Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
March & April 2009 - The Training Issue
The class of 2009 is in training and we’re having a great time. This year’s class consists of 13 fantastic students. We have enjoyed a few new activities and field trips this year.
Highlights for me included touring Bellingham Cold Storage, learning about effective educational techniques from our 4-H Educator, Michael Wallace, and doing a beach seine at the Post Point Lagoon with Glen Alexander from the Padilla Bay Estuary Research Reserve – we found fish, a nudibranch, and numerous other neat creatures in the net!
Once again, I've been a bit overwhelmed by training preparations and have neglected the newsletter. But the world has not slowed down one bit and I suspect you haven't either! There's a ton of things I have to share with you as well as upcoming events and opportunities on the events page.
Enjoy!
Marine Invasive Species Monitoring (MISM)
On Monday April 13 from 6 to 9 pm, at 322 N. Commercial Street on the second floor we’ll have Ann Eissenger wildlife biologist with Nahkeeta Northwest explain marine invasive species and train us in what to look for and introduce the MISM program.
“The Puget Sound Marine Invasive Species Volunteer Monitoring Program (MISM) is a new citizen-science shoreline monitoring effort – targeting 32 non-native marine and estuarine organisms. The purpose of the program is to identify the distribution of selected non-native species and provide early detection for high-risk invaders.”
You are all welcome to join us for this Beach Watchers training session or any others you wish to brush up on. I sent out a course agenda earlier this month to everyone. Please just let me know when you would like to come.
Ferry Landing Fish and Wildlife Habitat Enhancement Project
This project to restore and enhance marine habitats, reduce water pollution and secure eroding shoreline bank, spearheaded by Watershed Master / Beach Watcher Wanda Cucinotta on Lummi Island is ready to roll!
Want to help do some fun work and protect our marine waters and public tidelands? Come join our Saturday morning volunteer work parties this spring.
Volunteer crews will:
• Remove noxious weeds, install approx. 2,000 native plants along the bluff areas around the ferry terminal and shoreline to the north.
• Install 1 mutt mitt station with signage at a location approved by Whatcom County.
• Remove rough creosote logs from the northern shoreline.
• Install pretreatment bays and an oil/grease separator to the rain gardens in the new ferry terminal parking lot.
• Install bioinfiltration measures along the wetland path north of the new parking lot.
• Install and maintain a Bioclean catch basin insert in the catch basin immediately north of the southern entrance to the new ferry terminal parking lot.
Call Wanda at 220-3077 if you would like to volunteer, or have any questions and/or concerns. Check out their Blog: http://liwec.wordpress.com.
When 1+1 = 100
Garden-variety pesticides add up to more than the sum of their parts when it comes to attacking the nervous systems of salmon, a newly published study finds.
http://www.wsutoday.wsu.edu/Pages/Publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=13986&PageID=
Cutting water use Could be Best Way to Save Electricity
Policies that lead to reduced water consumption could help to address climate change, writes Ben Block, a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/13/network-water-efficiency-climate-change
Check out The Jellyfish
Inventor Chad Maglaque doesn’t just want to bring change to the world of renewable energy -- he wants to mass produce it. The Seattleite has recently invented an affordable, accessible version of the micro-wind turbine, which he calls the Jellyfish
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009415.html
Global Warming Groove
This is serious fun!
http://www.climatecrisisjam.org/
Ecosystem Services
Around the world and in our backyard people are talking about ecosystem services – a way to recognize, value, and protect the ecosystems that provided life-support services to humanity. This issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences delves into ecosystems services and challenges to implementation.
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/28.toc#content-block
An Ocean Fairy Tale
A beautiful story with a powerful message - a different way to educate!
http://chge.med.harvard.edu/programs/healthyoceans/once_upon_a_tide/home.html
Highlights for me included touring Bellingham Cold Storage, learning about effective educational techniques from our 4-H Educator, Michael Wallace, and doing a beach seine at the Post Point Lagoon with Glen Alexander from the Padilla Bay Estuary Research Reserve – we found fish, a nudibranch, and numerous other neat creatures in the net!
Once again, I've been a bit overwhelmed by training preparations and have neglected the newsletter. But the world has not slowed down one bit and I suspect you haven't either! There's a ton of things I have to share with you as well as upcoming events and opportunities on the events page.
Enjoy!
