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Whatcom County official refuses calls to resign, welcomes inquiry

Isaac Stone Simonelli — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 14:00:00 PDT

Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu is refusing to resign following a demand from the Whatcom Democrats’ board that he step down for his handling of sexual harassment allegations against a former Public Works director.

Sidhu said he welcomed a formal inquiry into the facts of the situation, including the county’s actions in addressing misconduct complaints against former Public Works director Jon Hutchings, an associated $225,000 settlement to a female employee and writing a glowing letter of introduction for Hutchings, who moved to a similar role for the City of Lynden.

The latest public comments cap a week of revelations, political fallout and rebuttal stemming from the county misconduct scandal, first revealed by a Cascade PBS investigation on April 19.

On Tuesday, several County Council members confirmed to Cascadia Daily News that they were left in the dark about Sidhu’s handling of the allegations and the settlement, raising questions of accountability and oversight. Only county human resources and legal teams were involved in decisions, Sidhu confirmed.

“The Executive never informed Council about the matter, never scheduled an executive session to discuss it as a personnel matter, and never informed us about the fund the settlement was paid out of,” Council Member Todd Donovan told CDN.

Late Wednesday, Whatcom Democrats’ Executive Board called for Sidhu’s resignation, stating in an open letter that his actions were “indefensible” and “betray basic shared values.” The county executive position is nonpartisan, but Whatcom Democrats had previously endorsed Sidhu in his 2023 campaign for re-election.

“We invite Democratic elected officials to weigh conscience and basic values against party loyalty and political expediency and join us in calling for a resignation,” the Democrats’ letter stated. “Apart from a courageous minority, the other party refuses to hold its own elected officials accountable.”

On Thursday, Sidhu stated that he would not step down and the Democrats’ letter included numerous factual errors.

“I welcome calls for more clarity and transparency around this situation, and if the County Council wants to conduct an inquiry, bring more light to the situation and assess the facts, I will fully support that,” Sidhu said in a prepared statement.

“However, I have no intention of resigning in response to the Whatcom Democrats’ Executive Board’s letter, which is based on incomplete information and misrepresentation of the facts.”

Council members were blindsided

Sidhu, in the letter to council members Tuesday, confirmed that he did not bring the issue before the council, but instead worked alongside the county’s human resources and legal teams to ensure county policies and procedures were followed.

“We acknowledge that Council did not participate nor make decisions on the outcome of the situation outlined in the recent article. The Executive, through HR, Legal, and staff is in charge of making personnel decisions and ensuring policies are followed. We take this responsibility very seriously and I want to assure you that the unique facts of the situation and timing of decisions played a role in how it was ultimately handled. Always with the goal of supporting staff and the county as a whole,” Sidhu stated in the letter.

Instead, the county helped Hutchings secure a new position with a glowing “letter of introduction” to the City of Lynden, where Hutchings now works as the public works director.

Hutchings was confirmed by the Lynden City Council as public works director in May 2023. On Tuesday, Lynden City Administrator John Williams said the city was not aware of any allegations against Hutchings until it was first reported by Cascade PBS.

“The City hired Mr. Hutchings in June 2023, following a thorough hiring and background check process. This process included background checks conducted by both internal and external agencies. No indications of any misconduct allegations against Mr. Hutchings were found in any of the background checks.

“Since then, the City has learned that an investigation and review was recently concluded by the County, which found that Mr. Hutchings did not violate County policies against sexual harassment,” he said.

The county’s outside investigation was never finalized, and “absent a response” from Hutchings, the county declined to issue any findings, according to a letter sent by the county to Hutchings on Feb. 20, 2024 and obtained by CDN.

In his prepared letter to the council Tuesday, Sidhu stood by the content of the Hutchings’ letter of introduction, which he called a “difficult” decision.

“Ultimately, we do not believe that a person is solely defined by their mistakes, and Mr. Hutchings had faced the very real consequence of losing his job,” Sidhu stated. “We understand that not everyone will agree with our decision.”

The November settlement, paid with money in the county’s Tort Fund, was authorized by the prosecuting attorney’s office, the county confirmed. The county manages liabilities with other counties through the Washington Counties Risk Pool, and the settlement was within Whatcom’s $250,000 deductible.

Jed Holmes, the Executive’s spokesperson, noted that the executive is not involved in negotiations or approving settlements and does not have authority to pay out of the county’s Tort Fund.

Speaking with CDN on Wednesday, Donovan said that he was unsure of when or if such consultation for is required or discretionary, particularly with personnel matters that are not litigation.

“That’s a question for the attorneys,” he said.

Donovan raised the issue of the executive’s handling of the actions before and after Hutchings’ departure at the council’s meeting on Tuesday, April 23.

“What I’m seeing in the email that Satpal sent to us is not consistent with what we’ve been hearing from our attorney, who was the attorney on the settlement, which raises some awkward questions,” Donovan said.

He said that there might be a need to consider some things in the county’s charter with regards to where the council is liable for human-resource issues.

“There was a failure here and I think we are in the dark about how this happened,” he said.

A ‘Name Clearing Hearing’

Tuesday’s letter from Sidhu detailed the county’s actions after the executive office learned of the allegations.

He said when the office was made aware of the complaints, “we took swift action.” Hutchings was placed on administrative leave on Oct. 18, 2022 and an independent investigator was retained by the county. Once the investigation was completed, the county adjudicated the complaint.

After receiving multiple public record requests in 2023 targeting material related to the allegations, the county invited Hutchings to participate in a “Name Clearing Hearing.”

Hutchings’ comments in the hearing on Jan. 31 were later described in an email from the county to him as “impactful,” “meaningful” and “emotional.”

“You told us in detail about many issues you were contending with in your personal life throughout all times relevant to the allegations,” the email states. “If the County would have been aware of those circumstances in your personal life, when they were occurring, the County would have provided you typical employee support in the form of professional employee assistance services and options for a leave of absence.”

Hutchings comments were found to be “mitigating,” though not entirely so. Based on the evidence presented, the county determined that he was in “some degree” of violation of its code of conduct. However, the email stated that there was not sufficient evidence to rise to the level of harassment.

“We now consider the complaints levied against you to be resolved,” the county stated in the email.

Refusal to resign

Whatcom Democrats’ Executive Board demanded that Sidhu step down for his handling of the sexual harassment allegations against Hutchings.

The open letter issued Wednesday also stated hundreds of public employees have had to work in an environment that “fails to protect them from harassment because administrators — both appointed and elected — place their relationships with each other ahead of their duty to employees and the public.”

Holmes said Whatcom Democrats Executive Board’s statement inaccurately reflects the information shared by the executive in his letter to the council.

“Executive Sidhu is disappointed that the Executive Board of the Whatcom Democrats adopted a statement with factual errors,” Holmes said. “Situations such as these are always nuanced and with many layers of complexity, and political rhetoric does not help bring clarity.”

The letter by the Democrats states that the executive’s actions “undermine trust in his ability to ensure the level of change needed to prevent this from happening in the future.”

It goes on to accuse the executive and his team of covering up the conduct that led to Hutchings’ departure and continued to do so by providing him with the letter of recommendation.

“We find these actions indefensible,” the letter from Whatcom Democrats stated. “The executive — who signed the key documents — was an active participant in covering up sexual harassment of employees.”

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Topics: Labor

Washington’s gray wolf populations are making a strong comeback

Laurel Demkovich — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 05:00:17 PDT

Washington’s wolf population increased by 20% last year, the 15th year in a row that the number of endangered gray wolves in the state has grown, according to new state figures.

As of the end of 2023, Washington had 260 wolves in 42 packs. That’s up from 216 wolves in 37 packs the previous year.

“Recovery is happening right before our eyes,” said Ben Maletzke, statewide wolf specialist at the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Maletzke presented the state’s annual wolf report during a Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting on Saturday. The results are likely an undercount because of the difficulty identifying every animal in the state, especially lone wolves without a pack.

The 2023 increase follows steady upward trends since the first Department of Fish and Wildlife survey in 2008. The gray wolf population has grown by an average of 23% every year since then, according to the agency.

The increase has led the agency to consider lowering gray wolves’ protection status from “endangered” to “sensitive” under state law. Environmentalists say the move is premature.

Even if the state makes the policy change, wolves would still be protected in the western two-thirds of Washington under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to decide on the reclassification in July.

