8/6 Hot weather, clean power, coal port, Kinder Morgan, OR LNG, orcas, BC wildlife

Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945

If you like to watch: Video: A dangerously hot Puget Sound
So what will a hot world look like, especially here in the Puget Sound region? Well, check out this video built around a news conference put on by Washington’s Department of Ecology July 30 in Seattle for your answer:
So what will a hot world look like, especially here in the Puget Sound region? Well, check out this video built around a news conference put on by Washington’s Department of Ecology July 30 in Seattle for your answer. Jake Ellison reports. (SeattlePI.Com)  See also: Jellyfish boom prompts research by plane and boat  Biologists with NOAA and the Department of Ecology are teaming up by plane and boat to track a jellyfish boom in Puget Sound. Alison Morrow reports. (KING)

New blog: Heat and Drought. Is This The New Northwest?
"Some summer: Consecutive days of record high temperatures, little rain and low river runoff, rising water temperatures in rivers and Puget Sound... You staying or planning to leave?…. "

Clean Power Plan and our proposed coal terminal
The fate of the coal industry is uncertain at best, due to multiple factors. Oversupply in both coal markets — the kind used to make steel and the kind used to fire electricity plants — has depressed prices and deeply wounded coal companies’ bottom lines. Internationally, major coal users in Asia are trying to give an advantage to domestic mines by reducing exports from suppliers in Australia and Indonesia, not to mention the more far-flung ports in Canada and the U.S. Coal demand in China, the No. 1 coal user in the world, is down for environmental reasons — to improve urban air quality and reduce carbon emissions. In the U.S. we have the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which sets the stage for reducing carbon output 32 percent by 2030. Ralph Schwartz recaps. (Bellingham Herald)

Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion plan faces renewed opposition as crude oil price drops
As the National Energy Board (NEB) gears up to hear final arguments on Aug. 24 into its embattled review of the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, opposition is mounting as the price of oil drops, making the project less attractive. Local economists say that, barring a major war in the Middle East directly impacting top oil producers like Saudi Arabia, Canada’s oilsands might be in for a prolonged period of lower crude prices. Brian Morton reports. (Vancouver Sun)

Feds Release Draft Environmental Review Of Oregon LNG Project
Oregon LNG’s $6 billion terminal and pipeline project would cause adverse impacts to the environment, a draft environmental review has found, but most could be reduced if the energy company takes steps to minimize harm to fish and wildlife habitat and water quality, and uses adequate safety features in design and operation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which released the draft review this week, is still completing an assessment of how the project might impact threatened or endangered species and critical habitat. But the draft is an important benchmark in the decade-long drive for the project, which involves a terminal along the Skipanon Peninsula in Warrenton and an 87-mile pipeline from Washington state through Columbia, Tillamook and Clatsop counties. Derrick DePledge reports. (Daily Astorian)

Good news, bad news for Puget Sound orcas and salmon
What has been a great year for whale watching got an extra wave of excitement last week when transient orcas came into Guemes Channel, mingling with boats off the Anacortes shoreline. “They’ve been wandering all over all summer. It’s a banner year for transients,” whale expert Ken Balcomb said. “The transients are booming. Their population is probably growing at about 6 percent per year, which is better than the stock market.” It also appears to be a good year for the southern resident orca population as the Center for Whale Research’s annual summer census tally of 81 whales — including four calves — is up from 78 last year. But Balcomb, the executive director of the Center for Whale Research, cautions the excitement may not last. Kimberly Cauvel reports. (Skagit Valley Herald)

Poor salmon run could have ‘devastating’ effects on B.C. wildlife
B.C.’s bald eagle population has already had a rough year, and it could turn into a catastrophic one if dire predictions about the fall salmon runs come true. Scientists have warned that our hot and dry summer has caused unusually warm river temperatures, which means many fish could either avoid returning to their home waters to spawn, or die trying to make the journey. Bald eagles depend upon the carcasses of spawned salmon to fill their bellies for six months of the year, according to wildlife biologist David Hancock. Bethany Lindsay reports. (Vancouver Sun)

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 232 AM PDT THU AUG 6 2015
TODAY
W WIND TO 10 KT. WIND WAVES 1 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 3 FT AT 8 SECONDS.
TONIGHT
NW WIND 5 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT. W SWELL 3 FT AT 9 SECONDS.
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