Environment Archives - Page 16 of 106

Oil Company Lease Stirs Revolt in Green Seattle

The Port of Seattle has agreed to a lease with Royal Dutch Shell that would allow the petrochemical giant to bring its Arctic Ocean drilling rigs to the city’s waterfront. Credit Evan McGlinn for The New York Times

By KIRK JOHNSON, NY Times

SEATTLE — The environmental messaging never stops here, whether from a city-owned electric utility that gets nearly 98 percent of its power from sources untainted by carbon (and is not about to let residents forget it) or the fussy garbage collectors who can write tickets for the improper sorting of recyclables.

So when a lease was signed allowing Royal Dutch Shell, the petrochemical giant, to bring its Arctic Ocean drilling rigs to the city’s waterfront, the result was a kind of civic call to arms. A unanimous City Council lined up alongside the mayor to question the legality of the agreement with the Port of Seattle, a court challenge was filed by environmental groups, and protesters, in bluster or bluff, vowed to block the rigs’ arrival — though the exact timetable is secret, for security reasons — with a flotilla of kayaks in Elliott Bay.

“You have signed a lease that will amount to a crime against the planet,” said Zarna Joshi, 32, a Seattle resident who was first to speak at a raucous three-hour public meeting this week before the port’s commissioners. The meeting was packed mostly with opponents and punctuated by the occasional dissenter, pointing out the hypocrisy of protesters who had arrived to denounce Shell in vehicles running on gasoline.

aground in the Gulf of Alaska while being towed to Seattle for maintenance. Credit Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

Officials at the publicly owned port, which has branded itself as a global maritime gateway “where a sustainable world is headed,” have strongly defended the lease, saying the two-year contract would bring in millions of dollars of revenue and create hundreds of good jobs on 50 acres that Shell would use just west of downtown. The decision to allow oil exploration in Arctic waters is in any case federal policy, noted Peter McGraw, a port spokesman, not anything that the port or the city or the State of Washington can alter.

“The port did everything right,” said a lawyer for the Port of Seattle, Patrick J. Schneider, at a court hearing on Friday defending the lease. “It is an outstanding steward of the environment.”

At the center of the dispute lies a tangle of questions about the politics of climate change. Since Shell will not be drilling or exploring for oil anywhere near Seattle, but merely parking for the night, so to speak, can or should the company be denied a berth because of what might or might not happen thousands of miles away off the north coast of Alaska, or what could take place years in the future if burning fossil fuels — maybe produced by Shell, maybe not — raises sea levels or causes other havoc? Lawyers for the port, in court filings, have said opponents are waging an “intense” political campaign that will falter on the rocks of a narrow contractual dispute.

Opponents of the contract, though, said that protecting Seattle’s environment, in the broadest sense, means taking on the fight everywhere. Whether there may be harm from greenhouse gases, or possible environmental damage from an oil spill or other accident in Alaska, to which Seattle is deeply connected in its economy and history, what Shell does in the Arctic, they say, will not stay there.

“Hosting the Arctic drilling fleet in the city of Seattle is an activity that, if successful in drilling and extracting oil from the Arctic, will almost certainly mean that all of the industrial land in Seattle will be under water, and is completely inconsistent with the region’s and even the port’s goals,” said Mike O’Brien, a Seattle City Council member.

Shell used a private shipyard here for repairing its arctic equipment in 2012, which required no public hearings. The difference this time is the involvement by the port, where the commissioners run for office and contracts are public documents. The city’s Department of Planning and Development, under a request sent this week by the City Council and the mayor, is looking at whether the port’s lease, signed with a local company, Foss Maritime, which would manage the terminal site with Shell as the tenant, is consistent with the legal designation of the terminal’s use for “cargo” handling. That decision is expected in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit by the Puget Soundkeepers Alliance and other groups, including the Sierra Club, is challenging the process under which the port reached its decision. In a hearing on Friday before a King County Superior Court judge, the opponents argued that Shell’s use will not be for cargo handling, which is the defined use for the terminal.