The decision would be another step in the long-controversial management of wolves in Washington since the first breeding pack was confirmed in 2008. Environmentalists say the state is not doing enough to protect the endangered animals, while ranchers say the state is not doing enough to protect their livestock, which wolves can injure or kill.

“The department says reducing wolf protections would show it’s making progress towards recovery, but this report tells a different story,” Amaroq Weiss, a senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

The annual report shows a continued lack of wolves in Western Washington and fewer breeding pairs than in previous years, she added. Last year, 25 of the state’s wolf packs were considered successful breeding pairs, down one pair from 2022.

Wolf populations have steadily increased in Eastern Washington and the northern Cascades. But Weiss said the state should not consider downlisting wolves until they’ve established territories in other parts of the state where they historically roamed, including from the southern Cascades to the northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula.

Maletzke said there were signs of wolves gaining more of a foothold in Western Washington last year. One known wolf spent significant time there, likely looking for a mate, and more wolves began to move south of Interstate 90.

“This likely means it is only a matter of time before new packs begin to establish in that recovery region,” Fish and Wildlife Director Kelly Susewind said in a statement.

‘Promising’ wolf/livestock conflict data

Three dozen wolves died across the state in 2023, one fewer than the previous year, according to the report.

Most of those deaths were from legal tribal hunting. Vehicles hit and killed five wolves, a cougar killed one. Another four were killed illegally, and those deaths are still under investigation.

The number of wolves killed following livestock conflicts – one of the most controversial pieces of wolf management – was also down in 2023. In 2022, nine wolves were killed by either the state or ranchers following a conflict with livestock.

According to the 2023 report, only three wolves were killed because of livestock conflicts, two by the state and one by a livestock owner.

Nine of the 42 known wolf packs, about 21%, were involved in at least one confirmed or probable conflict with livestock last year.

“The majority of the packs out there aren’t involved in conflicts even though they overlap with livestock,” Maletzke said. “That’s promising.”

But, he added, that doesn’t come without a cost.

The state estimates it spent more than $1.6 million last year on wolf management. More than $1.3 million of that went to research. The rest pays for lost livestock, lethal removal of wolves, and efforts to prevent wolf/livestock conflicts.

These efforts have kept the number of conflicts with livestock low compared to the population growth over time, Maletzke said.

Washington State Standard originally published this article on April 22, 2024.

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Mossback’s Northwest: Keep Clam and Carry On

Knute Berger — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 05:00:00 PDT

According to the Haida First Nations people of the northern British Columbian coast, the origins of humanity began on a beach. Raven found a large clam shell and noticed some creatures protruding from it and squirming inside. He coaxed the reluctant creatures to come out and join the rest of the world. They were the first men.

It seems apt that a clam shell would be part of an origin story in the coastal Pacific Northwest. Thousands of years of shell middens — old refuse deposits — are testament to shellfish’s role in sustaining people here. The variety and abundance of clam shells show they were a crucial source of food, proof of the old adage “When the tide is out, the table is set.” Let’s hear it for the quiet, unsung — well, barely sung — bivalve, the clam.

The receding of the glaciers left behind a pleasant homeland for shellfish. Clams were accessible on sandy beaches. On Haida Gwaii, the Haida’s island homeland, people were living sustainably on game and shellfish as early as nearly 11,000 years ago, not long after the ice retreated and Raven coaxed humanity into the daylight. Indigenous people throughout the Northwest coast dug for clams, carrying special clam baskets and using digger sticks to chase them down. Many middens were the result of processing large numbers of clams, which were often smoked and dried for later consumption or trade. Dried and smoked clams made their way over the mountains. People far from the sea could still enjoy some briny goodness.

The cultivation of clam beds by Indigenous people is one phenomenon that is being revived. Many Native peoples made “clam gardens.” Some argue the term is a misnomer because the gardens involved a variety of techniques and serious heavy lifting. Shorelines were re-engineered to expand sandy beaches. Rocks were removed to increase clam habitat. Walls and revetments were erected to improve cultivation. Aquaculture here is thousands of years old.

Nuu-chah-nulth (formerly “Nootka”) women with baskets for hunting clams. (Northwestern University)

Another, more local, origin story involving clams relates to the beginnings of modern Seattle. The Denny Party, Euro-American settlers credited with starting the city, landed at Alki Point on a chilly, wet November day in 1851. They marked a new wave of settlers on Puget Sound. Among the party was a baby, Rolland Denny, just two months old. His mother, Mary Ann, was sick and couldn’t produce milk, so Duwamish women taught her to nurture tiny Rolland on clam broth until she could. It worked. He lived to be a ripe 87 years old, the last survivor of the original Denny party.

Members of the original Denny Party in 1905. On the right, in the derby, is Rolland Denny. (Wikimedia)

Restaurateur Ivar Haglund capitalized on clams and kept the virtues of clam broth — or clam nectar — on menus with a winking suggestion that it might be an aphrodisiac. But he also promoted an old frontier song that said that the abundance of clams was the essence of the good life in Puget Sound country — especially for those not prosperous in farming, prospecting or any other frontier endeavor.

Haglund sang folk songs on the radio, and one of these was called “The Old Settler.” It was written by an Olympia lawyer, Francis Henry, and published in 1877. It ends like this:

“No longer the slave of ambition,

I laugh at the world and its shams

As I think of my pleasant condition,

Surrounded by acres of clams —

Surrounded by acres of cla-a-ams,

Surrounded by acres of clams,

A poor boy will never go hungry,

Surrounded by acres of clams!”

In other words, one could be as happy as a clam here. There are a number of different versions of the song, and the original had some objectionable lyrics. Haglund named his waterfront restaurant “Acres of Clams,” though he hardly gave up on ambition as an entrepreneur.

Ivar Haglund surrounded by acres of clams. (Ivars Restaurants)

The Olympia connection is interesting in a couple of ways. One is that in the 1860s, when the Washington Territory stretched as far east as Idaho, western Montana and a bit of Wyoming, political observers in the eastern parts felt a division of power between east and west. Today, people might complain about the Cascade east/west divide, but back in the day they grumbled about the politicos throwing their weight around in “clam country,” their epithet for Olympia-dominated politics.

And my college alma mater is The Evergreen State College in Olympia, whose founders named the geoduck as school mascot and the school motto is Omnia extares — translated as “Let it all hang out.” Which all made sense for what was launched as an alternative school in the 1960s.

No clam is more identifiable or as great a conversation piece than the geoduck, a Lushootseed word that relates to the clam’s prodigious digging abilities (it can go deep) and because of an appendage that cannot fit into its shell and can extend up to three feet. It is not a reproductive organ, by the way, but rather the clam’s “neck” through which it breaths and siphons sand and water. The geoduck is considered a delicacy and is used in sushi among other things.

And then there is chowder. In the Northwest, the popular version that caught on was creamy New England-style chowder — back in the day the region was not known for tomatoes, the basis of Manhattan-style clam chowder. Food historian Jacqueline Williams says by the 1880s New England-style chowder recipes began appearing in the first local cookbooks. Territorial cooks could reliably come by more ingredients, like flour, thanks to shipments from back East, and it’s a damp-weather, gut-warming tonic.

Men at a clambake in Fairfax, Wash., in the 1910s. (Washington State Historical Society)

Happy as a clam, quiet as a clam, “Keep Clam and Carry On.” Clams are the symbol of steady, contented existence. They’ve been feeding us for thousands of years — long after they attended our birth on a beach.

Topics: History, Mossback, Mossback's Northwest, Multimedia, Video

ArtSEA: All aboard for art at Sound Transit’s new East Link

Brangien Davis — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 17:55:34 PDT

When Sound Transit unveils the newest link in the light-rail system this weekend (April 27, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.), the Eastside station celebrations will include live music, food trucks, a “Baby Sasquatch on the loose” and a communal mural painting — in addition to a new way to get from Redmond to Bellevue and back.

And thanks to the STart Program (which designates 1% of construction budgets for art), riders will also discover a new crop of public art installations along this 6.6-mile, eight-station segment. Some of these works have been waiting a while for their big debut. Due to various construction delays, several of the art installations have proved faster to complete than the rail itself.

In early 2023, I wrote about two artworks (a Jimi Hendrix mural by Hank Willis Thomas and cut-metal nature scenes by Barbara Earl Thomas) already in place at the Judkins Park Station — a crucial point in the Lake Washington crossing, delayed and now slated to open in 2025. When I drive by the empty station entrance these days, I feel like Jimi’s eyes have glazed over with the wait.

