Island Guardian

Saturday, April 14th

Public Meeting On Whales vs. Boats: 4-18 In F.H.

Questions & Answers on the NOAA Fisheries Service
Request for Comment on Vessel Regulations for
Southern Resident Killer Whales
(March 2007)

Q. What action is NOAA Fisheries Service taking for killer whales?
A. NOAA Fisheries Service announced that it is opening a public comment period on potential regulations to protect killer whales in Washington State from the effects of various vessel activities.

Q. Why is the agency asking for this public comment?
A. NOAA Fisheries Service listed the Southern Resident killer whales as endangered under the Endangered Species (ESA) on Nov. 18, 2005. The agency identified vessel effects as a potential contributing factor in the population’s decline. The proposed recovery plan for Southern Resident killer whales includes as a management action the evaluation of current vessel guidelines and the need for regulations and/or protected areas.

Q. What has NOAA done so far to protect Southern Resident killer whales from vessel activities?
A. There are voluntary Be Whale Wise guidelines intended to protect whales from harassment. NOAA supports the Soundwatch program, an on-water stewardship and monitoring group, to promote the Be Whale Wise guidelines and monitor vessel activities in the vicinity of whales. Despite guidelines, outreach efforts, and legal protections under both the Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection Acts, interactions between vessels and killer whales continue to occur in the waters of Puget Sound and the Georgia Basin.

Q. Will this action affect whale watching this summer?
A No. Formal rulemaking takes time. Gathering information during this public comment period is the first step in evaluating the need for management actions in addition to the current guidelines. Any regulations that are proposed will go through a public review process before becoming final. In the meantime, we encourage all vessel operators to follow the Be Whale Wise guidelines.

Q. Has NOAA regulated vessel activities near whales in other areas?
A. Yes. The agency has regulated close vessel approaches to humpback whales in Hawaii, and Alaska and right whales in the North Atlantic.

Q. Does NOAA want comments only on whale-watching vessels?
A. No. The agency is interested in comments on all types of vessel activities.

Q. What kinds of information is NOAA looking for?
A. NOAA Fisheries Service is requesting information and comments on whether -- and if so, what type of -- conservation measures, regulations, or other measures would be appropriate to protect killer whales in Washington. This includes:
• advisability of and need for regulations
• geographic scope of regulations
• management options for regulating vessel interactions with killer whales
• scientific and commercial information about the effects of vessels on killer whales and their habitat
• information on potential economic effects of regulating vessel interactions
• any other relevant information that the agency should consider if it undertakes rulemaking.

Q. How can I provide information and comment on vessel effects?
A. You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
• E-mail: orca.plan@noaa.gov.
• Federal e-rulemaking portal: http://www.regulations.gov
• Mail: Assistant Regional Administrator, Protected Resources Division, Northwest Regional Office, National Marine Fisheries Service, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115.

Q. Will there be public meetings during this comment period?
A. Yes. NOAA Fisheries Service will hold two public meetings:
• April 18, 2007, 2-4 p.m. in the Grange Hall, Friday Harbor, Wash.
• April 19, 2007, 7-9 p.m. at the Seattle Aquarium, Seattle, Wash.

These meetings will be designed in an open house format. They’ll provide people with an opportunity to listen to a general presentation and meet with NOAA Fisheries Service staff to learn more about the ESA, MMPA and options for developing regulations to implement them. These open houses will also provide opportunities for interested parties to make formal recorded comments about possible vessel regulations. The preferred means of providing such comment for the official record is via written testimony prepared in advance.
Q. How can I get more information about the public comment period?
A. See the Federal Register notice for details.

Q. When are comments due?
A. The comment closing date is June 20 at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

[link]

Anti-Litter Initiative's New Program: Imagine No Litter!

By Lori Stokes, San Juan Island Anti-Litter Initiative

The litter problem on our beautiful island belongs to all of us, and it won’t go away unless all of us do our part. Start by imagining no litter anywhere! Wouldn’t that be something???

