By donating to the News you help us bring more news to you! We will use the donations to pay additional reporters, and spend more time on stories! Want to donate more than $10? Under the $10 is a dropdown box, choose multiples of 10. (i.e. Qty 3 at $10)
North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center Natural Resources
To provide a program that provides hands-on, relevant natural resources research experience while meeting the needs of and building capacity within individual students and the North Olympic Peninsula region.
openchannels.org
OpenChannels is designed to become a comprehensive source for news, guidance, and community discussion on sustainable practices in ocean planning and management.
River of Kings – Video
Part 1 of 2 part series by Carl Safina on the Nisqually River Restoration.
Salish Magazine
Salish Magazine is a free online magazine that takes inquisitive readers outdoors with visually rich storytelling about features people can see firsthand in our public forests and beaches.
Victoria Sewage Project
The official city site on the project. The latest scoop on the Canadian poop!
WA State Family Forest Fish Passage Program
The Family Forest Fish Passage Program provides funding to small forest landowners to repair or remove fish passage barriers. Download the film.
News Sites
Green Acre Radio on KBCS
Green Acre Radio on KBCS — Sustainability, local food production, restoration & environmental talk radio.
NW Indian Fisheries Commission
The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC) is a support service organization for 20 treaty Indian tribes in western Washington.
Brinnon Group
Local group opposing Black Point resort
Clam Gardens
Network of researchers exploring First Nation gardening of clams in history, and it’s relationship to today.
Coastal Watershed Institute
“To promote long term, ecological, community based stewardship of marine and terrestrial ecosystems thru scientific research and local partnerships.”
League of Women Voters – Clallam County
a nonpartisan political organization, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.
League of Women Voters – Jefferson County
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.
Local Food Access Network
North Peninsula local food org with an emphasis on developing and supporting increased and sustainable capacity for production, distribution, and consumption locally.
North Olympic Salmon Coalition
The mission of the North Olympic Salmon Coalition is to restore, enhance, and protect habitat of North Olympic Peninsula wild salmon stocks and to promote community volunteerism, understanding, cooperation and stewardship of these resources.
Northwest Watershed Institute
NWI’s mission is to provide scientific and technical support to protect and restore fish and wildlife habitats and watershed ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest.
Olympic Environmental Council
The Olympic Environmental Council works on issues related to the environment and health that affect our North Olympic Peninsula communities.
Olympic Park Associates
If you share with us a passion for Olympic National Park, a concern for the Park’s future, and a vision that Olympic National Park should always be a wild and natural place, we invite you to join Olympic Park Associates.
Washington Environmental Council
WEC has been working for a couple of decades on environmental activism. A great group of people actually getting things done.
Whale Trail
Signs along the way to take you to great whale viewing locations
Wild Fish Conservancy
Wild Fish Conservancy seeks to improve conditions for all of the Northwest’s wild fish
The Seattle Times has an excellent story of the people employed in long line fishing (fishing with hooks not nets) here in Port Townsend, as they find themselves caught between the court battle between NOAA and the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC). The WFC has sued to stop NOAA’s supposed “safe catch” limits for harvesting Chinook salmon. The numbers, as the story mentions, are depressing, with chinook down 60% over the last decades. NOAA continues to act as if almost nothing is wrong, and yet the WFC found significant flaws in their arguments, which one judge agreed with, and other judges did not. While the battle goes on in court, the folks who take chinook are usually small boat owners, as documented by the Times. I know some of these people and they are struggling to maintain the catch in an environmentally positive way, while supplying the restaurants you eat at with salmon. As the catch declines, it’s a lose-lose-lose for all of us.
While this story is behind the Times paywall, you might get a free article before being shut out. But I highly recommend you subscribe to the Times, even if the online version. Do I like their politics? Nope. But they are the last major news outlet actually sending dozens of reporters into the field for pay. That’s worth supporting.
PORT TOWNSEND — With her legs tucked to her chest in the wood-paneled wheelhouse of the F/V Nerka, steaming mug of coffee in hand, Tele Aadsen reminisced on the fishery that led her to meet her life and fishing partner, Joel, and helped her connect with the sea.
It has been an up-and-down year for Aadsen and other fishers who pilot their boats out of this port each June and head to the waters of Sitka, Alaska, to catch Chinook, or king salmon.
They’ve been embroiled in a court battle over the future of a fishery worth about $85 million a year, whose fleet trolls with hook and line instead of large nets, to catch salmon sold to restaurants and grocers all over the West and beyond.
Under the Trump administration, this agreement was at risk. Now, less so. An important treaty, you likely never knew existed.