But the artworks along the new East Link are officially open and, if legend holds true, should be easier to spot than a baby Sasquatch. You may have already seen “Verdant” by Seattle artist Leo Saul Berk, which opened earlier this year. The installation of hand-painted louvers douses the Overlake Village Pedestrian Bridge in a bright-green forest path — images that shift and gather as you move through it.

“Verdant,” by Seattle artist Leo Saul Berk, at the Overlook Village station. (Sound Transit)

At the South Bellevue station, look for local artist Katy Stone’s “Slough Wave” spanning the facade of the parking garage. Inspired by the Mercer Slough, these abstract patterns evoke grasses swishing and light dappling through leaves. The play of light is a key element in several of the installations (a subconscious nod to light rail?). At the Bellevue Downtown stop, longtime local glass artist Paul Marioni created “woven” etched glass panels through which sunlight filters, as well as a splattered glass homage to our weather in “Light Rain.” See also “Moving,” his sparkling mosaic of reflective tiles. You’ll find more light reflected in Phillip K. Smith’s “Four Corners Extruded.” The Coachella Valley artist is known for placing reflective and LED-lit boxes in unexpected locations — in this case, it’s a 40-foot-tall, mirrored, x-shaped pole at the Wilburton station. The piece will change according to shifts in the weather, the traffic and the seasons, and take on different color patterns at night.

“Four Corners Extruded,” a reflective light installation by Phillip K. Smith, stands in front of the Wilburton station. (Kurt Kiefer)

Eighth Generation founder Louie Gong celebrates mixed heritage (he is Nooksack and Chinese) with his “Dragon and Phoenix” cut-metal murals at the Spring District stop. A blend of Coast Salish and Chinese art traditions, these curving creatures of legend are joined by one that’s only slightly more domesticated: a housecat. And at the Redmond Technology station (the end of the line, until Downtown Redmond opens in 2025), look for “Move Your Boulder,” a hefty rock piece by Seattle wood sculptor Dan Webb. Crosscut profiled Webb and this endeavor — his first foray into stone carving — when he was finishing it back in February 2020. On each of the three boulders (two weighing in at 12 tons and one a mere three tons) is carved a giant hand, suggesting the daily struggles each of us contends with — and, given the context, perhaps those faced by a massive transit project too.

L-R: Terrance Hayes, Gabrielle Zevin and Octavia Butler. (Seattle Arts and Lectures; Seattle Public Library)

If you aren’t riding the new light rail back and forth on Saturday, consider creating your own transit route to a few favorite bookstores. Seattle Independent Bookstore Day (April 27) returns for its 10th anniversary with 28 participating Puget Sound bookstores, from Edmonds to Burien, Poulsbo to Redmond. Getting your event “passport” stamped at all 28 by May 6 earns you discounts and major book-nerd bragging rights. It’s a great reason to support local book shops — in our UNESCO City of Literature — which have survived against all kinds of odds.

Most participating stores have treats planned for the occasion, from literary tote bags and fancy pencils at Paper Boat Booksellers in West Seattle to a special showing of first-edition Ernest Hemingway novels (previously owned by his first wife Hadley Richardson) displayed beneath the beautifully arched ceiling at Arundel Books in Pioneer Square.

While we have books on the brain, consider a few upcoming literary events of note: Tonight! Novelist Gabrielle Zevin will speak as part of Seattle Arts and Lectures (April 25, 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall Seattle; live streaming tickets also available). I never thought I’d be emotionally invested in a novel about video-game creators, but boy was I wrong. Her 2022 book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow totally hooked me with its evocative exploration of different ways and motivations for artmaking. Also coming up at Seattle Arts and Lectures is Terrance Hayes. If you’ve heard this stellar poet read his work aloud before, you know: This appearance is not to be missed (Rainier Arts Center, May 2 at 7:30 p.m.; live streaming tickets also available). His latest collection So to Speak reflects his signature mix of pop-culture references (from Bob Ross to Lil Wayne), allegory, strict poetic forms and historical truth telling.

Finally: This year’s “Seattle Reads” selection is Octavia Butler’s uncannily prescient novel Parable of the Sower (published in 1993 and partially set in 2024). Within this dystopian tale, the “grand dame of science fiction” and MacArthur genius predicted many current social issues regarding climate change, civil unrest, distrust of police and space travel. The book marks the first time Seattle Reads has selected a work of science fiction for the city to read “together,” and only the second time a local author has been chosen. (Butler spent her final seven years living in Lake Forest Park.) Seattle Public Library has lots of related events planned, leading up to what would’ve been Butler’s 77th birthday on June 22. That includes the launch party and panel discussion of the book (Downtown Library, May 1 at 6 p.m.; free registration required).

Speaking of Black arts legacies... Have you signed up for the Black Arts Legacies newsletter yet? Season 3 is in full swing, with our first artist profile — Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence — launched earlier this week. Discover a new artist “reveal” each week through June via the newsletter and on BlackArtsLegacies.com.

Topics: Arts, ArtSEA, Features, Things to do

WA farmers brace for summer drought on heels of harvest shortfalls

Mai Hoang — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 05:00:00 PDT

Andy Juris, a dryland wheat and alfalfa grower in Bickleton, in Klickitat County, knows precisely how much fertilizer to put on different areas of his farm.

Juris needs to ensure he uses the right amount of fertilizer. Too much can damage the plant, but not enough may prevent full development.

But Juris says the proper use of fertilizers also ensures optimal use of water, which can be more limited in drought years.

Last week, the Washington Department of Ecology declared a drought emergency for most of the state, aiming to help everyone from farmers to local irrigation districts better prepare for drought in the coming months.

This nearly statewide drought emergency is the third in the past decade — a similar emergency was declared in 2015 and 2021. Even in years without a statewide declaration, Ecology has declared drought emergencies for portions of the state, such as the one declared last year for 12 counties, including Yakima, Benton, Walla Walla and Kittitas, counties with robust agriculture industries.

Climate change has made extreme weather events, such as the heat dome from 2021, more frequent.

For growers like Juris and others in the agriculture industry, it’s not just about enduring drought conditions for this season alone, but changing in response to anticipated drought in the years and decades to come.

Agriculture industry officials are evaluating every aspect of the production process to help their crops be more resilient to future drought.

“On our farm, I get the crop the best I can in a position of health,” Juris said. “Wheat plants are like people. When [plants are healthy], you can handle stress.”

Drought conditions

The state Department of Ecology declared a drought emergency on April 16. The agency stated that it declared the emergency to allow those affected to be better prepared. The declaration also provides access to grants and other programs that can help mitigate the issue.

For 12 counties in the state, the declaration extended last year’s emergency. Last year’s conditions already caused a deficit in precipitation needed for sufficient snowpack, said Caroline Mellor, statewide drought lead for Ecology.

When the emergency was declared, the snowpack was at 68% statewide, with several areas reporting even significantly lower numbers.

With forecasts of a warm and sunny spring, officials anticipate that snow will melt too fast, leaving areas without needed water, Mellor said.

For agriculture, crucial water supply may drop when growers need it most in the summer and fall when harvest starts for many of the state’s agricultural commodities.

A farmworker picks pears at Rowe Farms outside of Yakima on Aug. 16, 2023, when temperatures reached over 100 degrees. (Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)

Drought during tough years for agriculture

Anticipated drought conditions come as growers of tree fruit, including apples and cherries, are still recovering from losses from both abnormally cold and warm temperatures in past years.

Apples are the state’s top crop, with a valuation of $2.07 billion in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Cherries are also among the state’s top 10 crops, at $407 million.

In 2022, a cold and snowy spring stunted the development of apples and cherries, leading to the lowest crop volumes in over a decade.

Then, last year, cherry growers were hit with the opposite issue — abnormally warm spring temperatures. This led to a condensed harvest that caused an oversaturation of the market, lowering prices. That prompted U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to issue a formal disaster declaration to allow Washington cherry growers to get federal emergency loans to help recover losses.

Drought comes as Washington tree-fruit growers — primarily in the Yakima Valley, Wenatchee Valley and Columbia Basin in Central Washington — are seeing declining returns and increasing costs, said Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association. “That’s an added headache no one needed.”