Marine Invasive Species Monitoring (MISM)
On Monday April 13 from 6 to 9 pm, at 322 N. Commercial Street on the second floor we’ll have Ann Eissenger wildlife biologist with Nahkeeta Northwest explain marine invasive species and train us in what to look for and introduce the MISM program.
“The Puget Sound Marine Invasive Species Volunteer Monitoring Program (MISM) is a new citizen-science shoreline monitoring effort – targeting 32 non-native marine and estuarine organisms. The purpose of the program is to identify the distribution of selected non-native species and provide early detection for high-risk invaders.”
You are all welcome to join us for this Beach Watchers training session or any others you wish to brush up on. I sent out a course agenda earlier this month to everyone. Please just let me know when you would like to come.
Ferry Landing Fish and Wildlife Habitat Enhancement Project
This project to restore and enhance marine habitats, reduce water pollution and secure eroding shoreline bank, spearheaded by Watershed Master / Beach Watcher Wanda Cucinotta on Lummi Island is ready to roll!
Want to help do some fun work and protect our marine waters and public tidelands? Come join our Saturday morning volunteer work parties this spring.
Volunteer crews will:
• Remove noxious weeds, install approx. 2,000 native plants along the bluff areas around the ferry terminal and shoreline to the north.
• Install 1 mutt mitt station with signage at a location approved by Whatcom County.
• Remove rough creosote logs from the northern shoreline.
• Install pretreatment bays and an oil/grease separator to the rain gardens in the new ferry terminal parking lot.
• Install bioinfiltration measures along the wetland path north of the new parking lot.
• Install and maintain a Bioclean catch basin insert in the catch basin immediately north of the southern entrance to the new ferry terminal parking lot.
Call Wanda at 220-3077 if you would like to volunteer, or have any questions and/or concerns. Check out their Blog: http://liwec.wordpress.com.
When 1+1 = 100
Garden-variety pesticides add up to more than the sum of their parts when it comes to attacking the nervous systems of salmon, a newly published study finds.
http://www.wsutoday.wsu.edu/Pages/Publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=13986&PageID=
Cutting water use Could be Best Way to Save Electricity
Policies that lead to reduced water consumption could help to address climate change, writes Ben Block, a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/13/network-water-efficiency-climate-change
Check out The Jellyfish
Inventor Chad Maglaque doesn’t just want to bring change to the world of renewable energy -- he wants to mass produce it. The Seattleite has recently invented an affordable, accessible version of the micro-wind turbine, which he calls the Jellyfish
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009415.html
Global Warming Groove
This is serious fun!
http://www.climatecrisisjam.org/
Ecosystem Services
Around the world and in our backyard people are talking about ecosystem services – a way to recognize, value, and protect the ecosystems that provided life-support services to humanity. This issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences delves into ecosystems services and challenges to implementation.
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/28.toc#content-block
An Ocean Fairy Tale
A beautiful story with a powerful message - a different way to educate!
http://chge.med.harvard.edu/programs/healthyoceans/once_upon_a_tide/home.html
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
February 2009
New and Improved Web Site
I’ve finally updated our web pages (with a lot of help from Vincent, our tech support guy) and I have to say they look beautiful. All of the articles the class of 2008 wrote are linked, so you can explore those if you wish. Take a look:
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/environ/water/beachwatchers.html
I’m also gearing up for this year’s training and, as always, want to recruit as many new Beach Watchers as I can and you can help! Please forward the website to anyone you know who might be interested in participating in the program. Everything they need to know is on the site including dates, times, contact info, and the application.
Is this day and age of information overload, personal recommendations are increasingly important. They really do make a difference.
Stories from the Sea
I've been working with Bob Hendricks, Friends of Blaine Library, and Sonia Hurt to put together what I think will be a great evening for the Blaine community and something that should be of interest to Beach Watchers as well. On February 25, we'll be hosting Val Veirs, Professor with the Beam Reach Marine Science School and President of the Whale Museum, and Todd Schuster, Captain of the Gato Verde. Val and Todd will share their research experience and what has been discovered about orca communication, otherwise known as bioaccoustics.
Sonia Hurt, fellow Beach Watcher, will also share the film The Synthetic Sea - a documentary that explores plastic debris’ harmful effects on our marine life.
