Monthly News Archive:
September 2006
Table of Contents:
- Coho salmon making a comback
- Seattle mayor has plan to clear the air
- Growth threatens parks, open space in Washington state
- 2006 is state's worst wildfire year since 1994
- Energy initiative hits utilities
- Initiative 933 could cost state billions
- Scientists tally damage a day after fish die-off in troubled Hood Canal
- Roadless Rule for U.S. Forests Reinstated
- Pacific Coast governors vow to improve ocean conditions
- Washington state wants private companies to sponsor parks
- New study advocates not replacing Seattle's viaduct
- State-run forest lands in Eastern Washington certified 'green'
- Seattle forced to cut transportation tax plan
- Report: Current regulations will clear gorge air
- Battle over land-use initiative heats up in Washington state
- Climate change on the NW coast: Special report
- Seattle mayor wants to plant 649,000 trees
- Could rising mercury levels be a threat to Northwest tribes?
- Washington state's freshwater fish tainted, study says
Coho salmon making a comback
Coho return may be blocked by money woes: After a 100-year absence, coho salmon make local comeback, with help from Yakama Nation
WENATCHEE — Coho salmon making their way up the Wenatchee River this fall are among the first naturally-spawned adults to come back to local waters in more than a century.
Once the second-most-prolific salmon in the Columbia River system, wild coho were wiped out of the upper Columbia River system in the early 1900s.
The Bonneville Power Administration has invested nearly $14 million in recent yea...Read the full story
September 29, 2006
Add Comments...Seattle mayor has plan to clear the air
Nickels says Seattle should set example for world
Saying Seattle must lead the world in battling the globe-warming gases that spew from our cars and furnaces and power plants, Mayor Greg Nickels today will unveil the most comprehensive plan to date to reduce Seattleites' impact on the climate.
The plan amounts to a call for everyone who lives here -- along with the city's businesses -- to change how they get around and how they heat and light their homes and offices. It could mean charging tolls for using certain roads, additional taxes on parking and other ...Read the full story
Growth threatens parks, open space in Washington state
Population growth and development is outstripping state efforts to preserve natural areas, park space and working farms in this state.
That's the conclusion of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, a nonprofit citizens group of farmers, hikers, hunters, conservationists and businesses that has lobbied the Legislature since 1989 to set aside funds for everything from open space and wildlife habitat to boat launches and urban trails and parks.
The coalition, co-chaired by former Govs. Dan Evans and Mike Lowry, has had considerable success, securing more than $450 m...Read the full story
2006 is state's worst wildfire year since 1994
In sheer numbers of acres, this was the worst wildfire year Washington has seen since 1994, regional wildfire officials say.
Preliminary figures — as some fires still burn — show more than 382,000 acres have burned this year, far more than the 58,000 acres lost last year. Still, in 1994 a half-million acres went up in smoke.
Reasons vary for this year's large fires. But mostly it was a hotter, drier summer than in recent years, combined with a lot of lightning strikes and human error.
There were more than 1,350 individual fires, creating dwindling resources to fight ...Read the full story
Energy initiative hits utilities
I-937 would require companies to invest in conservation projects
Voters have a voice in the state's energy future when they cast their ballots in the Nov. 7 general election.
Initiative 937 would require the state's 17 largest utilities to invest in all cost-effective energy-conservation projects at their disposal and obtain 15 percent of their electricity from new renewable energy resources, including wind and solar, by 2020.
Supporters insist the goals can be achieved without taking a big bite out of ratepayer pocketbooks, while building on a regio...Read the full story
Initiative 933 could cost state billions
A statewide property-rights initiative on the November ballot would cost the state, counties and cities $7 billion to $9 billion over the next six years, the state budget office estimated Wednesday.
That's enough to replace both the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the Highway 520 floating bridge, even by the latest estimates.
But that sky-high cost estimate for Initiative 933, from the Office of Financial Management (OFM), rests on a controversial assumption: It assumes the initiative would require governments to compensate landowners in every case in which regulations reduce proper...Read the full story
Scientists tally damage a day after fish die-off in troubled Hood Canal
HOODSPORT, Mason County — Only a day before, Bob Pacunski had watched through a diving mask as the underwater death throes of Hood Canal fish happened all around.
Deep-water rockfish, wolf eels and lingcod had hovered near the surface Tuesday, listless and gasping. The carcasses of perch, sand lance and sculpin drifted in the surf. On the shore nearby were the massive bodies of 10 lingcod, their toothy mouths gaping.
Wednesday, rockfish and eels still clustered near the surface, but they were swimming. Only one fresh lingcod carcass had appeared nea...Read the full story
Roadless Rule for U.S. Forests Reinstated
SEATTLE, Sept. 20 -- Ruling against the Bush administration's efforts to open national forests for logging and mining, a federal judge in California on Wednesday set aside a U.S. Forest Service rule that allows governors to decide which land in national forests is suited for development.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte largely reinstated one of the most sweeping, emotionally fraught and legally contentious land-protection measures in decades: the Clinton-era "roadless rule," which put nearly a t...Read the full story
Pacific Coast governors vow to improve ocean conditions
The low oxygen "dead zones" along the Pacific Coast in Washington and Oregon this summer showed no regard for state borders. Now the governors of those two states and California are vowing to reach across state lines to improve ocean conditions.
