Monthly News Archive:
November 2007
Table of Contents:
- New solar company for Washington State
- A Sound Transit do-over?
- Smart Growth in Pierce County
- Halt in coal plant permitting a 'clean' victory
- Trees giving bizarre clues to climate change
- Will it be safe to eat fish from the Duwamish?
- Stories of a Wildlife Rescue - "A Tragic Beginning, an Uplifting End"
- Orca Researchers Call for Dam Removal
- Washington lawmakers plan to pass a major highway-tolling bill
- Climate Solutions Journal - The New World War II
- Green schools save money and energy
- Earth Saving Tips - LED Lights Make Your Holiday Greener
- Ingenuity yields habitat at Washington wildlife refuge
- Bay Area Oil Spill: A worry for us, too
- Building a neighborhood on Vashon Island
- Congressman seeks expansion of Washington wilderness area
- NBC's 'Green Week': Not Media Business as Usual
- Washington state approves landmark land swap with timber company
- Proposition 1 Analysis: No vote won't make traffic woes go away
- Northwest businesses start to sense the gold in going green
- Seattle's big bike plan gets a green light
- Oil spill case a win for state waters
New solar company for Washington State
Residents can now claim a generous tax incentive for using solar systems built in the state
Even as winter darkness descends on the Puget Sound region, Washington’s outlook for solar power is getting brighter.
In a move that could lead to far more widespread adoption of solar power by the state’s residents, an Arlington company will begin retailing roof-ready solar modules next year.
Silicon Energy LLC is the first Washington company to make solar modules, which will allow residents to claim a generous tax incentive for usin...Read the full story
A Sound Transit do-over?
Light rail could be back on the ballot in less than a year
Snohomish County and other Puget Sound area voters resoundingly rejected spending billions of dollars on light rail and road projects on Election Day.
But according to Sound Transit, a new poll suggests voters like light rail and want more.
Nearly three-quarters of south Snohomish County voters surveyed want to see light rail expanded, according to Moore Information of Portland and EMC Research of Seattle, the two consulting firms that conducted the survey.
Smart Growth in Pierce County
New legislation reflects primary goals of The Cascade Agenda
The Pierce County Council today approved one of the most far-reaching Purchase and Transfer of Development Rights ordinances in the country, setting the stage for Pierce County to become a regional leader in the effort to conserve farmland, working forests and natural areas through market-based tools.
The Council voted 7-to-0 in favor of the ordinance that authorizes the use of Transfer of Development Rights, or TDRs. The ordinance will help to accommodate growth in Pierc...Read the full story
Halt in coal plant permitting a 'clean' victory
Kalama facility would have spewed millions of tons of CO2 yearly
Consumer and clean-energy advocates are applauding Tuesday’s decision by Washington state siting officials to halt consideration of a proposed coal-fueled power plant in Kalama.
Members of the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) unanimously rejected developer Energy Northwest’s alleged plan for permanently storing (“sequestering”) some of its climate-damaging carbon dioxide emissions – as required by state law.
Senate Bill...Read the full story
Trees giving bizarre clues to climate change
CARSON, Skamania County — Suspended 20 stories in the air, Ken Bible looks down on the crown of a 500-year-old Douglas fir and ponders a mystery.
It's not the obvious one: How does a man without superpowers hover above the treetops?
That's easy. The University of Washington forest ecologist rose to his lofty perch in a metal gondola hoisted by a 285-foot-tall construction crane.
The vantage point allows Bible to study the upper reaches of this old-growth forest, where a reproductive orgy is under way.
"We've never seen anything like ...Read the full story
Will it be safe to eat fish from the Duwamish?
At issue is just how much pollution needs to be removed from the river
A chinook salmon's iridescent scales gleam under the street lamps of the First Avenue Bridge. Blood drips from its gills, soaking into the wooden pier. The smells of fresh fish, creosote and diesel exhaust mingle.
"Pure chrome," says a pleased Phil Hamilton, nodding at the fish pulled from the Duwamish River, a Superfund site. Safeway will pay a Muckleshoot Tribe fisherman more than $100 for the fish -- close to 30 pounds -- once it is cleaned and iced.
