7/26 Homestead barn, canoe journey, culvert cost, beach waste, grizzlies, rabbit disease, Fraser slide, orca icon

Krumdiack barn [Historic Barns]

Krumdiack Homestead Barn
Not all San Juan County barns are located on the four ferry-served islands (Lopez, Orcas, San Juan, and Shaw).  The Krumdiack Homestead Barn is a witness to a time when it was just as easy (or difficult) to live and farm on a (now considered) remote island because everyone was traveling throughout the San Juans by boat.  Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Krumdiack (1854-1936) was born in Hanorver Province, Germany, and emigrated to the Hawaiian Islands to work on a sugar plantation.  After a short time in Port Townsend working as a brewer,  he and his family moved with his sister and her husband to Waldron Island, where he filed for a homestead in 1890.  Krumdiack worked as a cordwood cutter and did subsistence farming on the place.... The Krumdiak Homestead, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a signal example of a pioneer family farm, and the barn is the centerpiece. Boyd Pratt writes. (Historic Barns of the San Juan Islands/100 Friends of Old Island Barns)

Nearly 100 canoes arrive at Lummi Nation – the final stop of annual Tribal Canoe Journey
Nearly 100 canoes arrived this week on the shores of the Lummi Nation Stommish Grounds — the final stop in the annual Tribal Canoe Journey. The Lummi Nation hosted this year’s event, dubbed Paddle to Lummi, for the first time since 2007. After final canoes landed on Wednesday, July 24, protocol, or the sharing of songs, tradition, ceremony and food, continues through Sunday night, July 28. Lacey Young reports. (Bellingham Herald)

Cost to replace salmon-blocking culverts running into billions, WSDOT says
The taxpayers’ cost to comply with a federal court order to improve salmon habitat by repairing state culverts has ballooned from $1.9 billion to $3.8 billion over the past dozen years, officials told legislators Thursday. At a work session, members of the House-Senate Transportation Committee said they are committed to meeting the court’s mandate, which is considered a critical element to protect endangered orcas who feed on chinook salmon. But some lawmakers questioned whether the state can reduce the estimated $500 million cost of designing replacements or repairs to culverts over the next 10 years.... WSDOT estimated the cost in 2007 at $1.9 billion by examining culverts completed from 2000 to 2006. The department updated the estimate in 2013 to $2.4 billion after a federal judge issued an injunction requiring the state to do the work. A federal appeals court upheld that decision and the U.S. Supreme Court last year left the ruling in place. In preparation for this year’s legislative session, WSDOT increased the estimate to $3.8 billion based, in part, on the costs of culvert projects that were completed in recent years and to anticipate additional culverts that may fail and have to be replaced. The injunction requires the state to restore 90 percent of potential salmon habitat blocked by culverts by 2030. James Drew reports. (Tacoma News Tribune)

Lasqueti Islanders collect record 2 tonnes of beach waste during annual Styrofoam Day
Organizers of the 4th Lasqueti Styrofoam Day say they've set a new record but not in a good way. This year's annual beach cleanup on the remote Gulf Island netted an estimated two tonnes of garbage, half a tonne more than last year. There was the usual flotsam and jetsam: tires, fishing gear, shoes, balls and plastic bottles. But mostly what they picked up was Styrofoam —  lots of Styrofoam — enough to fill two barges in fact. Karin Larsen reports. (CBC)

Feds look again at reintroducing grizzly bears to North Cascades
The on-again, off-again effort to return grizzly bears to North Cascades National Park is back on. Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke surprised wildlife advocates last year when he announced he was a fan of the bear and supported reintroduction to the North Cascades. However, he stopped work on the plan last August, with no plan for how it would be resumed. That changed Thursday when the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the public-comment period has been reopened. A 90-day extension of the comment period on the draft grizzly bear recovery plan and environmental impact statement begins Friday and closes Oct. 24. Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)

Deadly rabbit disease confirmed in the San Juans
The bunnies of the San Juan Islands are in danger. A case of Rabbit hemorrhagic disease was confirmed in a domestic rabbit on Orcas Island by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on July 18. Mandi Johnson reports. (Journal of the San Juans)

Crews tagging Fraser River salmon to track survival beyond landslide
Up to 1,000 salmon are being radio-tagged in British Columbia’s Fraser River to help biologists track how the fish survive through and beyond a massive rock slide in the river.... About 80 people are working each day to create a natural passage for salmon through the barrier, while they also explore alternative ways to transport the fish past the waterfall, including by helicopter, fish ladder and fish wheel... While helicopters have been successfully tested to move a small number of fish above the slide site, the province says it’s not a practical way of moving the millions of fish who are expected to pass the site along their migration route in the coming weeks. (Canadian Press)

How the orca became a poster child for protesters in Canada
Trans Mountain pipeline protests often feature posters, props and signs with images of whales. For many, they represent what the country stands to lose in the Salish Sea.  The risks of increased tanker noise and oil spills from tankers and at Trans Mountain pipeline sites pose a threat to killer whales and a principal food source, chinook salmon, said Jason Colby, an environmental history professor at the University of Victoria and author of Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean's Greatest Predator. Colby says orcas have become political poster children in B.C. because perceptions of the predator have changed significantly over the past six decades.  Laura Sciarpelletti reports. (CBC)


Now, your weekend tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  240 AM PDT Fri Jul 26 2019   
TODAY  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 4 ft at 8 seconds. Patchy fog in the morning. 
TONIGHT  SW wind 10 to 20 kt. Wind waves 1 to 3 ft. W swell 4  ft at 8 seconds. A chance of showers. 
SAT  W wind to 10 kt becoming 5 to 15 kt in the afternoon. Wind  waves 2 ft or less. W swell 5 ft at 9 seconds. A slight chance of  showers in the morning. 
SAT NIGHT  W wind 5 to 15 kt becoming to 10 kt after midnight.  Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell 5 ft at 9 seconds. 
SUN  Light wind becoming NW to 10 kt in the afternoon. Wind  waves 1 ft or less. W swell 3 ft at 9 seconds.



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