Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard, Deepwater Horizon response.

As we near the two year anniversary of BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion, the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history, one has to wonder if BP has learned a thing from that incident. Our Federal Government has yet to fully hold BP accountable as Gulf state residents desperately try to get a vote on the RESTORE Act which would dedicate the BP oil spill penalties to restore the Gulf Coast communities, environment and economy—where the damage from the BP oil spill was done—rather than simply being deposited into the Federal Treasury. After eleven workers lost their lives in the Deepwater incident BP made lofty promises to implement even more stringent safety requirements than mandated by federal regulations to prevent future disasters. After almost two years without accountability, yet another explosion at BP’s Cherry Point refinery in Washington State prove these promises ring hollow.

As fire crews continue their attempt to fully contain the fire from the explosion at BP’s Cherry Point refinery, comments from BP spokesman Scott Dean indicate where Big Oil’s priorities lie.

“The refinery continues to produce products for customers, and it is too soon to speculate on future supply impacts.”

With over 100 workers evacuated watching the fireball from the parking lot, amazingly BP did not even halt the refining process.

Local news station King5 photo.

Even more alarming, this same BP refinery was fined 13 different times in 2010 for serious safety violations.

So what exorbitant penalty was BP forced to pay for to teach them a lesson for continually putting workers safety at risk? They were fined $69,000. Plain and simple- 23 million dollars per day is worth more than $69,000. Unless this dynamic changes, unless Congress steps up and holds Big Oil accountable for their transgressions, companies like BP will make their billions as Washington State burns, the Gulf suffers and workers lives are put at risk.

Tell Congress to Hold BP accountable!

Photo by Nic Callero

A few months ago I asked one of the most important questions I have asked to date, which was for my girlfriend Megan’s hand in marriage. Many important decisions were made and internal conversations resolved leading to the one simple question of “will you marry me?”

When should I ask? Where should I ask..?  Should I talk to her father first?…what if she says no?….How the hell do I even know what size ring to get?

Despite this seemingly unending stream of internal dialogue, there was one question I did know the answer to. The ring I purchased had to be special, and it had to be special in two ways. First, Megan had to love it plain and simple. Second, the ring had to be from a Jeweler that has pledged their opposition to Bristol Bay’s proposed Pebble mine.

Photo by Nic Callero

As lifelong Oregonians, avid backcountry campers and myself a bona fide salmon fishing addict, untouched places like Bristol Bay have a very special place in both of our hearts. Oregon has very few of these unspoiled treasures left, Alaska has many and Bristol Bay may be the crown jewel. I have had the pleasure of traveling to Alaska many times fishing throughout the state and exploring some of these untouched wonders. I have spoken with Alaskans and Oregonians whose jobs and livelihoods depend on the health of the Bristol Bay fishery, many of them are my friends. This is why supporting a jeweler who recognizes that Pebble mine is the wrong mine in the wrong place was so important- for both of us.

Photographer Michael Melford captures the essence of Bristol Bay

Over the past few years, dozens of jewelry companies have pledged to boycott any gold sourced from the pending Pebble mine. The pledge recognizes that Alaska’s Bristol Bay Watershed is an ecosystem of national and international significance, supporting the world’s largest wild salmon fishery. The Pledge also points out the Pebble Mine proposal would jeopardize the salmon fishery and the businesses and native communities it supports.  It is very hard to argue this point as Pebble mine would:

• Be the largest open pit mine in North America, up to two miles wide destroying over 60 miles of prime salmon spawning habitat.
• Require massive earthen dams 700 feet tall to contain 10 billion tons of toxic mine waste.
• Be located in an unstable seismic zone prone to frequent earthquakes.
• Require nearly 35 billion gallons of water a year, critically reducing flow to multiple salmon rivers.

The Jeweler I decided on was a local Ben Bridge store here in Portland, Oregon. When I purchased the ring I made a point to tell every single employee in the store that their opposition to the Pebble mine was the reason they were getting my business, I was even able to leave a note for the owner. A small but symbolic step to spread the word about the threat Pebble mine poses to Bristol Bay, one of the planet’s remaining untouched wonders.