The judge, Mariane C. Spearman, pressed lawyers on both sides to explain what exactly Shell would be doing at the site and whether fears of environmental harm were real or speculative, particularly because the rigs are not actually here yet. She said she would rule within the next week whether the case could proceed.

If the lease is revoked, there would probably not be another space on the waterfront big enough to hold the huge rigs, said Mr. O’Brien, the City Council member. A spokesman for Shell, Curtis Smith, said the company had not looked at alternatives. The two rigs Shell plans to bring in — the Noble Discoverer and the Polar Pioneer — are enormous, one more than 320 feet tall and the other more than 500 feet long.

Mr. Smith said the company also remained committed to exploring for oil in the far north. “We have reason to believe the acreage offshore Alaska is home to some of the most prolific, undeveloped hydrocarbon basins in the world,” he said in an email. “As a result, we are advancing our plans to drill in Alaska in 2015 — dependent, of course, on successful permitting, clearing any legal obstacles and our own determination that we are prepared to explore safely and responsibly.”

Shell has spent more than $4 billion on its efforts in the Arctic, but last drilled there in 2012 after a series of setbacks, including the grounding of a drilling rig, the Kulluk, off an island near Kodiak in the Gulf of Alaska. That mishap has also given fuel to opponents like Ian Siadak, who spoke at the lease hearing on behalf of a group formed within the last few weeks called the Coalition for Port Accountability.

“It is up to you whether you will be known as the commissioners who stayed true to their enthusiastically green campaign promises, or the commissioners who sold the planet to Shell Oil,” he said, in demanding that the lease be revoked — within a deadline of two weeks. If that does not occur, he said, “your position will be clear, and we will take further public action.”

Mr. Siadak declined in an interview to specify what action that might be.

Lummi Nation Shellfish Hatchery Adds All-Night Algae Feeders

Lummi’s shellfish hatchery grows its own algae to feed millions of geoduck, manila and oyster seeds.

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Lummi Nation’s shellfish hatchery is adding an all-night feeding system to its algae-growing operation.

For years, the hatchery has grown its own algae to feed growing manila clam, geoduck and oyster larvae. The new system installed this winter consists of 60 algae-filled bags in glowing Gatorade shades that pump directly into the raceways.

One of the hatchery’s three geoduck systems consists of 11 raceways that hold about 6 million geoduck seeds, which can go through 30,000 liters of algae a day.

“The new algae bag system will operate 24-7,” said Flavian Point, Lummi shellfish hatchery manager. “Overnight, it can produce an amount of algae that is equivalent to one of the hatchery’s 15,000-liter algae tanks.”

The geoduck operation has a total of 20 raceways when all three systems are online, having expanded from five raceways since 2010.

The expansion has provided new job opportunities. In addition to eight full-time staff, AmeriCorps provides five employees for 20 hours each week, and two tribal members have been hired through the Dislocated Fishers Program, which helps fishermen earn a living between fishing seasons.

The shellfish hatchery used to support itself through seed sales until the Lummi Nation took over operating costs in exchange for manila clam and oyster seed to enhance the reservation tidelands for tribal harvest. Only the geoduck seed is sold commercially.

Concerned about increasing water temperatures as a result of climate change, some of the geoduck seed customers, which include the Squaxin Island Tribe, have started seeding their beds earlier, which required the hatchery to spawn geoducks a month earlier.

“The goal is to get the seed planted before the water temperatures get too warm,” Point said. “The seed is looking good and the larvae on schedule to be ready in April.”

Swinomish Tribe’s Restoration Improves Fish Passage Beside Farmland

Swinomish environmental director Todd Mitchell observes a self-regulating tide gate that is mostly under water in the Smokehouse tidelands.

By Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Farming interests in Skagit County often seem at odds with salmon habitat restoration, but an ongoing project by the Swinomish Tribe aims to show that it doesn’t have to be that way.

