Environment

"No one got everything they wanted, but we have a very good compromise on the table. … Please pass this ordinance as amended July 13."

Negotiations continue in the U.S. Senate around massive infrastructure and budget measures. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, is among the Senate Democrats pushing provisions aimed at addressing climate change .

Every year in late August, the tiny Makah Nation welcomes neighboring tribes and others from all over the state to celebrate its traditions and learn about its unique culture. Many of the protocols on display during Makah Days were developed over millennia in its homelands on the far northwest corner of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

It's peak season for whale watching in the Salish Sea. But the iconic southern resident killer whales that for decades spent their summers here have been scarce, likely because of a lack of salmon.

11:45 a.m.: Updated with new information from the state Department of Health. The Washington state Department of Health has a preliminary tally of heat-related deaths in the past week. At least 78 people died statewide because of the scorching temperatures that began June 26.

We know that people suffer when smoke from wildfires fills the air. It's a nuisance and a health hazard. But how does it affect wildlife? Researchers at the University of Washington are tackling that question.

State lawmakers passed significant legislation this session that takes concrete steps to address climate pollution and the concerns of communities that it has harmed the most in Washington. KNKX environment reporter Bellamy Pailthorp sat down with Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick to talk about the changes that will be taking place in our state.

Cool offshore flow and mild summer heat normally make western Washington an ideal place to grow red raspberries. The state commission for that crop reports growers here provide about 70 percent of the nation's premium flash-frozen raspberries. But the record heat has left immature berries sunburnt, while causing ripe ones to melt and shrivel on the vine.

In another blow to the operators of the Electron Dam on the Puyallup River, a judge in federal District Court has barred its parent company from diverting any water to generate power until it gets permits under the Endangered Species Act.

In July of 2018 and 2019, large numbers of oysters, cockles and clams died on beaches all around Puget Sound. No one knew why. It was a particularly bad couple of years, but summer mortality events with mass die-offs of shellfish happen regularly. They've been recorded by researchers in western Washington as far back as the 1930s. The source has remained a mystery.

Anger lingers among tribal leaders in Washington after a surprise veto from Gov. Jay Inslee last month. As he signed the cap and trade Climate Commitment Act, the governor struck down new powers for tribes.

European green crabs were found in Washington’s inland waters in 2016, prompting extensive monitoring. Now state officials say this destructive invasive species is spreading in several coastal locations. They thrive in shallow water and soft sediment, which Washington’s estuaries provide. And over the past two years it seems the populations of green crab are exploding, especially on the coast.

Every spring, gray whales migrate up the West Coast on a 12,000-mile round-trip from their calving grounds in Mexico to the Alaskan Arctic, where they feed on tiny crustaceans. Since early 2019, an unusual mortality event has reduced their population by more than 20 percent. Whales wash up severely emaciated or sometimes suffer from ship strikes or entanglements made worse by lack of food. But researchers in Washington have identified a small group of gray whales that returns to Puget Sound every year in what seems to be a survival strategy.

A celebration of Earth Day in honor of the Salish Sea took aim at the Port of Seattle Thursday. Representatives of several groups, including 350.org and the Center for Biological Diversity, called attention to the port’s impact on marine life.

Even as human impacts cause increasing numbers of animal strandings along beaches in Washington and Oregon, there has been a gap in critical care for them. Till now, there was no marine wildlife hospital in either state dedicated to rehabilitating hurt or sick animals.

In less than a decade, all cars and light-duty vehicles sold in Washington will be powered by electricity, not fossil fuels. That’s the goal set within legislation that has passed the state House and Senate. The 2030 timeline is now part of a bill that aims to prepare the state for a zero-emissions transportation future. It’s on its way to Gov. Jay Inslee for signing.

It looks increasingly likely that Washington will ban Styrofoam, reduce plastic waste and strengthen recycling markets. A bill to that effect is nearly through the Legislature.

Throughout the central Puget Sound region, wide trails offer the promise of safe and accessible transportation corridors for people who bike or walk. Many are converted railroad right-of-ways, and some connect to high-speed transit. But many stand alone, limiting their utility.

Spring has sprung, many people are now vaccinated and there’s renewed excitement to get outdoors. The pandemic has again led to a surge in outdoor recreation as people look for safe things to do in the open air.

