8/16 Gambier Is, BC grey water, warming Lk Washiington, Frasier slide, Puyallup salmon, Haida Gwaii cedars, Trump ESA, cyanide bombs

Gambier Island [Future of Howe Sound]

Gambier Island
Gambier Island is an island located in Howe Sound near Vancouver, British Columbia. Squamish people called the island Cha7élkwnech, in reference to its deep protected bays. The island was named by Captain Richards in 1860 for James Gambier, Admiral of the Fleet who had a distinguished career in the British navy, was a Governor of Newfoundland and served as a negotiator of the Treaty of Ghent ending The War of 1812 between Britain and the United States. There are around 125 long-term residents on Gambier, but the population swells to more than 600 in the summertime due to the island's summer holiday homes. (Wikipedia)

Cruise Ships Dump 90% Of Grey Water In BC
1.54 billion liters of grey water were generated by ships off the British Columbia coast in 2017 - the equivalent of more than 600 Olympic-size swimming pools, said a study. World Wildlife Fund Canada says cruise ships traveling between Washington state and Alaska are responsible for dumping "the vast majority" of the potentially toxic grey water that ends up off the B.C. coast each year. Cruise ships accounted for 1.37 billion (almost 90%) of the 1.54 billion liters of grey water generated off the B.C. coast in 2017, the study revealed. Shailaja A. Lakshmi reports. (Marine Link)

Lake Washington is heating up because of climate change
Average annual temperatures in Lake Washington, which sits between Seattle and the Eastside, continue to rise. Scientists say Lake Washington is already starting to show effects from climate change. Last year the average annual temperature was just over 51 degrees Fahrenheit, up from 47.9 degrees in 1963, according to data collected by University of Washington scientists. Anna Boiko-Weyrauch reports. (KUOW)

No end date in sight for crews working at Big Bar landslide in B.C. 
Officials working at a landslide northwest of Kamloops say they don't know how long efforts to rescue spawning salmon will take on the Fraser River... The slide in late June at Big Bar created a five-metre waterfall and is blocking the majority of hundreds of thousands of chinook salmon from migrating upstream to spawn. Corino Salomi, the environmental unit lead for the federal government, says crews are moving rocks and boulders to create passageways for the fish. He says they are using portable hydraulic rams and airbags, chippers, drills and small, low velocity explosives to further break the rocks and create the passageways. Salomi says the team is also considering building a road around the slide so fish can be transported in trucks. So far, the fish have primarily been transported by helicopters with more than 14,000 fish moved. (Canadian Press)

Salmon at ‘scary’ low levels in area rivers as fishing season opens on the Puyallup
... Tara Livingood, the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s area biologist for Pierce County, is less positive about the salmon forecast. Around 1,800 wild chinook are expected to come back to the Puyallup this year, along with 13,000 hatchery chinook. The forecast for pink salmon, she said, is especially low this year. “We’ve projected around 48,000,” she said, but added that the number could go up to about 100,000. She said it’s concerning to see numbers that low, especially when several years ago, around 380,000 pink salmon were predicted to return to the Puyallup River. Kate IIda reports. (Tacoma News Tribune)

The battle for Haida Gwaii’s cedars
On islands renowned for their towering trees, the cedars that define Haida culture are being cut down, triggering renewed opposition to logging on the archipelago — where some of the most important battles for Indigenous rights and forest protection were first fought. Ben Parfitt reports. (The Narwhal)

How rollbacks to the U.S. Endangered Species Act could impact conservation in Canada
... On Monday, the Trump administration made some of the most significant changes to the act in decades, ending automatic protections for threatened species and removing directives that basically put wildlife conservation ahead of economic development. "The timing of this decision is completely off," said James Snider, vice-president of science, research and innovation at WWF Canada. "It's a move in the wrong direction, in stark contrast in terms of what wildlife and, arguably, nature and people need at this time." And, as with many actions taken south of the border, Canadians who work in conservation say the changes will have an impact here. Stephanie Hogan reports. (CBC)

E.P.A. Backtracks on Use of ‘Cyanide Bombs’ to Kill Wild Animals
The federal Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday withdrew its support for the continued use of so-called cyanide bombs to protect livestock from predators, reversing course amid strong opposition to the practice. The E.P.A. administrator, Andrew R. Wheeler, said he was withdrawing an interim reauthorization for the use of M-44 devices, which are used to kill coyotes, foxes and other animals that prey on livestock. The agency, he added, would re-evaluate the highly criticized practice.  Neil Vigdor reports. (NY Times)


Now, your weekend tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  252 AM PDT Fri Aug 16 2019   
TODAY  Light wind becoming NW 5 to 15 kt in the afternoon. Wind  waves 2 ft or less. W swell 5 ft at 16 seconds. 
TONIGHT  W wind 5 to 15 kt becoming SW to 10 kt after midnight.  Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell 4 ft at 15 seconds. 
SAT  S wind to 10 kt becoming NW in the afternoon. Wind waves  1 ft or less. W swell 5 ft at 12 seconds. 
SAT NIGHT  W wind to 10 kt. Wind waves 1 ft or less. W swell  4 ft at 15 seconds. 
SUN  SW wind to 10 kt becoming W in the afternoon. Wind waves  1 ft or less. W swell 4 ft at 10 seconds.



--
"Salish Sea News & Weather" is compiled as a community service by Mike Sato. To subscribe, send your name and email to msato (@) salishseacom.com. Your email information is never shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Salish Sea News: Communicate, Educate, Advocate

Follow on Twitter. 

Salish Sea Communications: Truth Well Told