9/16 Cauliflower 'shroom, saving salmon, Samish kelp, oil spill plan, Carpenter Cr, SF6, climate landscape, Franzen's climate, teen climate, Dan Pauly

Cauliflower mushroom [Daniel Winkler]

Cauliflower mushroom Sparassis crisps
This large, remarkable-looking mushroom growth is one of the best of the edible species. Cut the mushroom off at ground level; do not pull up. Cauliflower mushrooms will fruit for several years from the same base if the base is left in the ground. Found in the fall, in conifer forests, base often attached to the room of a tree. The western cauliflower mushroom has also been called Sparassis radicata. (The New Savory Wild Mushroom) See also: It's been the 'mushroom season of the century' in northern B.C.  Andrew Kurjata reports. (CBC)

To save endangered salmon, scientists use 20-year-old frozen sperm
In an effort to restore dwindling salmon stock, the Spruce City Wildlife Association has partnered with the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council in Prince George to use 20-year-old cryogenically frozen salmon sperm to fertilize salmon eggs. To ensure it gets a wide range of genetic diversity, the wildlife association's hatchery is using a mix of the decades-old sperm, also called milt, and combining it with more recently collected milt, in hopes of bolstering the number of chinook in the Endako River...his is the first time that 20 year-old cryogenically frozen salmon sperm has been used in B.C., Maureen Ritter, managing director at Canada Cryogenetics Services, told CBC Radio West host Sarah Penton. It's quite common for cryopreservation to be used with new technology, but it's extremely rare for it to be used with 20-year-old materials, she added. Dominika Lirette reports. (CBC)

Samish tribe helping to study local kelp forests
From the water’s surface, bull kelp looks like strands of other-worldly hair swaying in the water. From below, it looks like a palm tree — or dense forest of palm trees. These underwater forests are important to many marine species and critical to endangered species such as Puget Sound rockfish and Southern Resident orca whales. These forests are also declining throughout the Salish Sea, prompting efforts to save them....The Samish Indian Nation is among those working to determine the cause of the decline of bull kelp and helping to plan how to restore these kelp forests. Kimberly Cauvel reports. (Skagit Valley Herald)

Help shape state emergency plan for oil spills
The Department of Ecology will take comments on the Oil Spill Contingency Plan Tuesday in Everett...Ecology’s new Oil Spill Contingency Plan will require large commercial vessels, oil-handling facilities and pipelines to have detailed mandates for appropriate equipment and trained personnel to respond to spills, according to a council news release. Oil transported by train is addressed in another plan. A law passed in 2018 called for the update with a deadline of Dec. 31, 2019...The Department of Ecology will hold a hearing at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the Courtyard by Marriott in Everett at 3003 Colby Ave. There will be a presentation and Q&A session followed by the hearing. Julia-Grace Sanders reports. (Everett Herald)

Fish project underway on Carpenter Creek
Work is being done to improve fish passage in a creek that runs underneath a private gravel driveway just east of Mount Vernon’s Little Mountain Park. This is one of the latest fish passage improvement projects in Skagit County aimed at eliminating barriers for salmon. Here, an undersized culvert is being replaced with a bridge to restore Carpenter Creek’s natural flow. The work is expected to allow threatened coho salmon, threatened steelhead trout and cutthroat trout to make it upstream to spawn. Kimberly Cauvel reports. (Skagit Valley Herald)

Climate change: Electrical industry's 'dirty secret' boosts warming
t's the most powerful greenhouse gas known to humanity, and emissions have risen rapidly in recent years, the BBC has learned. Sulphur hexafluoride, or SF6, is widely used in the electrical industry to prevent short circuits and accidents. But leaks of the little-known gas in the UK and the rest of the EU in 2017 were the equivalent of putting an extra 1.3 million cars on the road. Levels are rising as an unintended consequence of the green energy boom. Matt McGrath reports. (BBC) See: Overview of SF6 Emissions Sources and Reduction Options in Electric Power Systems The SF6 Emission Reduction Partnership for Electric Power Systems is an innovative voluntary program developed jointly by the EPA and the electric power industry to improve equipment reliability while reducing emissions of SF6, a potent greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years. (US EPA)

Short winters, wildfires, altered landscapes: 
.... In Washington state, outdoor recreation is a way of life, a high-profile industry, and a major economic contributor. According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Forest Service collected in a 2014 report, 1,038,229 people visited Mount Rainier in 2011 and spent more than $33 million within 100 kilometers of the park. “Access to national forests also provides significant economic benefit to the region,” states the report. “In the past decade, half of visitors live within 80 km, and average visitor spending is $13 billion per year in and near national forests nationwide.” This prominence and popularity make the industry’s vulnerabilities to climate change especially visible. Megan Burbank reports. (Seattle Times)

On Jonathan Franzen’s latest climate change piece in the New Yorker (and its pushback)
Carl Safina writes: "On September 8, the New Yorker published an article by Jonathan Franzen titled, “What if we stopped pretending?”  By September 11, various instant criticisms and rebuttals had been published including a Scientific American piece by Columbia University climate scientist Dr. Kate Marvel, titled, “Shut up, Franzen.” Basically, Franzen believes there is almost no chance that enough will be done to avert massive climate changes and consequent disruptions in coming decades. The critics find this defeatist, and they object. Thing is, I thought Franzen’s piece was the best thing I’ve ever read about climate change...."

Most American teens are frightened by climate change, poll finds, and about 1 in 4 are taking action
....A solid majority of American teenagers are convinced that humans are changing the Earth’s climate and believe that it will cause harm to them personally and to other members of their generation, according to a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Roughly 1 in 4 have participated in a walkout, attended a rally or written to a public official to express their views on global warming — remarkable levels of activism for a group that has not yet reached voting age. Sarah Kaplan and
Emily Guskin report. (Washington Post)

The Odyssey of Daniel Pauly
The world’s top fishery scientist is no ‘gloomie.’ But his life and career taught him we won’t save our stocks without a fight. Andrew Nikiforuk writes. (The Tree)


Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  303 AM PDT Mon Sep 16 2019   
TODAY  SE wind to 10 kt. Wind waves 1 ft or less. W swell 6 ft  at 11 seconds. A slight chance of showers in the morning then a  chance of showers and isolated tstms in the afternoon. 
TONIGHT  SE wind to 10 kt rising to 10 to 20 kt after midnight.  Wind waves 1 ft or less building to 1 to 3 ft after midnight. W  swell 5 ft at 11 seconds. A chance of showers in the evening then  rain after midnight.



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