Hamilton's comment referred...Read the full story
Stories of a Wildlife Rescue - "A Tragic Beginning, an Uplifting End"
By Naturalist Kevin Mack from Earth Share organization PAWS Wildlife Center, published in the November 23, 2007 edition of Wild Again
On June 16, 2007, a vehicle struck a female Mule Deer on Interstate 90 west of Cle Elum, Washington. A call was placed to the Kittitas Wildlife Rehabilitation Group, and a state-permitted wildlife rehabilitator named Marnee drove to the scene of the collision to see if anything could be done for the deer. Upon arrival, Marnee discovered that the deer was deceased....Read the full story
Orca Researchers Call for Dam Removal
Six killer whale researchers say removing dams on the Snake River would benefit not only endangered salmon but also the killer whales of Puget Sound.
Writing to the regional administrator for NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, the six scientists say measures proposed to restore salmon without removing the dams won't do enough for the salmon — or the orcas that eat them.
"We cannot hope to restore the killer whale population without also restoring the abundant salmon upon which these whales have depended for thousands of years," they stated in t...Read the full story
Washington lawmakers plan to pass a major highway-tolling bill
No sense waiting: With failure of Proposition 1 in metro Puget Sound, they say, guidelines need to be established for the inevitable use of tolls to pay for transportation improvements.
Look for a major highway tolling bill to come out of the 2008 Washington Legislature, which convenes in January. Transportation leaders say they're confident they can pass legislation next year that will create a framework for how tolls will be imposed and collected down the road. That might not mean tolls will be collected anytime soon, however.
"I think everybody understand...Read the full story
Climate Solutions Journal - The New World War II
_- By Patrick Mazza
The alarm bell is gonging. The world’s climate scientists have now sounded a call to general quarters – The world must now level off global warming pollution, begin to reduce it within seven years, and cut it up to 85 percent by 2050, or set off the greatest catastrophes in the history of the human race, and some of the greatest in the Earth’s geological record.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading scientific body on global warming and climate change, released its latest scientific synthesis report over the weekend. It ca...Read the full story
Green schools save money and energy
Science teacher Mike Town and his students are working to lower Redmond High School's carbon emissions, one classroom at a time.
Last year, their campaign reduced the school's carbon footprint by 72 tons and saved the school about $7,500 in its electric bill alone.
But that's just the start of the Lake Washington School District's savings from going green.
The district has tallied $550,000 in savings over the past 2-½ years by recycling more, watering less, reducing waste and generally using less energy, according to the district's resource-conservation manager.
...Read the full storyEarth Saving Tips - LED Lights Make Your Holiday Greener
Green tips are provided by Earth Share of Washington organization, Union of Concerned Scientists
Twinkling lights on trees and houses are an icon of the holiday season, but their energy consumption might put a damper on your celebratory mood: this year’s holiday lights could generate as much global warming pollution as about 250,000 cars, according to UCS research. Most of this electricity is needlessly wasted, because the mini and C-7 incandescent lights used by most homeowners are only about 10 percent efficie...Read the full story
November 15, 2007 | 
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Ingenuity yields habitat at Washington wildlife refuge
RIDGEFIELD - You'd scarcely notice while gazing at grebes or eyeing egrets, but the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge is not strictly "natural" habitat.
To support a wide array of wildlife, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service makes use of a dizzying array of ditches, sloughs, lakes, levees and pumps to keep water levels just so. Drain gates and fill gates provide the off-on switch for moving water around the refuge, a low-tech version of the binary system of ones and zeroes that operates computers.
"This is kind of like ...Read the full story
Bay Area Oil Spill: A worry for us, too
It could have happened here. The oil spill in San Francisco Bay has revived the longstanding worries about an environmental disaster in Washington's inland waters.
Last week's spill was so preventable as to verge toward the absurd. The spill when a pilot ran a container ship into a Bay Bridge tower created a state of emergency, killed or injured hundreds of birds and contaminated beaches.
