6/8 Queen Anne's Lace, PS pipe, BC pipe, Pruitt's EPA, sucking carbon, water leak, lost crab pots, Indian Is., 'tomato soup' algae

Queen Anne's Lace [Minnesota Seasons]

Queen Anne's Lace Daucus carota
Wild Carrot (Queen Anne's Lace) was introduced from Eurasia and is the wild ancestor of the cultivated carrot. Established as a weed, it is scattered but common in the Strait of Georgia-Puget Sound area south to California. Crushed seeds of wild carrot have been used for at least 2,500 years as a contraceptive and herbal 'morning-after pill.' (Plants of the Pacific NW Coast)

Is Washington Now in the Tar Sands Crosshairs?
It seems likely that the Canadian province of Alberta—home to a massive tar sands industry that produces some of the globe’s dirtiest and most polluting oil—has put the Pacific Northwest in its crosshairs. The province is partnering with the Canadian government to ram through the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, a 715-mile conduit that would carry up to 890,000 barrels of oil per day from the Canadian interior to southwest British Columbia. Much of that oil would be exported by tanker from a port just outside Vancouver—resulting in a seven-fold increase in oil tanker trips from the Port of Vancouver into the Salish Sea. Additional tar sands oil would make its way south to Puget Sound refineries, via a 69-mile pipeline called the Puget Sound Pipeline (PSP).... Canada’s purchase of the PSP went completely unmentioned by Kinder Morgan and the Canadian government until late last Friday, when a regulatory filing blandly admitted that Kinder Morgan had bundled its Puget Sound assets into the Trans Mountain deal... [T]his means that the government of Canada is poised to become the sole owner of an oil pipeline feeding Washington State refineries. Clark Williams-Derry reports. (Sightline)

First Nations lose bid to reopen Trans Mountain appeal court file
The Federal Court of Appeal has rejected a bid by First Nations opponents of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to reopen the evidence file in their appeal of the project's approval. Lawyers for the Tsleil-Waututh Nation made the application after a series of articles appeared in the National Observer suggesting Canada undertook aboriginal consultation on the project with a "mind made up." They wanted the judges to consider unredacted versions of documents the news organization obtained through Freedom of Information requests. But after looking at redacted copies, the appeal court judges concluded, in a May 31 decision that just appeared on their website this week, that even if they had the documents in their original form, the result of the pending decision wouldn't change. Jason Proctor reports. (CBC)

The Chemical Industry Scores a Big Win at the E.P.A.
The Trump administration, after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, is scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency show. Under a law passed by Congress during the final year of the Obama administration, the E.P.A. was required for the first time to evaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals and determine if they should face new restrictions, or even be removed from the market. The chemicals include many in everyday use, such as dry-cleaning solvents, paint strippers and substances used in health and beauty products like shampoos and cosmetics. But as it moves forward reviewing the first batch of 10 chemicals, the E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency. Eric Lipton reports.(NY Times)

EPA Director Pruitt Laughs off Chick-fil-A Controversy as Senior Aide Quits
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt laughed off questions Wednesday about whether he used his office to try to help his wife get a “business opportunity” with Chick-fil-A, while a close aide abruptly resigned amid new ethics allegations against her boss. Pruitt said in a statement that his scheduling director, Millan Hupp, 26, had resigned. It came two days after Democratic lawmakers made public her testimony to a House oversight panel that Pruitt had her do personal errands for him, including inquiring about buying a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel. Last year, Pruitt also directed Hupp’s younger sister to reach out to a senior executive at Chick-fil-A to inquire about a “business opportunity.” At the time, Sydney Hupp, 25, was also working in Pruitt’s office as an EPA scheduler. Ellen Knickmeyer and Michael Biesecker reports. (Associated Press)

