9/22 Salish Sea News & Weather: Lenticular clouds, special session, Duwamish fish, brownfields, Action Plan, Salmon SEEson, Kitsap shellfish, coal export, Moving Planet, ferry fares, Orcas runoff, dam film, penguin smell

KOMO-TV: diaztony

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows...but it sure helps to have them explain the clouds. Scott Sistek at KOMO-TV explains the clouds you might have seen yesterday afternoon over the Olympics and Mount Rainier. Puget Sound puts on incredible display of lenticular clouds
 
Excited? Yes. Cliff Mass blogs: “Today I received a wonderful email from Brad Colman, head of the Seattle National Weather Service Forecast Office: the new coastal radar, located just north of Hoquiam, is now fully operational and the data is flowing to the outside world.” The Big Day Arrives. The Washington Coastal Radar is Operational!

Another chance to show what it takes to govern this state with its large budget shortfall. Governor to call 30-day special legislative session

Here’s a look at what we face to restore Puget Sound’s waters to health. Is Fishing Making You Sick? A Look at the Duwamish River

Benfield on Brownfields: Kaid Benfield of the Natural Resources Defense Council blogs on the EPA’s report that demonstrates how redevelopment of contaminated industrial sites in inner cities bring big environmental benefits. Seattle was one of the six cities studied. How cleanup and redevelopment of city brownfields reduces pollution

Action, not talk. The Puget Sound Partnership has a draft regional plan to restore the Sound to health and wants you to tell them what top actions need to be taken to accomplish that task. Meetings in Sequim (9/27), Mill Creek (10/3), Poulsbo (10/4), Mount Vernon (10/10), Olympia (10/11), and Friday Harbor (10/19). Public Invited to Help Update the Plan for Puget Sound Recovery

Yesterday’s item about living beyond our ecological means (Humanity falls deeper into ecological debt: study) brought the following comment from Our Man of the South Sound: “Other ecologists say the we have slipped over the edge years ago.  EO Wilson thinks it was about 1972.  Wackernagle says it would take 3 earths to be sustainable.  If all were at US standard of consumption, it would take 10 earths.”

Thank goodness for returning fish. King County celebrates Salmon SEEson with viewing opportunities along creeks and streams in the Lake Washington, Cedar River and Lake Sammamish drainage basins. Opportunities abound to see migrating salmon

Paralytic shellfish poison (PSP) levels have declined enough in Kitsap County for the health department to lift its advisory not to harvest shellfish along the eastern side of the county. You are still advised not to harvest butter clams from Point Jefferson near Kingston south to the Pierce County line — including Bainbridge and Blake Islands and all the bays connecting to Puget Sound. Got it? Kitsap health district revises shellfish advisory

Floyd McKay in Crosscut details the latest developments in the battle over coal export and the coal export facility proposed for the Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve. Coal-export plans turn into a running battle

Want to see Cherry Point? Come on a ride this Saturday to Bellingham City Hall and Cherry Point as part of Moving Planet, a worldwide rally to push leaders to do more about climate change. Bicyclists to ride from Bellingham to Cherry Point during climate change event

What’s it take to live on an island in the Salish Sea? Trustees from BC’s Island Trust unloaded on BC Ferry Commissioner Gord Macatee last week about cultural, social and economic hardships faced by island communities in the wake of ever-increasing ferry fares. Fares on Gulf Island routes have risen between 60 and 125 per cent since the provincial government committed to the semi-privatization of BC Ferries in 2003, 10 times the rate of increase in the province’s Consumer Price Index. Ferry fare ‘vicious spiral’ affects all 

Meredith Griffith of the Islands Sounder reports on construction underway to create a wetland to filter Orcas Island’s Eastsound runoff. About 6,000 plants will treat 40 percent of Eastsound’s runoff, with a treatment capacity of 370,000 gallons or 1.13 acre-feet at a time. It will be finished in October, and monitored by the county as it matures over the winter. Eastsound's new constructed wetland will filter town's runoff

If you like to watch: The first of six episodes of the Elwha Dam removal is online on the Olympic National Park Elwha River website.  Filmmakers document dams removal

Amazing. Research with captive Humboldt Penguins at Brookfield Zoo near Chicago proved, for the first time, that the birds use scent to discriminate between close relatives and strangers. Penguins identify mates, kin by smell 

Now, your tug weather:
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 300 AM PDT THU SEP 22 2011
  SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 11 AM PDT THIS MORNING
  TODAY
 SE WIND 15 TO 25 KT...THEN BECOMING S 10 TO 20 KT BY MIDDAY. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT...SUBSIDING TO 1 TO 3 FT IN THE
 AFTERNOON. W SWELL 12 FT AT 13 SECONDS. RAIN AT TIMES.
 TONIGHT
 S WIND 15 TO 25 KT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT. W SWELL 10 FT AT 12 SECONDS. CHANCE OF RAIN IN THE EVENING...THEN
 CHANCE OF DRIZZLE AFTER MIDNIGHT. PATCHY FOG AFTER MIDNIGHT.

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