Adventuress, hatchery goals, BC oil, Arctic oil, beach grades, tsunami debris, North Cascades Park, BC reycling, Custom Plywood cleanup, Skagit habitat, kraft paper mill air, mardon skipper

Adventuress (Sound Experience)

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Cliff Mass visits the Orcas Island weather reporting site run by the Willis family for the last 122 years. Olga 2SE  

Thanks to Catherine Collins at Sound Experience which runs the schooner Adventuress for sharing her blog: "At a time when centennial anniversaries are ubiquitous, I’m on a personal journey to try to answer the question, 'Why does it matter that Adventuress is turning 100 years old in 2013?' Having committed the past seven years of my life to the schooner’s restoration — indeed, to her very survival — I’m eager to find the answer. A late summer road trip leads me and my intrepid 12-year-old niece (acting as photographer/videographer) to E. Boothbay, Maine to meet with 74-year-old historian Robert Rice. Robert is the grandson of Henry Rice, one of three brothers who founded the Rice Brothers Shipyard in 1891...." A trip to Maine in search of schooner’s roots

After several years of negotiations, the Tulalip Tribes and the state have reached an agreement for joint management of hatchery Chinook salmon aimed at rebuilding stocks of the threatened species. The agreement, the first of its kind in the Puget Sound region, sets joint goals for the number of juvenile fish to be released and for adults that return to rivers.  State, Tulalips join to save salmon  

When a geyser spewed black oil across a Vancouver-area neighbourhood in 2007, the result of a punctured pipeline, members of the Tsleil-Waututh were among those working to clean up the Burrard Inlet shoreline. On Saturday, members of North Vancouver band whose name translates to "people of the inlet" dipped their paddles in the same body of water in an attempt to prevent the expansion of the pipeline.  First Nations paddle protest aims to leave Kinder Morgan pipeline proposal dead in the water  

The economics of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline will be the focus of the next phase of hearings when they resume in Edmonton today. Hearings by the joint federal-provincial review panel started in January, but this phase will see a change in tone and purpose. Evidence presented earlier in the process can now be challenged and questioned by intervenors.  Northern Gateway hearings resume with economic focus  

While federal officials say they’re satisfied with Puget Sound tests of Shell’s proposed Arctic-ready capping stack system, a watchdog group says some critical safety information hasn’t been released to the public. The unreleased testing data could reveal whether there could be an Arctic repeat of the disastrous 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico when Shell starts drilling in the Arctic, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The group filed a lawsuit this week to force the release of the information. Environment: Lawsuit seeks Arctic drilling safety test data  

A California non-profit has just issued its 3rd annual end-of-summer report card on water quality, including beaches in Washington and Oregon. It shows almost all As and Bs in the northwest…but also 3 “F” grades. The non-profit Heal the Bay uses data from water samples that are collected every week by the state department of Ecology. Overall, Washington did great this year, with 96% of its beaches getting excellent grades, an improvement of 7% over last year. But there were failing grades for 3 beaches in Whatcom, Island and Snohomish counties, where there are high levels of bacteria. You’ll see signs up at 2 of them. Washington beaches mostly safe, but 3 get failing grades  

The Japanese government will help pay for the disposal of debris washing up on Canadian and American shores due to the catastrophic tsunami which hit the country last year, according to press reports from Tokyo. Japan does not have to take care of such debris under international law, but in a report on Monday the English-language Nikkei newspaper said officials would announce a plan to provide assistance to the U.S. and Canada later this month. Japan to help pay for tsunami debris cleanup

It's a scenic jewel hidden in plain sight. Yet it's one of the least-visited national parks in the country. North Cascades National Park, created in 1968, has its champions though, and some of them want to see the park expanded to include more than 200,000 acres of federal land left off the original proposal that many people probably even today think are protected. Push is on to expand North Cascades National Park  

British Columbia is heading into the home stretch this fall in planning a radically new waste management system that will see manufacturers and stores pay 100 per cent of the costs of recycling their products and packaging. It’s a move Minister of Environment Terry Lake says will take a financial burden off general taxpayers, who cover all the costs now through city taxes. That price tag is estimated to be $60-million to $100-million a year.  B.C. moving quickly toward producer-pays recycling system

The Department of Ecology seeks public input on an ongoing contaminated site cleanup project for the former Custom Plywood Mill site on the west shore of Fidalgo Bay. The project is entering phase two in July 2013. Comments will be accepted through Oct. 1 on the draft cleanup action plan and engineering reports, mitigation requirements and the State Environmental Policy Act checklist. The mill site, located near 35th Street in Anacortes, was used for lumber and milling beginning around 1900 and has been commissioned for various uses ever since, including box making and veneering. Custom Plywood managed site operations from 1984 until a fire forced the mill to close in 1992. Comment sought on Anacortes’ former Custom Plywood Mill site  

Salmon habitat restoration could be part of the solution for landowners who are unable to build south of Mount Vernon due to water restrictions, said Jacque Klug with the state Department of Ecology. Klug said Thursday that Ecology is interested in restoring habitat with some of the $2.2 million that the state Legislature provided to the agency to eventually allow landowners in the low-flow Carpenter-Fisher creek basin to build using groundwater wells as a water source. The basin was closed last summer to building because of an agreement between Ecology and Skagit County six years ago. But Skagit County commissioners seemed genuinely confused when they learned about the plan during a staff briefing this week. “I’m curious how this will help the water situation,” said Commissioner Ron Wesen.  County questions salmon proposal

A group of environmentalists has filed a proposed consent decree to force the federal Environmental Protection Agency to update its air-quality standards for kraft pulp paper mills such as that in Port Townsend. The document, filed Aug. 27, would compel the EPA to follow a schedule for its update of the standards, which were last revised in 1986. The EPA is now required to open a public comment period within 10 days of the filing, allowing anyone to provide input about the standards for a 30-day time frame, according to plaintiff’s attorney Helen Kang. Joining the filing of the document were PT AirWatcher, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic, and Greenpeace.  Groups file proposed decree to force EPA review of kraft paper mills like Port Townsend’s  

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to list a species of butterfly after a year-long review and a decade of surveys and conservation work. The federal agency decided listing the mardon skipper butterfly, a small, brown butterfly that depends on native grasslands is found in South Puget Sound and the Southern Cascade Mountains in Washington, in the coastal hills of California and Oregon and in the Cascades in Oregon, is unwarranted.  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decide not to list species of butterfly  

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 300 AM PDT TUE SEP 4 2012
TODAY
SW WIND 10 KT THIS MORNING...BECOMING LIGHT. WIND WAVES 1 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 5 FT AT 8 SECONDS. AREAS OF FOG THIS MORNING.
TONIGHT
W WIND TO 10 KT. WIND WAVES 1 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 4 FT AT 7 SECONDS.

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