9/21 Salish Sea News & Weather: Cherry Point coal, Brightwater, San Juans protection, save SF Bay, captive orcas, Cisco Morris, Dungeness River pinks, BC dogfish, water plan, ecological debt

Brightwater

Couple more days of summer, officially. Climate scientist Cliff Mass writes about the vast range of temperature differences we find around what we call “Puget Sound.” Microclimates

John Stark of the Bellingham Herald blogs on an unannounced meeting yesterday of Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark and opponents of the Cherry Point coal export facility proposal. Lands commissioner visits Bellingham to talk about Cherry Point 

Bob Simmons of Crosscut blogs on the weird world of land use permitting which allows the coal export project proponents to get a permit for work they should have gotten a permit for if they restore the damage they did without having gotten a permit. Duh. Permissive outcome on coal port land-clearing violations

After five years of construction, King County’s Brightwater plant is ready to start discharging treated sewage into Puget Sound. Brightwater Treatment Plant Has Its Grand Opening on Saturday
 
Last week Senator Maria Cantwell and U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, with Senator Patty Murray cosponsoring, introduced legislation that would turn federal land in the San Juan Islands into a National Conservation Area, aiming to boost protection and accessibility as the number of visitors to the islands increases. National Conservation Area for the San Juans in congressional hands

Can we do it here? Paul Rogers of the San Jose Mercury News writes that Andrew Gunther, an environmental scientist and chief author of the "The State of San Francisco Bay 2011” reports that “The bay's health is definitely getting better. We're making progress.” The report comes out every two years in advance of the biennial State of the Estuary Conference, a scientific and public policy meeting that began yesterday. San Francisco Bay getting healthier, not in the clear yet

Brandon Keim reports in Wired that this week’s federal hearing on trainer deaths associated with keeping killer whales in captivity brought testimony from former SeaWorld trainer Jeff Ventre that the whale attacks were manifestations of stress, even madness, in animals forced into miserable, unnatural conditions.  Former Trainer Says Killer Whale Captivity Causes Attacks

Maybe this will make ‘rain gardens’ a household word. Show up in Everett at 10 AM on the corner of Lombard Ave. and 14th St. Ooh, la, la: Gardening guru Ciscoe Morris to pitch rain gardens at Everett show on Saturday

Not bored with fish yet. This weekend’s 12th annual Dungeness River Festival at the River Center (and director Bob Boekelheide’s last) features the biggest pink run in years. Read Jeff Chew’s story and watch the short video. Dungeness River salmon run biggest in 10 years — just in time for river festival

Fish of another kind: Larry Pynn of the Vancouver Sun reports that British Columbia’s spiny dogfish has become the first shark fishery in the world to be deemed sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council of London. B.C.'s spiny dogfish makes history as world's first 'sustainable' shark fishery

Water, the drinking kind: John Dodge in The Olympian reports that, after 15 years in the making, a water plan for Olympia, Lacey and Yelm is nearing approval by the Department of Ecology, after the municipalities have agreed to follow procedures that would assure no damage to stream flows and fish in the Nisqually and Deschutes drainages. Three-city water plan gets final approval by Ecology

Living beyond our means: Not sure how this is calculated but European researchers report we will slip next week into ecological debt, having gobbled up in less then nine months more natural resources than the planet can replenish in a year. At our current pace of consumption humankind will need, by 2030, a second globe to satisfy its voracious appetites and absorb all its waste, the report calculated. Humanity falls deeper into ecological debt: study

Now, your tug weather:
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 900 AM PDT WED SEP 21 2011
  SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT THROUGH LATE TONIGHT
  TODAY
 SE WIND 10 TO 15 KT RISING TO 15 TO 25 KT. WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT...BUILDING TO 2 TO 4 FT. W SWELL 6 FT AT 10 SECONDS BUILDING TO 8 FT AT 17 SECONDS IN THE AFTERNOON. CHANCE OF RAIN.
 TONIGHT
 S WIND 15 TO 25 KT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT. W SWELL 11 FT AT 15 SECONDS. RAIN.

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