10/21 Salish Sea News and Weather: Coal, Fisher Slough, fish farm, Humptulips, eulachon, salmon drumming, Haida Gwaii,flooding, bioluminesence

Turn Point (lighthousefriends.com)

New blog: “Warming Up For The Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Part 1”

‘strix27’ thoughtfully comments on the blog “What Is A ‘Constituency’ For Puget Sound” by concluding: “People respond to personal and economic benefit arguments and to a lesser extent to general aesthetic arguments. Thus far, it seems as if our efforts to clean up Puget Sound have been top-down (governmental decrees), inward-looking (environmental groups of the converted) and bureaucratic (Puget Sound Partnership.) None of those approaches resonate with people worried about their jobs and traffic conditions.  We need a better defined goal, a better message and a more efficient way to achieve the goal.”

Ready or not, Carmageddom, ViaDoom: Viaduct closure starts 7:30 pm Friday

National Geographic discovers the Cherry Point coal export issue. What’s wrong here?-- “Energy is ‘a sector of the economy where we're used to being takers and not givers,’ says Vic Svec, senior vice president for investor relations at Peabody Energy, the world's largest private sector coal company, which is seeking to be a major exporter here. ‘Coal is an area where the United States has abundant resources, and we can improve our trade balance by exporting a component of that.’ Hint to an answer: selling coal to China is selling them cheap energy which allows China to keep production costs low and allows them to continue outcompeting us in manufacturing— and jobs. Seeking a Pacific Northwest Gateway for U.S. Coal
 
Martha Baskin at Green Acre Radio reports on the Skagit’s Fisher Slough restoration project and whether it can hit the hat trick of economy, ecology and equity by being good for jobs and farming, good for fish and fair to all. Listen at Stimulus Funds at Work Restoring Coastal Habitat, Jump-Starting the Economy &  Protecting Farmland from Floods

Pacific Seafood of Oregon proposes to grow 10 million pounds a year of steelhead and Atlantic salmon in cages in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, nearly doubling the farmed fish grown in saltwater in Washington. Plan for giant fish farm in Strait roils the waters  Pacific Seafood might want to read the Grist blog by Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish, on How to fix fish farms

Because we like to say “Humptulips”-- State Fish and Wildlife Director Phil Anderson met with fishermen, guides and citizens to discuss budget cuts affecting the state’s salmon hatchery program. “What we're trying to do is get together a group of volunteers that are interested in trying to minimize the impacts in the reductions that we have to make relative to our revenue at Humptulips Hatchery." Humptulips Hatchery Needs Help

Because we like to say “eulachon”-- That’s the name for Pacific smelt whose habitats in creeks, rivers and estuaries associated with the Klamath, Columbia and Umpqua rivers are now designated as critical smelt habitat by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Pacific Smelt Receive Critical Habitat Designation

Bang the pots slowly when a drumming ceremony takes place this Saturday in West Seattle when the public is invited to take part calling the coho salmon back to Fauntleroy Creek (bring your own drum, or pot and spoon, organizers urge).Beat the drum for homecoming salmon

Great story and photos by Mary Ann Kae on her voyage to Great Bear Rainforest. “Haida Gwaii is something of a holy grail for certain Northwest cruisers: remote, mysterious, cloaked in the mythology of the Northwest’s own Vikings, the Haida.” Encounters in the Great Bear Rainforest – a summer in British Columbia 

It’s been done in Olympia and should be done in every city and town in the Salish Sea: Greg Hanscomb blogs about New York City artist Eve Moshe bringing climate change home by mapping coming floods and using chalk to draw the boundaries on the actual cityscape. Underwater homes: A visual guide to NYC’s future floods

And, because we like the bright and shiny, from Science Daily: “It has long been known that distinctive blue flashes--a type of bioluminescence--that are visible at night in some marine environments are caused by tiny, unicellular plankton known as dinoflagellates. However, a new study has, for the first time, detailed the potential mechanism for this bioluminesence. Proposed bioluminescence mechanism: When a dinoflagellate is mechanically agitated, an electrical impulse travels around its vacuole membrane. This impulse opens up proton channels that allow protons to flow from the vacuole into the scintillons, where they activate light-emitting luciferase proteins. The result: A flash of light.  Bioluminescence: Explanation for Glowing Seas Suggested


Now, your weekend tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 252 AM PDT FRI OCT 21 2011
 SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON
  TODAY
 SE WIND 15 TO 25 KT...EASING AND BECOMING S IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT...SUBSIDING. W SWELL 2 FT AT 9 SECONDS. RAIN.
 TONIGHT
 SW WIND 10 TO 20 KT...EASING AND BECOMING S AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT...SUBSIDING. W SWELL 4 FT AT 8 SECONDS. SHOWERS LIKELY.
 SAT
 SE WIND 10 TO 20 KT...BECOMING SW IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT. W SWELL 5 FT AT 8 SECONDS. RAIN.
 SAT NIGHT
 W WIND 15 TO 25 KT...EASING AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT...SUBSIDING. W SWELL 5 FT.
 SUN AND MON
 W WIND 5 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 2 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 6 TO 8 FT.

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