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced an agreement Monday to lobby the federal government, spur research and pool efforts for ocean health.
"We know that isolated local efforts cannot adequately address the breadth of degradation to our oceans," Gregoire sai...Read the full story
Washington state wants private companies to sponsor parks
In a bid to rejuvenate Washington state parks, officials are looking to strike a deal with corporate America: give money in return for getting the company name in front of park visitors.
State parks managers are crafting a policy to allow private sponsorship at the state's 120 parks, a proposal the Parks and Recreation Commission could vote on Oct. 19. The agency already has begun advertising for potential sponsors.
"Join the fun when Seattle's active urbanites go play in the great outdoors!" reads an ad the parks agency recently ran in a trade magazine for the sponsorship i...Read the full story
New study advocates not replacing Seattle's viaduct
The state too quickly dismissed plans to tear down and not replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and for all the wrong reasons, according to a disputed new report issued earlier this week -- just before the Seattle City Council plans to make key decisions on the viaduct's future.
The study, by Vermont-based Smart Mobility, says the state overstated the amount of traffic downtown during the next 25 years and downplayed the role public transportation could play. It also says most viaduct traffic could be served better by local streets.
The report -- done for two Chicago-based group...Read the full story
State-run forest lands in Eastern Washington certified 'green'
Rival group says that much more can be done
SPOKANE -- The state is doing a good job of managing its forest lands in Eastern Washington and has earned a "green" certification from a national group, Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland said Wednesday.
State forest lands in Western Washington were certified as green last year, and were recertified this year, said Sutherland, who runs the Department of Natural Resources.
"This affirms the careful, sustainable management practices that DNR uses for all fo...Read the full story
Seattle forced to cut transportation tax plan
'Never-ending' property levy drew complaints
Faced with growing opposition, Seattle officials said Tuesday that they're scaling back a transportation property tax proposal to raise just over a third the amount initially proposed -- and to specify a time limit.
City property owners still will be asked to pay an additional 38 cents per $1,000 of valuation, about $155 for the first year of the tax on a $400,000 home. But the tax will be imposed for just nine years instead of 20 as initially planned. In the ninth year, taxpayers will be asked to vote on extendin...Read the full story
Report: Current regulations will clear gorge air
Environmental regulations already in place will produce cleaner air in the Columbia River Gorge within a dozen years, state air-quality agencies conclude in a new report to be presented Tuesday to the Columbia River Gorge Commission.
Those include a federal rule that requires all vehicles to use low-sulfur diesel; the federal Regional Haze Rule, which requires dramatic improvements in visibility within national parks and wilderness areas; and tough new vehicle emission standards adopted by the Washington and Oregon legislatures.
"What we're saying is, we think 2018 will show...Read the full story
Battle over land-use initiative heats up in Washington state
With the fall election season kicking into post-Labor Day high gear, people on both sides of a controversial land use proposal are stepping up their campaigns.
A Seattle-based coalition opposed to Initiative 933 began its formal push Thursday by blasting the land use proposal as costly, extreme and harmful to the environment.
I-933 calls for governments to compensate people who have been hurt financially by land use or environmental rules.
The Property Fairness Initiative would allow people to use their property as they wished if they are not compensated.
The...Read the full story
Climate change on the NW coast: Special report
Barefoot, with a blue plastic bucket, Kathleen Sayce, ShoreBank Pacific scientist, strides out into the ocean at the Oysterville approach.
She runs the bucket through the waves several times and walks back with seawater from the incoming tide.
She pours five liters of water through a micron-screened tube, catching the screened water from the bottom in containers. A long thermometer floats in the remaining water in the bucket. "Looks like about 16 centigrade, about 70 degrees Fahrenheit," she says tilting it up to eye level.
There is a silty-looking brown slush caug...Read the full story
Seattle mayor wants to plant 649,000 trees
Proposal: Urban forest plan to restore cover lost to development
About one new tree for every man, woman and child in Seattle.
That's what it will take to reach Mayor Greg Nickels' goal for regreening the city over the next three decades -- the planting of 649,000 trees, plus keeping the tree cover we already have.
Since the early 1970s, Seattle has lost more than half of its tree canopy as more businesses and people have moved into the city and smaller homes have given way to apartments and megahouses. Invasive ivy and blackberry bushes have smother...Read the full story
Could rising mercury levels be a threat to Northwest tribes?
Yakama tribal member Johnny Jackson figures he eats fish at least twice a day. Maybe more.
While mercury and other toxins found in Columbia River fish may be putting him at risk, he refuses to abandon tribal tradition.
"I think my people will always be eating salmon," said Jackson, chief of the Cascade band of the Yakamas. "It's the first food on the table. It's No. 1 in our culture."
Mercury, a long-lasting chemical that accumulates in the food chain, can cause neurological damage, learning disabilities and memory loss. But its effects on tribal members — some of whom...Read the full story
Washington state's freshwater fish tainted, study says
Chemical used in flame retardants is culprit
Fish from Lake Washington and the Snohomish River are among the most contaminated in the state when it comes to chemical flame retardants, according to government research released Thursday.
The results are part of the first widespread investigation into the presence of these chemicals in Washington lakes and rivers.
What isn't clear is how serious a threat the contamination is for people catching and eating cutthroat trout and other freshwater fish. That's because there isn't yet an official limit set for...Read the full story