I hope you'll join us: February 25, Wednesday 6-8 pm at the Blaine Public Library
Point Whitehorn Marine Reserve
In 2007 the Whatcom Land Trust aquired 54 acres of forest, bluff and beach, and tranferred the land to Whatcom County Parks & Recreation. The newly created park features a 3/4 mile accessible trail to spectacular viewpoints of the Strait of Georgia and San Juan Islands. A switchback path descends from the bluff to access a windswept cobble beach.
That Whatcom Land Trust is celebrating the opening of the Point Whitehorn Marine Reserve this spring and the want to make a splash. They're planning to have tours of both the beach and the upland and they’ve asked if any of our volunteers would be willing to help provide tours of the area (I guess word is getting out that you are a great group to work with!). I already have a tentative yes from Heather Mackay for the wetlands portion. They would love to have Beach Naturalist type tours and perhaps a native plant tour guide as well.
The date is May 25, Memorial Day, and the tours would take place between 11:30 – 1:30.
I’ve finally updated our web pages (with a lot of help from Vincent, our tech support guy) and I have to say they look beautiful. All of the articles the class of 2008 wrote are linked, so you can explore those if you wish. Take a look:
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/environ/water/beachwatchers.html
I’m also gearing up for this year’s training and, as always, want to recruit as many new Beach Watchers as I can and you can help! Please forward the website to anyone you know who might be interested in participating in the program. Everything they need to know is on the site including dates, times, contact info, and the application.
Is this day and age of information overload, personal recommendations are increasingly important. They really do make a difference.
Stories from the Sea
I've been working with Bob Hendricks, Friends of Blaine Library, and Sonia Hurt to put together what I think will be a great evening for the Blaine community and something that should be of interest to Beach Watchers as well. On February 25, we'll be hosting Val Veirs, Professor with the Beam Reach Marine Science School and President of the Whale Museum, and Todd Schuster, Captain of the Gato Verde. Val and Todd will share their research experience and what has been discovered about orca communication, otherwise known as bioaccoustics.
Sonia Hurt, fellow Beach Watcher, will also share the film The Synthetic Sea - a documentary that explores plastic debris’ harmful effects on our marine life.
I hope you'll join us: February 25, Wednesday 6-8 pm at the Blaine Public Library
Point Whitehorn Marine Reserve
In 2007 the Whatcom Land Trust aquired 54 acres of forest, bluff and beach, and tranferred the land to Whatcom County Parks & Recreation. The newly created park features a 3/4 mile accessible trail to spectacular viewpoints of the Strait of Georgia and San Juan Islands. A switchback path descends from the bluff to access a windswept cobble beach.
That Whatcom Land Trust is celebrating the opening of the Point Whitehorn Marine Reserve this spring and the want to make a splash. They're planning to have tours of both the beach and the upland and they’ve asked if any of our volunteers would be willing to help provide tours of the area (I guess word is getting out that you are a great group to work with!). I already have a tentative yes from Heather Mackay for the wetlands portion. They would love to have Beach Naturalist type tours and perhaps a native plant tour guide as well.
The date is May 25, Memorial Day, and the tours would take place between 11:30 – 1:30.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
January 2009
The Envelope Please
As promised, I have some beautiful copies of The Highest Tide generously donated by Goody Hadley, Watershed Master Beach Watcher from the class of 2006, and owner of Lucky Leaf Garden Designs in Fairhaven.
In the category of:
“Holy-Moly-that’s-a-lot-of-hours Watershed Master / Beach Watchers Class of 2008”, the winner is . . . .
Wendy Harris who has contributed over 150 hours is just 7 months!!!!!!!
In the category of
“Marathon contributions from veteran Watershed Master / Beach Watchers,”
the winner is . . . .
Wait, we have a tie – in fact we have a THREE-WAY tie!
Graeme Guthrie from the class of 2007 - 100 hours
Marie Hitchman from the fall class of 2005 – 97.5 hours
and Heather Mackay from the class of 2007 – 97 hours
(Now don’t try to tell me that’s not a tie. There are two kinds of people in this world, “lumpers” and “splitters.” I’m a “lumper” and to me that’s clearly a tie!)
Goody donated three books and I will happily add my personal copy to the pot.
Thank you everyone for dedicating your heart, and your mind, and your time to making our community better!
Beach Watchers in Print
Two more articles written by Beach Watchers from the class of 2008 have been published.
