October 9, 2001

Environmental Watch: Carroll joins Farallon Consulting

ISSAQUAH -- Lauren Carroll has joined Farallon Consulting as a senior hydrologist.

Carroll is a registered professional geologist in Oregon and Illinois, holding undergraduate and master's degrees from Purdue University. She has 12 years of experience performing remedial investigations, site assessments and plan implementation.

Farallon is an Eastside environmental consulting firm based in Issaquah.

Golder expanding Tri-Cities presence

REDMOND -- Golder Associates is adding staff to its new, larger Richland office with an eye toward offering more ecological science services.

Recent projects include salmon and steelhead recovery assessments and Pacific lamprey studies.

Golder has other Northwest offices in Redmond, Portland, Coeur d'Alene and British Columbia. The firm, founded in 1960, has 2,400 employees worldwide.

Planner Nancy Bird gets certified

KIRKLAND -- Planner Nancy Bird of Huckell/Weinman Associates, Inc. has been certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Bird has six years of experience in planning, land use analysis and economic development.

Her recent projects have involved transit station areas in Seattle, SeaTac, Snohomish County, Lynnwood and Kirkland. She holds a master's degree from Illinois State University.

Huckell/Weinman provides land use environmental planning and economic consulting to public and private sector clients.

Workshops to air water permit changes

OLYMPIA -- The Department of Ecology will hold public workshops in communities throughout Washington to gather comments on proposed changes to fees for water discharge permits.

Approximately 4,000 local governments and industries pay a fee for state and federal water discharge permits every year.

The fees allow the permit holders to safely release treated water into lakes, rivers and marine and ground waters. The fees enable the Department of Ecology to provide information to permit holders, review their engineering plans and do inspections to ensure that the permit holders are complying with their permits.

The workshops, all beginning at 1 p.m. will be held as follows: Kennewick, Tuesday, Oct. 9, at the Ecology Nuclear Waste Office, 1315 W. Fourth Ave.; Spokane, Wednesday, Oct. 10, at the Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave.; Longview, Monday, Oct. 15, at the Cowlitz County PUD, 961 12th Ave.; Lynnwood, Tuesday, Oct. 16, at City Council Chambers, 19100 44th Ave.; Bellingham, Wednesday, Oct. 17, at the Fairhaven Library, 1117 12th St.; and Lacey, Thursday, Oct. 18, at the Department of Ecology auditorium, 300 Desmond Dr.

For more information call Bev Poston at (360) 407-6425.

Catch may be cut to help sea lions

SEATAC (AP) -- Next year's commercial harvests of Alaska pollock, cod and mackerel would be cut by at least 5 percent under conservation measures proposed by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

The limits, approved at the council's meeting in this south Seattle suburb, will be forwarded to the National Marine Fisheries Service for final approval.

The proposed restrictions are an effort to help threatened and endangered populations of Steller sea lions, which compete with the fishing fleet for those fish.

Those populations have declined by more than 70 percent since the 1960s, leaving about 34,600 animals. Scientists are trying to figure out why.

David Benton, the council's chairman, said the approved limits are based on the best available science and would not put the sea lions at risk.

The fisheries service, which is responsible for protecting threatened and endangered marine animals, has concluded that commercial fishing is contributing to the sea lions' decline.

Industry officials are quick to note that Steller sea lions are the most abundant mammals on the Endangered Species List.

Green River salmon board expands

SEATTLE -- Representatives from Tacoma and Vashon Island will be added to the board overseeing salmon recovery in the Green River watershed.

The King County Council voted unanimously for the change.

Tacoma agreed to join the board, officially known as Water Resource Inventory Area 9, because of its interests in the upper Green River watershed. Vashon agreed to join because it wants a greater role in regional planning efforts.

"We all live downstream from someone," said Council member Larry Phillips, "Managing a watershed from mountain headwaters to the Sound means a healthier environment for everyone throughout the region."

Appliance recycling this weekend

TUKWILA -- Best Buy Co., Inc. will offer consumers a chance to recycle televisions, computers, VCRs and other household appliances this weekend at its Tukwila store.

For a nominal fee -- $5 for most goods, $10 for computer monitors and $15 for TVs -- the company will recycle the appliances rather than send them to a landfill. These appliances often contain hazardous materials like lead, mercury and cadmium.

Microwaves, smoke detectors and large appliances like refrigerators or air conditioners cannot be accepted.

Best Buy is located at 17364 Southcenter Parkway. Recycling will be available this Friday and Saturday, Oct. 12 and 13, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Drought hits lakes Mead and Powell

PHOENIX (AP) -- Drought upstream and California's thirst downstream have dropped the level of Lake Mead 28 feet in two years, producing a crisis.

On the Colorado River near the mouth of the Grand Canyon, where once there was a huge bay teeming with bass there now is a mud flat with foot-high brush.

Boating business in Meadview, Ariz., is crushed, and river rafting on the Colorado is in a crunch, the newspaper said. An additional 10-foot drop is expected over the next two years.

William Burke, a spokesman for Lake Mead National Recreation Area, said the lake is on track for a 30-year water low in the near future.

"It's going to cost millions in extending water, gas and sewer lines and repairing ramps as the water drops," Burke said. "We're going to need an awful lot of (signs), and a lot of them are going to say, 'Don't go there."'

Part of the problem has been two of the driest years on record at the headwaters of the Colorado River.

Because of an 80-year-old compact, Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico are guaranteed a minimum of 8.23 million acre-feet of Colorado River water annually. An acre-foot of water -- enough to cover an acre to a depth of one foot or 325,850 gallons -- is enough to supply an average family of four for one year.

Barry Wirth, a Bureau of Reclamation spokesman in Salt Lake City, told the newspaper that only the minimum has been released at Glen Canyon Dam near Page the past two years.

However, the flow into Lake Powell has only been 60 percent of normal the past two years, and downstream, the flow out of Lake Mead has been greater than normal.

Bob Walsh, a Reclamation Bureau spokesman in Las Vegas, said California is taking an addition 600,000 acre-feet it had been guaranteed, and Nevada is taking an additional promised 30,000 acre-feet.

So instead of 9 million acre-feet, the release at Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border is 9.6 million acre-feet this year, Walsh said. He said Arizona isn't taking more than its 2.7 million acre-foot allotment.

Additionally, Lake Mead normally loses about 1 million acre-feet a year to evaporation, Park Service officials said.