7/26 Orca fishing, Namu, Halliburton guilt, oil train regs, Obama's climate, rain gardens, BC Ferries, bluff science

PHOTO: Kevin Klein

If you’ve ever gone fishing, then you probably know what it feels like to catch a big one only to lose it as you reel it in. A Friday Harbor man recently had this experience, but there’s much more to this whale of a tale. Jennifer Wing reports. Orca Snags Angler's Big Catch Right Off the Line 

The story begins north of Vancouver Island in June 1965, near the tiny fishing village of Namu, British Columbia. Fishermen retrieving gear that had snagged on rocks made a surprising discovery. A giant orca was trapped in a cove by a runaway net. Word of the captive orca reached Seattle and a man named Ted Griffin. Griffin owned an aquarium on the waterfront and had long been fascinated with whales. In short order, Griffin bought the whale — now called Namu — for $8,000. Then, he made arrangements to bring Namu home to Seattle using a floating cage pulled behind a tugboat. Feliks Banel reports.  Killer Whale Makes Big Splash In Seattle

Halliburton Energy Services agreed Thursday to plead guilty to destroying evidence during the Deepwater Horizon oil-spill disaster in 2010, admitting one count of criminal conduct and agreeing to pay the $200,000 maximum statutory fine, according to the Justice Department. In a startling turn in the three-year criminal investigation, the oil-field services company said that twice during the oil spill, it directed employees to destroy or “get rid of” simulations that would have helped clarify how to assign blame for the blowout — and possibly focused more attention on Halliburton’s role. The plea is subject to court approval. Steven Mufson reports. Feds: Halliburton agrees to plead guilty in spill

The Pacific Northwest Energy Boom rolled into Vancouver, Wash., in a big way Tuesday, sparking more debate about how the region can handle demands from oil and coal companies for export terminals shipping to markets in the U.S. and Asia. Port commissioners in Vancouver unanimously endorsed a huge oil terminal that would bring up to 360,000 barrels a day from the Bakken Oil Field in North Dakota, by rail, to the Columbia River port. That decision would add eight long unit, or mile-and-a-half-long trains daily to the already heavy traffic through the scenic Columbia River Gorge. Gorge protectors protested. (The extra rail traffic would include both full and empty return trains.) Floyd McKay reports. Coming soon: Oil trains. All the risk, fewer regulations

Environmental experts who remain unimpressed with President Barack Obama's war-on-carbon rhetoric point to one key reason for concern that's off most Americans' radar: U.S. coal exports. A push to expand coal mining operations in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, and to build three ports in Oregon and Washington to ship the fuel to Asia, could create more national and global environmental impact than a Canadian company's proposal to ferry Albertan tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast via the Keystone XL pipeline. Yet these remote projects are not getting the attention they deserve, critics suggest, and they fear Obama may be overlooking, apathetic to, or even supportive of them. Lynn Peeples writes. Coal Exports Contradict Obama's Climate Pledge, Critics Say   

Rain garden maintenance has emerged as one of the big hurdles to expanding the use of green stormwater solutions. You build it. The rain comes. Then what? Lisa Stiffler reports. Checklist for a Healthy Rain Garden  

B.C. Ferries has won approval to buy three new vessels and will seek to bring more standardization to its fleet with the purchase... In a ruling released Tuesday, the B.C. Ferries Commissioner approved the three new vessels, which will replace the aging Queen of Burnaby and Queen of Nanaimo. Jeff Bell reports.  B.C. Ferries given OK to build three new vessels at a cost of hundreds of millions  

Dana Hunter writes about the first day at Discovery Park: What an experience that day was! A walk through a forest greener than any I’d ever seen, across a sandy trail with signs saying “UNSTABLE BLUFF” all over the place, and then down and down and down until beach and sea and seal. Hundreds of clear jellyfish washed ashore gleamed like diamonds on that stony beach. And this amazing bluff, which would, nearly a decade later, put a match to the kindling laid by my physical geography professor and the great state of Arizona. So. Seven years spent trying to get back there, and then a glorious May day, and a discovery at Discovery: this bluff was like nothing I’d ever seen.  So What’s a Coastal Bluff Got To Do With Mount St. Helens?

Now, your weekend tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 900 PM PDT THU JUL 25 2013
FRI
W WIND 5 TO 15 KT...BECOMING 10 TO 20 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT. W SWELL 4 FT AT 7 SECONDS. AREAS OF FOG IN THE MORNING.
FRI NIGHT
W WIND 15 TO 25 KT...EASING TO 5 TO 15 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT...SUBSIDING TO 2 FT OR LESS AFTER MIDNIGHT. W SWELL 4 FT AT 7 SECONDS. PATCHY FOG AFTER MIDNIGHT.
SAT
W WIND TO 10 KT. WIND WAVES 1 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 5 FT AT 8 SECONDS.
SAT NIGHT
W WIND 10 TO 20 KT...EASING TO 10 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT...SUBSIDING TO 1 FT OR LESS AFTER MIDNIGHT. W SWELL 5 FT AT 8 SECONDS.
SUN
LIGHT WIND...BECOMING W TO 10 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 1 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 5 FT AT 8 SECONDS.

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