By Billy Frank, Jr., Chairman, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
OLYMPIA – The Washington state legislature deserves thanks for not caving in to demands from Boeing and others to require yet another study of fish consumption rates in Washington to tell us what we already know: Our rate is too low and does not protect most of us who live here.
It wasn’t easy. A Senate measure requiring another study before beginning rulemaking on a new rate was tied to passage of the state budget, and nearly led to a government shutdown. Boeing and others have been trying to stop or delay development of a new rate because they say it would increase their cost of doing business.
The fish consumption rate is part of the human health standards used by state government to determine how much pollution is allowed to be put in our waters. The 20-year-old rate of 6.5 grams per day – about one eight-ounce seafood meal per month – is supposed to protect us from more than 100 toxins that can cause illness or death.
It’s a sad fact that Washington has one of the highest seafood-eating populations, but uses one of the lowest fish consumption rates in the country to regulate water pollution and protect human health. Another study could have delayed development of a new rate for three years or more.
Tribes have been reaching out to business and industry to discuss implementation of a new fish consumption rate. We are sensitive to possible economic impacts of a higher rate, and we want to continue working together to create a meaningful path forward. But those efforts have largely been ignored, and that’s too bad, because we have solved bigger issues than this by working together.
We are encouraged, however, by the actions of Dennis McLerran, regional Environmental Protection Agency administrator. He has stepped forward to express his agency’s commitment to protecting water quality and human health in Washington.
In a recent letter to Maia Bellon, director of the state Department of Ecology, McLerran pledged to support the state in developing a more accurate fish consumption rate. He made it clear, however, that if the state can’t or won’t get the job done, he will use his authority to establish a new rate. “The EPA believes there are scientifically sound regional and local data in Washington that are sufficient for Ecology to move forward in choosing a protective and accurate fish consumption rate at this time,” McLerran wrote.
Ecology director Bellon has said that we could have a more accurate fish consumption rate adopted by late 2014, and we intend to hold her to that. Oregon has increased its fish consumption rate to a more realistic 175 grams per day; we think Washington residents deserve at least that much protection.
We’re spending too much money, time and effort to clean up and protect Puget Sound and other waters to let business and industry continue to pollute those same waters. Right now we are paying for our state’s low fish consumption rate with the cost of our health, and that’s not right.
Developing a more accurate fish consumption rate isn’t about jobs versus the environment. It isn’t just an Indian issue. It’s a public health issue and needs to be treated that way. We can’t allow politics to trump common sense when it comes to protecting our own health and that of future generations.
If you want to learn more, visit the Keep Our Seafood Clean Coalition website at keepseafoodclean.org
·Keep kids away from hot grills and campfires – have a fire extinguisher handy
·Know the fire danger level before starting a campfire – keep water close by
·If fireworks are allowed where you are, remember that even sparklers reach 1800 degrees Fahrenheit
The Sheriff’s Office is committed to making Snohomish County the best place to live, work and play in Washington State. More safety information and resources can be found at http://sheriff.snoco.org. Contact Shari Ireton, Shari.Ireton@co.snohomish.wa.us.
Established in 1959, the Snohomish Health District works for a safer and healthier Snohomish County through disease prevention, health promotion, and protection from environmental threats. Find more information about the Health Board and the Health District at http://www.snohd.org. Contact Suzanne Pate, spate@snohd,org.
Mark Mulligan / The Herald Quaid Jones of Lake Stevens can’t believe the herd of goats surrounding him and his sister, Tessa, at the Forest Park petting zoo in 2012.
Source: The Herald
Meet the animals: The Animal Farm at Forest Park in Everett opens on Saturday. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Aug. 25. Kids (and their adults) can meet sheep, ducks, hens, rabbits and pigs. It’s free, but donations are appreciated. More information is here.
Garden tour: See how homeowners on Camano Island have turned their yards into habitat for wildlife at a free tour on Saturday. Get details in our story here.
Free fly day: The Flying Heritage Collection will show off some of its planes at a free demonstration from noon to 1 p.m. on Saturday. Get the details here.
Carnival: The Smokey Point Carnival is Friday to Sunday at Smokey Point on the Airport, 172nd St. NE and 51st Ave. NE. Tickets are $19.
Zombies: A release party is Friday for book 3 in the Grace Series, a series about zombies written by Snohomish author M. Lauryl Lewis. The books are set locally, too. The party will have beer, wine and zombie cupcakes. Doors open at 6 p.m. and a reading starts at 7 p.m. at Historic Everett Theatre. Get details here.
