1/24 Snowberry, Rena Priest, cold BC, lunar event, EPA trauma, WA cap'n'trade, Corvis Energy, Oly oysters, Bamberton quarry, fear the deer

 

Snowberry

Common Snowberry Symphoricarpos albus
Snowberry is a species of flowering plant in the honeysuckle family native to North America. It is browsed by some animals and planted for ornamental and ecological purposes, but is poisonous to humans. (Wikipedia)

Watch and listen: "These Abundant and Generous Homelands"
Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest read "These Abundant and Generous Homelands" at the 2023 State of the State. Rena wrote the poem to the theme of 'A More Equitable 2023'. (Humanities Washington)

Intense cold coming to B.C. by this weekend will last for weeks
Minimum temperatures between minus six and minus 10 Celsius expected in Metro Vancouver, with clear skies. David Carrigg reports. (Vancouver Sun)

A historical lunar event is causing ‘King Tides’ in WA. Here’s how and potential impacts
The moon is closer to Earth than it’s been in nearly 1,000 years...King Tides, affected by the moon’s closeness, are making massive waves crash into the Washington coast and causing high tides from Monday. They will continue through Wednesday. Shaun Goodwin reports. (Bellingham Herald)

Depleted under Trump, a ‘traumatized’ EPA struggles with its mission
The nation’s top environmental agency is still reeling from the exodus of more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts during the Trump administration. The chemicals chief said her staff can’t keep up with a mounting workload. The enforcement unit is prosecuting fewer polluters than at any time in the past two decades. And now this: The stressed-out, stretched-thin Environmental Protection Agency is scrambling to write about a half-dozen highly complex rules and regulations that are central to President Joe Biden’s climate goals. Lisa Friedman reports. (NY Times)

How Washington's new carbon emission cap will work
Signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee in 2021, the Climate Commitment Act works by setting a statewide “cap” on greenhouse-gas emissions that steadily lowers over time. Washington, like California, is establishing a market for businesses to buy pollution “allowances” that will become increasingly expensive — an incentive to cut emissions and a way to raise money to counter climate change. The first auction to sell off these allowances is scheduled for the end of February, and if all goes according to plan, Washington’s emissions will drop to 95% below 1990 levels by 2050 — an even steeper cut than California’s, which aims for an 80% reduction by the same year. Kate Yoder reports. (Grist)

New Fairhaven facility brings clean energy storage to marine vessels
Corvus Energy, a Norway-based energy storage company, celebrated the opening of its first U.S. production facility in Fairhaven Monday with informational tours, flowing champagne and a delegation of foreign dignitaries. The company, which produces “sustainable energy storage” for ships, ferries and commercial sea vessels, will launch operations in Fairhaven over the coming weeks, bringing in about 40 staffers to help create its battery storage products, including the Orca, the Blue Whale and the Dolphin battery packs. Julia Lerner reports. (CDN)

Funds aim to restore oysters
The Marine Resource Committees for Clallam and Jefferson counties will use federal funding to replenish strata in Sequim Bay and Discovery Bay to help rejuvenate Olympia oyster populations depleted by the “heat dome” in September 2022. The shells will be placed on tidelands located at Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Tidelands on about 2 acres of current restoration area and 1 acre of new restoration area to expand the Olympia oyster population in Sequim Bay. Brian Gawley reports. (Peninsula Daily News)

Preliminary report nixes Bamberton quarry expansion review
The preliminary Environmental Assessment Office report says the dock extension and soil deposit site could not be reviewed, as they are substantially underway, and recommended against reviewing the quarry. Andrew A. Duffy reports. (Times Colonist)

Fear the deer: Crash data illuminates America’s deadliest animal
Behold the deer, the deadliest beast in North America. Deer are responsible for the deaths of about 440 of the estimated 458 Americans killed in physical confrontations with wildlife in an average year, according to Utah State University biologist Mike Conover, employing some educated guesswork in the latest edition of “Human-Wildlife Interactions.” Those deer-inflicted fatalities are not, so far as we know, caused by deer-on-human predation. They’re the unfortunate result of more than 2 million people a year plowing into deer with their sedans and SUVs, usually on a two-lane road, often at high speeds. Andrew Van Dam reports. (Washington Post)

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Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  246 AM PST Tue Jan 24 2023   
SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM PST THIS MORNING  THROUGH LATE TONIGHT   
TODAY  SW wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 2 ft or less. W swell  8 ft at 18 seconds building to 10 ft at 17 seconds in the  afternoon. A slight chance of showers in the morning then a  slight chance of rain in the afternoon. 
TONIGHT  W wind to 10 kt. Wind waves 1 ft or less. W swell  10 ft at 16 seconds.

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