In the mid-20th century, Canada and the U.S. collaborated together to form the Columbia River Treaty. This agreement meant both countries would jointly develop, manage and regulate the Columbia River. The treaty was intended to last for 60 years which means it expires in 2024. Earlier this month, 32 Pacific Northwest groups sent a letter to U.S. officials urging them to modernize this treaty as that deadline approaches. Rolando Hernandez reports. (OPB)
Perhaps good news for the herring stocks in B.C. as the Canadian government closes the fisheries. Herring stocks in B.C. have been in trouble for years, following mismanagement by the Federal Government, habitat destruction and over-fishing. As the article states, Indigenous Tribes on the west coast seem to be supporting this, as they have been warning about the collapse for years.
Pacific Herring (Photo by NOAA)
Most commercial fisheries for Pacific herring on the West Coast have been closed with the exception of harvests by First Nations for food and ceremonial purposes. Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray says in a statement that this “cautious” approach to Pacific herring management is based on recently intensified risks to wild salmon. Pacific herring are an important food source for salmon, sea birds, marine mammals and other fish. (Canadian Press)
Canada is not yet holding up it’s end of the bargain in support of emergency tugs. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
A research report on the Availability of Tugs of Opportunity in Canada’s Pacific Region published by Clear Seas Centre for Responsible Marine Shipping indicates that Canada’s West Coast faces gaps in the availability of commercial tugs to serve as emergency towing vessels for ships in distress. The existing emergency towing system is based on a small number of dedicated high-powered emergency towing vessels or ETVs supported by so-called tugs of opportunity or commercial tugs that are not dedicated to rescue services. Such tugs are occasionally contracted to provide aid in the event of a ship emergency due to loss of engine power, steering or other cause. (Marine Executive)
Interesting article about what’s happening around net pens north of the border. While these calls for land-based farms are growing stronger by the month, there are plans afoot in Norway to rollout new designs for in-water pens. The issues will still remain, however. Norway has banned all in-water pens for a while now, but the fish farming industry there (the largest in the world) is rolling out new experimental pens that likely will be allowed by their government, and probably, by association, by Canada’s. This issue is far from finished being a lightning rod.
Canada is taking steps to expand habitat protection for killer whales to boost survival of the critically endangered southern-resident population. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada is taking steps to expand habitat protection for killer whales to boost survival of the critically endangered southern-resident population. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced Wednesday the department is initiating a 60-day comment period on creating new areas of critical habitat for the whales.
One area is off the coast of southwestern Vancouver Island, including Swiftsure and La Pérouse banks (important for both northern and southern residents). The other is in Dixon Entrance, along the north coast of Graham Island from Langara to Rose Spit (important for northern residents).The move to expand habitat protection comes on top of a reduction by the department of chinook salmon harvest by up to 35 percent for the 2018 fishing season, with a full closure of commercial and recreational fish for chinook in three key foraging areas for the southern residents: the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Gulf Islands and the mouth of the Fraser River.
These measures, enacted June 1, will continue until Sept. 30, and include increased monitoring to assess the effectiveness of the closures. Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)
For years, Victorians of all political stripes have been discounting their lack of a sewage system. Every time I’ve put a story up here, a couple of Victorians have, out of the blue, weighed in. I’ve even heard younger Victorians, who claim to be “green” tell me to my face that, “it’s no big deal” that their raw sewage has been pouring into the Strait for decades after every other city on the Strait and Salish Sea seems to have put in tertiary or secondary treatment systems. I rarely ever challenge them when they do that, as it’s pointless to argue with people who refuse to even look at scientific data. Well, the CBC finally looked into it, and the unfortunate joke is on them, as they have likely been poisoning themselves and their children if they have been eating any of the shellfish or bottom feeders from the area around their city.
As stated in the article, the sewage treatment plant *should* remove many of these chemicals. Now it is up to the local environmental departments to get the message out that people should not be dumping their pharmaceuticals and other chemicals down the sink or in the toilet. My hope is that, in some distant time, we will actually stop dumping *all* our wastes into the Straits and Salish Sea. Composting toilets have advanced to a place where we should be able to end the expensive and stupid habit that we have picked up in the last 100 years. While it was an improvement over what came before it, we have paid a price for it. There are no free lunches.
Monitoring by the Capital Regional District has found high concentrations of antidepressants, as well as other pharmaceuticals and personal care products in shellfish near the sewage outfalls around Victoria.
Technology is allowing researchers in British Columbia to study blooms of jellyfish and their impact on the ocean in a whole new way. UBC oceanography professor Brian Hunt and undergraduate student Jessica Schaub have been using drones to get a better picture of the size and composition of clusters of moon jellyfish off B.C.’s central coast. Images from cameras soaring high above the ocean provide a bird’s-eye view that can’t be replicated on the water, Hunt said. Gemma Karstens-Smith reports. (Canadian Press)
Filed under: Around the Salish Sea | Tagged: Canada, jellyfish, research | Comments Off on Blooming marvellous: drones give B.C. researchers new view of ‘enormous’ jellyfish clusters – Canadian Press
I can’t imagine it will be actually blocked permanently, but the newly elected politicians in B.C. need to follow through on campaign promises to angry voters. Stayed tuned for the inevitable additional news on this.