But this year’s early declaration of drought does allow the industry to prepare, DeVaney said. Local irrigation districts are already prepared to work together to make water available to growers. So an irrigation district that has extra water may transfer it to another district where there’s more need from growers. However, growers will have to pay for the transfer.

Meanwhile, wheat growers in Eastern Washington are still recovering from the drought and extreme heat of 2021, which sapped moisture from the soil and, with minimal precipitation, caused a drastic drop in yields. That year, Washington growers produced 87.1 million bushels of wheat, well below normal levels of 145 to 160 million bushels, said Michelle Hennings, executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. A bushel of wheat is about 60 pounds.

That kind of decrease in harvests could leave a huge financial hit. The USDA values Washington’s wheat at $1.17 billion, making it among the state’s top three agricultural commodities, just behind apples and milk. About 90% of the state’s wheat is exported, and in 2022, it was among the top three exported agricultural commodities at $894 million. If Washington can’t supply wheat due to reduced yields, many other countries are ready to step in.

Most growers relied on crop insurance to help recover the losses of 2021 and rebuild. Growers saw things bounce back in 2022, when the crop reached 144 million bushels. Numbers dropped again in 2023, to 113 million bushels, but that was still an improvement over 2021.

Now, growers are already feeling the effects of drought. Many growers this spring had to reseed their fields because the seeds planted last fall didn’t develop due to a lack of moisture, Hennings said.

Hennings said it made sense for Ecology to declare an emergency now rather than wait until the impact hit growers. “We’ve been through it before,” she said. “It’s nice when they have these emergency drought programs.”

Such times test a grower’s entire operation, says Juris, the dryland wheat grower in Bickleton. Growers now have to balance skyrocketing costs with declining returns from the export market. They must also learn to utilize technology and analyze data to ensure that raw materials are used to their maximum value.

“Everyone pictures a farmer with a straw hat and pitchfork,” Juris said. “Anymore, you have to be a CFO, a CEO, an accountant, and a chemist.”

Thinking ahead

With so many drought emergencies in recent years, industry experts said growers need to adopt practices to better prepare for future drought.

The industry is working alongside researchers at Washington State University on efforts that may lead to long-term solutions.

Sonia Hall, a research associate at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at WSU, is part of a team investigating how changing climate conditions have shifted the availability of water in Eastern Washington and what that means for agricultural producers, especially those who may see their water supply curtailed or shut off due to drought.

Even in non-drought years, this information is important because a sufficient supply of water may come when growers’ demand is lower, Hall said. Understanding that timing is crucial to helping all involved — from policymakers to agricultural producers — get a sense of what’s to come and make the key long-term investments to respond to the changing water availability.

She said the conversation around drought in a given year isn’t just about how to get relief that year, but also about what information it provides on what needs to be done in the long term by both growers and policymakers.

DeVaney, the Washington State Tree Fruit Association president, noted growing interest in research on climate models. With climate change leading to more frequent adverse weather events, climate models must be adjusted to help growers better anticipate such events, including ones that lead to drought, and the practices they should adopt.

WSU also conducts research on apple varieties that may grow better under drought conditions or temperature fluctuations.

“Growers have been seeing a lot of these kinds of weather events that’s causing financial challenges for them,” DeVaney said. “What kind of management practices will be appropriate for that environment?”

Hennings said the Washington wheat industry is also working with WSU to research more drought-resilient varieties.

Juris agrees that more needs to be done with climate models, noting that drought occurred during years for which the old long-term forecast models had predicted more precipitation.

“Those 50-year averages don’t seem to hold anymore,” he said.

Topics: Agriculture, Environment, Water, drought

The Newsfeed: ‘The Nosh’ bites into Seattle’s tastiest dishes

Paris Jackson — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 04:59:00 PDT

Topics: Multimedia, Video

Your Last Meal | The Leftovers with Tom Papa

Rachel Belle — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 04:58:00 PDT

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Environmental stalwart Stewart Udall celebrated in new documentary

Francesca Lyman — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:29:16 PDT

Rachel Carson. David Brower. Aldo Leopold. These luminaries are often credited with igniting the modern environmental movement. Yet there’s another monumental figure, now sometimes overlooked, who spearheaded many of the movement’s most important ideas and initiatives: Stewart Udall.

A Westerner who fought what he called “the myth of superabundance,” and a prevailing attitude of growth for its own sake, Udall appealed for a new “land conscience” to conserve public lands already threatened by deforestation and exploitation. Washingtonians of a certain age may remember this conservation icon, a secretary of the interior through the 1960s, for establishing the North Cascades and Redwood national parks, among others, and for creating the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, part of the massive National Trails System Act that now comprises a network of more than 86,000 miles of trails across the country.

Having entered public office as a Congressman representing Arizona, Udall was appointed Secretary of the Interior by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. He later served under President Lyndon Johnson until 1969.

Many of the landmark environmental laws that we now take for granted can be traced back to Udall’s leadership, making him, according to Seattle filmmaker John de Graaf, “one of the unsung heroes of 20th-century American history.”

De Graaf’s feature documentary about him, Stewart Udall: The Politics of Beauty, captures the trajectory of Udall’s life and career, highlighting not just his conservation campaigns but his advocacy of civil rights and environmental justice, nuclear disarmament and support for the arts, especially poetry.

Left: Secretary of the Interior Stewart Lee Udall and President John F. Kennedy at the White House in 1961. Right: Udall and poet Robert Frost stroll through the woods at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., following ceremonies commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of Henry David Thoreau in 1962. (Courtesy of Special Collections, The University of Arizona Libraries)

The 78-minute film, directed and written by de Graaf and photographed by Greg Davis, is an eye-opening and sometimes intimate portrait of the man whose name now adorns the Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C. Despite the passing decades, Udall is “considered the most successful interior secretary in American history,” according to historian Douglas Brinkley.

While many residents of the Pacific Northwest will recognize his name, they may not know that it was Udall who laid the groundwork for the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, as well as helping enact the Wilderness Act, Endangered Species list, and many more.

Raising the greenhouse alarm

Udall introduced Rachel Carson to the Kennedys and elevated the visibility of Robert Frost, Wallace Stegner, Carl Sandburg and others. He also enacted environmental justice policies for the first time (even in a time of national segregation), and voiced controversial positions on oil and gas, as well as on the unintended impacts of the interstate highway system and America’s car culture.

Significantly, Udall was one of the first government officials to sound the alarm on the “greenhouse effect,” tipped off by scientist Roger Revelle, who warned about the ominous possibility that we could see the polar ice caps melting and coastal cities flooding. “He did more than almost anyone to give us clean air and water, protect wild rivers and protect national parks,” said de Graaf.

An early proponent of compensating “downwinders” and other victims of atomic radiation, Udall’s name has resurfaced recently as Congress has considered extending and expanding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), due to expire this June.

Interior Secretary Stewart Udall looks down on Pottawatomie County, Kansas, on Monday, Dec. 4, 1961 as he views the site of the proposed 57,000-acre Grasslands National Park. (AP Photo/mbr/Rich Clarkson/Topeka Capital-Journal)

“Stewart Udall is a hero to us,” activist Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, in Albuquerque, N.M., told Cascade PBS. “He dedicated a big chunk of his life to fighting for this cause, to the point of practically bankrupting himself. We feel so grateful for what he did [in advocating for RECA].” RECA extends to 12 states across the American West, including Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

During his tenure at Interior, Udall shifted from being a continued promoter of dam-building and development to being a strong conservation advocate.

He presided over vast extensions of America’s national park and public lands holdings, including the founding of four national parks – Canyonlands, Redwood, North Cascades and Guadalupe Mountains – plus 56 wildlife refuges, eight national seashores and lakeshores, six national monuments, nine recreation areas, 20 historic sites, and the enactment of the 1964 Wilderness Act, the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, the Land and Conservation Fund, and other laws.

Birth of a movement

De Graaf’s in-depth documentary chronicles the birthing pains of the early environmental movement of the 1960s, notably the arguments between Udall and the Sierra Club’s David Brower that pushed the “conservation secretary” to stop a plan to build hydroelectric power dams in the Grand Canyon. The film was recently screened in Spokane. De Graaf previously created documentary films for KCTS 9, which is now Cascade PBS.

The documentary also reveals how Udall transformed values within the agency to prize the beauty of nature over just its utilitarian worth as a resource. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt declares in the film that Udall changed the agency from one dedicated to development, road building and dams, to one that understood the transcendent values of conservation.

