Earth Share of Washington

Orcas, Oil Spills and Oysters: The State of the Ocean in our Backyard

- submitted by Liz Banse, board member, Washington Foundation for the Environment

Washington State is defined as much by its mountains and fertile farmland as it is by the ocean that laps up against its western border. While millions of locals and visitors alike explore the treasures of our land-based wilderness areas each year, few people have access to the "wilderness" below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Knowing what lies below the surface is more important than ever now that researchers are uncovering very real and imminent threats to the biodiversity of our salt water ecosystem. America's marine systems - oceans, coasts, and the web of life they support - are on the verge of collapse, according to authors of "America's Living Oceans: Charting a Course for Sea Change." The 2003 study, a three-year long research project of the independent Pew Oceans Commission, concluded that marine management has slipped through the cracks of the dozens of agencies charged with caring for the sea's health. The result is that overfishing, harmful coastal development, pollution, and other wasteful practices are threatening fish and fisherman alike.

This is critical information for Washingtonians to digest, both from an environmental and an economic standpoint. In 2001, commercial fishing in Washington yielded more than 163 million pounds of fish, valued at more than $138 million. Recreational anglers pulled in nearly 600,000 fish from Washington's coastal waters in the same year. Coastal health is also at stake. In 1999, Washington's beaches drew more than 2 million visits, including 850,000 visits from birdwatchers and 1.2 million by photographers and outdoor enthusiasts.

What can we do to ensure that Washington's own ocean wilderness is brought back to health? Conservation groups advocate for three important steps:

• Establishing a system of fully protected marine reserves to help restore important ecosystems and fisheries by giving fish and wildlife safe places to feed, breed, and rest;
• Protecting coastal habitat that supports the marine food chain, from orcas to the salmon they depend on, by better controlling development and its impacts including water quality problems; and,
• Revising, strengthening and expanding pollution laws that protect shellfish beds, fish and wildlife, and people from harmful pollution.

Restoring our oceans to productive health is possible if we commit to it. Not only will the orcas, salmon and shorebirds thank us, but so will all the fishermen and beachcombers we know.

Thanks to Earth Share of Washington members People for Puget Sound and the Surfrider Foundation for information included in this article.The Washington Foundation for the Environment supports environmental education and innovative projects focused on environmental awareness. (www.wffe.org)

Sierra Club Campaign to Save Our Wild Heritage; In the Footsteps of Lewis & Clark

- submitted by Lisa Dekker from ESW member Sierra Club Foundation

Much has changed since the days of Lewis and Clark 200 years ago. The Columbia River is no longer, in Meriwether Lewis' words, "crouded [sic] with salmon." To recognize what's lost and celebrate what's left, the Sierra Club has launched a five-year campaign commemorating the Lewis and Clark bicentennial by conserving and restoring our wild heritage.

Sierra Club's hope is to use the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark to help America rediscover these incredible lands and urge Americans to advocate the protection and restoration of our remaining wild places. Its goal is to permanently protect millions of acres of remaining wildlands in Lewis and Clark country, preserve and restore key wildlife habitat and protect threatened and endangered species like bison, wolves, grizzly bears and salmon. The Club proposes: wilderness designation, hands-on conservation, lands acquisition, smart growth and ending commercial logging on our National Forests and public lands.

Here in Washington, thirty miles north of the Columbia River and nestled between Mount. St. Helen and Mount Adams, lies the Dark Divide Roadless Area. With approximately 57,000 acres of intact roadless land, it represents a unique topographic region unduplicated by any other protected roadless area in Washington's southern Cascades. The southern portion of the area drains into the Lewis River, named for Meriwether Lewis.

Despite recent logging, the area provides prime terrain for horseback riding, hunting, hiking and backpacking. Sierra Club organizers have worked to focus public attention on the benefits of Dark Divide by tabling at farmer's markets, home and garden shows and on college campuses.

For more information about the Sierra Club's Lewis & Clark Wild America campaign or to find out how you can help, go to www.sierraclub.org/lewisandclark/ or email lewisandclark@sierraclub.org.

New Eastside Transportation Choices Chapter Formed!

New voices for transportation choices are emerging east of Lake Washington in the Central Puget Sound Region. With the leadership of Kirkland City Council-member and Transportation Choices Coalition Board Member Dave Asher, Redmond Mayor Rosemarie Ives, and Kirkland City Council-member Mary Alyce-Burleigh, a new local chapter of the Transportation Choices Coalition was formed during the summer of 2003.

The Eastside Transportation Choices (ETC) steering committee is made up of local elected officials, citizen activists, and business leaders - all of whom are dedicated to increasing investment in transportation alternatives and 'smart roads' throughout the Eastside and the larger Puget Sound Region.

The group is seeking grant funding and individual donors to support an ambitious and strategic campaign to build local support for transportation choices, including high capacity transit (HCT) in the I-90 corridor, direct HOV to HOV connections at major freeway interchanges, and expanded local transit service. Eastside Transportation Choices has also called for making the retrofit, or replacement of the aging SR-520 Bridge a top regional funding priority.

In 2004, ETC is contemplating a series of community meetings, and presentations to local chambers of commerce to seek input in the construction of a 'peoples' alternative. In the meantime, leaders of the new Transportation Choices Chapter hope to provide a new 'voice of reason' on transportation issues in East-King County.

2004 Environmental Legislative Priorities - Forests, Streams, Energy and Toxins

Groups stress need to protect current safeguards

OLYMPIA, Wash. - At the start of the 2004 Washington legislature, 14 conservation organizations representing tens of thousands of residents joined together to encourage elected representatives to pass important new measures and to continue safeguards of our health and the environment.

The groups have given highest priority to four issues involving forests, streams, power and toxic pollution, and made "No rollbacks" a special priority for this legislative session.

The four main priorities are:

• Certified stewardship for state-owned forests, including the preservation our remaining old growth.
• Safeguarding water levels in Washington streams for vital fish habitat, water quality, irrigation, power and recreation.
• Fostering more reliable and sustainable energy by encouraging electric utilities to include energy-efficiency savings and reasonable amounts of renewables such as wind, biomass and solar in their mix of power sources.
• Funding to eliminate and clean-up persistent toxic chemicals such as mercury, dioxin and PCBs.

In addition, the state's environmental community will encourage legislators to keep Washington "a national leader on environmental health and stewardship," said Bruce Gryniewski, executive director of Washington Conservation Voters.

Groups backing the priorities are Earth Share of Washington members 1000 Friends of Washington, American Rivers, Audubon WA, Center for Environmental Law and Policy, NW Energy Coalition, People for Puget Sound, Sierra Club, Transportation Choices Coalition, Washington Environmental Council, Washington Toxics Coalition and other Washington environmental groups -- NW Ecosystem Alliance, League of Women Voters, Washington Conservation Voters, and WashPIRG.