The British Columbia provincial government has monkey-wrenched the start of construction for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, announcingThursday that it is taking legal and administrative steps to stop the project. At issue is inadequate consultation by developer Kinder Morgan with First Nations, said George Heyman, Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister, in a news conference in Victoria. The company must complete consultations with First Nations on several environmental aspects of the project not yet addressed, and may not begin work on public land until it does so, Heyman said. Lynda Mapes reports. (Seattle Times)
Still amazing that they are finding new species. And they are not even close relatives!
The northern flying squirrel can be found throughout British Columbia — but a new study has found that those living on the coast are a completely different species from those found inland for about a million years. The authors of the study analyzed the DNA of flying squirrel specimens collected throughout the Pacific Northwest, previously thought to be the exclusive domain of the northern flying squirrel. But those found on the Pacific coast between southern B.C. and northern California turned out to be genetically distinct from those found further inland. Matt Meuse reports. (CBC)
Expanding their reach from 1 to 3 members of Parliament, the BC Green party under the leadership of Andrew Weaver, has shaken BC politics to it’s core. The current situation after the vote showed Premiere Christie Clark losing her majority and having to form the first minority government in 65 years. Credit the Green Party for this change.
The Greens have obviously brought better candidates to the election, and some races are still too close to call. But Clark was clear that she is going to be governing from a minority position.
It is great to see a party that has been unable to bring significant candidates that can win to a position to influence the ability to govern. The tradeoffs to be made to allow Clark to continue governing means that the environment and other key Green issues, are going to be heard in a new and more significant way.
Good news! And a good reason to continue creating Marine Protected Areas here.
Federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc is expected to announce today a long-awaited Marine Protected Area for Canada’s rare glass sponge reefs, found on the B.C. coast. The kind of glass sponge found in B.C. was thought to have died off 40 million years ago, before the discovery of fragile living reefs in Hecate Strait, near Haida Gwaii, in 1987…. A Marine Protected Area is a zone in the ocean designated by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with tighter regulations, meant to conserve and protect something endangered, unique or ecologically important. Lisa Johnson reports. (CBC)
Filmmaker Tavish Campbell has published an astonishingly beautiful ode to the B.C. coast. Take three minutes, go full screen, and watch one of the best new films I’ve seen in a while. Congratulations to Tavish for just doing a spectacular job.
Well, Trudeau split the baby. The Northern Tier Gateway project, which would have gone through the rain forest and imperiled the northern coast of B.C. will not be built. However, the Kinder Morgan pipeline to shipping facilities in Vancouver will. This raises the stakes for oil spills dramatically in the Straits. Trudeau did put millions of new dollars into updating the oil spill response network, which had been decimated by 12 years of Steven Harper’s do nothing government. While environmentalists are furious about this decision, we need to weigh the fact that the Strait already has one of the best vessel management systems in the world, and we work very cooperatively with Canada. With a much larger Canadian presence (the U.S. has had to bring the lion’s share of funding up to now) I feel we can be somewhat assured that it’s less likely than it could be to get a major spill. But this bitumen oil is far worse to clean up. With all the terrible environmental news in the U.S. from the election, we’ll just have to take this as a best of the worse case scenarios. We are going to have our hands full fighting the Trump administration’s policies, or lack of them. We knew that Canada wasn’t going to leave it’s oil in the ground, as much as we would like them to, and the pipelines are marginally better than rail.
Canada has approved Kinder Morgan Inc’s hotly contested plan to twin a pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific coast, setting up a battle with environmentalists who helped elect the prime minister, Justin Trudeau.
The Liberal government, seeking to balance demands from both greens and the energy industry, said allowing Kinder Morgan to build a second pipeline next to its existing Trans Mountain line will help ensure oil exports reach Asia and reduce reliance on the US market.
Just to the north of us, they are still struggling with the lack of resources that the Harper Government dedicated to oil spill prevention, along with the removal of Coast Guard stations. Doesn’t bode well for increased tanker traffic from Vancouver, as is planned. BC Premier Christy Clark has, for years, done virtually nothing to fix the situation, while blaming Ottawa for a lack of funds. All the while BC profits from the shipping of the oil, the dock traffic, and jobs associated with the industry. And she still is blaming this on Ottawa.