Roller derby: Tilted Thunder, banked-track roller derby, has a bout on Saturday at Comcast Arena. Doors open at 4 p.m. and the bout starts at 5 p.m. Get the details here.
Laugh: Three comedians will headline a show at One Eyed Jacks in Lynnwood on Saturday. The show with John Keister, Brooks McBeth and Duane Goad starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. Get them here.
Dig Deep: Learn about earthquakes, volcanoes and fossils with the Pacific Science Center at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Mountlake Terrace Library. The event is free and meant for kids 5 and older. Get more details here.
Splash: Wakeboard riders will show their stuff on Friday and Saturday at Lake Tye in Monroe. There is also a learn-to-wakeboard clinic on Sunday — make reservations at 206-295-6845. Get more information here.
Salute to Summer: The Hometown Hootenanny will perform songs with a summer feel at a show on Saturday in Everett. Get the details in our story here.
Art and music: Art at the Barn is Saturday and Sunday in Oso. The show includes photography, paintings, pottery, glass work, jewelry, basket weaving and woodwork. There will also be plenty of live music. Details are in our story here.
Plan ahead: See more of what’s coming in Splash, our annual guide to summer events.
More things to do: Check out our new, improved calendar for more upcoming events in and around Snohomish County.
by Beckye Randall in North County Outlook
The Arlington-Smokey Point Chamber of Commerce has contracted with Butler Amusements, the folks behind the carnival at the Evergreen State Fair, to bring their rides and games to Smokey Point for a four-day event. The carnival will be set up at the corner of 172nd St. NE and 51st Avenue NE, near the Arlington Airport, June 27 through 30.
There’s no admission charge, and a $20 wristband is good for rides all day long. Individual ride tickets will also be available.
The wristbands are available in advance at the Smokey Point Walmart, and at Coastal Community Bank at 16419 Smokey Point Blvd.
“There will be a midway with games and some concessions,” said chamber manager Mary Jane Harmon, “and we’ll have some food vendors as well.”
And the rides? Butler is bringing some of the most popular carnival rides, including the Zipper, the Scrambler, the Cyclone and the Tilt-a-Whirl. Kids’ rides include Goofyville, a crawl-through maze, the Galaxy Swing and, of course, a giant slide.
“Butler Amusements has an excellent safety record,” said Harmon. “They have rides for all ages.”
Maia Bellon, director of the Washington State Department of Ecology, addresses the Tribal Habitat Conference in Port Angeles, discussing the state’s role in toxic cleanups, water quality and human health indicators among other issues.
For the Salish-speaking tribes of the Washington coast, canoes were traditionally not only their most important form of transportation, they were also cultural icons. The Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve honors the Tulalip (Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, and others) cultures.
The importance of canoes to the Tulalip peoples is evident in the Hibulb Culture Center. The canoe theme shown in the windows above is repeated throughout the Center.
Canoes were made by hollowing out a single log with fire and adzes. By filling the hollowed out log with hot water, the canoe makers could then widen the canoe by forcing stout cross-pieces between the gunwales.
Carving a canoe begins with spiritual preparation: the carvers must prepare themselves with fasting, prayers, and the sweatlodge. It is not uncommon for the task of carving a large canoe to take two years. Once the log is chosen, a prayer is said for the cedar and an offering is given to thank it for its sacrifice.
The final stage in carving the canoe involves the use of hot rocks and water to steam-bend the sides outwards. This steaming also draws the bow and stern upwards as well as adding strength to the vessel. For the large ocean-going canoes, the prow and stern pieces are added last, the thwarts and seats are installed, and the exterior is finished. Then the canoe is given a name and is ready to begin its life on the water.
Three canoes are displayed in the Center.
River Canoe:
The river canoe shown above was carved about 1880 by William Shelton. It was restored by the Tulalip Tribes Carving and Arts Department.
The bow of the canoe is shown above.
Small Canoe:
This small canoe was carved about 1930 from a single log by William Shelton.
Ocean-Going Canoe:
This canoe was made about 1880 as part of a wedding dowry. The canoe was built by the bride’s family from the Quinault Nation and given to the Tulalip groom is a wedding present.
Shown above is a detail of where the mast would have been placed. Sails, prior to the arrival of the Europeans, were made from woven mats.
