Olympic Peninsula Environmental News

We could lose the surf smelt and sardines? Bad news.. as our natural history vanishes and presidential candidates are saying that they want to close the EPA if elected, we seem, as a nation, to want to pretend all this isn’t happening.

As reported by the Associated Press, SeaDoc Society this year “counted 113 species that are listed as threatened or endangered, or are candidates for listing in either the U.S. or Canada — compared with 64 species in 2008. The snowy owl, cackling goose, Pacific sardine and surf smelt are among 49 species that use the Salish Sea that have recently been flagged for special conservation attention, whether by the Canadian province, Washington state, or the U.S. or Canadian governments.”

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Study-more-species-in-Wash-B-C-need-protection-2236825.php

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Want to participate in the process? Here’s how..

The Conservation Futures Citizen Oversight Committee members make recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners on the selection and funding of open space projects to involve wildlife habitat, working forests, farms and places with cultural or historical significance. The Board of County Commissioners seeks representation on the committee from each commissioner district and a broad spectrum of interests. There is currently one committee vacancy for a citizen to represent an “interest.” Examples of interests include parks and recreation, user groups, agriculture, forestry, conservation organizations and real estate. Other interests not listed here may also be represented. The committee meets at least quarterly. Interested individuals should submit a letter or email to the Office of the Board of County Commissioners, P.O. Box 1220, Port Townsend, WA 98368 or jeffbocc@co.jefferson.wa.us no later than 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, November 30, 2011. This is a non-paid position. For more information, contact Tami Pokorny, Jefferson County Environmental Health Dept. at Ph: (360) 379-4498 or email tpokorny@co.jefferson.wa.us.

View the Conservation Futures Program Web site at www.co.jefferson.wa.us/commissioners/Conservation/conservation.asp.

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It’s a mouthful but the Great Kitsap Forest & Bay Project (GKFBP), a large consortium of community and business groups, has been formed to engage, educate and create enthusiasm for the effort to conserve 7,000 acres of forest land and two miles of shoreline along Port Gamble Bay.

http://kpbj.com/business_weekly/2011-10-24/community_group_aims_to_help_proposed_conservation_effort_succeed

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Public comment on the Washington Fish and Wildlife 2012-13 fishing regulations will be limited this year to staff recommendation due to funding cuts and staff layoffs. Those who wanted smaller government are getting it, thanks to the recession, caused by, let’s remember, a group of politicians in  the last ten years that stripped regulation away in favor of business and profit over all else. The easy money that was given to all comers now continues to come home to roost.

And, per usual, it’s us on the ground in the local communities that are losing services.  

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/10/20/1873536/outdoors-angler-suggestions-wont.html

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Consistently rebuffed in the courts, the Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review its lawsuit over Kitsap County shoreline regulations. This is all about our Critical Areas Ordinances and Shoreline Master Plans. We’ll keep following this, and hopefully bury this story once and for all after the Supreme Court tells these folks that their arguments have not held up to one ounce of scrutiny in lower courts. It’s not a loss by inches that they’ve had, they have been thrown out with prejudice, meaning they are essentially frivolous lawsuits.

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/poi/news/132330953.html

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The last three Puget Sound Partnership recovery targets— those dealing with land use– were adopted Friday. As reported in the Kitsap Sun, Partnership executive director Gerry O’Keefe said, “We know where we are going and what Puget Sound recovery looks like in 2020. 

 http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2011/oct/23/partnership-establishes-targets-land-use-help-puge/

I’m still having a hard time understanding why they think they are going to “recover” the Puget Sound in 8 years. Get rid of the pollution in it, end hypoxic states, recover the rockfish populations and other bottom fish that have been wiped out, and continue to be wiped out, etc. I wish they would just admit it’s too ambitious a timeline, educate the public about why, and talk about realistic goals. They sound a bit, shall we say, misguided in continuing to promote a goal that never was achievable?

And for an organization that is supposed to be the gold standard of credibility back in Washington D.C. to help us secure funding,here is more bad news. I wonder if there are any ‘consultants’ out there in this economy who can do the jobs the PSP wants done for less than $74 an  hour? (hey, I’m raising my hand!, I live where I can charge less and have 25+ years as a professional in my field behind me!)

EPA Yanks Puget Sound Partnership Funds

The Environmental Protection Agency says the Partnership mishandled grant money due to a “fundamental systemic weakness” in its internal controls and wants $120,000 in grants returned. http://kuow.org/program.php?id=24860

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Rabbits’ Guy continues the discussion on the blog “What Is A ‘Constituency’ For Puget Sound” with the suggestion, “Looking at the new PSP "Wheel" of indicators might give a start for a campaign that picks out and sticks to just a very few easily related-to ideas … and then continues a steady drumbeat via many channels.” Read here, Join the conversation with your thoughts at:

http://salishseacommunications.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-is-constituency-for-puget-sound.html

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Why is this news for us? Well if you are a fisherman, and fish in Bristol Bay, which I assume a few of us do here on the Peninsula, the proposed Pebble Mine is likely to be the straw that breaks the back of the last major salmon fishery in North America, north of the Fraser. Proposed by a huge global corporation, supported by Republicans in power in Alaska, such as Sarah Palin, when she was governor, this is the worse proposed project I’ve ever heard of in our country. An environmental disaster of massive scope, given the output of food from the Bay.

