9/26 Salish Sea News & Weather: Nisqually, potatoes & polenta, Hood Canal oysters, Strait netpens, Tiqa, Tulalips, Wild Olympics, ban the bag, Pacific Raceways, ocean fisheries, population growth

The late beluga, Tiqa

Stormy weather: power outages in Puget Sound caused by heavy winds; flood dangers recede on BC central coast. Cliff Mass shows how the new coastal radar system observed the oncoming storm beginning to end. The New Radar Documents A Frontal Passage

Big day down Sound at the annual Nisqually Watershed Festival on Saturday, Visitors get a look at changes at Nisqually Delta,  and on Sunday at the annual Hudson Bay Day and Salmon BBQ in Dupont, Annual event celebrates pioneer life where Fort Nisqually once stood

Big day as Mount Vernon cooked 15,000 pounds of potatoes au gratin to enter the Guinness Book of Records. “"This event is to bring the community together and celebrate the diversity of local farming," said volunteer Barbara Jackson. "We are known for our tulips, but potatoes are Skagit Valley's largest crop." MV sets world record for potatoes au gratin 

Meanwhile, In Windsor, Ontario, the new world record (6,150 pounds) set a new world record for the heaviest polenta. World's Biggest Polenta. Seriously

Seriously. The Washington State Department of Health says don’t sell or eat oysters from Hood Canal beaches north of the Hamma Hamma River due to the bacteria Vibrio parahaemolyticus, which is found naturally in the water and can multiply in shellfish under warm conditions. The area to the south was also closed earlier due to vibriosis. Hood Canal shellfish closure extended

Our Man on the Peninsula writes that Pacific Seafood has proposed a sea cage operations of 180 acres on the Strait of Juan de Fuca 20 miles west of Port Angeles. The site is proposed to produce up to 5,000 pounds of steelhead or Atlantic salmon. New Net Pen Aquaculture Proposed on Strait near Twin & Lyre Rivers

According to the Vancouver Aquarium, necropsy confirmed that their three-year-old beluga whale died last week due to heart failure. Tiqa the beluga died from heart failure: Vancouver Aquarium

An autopsy after the Montana grizzly attack earlier this month when a hunter was killed has determined that the grizzly didn’t kill him. Victim in grizzly attack was shot by friend trying to save him

And Port Alberni is safer after a resident struck a cougar with his car after seeing it on top of one of his neighbor’s cats. “The cougar, it turns out, was ill. After conservation authorities located the injured animal, it was destroyed and sent away for an autopsy.” Port Alberni driver kills cougar attacking pet cat

The Tulalip Tribes have been generous in giving away a record $5.5 million worth of grants this year to more than 300 nonprofit organizations. Tulalip Tribes donate record $5.5 million in grants

If thousands of acres of timber were transferred to Olympic National Park, how would that affect jobs on the Olympic Peninsula? The Wild Olympics Campaign and a coalition of conservation and recreation groups propose purchases that could add 37,000 acres of wilderness areas, 450 miles of wild and scenic-designated rivers, and 134,000 acres of other wilderness additions to the Olympic Peninsula. Port Angeles port to hear Wild Olympics economic study

Ban the bag. Mukilteo city council members have been discussing banning plastic bags in the city and city staff are drafting an ordinance. Mukilteo considers plastic bag ban

Pacific Raceways in Kent is “Where The Excitement Is Accelerating For The Whole Family.” The racetrack owners want to upgrade the old track to stay in business; neighbors are concerned about impacts on the adjacent Soos Creek watershed. Racetrack’s expansion plans have enviros, neighbors worried
 

Coming up: Bainbridge islanders can hear Curtis Tanner, project manager of the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project and David Bricklin, a land use attorney and one of the fathers of the Growth Management Act, at the 11th annual Bainbridge Island Environmental Conference on Oct. 4. Bainbridge conference focuses on shoreline protection

Dan Chasen in Crosscut asks University of Washington professor of aquatic and fishery sciences  Ray Hilborn, and the associate director of the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Centre, Villy Christensen, about the state of our ocean fisheries— and gets two different answers. Time to suspend all deep-ocean commercial fishing?

Finally, if you like to watch: Science pulled the key elements of its series on population into a short video. 9 Billion? A Whirlwind Trip Through Population Trends

Now, thank-goodness-for-tug weather:
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 300 AM PDT MON SEP 26 2011
  GALE WARNING IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS EVENING
  TODAY
 SE WIND RISING TO 30 TO 40 KT THIS MORNING...THEN BECOMING SW 20 TO 30 KT LATE. WIND WAVES BUILDING TO 5 TO 7 FT IN THE MORNING...SUBSIDING TO 3 TO 5 FT LATE. W SWELL 7 FT AT 9 SECONDS. RAIN.
 TONIGHT
 SW WIND 15 TO 25 KT...EASING TO 10 TO 20 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT...SUBSIDING TO 1 TO 3 FT. W SWELL 10 FT AT 10 SECONDS.

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