Monthly News Archive:
January 2007
Table of Contents:
- Earth Share of Washington Named One of 59 "Smartest Organizations Online"
- Washington legislature may move to preserve farmlands
- Puget Sound salmon rescue plan takes giant step forward
- Plan aims to help clean up Columbia River
- Stories of a Wildlife Rescue - "Running Free"
- State to issue new stormwater rules today
- Pace, style of growth endanger Puget Sound
- Global warming to cost Washington State
- Mount Rainier National Park officially closed
- Single Puget Sound transportation board proposed
- It's a good year for eco-resolutions
- Audubon waits to erect osprey nest poles
- Environmentalists push lawmakers for Puget Sound cleanup
Earth Share of Washington Named One of 59 "Smartest Organizations Online"
What does Earth Share of Washington have in common with the following organizations?
- Doctors Without Borders
- The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- The Mayo Clinic
- The Nature Conservancy
- MoveOn.org
They were among the “59 smartest organizations online in 2006� for setting new standards for savvy internet marketing. Earth Share of Washington’s website is www.esw.org. Squidoo.com, NetSquared, and GetActive collaborated on the awards, which honored...
January 25, 2007
Add Comments...Washington legislature may move to preserve farmlands
OLYMPIA -- The Legislature is mulling a plan to create a new state Office of Farmland Preservation in hopes of shielding more farmland from development.
The main push for Senate Bill 5108 comes from Skagit County, but backers told the Senate Agriculture and Rural Economic Development Committee on Monday that the measure would address a statewide problem.
Farm groups, environmentalists and conservation districts are supporting it. The building industry is opposing it.
Andrew Cook, a lobbyist for the Building Industry Association of Washington...Read the full story
Puget Sound salmon rescue plan takes giant step forward
The best hope for saving Puget Sound chinook salmon got its official blessing Friday from federal officials responsible for protecting endangered species.
The challenge is huge: to reel salmon back from their precipitous decline, boosting population sizes tenfold or more while the equivalent of two Seattle's worth of people move into an already populous region, building homes and paving green spaces all around the Sound.
The price tag is steep. The effort could cost $1.1 billion by 2015.
But the level of enthusiasm is high -- and it's widespread.
This is "a s...Read the full story
Plan aims to help clean up Columbia River
Imagine a river so polluted that some of the creatures living in it must be disposed of as hazardous waste.
That's the river running past Vancouver.
Members of the four-state Northwest Power and Conservation Council, meeting Wednesday at the Vancouver Convention Center, learned about the latest effort to tackle pollution in the Columbia River.
The council, formed by the Northwest Power Act of 1980, typically weighs in on issues related to offsetting the harm hydroelectric dams cause to fish and wildlife habitat in the Columbia River basin. Council officials, however,...Read the full story
Stories of a Wildlife Rescue - "Running Free"
By Naturalist Kevin Mack from Earth Share organization PAWS Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, published in the January 15, 2007 edition of Wild Again
The shock of catastrophic impact. The pain of the resulting injuries. The terror and confusion of being captured and transported. Medications, anesthesia, surgery, pain killers, confinement in foreign surroundings and constant fear and uncertainty, all for the purpose of healing. For two months she had endured what to her must have been a nightmarish...Read the full story
State to issue new stormwater rules today
Outside the snow is melting, sending at first rivulets and then torrents of meltwater flowing across Seattle's parking lots and streets and lawns, carrying transmission fluid and oil and pesticides and the rest of a pollution stew that is the most pervasive pollution threat to Puget Sound.
Today, in what the state Department of Ecology calls a historic step, the agency will issue new rules -- years after they were legally required -- designed to take steps toward controlling this pollution-laced concoction.
"We are here today to announce one of the most important steps that ...Read the full story
Pace, style of growth endanger Puget Sound
Humans also in peril, action team report says
As the Puget Sound region's human population booms, the basin's marine-life population declines -- and, as a new report reaffirms, one is a direct cause of the other.
Toxic contaminants are rising in sediments, salmon and harbor seals. Ever-spreading pavement increases storm-water runoff and water pollution. And greenhouse gas buildup is raising water temperatures and reducing mountain snowpacks and summer stream flows, the Puget Sound Action Team said in its biennial State of the Sound report.
The team -...Read the full story
Global warming to cost Washington State
Millions will be spent on higher prices, fixes, study says
Global warming is known to be destructive, but a study released Wednesday shows it also will be expensive, costing Washington state and its residents millions of dollars in higher prices and remedial measures.
Climbing temperatures over the next 40 years will boost the cost of timber, water and crops, cause twice the wildfire damage that occurs now, exacerbate health issues and require expensive shoring-up to avoid damage to Tacoma, Willapa Bay and other low-lying areas.
Those are the top-lev...Read the full story
Mount Rainier National Park officially closed
Limited access allowed only on weekends
ASHFORD -- On the south side of Mount Rainier, Rampart Ridge curves high above National Park Inn. Most winters, the valley is filled with the roar of snowplows, the droning of cars and the coming and goings of guests and day visitors.
This winter, the park is closed. The road is empty. So are the chairs at the inn.
The only sound on Rampart Ridge is from the snow settling on the forest floor.
"It's as pristine as it gets," said Mike Gauthier, the park's head climbing ranger. "I...Read the full story
Single Puget Sound transportation board proposed
The Puget Sound region's tangle of transportation agencies should be replaced by a 15-member, mostly elected board to choose which highway and transit projects get built, a state panel will recommend.
If created, a new "Puget Sound Regional Transportation Commission" would take over many decision-making powers held by the state Department of Transportation, Sound Transit, county councils and the Puget Sound Regional Council of local governments, said the report, requested by the Legislature.
"Today there are too many cooks in the transportation priorities kitchen," declares ...Read the full story
It's a good year for eco-resolutions
In 2006, the environment became hip.
Newsweek proclaimed "the New Greening of America" on its cover. Concerns about global warming gained urgency, spurred by Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth." Oprah did a show on global warming. Consumer choices multiplied for green products and services. Even Wal-Mart embraced "sustainability." The challenge for EcoConsumers in 2007: Build on these encouraging developments, and prove that environmental awareness is not just a passing fad. Consider making these EcoConsumer resolutions for the New Year:
Put the brakes on. Driving contri...Read the full story
Audubon waits to erect osprey nest poles
Installing the concrete nesting sites now would cost twice what the group had budgeted.
EVERETT - Housing prices are so high that even osprey are having a hard time finding a new place to live.
It's the fish-hunting raptors' need for a posh water view that could force them to go searching for new homes.
As many as 25 mated pairs of osprey nest on old creosote-coated pilings scattered across the shallow waters of Possession Sound and the Snohomish River delta along the Everett waterfront.
Bird experts believe the loca...Read the full story
Environmentalists push lawmakers for Puget Sound cleanup
OLYMPIA, Wash. – For environmentalists, the health of Puget Sound will take center stage as lawmakers return to Olympia with a clear directive from Gov. Chris Gregoire to invest in the restoration of the state's most important waterway.
Many in the environmental community, which has had much success in recent years in getting green measures into law, laud the governor's involvement and hope it will ensure real action on the sound.
"We need to make sure we're making real progress and not just paying lip service to the issue," said Clifford Traisman, ...Read the full story