The canoe was made from hollowing out a single large cedar log. The sides were then spread apart and the bow and stern pieces were then added.
The bow is shown above.
The stern of the canoe is shown above. The stern piece was added to the dugout form.
The photograph above shows the additional piece which was added to the gunnels.
The photograph above shows how the thwarts (i.e. seats) were attached.
Richard Walker Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby holds a paddle gifted to him by the Quileute Nation, July 29, 2011, during the Canoe Journey/Paddle to Swinomish. Cladoosby is a candidate for president of the National Congress of American Indians.
Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby, who has long worked to strengthen economic conditions and stop ecological degradation in Coast Salish country, announced his candidacy June 25 for president of the National Congress of American Indians.
The election will take place during NCAI’s 70th annual convention October 13-18 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
If elected, Cladoosby would continue to serve as chairman of the Swinomish Tribe, he said in a pre-announcement interview. He would be the fourth indigenous leader from Washington state to serve as NCAI president.
“After 29 years of service on the Swinomish Indian Senate and 17 years of the best job in the world, the chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, I feel called by our Creator to serve Indian people across our country,” he wrote on a Facebook page established for his campaign.
“I believe that we live in historic times. When my grandfather’s grandfather signed the Point Elliott Treaty [in 1855], he probably could not have imagined the world that we live in today, but he thought about my grandchildren, Bella and Nathaniel. They are the seventh generation since our treaty was signed. Today, we are called to think about the seven generations to come and the world we will leave for them.”
Cladoosby said indigenous nations “have been blessed by our Creator with tremendous gifts” with which to confront the challenges of the day: Tribal governments’ ability to tax activities within reservation borders, ensuring there are educational opportunities for young people and quality health services for families and elders, protection of natural resources, and responding appropriately to climate change.
“Our teachings, our spiritual ways, the wisdom of our elders, the inspiration of our children and strong tribal leaders from across Indian country lift us up and give us strength to meet these challenges every day,” he said.
Cladoosby said he announced his candidacy only after getting the support of his wife, Nina, and the Swinomish Senate.
“I know that without them and their support, I could not begin to think about serving as president of NCAI. In the coming months, I ask for your support, your prayers and your ideas. Together, we can build the tomorrow that the grandchildren of our grandchildren can be proud of.”
Cladoosby served as president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians in 2008-11, and served on NCAI’s board of directors and on Environmental Protection Agency’s National Tribal Operations Committee. He is also active on the Skagit Council of Governments, an organization of local governments in Skagit County, Washington.
After the November general election, incoming state Attorney General Bob Ferguson appointed Cladoosby to his transition committee, which reviewed the structure of the Attorney General’s Office, its budget, and goals for the upcoming legislative session.
On December 5, Cladoosby introduced President Barack Obama at the White House Tribal Nations Conference, calling Obama – an adopted member of the Crow Nation – our “first American Indian president.” (Related story: Obama Does It Again: 2012 White House Tribal Nations Conference)
As Swinomish chairman, Cladoosby has overseen a careful strategy of economic growth that has resulted in the tribe becoming one of the five largest employers in Skagit County.
The tribe owns the golf- and entertainment-oriented Swinomish Casino and Lodge overlooking Padilla Bay, two gas stations and convenience stores, a cannery that processes salmon and shellfish for a global market, and a Ramada Hotel in Ocean Shores on the Washington coast. Swinomish’s Chevron Gas Station is, according to the tribe, the largest-volume Chevron station on the West Coast.
According to the tribe’s website, Swinomish employs more than 250 people in tribal government and approximately 300 people in its economic enterprises.
Swinomish is also an important voice on environmental issues: recent local initiatives include restoring indigenous ownership and stewardship of Kiket Island, and restoring the shoreline and developing a park and native-plant garden on Swinomish Channel.
In 2008, Cladoosby helped organize the Canoe Journey Water Quality Project in collaboration with other Coast Salish nations and the U.S. Geological Survey. Canoes participating in the annual Canoe Journey carry probes and global positioning systems that record temperature, salinity, pH levels, dissolved oxygen and turbidity in the Salish Sea. The data is being processed and mapped so researchers can identify patterns and trends in sea conditions. These efforts were honored in 2009 by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior; in 2012, Cladoosby was one of five finalists for the Ecotrust Indigenous Leadership Award. (Related story: Canoe Journey Could Provide Picture of Inland Sea’s Health)
“Mr. Cladoosby has been a huge supporter for our Northwest tribes and I hope we support someone who actually sees what we are needing as tribes in the Northwest and Alaska,” a supporter wrote on Facebook, calling Cladoosby “One of the Great Native Leaders out there fighting our good fight!”
