Easy reading: Check out our legislative session wrap up; Naki Stevens and Bruce Wishart did a great job for the Sound this session in Oly... What's in a name?: Ecology wants to call it an 'emergency response' tug instead of a 'rescue' tug, according to Chris Dunagan's blog below... It's Spring, have a good weekend:


WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA-
 254 AM PDT FRI MAR 14 2008
 
 .TODAY...SE WIND 10 TO 15 KT BECOMING WEST 10 KT IN THE AFTERNOON.
 WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT. W SWELL 8 FT AT 15 SECONDS. SHOWERS LIKELY.
 .TONIGHT...NW WIND 10 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT. W SWELL
 9 FT AT 13 SECONDS. SHOWERS LIKELY.
 .SAT...NW WIND 10 TO 15 KT RISING TO 15 TO 25 KT IN THE AFTERNOON.
 WIND WAVES 1 OR 2 FT BUILDING TO 2 TO 4 FT. W SWELL 9 FT AT 13
 SECONDS. CHANCE OF SHOWERS.
 .SAT NIGHT...W WIND 15 TO 25 KT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT. W SWELL 9 FT.
 .SUN...NW WIND 10 TO 15 KT...BECOMING SW 15 TO 25 KT IN THE
 EVENING. WIND WAVES 1 TO 4 FT. NW SWELL 9 FT.

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• (3/13 Kitsap Sun BLOG) Neah Bay tug will start service again in July

• (3/13 Skagit Valley Herald) Wetland bank comment period extended

• (3/13 Kitsap Sun) Wetlands Issue Stalls Work on SK Home Depot

• (3/13 Olympian) Residents take in sewer plans

• (3/14 Peninsula Daily News) State park on Miller Peninsula put on hold



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3/13 Kitsap Sun BLOG

Neah Bay tug will start service again in July
Posted by Christopher Dunagan

The Legislature has funded a tug at Neah Bay for a full year, beginning July 1. At an estimated $10,000 a day, the $3.65 million budget should cover the cost, officials say. See story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

Whether the contractor will remain Crowley Maritime and keep the tug Gladiator on station will depend on whether the company wishes to extend its existing contract or wins the bidding for the next contract.

Legislators and staff I have talked to say there is no practical way to fund the tug during a gap in service that will exist from now until July 1. The tug quit a little early this year due to a lack of funding, but this will be the first time it is operated year-round.

After the year is up on June 30, 2009, it could be a whole new ballgame. A new federal administration might support federal funding for the tug with fees on maritime traffic coming into Puget Sound. We’ll have to wait and see.

By the way, Department of Ecology officials want to call it an “emergency response” tug from now on. “Rescue tug" seems to imply that its operations involve search-and-rescue or medical response, whereas the actual mission is to come to the response of ships in distress and keep them from running aground....

http://blogs.kitsapsun.com/kitsap/waterways/archive/2008/03/neah_bay_tug_will_start_servic.html



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3/13 Skagit Valley Herald

Wetland bank comment period extended

Staff Report

Skagit County is extending the deadline for public comment on a wetland mitigation bank in the Nookachamps basin until Thursday, March 20.

Comments on a recent county ruling on the project are now being taken. The county issued a determination last month that grading and shoreline work on 396 acres in the basin will not significantly affect the environment.

The project would convert a former dairy farm into wetlands. Developers could then buy credits from the mitigation bank to offset wetlands they remove from their properties during construction.

The deadline for filing an appeal of the county’s ruling has been extended to April 3.

Project details, including how to comment, can be found on the county’s Web site, http://www.skagitcounty.net.

http://www.goskagit.com/index.php/news/article/wetland_bank_comment_period_extended/


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3/13 Kitsap Sun

Wetlands Issue Stalls Work on SK Home Depot

By Chris Henry

SOUTH KITSAP

A proposal to build a Home Depot on Bethel Avenue is getting close scrutiny from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, causing a delay in the project.

A representative of the corps says the delay is not unexpected.

The proposed project to build a Home Depot store on 17.85 acres has been approved by the Kitsap County Hearing Examiner. The county's Department of Community Development has been working with the corps and Home Depot to address what Patty Charnas, manager of the county's environmental programs division, calls "substantial issues" with the project because of impacts on wetlands identified by the corps.

More at
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/mar/13/wetlands-issue-stalls-work-on-sk-home-depot/


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3/13 Olympian

Residents take in sewer plans

John Dodge
The Olympian

LACEY — About 175 area residents gathered at the Thurston County Fairgrounds on Thursday night to absorb and react to the sticker shock of a $78 million project to expand sewer and stormwater service and upgrade on-site septic systems in a 6,000 acre area around Martin Way near Lacey.

Many wondered how they would pay for their share of the project, which averages $31,376 per lot for the estimated 1,470 homeowners who could be hooked up to sewers in years ahead....

The neighborhoods targeted for sewers include Tanglewilde, Covington and Woodland Creek Estates.

Properties slated to continue using on-site septic systems are not immune to financial burdens. Some would face mandatory or voluntary upgrades ranging in cost from $11,417 to $36,587.

More at
http://www.theolympian.com/southsound/story/388366.html


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3/14 Peninsula Daily News

State park on Miller Peninsula put on hold

By Jim Casey, Peninsula Daily News

SEQUIM — A state park on the Miller Peninsula might as well be in the Arctic Circle, it's been put so firmly on ice.

"A shift in priority" has removed the park — which the state owns but has not developed — from projects for Washington State Parks' centennial celebration in 2013, said Peter Herzog, senior parks planner.

"We had great momentum. We had a lot of steam built up," he told about two-dozen people Monday at Sequim's Guy Cole Convention Center.

But in facing reduced economic expectations, the state Legislature told parks officials to fix what's broken at the parks they already have, Herzog said.

More at
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20080314/NEWS/803140307