The San Juan Island Anti-Litter Initiative is sponsoring a new campaign to help tackle the litter problem on an island-wide basis. It’s called Imagine No Litter!, and is an island version of the more well-known adopt-a-road program that exists in other areas of the country.

There are already many residents who are regularly cleaning certain roadsides or beach areas. Most notable is the volunteer group Trash Masters, who have been picking up litter along the entire length of Roche Harbor Road for over a year. Unfortunately, the amount of litter they are collecting each month doesn’t seem to be declining, but our hope is that the relatively recent “Secure Your Load” campaign has raised people’s awareness about the problem of trash blowing out of the back of pick-up trucks en route to the Transfer Station on Sutton Road.

You can sign up to help -- either as an individual or as part of a group (e.g., a family, a neighborhood, a business, a club) -- by mailing in the form included in the flyer that is being sent this week to all island residences, or by calling or e-mailing me (Lori Stokes, 378-4643, lori@rockisland.com), or by marking the map that will be on display at Market Place from April 14-28.

If each of us volunteers to do just a little bit, just imagine the huge impact that all of us together will have!

Lori Stokes is one of the founders of the San Juan Island Anti-Litter Initiative )

[link]

Tuesday, April 10th

Large Turnout For Second Marine Workshop

mrc_MSAP_04-07-07_01 (70k image)
(San Juan Island workshop at the SJI Yacht Club)

The second of four Marine Stewardship Area Workshops put on by the MRC ( Marine Resource Committee was held Saturday on San Juan island. The workshop opening remarks were given by Karen Vedder, and if there was some disagreement during the course of the meeting as to what was, or was not, most important to protecting the marine environment, everyone seemed to agree that Vedder had given voice to the reason a marine stewardship plan was worth their review (Read Vedder’s “Host Remarks” )

The next workshop will be on a Saturday, April 14, 9 am to 1 pm on Lopez (Center for Community and the Arts); and the final one will be held on Orcas (Madrona Room at Orcas Center, Saturday, April 21; 9 am -1 pm). The first workshop was held on Shaw Island, and according to Councilman Kevin Ranker and FH Port Commissioner Barbara Marrett, there was a large turnout from Shaw and Waldron’s residents. Ranker put the number as “somewhere around 100 participants”.

The meeting on San Juan also drew a large number of participants, who represented a strong cross-section of islanders. The public was asked to visit a number of “Listening Posts”, and then to discuss the ”threats and strategies” the Draft Marine Resources Area plan has thus far identified. The public was asked to comment on a number of questions, and to list their “priorities” by the use of colored stick-it dots to rank the importance of the strategies from “least supported” (red dot), to the “most supported” (green dot).

[more..]

Remarks to the Marine Stewardship Area Workshop

(The following is a copy of the “Host Remarks” given by Karen Vedder at the first Marine Stewardship Area Workshop held April 7, 2007, on San Juan Island -Editor)

By Karen Vedder

Think of your first memories of these islands.

Is there anyone here whose memory is not laced with the wonder you felt at the incomparable beauty of this place? Yet each of our memories is unique. The moment in time when your memory was created is unique. It forms a baseline, in ways seen and unseen, for your vision of the place.

This baseline is different for each person living and dead who has every walked these shorelines or paddled these waters. The differences may be quit small and imperceptible or large and noticeable. My friend, Kit Rawson, tells me that the small or large differences between these moments in time reflect what is called a shifting baseline.

This shifts, of course, go back to the beginning of time. Every creature in these waters evolved from something else. I would like to go back to when the first Europeans came to these waters. They encountered a culture full of art, song and legends that incorporated the world that the Native Americans lived in and with. These explorers encountered a world whose baseline may have changed very little for thousands of years.

This is the world encountered by the European explorers who first sailed these waters. They recorded what they found in their ships’ logs.

[more..]