10/30 Deadman's Island, BP refinery, managing tourism, cigarette butts, snow crabs, wildfire rules, giant hornets, green ships

 Deadman's Island
[J. Wood Laing/City of Vancouver Archives]

Deadman Island
Deadman Island is a 3.8 ha island to the south of Stanley Park in Coal Harbour in Vancouver. The indigenous Squamish name is "skwtsa7s", meaning simply "island." Officially designated Deadman Island by the Geographical Names Board of Canada in 1937, it is commonly referred to as Deadman's Island. One of Vancouver's first white settlers, John Morton, visited the island in 1862. Morton discovered hundreds of red cedar boxes lashed to the upper boughs of trees and one had evidently fallen and broken to reveal a jumble of bones and a tassel of black hair. The island was the tree-burial grounds of the Squamish people. (Wikipedia)

WA’s largest oil refinery ramps up cleaner fuels as climate laws take hold
BP’s Cherry Point facility, which belched more than 2 million metric tons of climate-warming gases into the atmosphere in 2021, is in a phase of transition as state laws and incentives push the oil giant away from fossil fuels. The oil company has goals of producing less carbon emissions than it removes from the atmosphere by 2050. It was among those advocating for a market-based approach to reduce carbon emissions from the state’s biggest polluters. Isabella Breda reports. (Seattle Times)

Managing tourism at core of destination plan controversy
Undocumented claims, local rants and raves are rolling in as the comment deadline nears for San Juan County’s Draft Destination Management Plan. Nancy DeVaux reports. (Salish Current)

Cigarette butts remain Vancouver's most littered item — and a seemingly unsolvable waste problem
As well as being unsightly, cigarette butts are a toxic scourge due to their composition, and, in coastal cities like Vancouver, easily end up polluting the ocean, where they become a serious threat to biodiversity loss and ecosystem health. Yet cigarette butts are still the No. 1 most littered item in Vancouver, where several education and mitigation programs over the years — including the threat of up to $10,000 in fines — have done little to make it socially unacceptable to discard them in the street. Chad Pawson reports. (CBC)

Second snow crab season canceled as researchers pinpoint cause
The precipitous drop of Alaskan snow crab populations by 90% to only one billion currently is attributed to warming ocean temperatures caused by climate change. Conrad Swanson reports. (Seattle Times)

New rules to protect homes from wildfire ignite controversy
The requirements are set to take effect in March. Critics say they apply to too many areas, will drive up housing costs and result in trees getting needlessly cut down. Laurel Demkovich reports. (Washington State Standard)

All quiet on the Northwestern giant hornet front (so far)
No northern giant hornets have turned up in Washington state so far this year, according to Washington agriculture officials. Nearly 1,000 orange-juice-filled traps have been deployed since July, mostly in Whatcom County, near the Canada border, in hopes of detecting northern giant hornets before any of the unwelcome invaders can reproduce or spread to new territory. John Ryan reports. (KUOW)

Shipping Contributes Heavily to Climate Change. Are Green Ships the Solution?
The container shipping lines that carry the bulk of global trade are betting on greener technologies, but there are still reasons those wagers could fail. Ana Swanson reports. (NY Times)

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Now, your tug weather--
West Entrance U.S. Waters Strait Of Juan De Fuca-  249 AM PDT Mon Oct 30 2023   
TODAY  SE wind 5 to 15 kt becoming 10 to 20 kt in the  afternoon. Wind waves 1 to 3 ft. W swell 1 ft at 11 seconds. 
TONIGHT  SE wind 5 to 15 kt. Wind waves 1 to 2 ft. W swell 1 ft  at 10 seconds.

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