Chickasaw Nation Lt. Gov. Jefferson Keel is finishing his second as president. According to its constitution, NCAI’s purpose is to “serve as a forum for unified policy development among tribal governments in order to: (1) protect and advance tribal governance and treaty rights; (2) promote the economic development and health and welfare in Indian and Alaska Native communities; and (3) educate the public toward a better understanding of Indian and Alaska Native tribes.”
It’s a bigger safety net for kids, an immediate way out of dangerous situations.
That’s how Cocoon House CEO Cassie Franklin describes a new program, National Safe Place. Bright yellow “Safe Place” signs will soon show up on all Everett Transit buses. The signs are part of the National Safe Place effort to let kids know that help is available for the asking.
Cocoon House, a local agency that shelters and provides other programs to at-risk young people, is working with Everett Transit to bring National Safe Place to Snohomish County.
“It allows us to reach kids in that moment they want help,” Franklin said. It could be late at night. A child might be a runaway, or may have left a dangerous party.
Drivers on all buses with “Safe Place” signs will be trained to help, Franklin said. If a young person asks, the driver will call Cocoon House to send a “navigator,” a staff member available around the clock to pick up that child or teen. Help could be as simple as a ride home, or as comprehensive as emergency shelter and counseling.
“It’s an exceptional program,” Franklin said.
Cocoon House will officially launch National Safe Place at Saturday’s grand opening of its new Cocoon Outreach Center in Everett. The event, open to the public, is set for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the center at 1421 Broadway.
The two-story outreach center is several blocks north of the former Cocoon House U-Turn Drop-In Center. That facility was in leased space. Cocoon House used grant money to buy and renovate the building for its new outreach center, formerly Old West Mortgage.
The new center is more than double the size of the old U-Turn site, with upstairs space for a WorkSource representative and a drug and alcohol treatment coordinator from Catholic Community Services. There’s room, too, for a shower and full kitchen.
“It’s a wonderful space,” Franklin said. The new center will have Cocoon House staff to help kids with housing and counseling information, school goals or reconnecting with family. Many teens on the streets are involved in gangs or are sexually exploited, she said.
“It’s nice to have all those services right there, with food, a place to get inside from the rain, so they can just spend time being a kid again,” Franklin said.
National Safe Place is one more way to help get kids off the streets. Franklin said Safe Place signs will be displayed first on Everett Transit buses, but the program may grow to include libraries and other venues.
Although it’s a partnership with Everett Transit, Franklin said Cocoon House is the lead agency for the program here. With a cost of about $70,000 per year, most of that for staff time, National Safe Place is supported locally by the Evertrust Foundation, the Howarth Foundation and individual donors. “We are still in search of additional funding partners,” Franklin said.
Steffani Lillie, an Everett Transit spokeswoman, isn’t sure when signs will go up on buses, but said Tuesday that Cocoon House and transit agency administrators recently took part in Safe Place training. Driver training will follow that, she said.
“We’re still working out logistics,” Lillie said. Along with Cocoon House navigators, transit inspectors may also be called upon to take kids to safe places, she said.
“We currently operate in 41 of 50 states at nearly 20,000 Safe Place locations,” said Hillary Bond, a spokeswoman for National Safe Place. Based in Louisville, Ky., the program was started in 1983.
National Safe Place has been in operation in King County about two years, Franklin said. While Cocoon House is licensed to run the program in Snohomish County, in the Seattle area it is run by YouthCare.
Around the country, Bond said, Safe Place signs are up in buses, YMCAs, fire stations, grocery stores and fast-food restaurants.
“Teens may be experiencing a family crisis, bullying or sexual identity issues. We want them to seek help,” Bond said. “The ultimate goal is to reunite the child with their family, if possible.”
The Cocoon House Outreach Center will host a grand opening 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday at its new facility, 1421 Broadway, Everett. It will include the launch of National Safe Place. RSVP requested, not required; email julio.cortes@cocoonhouse.org
Anybody new to Seattle might wonder about the city’s name. It’s not like New York, named after a place in the “old country,” or Madison, named for a dead president.
Seattle is named for a peace-loving Indian chief — a little classier than Chicago, derived from a native word for wild garlic.