The tribe owns the land known as the Smokehouse tidelands along the Swinomish Channel south of the Swinomish Casino and Lodge. Historically, the land was part of a system of channels that served as estuarine rearing habitat for Skagit River salmon. When the Skagit Valley was settled, the tidelands were diked and drained for agricultural use.

Since 2005, the tribe has restored tidal flow and improved fish passage to the channels by replacing four traditional flap gates with self-regulating tide gates. In addition, three culverts have been replaced by bridges, and several have been removed.

“The big advantage is for fish, but the tide gates also have improved drainage capacity,” said Todd Mitchell, Swinomish environmental director. “As more water comes in, more water goes out. We don’t have the ponds of standing water that you see on other farmland after heavy rain.”

Fifty-foot buffers have been planted between the channels and the farmland. Some of the land will remain in agricultural use, with the tribe leasing it to farmers and monitoring for saltwater intrusion.

“Continued farming provides income for the Swinomish Tribe,” said Steve Hinton, restoration director for the Skagit River System Cooperative, the natural resources extension of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes. “The goal is to see that agriculture and salmon can not only survive, but thrive in the same space.”

The long-term plan is for riparian corridors, tidally connected channels and estuarine wetlands to exist alongside agricultural production.

“Resolving the differences between these competing uses of the resource are essential to significant and meaningful restoration of chinook rearing habitat across the Skagit delta,” Hinton said.

Action Taken To Protect Fish At Bottom Of Ocean Food Chain

A new rule prohibits new fisheries on forage fish species including silversides, shown here.Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble/Flickr — A new rule prohibits new fisheries on forage fish species including silversides, shown here.
Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble/Flickr

by Cassandra Profita OPB

West Coast fishery managers adopted a new rule Tuesday that protects many species of forage fish at the bottom of the ocean food chain.

The rule prohibits commercial fishing of herring, smelt, squid and other small fish that aren’t currently targeted by fishermen. It sets up new, more protective regulations for anyone who might want to start fishing for those species in the future.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council unanimously voted to adopt the rule at a meeting in Vancouver, Washington. The council sets ocean fishing seasons off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California.

The idea behind the new rule is to preserve so-called forage fish so they’re available for the bigger fish, birds and whales that prey on them. It’s part of a larger push by the council to examine the entire ocean ecosystem when setting fishing seasons.

Environmentalists who have been advocating for the rule for years celebrated the approval.

“If we’re going to have a healthy ocean ecosystem in the long term, we have to protect that forage base,” said Ben Enticknap of the environmental group Oceana. “These are the backbone of a healthy ocean ecosystem.”

Enticknap said many of the forage fish subject to the new rule are already being fished elsewhere in the world. Little fish at the bottom of the food chain are used to make fish meal for aquaculture, and they’re increasingly in demand as food for people as other fish populations decline.

Previous rules only required managers to be notified of a new fishery on non-managed forage fish species. Now, the council will require a more rigorous scientific review to prove that the new fishery won’t harm the ecosystem before it is allowed.

“Really, it’s being precautionary,” said Enticknap. “It’s getting out ahead of a crisis rather than waiting for a stock to collapse and then having to have serious consequences for fisheries after the fact.”

The rule has gained broad support — even from the fishing industry, according to Steve Marx of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Valuable commercial fish such as rockfish, salmon, halibut and tuna all prey on forage fish.

“The fishing industry support has been pretty strong because everybody understands how important these small forage fish are to the fish they like, that they make a living off of,” he said.

Rod Moore, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, congratulated the council on moving forward with the rule.

“It’s rare to get this sort of consensus support from commercial, environmental and recreational sectors, and I think you have it on this one,” he said.

Before voting, council members discussed the best way to allow existing fisheries to catch some of the forage fish species incidentally – as they’re targeting other fish.

The council directed staff to continue developing the details of the rule so that it doesn’t constrain existing fisheries, but it does discourage fishing boats from targeting forage fish.