Historian Douglas Brinkley says in the film, “Udall worried about a philistine class that only saw dollar signs when they looked at a landscape,” feeling that Americans were “all about the profit motive of capitalism and the gross national product – and were willing to destroy America’s natural beauty.”

In Johnson’s Cabinet, Udall discovered a president even more receptive to his conservation ideas than Kennedy had been, because this Texas native had also grown up on a ranch with an appreciation for nature and wildlife.

Udall’s secret weapon, though, may have been first lady Lady Bird Johnson, another underappreciated historic figure. She became the face of beautifying America, says Sharon Francis, who served as special assistant and speech writer to Udall but who was also “lent” to the first lady as part of the interior secretary’s big-picture vision to “beautify America.” And Lady Bird enthusiastically carried out that task.

“The beautification movement, initially advocated by garden clubs who brought the balm of urban landscaping to areas the public might see, was extended by Lady Bird to everywhere: ghettos, industrial areas, shopping streets and centers, roadsides,” wrote Francis, in an email.

These campaigns to plant flowers and shrubs along roadsides connected the countryside to the cities but also shifted the movement’s focus to urban areas for the first time. Parts of the city inhabited by African Americans “became most important to Lady Bird,” Francis recalls.

Today the National Park Service highlights where blighted and abandoned places, and junkyards, were turned to gardens during the beautification project.

Like Udall, Francis came from the West, having grown up in Seattle. Having been a junior board member of the Mountaineers Club, after years of hiking and mountain-climbing as a teenager, she remembers Udall consulting her long before he championed creation of the North Cascades National Park.

“‘Those North Cascades – should they be a national park?’ he’d asked me, very early on in the discussions,” Francis chuckles, reflecting on the alpine grandeur of “America’s Alps.” It is an immense park of jagged peaks crowned by more than 300 glaciers abutting two recreation areas that extend the wilderness to nearly 700,000 acres.

And by the end of Udall’s tenure at Interior, more acres of public lands, wilderness and recreation areas, wild rivers, lakeshores, seashores and scenic trails had been added than ever before. “Wilderness, like the national park system, was an American idea,” Udall believed.

First Lady Lady Bird Johnson (in red) with Udall and others on the Snake River at Jackson Lake Lodge, Wyoming, in August 1964. (AP Photo)

One of the film’s most interesting revelations is that President Johnson needed those conservation messages as a tonic against the tumult of the times – the civil rights and anti-war protests that filled the streets.

“When Stewart Udall appeared before the press, he was talking about places of beauty, places of spirituality, good, beautiful things,” says historian and Udall biographer Thomas G. Smith in the film.

America the Beautiful

The film opens with sweeping vistas of majestic landscapes, from red-rock canyons to glacier lakes, alongside plaintive woodwind strains of “America the Beautiful,” followed by stirring quotes from the presidents Udall served and converted to the conservation cause.

It then circles back to Udall’s early life in the tiny pioneer town of St. Johns, Arizona, where his Mormon parents raised him and his five brothers and sisters. Among them was brother Morris Udall, who became an Arizona congressman from 1961 to 1991 and also ran for president in 1976, losing narrowly to Jimmy Carter during the primaries.

Some of the most riveting footage highlights Stewart’s military service, during which he ran 50 missions as a World War II Army Air Forces gunner over Western Europe.

Dramatic in a different way was the tale of the war veteran’s return to the University of Arizona, to shine as a basketball star, alongside brother Mo. Using their cachet as star athletes, the two persuaded the university to overturn its racial segregation policies in the student cafeteria and across campus.

Fast forward to his time as interior secretary under Kennedy. When Udall learned that the National Park Service only allowed Black rangers in the U.S. Virgin Islands, he quickly desegregated that agency.

“He had the courage and had the vision to recruit young African Americans even while we ‘practiced,’ as a nation, segregation,” Robert Stanton, director of the National Park Service from 1997 to 2001, says in the film. Stanton, one of his first young park-ranger recruits, now says he owes his career at NPS to Udall.

Udall also wielded his political clout after he discovered that the football team in Washington, D.C., did not hire any Black players. Since the team leased the stadium from the National Park Service, he was able to force the team to change its policy to one of integration.

Udall and Johnson on a raft in Grand Teton National Park, 1964.

Udall saw firsthand discrimination against Native Americans with whom he grew up in the Arizona desert. Later, he became the first federal official since the 1860s to name a Native American as commissioner to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, when he appointed Robert Bennett to that role.

“Stewart was with us in heart, mind and spirit,” Rebecca Adamson, a Cherokee activist, says in the film.

Another kind of public service

After leaving government service in the 1970s, Udall devoted his life to righting the wrongs done to the Navajo people, downwinders of the atomic testing and victims of uranium mining in the Southwest.

The consequences of the United States’ Cold War development of nuclear power, and the coverup of its health dangers to millions, were covered in The Myths of August, one of Udall’s nine books.

Redress for the victims of atomic radiation, still not fully accomplished, is one under-appreciated issue he championed. The blockbuster movie Oppenheimer, winner of seven Oscars, failed to even mention the real human scars of the Trinity test and atomic ground testing, argues activist Tina Cordova of New Mexico.

“The first people in the world who were ever exposed to an atomic bomb have never been compensated,” Cordova told Cascade PBS, noting that New Mexico was omitted from the states compensated for downwinders under the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. “People are still dying and getting diagnosed, all the time.”

RECA was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush in 1990. It offered “an apology” and compensated uranium miners, ranchers and others exposed to nuclear radiation from mining or above-ground atomic tests in certain counties in the late 1940s through the 1960s. Since 1992, when the fund was created, more than $2.6 billion in claims have been paid, according to the Department of Justice.

“Stewart Udall was the godfather of RECA, and if everybody had the same moral compass as Udall, Congress would have added us to the compensation,” said Cordova.

Were he alive today, what would he be speaking out about? Francis told Cascade PBS that Udall might be critical of the climate movement for not being loud enough. “He’d be railing against the willful destructiveness of too-wealthy people who’d rather continue with our petroleum-based, plastics-based economy than save the planet upon which we all depend.”

Many closest to Udall stress that Udall’s legacy ultimately comes down to his dogged courage and caring for the land as well as his fellow human beings.

Former National Park Service director Stanton, reached by phone, insists there’s a need to elevate his courage and leadership as a model for our times. “His life is a lesson, in itself, in how one can be courageous.”

“I’m sure he got pushback,” says Stanton. “‘You’re going to do what?’ Sometimes you’re out there by yourself.”

That’s a lesson for all of us, says Stanton, to have the conviction to stand up and be courageous even while others may not agree.

This story is adapted from a story published previously in the Society of Environmental Journalists Journal Online.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the quantity of trails that are part of the National Trails System. Due to an editing error, the introduction of the story originally incorrectly stated how many national parks Udall helped establish in Washington. This article has been corrected.

Topics: Environment, History

Podcast | Behind the scenes of Mossback's audio storytelling

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Topics: Podcast

Seattle rallies as Supreme Court weighs criminalizing homelessness

Josh Cohen — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 13:23:18 PDT

For Gina Owens, the parallels between herself and Gloria Johnson — one of the plaintiffs in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court about criminalizing homelessness — are all too striking.

Owens used to be a nurse, but a car crash in the year 2000 disabled her spinal cord and left her unable to work. Without a steady income, she fell behind on her rent and was evicted into several years of homelessness.

Johnson, the lead plaintiff in Grants Pass v. Johnson, was also a career nurse who retired, but was unable to find housing she could afford on Social Security and became homeless, living in her minivan on the edge of town. On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the class action lawsuit against Grants Pass, Oregon’s anti-public sleeping laws.

Owens, a leader with Washington Community Action Network and prominent homelessness activist in Seattle, spoke to a crowd of 60-70 people that afternoon outside the Nakamura Federal Courthouse in Downtown Seattle at a rally organized by the Services Not Sweeps Coalition.

A ruling in favor of Grants Pass could make it easier for cities to fine or jail people experiencing homelessness for sleeping in public. Lawyers and advocates fear a worst-case outcome that would functionally make it illegal to be homeless in public.