Oh, and most important my now fiancé Megan said Yes. My next tough question will be trying to convince her to take our honeymoon to Bristol Bay’s Nushagak River to fish for salmon.

Urge federal agencies to protect the wildlife of Bristol Bay against toxic mining. You can also “like” Stop Mining Pollution on Facebook and follow @NWFSalmon on Twitter for important updates.

You can also come by our booth (#2508) and say hi.








On Friday, February 10th at 11 a.m. in the Hood Room, join National Wildlife Federation for a presentation by celebrity naturalist and author David Mizejewski. called “Create a Backyard Wildlife Habitat Attracting Birds, Butterflies & Wildlife.” David will also be signing copies of his book,Attracting Birds, Butterflies and other backyard Wildlife.


Can you make it? Let me know by connecting with NWF’s Pacific Regional Center on Facebook and Twitter We’ll be sending out up-to-date information on what is happening at the Garden Show and in our region!

Washington east of the Cascade Mountains is dry – parts of it have only 7 inches of rain a year, making all but desert.   Yet that is some of Washington’s richest farm land, growing most of the nation’s hops, and an awful lot of cherries, apples and pears, not to mention dairy and increasingly respected wine.   Water for those crops comes from the Cascades, where snowfall in the winter feeds rivers and farms in the summer.  Salmon too rely on that melting snow to provide river flow and cold water needed for spawning.

Climate models suggest that the snowpack is going to largely disappear.  Not that there will be much less precipitation, just that it will more and more fall as rain, running off rapidly, rather than as snow, melting into summer.   This research about Mt Adam’s glaciers directly feeds into that story.

Pacific Northwest agriculture is not the only area impacted by the melting glaciers from climate change. Water supplies dependent upon the Andean and Himalayan glaciers are also threatened. In the Himilayas the Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that water for agriculture in Asia is expected to decline by 20% by 2030. This causes local and global leaders to worry about the future of food production.

Even Yakima agriculture is starting to worry.  This is the political “red” country – deeply Republican.  It is represented by Rep. “Doc” Hastings, Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, a Republican a dismal record on the environment (League of Conservation Voters scores of 0% for the 106^th through 109^th Congress, rising to a whopping 3% in the 110^th and 4% in the 111^th Congress)  . Yet in his district, people in agriculture are starting to ask questions like “what are we going to do about this climate change stuff and our water supplies?”  Guys in coveralls know that their livelihood depends on snow.

So what are we going to do?  Conserve water – use it more efficiently and maybe switch away from water intensive industry like dairy?   Yep – everybody agrees that has got to be on high on the agenda.  But there is also a need to restore salmon to the Yakima River.  When federal dams were built and the river engineered, the 800,000 to a million salmon dwindled to a few thousand.  The Yakama Nation, a salmon tribe, had its treaty rights to fish made meaningless, once there were no fish.  Restoring salmon is a tough sell in that Congressional district.

NWF and our allies are working towards a comprehensive approach – using the need for change that climate disruption is causing.  After more than 2 years of discussion, every major interest in the Yakima basin has agreed on a plan that will help fish, farms and families.   It involves a mix of ambitious salmon restoration, protection about 200,000 acres of private and public lands to support a healthy watershed,  better use of existing water supplies and infrastructure and expanding water storage.

Look for more on the Yakima in the coming months – its an exciting and innovative project.

You can learn more about our work at the National Wildlife Federation Pacific Regional Center by going to our website and following us on facebook and twitter – @nwfpacific!

Washington, DC in the snow 2010 Photo by: Bryn Fluharty

The storm descended upon us here in NWF’s Seattle office early Wednesday morning and covered much of Western Washington in a blanket of fluffy white mixed with a treacherous layer of slick ice. The storm has been severe enough to knock out power to hundreds of thousands of homes in the area and for Governor Gregoire to declare a state of emergency.

Seattle residents are well known for our inability to cope with severe weather such as snow (I have spent much of my adult life defending the city’s reputation when it shuts down under 2 inches of snow). Even if the snow does not in fact cause the world to end, the extreme snowstorms do illustrate what scientists are talking about when they link more wacky weather to global warming.

Snowmageddon and Global Warming

For many people the term global ‘warming’ indicates that we would see fewer and less severe winter storms. Climate skeptics point to some of these unusual snow events to increase doubt about global warming.

