Little-understood, unregulated particles pollute neighborhoods under Sea-Tac flight paths, UW study finds
Kent Palosaari’s persistent cough started eight years after he moved to a rambler on a hill half a mile from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport...Palosaari said he believes a new study from the University of Washington, funded by the state, may bear some clues to the cause of his illness...The UW researchers found plane emissions are polluting communities near the airport with a particularly worrisome type of “ultrafine” particles. Ultrafine particles are less than 100 nanometers in diameter — one one-thousandth the width of a human hair — and their impact on health is only beginning to be studied. Ultrafines aren’t specifically regulated by any state or federal air quality standards. Katherine Khashimova Long reports. (Seattle Times)
Puyallup Tribe, environmental groups file two appeals against LNG permit
The Puyallup Tribe and a coalition of environmental groups have filed two separate appeals against the permit for a controversial liquefied natural gas plant at the Port of Tacoma. Puget Sound Energy's LNG project got approval from the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency on Dec. 10. It's meant to replace marine bunker fuel with cleaner-burning LNG. The appeals were filed today with the state pollution controls hearing board. The law firm Earthjustice is representing environmental groups. Their case says the project's environmental impact statement is flawed, especially regarding how it accounts for greenhouse gas emissions. Bellamy Pailthorp reports. (KNKX)
Point Wells development proposal, once rejected, rises again
A proposal to build thousands of condos on Puget Sound near Edmonds has resurfaced. Backers of the plan met a court-imposed deadline to resubmit paperwork by Dec. 18. They did so last week. King County Superior Court Judge John McHale had given the developer additional time to seek approval for approximately 3,000 condos at Point Wells near Woodway after Snohomish County denied the project last year. The land-use petition revisited a hearing examiner’s conclusion that BSRE Point Wells’ project could not be built as proposed. On appeal, the Snohomish County Council upheld the examiner’s decision. Then the judge gave BSRE, an acronym for Blue Square Real Estate, a lifeline to reactivate permits for the high-rise project. The decision focused on whether development applications had been processed correctly under the urban center code when they were submitted in 2011. Eric Stevick reports. (Everett Herald)
If you like to watch: Salish Sea Wild: Awesome Fishes of the Intertidal
Join scientist and Finding Nemo’s “Fabulous Fish Guy” Adam Summers as he leads Team SeaDoc on a mission to find some of the Salish Sea’s most amazing intertidal creatures. (SeaDoc Society)
Bainbridge Island Land Trust announces purchase of 23-acre forested preserve
Somewhere out in the trees, something small rustles in the underbrush. Birds twitter away in trees that lean back and forth, a creek bubbles along as visitors brush past ferns along a rudimentary trail cleared through the forest. Vines, moss and branches snake out over rusted out hulks of old machinery left behind from long ago. There are plenty of stories tucked away on this quiet chunk of forested land off Fletcher Bay Road, its own diverse ecosystem packed full of life. The Bainbridge Island Land Trust has announced plans to purchase and preserve the 23-acre property it’s labeled Springbrook Creek Preserve. Plans call for the site to remain largely as-is, reserved as a quiet place for visitors to hike through the woods and critters to roam, maintained as a greenbelt in the heart of the island. Nathan Piling reports. (Kitsap Sun)
Washington's oysters are a case study of hope in the face of environmental disaster
When climate change started killing the Pacific Northwest's oysters by the millions, scientists and growers taught the world how to safeguard an ecosystem. Levi Pulkkinen reports. (Bitterroot)
Salmon face a variety of threats. Recent reports paint a grim picture of the future
Puget Sound Chinook numbers have slipped by about a third since the early 1990s, according to the Puget Sound Partnership. The fish was listed as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1999. Some 20 years of recovery efforts have seen little results, according to reports from the Nov. 5 Billy Frank Jr. Salmon Summit and the Dec. 2 State of the Sound report from the Puget Sound Partnership. Robert Mittendorf reports. (Bellingham Herald)
What do you do when the polluter is a mountain?
Sumas Mountain has been losing weight. For decades, a slow-moving landslide has been exposing the side of Sumas Mountain, in Whatcom County. The landslide material contains naturally-occurring asbestos and heavy metals – and it all ends up in Swift Creek... Since Ecology and Whatcom County can’t stop the asbestos problem or remove it from the environment, we work to control the effects to stream conditions, flooding and manage the sediment in a way designed to reduce risk. To be where we are today took a team effort, dedication, perseverance, more than a few cups of coffee, and a unanimous “yes” vote by the Whatcom County Council on Tuesday, November 19 to sign the Consent Decree that defines the relationship and responsibilities for Ecology and the County. Friday, December 6, 2019 marked a huge milestone with the Consent Decree signing. Ian Fawley & Cris Matthews write. (WA Dept of Ecology)
105-year-old Port Angeles culvert in need of repairs
A 105-year-old culvert under the heart of Port Angeles is in need of $3 million in repairs, the City Council heard this week. The city will seek state funding to upgrade the 1,007-foot-long Peabody Creek culvert after a consultant completes a hydraulic analysis and preliminary design in 2020. The City Council voted 6-0 Tuesday to award a not-to-exceed $149,942 professional services agreement with Parametrix Inc. to complete the hydraulic analysis and preliminary design. Rob Ollikainen reports. (Peninsula Daily News)
Public Comment Period for the Kelp Conservation and Recovery Plan
The Northwest Straits Initiative and numerous partners have spent the past two years developing a draft Kelp Conservation and Recovery Plan that is ready for public review! The draft Plan provides a framework for coordinated research and management actions to protect kelp from a suite of global and local stressors...Actions identified in the plan include reducing stress on kelp, informing management on the importance of kelp; monitoring continuing kelp trends; assess state, local and federal management tools to protect kelp habitat; restore kelp habitats; and promote awareness and outreach to the public... The comment period will be open from December 18 to January 22. (NOAA Rockfish Newsletter)
Enhancing the resilience of Puget Sound recovery: A path through the maze of resilience thinking
Resilience thinking' has exploded in recent decades to become a sprawling discipline, complete with debates and inconsistencies, and literature to match. The idea that ecosystems should be made resilient, or able to absorb disturbance and still bounce back, has gained traction in many policy circles, but there remains some disagreement about what the term means and how it should be applied. A 2019 report from the Puget Sound Institute's Nick Georgiadis looks at resilience in the context of Puget Sound protection and restoration. (Puget Sound Institute) See also: Resilience along the West Coast Research scientist Aimee Kinney presents. (EESI)
Now, your weekend tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca- 238 AM PST Fri Dec 20 2019
SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT THROUGH SATURDAY AFTERNOON
TODAY S wind 5 to 15 kt becoming SE in the afternoon. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell 13 ft at 16 seconds. Rain.
TONIGHT E wind 10 to 20 kt becoming N after midnight. Wind waves 1 to 3 ft. W swell 12 ft at 15 seconds subsiding to 10 ft at 14 seconds after midnight. Rain in the evening then rain likely after midnight.
SAT W wind 5 to 15 kt becoming SE in the afternoon. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell 10 ft at 13 seconds. Rain likely in the morning then a chance of rain in the afternoon.
SAT NIGHT SE wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell 9 ft at 12 seconds.
SUN SE wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell 8 ft at 12 seconds.
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"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.
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