Hi folks. Check out the new Olympic Peninsula Environmental News “gateway” website that I’ve put together at olyopen.net. Goal for this site was to create a central location where you could find all the news, events, legislation, opinion, etc. from all governmental, non-governmental, and miscellaneous sites that relate to environmental protection of the Peninsula, Sound, Straits and adjoining ocean.

I intend to keep it very focused. Anyone wanting to post events, news or opinion, can register and enter their info. I’ve “seeded” the site with info, but will be looking to train folks to enter it themselves. If you have a group that wants to learn how to do this, contact me at al at albergstein.com (remove the word at and replace it with the normal at sign of course, just trying to reduce spam).

al bergstein - port townsend - al at albergstein.com

from Endangered Orcas Focus of Proposal; Government Offers Recovery Plan for Puget Sound Group, Associated Press

Federal agencies must now consult with the fisheries service to make sure their actions will not harm the whales’ habitat. Eighteen military sites covering nearly 112 square miles of orca habitat have been excluded from the critical habitat area.

Apparently, endangered orcas are a threat to national security.

from Gregoire takes first swipe at huge Sound cleanup, by Warren Cornwall, Seattle Times, 14 dec 06

“… in releasing a $220 million, two-year proposal for cleaning up the Sound, Gregoire made a cautious step toward what she has said is a top initiative in her administration. It’s a plan calculated to build momentum for a broader cleanup in coming years while also winning over a public that appears lukewarm to ambitious and costly efforts.

Creosote logs are an easy target - old piers and rail platforms - but are now, and have been for decades, environments of marine life and birds. Seeing the gulls gather for an evening as they swoop in low and stall for the updraft to a creosote piling, as at Quilcene by the dozens, does little to urge that they be removed by other than natural causes - unless you are a barge and towboat contractor (but beware to burn drift in your campfire). - JF

“The money she wants to spend would be about a 17 percent increase compared to the two previous years, for a wide range of efforts from restoring an estuary of the Snohomish River to hauling creosote-soaked logs off beaches. But it represents a fraction of the estimated $18 billion to $27 billion it could cost to achieve Gregoire’s goal of completely restoring the Sound to health by 2020.

” ‘We have to show the public that, in fact, Puget Sound is sick,’ Gregoire told reporters Wednesday at a news conference in a building at Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park overlooking the Sound.

” … one of the divers, Mike Racine of Snoqualmie, offered Gregoire a graphic account of what he sees spilling into the Sound when he dives beneath the water around Seattle after a hard rain: all the debris and pollution washed off nearby streets and homes.”

more from Gregoire takes first swipe at huge Sound cleanup