When you’ve been here long enough to be settled in and have a favorite coffee order, it’s time to learn more about your hometown’s heritage. Make a ferry-ride pilgrimage to the Kitsap Peninsula, to the winter home and final resting place of the city’s namesake, Chief Seattle.
And now’s a good time to go, because the chief’s tribe, the Suquamish, has opened a handsome new museum where you can learn all about Chief Seattle’s people and their culture.
One surprise: The chief himself gets a conspicuously modest mention.
A Red Hat Society group from Poulsbo learns about a 300-year-old canoe hoisted by sculpted figures of tribal people at the new Suquamish Museum. Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times
The 9,000-square-foot, $6 million tribal museum, which opened in September a few hundred feet from the chief’s grave in the village of Suquamish, replaces a well-respected museum dating to the 1980s.
In part with newfound wealth from its Clearwater Casino, the tribe hired Storyline Studio of Seattle to design new exhibits, and Mithun Architects created a stained-wood building surrounded by native plantings of sword fern, wild currant and cedar.
Inside, it’s a gleaming example of modern museum concepts with a topical “less is more” orientation that doesn’t overwhelm. A single, compact hall showcases artifacts from tribal archives, or even from contemporary tribal members’ attics or family rooms (giving the sense that this is truly “living history”).
In the permanent exhibit, “Ancient Shores — Changing Tides,” simple island-like displays communicate large themes:
• “Teachings of Ancestors” includes a bone sewing needle and a cedar-root basket from the site of Old Man House, the longhouse on a nearby beach where Chief Seattle spent much of his life.
• “Spirit and Vision” has a mystical Tamanowas Stick, a personal-spirit symbol usually buried with a person, and a cedar mask with wild eyebrows and blushing cheeks.
• “Gifts from Land and Water” includes, among other things, a utilitarian clam-digging stick and a mean-looking wooden club used to kill salmon.
• “Shelter, Clothing and Tools” displays old and new, such as a dress astoundingly made of shredded cedar alongside a championship jacket from the 1984 national Indian Slo-Pitch Tournament.
• “Opportunity and Enterprise” are represented by 21 baskets of cedar bark, historically used for gathering clams and berries. (The modern representation of enterprise might be the tribal casino, which collects many “clams” from its patrons.)
• “Wisdom and Understanding” gives a puzzlingly brief nod to Chief Seattle. Context comes from this narrative: “(He) is perhaps the most famous of tribal leaders from the Salish Sea. But for the Suquamish people he was just one of many admired leaders throughout our history, each celebrated for their own unique skills.”
Six other leaders from across the years get the spotlight, with artifacts such as the gavel of Grace Duggan, the tribe’s first judge.
Why not dedicate more space to the leader for whom the big city is named?
“I think that the tribe is consciously trying to move away from (Chief Seattle) being the beginning, middle and end of the tribe,” explained museum director Janet Smoak. “It’s in no way a reflection of less esteem or less respect.”
Exhibits briefly reference Chief Seattle’s famous 1854 speech when he played a key role in treaty negotiations as his people were moved to reservations (see the speech’s full text on the tribe’s website at www.suquamish.nsn.us; search for “speech”). A peaceable man in tune with the Earth, he noted with melancholy that “my people are ebbing away like a fast receding tide that will never flow again.” Yet he also delivered a burning message that his people’s spirits will forever inhabit this land.
Something the museum does well: a historical multimedia production, creatively projected from above onto three child-level platforms, showing happy times — old-time salmon roasts — and less happy, when tribal children forcibly attended military-type schools after Teddy Roosevelt declared America “would make good citizens of all the Indians.”
The museum’s trumping centerpiece is a carved canoe, more than 300 years old, used in the 1989 Paddle to Seattle, the first of a now-annual series of intertribal-canoe journeys around the Salish Sea. Hoisting it are six sculpted figures representing the Suquamish from ancient times to present, including two sea otters “from before the great changer came and made people into people and animals into animals,” Smoak explained, citing the kind of beliefs that defined the tribe.
Closer to the man
If you want to feel closer to the man Seattle, head a short ways down South Street to the cemetery adjacent to St. Peter’s Catholic Mission, circa 1904.
Reflecting varying spellings of both his name and that of his tribe, based on changing interpretations of the native language, a white marble marker is inscribed “Seattle, Chief of the Suguampsh and Allied tribes, died June 7, 1866, The firm friend of the whites, and for him the City of Seattle was named by its founders.” Below that, the other name by which he was commonly known: “Sealth.”