“I want the Supreme Court to listen to our stories … before they make their decision,” said Owens. “I want them to know that people are not criminals. They are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors. They are the community members we live amongst every day. They are not criminals, and they should not be held as a criminal just simply by sleeping on the street.”

Chalk messages on the steps of the Nakamura Federal Courthouse during Monday’s rally. (Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)

Grants Pass v. Johnson stems from a law in the city of Grants Pass meant to deter people experiencing homelessness from staying in town. The law bars anyone from sleeping in public spaces — including parks, sidewalks and in cars — or using materials such as blankets or sleeping bags for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live.

The town began aggressively enforcing the law in 2013, issuing $295 fines that increased to $537.60 if unpaid. After two citations, police can arrest someone for criminal trespass, which could result in 30 days in jail and another $1,250 fine.

At a March 2013 Grants Pass City Council meeting, then-Council President Lily Morgan said, “The point is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road.”

Advocates have long argued that criminalizing homelessness makes it much harder for people to get into housing and leave homelessness behind. The debt a person accrues from citations they cannot pay hurts their credit score and can make it harder to qualify for housing, as does having a criminal record.

In addition, jail time can lead to lost contact between case managers and homeless clients, which can be a huge setback in the arduous task of navigating the homeless-services system.

Protesters rally at the Nakamura Federal Courthouse on Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case that could make it easier for cities to fine or jail people experiencing homelessness for sleeping in public, April 22, 2024. (Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)

In 2018, the Oregon Law Center filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of Debra Blake, a woman who’d been homeless in Grants Pass for nearly a decade and accumulated more than $5,000 in fines for sleeping in public. After Blake died in 2021, Gloria Johnson and John Logan, another homeless resident, stepped in as the named representatives in the class action.

The lawsuit argued that fines and jail time violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment because people involuntarily experiencing homelessness have nowhere to sleep but public spaces. Grants Pass, a small city located in southern Oregon, has just a few homeless shelter options that fall far short of meeting every homeless resident’s needs.

Lawyers representing Grants Pass have argued that the city needs the laws to address safety and public health issues in homeless encampments.

Grants Pass v. Johnson has wended through the appeals process, with lower courts agreeing with the plaintiffs’ argument that the law violates the Eighth Amendment. It now falls to the Supreme Court to decide. The justices are expected to rule in late June.

After oral argument Monday, The New York Times reported that a majority of justices appeared to side with the City of Grants Pass, an outcome that would allow cities to more easily impose fines and jail time for people sleeping in public, regardless of the availability of shelter. Other court watchers, however, said that several justices floated the possibility that the federal judiciary might lack jurisdiction to hear the case at all and that homelessness policy should remain a local government issue.

“If the Supreme Court finds in favor of Grants Pass, it will be dystopian,” said Sara Rankin at Monday’s rally. Rankin is a Seattle University law professor and head of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project. “It will be like a domino effect. Every city is going to then outlaw sleeping within the city boundaries, and you could have an entire patchwork of states in which it is not legal for you to exist if you don’t have a home.”

Though Rankin worries about the ripple effect of the Supreme Court siding with Grants Pass, she cautioned people to understand the limits of the case. It does not have bearing on a city’s legal ability to clear unauthorized encampments; or the ability to restrict when and where people can set up encampments; or even the ability to impose fines or arrests when people refuse offers of available shelter.

Instead, the Court’s ruling will determine primarily whether cities can ban public homelessness regardless of whether there’s adequate shelter or housing for people to move to. In its 2022 ruling in favor of Johnson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cited its own 2018 ruling in Martin v. Boise, which said that cities cannot enforce camping bans if there’s inadequate shelter space to offer people.

In September, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison joined the National League of Cities and a slew of other cities including Spokane, Tacoma and San Diego in support of Grants Pass, submitting an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to review Grants Pass v. Johnson.

Their brief stated, “The homelessness crisis is complex and the Ninth Circuit’s decisions have paralyzed local communities’ ability to address it in the places where it is most acute.”

The authors take the stance that the Ninth Circuit’s “shelter availability” test is unworkable for local municipalities. The brief states that the test has, “the practical effect of imposing a judge-made financial obligation on local governments to provide public shelter options, regardless of whether local policymakers and their experts believe that is the best way to address homelessness.”

People browse a selection of free clothing during a rally at the Nakamura Federal Courthouse. (Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)

Seattle has continued to clear unauthorized encampments. The Seattle Times reported that the city removed thousands of tents from public spaces in 2023, but only 16% of those people in clear encampments entered a shelter immediately afterwards. Furthermore, Publicola reported that those shelter enrollments can last for as little as one night — far from a sustained solution to street homelessness.

Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, acknowledges things could get worse for homeless residents should the Supreme Court side with Grants Pass. But she doesn’t want people to lose sight of how bad things already are.

“We are so far from a world in which people are offered shelter or housing that meets their needs and [still] refuse it,” Eisinger told Cascade PBS. “We are completely underwater. More than half the [tens of thousands of] people experiencing homelessness in King County are unsheltered.”

The Coalition on Homelessness was one of several local organizations and individuals that worked together to file an amicus brief in Grants Pass v. Johnson arguing against the city’s laws. The group also included former King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, the advocacy group WHEEL (Women’s Housing, Equality and Enhancement League) and King County’s former chief medical examiner Richard Harruff.

Eisinger said that regardless of the outcome of Grants Pass v. Johnson, building more affordable housing will still be the most important tool for addressing homelessness.

“This case isn’t actually about homelessness; it is about failures at the tiny-city, big-city, state and federal level to do what is necessary to respond to the lack of affordable homes,” she said. “We have to continue to resist the bad, and we have to work even harder, not only for what is good and effective, but to scale it up.” This article was updated with information about Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison's amicus brief.

Topics: Crime, Homelessness, Housing, Supreme Court

Black Arts Legacies: Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, cultural connector

Jas Keimig — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 05:00:00 PDT

Topics: arts, black arts legacies, Painting, Sculpture, Seattle

Volunteers celebrate Earth Day with Puget Sound beach cleanups

Nicholas Williams — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 04:59:00 PDT

It’s noon at Golden Gardens Park. For the first time in weeks there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Music is blaring and there are volunteers scattered along the beach picking up trash.

The volunteers are a part of the Surfrider Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting the world's oceans, waves and beaches. The Seattle chapter cleans beaches, tests water and advocates for plastic pollution laws.

“It feels like you’re making a difference … when you clean up a beach. And most of the time, these beaches are places that a lot of people like to go, like Gas Works, Green Lake and Seward Park,” said Diana Haass, who manages communications for the Surfrider chapter in Seattle.

The pollution they’ve found through the years includes foam, bags, straws, butts, microplastics and bottles.

The Pew Trust notes that an estimated 11 million metric tons of plastic waste annually enters the ocean. Without immediate and sustained action, that amount will nearly triple by 2040, to 29 million metric tons per year. That’s the same as dumping 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of plastic on every meter of coastline around the world.

The Seattle Surfrider Foundation is preparing for its Clean & Cruise program, a monthly beach cleanup and an optional social paddle at a different beach from Earth Day through the fall.

Steve Strohmaier drops trash in a bucket held by Dirk Metzler at Golden Gardens. (Grant Hindsley for Cascade PBS)

Seattle Surfrider Chair Drew Albenze said that volunteers have joined them from all walks of life. “Some of us are surfers, scientists, climate activists, we are all over the board and you don’t need to be a surfer to be a Surfrider,” he said.

Grace Schamber, a freshman at the University of Washington and a frequent volunteer, said her favorite part of the beach cleanup is seeing how much of a difference they make.

“It's impactful to see at the end how much trash we picked up,” she said. “On Earth Day last year, we had only five volunteers total, it was a rainy day, but we still picked up over 300 pounds of trash in just a couple of hours.”

Surfrider Seattle Chapter chair Drew Albenze at Golden Gardens during a cleanup on Sunday, April 21. (Grant Hindsley for Cascade PBS)

Despite the good cause, the organization sometimes struggles to recruit volunteers and most come and go depending on their schedules. “I think it’s just getting people to continue to be around and to have those numbers so we can make those bigger changes and have a bigger impact,” said Volunteer Coordinator Savanah Cacace. “You know, the more people that come to a beach cleanup, the more garbage you pick up.”

Other organizations coordinating beach cleanups in the Seattle area include the Washington CoastSavers, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, CleanupSEA and Grassroots Garbage Gang.