Residents near Bristol Bay have voted to block the Pebble Mine which is proposed next to one of the world’s most productive salmon fisheries. The mine would be an open-pit operation to extract gold and copper. The vote was close, and mine developers have challenged the local initiative in court. Alaska’s attorney general has called it “unenforceable.” Bristol Bay votes to block Pebble Mine operation http://www.kplu.org/post/bristol-bay-votes-block-pebble-mine-operation

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The hidden cost of adding fish farms is that they routinely kill seals and sea lions.

Each net encompasses an entire fish farm and costs $250,000 but Marine Harvest Canada says keeping seals and sea lions out rather than having to have to kill them is worth the cost. B.C. salmon farm installs netting to limit need to shoot invading animals

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/salmon+farm+installs+netting+limit+need+shoot+invading+animals/5573104/story.html

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The ‘experts’ in the farmed fish industry said it couldn’t happen here. Well, it has.

BC Coast Featured
Written by Rafe Mair

Here is the story from salmon biologist Alexandra Morton:

Infectious Salmon Anemia virus has been found in two young sockeye salmon. Sheer reckless, negligent behaviour has loosed a highly infectious fish farm influenza virus into the North Pacific. I have been told over and over by industry and government that this could not happen, but they were wrong. No one has any idea what Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISAV) will do in the North Pacific. We were told that it could not infect Pacific salmon, that enough tests had been done to assure us that it was not here and would not get here. Well here it is in two young sockeye. Are they the only 2 salmon in the North Pacific with ISA virus, or are they among 100s, or millions? No one knows yet. Government and the salmon farming industry are at best dangerously incompetent. Humanity is well aware that moving viruses around has caused enormous misery and death. We make horror movies about this, and yet there is no sign of a learning curve here. We have put a highly infectious marine influenza virus into the ocean we depend on. So incredibly foolish.

Read the rest of the story, here…

http://thecanadian.org/k2/item/1064-catastrophic-isa-disease-found-on-bc-coast

And this…

“This is potentially very big. It’s of big concern to us,” said John Kerwin, who supervises the fish health unit at the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife. “It’s a disease emergency,” said James Winton, who directs the fish health section of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle. Deadly salmon virus raises concerns in Washington, BC

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/10/18/2233854/deadly-salmon-virus-raises-concerns.html

More: Ashley Ahearn of EarthFix talks to David Montgomery, author of King of Fish about Sick Wild Salmon earthfix.kcts9.org/water/article/earthfix-conversations-sick-wild-salmon/

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Arwyn Rick in the Peninsula Daily News reports on the fall visits from jellyfish washed ashore on Strait of Juan de Fuca beaches. It happens frequently around here. Poulsbo has had them in huge numbers for decades.

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20111017/news/310179999/an-influx-of-visitors-jellyfish-float-in-on-currents-to-north

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Mary Porter-Solberg, co-chair of the conservation committee of the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society (OPAS) contacted us, looking for volunteers soon. Here’s her ask:

Last winter, 5 Trumpeter Swans died from lead poisoning in Sequim. OPAS contacted Martha Jordan, Washington Swan Steward from the Trumpeter Swan Society. She met with the conservation committee and proposed a swan study for this winter to count swans and monitor their feeding grounds in Sequim to see if we can determine whether the lead is local or the swans have ingested it before arriving. Martha believes it is important to include Chimicum and Beaver Valley in the study once a week between November and March. She will provide training, which we are setting up for the latter part of October. If you can poll your members or conservationists for volunteers, then I believe she is willing to travel to Port Townsend and provide training in your local area.

Martha is currently in Montana for a week at a Trumpeter Swan seminar. However, she called me and provided more details of the study, which are included below:

1. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have provided detailed maps that we can use for the study. Shelley Ament (WDFW) has been allowed limited time to help with the study.

2. Training will be approximately two hours.

3. Swan identification is not necessary (whether Trumpeter or Tundra or other does not matter). Just count how many swans are feeding in what portion of the field.

4. Preferred daytime study hours will be between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM.

5. The majority of the study can be done from a car so people with limited mobility can be involved.

6. Martha would like to coordinate the volunteers and she needs the contact email addresses and phone numbers of volunteers.

7. For this year, 3 days a week for the study are optimum with 2 days ok, but not preferred. 1 day will not be especially helpful.

8. It is ok for volunteers to not be available the whole time period of the study. Just need as many as possible.

9. Chimicum and Beaver valley should be part of the study. One day a week should be ok.

10. Any more grants from WDFW are not forthcoming because of budget cuts. Martha’s time and our time will be voluntary, although she is looking into some other funding sources.

I hope you can help out, but I know it is short notice to round up volunteers.