Councilors instructed staff to hold fishing boats accountable the forage fish they catch and consider discouraging development of at-sea processing of forage fish species into fish meal.

Wyoming Lawmakers Approve Spending For Northwest Coal Ports

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead during a June 3, 2014 visit to the proposed site of the Bulk Millenium coal export terminal in Longview Washington.Cassandra Profita/OPB — Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead during a June 3, 2014 visit to the proposed site of the Bulk Millenium coal export terminal in Longview Washington.
Cassandra Profita/OPB

By: Earthfix; source OPB

Wyoming lawmakers have passed legislation that would allow the state to finance the construction of coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere.

On Friday, Wyoming’s state legislature sent to Gov. Matt Mead a bill that would allow the state to issue up to $1 billion in bonds to help fund out-of-state projects, including coal export terminals.

Lloyd Drain, director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, said these projects would be good for Wyoming coal and the Northwest, too.

“If I’m looking at it with my Washington state or Oregon state hat on, I think there’s a lot more benefits to be had than any risk,” he said. Wyoming plans to send a delegation to Pacific Northwest later this spring to lobby Native American tribes for support.

The Legislature’s vote is the latest in a series of steps by Wyoming politicians to push for the construction of export terminals hundreds of miles away on the West Coast. Last June Wyoming’s governor made a publicized trip to Washington to raise awareness of his state’s interest in moving its coal through the Northwest. Then in October, Mead invited tribes and city and county leaders from the Northwest to visit Wyoming to see the benefits of supporting the export of Wyoming coal coal through their states.

Related: Coal in the Northwest — a guide to proposed export terminals

Coal export projects are proposed on Puget Sound near Bellingham, Washington, and on the Columbia River in Longview, Washington. A third, smaller terminal on the Oregon side of the Columbia was rejected last August by state regulators. That decision is being appealed.

The projects have had trouble with financing. In late 2014 Ambre Energy sold its interest in terminals in Oregon and Washington to a private equity firm in order to remain solvent.

This was first reported by Inside Energy, a reporting team based in energy boom states.

Northwest Residents, With Wood To Burn, Among Top Polluters

KEITH RIDLER, Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Oregon, Idaho, and Washington residents are among the top polluters in the nation when it comes to fine particle emissions from burning wood to heat homes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists Oregon, Idaho and Washington as seventh, eighth and ninth respectively in per capita emissions.

The three states share chilly climates, a tradition of wood burning, and lots of national forest land with easy access and where U.S. Forest Service managers appreciate the removing of some trees to reduce potential forest fires.

“We have a very large fuel wood cutting program and a large public that takes advantage of it,” said Julie Thomas, spokeswoman for the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho. “For a lot of folks, it helps them reduce the cost of purchasing heat in the wintertime.”

Wood burning is also popular in Oregon, where that state’s Department of Environmental Quality found that a third of residents in the densely populated Portland region burn wood.

Marcia Danab, an agency spokeswoman, said southeast Portland as well as some other areas of the state that experience inversions have problems with wood smoke. Health agencies issue alerts when it’s unhealthy to be outside.

To alleviate the problem the state, she said, in 2009 enacted a law requiring uncertified woodstoves to be removed and destroyed when a home is sold.

“The newer stoves that conform to EPA standards put out far less particulates,” Danab said.

That’s the kind that a Washington state company called Rich’s For The Home sells at its five store locations in that state.

Beth Urban, an assistant manager at the company’s Lynnwood store, said the state has some of the strictest standards for wood stove emissions. To meet those standards, the new stoves use what Urban called secondary reburns that eliminate many of the particles.

She also said the stoves, while more expensive, in the long run save money because they’re more efficient, some models using half the wood to produce the same amount of heat as older stoves.

The stoves come in various materials, with soapstone being the most expensive. Urban said prices range from $3,000 to $4,000 for a soapstone stove, but they are also among the most attractive and effective at distributing heat.