Upcoming Beach Cleanups

April 24 and May 8, Lake Union kayak cleanup, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with Puget Soundkeeper Alliance

July 4 evening and July 5 morning fireworks cleanup, central and south Pacific Beach, Washington Coastsavers

First Saturday of every month at Alki Beach, 7 to 10 a.m., CleanupSEA

Clean and Cruise monthly at different beaches, contact Seattle Chapter of Surfrider Foundation

Footprints in the sand at Golden Gardens during a Surfrider Seattle Chapter beach cleanup. (Grant Hindsley for Cascade PBS)

Since 1984, The Puget Soundkeeper Alliance has completed more than 1,600 patrols of Puget Sound waterways, won legal action against 170 Clean Water Act violators and removed over 145,000 pounds of trash from the water.

Even with such a long list of accomplishments, they too have found it difficult to keep volunteers around.

“It’s really hard,” said Sean Dixon, executive director of the Alliance. “It depends on people who want to come out and get their hands dirty by picking up garbage weekend after weekend, year after year. Because there's always going to be more garbage to pick up.”

That said, the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance is one of the more active beach cleanup organizations that have worked in the Seattle area, engaging with around 1,000 volunteers total participating in about 100 events per year.

“This year is our 40th anniversary. … We’ve got a lot of people who have grown up going to our cleanups and seeing our name,” Dixon said.

Puget Soundkeeper, similar to Surfrider, is gearing up for its Kayak Cleanup program, which is a weekly kayak paddle, depending on the weather, and beach cleanup on Lake Union.

The Surfrider Foundation, in addition to cleanups, also advocates for alternatives to plastic pollution sources such as replacing single-use plastic bags and straws with reusable or biodegradable options. The Foundation also identified cigarette butts as a significant portion of beach pollution, which led to community programs like Hold Onto Your Butt to address the issue.

For both organizations, these activities are both practical – getting some of the pollution off our beaches – and philosophical – raising awareness of the need to address plastic pollution.

“We must work as one – governments, companies, and consumers alike – to break our addiction to plastics, champion zero waste, and build a truly circular economy,” said Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations in a press statement on plastic waste.

Steve Strohmaier and Dirk and Olivia Metzler pick up trash at Golden Gardens during Sunday’s Surfrider Seattle Chapter beach cleanup on Sunday. (Grant Hindsley for Cascade PBS)

Meanwhile, the organizers of the cleanups for the Surfrider Foundation remain hopeful.

“I would say that it’s a pretty low-barrier entry to become a volunteer, just showing up to an event, that’s the first step,” Haass, of Surfrider, said. She would like to see more people get comfortable with having tougher conversations about sustainability and climate change.

“When we have conversations like this that lowers the barrier, where it lowers that scariness and shows people that actions do matter, we can make a difference,” Haass said.

Topics: Environment

The Nosh: Exploring Seattle’s vibrant sober scene one mocktail at a time

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Topics: Multimedia, Video, Food, Seattle, Health, local business, Nightlife

A federal program could fix Washington’s salmon-killing culverts

Ben Goldfarb — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 05:00:00 PDT

Every year, hundreds of muscular, sea-bright fish — chum salmon, chinook, coho, steelhead — push into the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean, swim over 120 miles (200 kilometers) upstream, and turn left into Hardy Creek. They wend through rocky shallows shaded by alder and willow, cold water passing over flared gills. Plump with milt and eggs, they pump their tails furiously, striving for the graveled spawning grounds in southern Washington where they’ll complete their life’s final, fatal mission.

And then they hit the railroad.

In the early 1900s, Hardy Creek was throttled by BNSF Railway, the United States’ largest freight railroad network. When the company built its Columbia River line, engineers routed Hardy Creek under the tracks via a culvert — a 2.5-meter-wide arch atop a concrete pad. The culvert, far narrower than Hardy Creek’s natural channel, concentrated the stream like a fire hose and blasted away approaching salmon. Over time, the rushing flow scoured out a deep pool, and the culvert became an impassable cascade disconnected from the stream below — a “perched” culvert, in the jargon of engineers.

“It’s an obvious barrier,” says Peter Barber, manager of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s habitat restoration program. “A fish would be hard-pressed to navigate through that culvert.”

The strangulation of Hardy Creek is an archetypal story. Culverts, the unassuming concrete and metal pipes that convey streams beneath human-made infrastructure, are everywhere, undergirding our planet’s sprawling road networks and rail lines. Researchers estimate that more than 200,000 culverts lie beneath state highways in California alone, nearly 100,000 in Germany, and another 60,000 in Great Britain. In Europe, they thwart endangered eels; in Australia, they curtail the movements of Murray cod. In Massachusetts’ Herring River, snapping turtles lurk in culverts to devour passing fish, largely preventing herring from spawning. Taken as a whole, these obstacles are a major reason that three-quarters of the world’s migratory fish species are endangered.

Compared with dams, however, culverts have historically escaped public attention; most people drive over them every day without noticing. “I used to tell people I assess culverts,” recalls Mark Eisenman, a planner at the Alaska Department of Transportation. “They’d say, what the hell’s a culvert?”

In 2022, however, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration launched a $1 billion program to replace culverts that block oceangoing fish on streams like Hardy Creek — among the largest pots of money ever devoted to these humble pipes. Fixing the countless barriers that underlie infrastructure, according to Barber, is “one of the best ways to restore our salmon runs locally.” But given the sheer scale of the culvert crisis, even a billion dollars will only go so far. Can we repair our faulty culverts while there’s still time to save sea-run fish?

Roads have impeded fish since well before the proliferation of automobiles. In 1893, a log drifted down a tributary of British Columbia’s Fraser River and wedged itself in a wagon-road culvert, preventing sockeye salmon from migrating. So many fish crowded against the jammed pipe that they writhed onto the road, obliging an inspector to “engage men and teams to cart the salmon in order to keep the road clear for traffic,” per one reporter. In 1932, engineers in Arlington Heights, Illinois, found a pair of pickerel caught in culverts, and reportedly “enjoyed a good fish dinner.”

But the real problem wasn’t the few fish caught in culverts — it was the millions who couldn’t swim through them. Early engineers hadn’t given fish a moment’s thought; one 19th-century road-making manual suggested that culverts simply be “large enough to admit a boy to enter to clean them out.” As road systems metastasized throughout the 20th century, the so-called boy standard proved disastrous. As in Hardy Creek, culverts cinched flows into torrents too powerful for adult fish to swim against. Cramped and perched culverts also prevented juveniles from flitting up and downstream in search of food and refuge. Even as conservationists fretted about megadams and overfishing, roads and railroads were secretly sapping the vitality of coastal streams.

By mid-century, a few scientists had begun to pay attention. After a 1949 report from the Washington Department of Fisheries observed that culverts had created a vast “lost frontier” of foreclosed fish habitat, scientists in Oregon and Washington began retrofitting culverts. Their first attempt was to deploy baffles, rungs that slowed torrential flows into gentle pools, along with angled ramps called fishways. Soon, though, they realized that replacing culverts altogether was far better than retrofitting them. If most culverts failed fish because they were too small, the solution was simple: swap out narrow pipes with wider ones (or, even better, bridges).

Fish biologists came to tout a design known as the stream simulation model — a culvert wide enough to accommodate a waterway and its banks, even during floods, without altering its flows. “The idea is that the river doesn’t know that it’s going through the pipe,” says Eisenman. A gravel floor, rather than a concrete or metal one, completes the effect. “In theory, the fish don’t know when they’re swimming through, either. It just gets a little dark for a while.”

A few autumns ago, I saw an impressive “stream-sim” culvert in action at Little Skookum Creek near Olympia. In 2001, a coalition of 21 Indigenous tribes had sued the state of Washington, arguing that its many crummy culverts violated their right to harvest fish in traditional places. The tribes eventually won, and the state’s Department of Transportation began the arduous, court-ordered process of replacing hundreds of salmon-impeding culverts—including the one at Little Skookum Creek. Here, the department had torn out a rusted metal pipe and replaced it with a wider, shorter span more akin to a small bridge. The stream ran through it unencumbered.

The new crossing was anything but glamorous; if I hadn’t known the state had recently installed it, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. “This is not the most complicated project,” admitted Paul Wagner, at the time a biologist (since retired) with the state’s transportation department and my guide for the day.

