8/14 Elwha Love, tidal energy, Cedar Grove, Tethys water, lampreys, West Seattle CSO, BP Cherry Point, Alaska drilling

PHOTO: Forest Service (in Peninsula Daily News)

Nature already has provided a few surprises for workers tasked with replanting the wastelands where lakes Aldwell and Mills once drowned the forest, Olympic National Park restoration biologist Joshua Chenoweth said. The biggest surprise is thousands of big leaf maple and cottonwood seedlings that are colonizing parts of the newly exposed lake bed and silt terraces that line the Elwha River. Nature taking over: Seedlings thrive in beds of former reservoirs


Cliff Mass and Eric Swansen, Managing Director of the Regional Animal Services of King County, plot the incidence of more cats being brought to the shelter during and after periods of warm weather.  Lost Cats and Heat  

A local utility district’s tidal power facility in Puget Sound is encountering opposition from a company headquartered across the Pacific Ocean. At a meeting last week a Japanese company that owns a fiber optic cable that passes just over 100 meters away from a proposed tidal power installation near Whidbey Island voiced its concerns about the project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Those turbines won’t go in if Pacific Crossing, a Japanese company that owns an underwater fiber optic telecommunications cable that connects the U.S. to Asia, has its way.  Puget Sound Tidal Energy Project Challenged By Japanese Company    See also: The Physics of Tidal Energy  

The state rejected a request by Cedar Grove Composting to get rid of limits on how much phosphorus the company can discharge into Steamboat Slough. The company last year consistently exceeded the amount of phosphorus in stormwater that eventually ran into the slough. In large amounts the substance can harm fish.  Cedar Grove denied waiver to dump more phosphorus  

While public comment was not accepted at the Anacortes City Council study session Monday night, the Municipal Building’s Hearing Room was still standing-room only for many people concerned about a recent application by Tethys Enterprises Inc. to change the city’s Urban Growth Area.  On July 31, Tethys filed an application with the county Planning Department on behalf of a majority of property owners on 11.2 acres of county-owned land to move the parcel into the city’s Urban Growth Area. The parcel connects with other property in Tethys’ concept site plan to build a one-million square-foot beverage bottling facility southwest of the intersection of Stevenson and Reservation roads, south of March Point.  Council hears case for expanding UGA for Tethys

The Pacific blue lamprey is in decline in the Columbia River system, where the species has been harvested for food, ceremonial and medicinal purposes by Indian tribes for centuries. Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is working with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton, Ore., to study ways to increase the lamprey's numbers, and they're doing it in Mukilteo.  Tribes, biologists work to halt slide of lampreys  

Sometime before Saturday, King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division plans to put up a fence around the future site of its Murray Combined Sewer Overflow Control Project – a million-gallon tank across from Lowman Beach. That will precede demolition of the county-purchased homes/apartments on the site. “No parking” signs line both sides of the Lowman Beach section of Beach Drive this week, and the fence is scheduled to be up by Saturday (August 18). That’s the day the county plans a community “painting party” – 10 am-3:30 pm  Next steps at future Lowman Beach sewer-overflow-tank site: Fence this week, ‘painting party’ Saturday  

BP's announcement Monday about the sale of the Carson, Calif., refinery and other West Coast assets to Tesoro Corp. doesn't change plans to add new positions at the Cherry Point refinery near Ferndale. In November 2011, BP officials announced they were moving between 60 and 80 new positions from Carson to Cherry Point. Cherry Point is also adding about 15 positions as the new hydrogen unit project is completed in early 2013. The project, estimated at around $400 million, will help the company meet stricter air quality regulations as it refines ultra-low-sulfur diesel. Company spokesman Mike Abendhoff estimates the Cherry Point facility will employ between 900 and 950 people by the end of the year. BP sells assets to Tesoro; hiring continues at Cherry Point refinery

The U.S. Interior Department opened the door to the possibility of an oil pipeline across the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and to oil and gas leasing on 11.8 million acres of it. The draft-development proposal unveiled Monday represents the federal government's first coordinated plan for the 22 million-acre reserve, which has seen limited oil production in recent years despite controversy over potential threats to wildlife.  Feds offer pipeline plan for Alaska's reserve  

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 630 AM PDT TUE AUG 14 2012...UPDATED
TODAY
W WIND 10 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 2 FT. NW SWELL 5 FT AT 11 SECONDS. AREAS OF MORNING FOG.
TONIGHT
W WIND 10 TO 15 KT...BECOMING NW AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 2 FT. W SWELL 6 FT AT 11 SECONDS.

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