Crosscut articles of the past 10 days with the most clicks.
Crosscut articles of the past 10 days with the most reader comments.
Posted Thu, Dec 18, 6 a.m.
Seattle's not the only city tied in knots over its waterfront planning. Intramural squabbles beset Bellingham's waterfront vision, too. It could be a new seaside community. Or not.
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Posted Tue, Dec 2, 6 a.m.
Here's an analysis of the recent Supreme Court decision to continue allowing the Navy to use sonar in the presence of marine mammals. It's not as simple an issue as you might think.
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Posted Wed, Nov 26, 7 a.m.
Washington's death row inmates and corporate fat cats are employing strategies that could come in handy for seagoing brigands.
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Posted Wed, Oct 15, 2 a.m.
Our deputy editor braves the "treacherous" Montlake Cut and wonders why everyone isn't commuting to work by boat.
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Posted Fri, Aug 22, 4 a.m.
Next in the Alaska scandals roundup: An errant senator's son and Troopergate. Part 2 of 2
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Posted Mon, Jul 21, midnight
A columnist writing in The New York Times boycotts wild Alaskan salmon, a 180-degree turn from an earlier position in favor of the fishery. Is his reversal motivated by the need to publicize a new book?
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Posted Thu, Jul 17, 5 a.m.
An Alaskan whose family holds a subsistence fishing permit chronicles their annual trip to the Kasilof River, where they fish for sockeye salmon using set-nets.
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Posted Sat, Jun 14, 8 a.m.
Seattle's last old Pacific schooner is about to be dismantled. The Wawona's impending "death" this summer offers a lesson in the challenges of maritime preservation. It's a tough end for a landmark ship that people have worked so hard for so long to save.
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Posted Tue, May 13, 10 p.m.
An environmentalist explains why better federal regulations are needed to police polluters among the world's fleet of cruise ships: State and local authorities can only do so much. Over six months this year, Puget Sound will see 211 big ships bearing 835,000 passengers call on Seattle.
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Posted Sat, May 3, midnight
Many Seattleites have either never traveled the Inside Passage or seen only parts of it, remotely, from the deck of a cruise ship. A trip through on a ferry is well worth the time.
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Posted Mon, Apr 14, 11 p.m.
While officials are calling for a moratorium on commercial salmon fishing along much of the West Coast, they're opting for a different tactic in Puget Sound: continued fishing.
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Posted Mon, Apr 14, 11 p.m.
The salmon fisheries of the Northwest have spawned a new industry of bureaucrats, lawyers, environmentalists, sport fishers, commercial interests, scientists, and natives, all focused on the absence of fish. Meanwhile, four sockeye returned last summer to a lake in Idaho once teeming with tens of thousands.
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Posted Fri, Jan 11, 5 a.m.
The core reason for all the mismanagement is an antiquated structure, argues a former Port Commission candidate. A restructured port needs to serve a multi-county region. And we need to split up the fundamentally different businesses of seaport and airport.
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Posted Thu, Dec 20, 4 p.m.
The state Auditor's new report on the Port of Seattle finds rats in the rat's nest of local governments.
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Posted Sat, Nov 3, midnight
Dorothea was one of the first, born in the age when private luxury boats were rare – and smaller. But she was a beauty, and the crew and those who worked on her are mourning her loss.
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Posted Fri, Oct 19, 5 a.m.
Newly displayed at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle, the Leif Erikson statue reminds us of those brave though seemingly sullen souls who fled Norway so many years ago. Of course, it should be pointed out that they fled what today is the highest-rated, most-livable country in the world.
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Posted Wed, Sep 26, 5 a.m.
Bruce Babbitt speaks for a strategy to bring down the Snake River dams and save our wild salmon – all while enjoying the taste of success.
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Posted Wed, Sep 19, midnight
A 500-year-old dream that shaped the Pacific Northwest has finally been realized, thanks to global warming. So let's toast the past before fighting about the future of the Arctic.
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Posted Fri, Aug 31, 5 a.m.
Some of the most interesting and odd-ball historic preservation work is going on outside of Seattle in the land of vanishing farms, strip malls, and "Kung Pao weiner schnitzel."
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Posted Mon, Jul 16, midnight
Historic preservation is tough in boomtowns, but a new push to landmark downtown buildings is a great way to get the city to broaden the discussion about the importance of our past.
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Posted Mon, Dec 29, noon 2008
A Washington Post story indicates that after a major multi-decade, multi-billion-dollar effort, there's little or no progress in saving Chesapeake Bay.
MOREPosted Thu, Dec 25, 4:26 p.m. 2008
Jane Lubchenco's designation to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), signals Barack Obama's intent to get serious about climate change. It is also recognition of Pacific Northwest leadership in marine science.
MOREPosted Mon, Sep 1, 12:13 p.m. 2008
Between national party conventions, I took an advance look at Joseph Miller's upcoming memoirs, The Wicked Wine of Democracy, to be published next month by University of Washington Press. The book provides an almost too-candid portrayal of politics and lobbying in the Northwest and nationally over 50 years and is an intriguing chronicle of some of the main figures in Northwest political life.
MOREPosted Thu, May 29, 1 p.m. 2008
I made the decision last month to pull my seven-year-old daughter from school for field trips of our own. For one day every two weeks, for the remainder of the school year, we are exploring the Northwest's offerings, history, and culture.
MOREPosted Wed, Feb 13, 3:37 p.m. 2008
A former NOAA officer, otherwise anonymous, has filed an interesting report about weather conditions in Admiralty Inlet, where the Port Townsend-Whidbey Island ferry route runs (when it does). His verdict: the state's plans to replace the current ferry with a smaller boat would risk lives, due to the mighty winds and waves prevalent in the area. The blogger describes, with detailed records, how the wind comes around the Olympics and creates intense pressure and high waves. That calls for boats that are "large, powerful, and sturdy," he writes. Here's his scary weather report:
MOREPosted Wed, Nov 21, 10 a.m. 2007
The surprise pre-Thanksgiving yanking of the last two of the old "Steel Electric" boats in the Washington ferry system – the Klickitat and the Illahee – might mean the end for some venerable old friends. The aging ferries have deteriorating hulls. Earlier this fall, the two others in the fleet, the Nisqually and the Quinault – were pulled from service due to corrosion bad enough that the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, critical of the ferry system's slowness to replace the vessels, dubbed the ferries "Washington state's Titanic".
MOREPosted Wed, Nov 14, 2 p.m. 2007
King County's leap into the ferry business makes sense politically, maintaining a passenger-only service being abandoned by the state. The big winner is King County Councilmember Dow Constantine, whose district includes West Seattle and Vashon Island. But from one perspective, this news is a head slapper.
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