A law that would respond to the plastic waste crisis in the U.S. is advancing in the state Legislature. It passed the state Senate earlier this month; a hearing in the House appropriations committee is expected this week.

In December, sunflower sea stars were declared critically endangered by an international union of scientists. This species is the largest and hardest hit among the iconic and colorful starfish that have been devastated by a wasting syndrome.

Environmental justice became part of federal law in 1990. Washington might soon catch up. A proposed state law would infuse the concept into the work of seven key agencies.

Twenty years ago this Sunday, the Nisqually earthquake rattled the region. It registered 6.8 on the Richter scale and shook for 40 seconds. The damage was significant. Bricks flew. It caused cracks in the Capitol dome in Olympia and sealed the fate of Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct as well as many older buildings in Pioneer Square. But it was nowhere near as drastic as some of the other possible geological scenarios that could lead to truly devastating shaking.

The Makah Tribe was the first community in the state to shut down because of COVID-19. Now they’re more than halfway through a vaccine rollout and are hoping to reopen this summer. The remote nation in Northwest Washington has remained closed to visitors since mid-March , with a checkpoint on the only road in and out.

One of the first actions by President Biden after his inauguration was bringing the U.S. back into the Paris climate agreement . A new study from a researcher at the University of Washington shows people how much more we will have to do, to meet the goals in that accord.

New licensing requirements for whale watch boats working in Washington waters take effect March 1. They’re the result of years of work, both from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and from the governor’s southern resident killer whale task force, which recommended the implementation of a licensing system. But this week, state lawmakers began considering changes that would weaken those rules .

The pressure is on to pass climate bills in Olympia. Attempts to get policies through that limit carbon pollution by putting a price on it have often failed here – including two statewide voter initiatives with broad or bipartisan support.

166 years ago this past Friday, on Jan. 22, 1855, the Treaty of Point Elliott was signed in what is now Mukilteo, Washington. The document is the source of much power for many local tribes today, but it wasn’t always that way. It’s celebrated every year in tribal ceremonies that are open to outsiders.

A pod of orcas has returned to a part of British Columbia where they have not been seen for years.

Endangered species in Washington will get a much-needed boost following the settlement of a major lawsuit about runoff and water quality.

For about a month now, a snowy owl has been spending its daytime hours on several rooftops in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. Prior to that, there were sightings of the iconic bird in West Seattle and Burien .

Seven years ago, a wasting disease began killing sea stars all along the West Coast. The largest and hardest-hit species, the sunflower sea star ( Pycnopodia helianthoides), is now critically endangered, reduced in numbers by some 90 percent. Scientists with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) put it on their “red list” last week. But researchers at Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island say there’s reason for hope.

As they prepare for the next legislative session, state lawmakers are reviewing a report that calls for laws to ensure environmental justice. It comes from a new entity, created in 2019 and charged with developing strategies to address findings in the Washington Environmental Health Disparities Map.

Operators of commercial whale-watching vessels are pushing back against proposed new regulations from the state. The Department of Fish and Wildlife is implementing a mandatory licensing system for the vessels , after the Washington Legislature passed a directive last year that also instructed the department to develop rules for viewing endangered southern resident killer whales.

Wind and rain hammer the coast in the early morning hours at Copalis Beach in Ocean City. But Dawn Radonski is already out in her waders, waiting for the perfect moment to pull a five-gallon bucket of saltwater from the waves. She’s a harmful algal bloom specialist with the Quinault Indian Nation, and she’s sampling for a certain kind of especially toxic algae. “The pseudo-nitzschia,” Radonski says. “I look underneath the microscope, and I count all the pseudo-nitzschia that are in there. And if there's a lot of them, we run them through a toxin filter to see if they're producing toxins in the water.” She does this every week, taking the samples back to her lab from four beaches. The Quinault tribe monitors this section of the coast as part of the Olympic Region Harmful Algal Blooms partnership, or ORHAB . It was created in June 1999 in response to seemingly random closures of shellfish harvest due to outbreaks of marine biotoxins. Its data helps predict the outbreaks, to protect

Demand for fresh food from local farms has surged in recent months, even as the pandemic has sometimes made it harder to get. Many people are looking for healthy ways to avoid grocery store shopping and support local small businesses.

