Recy­cle Elec­tron­ics Feb­ru­ary (was going to be on the 12th now resched­uled to 19th due to snow) 10:00 am — 3:00 pm in the open lot next to the Mullis Fire Sta­tion. Accept­able items include: Desk­tops, Lap­tops, Tablets, Mon­i­tors, Print­ers, Tele­vi­sions (LCD OR CRD), DVD Play­ers and DVR’s, Com­put­er cables. No key­boards or mice. Items must  Con­tin­ue Reading

Free Work­shop for Shore­line Prop­er­ty Own­ers and Man­agers Sep­tem­ber 24th Inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about your shore­line prop­er­ty and how it can help feed salmon, seabirds and orca? Join engi­neer­ing geol­o­gist and shore­line ero­sion man­age­ment expert Jim Johan­nessen of Coastal Geo­log­ic Ser­vices and nearshore habi­tat biol­o­gist Tina Whit­man of Friends of the San Juans for guid­ance  Con­tin­ue Reading

Pacif­ic Whale Watch Asso­ci­a­tion and Ace Hard­ware stores in Ana­cortes and Fri­day Har­bor, WA Launch “Orca Friend­ly Prod­ucts” Ace is the place for… sav­ing orcas! In a unique part­ner­ship, Ace Hard­ware is part­ner­ing with the Pacif­ic Whale Watch Asso­ci­a­tion (PWWA) in help­ing its cus­tomers find “Orca Friend­ly” prod­ucts in its stores. The pilot project will begin  Con­tin­ue Reading

Due to the high heat and low fuel mois­ture lev­els, all of San Juan Coun­ty will be at the EXTREME fire haz­ard lev­el. There­fore, no fires, includ­ing recre­ation­al fires, are allowed at this time. Robert Low, SJC Fire Marshal

Grab your mag­ni­fy­ing glass and explore nature in San Juan Island Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park, like nev­er before! On May 20–21, nation­al parks across the coun­try, includ­ing San Juan Island, will par­tic­i­pate in the Nation­al Parks BioBlitz. BioBlitz is a fun, fast-paced bio­log­i­cal sur­vey of a park’s creep­ers and crawlers, plants and pol­li­na­tors, mam­mals and more!  Con­tin­ue Reading

Shore­line ero­sion man­age­ment focus of free work­shop Shore­line landown­ers of San Juan Coun­ty com­mu­ni­ties are invit­ed to attend a free work­shop on shore­line ero­sion man­age­ment from 11:00am to 2:00pm on Sat­ur­day, May 14, 2016 at The Orcas Fire & Res­cue Meet­ing Room, 45 Laven­der Ln., East­sound. The work­shop is free but reg­is­tra­tion is request­ed by  Con­tin­ue Reading

Lori Stokes shares this recap of last week’s clean up event on the islands… Co-orga­niz­ers of the sixth annu­al Great Islands Clean-Up on San Juan Island — Lori Stokes, Jana Marks, and David Dehlen­dorf — would like to thank our island’s approx­i­mate­ly 300 vol­un­teers who par­tic­i­pat­ed this year, help­ing to make San Juan Island “lit­ter-free  Con­tin­ue Reading

FHES 6th graders, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Kwiaht orga­ni­za­tion, will be host­ing a Pol­li­na­tor Cel­e­bra­tion, a Hon­ey Tast­ing and a Research Gar­den Ded­i­ca­tion,  onFri­day, April 29th from 9:00 to 11:00 am. The Research Gar­den Ded­i­ca­tion from the 6th graders to the sup­port­ing orga­ni­za­tions of Kwiaht and San Juan Pub­lic Schools Foun­da­tion begins at 9:30. Also, a spe­cial  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mark your cal­en­dars! It’s time for the 2016 Great Islands Clean-Up… our annu­al spring-clean­ing! And again this year, both Orcas and Lopez will be join­ing San Juan in the event! The spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion about San Juan Island’s effort is as fol­lows: When: Sat­ur­day, April 23, 9 am – noon Where: All island road­sides and beach­es Rain or shine!  Con­tin­ue Reading

Just a quick note here to let you know to Save the Date! The Great Islands Clean Up, (yes, that’s right — “Islands” with an ‘s’) is com­ing up on Sat­ur­day, April 18, from 9:00 am until noon. More infor­ma­tion will fol­low as the time draws clos­er, but for now — you know that’s the date.

Here’s an excerpt from this mon­th’s Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Labs Tide Bites newslet­ter, writ­ten by Petra Ditsche… Years ago when I stepped into a riv­er and expe­ri­enced the strong forces of the cur­rent, I won­dered how ani­mals are able to live in such a chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment. This expe­ri­ence stayed with me, and the inter­play of  Con­tin­ue Reading

Katie Flem­ing of FRIENDS of the San Juans just sent over this press release: Almost 100,000 Com­ments Sub­mit­ted Ask­ing for Broad Look at Pro­posed Coal Export Ter­mi­nal Voic­es from across the coun­ty, state, and coun­try have weighed in on the “cra­dle to grave” impacts of coal export.  The pub­lic com­ment peri­od for the Gate­way Pacif­ic Ter­mi­nal (GPT) Envi­ron­men­tal  Con­tin­ue Reading

Rov­ing Update reporter Louise Dus­trude got a chance to catch up with Jill, Ann and Louisa to find out what they were up to, and she turns in this report: Wear­ing orange safe­ty vests, Louisa Nishi­tani, Ann Jar­rell, and Jill John­son were work­ing the fer­ry lanes on Mon­day, hand­ing out infor­ma­tion about the pro­posed Cher­ry  Con­tin­ue Reading

This just in from Rob Simp­son: Many sci­en­tists are say­ing that lethal storms such as Hur­ri­cane Sandy are going to become more com­mon in our imme­di­ate future. Most attribute this to excess car­bon in the atmos­phere heat­ing things up and desta­bi­liz­ing our weath­er sys­tems. But, there is anoth­er fac­tor at work here.  Geo­Engi­neer­ing has been  Con­tin­ue Reading

One of the most knowl­edge­able bird experts on San Juan Island is Susan Ver­non, and she just checked in with a thought about one of our small­er friends: Hi Ian, I thought I would jot you a note regard­ing the over­win­ter­ing Anna’s Hum­ming­birds on the island now.  I sus­pect some folks don’t know we have  Con­tin­ue Reading

Bren­dan at the Coun­ty’s Depart­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment has issued a heads up on the week ahead (you can “like” his Face­book page here; you can sign up for e‑mails from him here): Mon­day morn­ing: Too soon to know for sure, but the Weath­er Ser­vice is fore­cast­ing a major snow­storm for Wednes­day. Com­put­er mod­els are  Con­tin­ue Reading