9/28 Salish Sea News & Weather: Elwha flowing, Tethys, Dabob restoration, raingardens, shoreline planning, state budget, food costs and security, global warming

Elwha Love. Lake Aldwell is now flowing over the portion of the dam removed. Watch on the National Park Service webcams.  Elwha River flows freely past destroyed dam portion

The city of Anacortes gave Everett-based Tethys Enterprises Inc. rights to 5 million gallons per day of water for a proposed food and beverage plant contingent on the company finding a suitable site. The decision caused deep community divisions, and this week the city council finally had a public hearing on the proposal but gave Tethys more time to find a site. Anacortes City Council gives Tethys contract extension

Reporter Martha Baskin’s radio feature examines the restoration of the largest intact salt-marsh in all of Hood Canal and Strait of Juan de Fuca. Listen to Restoring Dabob Bay & Tarboo Creek: Can it Serve as a Model for Saving Puget Sound? 

Last weekend’s raingarden demonstration in north Everett featured installations at seven homes that will have an additional benefit of alleviating the risk of basement flooding. Raingardens will help prevent flooding in basements http://www.snoho.com/stories_2011/09_september/092811_raingarden.html  Down Sound in Belfair, the WSU Mason County Extension gives a free workshop tomorrow on reducing drainage and runoff pollution problems. Free Rain Garden How-to Workshop http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/local-events/15222-free-rain-garden-how-to-workshop

Balancing pubic and industry uses along Tacoma’s waterfront continues as the Tacoma City Council wrestles with updates to the city’s Shoreline Master Program. Many support the status quo of a working, industrial waterfront along Schuster Parkway and many support a long-envisioned public esplanade from the Tacoma Dome to Point Defiance. Waterfront rules remain divisive in regards to industrial or public uses http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/09/28/1842912/waterfront-rules-remain-divisive.html

Tomorrow in Tumwater, the public gets to talk about shoreline regulations proposed for the shorelines of the Deschutes River, the Black Lake drainage ditch, portions of Percival Creek and Barnes, Black, Capitol, Munn, Susan and Trosper lakes. Input sought on Tumwater shoreline regulations http://www.theolympian.com/2011/09/27/1817347/input-sought-on-tumwater-shoreline.html

Yet to be determined is how the next round of state budget cuts will affect public programs. Two-thirds of the $35 billion state budget is restricted so the cuts have to come from the $10 billion available. One proposal from the state Fish and Wildlife Department would direct state-run hatcheries to cut costs by collecting less Chinook salmon eggs. Issaquah hatchery could collect fewer salmon eggs as cost-cutting measure    State parks, with the new Discover Pass fee schedule, are meant to become fully self-sustaining but the interim funding to get there may be cut. State Parks faces new round of budget cuts

Paul Epstein blogs in The Atlantic on what might be the true costs of climate change and emerging weather changes: food availability and food security. Food Security and Climate Change: The True Cost of Carbon Tom Laskey in Grist takes another slant on what drives food prices: speculators. U.S. government gives food speculators the thumbs up

Joel Connelly issues an invitation to all global warming skeptics to join him in the Canadian Rockies to hear the mountains’ message: “Climate change is not a theory, not a debate, in these mountains. It is there for your eyes to witness. The glaciers are shrinking rapidly and changing appearance, even from when I first hiked there as a 10-year-old.” Icing the case for global warming 

Now, your tug weather:
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 300 AM PDT WED SEP 28 2011
  SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY FOR HAZARDOUS SEAS IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON
 SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY FOR WINDS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY MORNING
  TODAY
 W SWELL 11 FT AT 12 SECONDS. LIGHT WIND BECOMING SE 10 TO 20 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 1 FT OR LESS...BUILDING TO 1 TO 3 FT IN THE AFTERNOON.
 TONIGHT
 E WIND 10 TO 15 KT...RISING TO 15 TO 25 KT IN THE EVENING. WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT BUILDING TO 2 TO 4 FT. W SWELL 9 FT AT 12 SECONDS.

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