As environmentalists here point out, the apparently key role of human error in the San Francisco spill bears resemblances to what Washington has experienced repeatedly over the years. And t...Read the full story
Building a neighborhood on Vashon Island
VASHON ISLAND -- What does it mean to know your neighbors?
That you'll collect their mail for them when they're out of town, and they feed your cats? Or maybe you have them over for the occasional barbecue?
In a 19-home development going in here, just blocks from the Vashon town center, it means a lot more than that. Here, surrounded by trees and wetlands in a place called Roseballen, neighbors have slogged though the mud to help lay one another's foundations. They've nailed on roof sheathing together and unrolled bundles of turf for each other's la...Read the full story
Congressman seeks expansion of Washington wilderness area
WASHINGTON — Environmental groups are hailing a new plan to expand the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area east of Seattle by 22,000 acres.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, would designate land near Interstate 90, east of North Bend, as federally protected wilderness.
The measure would increase the 394,000-acre reserve of craggy Cascade peaks, alpine lakes and forest sandwiched between Interstate 90 and Highway 2.
The Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area, created in 1976, is about 50 miles south of the proposed Wild Sky wilderness area nor...Read the full story
NBC's 'Green Week': Not Media Business as Usual
This is "Green Week" at NBC Universal, a seven-day revelry of environment-themed content spread across the company's various TV channels and other properties. The 150 hours of programming -- integrated into everything from news and sports to soaps and entertainment -- is certainly a first for a major media company.
What, really, is NBC doing? Is this a one-off stunt intended to "green up" its image before it returns to, as they say, regularly scheduled programming? Or is this something more substantive, more integrated, longer-ter...Read the full story
Washington state approves landmark land swap with timber company
Huge blocks of prime hunting and wildlife habitat land in Yakima and Kittitas counties went from checkerboard ownership to state control with the approval of a land swap between an Idaho-based timber company and the state Department of Natural Resources.
The land exchange, believed to be the biggest trade of private land for state-managed land in state history, will put into government ownership 82,548 acres previously owned by Western Pacific Timber.
The timber company will receive 20,970 acres -- appraised at just over $56 million, virtually the same amount as the larger l...Read the full story
Proposition 1 Analysis: No vote won't make traffic woes go away
If measure fails, officials may try again in a couple of years
Voters answered one question when they apparently rejected the ambitious roads and transit proposal on Tuesday's ballot, but that just sets up another one:
Now what?
It's not as if the region's transportation problems will disappear with the failure of the measure, which aimed to address those concerns by extending the Sound Transit light rail system north, south and east from Seattle, and by adding highway lanes and interchanges in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.
Even if the...Read the full story
Northwest businesses start to sense the gold in going green
Frustrated by national policies that create uncertainty, many businesses are plunging in to find profit-driven solutions to global warming. A recent Chamber of Commerce conference revealed a lot of progress.
When 250 Puget Sound business leaders gathered last month in Vancouver, B.C., at an annual Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce conference, they sat up straight and paid attention as their peers – including Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, and WalMart — described responses to growing global warming concerns. This wasn't altruism. This was bottom-li...Read the full story
Seattle's big bike plan gets a green light
The city of Seattle has approved one of the nation's most aggressive attempts to raise the popularity of bicycles.
The 10-year Bicycle Master Plan calls for 118 miles of new bike lanes and 19 miles of trails, as well as lane markings and signs to create awareness of cycling across the city.
After three years of discussions, City Council members passed the plan unanimously Monday, adding momentum to the cycling movement.
Mayor Greg Nickels has said he hopes commuter cycling will triple. Census figures showed that about 2 percent of workers traveled on bikes in 2000, a...Read the full story
Oil spill case a win for state waters
A whistle-blower's courage and federal prosecutors in Alaska have given Washington state some extra protection against oil spills in local waters.
And their actions have resulted in something that didn't happen after a mysterious spill blackened Vashon Island beaches three years ago: criminal accountability for ConocoPhillips, the nation's third-largest oil company.
For the next three years, the company's five huge tankers will operate under the collective gaze of a court-appointed monitor, officials from the U.S. Probation Office, the Read the full story