Here you’ll see more plainly how the tribe honors him, in the form of significant improvements made to the gravesite in 2009 with $200,000 plus in grants split between the tribe and the city of Seattle. Flanking the stone are beautifully carved 12-foot cedar “story posts” that highlight moments from the chief’s life, such as his childhood sighting of Capt. George Vancouver’s exploration ships in1792.
Also added was a retaining wall etched in the native Lushootseed language and in English with messages such as “The soil is rich with the life of our kindred.” A wheelchair-friendly path connects to the parking lot, and visitors may rest on benches shaped like Suquamish canoes.
Ending your journey
Walk through the village to see more changes new money has brought to Suquamish, such as the charmingly named House of Awakened Culture, a waterfront community center devoted to such activities as classes in language, weaving and carving.
Browse native art at Rain Bear Studio or grab lunch at Bella Luna Pizzeria, a rub-elbows nine-table eatery perched on pilings over the waterfront.
Better yet, on a sunny day, pack a lunch to Old Man House Park, historic site of the chief’s longhouse, five minutes away. Sit on a log and take in the view that Chief Seattle’s people still love: narrow and scenic Agate Passage on one side, and on the other a panorama of snowy mountains across diamond-glinting waves of the salty sound.
In its day, this beach was where a native leader could take in all of his world, or all of it that mattered.
Brian J. Cantwell: 206-748-5724 or bcantwell@seattletimes.com
If you go
The land of Chief Seattle
Source, ESRI TeleAtlas
Where
From Seattle, take Washington State Ferries from Pier 52 to Bainbridge Island. Follow Highway 305 north toward Poulsbo. After the Agate Passage bridge, take the first right to Suquamish Way. In 1.2 miles, turn left at Division Avenue and then immediately right on South Street to the Suquamish Museum, 6861 N.E. South St. ($3-$5, www.suquamishmuseum.org).
Go a short distance further east on South Street to Chief Seattle’s gravesite. Continue downhill to the village center.
To reach Old Man House Park, from Suquamish Way take Division Avenue south and follow the arterial for .3 mile.
Special event
At 3 p.m. Feb. 23, the museum dedicates a new 40-foot-long wall-mounted timeline of tribal history with a lecture/presentation by Tribal Chairman Leonard Forsman and Tribal Archaeologist Dennis Lewarch.
Lodging
Stay at the tribe’s 85-room waterfront hotel, part of Clearwater Casino Resort. Free daily breakfast in lobby with tribal art, fireplace and expansive views. Pool, hot tub, spa. Winter rates: $169 for a view room on a weekend. 15347 Suquamish Way N.E., www.clearwatercasino.com/hotel
Restaurants
The casino has a buffet, cafe and a steakhouse. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, 2-for-1 specials for club members can overcrowd the buffet (the Thursday I visited, there was a 90-minute wait for a buffet table at 6 p.m.). That steered me and my wife to an endearingly corny checkered-tablecloth bistro in old-town Poulsbo, That’s-a-Some Italian Ristorante, 18881 Front St. N.E.; www.thatsasome.com.
For lunch, try the $2.50 slices at Bella Luna Pizzeria, 18408 Angeline Ave. N.E., Suquamish; www.bellalunapizza.com.
Full moon at Tulalip, February 19, 2013 by Mike Bustad.
Jamie Mooney, Coastal Resource Specialist and NOAA PMEL Liaison, Washington Sea Grant
During the next week the full moon associated with the summer solstice will bring extreme high tides called King Tides to our coast. The term ‘King Tide’ is a non-scientific term used to describe naturally occurring, exceptionally high tides that take place when the sun and moon’s gravitational pull align making the oceans “bulge.” While the King Tides during the summer are not as large as winter King Tides, these exceptionally high tides depict what could be the new normal as sea level rise progresses. This June high tide event marks a good opportunity to select your favorite locations to photograph both now and in December to compare!
Photos taken during king tide events document impacts to private property, public infrastructure, and wildlife habitat across the state, highlighting areas most vulnerable to sea level rise. We want to continue capturing what happens during extreme high tides, and we need your help to do it! Be safe! Take extra precautions when you walk on slippery areas or near big waves, and always be aware of your surroundings and the weather conditions.
Please participate in the Washington King Tides initiative by photographing these high tide events and uploading them to Flickr!