“It cuts your consumption down quite a bit,” she said. “The newer wood stoves, you can load up the fire boxes to last six, eight, sometimes 10 hours. Nobody likes to babysit a wood stove.”

Our Plants Are Our Medicine

Hibulb’s Rediscovery Program offers new gardening class to connect Tulalip’s ancestors

By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News

The Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve’s Rediscovery Program is offering Tulalip tribal members an exciting new class to reconnect with their traditional culture. The class is part of a series of classes entitled ‘Native Plants and Medicinal Herbs’ that will be ongoing during the traditional harvesting season, early spring to late fall. The series of classes will focus on teaching tribal members how to collect, garden, harvest, and process native plants and herbs that are indigenous to the Tulalip region. The first of a full series of native plant gardening classes will take place Sunday, March 15, starting promptly at 9:00 a.m. and ending at 4:00 p.m., at the Center’s facility classroom.

“Our plants are our medicine. They nourish our bodies and feed our spirit,” says Inez Bill, Rediscovery Coordinator. “We want to see our people gardening and harvesting the plants and herbs that our people have used historically. So we are starting this brand new series of classes that will help pass on the values and teachings of our ancestors. Hopefully, by taking the classes, our people will begin to use these plants at their homes and grow them in their gardens for their own use.”

Over the past four years, the Rediscovery Program has hosted its ‘Gardening Together as Families’ classes that emphasized teaching our tribal membership how to grow their own organic vegetable gardens. The Rediscovery Program staff think that the time is right to shift from a general theme of organic vegetables to one that specifically tailors to the traditional gardening customs of our Tulalip ancestors. By reintroducing the Tulalip people to native plants and herbs that were once used by our ancestors for generations.

“We’ve been doing the ‘Gardening Together as Families’ classes for four years now. That was an opportunity for people to come get hands-on experience growing their own organic vegetables. Now, we are able to shift the theme of our gardening classes to accommodate the needs of our people,” explains Rediscovery staff member Virginia Jones. “We want to give the people an opportunity to learn about the uses of Tulalip native plants and to grow them at their own homes.”

Throughout this new series of native plant gardening classes, there will be a primary focus of working with and getting familiar with the many uses of five major native plants; the stinging nettle, fireweed, giant horsetail, the Nootka Rose, and mountain huckleberry. There will be other native plants worked with as well, to supplement the uses and knowledge that come from working with the five major native plants.

“These plants we will be working with are all traditional food sources. They are something that are ancestors would have had, and so we are really fortunate to have them still available to us,” says Jones. “Today these foods are no longer a part of our everyday diets. We are trying to reintroduce these native plants back into the diets of our people. We want to reach our people on that level because these plants were used as foods that healed us and kept our bodies full of all different types of nutrients that our bodies needed.”

To participate in the first class in this new series, to be held March 15, the Rediscovery Program staff ask that you please RSVP ahead of time by calling Virginia Jones at (360) 716-2635 and leave a brief message with your name and how many family members will be attending with you. The initial class will be accepting 20 tribal member participants, so RSVP your spot as soon as possible.

Also, all those who will be participating in the native plant gardening class should remember to bring garden gloves and paper bags.

“Working with native plants is our culture,” says Bill. “It’s a delicate balance of going out and being with nature, gathering plants in prayer and working with them in a respectful way. We are one with nature at this time.”

Contact: Micheal Rios, mrios@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

What a Record-Low Snowpack Means For Summer In The Northwest

Scott Pattee, a water supply specialist with the National Resources Conservation Service, checks snow levels at Stevens Pass ski resort in Washington's Cascade Mountains. Ashley Ahearn/KUOW — Scott Pattee, a water supply specialist with the National Resources Conservation Service, checks snow levels at Stevens Pass ski resort in Washington’s Cascade Mountains.
Ashley Ahearn/KUOW

by Ashley Ahearn KUOW

Scott Pattee stands well over 6 feet, but he’s dwarfed by the tall white tube set up near the Stevens Pass Ski Area to measure snow depth.