B.C. company says it is sucking carbon from air, making fuel
It sounds like spinning straw into gold: suck carbon dioxide from the air where it's contributing to climate change and turn it into fuel for cars, trucks and jets. A British Columbia company says in newly published research that it's doing just that — and for less than one-third the cost of other companies working on the same technology.... In an article published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Joule, Carbon Engineering outlines what it calls direct air capture in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere through a chemical process, then combined with hydrogen and oxygen to create fuel. Bob Weber reports. (Canadian Press)

Metro Vancouver charged in leak of chlorinated water into Fraser
Metro Vancouver is headed for a legal showdown with federal environment officials over the 2014 rupture of a water main between Lulu Island and Delta. The Greater Vancouver Water District — one of the four corporate entities that make up Metro Vancouver — is facing three Fisheries Act charges related to an alleged leak of chlorinated water into Deas Slough. One of the charges is for making false or misleading statements to a fishery officer. It's an incident that has already resulted in a lawsuit between the district and the company accused of puncturing the water main during the dredging of the slough, which sits in the Fraser River estuary by the Massey tunnel. Metro Vancouver says it plans to fight the charges — which have penalties of up to half a million dollars. Jason Proctor reports. (CBC)

Group recovers hundreds of derelict crab pots from local waters
Just north of Saddlebag Island in Padilla Bay, diver Crayton Fenn disappeared into the water at the stern of a boat Monday morning, returning moments later with crab pots in hand. Fenn, of Fenn Enterprises, was part of a team that this week departed several times from Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes to areas in Skagit County in search of derelict crab pots. The team also included representatives of Natural Resources Consultants and the Northwest Straits Foundation. On Tuesday, the team wrapped up the 15th year of the Northwest Straits Foundation’s derelict crab pot removal program. Northwest Straits operates the program because derelict — meaning lost or abandoned — crab pots can catch and kill valuable Dungeness crabs and other marine wildlife. Kimberly Cauvel reports. (Skagit Valley Herald)


Navy, Tribes Work To Make Two Missions Coexist On One Island
Across the bay from Port Townsend is a narrow little hunk of land called Indian Island. It’s a crucial component of the great big machine known as the Pacific Northwest Navy Fleet, with ships stoping there to load up before heading out on the open ocean. But it’s also hugely significant to another group of people -- Puget Sound area tribes. Like most things, it belonged to them before it became non-Indian property, but ever-so-slowly, Indian Island is beginning to open up to its original inhabitants. Indian Island is the ancestral home of the Chemakum Tribe, then it was later occupied by the S’Klallams. Immigrants from Europe claimed parts of the land after the S’Klallams signed a treaty in 1855, forcing them to relocate. Ariel Van Cleave reports. (KNKX)

'Tomato soup' algae blooms wash up on Puget Sound beaches 
Reports of oddly colored algal blooms in Puget Sound have increased in recent days, according to the Washington Department of Ecology. Sightings of the "tomato soup" have been recorded at Seattle's Alki Beach, Budd Inlet, Central Basin, Whidbey Basin and Saltwater State Park in Des Moines. Researchers with the DOE say the plankton is nontoxic, but "their presence creates a cascade of effects in the marine food web." (KING)

Now, your weekend tug weather--

West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  155 AM PDT Fri Jun 8 2018   

TODAY  SE wind 5 to 15 kt in the morning becoming light. Wind  waves 2 ft or less. W swell 6 ft at 10 seconds. Rain. 

TONIGHT  SE wind to 10 kt becoming SW after midnight. Wind  waves 1 ft or less. W swell 6 ft at 11 seconds. Rain likely. 

SAT  W wind to 10 kt rising to 10 to 20 kt in the afternoon.  Wind waves 1 ft or less building to 1 to 3 ft in the afternoon. W  swell 5 ft at 10 seconds. A chance of showers. 

SAT NIGHT  W wind 10 to 20 kt becoming SW to 10 kt after  midnight. Wind waves 1 to 3 ft subsiding to 1 ft or less after  midnight. W swell 5 ft at 10 seconds. 

SUN  Light wind becoming W to 10 kt in the afternoon. Wind  waves 1 ft or less. W swell 5 ft at 10 seconds.


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