7/6 Higgs boson, oysters, Victoria sewage, coal traffic, seabirds, Shell drilling, Kitsap shores

Sea Cucumber

Dr. J wanted to know if we'd heard the one about the Higgs boson walking into church. "We don't allow Higgs bosons in here!" shouted the priest. "But without me, how can you have mass?" asked the particle.

Oysters on the half-shell – what’s a summer without them? For thousands of years oysters were considered inexhaustible in the Pacific Northwest. But loss of habitat, over-harvest and, most recently, ocean waters saturated with greenhouse gases are undermining stocks. Can these rich succulent marine creatures be reestablished in community shellfish farms? Martha Baskin takes a look and brings us the story.  Oyster Reclamation: One Estuary and Community Shellfish Farm at a Time  

The Capital Regional District is expecting the federal and provincial governments to announce their shares of sewage treatment funding "within weeks," CRD chairman Geoff Young said Wednesday.  The provincial government ordered in 2006 that secondary sewage treatment be in place in the region by 2016. But a delay in funding announcements for the provincial and federal governments' portions of the project has pushed back the completion date. If the funding is announced soon, construction could start in 2013, with completion in 2018. The cost of the $782million project is to be split equally between the CRD, the province and the federal government.  Sewage-project cash likely 'within weeks'

The San Juan Islands and surrounding waterways should be included as part of the official study of environmental impacts from the proposed Gateway Pacific coal terminal in Whatcom County, according to the San Juan County Council.  On June 26, the County Council unanimously approved sending a letter to Brigadier Gen. John McMahon, commander of the Northwestern Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, requesting that an area-wide environmental impact statement be conducted that would "address the cumulative impacts of new coal terminals in the Pacific Northwest, including the Gateway Pacific Terminal." An area-wide EIS would include the San Juan Islands and might extend through the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the ocean. County Council calls for expanded review of proposed coal terminal project

Sea cucumbers are slimy, rubbery sacks of ocean water. About a foot-long, sausage-shaped and covered in warts, these echinoderms (think sea urchins and starfish), inhabit ocean floors around the world. Their skin is also able to morph from flexible and blubbery to rigid in a matter of seconds to defend against predators. When startled or threatened, some of the more than 1,000 species will excrete their entrails. Who would have guessed that the blubbery, slug-like creatures are also a big cash crop for commercial dive fishermen in Anacortes and throughout Puget Sound? Sea cucumbers: An unlikely, profitable delicacy  

Seabirds eat everything from twine, candy wrappers and Styrofoam, and their stomach contents show there's been a dramatic increase in plastic pollution off the Pacific Northwest coast in the last four decades, a new study suggests.  Seabirds on B.C. coast eating bellyfuls of plastic: study


A unique ice-class barge designed to clean up any oil spills that might result from Shell Alaska’s upcoming operations in the Arctic Ocean has so far failed to acquire final U.S. Coast Guard certification. Engineers from the oil company say it's no longer appropriate to require them to meet the rigorous weather standards originally proposed. Further, sea trials for the Arctic Challenger — a 37-year-old barge undergoing a multimillion-dollar retrofit — have been delayed in Washington state as federal  inspectors insist on improvements to electrical, piping and fire protection systems, a senior Coast Guard inspector confirmed Thursday. Shell may be ready for the Arctic, but its oil spill barge isn't


United States Geological Survey (USGS) scientists began their shoreline forage fish study in Kitsap County the weekend of June 9 with what might be a local resident’s all too common problem — boat trouble.  These scientists access beaches by boat and work along the shoreline during both day and night periods wearing visually identifiable USGS clothing, and the boat clearly marked as a USGS research vessel. USGS beach study in Kitsap to correlate forage fish spawn habitat in local bays  

Now, your weekend tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 900 PM PDT THU JUL 5 2012
FRI
W WIND 5 TO 10 KT...RISING TO 10 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 3 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 4 FT AT 9 SECONDS.
FRI NIGHT
W WIND 10 TO 20 KT...EASING AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 3 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 3 FT AT 9 SECONDS.
SAT
W WIND 5 TO 10 KT...RISING TO 15 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 3 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 2 FT.
SAT NIGHT
W WIND 10 TO 20 KT...EASING AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 3 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 2 FT.
SUN
W WIND 5 TO 10 KT...RISING TO 15 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 3 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 3 FT.

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