Little black numbers marking inches of snow ascend the side of the tube. The top number reads 250 inches, an amount of snow that’s hard to imagine right now.

Most of the mountains around Pattee are green and brown, not white – even though it’s officially still winter until March 19 arrives.

And the snow depth, according to the tower?

“We have about 30 inches,” said Pattee, a water supply specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “Normally we would have closer to 150 this time of year. It’s not good.”

Actually, it’s really bad. Record-breaking bad.

Pattee has been monitoring snow levels in Washington for more than 20 years. The data he gathers helps scientist study climate trends, farmers plan their growing seasons, hydropower operators manage their reservoirs and municipalities provide water to citizens.

This year is on track to be one of the lowest snow years on record. Across Washington state, average snowpack is 71 percent below normal levels. In some places, including the Olympic Peninsula, snowpack is 90 percent below normal levels.

Things are looking even worse in Oregon. Statewide, average snowpack is 76 percent below normal levels.

“One of our longest-monitored sites, near Bend, has the lowest snowpack ever recorded, breaking the 1977 record,” said Julie Koeberle, a hydrologist in Oregon with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The Bend site has been monitored since the early 1950s.

“All eyes will be pointing on southern and southeastern Oregon if things don’t improve,” Koeberle said. Some of the lowest snow levels can be found in those areas, where water scarcity has created drought conditions in recent years.

However, despite dire warnings about low snowpack, things aren’t looking desperate, yet on all fronts. That’s because the Northwest is seeing normal or above-average amounts of overall precipitation, it’s just coming as rain instead of snow.

“The snowpack is bad but the overall conditions aren’t that horrible. It’s above normal precipitation all over the state, and so we’re in pretty good shape there for now,” Pattee said, adding that the region could see drought later in the summer.

The Bonneville Power Administration manages 31 federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers and provides one-third of the electricity consumed in the Northwest. Mike Hanson, spokesman for BPA, said things are looking normal.

“We’re doing just fine at the moment,” Hanson said, adding that the reservoirs above the dams are at normal levels. The Columbia River’s headwaters are in the Canadian Rockies, which are seeing normal snow levels this year.

“When we’re looking out our windows here and it seems very little snow, mild winter, conditions up at ski resorts are horrible, but that’s not really an indication of the total picture,” Hanson said. “Right now it looks like all systems are running normally and we are closely watching what is happening out there. We feel OK with where we’re at.”

The City of Seattle gets its water supply from the Tolt and Cedar rivers east of the city. Reservoirs managed by Seattle Public Utilities are currently above normal, and it plans to keep them full, even as it anticipates a warm dry spring with little additional rainfall.

“We don’t need snow to have a good water supply as long as it rains, which it has been,” said James Rufo-Hill, meteorologist and climate adaptation specialist with Seattle Public Utilities. “We’ll hold a little more water in our reservoirs and constantly manage that flow. We can meet demands throughout the summer.”

Resource managers, hydropower operators and others have referred to the snow levels and warm temperatures this year as “anomalous.” Amy Snover, director of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington, agrees, but she said it’s an anomaly worth noting.

“It’s a really useful year in the sense that this is the kind of year that all the climate models tell us to expect,” Snover said. “The future looks like this. The future looks like less snow because of warmer temperatures but not necessarily less precipitation.”

Snover said water managers and hydropower operators need to be nimble.

“In many cases, the water managers who are paying attention to conditions can change the way they manage their systems and catch that water as it’s going down the river because it fell as rain instead of snow,” she said.

But for other basins or municipalities that are heavily reliant on surface water, without reservoirs to store it, the lack of snow this year presents a challenge. Places like Sequim and Port Townsend on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula are heavily reliant on rivers that are largely fed by snowpack from the Olympic Mountains, which are at record-setting low snow levels.

In drier parts of the region, meeting irrigation demands for agriculture could also prove challenging later on in the summer and early fall.