However, warmer average temperatures actually cause more snow in some regions, not less. Take the Great Lakes, for example. Warmer weather keeps the lakes from freezing, which puts MORE moisture in the air that then falls as MORE snow.

Snowmageddons, however, could influence how people think about global warming in a different way. After the 2010 snow event in Washington, DC, researchers at Columbia University decided to see how weather impacts our ideas about global warming. They found that the day to day weather that we experience, such as severe snow storms, does have a significant impact on how we view global warming. Warmer weather was found to increase people’s concern about global warming and its impacts. To read more check out the Huffington Post article.

Weather is not Climate

What we see day to day in events such as ‘Snowmageddon’ is weather. This is what the planet chooses to throw at us each day including heat waves, rain, snow or hurricanes. Climate, on the other hand, is the long term trends that we see. We will continue to have cold snaps and unusual snow events like this, but overall temperatures continue to rise due to global warming pollution.

Looking down at a snow covered North Seattle Photo by Bryn Fluharty

Just as one or two hot events do not prove the global warming is happening neither do these cold events prove that it is not. What does prove that global warming is happening and that it is caused by humans is the overwhelming scientific evidence.

Want to keep in touch with us here in the Seattle NWF office? Connect with us on Facebook for more information on global warming and other issues facing the nation’s wildlife and wild areas!

• Learn more about global warming >>

By using reusable bags such as this one we can reduce the amount of single use plastic and paper bags. Photo by: Bryn Fluharty

The ban in Seattle will be put in action in July 2012 and will ban the thin plastic bags found in grocery stores, department stores and other. Paper bags will still be available in stores for a cost of $0.05 per bag. The hope is that the ban will promote the use of reusable bags in place of disposable bags and that the paper bags used will be recycled.

Plastic bags have been seen as an issue throughout the country in cities such as Portland, OR and Washington, DC. Portland opted for a ban on plastic bags while DC chose to implement an additional tax on bags. According to Environment Washington there are 292 million disposable bags given out in Seattle each year. A large portion of these bags end up as trash and in Puget Sound.

Throughout the country communities like Sleepy Hollow New York are working to clean up their areas of plastic bags and protect the planet. If you are interested in ways that you can help protect the planet and reduce waste check out some fun tips from Eco-Schools USA!

Other cities such as Edmonds, Mukilteo and Bellingham have already approved similar bans. Now groups such as Environment Washington are now hoping to expand the plastic bag ban to the rest of the state. Want to take action and help keep plastic bags out of Puget Sound? You can Take Action through Environment Washington and tell your representatives to help our wildlife in Puget Sound!
We want to know how you feel about the ban! Let us know!

A functioning floodplain without development Photo by: Bryn Fluharty

It is 2am and my mother wakes me up. I can hear the sound of rain falling heavily outside which meant one thing, flooding at our rental. Every time it rained this hard my mother got the call from her tenants that the basement was flooding, again. This would prompt a late night drive the 15 minutes away where my mother would spend the late part of the evening and early morning digging trenches around the rental until to try and stem the flow of water into the house. As a single mother with two young children she relied on the rental for a significant part of our income and had to take care of issues such as flooding on her own as my brother and I were too young to help.

The problem that we and so many others faced was an issue of poor planning. When my family first bought the property the information was not disclosed to us that it had issues with flooding.  The house is in the Thornton Creek Floodplain and so is particularly vulnerable to flooding. The Thornton Creek watershed runs from Shoreline south into North Seattle and finally empties into Lake Washington at Matthews Beach Park. Like many urban streams and rivers development has encroached upon the creek and does not allow for the natural processes to occur. This does not mean that there is no flooding; it means that flooding will occur and will cause damage to the development that gets in its way.

Living in a floodplain carries with it significant risks to its human inhabitants. Many families like mine incurred thousands of dollars worth of damage as well as emotional stress because of flooding. According to the City of Seattle Thornton Creek has had major incidents in 1996/7, 2003 and 2006 with other s in 1990, 1986, and 1978. In 2007 the area experienced a 100-year storm event which caused flooding despite having the Meadowbrook retaining pond which failed to protect the residents. This initiated a lawsuit against the city by local residents due to damage caused by flooding. As the impacts of climate change continue we will see more events like this.

