10/9 Sound state, no-discharge, martens, big dock, Gorst Cr., paper sale, Shina Wysocki, Navy dolphins, summer chum

Water jellyfish [Wikipedia]

Water Jellyfish Aequorea victoria
Our largest hydrozoan jelly, up to 5 inches in diameter. Transparent bell is thick and gelatinous; underparts are lined with 50 to 150 radial canals. An equal number of long slender tentacles hang from margin of bell. Perhaps the most luminescent of our larger jellyfishes; glows in the dark when touches. (Marine Life of Puget Sound, the San Juans, and the Strait of Georgia)

New blog: Little Progress Made Towards A Puget Sound "Fishable, Swimmable, Diggable," Says Partnership After 10 Years
Governor Christine Gregoire 10 years ago coined the awful clunky phrase "fishable, swimmable, diggable" to describe the progress to be made to Puget Sound recovery by the year 2020. Sadly, the next State of the Sound Report presented to the Partnership’s Leadership Council late last month pretty much tells the same story of previous progress reports: "We have done many good things, but the system has not yet responded positively." Why not?…

Should boats be prohibited from dumping sewage in Puget Sound?
A proposed rule that would ban boats from dumping raw or treated sewage in Puget Sound is available for public comment. The Department of Ecology has proposed the Northwest’s first no discharge zone, which would span 2,300 square miles from the Canadian border to the Discovery Island Lighthouse and waters east of the New Dungeness Lighthouse. It also would include Lake Washington, Lake Union, and connecting waters to Puget Sound. A no discharge zone is a designated body of water where boats are not allowed to discharge sewage. The Environmental Protection Agency approved the state’s plan earlier this year, finding that there were enough facilities nearby where boats could pump out sewage. There are 90 no discharge zones in 26 states. The draft is available for comment through November 30. Allison Sundell reports. (KING)

Pacific martens are missing from all over the Olympics. What's going on? 
Once common here, martens — sleek, bright-eyed mammals less than half the weight of a small house cat — appear to have virtually disappeared from their mountain redoubts. Or have they? Scientists are trying to find out what is going on with the elusive native of these mountain forests, and why. In the past 16 years, in remote camera surveys in which hundreds of thousands of images of animals were snapped by wildlife cameras all over the Olympics, only two stations caught a photo of a marten. Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)

Chip Wilson begins building huge dock after 2-year fight with neighbours
After more than two years of trying to stop or alter Lululemon founder Chip Wilson's plans to build a huge dock at his B.C. Sunshine Coast property, neighbours say noisy construction has now begun on the project…. Construction plans show the dock's deck will be 448 square metres, but the project's footprint will be more than a quarter of an acre, including berths capable of fitting at least two 50-foot yachts. There are no local regulations on the size of docks. The dock will extend about 90 metres — almost the length of a football field — directly out from the shoreline. Plans show a ramp and large floating dock that jut away from Wilson's property and toward [next door neighbour Arnhild] Hognestad's. Rafferty Baker reports. (CBC)

Gorst creek reborn after $30 million cleanup of Navy dump
…. Since April 2016, the EPA has led a nearly $30 million effort that's not only dredged about 1,000 feet of Gorst Creek of nearly 340,000 tons of rubbish but has rebuilt and restored a fish-bearing Puget Sound stream. The change in its landscape, just off Highway 3 and about 5 miles from the creek's mouth at Sinclair Inlet, is something to which project staff is continually acclimating…. More than 10,000 truckloads of trash were hauled away, the remnants of a dump site used by the Navy and residents of the area for about 25 years beginning in the 1960s. Josh Farley reports. (Kitsap Sun)

Skagit Valley Herald among group of newspapers to be bought by Adams Publishing Group
The Skagit Valley Herald and other Skagit Publishing newspapers are being sold to family-owned Adams Publishing Group as part of a purchase of Pioneer News Group Co.’s media division…. Adams Publishing Group, based in Minneapolis, owns and operates 100 community newspapers in 11 states, including the acquisition of five newspaper publishing companies in 2016. In addition to its community newspaper company, the Adams family owns radio stations, outdoor advertising companies, a wine distribution business, label printing companies and a large interest in Camping World Holdings, a publicly traded national network of RV dealers, affinity programs, the Good Sam Club and other RV-related products and services…. Pioneer newspapers in the sale include The Skagit Valley Herald, The Anacortes American, The Argus of Burlington, The Courier-Times of Sedro-Woolley, The Stanwood Camano News (and others)… (Skagit Valley Herald)

Return to the Salish Sea: Olympia Oyster Grower Shina Wysocki
The ocean is becoming more acidic and fossil fuel emissions are making it worse. That can be lethal for oyster larvae because it inhibits their ability to form shells. But there is one variety of oyster that seems to be more able to adapt to that change. A small, family-run growing operation in Olympia has made growing it a priority. “The Olympia Oysters are more resilient to ocean acidification, which is strange because they seem to be hypersensitive to pollution in general,” says Shina Wysocki, the farm manager at Chelsea Farms who decided to start growing the smaller native species when the opportunity arose a couple years ago. Bellamy Pailthorp reports. (KNKX)

Navy dolphins to help in fight to save porpoises from extinction
U.S. Navy-trained dolphins and their handlers arrived in Mexico Thursday to participate in a last-ditch effort to catch, enclose and protect the few dozen remaining vaquita porpoises to save them from extinction. Mexican authorities and an international group of experts say they will set out on Oct. 12 in a fleet of small boats to find the critically endangered and elusive marine mammals with the assistance of the dolphins. Mark Stevenson reports. (Associated Press)

Summer chum return in record numbers to Union River
This year, summer chum returned to the Union River to spawn and die in record numbers, signaling the health of the Union River estuary. Volunteers with the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group’s annual summer chum monitoring program recorded nearly 5,600 summer chum from Aug. 15 to October in the Union River, the third highest number recorded since 1975. Aria Shephard Bull (Mason County Life)

Now, your tug weather--
 West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  256 AM PDT Mon Oct 9 2017  
TODAY  Light wind becoming NW to 10 kt in the afternoon. Wind  waves 1 ft or less. W swell 6 ft at 12 seconds. Patchy fog in the  morning.
TONIGHT  W wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell 5  ft at 12 seconds.

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