In 2012 the B.C. government set out five conditions that must be met before the province supports two proposed pipelines that would greatly increase tanker traffic on the West Coast. No.2 on that list is the establishment of a “world-leading marine oil spill response, prevention and recovery system.” Last week the lack of progress on that point was underlined in dramatic fashion when U.S.-registered tug Nathan E. Stewart ran aground while pushing a huge fuel barge in a narrow passage just north of Bella Bella. Fortunately for the Great Bear Rainforest and the Heiltsuk people who live there, barge DBL 55 was empty. But an incident report filed in 2011 by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation gives a sense of how bad the accident could have been, had the 91-metre fuel barge been loaded. On Dec. 21 that year, the same tug and barge combination went adrift after an engine failed near Cape Fairweather, in the Gulf of Alaska. Mark Hume reports. (Globe and Mail)
We get a bit of an opportunity to continue to plan to better protect the Strait and our shores from the onslaught of tankers from the proposed and now dead Northern Gateway project in Canada. But I’m sure that there will be more opportunities to fight this and other proposed pipelines. In the meantime, little is being done to wean Canadians or the Chinese off petroleum, so the demand is still there. And if we make the mistake of electing Trump, we will get pipelines everywhere. He has claimed he wants to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency for starters.
Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr won’t appeal a recent court decision that overturned the former Harper government’s approval of the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline project. Earlier Tuesday, Northern Gateway also said it wouldn’t pursue an appeal…. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled in June that the federal government had not adequately consulted with Indigenous peoples who will be affected by the project, which is backed by the energy company Enbridge, and which would stretch from outside Edmonton to Kitimat, B.C. John Paul Tasker and Chris Hallreport. (CBC)
Good news from our friends up north. A very positive step from the Trudeau government after years of neglect by the Harper regime.
The organization responsible for cleaning up oil spills around Vancouver and B.C.’s South Coast has plans for major improvements to its facilities and spill response times — but the $200 million upgrades come with a catch: they won’t go ahead if the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project isn’t approved. Western Canada Marine Response Corporation (WCMRC) currently has about 17 vessels ready for duty around Vancouver’s harbour. The proposed upgrades include a new $10-million spill response base a little west of the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge in Burrard Inlet. Rafferty Baker reports. (CBC)
Fisheries and Oceans Canada has taken the extraordinary measure of shutting down all sports salmon fishing on the Lower Fraser River because of a lower-than-anticipated return of sockeye. The closure of all recreational fishing for salmon — including Chinook and possibly Chum when they arrive later in the year — is taking place so that sockeye aren’t inadvertently caught while other salmon species are being fished. Anglers can still fish for trout, steelhead and sturgeon. The closure was to go into effect one hour after sunset Thursday until further notice. It covers the mouth of the Fraser River to the Alexandra Bridge south of Hell’s Gate in the Interior, a stretch of about 200 kilometres of river. Gordon Hoekstra reports. (Vancouver Sun)
Filed under: fisheries, Puget Sound | Tagged: Canada, Puget Sound | Comments Off on DFO shutting down all salmon sports fishing on Lower Fraser to protect sockeye – Vancouver Sun
The neglect of the Fraser runs under the Harper Regime was legendary. Then global warming. Now this.
This year’s Fraser River sockeye return, already forecast to be below average, has turned out to be even worse. One First Nation leader described the return as going from poor to grim. The forecast run this year — which has traditionally been one of the low-run years in the four-year cycle of sockeye — was 2.27 million. That was already below the average of the past half century of 3.9 million. The latest estimates from test fisheries and through sonar counts show that only about half of the expected sockeye had returned by last Friday: 400,000 to 500,000 of the anticipated 840,000, according to the Pacific Salmon Commission, a Canadian-American agency that helps manage fisheries. The peak of the remaining summer sockeye run is expected about mid-month, but there is little expectation that the numbers will change, said Pacific Salmon Commission executive secretary John Field. Gordon Hoekstra reports. (Vancouver Sun)
The focal point for environmental news & perspective on the news. Our goal is to help educate and connect the public on the Peninsula. We are not a non-profit so donations are not tax deductible. Maybe someday with your help!
HOTLINES FOR REPORTING SPILLS
WA State Emergency Management Division: 1-800-258-5990
National Response Center: 1-800-424-8802
Pacific States & British Columbia: 1-800-OILS-911 (1-800-645-7911)
Local Events
Add your local event here. Contact us to include your next event.
—————————————————
TSUNAMI DEBRIS HOTLINE:
1-855-WACOAST (1-855-922-6278)
—————————————————
Event Date:
NATURE NOW
A Program About the Natural World.
KPTZ.ORG 91.9
WEDNESDAYS AT 12:05
REPEATS: SATURDAYS 12:30 AND WEDNESDAYS
PODCASTS AT KPTZ.ORG