Development in floodplains is bad for people as well as wildlife. Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, cutthroat trout, steelhead, and rainbow trout have all been found in the creek. The full potential for fish habitat in the creek is in part due to the loss of connectivity to the floodplain and the lack of habitat such as deep pools, large woody debris and riparian cover (click here to find out more about Thornton creek). The removal of these elements are all associated with encroaching development.

Flooding in the house has been greatly reduced in part due to the Meadowbrook Retaining pond as well as significant modifications that my mother made at her expense. As a part time teacher and single mother the flooding acted as a huge financial and emotional drain for my mother and our family. If initial planning had been done in a smart way my family and others in the area would not have had to deal with these issues.

Programs such as the National Floodplain Insurance Program (NFIP) run thorough the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) subsidize development in floodplains. This program encourages development in floodplains and further indebts our government as more claims come through due to damage from flooding. The National Wildlife Federation is working hard to encourage smart development and stop encouraging further development of our floodplains. This will help our wildlife as well as our communities so that I and so many others can enjoy the sound of rain instead of worrying that it is simply the drum beat of impending flooding.

Do you have stories about flooding? We want to hear them!

A baby pudu was recently born at the Woodland Park Zoo.

A baby pudu was recently born at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.  Pudus are the smallest deer species in existence and are native to tropical forests of South America.  Our friends at the zoo were kind of enough to post a video of the little guy to YouTube, which is sure to elicit a great big “AWWWWWWWWW!” from anyone who watches it.

(I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that two species of pudu are listed as a Vulnerable due to loss of their habitat for farming and cattle ranching, as well as unsustainable hunting and competition with exotic species introduced by people.  National Wildlife Federation is working to stop that kind of habitat loss, and you can find out more about that work here.)

Enjoy the video below and the warm fuzzies you’ll surely feel from watching it, and be sure to check out National Wildlife Federation’s very own Wild Animal Baby for the kids in your life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via Flickr's Mark Abel

Most Americans aren’t friends with a single scientist … yet they let one into their living room every night.

According to a 2005 survey, only 18% of Americans say they know a scientist personally. But about half of the people who deliver forecasts on your local television news are trained scientists.

Meteorologists have a unique opportunity to educate Americans about the threats the climate crisis poses to people & wildlife. That’s why Dr. Amanda Staudt, climate scientist with the National Wildlife Federation, is spending the week in Seattle at the 91st annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society.

What’s the difference between climate & weather? What role does the AMS have to play in educating Americans about the latest climate science? Watch my conversation with Dr. Staudt:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’ll be bringing you updates from the AMS annual meeting all week long. In the meantime, learn more about the connection between the climate crisis and stronger hurricanes, heat waves & wildfires at NWF.org/ExtremeWeather.

Jennifer Murck speaks to Eco-Schools teachers in Seattle

This week, Eco-Schools USA held its first-ever teacher training workshop in Seattle. The event, sponsored by Amgen and held at the Woodland Park Zoo, was attended by 14 K-12 educators. It was an exciting opportunity for our staff to introduce the educators to the program’s seven step framework, and to invite the educators to apply for seed grants to help jumpstart their Eco-Schools efforts.

At the workshop, NWF was joined by Dave Wilton from Facing the Future. He introduced the group to a number of curriculum resources and activities that educators can use to bring Eco-Schools USA program into their classroom.

One activity had the teachers throwing an unraveling ball of yarn across the room to replicate the interconnectedness between a variety of environmental issues.  Another activity had participants sucking  M&M’s up through drink straws to understand competition and scarcity issues surrounding our natural resources.  It was pretty hilarious!

We were also joined by Mike Wierusz from Cool School Challenge (CSC). Mike showed the group how to complete an energy audit and introduced the participants to the CSC classroom carbon calculator, which helps schools calculate their carbon footprint.

I was amazed at the talent of the teachers in attendance and their commitment to furthering environmental education at their schools. Many of the teachers have already taken strides toward exposing their students to environmental education and sustainability, and found the Eco-Schools USA program to be a useful framework for organizing all of their efforts.

Follow the program on Twitter @ecoschoolsusa to learn more!