Thank you,

Mary Porter-Solberg
phone: 360-683-8072
cell: 360-477-5229
email: hikernut AT qwest.net (replace the AT with the @ sign)

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Billy Frank, Jr., writes: “We all owe a big  ‘thank you’ to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. They never gave up on getting those two dams torn down, and today that dream is becoming a reality. For 100 years they have had to wait for their treaty rights to be restored and for the salmon to return.  The salmon never gave up either. At a recent dam removal celebration, I saw 73 chinook swimming in the clear green water at the foot of the Elwha Dam, ready and waiting. And it won’t be long before the river’s estuary comes back to life, too, with clams spitting all over the place.”

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king/iss/opinion/131363383.html

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It appears that we got lucky this time, that the barge was pulled free with no damage to the environment. Hopefully this will galvanize people to understand how fragile our hold on a clean Straits and Sound is. This was a professional tug captain that pulled this onto a rock. It will be interesting to find out why.

SEATTLE — The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Washington Dept. of Ecology and several other agencies are responding to a dry-cargo barge that ran aground five miles southwest of Anacortes, Wash., in Rosario Strait, Monday.

Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound, in Seattle, received a report at approximately 5:45 a.m., stating the barge had run aground on Belle Rock near Anacortes.

The 322-foot barge St. Elias was being towed south through Rosario Strait by the 101-foot tug Henry Brusco. St. Elias’ cargo, which is being transported in approximately 100 containers, includes explosive ordinance, several vehicles and various other items.

An HH-65 helicopter crew, from Coast Guard Air Station Port Angeles, Wash., conducted an over flight and reported no pollution. A Station Bellingham, Wash., small boat crew is on-scene. U.S. Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician members and a Coast Guard inspector are on board the barge conducting a safety assessment. 

The explosives appear to be secure, but as a precaution, a 2,000-yard safety zone has been established in the area around Belle Rock. Mariners transiting Rosario Strait near Belle Rock are urged to use caution. As an additional precaution, containment boom has been deployed around the barge.

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“Department of Defense’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative?” That’s the basis of a $3 million, five-year partnership announced between the Navy and The Nature Conservancy to protect the Navy’s underwater research range on Dabob Bay and allow for acquisition of land from willing landowners for preservation.   http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20111009/news/310099986/navy-environmentalists-reach-pact-for-dabob-bay-range

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Seven marine areas of Puget Sound reopened for recreational crab fishing Oct. 8, while two others will reopen Nov. 21, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced Oct. 6.

The openings were approved by fishery managers after summer catch assessments by WDFW indicated more crab are available for harvest, said Rich Childers, WDFW shellfish policy coordinator.

read the rest of the story at:

Crab Season Reopens

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I have, for many years, suspected what has been found in this report. This brings even greater concern for our predicament from the raw sewage that still flows into the Strait from Victoria. – Alf

Science Daily reports that researchers have found that raw sewage is home to thousands of novel, undiscovered viruses, some of which could relate to human health. Biologists Find ‘Surprising’ Number of Unknown Viruses in Sewage http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111005172651.htm

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The Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference is the largest, most comprehensive scientific research and policy conference in the region. The 2011 conference, co-hosted by Environment Canada and the Puget Sound Partnership, presents the latest scientific research on the state of the ecosystem. The conference also shares information on recent management actions and best practices to protect and restore the Salish Sea Ecosystem. Through these dialogues, the conference emphasizes the importance of collaboration among scientists and policymakers to solve complex environmental issues that cross political borders.

Join us in furthering our collective understanding of the unique and precious ecosystem that is the Salish Sea. Together, we will explore the state of the science, build our management capability, and reinforce our strong foundation of research and policy. The exciting, dynamic program creates opportunities for peer-to-peer interactions, cultural celebrations, knowledge transfer, and practical collaborations. Enjoy workshops, special sessions, field trips, keynote speakers, and other engaging events throughout the conference.

For more information, visit: salishseaconference.org

Oct 25, 2011 08:30 AM to
Oct 27, 2011 03:30 PM

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Explosives to be set off at Elwha Dam today; water spills through notched Glines Canyon Dam http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20111005/NEWS/310059997/explosives-to-be-set-off-at-elwha-dam-today-water-spills-through

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The state plans another round of budget cuts, and it doesn’t look pretty for anglers and shellfish gatherers unless Washington lawmakers can come up with a solution.

State Fish and Wildlife has announced proposals of cuts and reductions at the request of Governor Christine Gregoire.

The governor earlier this summer told all state agencies to look at possible cuts due to a shortfall that now has reached $2-billion. The Legislature plans to meet for a special session that begins in late November.

The governor informed state Fish and Wildlife to produce a five-percent ($3.45-million) and 10-percent ($6.9-million) budget cut scenarios in their operating budget.

State Fish and Wildlife has lost 41 percent of its General Fund Support (GFS) during this recession, dropping from $110 million in 2007-09 biennium to $69 million currently. GFS money is used for four primary types of activities fish production, recovery and fisheries management (41 percent); habitat conservation (21 percent); enforcement (20 percent); and administrative activities including executive management, infrastructure and staff-support functions (14 percent).

The proposed cuts include:

Read the rest of the story at:

hMassive Cuts Proposed to Fish & Wildlife

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