Pattee with the Natural Resources Conservation Service also cautioned that the wet, warm spring has started an early growing season, which could provide more fuel for wildfires later on in the dry season. For now he said the biggest impacts of low snow levels this year will be felt by recreationists and fish.

Without the strong pulse of cold snow melt, some Northwestern rivers could prove less hospitable to spawning salmon and their out-migrating young, Pattee said.

Regional water managers will brief Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on the snow situation early next week. Pattee said it’s too early to say if a drought declaration is in order but it is a concern.

“We’re going to have to sleep with one eye open this spring and summer and really keep a close eye on conditions and see which way the wind blows,” he said.

The Case Against Coal Terminals: Lummi Cite Health, Environmental Factors

NOAAPacific International Terminals proposes building an export terminal for the export of coal and other commodities, on Cherry Point near the Lummi Nation reservation. The site is approximately midway between the BP oil refinery -- its docks are in the foreground -- and the Alcoa Intalco Works aluminum smelter. Opponents fear the further industrialization of this area will harm an ecosystem that is struggling to survive. — NOAA
Pacific International Terminals proposes building an export terminal for the export of coal and other commodities, on Cherry Point near the Lummi Nation reservation. The site is approximately midway between the BP oil refinery — its docks are in the foreground — and the Alcoa Intalco Works aluminum smelter. Opponents fear the further industrialization of this area will harm an ecosystem that is struggling to survive.

Richard Walker, Indian Country Today

Coal trains are not the only threats to sacred sites and traditional hunting and fishing territory.First Nations in the U.S. and Canada that share the Salish Sea contend that increased ballast water discharges associated with the Gateway Pacific Terminal would introduce invasive species to the local marine environment; that increased rail and vessel activity would increase the risk of coal and oil spills, and that coal dust from the railway and terminal would affect the health of marine waters and nearby communities. But the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal is only one of the projects that would bring increased rail and shipping activity to the Salish Sea. Also proposed: Expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline to Vancouver, B.C., and expansion of a coal, grain and container terminal at Delta, B.C.

The Salish Sea is currently transited by an estimated 10,000 cargo ships and tankers en route to and from oil refineries and shipping ports. The George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University studied the potential risk for a large oil spill from increase in shipping and “an ever-changing vessel traffic mix” of cargo ships and tankers that would result from the three projects. The 2014 vessel traffic risk assessment was commissioned by the Puget Sound Partnership, a state agency charged with coordinating efforts to improve the health of Puget Sound by 2020.

“Even though this area has not experienced major oil spills in the past 20 years or so, the presence of tankers in an ever changing vessel traffic mix places the area at risk for large oil spills,” the study states. “While a previous GW/VCU analysis of this area demonstrated significant risk reduction of oil transportation risk due to existing risk mitigation measures, potential for large oil spills continues to be a prominent public concern heightened by proposed maritime terminal developments.”

Concerns about coal dust and coal spills are bolstered by recent incidents in other communities.

“On more than one occasion, coal dust from the Brayton Point [power-generating] station has covered the nearby neighborhoods of Somerset, Massachusetts,” the Center for Media and Democracyreports. “On October 29, 2008, coal dust covered nearby Ripley Street, where residents reported having coal dust in their homes despite the windows being closed.”

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Ashley Ahearn reports that in 2009, a representative of BNSF Railway Company testified before a federal review board that 645 pounds of dust escapes from each coal train car during a 400-mile trip.

“Since the 2009 testimony, coal companies have been required to apply what’s called surfactant or topper agent to the trains before they leave the mines,” Ahearn reported in March 2013. “BNSF researchhas shown that the surfactants reduce the coal dust by about 85 percent. That should bring the 645-pound figure down to about 100 pounds of coal dust escaping per car. There are usually about 125 cars per coal train.”

