will be allowed in Quartermaster Harbor, the next step in a long-term project to clear the harbor of abandoned buoys and make the bay safer for boats. On Thursday DNR officials will visit Vashon to discuss the mooring buoy plan with boat owners who may be affected.  State presents plan to map where boats can moor in harbor

The branches of fruit trees on southern Vancouver Island are alive with western tent caterpillars, as the tiny insects enjoy a population boom.  It's a peak year for the insects, which hatch from web "tents" high in trees, then proceed to make breakfast, lunch and dinner out of succulent green leaves.  South Island's caterpillar population explodes  

Traffic through Burrows Pass is getting extra attention these days with a study of how many commuters make the waterway on the east side of Fidalgo Island part of their journey. Only it’s not boaters that are the subject — it’s Pacific harbor porpoises. The number of the sea creatures, once abundant in the Puget Sound during the 1950s, had decreased drastically by the early 1990s.  Burrows Pass study aims to help species in decline  

In 1992, four Snake River sockeye made their way through eight dams, past nets and predators and on to their home in Idaho's Sawtooth Valley. One male completed the final climb up the Snake and Salmon rivers to a weir on Redfish Lake Creek, a wakeup call for Idahoans and making the fish the symbol of the entire Snake and Columbia salmon-restoration program. Lonesome Larry's legacy lives on in salmon's rebound  

Per unit area, seagrass meadows can store up to twice as much carbon as the world’s temperate and tropical forests.  This makes seagrasses a vital part of the solution to climate change, according to a new international study, published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.  The paper is the first global analysis of carbon stored in seagrasses and demonstrates that coastal seagrass beds can store up to 83,000 metric tons of carbon per square kilometer, mostly in the soils below them. For comparison, a typical terrestrial forest stores around 30,000 metric tons per square kilometer, most of which is in the form of wood.  Saving seagrass could bury more carbon

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 230 AM PDT WED MAY 30 2012
TODAY
LIGHT WIND BECOMING E 5 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT. W SWELL 3 FT AT 9 SECONDS. A CHANCE OF RAIN.
TONIGHT
E WIND 10 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT. W SWELL 5 FT AT 9 SECONDS. RAIN.

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