Simple, perhaps, but effective. As we watched, a dozen chum salmon finned in Little Skookum’s channel, snouts pointed upstream. Their flanks were barred with electric purple-and-green stripes, their fins ragged with decay. One by one, with the remains of their flagging strength, they kicked their tails and skittered through the culvert to spawn and die. Cars rumbled on the road above them. “It’s pretty cool to see the animals actually using this,” Wagner said. Better culverts struck me as a form of ecological justice, reconnecting the rivers that infrastructure had sundered.

For all the virtues of culvert replacement, however, many transportation departments have been slow to pursue it for the usual reason: money. The Little Skookum Creek project seemed straightforward, but it cost more than $2.7 million, and other streams require far larger fixes. That afternoon, Wagner took me to Coffee Creek, a humble trickle that, decades earlier, had been interred under 30 feet of earthen roadbed where it passed beneath a highway. Rather than excavating all that fill, the agency had decided it would be simpler to reroute the whole stream through a new artificial channel. We stood on a bluff and surveyed the unfinished creek, which lay as bare and muddy as a ditch in drought. The undertaking would ultimately cost around $20 million, Wagner said, sounding a touch rueful. Culverts might be inconspicuous, but they didn’t come cheap.

In 2021, the United States’ culvert-funding shortfall caught the belated attention of politicians. That November, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion package that included money for everything from high-speed rail to electric vehicle charging stations to basic highway repairs. Tucked deep in the law’s thousand-odd pages was a section that attracted little media coverage, but had immense consequences for fish: the National Culvert Removal, Replacement, and Restoration Grant Program.

Visitors view a widened passage for salmon to swim up the Middle Fork of the Newaukum River under Middle Fork Road near Chehalis, Lewis County, Nov. 20, 2019. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

Nearly a year later, when the program opened for applications, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s Peter Barber — a longtime tribal employee, though not a member — was approached by a representative from the BNSF Railway. The company had caught wind of the new funding and wondered if Barber knew of any fish-blocking culverts on their rail line. Barber thought immediately of Hardy Creek.

Together, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and the railway crafted an ambitious grant application. They proposed tearing out the narrow culvert and swapping in a 33-meter-wide bridge, made of prefabricated parts that the railroad could plug in so quickly that service on the Columbia River line would only cease for 32 hours. The bridge wouldn’t just accommodate the free flow of water and fish, it would also allow the woody debris and fresh gravel to tumble down from Hardy Creek’s headwaters. The gravel would settle downstream, affording adult salmon clean, rocky substrate in which to spawn; the wood would shelter their fry. The old culvert had distorted the stream’s entire structure and ecosystem; a new bridge would set things right.

In August 2023, the Federal Highway Administration announced the recipients of the first round of culvert funding. Among the winners was Hardy Creek, which received the full $5 million that the Cowlitz and BNSF had requested. When I spoke with Barber a few months later, he still seemed astonished. “It was one of those problems that I never thought I would see fixed in my lifetime,” he said.

Hardy Creek found itself in good company. All told, the program’s first cycle gave 59 state, tribal and local governments $196 million to pull out nearly 170 fish-blocking culverts. To no one’s surprise, the bulk of the funding went to Pacific salmonids: There were projects aimed at steelhead in California, chinook in Oregon and coho in Washington. Some grants are relatively modest in scope — $470,000 to California’s Wiyot Tribe to replace a culvert on Butte Creek, for instance — and others immense. The Alaska Department of Transportation got $20 million to replace up to a dozen dilapidated, undersized culverts along the highway that leads to Denali National Park and Preserve, a mammoth restoration project that will benefit all five species of Pacific salmon.

“We have salmon everywhere, we have habitat everywhere,” says the department’s Eisenman. “This lets us start fixing some problems.”

While Pacific salmon were the big winners, eastern fish earned some love, too. The town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, got $2 million to swap out culverts that hamper herring; Maine’s Passamaquoddy Tribe received nearly $8 million to aid a suite of fish that includes sea lamprey and tomcod. The Virginia Department of Transportation got $434,000 to replace a pair of narrow pipes beneath Montague Island Road that prevent shad, blueback herring, alewife and sturgeon from swimming up a brackish channel that goes by the inglorious name of Mud Creek. According to Amy Golden, program manager in the department’s environmental division, the agency plans to install a larger, embedded culvert capable of passing four times as much water as the existing pipe — a culvert that won’t blast away the fish attempting to navigate it.

Mud Creek also illustrates another deficiency of culverts: They frustrate human movements as well as fish migration. Several times a year, says Golden, incoming storm surges overwhelm the Mud Creek culvert and gush onto Montague Island Road, damaging its surface and denying locals access to their homes. This is an increasingly common predicament. Culverts, already the Achilles heels of road networks, are becoming even more vulnerable as the climate changes. They’re swamped by king tides, clogged by landslides, and battered by deluges; during 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene, roughly 1,000 culverts washed out in Vermont alone, closing many roads. The same enlarged culverts that help fish are also less liable to get plugged by debris or inundated by storm surges. “We can address a maintenance need, a fish passage need and a resilience need, all at the same time,” Golden says.

Perhaps the most powerful virtue of culvert replacement is that it fundamentally reconnects land and sea. Fish-blocking culverts are forces of disunity that prevent anadromous fish from contributing their oceanic phosphorus and nitrogen to forests, and starve marine predators dependent on healthy stocks. In Western Washington’s King County, for example, culverts within the Bear Creek basin have curtailed populations of chinook salmon, a key food source for Puget Sound’s beleaguered killer whales. A grant of nearly $7 million will allow the county to replace three inadequate Bear River culverts — and, with luck, restitch the torn linkages between marine and terrestrial environments.

“We’re allowing those ocean nutrients to once again go up the watershed,” says Evan Lewis, who leads the county’s fish passage restoration program. “Salmon are self-propelled bags of fertilizer.”

Around the world, other countries are also kicking lousy culverts to the curb. In France, faulty culverts have been torn out for the sake of Atlantic salmon and brown trout; in New Zealand, they’ve been removed for smelt, eels and torrentfish. In British Columbia, home to more than 90,000 fish-blocking culverts, a host of conservation groups and government agencies aredeveloping a strategic plan to remove the most egregious blockages. The United States is leading the charge, but its $1 billion culvert replacement program is no piscine panacea. The Washington State Department of Transportation recently estimated that it would cost around $7.5 billion to deal with the hundreds of fish-blocking culverts it’s required to fix on behalf of Indigenous tribes—to say nothing of perhaps 20,000 more on roads owned by counties, towns and private entities.

The program is also limited by geography. Although the only culverts eligible for funding are those that obstruct sea-run fish, many landlocked species also migrate. In the Great Lakes region alone, perhaps 250,000 culverts confound suckers, pike, brook trout and other freshwater denizens. These fish won’t benefit from federal largesse, yet they need help as surely as any coho or chum.

Moreover, culverts so thoroughly warp streams that their damage isn’t easily undone. In Hardy Creek, decades’ worth of sediment has gathered above the BNSF Railway’s culvert; when the blockade comes out, the stream will be free — along with several tons of accumulated silt. Culvert removal thus can’t proceed until the Cowlitz Indian Tribe also installs log jams to capture the liberated sediment; otherwise, Barber says, downstream eggs and fry could suffocate. What’s more, after the railroad culvert comes out, Hardy Creek’s salmon will still face another impassable pipe beneath a state highway just upstream. (Barber hopes to eventually replace that one, too.) Ponder the culvert crisis too long, and it quickly swells to intractable proportions.

Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Kim Schrier, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe Chair Jaison Elkins, Rep. Rick Larsen, Sen. Patty Murray, Sen. Maria Cantwell and King County Executive Dow Constantine tour a culvert near Maple Valley on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. (Amanda Snyder/Cascade PBS)

Like many wicked problems, there’s only one way to tackle culverts: one pipe at a time. Sometime in the near future — two years from now, or three, or five — a female chum salmon, battle-scarred and tattered with incipient death, will power up Hardy Creek. She’ll pause to rest in the pools behind woody debris and inspect new gravel beds that have settled below riffles. Libidinous males will gather in her wake. At some point in her quest, she will swim up a stretch of newly reconstructed channel and beneath a capacious railroad bridge where once a culvert stood. With luck, she’ll never notice.

Hakai Magazine originally published this article on March 26, 2024. Hakai Magazine is an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems.

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