But coal in transit can harm health and the environment in other ways. In December 2012, a ship crashed into a conveyor belt at Westshore Terminals in Vancouver, British Columbia, spilling 30 metric tons of coal into the sea. In January 2014, a 152-car coal train derailed in Burnaby, British Columbia; three cars spilled their loads, one of them into a protected waterway.

Concerns about rail accidents in Washington state are shared by rail workers themselves. Members of the Sheet Metal Air Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), have proposed new rules for hazardous material trains in response to the recent explosions of oil trains in Canada and North Dakota. House Bill 1809 and Senate Bill 5679 would require trains carrying hazardous materials to have one or two additional staff on board. Previously, Washington state mandated six-person crews. Today, some trains operate with only one or two people, according to SMART.

“Our workers know how to run these trains safely, but the railroad refuses to provide adequate staffing, exposing the public and rail workers to death and injury,” said SMART legislative director Herb Krohn, a conductor and switchman on Washington’s rails, in announcing the bills.

The measures have bipartisan support. HB 1809 is sponsored by 34 representatives and has been approved by the House Committee on Labor. Companion bill SB 5679, sponsored by 24 senators, is before the Senate Committee on Commerce & Labor.

“Our bill simply restores Washington state’s common-sense safety standards,” Krohn said. “We looked at what went wrong in each of the catastrophic explosions and the close calls, and it’s clear that one or two people simply can’t monitor and safely operate these dangerous cargos. Adding even one more person to a train, particularly at the back of the train, will save lives.”

Whale of a good story: Humpback comeback and new orca

KOMO News

ANACORTES, Wash. — In a sea of bad news, some good news regarding whales on two fronts came out of the Pacific Whale Watch Association conference Monday in Anacortes.

Government researchers said the four recent newborn orca could be the beginning of a trend, anticipated because the number of female Southern Resident Killer Whales at calf-bearing age is at its highest known levels.

Additionally, the number of humpback whales in the Salish Sea has reached its highest documented level: 90 different humpbacks were photo identified in 2015, according to data unveiled Monday by photo ID expert Mark Malleson of Prince of Whales whale watch cruises.

The Salish Sea includes Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the San Juan Islands as well as British Columbia’s Gulf Islands and the Strait of Georgia. The name recognizes and pays tribute to the first inhabitants of the region, the Coast Salish.

“The newborns are definitely an optimistic point that I’m really excited about,” said orca researcher Eric Ward of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

While some researchers believe southern resident Killer Whale females generally require a family structure to bear a surviving calf, Ward believes viable females are the most important factor.

“We think now that based on the kind of age structure of the southern resident population there is more potential to produce calves than there ever has been in the past,” he said.

After whalers nearly pushed humpback whales to extinction and killed roughly 1,000 in the Salish Sea, according to historical accounts discussed at the PWWA conference, they’ve made a dramatic rediscovery of Salish Sea habitat in recent years. New data from Malleson says humpbacks identified last year were three times more than were spotted just three years ago. Humpbacks were first spotted regularly returning to the Salish Sea about a decade ago.

The good news doesn’t stop with whales.

Andrew Trites of the University of British Columbia said all of the 11 marine mammals found in the Salish Sea are generally increasing in population. Seal populations are increasing at exponential rates so much so that they have been competing with killer whales for salmon, concerning some researchers. But others believe Harbor Seal populations are leveling off because they are a favorite food of meat-eating transient killer whales, whose numbers are also increasing.

Trites and others are about to roll out a test attachment to about 20 seals that will measure whenever they eat salmon smolt, or young salmon. Researchers want to better understand just how many salmon smolt are being eaten each year by seals.

Trites called it a “new natural balance.”

“One reason we find that numbers oversell are doing so well is because maybe we have not done such a bad job after all of stewardship of the coastline and rivers that are spilling into the Salish Seal,” he said.

Gray Whales are expected to arrive in the Salish Sea as early as next week. Humpbacks are due in July. And all three pods of Southern Resident Killer Whales should be in the Salish Sea by May.

More information is available online.