Estuaries, by Jeanne Bogert has been published in the Chuckanut Community & Firefighters Association Newsletter, January 2009 (attached to your email) and
To Grind or Not to Grind, by Sue Brown was published in the Community Food Coop Newsletter, January 2009.
That makes a total of 6 articles that I’m aware of plus several letters to the editor. Wow!
Flow: For the love of Water
I continue to be intrigued by the movie Flow and the responses I got from you all about continuing education opportunities suggests that there’s a lot of interest from the Beach Watchers team, too.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the film you can check out the link here:
http://thewip.net/contributors/2009/01/flow_who_owns_the_worlds_water.html
At the bottom of the article about the movie there is a trailer.
I have called the Pickford Theater several times to find out if we can bring the movie to Bellingham somehow. So far I haven’t been able to connect with anyone. Do any of you have connections at the Pickford? Any experience with bringing movies to the community another way? Any desire to become point person on this project?
Upcoming Events & Opportunities
I am continually trying to improve my contributions to this program, and to do more with less (time generally). To that end I have tried something new here and I hope you will all forgive me for it!
I've published the upcoming Events and Opportunities on a separate blog which is linked above - "Upcoming Events & Opportunities" is a link - and also in the upper right corner of this page.
I have let my webpages get horribly out of date and my hope is that linking my webpages to the Events blog page will allow me to post upcoming events to all of you as well as the public at the same time.
To navigate back to this blog page, click on the WSU Beach Watchers Blog link on the Events page.
As always, if you hate this, or (hopefully) love it feel free to let me know. And if you don't care about this one way or another, that's okay, too.
As promised, I have some beautiful copies of The Highest Tide generously donated by Goody Hadley, Watershed Master Beach Watcher from the class of 2006, and owner of Lucky Leaf Garden Designs in Fairhaven.
In the category of:
“Holy-Moly-that’s-a-lot-of-hours Watershed Master / Beach Watchers Class of 2008”, the winner is . . . .
Wendy Harris who has contributed over 150 hours is just 7 months!!!!!!!
In the category of
“Marathon contributions from veteran Watershed Master / Beach Watchers,”
the winner is . . . .
Wait, we have a tie – in fact we have a THREE-WAY tie!
Graeme Guthrie from the class of 2007 - 100 hours
Marie Hitchman from the fall class of 2005 – 97.5 hours
and Heather Mackay from the class of 2007 – 97 hours
(Now don’t try to tell me that’s not a tie. There are two kinds of people in this world, “lumpers” and “splitters.” I’m a “lumper” and to me that’s clearly a tie!)
Goody donated three books and I will happily add my personal copy to the pot.
Thank you everyone for dedicating your heart, and your mind, and your time to making our community better!
Beach Watchers in Print
Two more articles written by Beach Watchers from the class of 2008 have been published.
Estuaries, by Jeanne Bogert has been published in the Chuckanut Community & Firefighters Association Newsletter, January 2009 (attached to your email) and
To Grind or Not to Grind, by Sue Brown was published in the Community Food Coop Newsletter, January 2009.
That makes a total of 6 articles that I’m aware of plus several letters to the editor. Wow!
Flow: For the love of Water
I continue to be intrigued by the movie Flow and the responses I got from you all about continuing education opportunities suggests that there’s a lot of interest from the Beach Watchers team, too.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the film you can check out the link here:
http://thewip.net/contributors/2009/01/flow_who_owns_the_worlds_water.html
At the bottom of the article about the movie there is a trailer.
I have called the Pickford Theater several times to find out if we can bring the movie to Bellingham somehow. So far I haven’t been able to connect with anyone. Do any of you have connections at the Pickford? Any experience with bringing movies to the community another way? Any desire to become point person on this project?
Upcoming Events & Opportunities
I am continually trying to improve my contributions to this program, and to do more with less (time generally). To that end I have tried something new here and I hope you will all forgive me for it!
I've published the upcoming Events and Opportunities on a separate blog which is linked above - "Upcoming Events & Opportunities" is a link - and also in the upper right corner of this page.
I have let my webpages get horribly out of date and my hope is that linking my webpages to the Events blog page will allow me to post upcoming events to all of you as well as the public at the same time.
To navigate back to this blog page, click on the WSU Beach Watchers Blog link on the Events page.
As always, if you hate this, or (hopefully) love it feel free to let me know. And if you don't care about this one way or another, that's okay, too.
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