10/31 Salish Sea News and Weather: Orcas, Elwha, 7 billionth babies, Tacoma Tideflats, chinook, ocean acid, global warming, mystery fish, Sultan R. hydro, squid jig, coal terminal, ferry wake, wood boat podcasts

Boo! Last day of October: Happy Hallowe’en, Samhain, All Saints’ Day, Dia de los Muertos, Mictecacihuatl, All Souls’ Day...

If you like to watch orcas: “Pt. Robinson”  and “Orcas at Pt.Robinson Lighthouse”

And watch how the Elwha River is moved from one side to the other in John Gussman’s Elwha video.

Happy birthday! Various '7 billionth' babies celebrated worldwide

Enough for 2011: 48 feet of the 108-foot Elwha Dam and 32 feet of the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam have been removed thus far and work will resume next year. Elwha dams work on hiatus till January

Tacoma’s future as the major Puget Sound shipping port rests on getting the Tacoma Tideflats cleaned up and getting a business moved in. Changes needed for Tideflats to stop economic engine's sputtering

How many Chinook salmon need to be shared with endangered orca whales is the ultimate questions to be answered by government authorities. To get to the science, an independent, cross-border panel has recently completed the first of three workshops looking at studies connecting the abundance of chinook and the well-being of the rare killer whales. The panel has about three dozen studies and reports to analyze before a decision is made at the end of 2012. Experts examining killer whales' salmon diet

Brennan Clarke in The Globe and Mail reports on the changes Rob Saunders, CEO of Island Scallops in Baynes Sound, is experiencing with his shellfish larvae. “Because of ocean acidification the only way we can grow any larvae – oysters, clams, mussels, geoducks, you name it – is to take the CO2 out of the seawater,” he says.  An acidic ocean threatens shellfish farms 
 
End of argument? Probably not. Richard Muller, prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming, was bankrolled by oil and gas-funded Koch Foundation but found that temperatures really are rising rapidly. Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real
 
Can’t happen here, right? Consumer Reports finds one-fifth of 190 pieces of seafood sampled from east coast retail stores and restaurants were found to be mislabeled as different species, incompletely labeled, or misidentified by employees. Mystery fish: The label said red snapper, the lab said baloney

Martha Baskin at Green Acre Radio reports from the Sultan River where the the state’s first hydropower plant in nearly 20 years gets switched on. Listen at State "Flips the Switch" on the First Hydropower Plant in Nearly Twenty Years. Is it a Smart Clean Energy Choice?

When the  military sells surplus land around Greater Victoria, make environmental protection of endangered ecosystems on these Department of National Defence lands the first priority. Conservationists fearful of DND land sale

Mark Yuasa at the Seattle Times gets practically poetic when talking about decapods, “6-to-10 inch slimy blobs with octopus-like tentacles and a purplish brown mottled body.” Squid jigging has begun, and best months are coming
 
“Whatcom County, the Washington Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were quick to offer reassurances that they plan to conduct an open and transparent environmental review of the Gateway Pacific Terminal project, despite language in a three-agency agreement that seems to indicate otherwise.” John Stark in the Bellingham Herald reports: Agencies say they plan an open review of cargo shipping terminal

Hopes of ripping through Rich Passage without tearing up the beach is what’s to be tested this week when Kitsap Transit’s wake research project begins its sea test in Port Orchard Bay, between Illahee and Bainbridge Island. Research ferry wake tests beginning

If you like to listen: Deborah Bach in Three Sheets Northwest reports on boater Dan Mattson’s new podcast series focused entirely on wooden boats. Wooden boat lovers: new weekly podcast hopes to speak to you

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 242 AM PDT MON OCT 31 2011
  TODAY
 NW WIND 10 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT. W SWELL 6 FT AT 11 SECONDS...BUILDING TO 9 FT AT 12 SECONDS. SCATTERED SHOWERS IN THE MORNING.
 TONIGHT
 W SWELL 10 FT AT 15 SECONDS. NW WIND 10 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT.

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