12/22 Green Man, BC lockdown, Little Skookum land, tribe fish farm, ghost river, BC old growth, Growler noise, Zim Kingston fire, bag ban, world climate

Green Man

 
Green Man
The Green Man, and very occasionally the Green Woman, is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. (Wikipedia)

Omicron Threat Brings New Lockdown Rules
British Columbia is cancelling thousands of scheduled surgeries, shutting down bars and gyms and limiting gatherings in an effort to prevent the Omicron COVID variant from overwhelming hospitals. The highly transmissible variant is causing “explosive” outbreaks in the Lower Mainland in particular, and now makes up about 50 per cent of new cases each day, health officials said today. Moira Wyton reports. (The Tyee)

Timber company returns 2 miles of waterfront property to Squaxin Island Tribe
Port Blakely Companies, a family-owned company with timber operations in the U.S. and New Zealand, has returned 2 miles of waterfront and 125 acres of tidelands on Little Skookum Inlet in Mason County to the Squaxin Island Tribe, at no cost. The return of the tideland property is part of a growing “Land Back” movement, in which landowners are returning property lost by tribes when white settlers arrived and began colonizing the landscapes where Indigenous people had lived and thrived for thousands of years. Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)

Tribe: Court of appeals ruling won’t stop fish farm attempt
Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Chairman Ron Allen vowed Tuesday to move forward with plans to establish a fish farm in Port Angeles Harbor despite a recent state Court of Appeals decision upholding the termination of its business partner’s lease. The three-judge panel Dec. 14 affirmed a Thurston County Superior Court decision that struck a blow to the joint plans of the tribe and Canadian aquaculture company Cooke Pacific LLC. Paul Gottlieb reports. (Peninsula Daily News)

A ghost river showed its face during the recent Nooksack floods
The Nooksack River starts in small streams around the base of Mount Baker, and empties into Bellingham Bay on Puget Sound. But a few hundred years ago, it used to flow north into Canada. In November, 2021, the flooding Nooksack rediscovered that old route north. Only now, there were towns in its path. We think of the Nooksack as a river belonging entirely to Washington state. Human-built levees help reinforce that perception. But scientists have been converging around a different conclusion: That over time, the river has done more than just flex its oxbows in some direction or other. It has completely changed direction. Joshua McNichols reports. (KUOW)

MLA, environmentalists push for funding to protect old-growth forests
Environmentalists gathered at the B.C. legislature Tuesday to call on the provincial government to provide funding to forestry-reliant First Nations considering old-growth-logging deferrals in their territory. Roxanne Egan-Elliott reports. (Times-Colonist)

Navy releases jet noise monitoring study
On the heels of a U.S. District Court critique of the Navy’s environmental review for increasing its EA-18G jet fleet and related flight operations at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, the Navy has released a noise monitoring report that was requested by Congress...The Navy’s noise monitoring report that is dated Nov. 30 concludes that the modeling it used to predict the impact of aircraft noise, such as for the EIS for NAS Whidbey Island, is accurate. In fact, according to the report, monitoring data shows jet operations often create less of an impact than modeling suggested. Kimberly Cauvel reports. (Skagit Valley Herald)

Fire breaks out on Zim Kingston while docked at Port of Nanaimo for salvage work
A fire broke out on the container ship Zim Kingston on Tuesday while it was docked at the Port of Nanaimo’s Duke Point. The fire was discovered just after 1 p.m. and was extinguished after about 90 minutes by the ship’s crew and salvage workers, port officials told CHEK News. (Times-Colonist)

Plastic bag ban coming to Vancouver
Vancouver is set to ban single-use plastic bags starting in 2022 and join nine other cities in B.C. with similar bans. Kevin Griffin reports. (Vancouver Sun) See also: Feds moving to ban plastic straws, bags by end of 2022: Guilbeault  Mia Rabson reports.(Canadian Press)

In 2021, climate ambitions soared and crashed in US and around the world
After four years of near-silence about climate change in the White House, 2021 brought an abrupt shift. President Biden turned it into one of the defining issues of his presidency, proposing ambitious efforts to replace fossil fuels with clean energy sources and lead a global campaign to cut greenhouse gases. But as the year ended, it appeared that the most significant of those proposals had crashed into a wall of opposition from Republicans in Congress and one notable Democrat — Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. And at a global summit, efforts to fight climate change lagged well behind promises to do so. Dan Charles reports. (NPR)

Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  209 AM PST Wed Dec 22 2021   
SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON   
TODAY  S wind 20 to 30 kt easing to 15 to 25 kt in the  afternoon. Wind waves 3 to 5 ft. W swell 4 ft at 10 seconds  building to 6 ft at 10 seconds in the afternoon. Showers and a  slight chance of tstms. 
TONIGHT  SW wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell  6 ft at 9 seconds in the evening. Showers and a slight chance of  tstms in the evening then a chance of showers after midnight.

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