A controversial plan to raise domesticated steelhead in net pens in Puget Sound faces a new legal challenge. Cooke Aquaculture wants to use its remaining leases with the state, despite the ban on net pen farming of non-native fish. So, it proposed switching from Atlantic salmon to sterilized native steelhead.

Underwater noise from ship traffic is one of the major threats to Puget Sound’s endangered Southern Resident orcas. It can interfere with the whales’ ability to communicate, navigate by echolocation and find the increasingly scarce salmon they prefer. A recommendation from the orca recovery task force convened by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2018-19 is to reduce noise and disturbance from large vessels. Work is underway to develop a program called "Quiet Sound," which will alert ships to the presence of whales so they can re-route or slow down.

Climate action advocates say they’re hopeful they’ll see more success in Olympia, when lawmakers return to session. A recent webinar with several environmental groups provided an overview of the election outcome, and its implications for climate policies.

UPDATE, Nov. 12: The state Department of Health says Dungeness crab from the Washington coast is safe to eat. The agency's tests for domoic acid came in well below the threshold that would trigger a delay or total shutdown of the crab season. Officials will run another set of tests before the season opener, which happens after the crabs get big enough for harvest, normally sometime in December.

A potentially record-setting season f or razor clam digging in Washington has come to a screeching halt. Warm water off the coast has helped toxic algae thrive, rendering the clams unsafe to eat.

Environmental groups have become some of the biggest spenders in U.S. politics this election. Washington state is no exception. The Washington Conservation Voters political action committee (WCV PAC) has poured some $425,000 into about 10 state legislative races. In each case, fossil fuel interests have funded campaigns on the other side.

Two Democrats are vying to fill the open seat in Washington’s 10 th Congressional District. State representative Beth Doglio is running against former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland. The race has been called a microcosm of the recent split in the Democratic Party between establishment liberals and left-leaning progressives. One issue that clearly displays their differences is how they would address climate change.

The state department of Labor and Industries has begun a rule-making process to protect outdoor workers from wildfire smoke. It will make Washington the second state after California to do so.

The clean energy sector was one of the fastest growing parts of the economy before the pandemic, and it’s been one of the hardest hit. But researchers say jobs in energy efficiency or solar or wind power are still some of the best paid .

Officials from the U.S. Department of the Interior and United States Geological Survey have been touring sites in Mount Rainier National Park this week. They’re looking at five new locations where upgraded monitoring stations will soon enhance detection of lahars. There’s also a proposal to add another 12 lahar monitoring stations in the park, to complete an expansion they say will put detection at Rainier on par with other high-threat volcanoes in the region, such as Mount St. Helens.

Washington has been stepping up systems to prevent and reduce the risk of oil spills, due in part to the looming expansion of Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline. It could result in as much as a sevenfold increase in the number of oil tankers traveling from Vancouver, B.C., through Puget Sound. In 2018, the state Legislature passed the Strengthening Oil Transportation Safety Act. Among its requirements, along with a barrel tax on crude oil and updates to contingency plans for oil spills, was the establishment of the Salish Sea Shared Waters forum.

Despite the happy news that Puget Sound’s Southern Resident killer whales welcomed two new babies to the J-pod last month, their population remains at risk, with just 74 left in the wild. A new licensing requirement for commercial whale watch boats is expected to start next year . It aims to reduce noise and other stress that could be impacting them, by regulating the numbers of boats allowed in proximity of the Southern Residents as well as when and how long the whales can be watched.

The Puyallup Tribe intends to sue Electron Hydro and its backers over violations of the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. The tribe’s 60-day notice, filed in federal court, comes after a whistleblower working at the Pierce County dam site this summer revealed that the company was using artificial turf in the Puyallup River.

It’s been a busy week for Washington state agriculture officials tracking the potential spread of the Asian giant hornet. Scientists say they found evidence of six new hornets near Blaine, indicating the likelihood that a nest is in the area. The invasive species, sometimes called murder hornets, can decimate honeybees and other pollinators, threatening ecosystems and agriculture. Fifteen of them have now been found in Washington since they were first seen here last year.

The Port of Seattle owns and operates six public parks along the Duwamish River that many people don’t even know exist. That’s changing as the port engages community in a renaming process meant to help residents reclaim the properties and their heritage.