Begin­ning Jan. 1, 2022, Wash­ing­ton restau­rants will no longer auto­mat­i­cal­ly include sin­­gle-use food ser­vice items like uten­sils, condi­ments, and straws with food orders. A new state law restricts the use of these items and pro­hibits pack­aged bun­dles of sin­­gle-use items in order to reduce waste and lit­ter – although cus­tomers can still request indi­vid­ual items if need­ed.  Con­tin­ue Reading

From drought con­di­tions this sum­mer to record rain­fall and flood­ing last month, water man­age­ment is cer­tain­ly a crit­i­cal issue. San Juan County’s Clean Water Util­i­ty, man­aged by the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Stew­ard­ship, serves cit­i­zens by address­ing storm and sur­face water infra­struc­ture improve­ments such as stream cul­verts and water qual­i­ty treat­ment. The Util­i­ty also sweeps and  Con­tin­ue Reading

All in a day’s work for our stew­ards! Check out this time lapse video vol­un­teer Michael Noo­nan shot of the dock demo at Fish­er­man Bay Spit Pre­serve Lopez Island: https://vimeo.com/645420585/bda88786e9  The San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank Com­mis­sion will hold its month­ly meet­ing on Decem­ber 17, from 8:30am – 10:20am, fol­lowed by a spe­cial meet­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

This arti­cle was Sub­mit­ted by Tran­si­tions San Juan Island Waste Man­age­ment Group… What keeps on giv­ing each year? Cre­at­ing tra­di­tions that help nature: A pot­ted fir tree brought inside to dec­o­rate, used year­ly; grow­ing side by side with us all. A can­dle lit every Xmas eve. A cac­tus passed down through gen­er­a­tions, nour­ished and watered through­out the year  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank and the Preser­va­tion Trust recent­ly com­plet­ed a for­est assess­ment at Turtle­back and Turtle­head Pre­serves. The result­ing report (click here to view report) out­lines a vari­ety of for­est man­age­ment actions aimed at increas­ing for­est health, habi­tat val­ue and cli­mate change resilien­cy. Staff are incor­po­rat­ing the rec­om­mend­ed actions into the forth­com­ing update to  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Coun­ty Coun­cil is search­ing for vol­un­teers to fill two upcom­ing vacan­cies on the San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank Com­mis­sion. At large, Posi­tion 4 – four-year term expir­ing Decem­ber 2025 (Orcas, Crane, Obstruc­tion and Wal­dron Islands) At large, Posi­tion 5 – four-year term expir­ing Decem­ber 2025 (San Juan, Brown, Hen­ry and Stu­art Islands) If you are inter­est­ed  Con­tin­ue Reading

After more than two years of research and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach, the San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank has entered the final phase in plan­ning future agri­cul­tur­al oper­a­tions at Cof­felt Farm Pre­serve. The Land Bank invites the pub­lic to sub­mit writ­ten com­ments on a new Cof­felt Farm study and to attend a Zoom meet­ing on Decem­ber  Con­tin­ue Reading

Just in time for Hol­i­day Gift Sea­son, Join Ani­ta Bar­reca and Tina Fish­er in learn­ing how to make Beeswax Wraps.  They’re easy!  Just bring your own 100% cot­ton fab­ric cut to the prop­er sizes and a few bucks to cov­er the cost of the beeswax.  Space is lim­it­ed so sign up soon and we will  Con­tin­ue Reading

This morn­ing we find a let­ter to you in the San Juan Update Mail­bag from Steve Ulvi… In the late 1960s, my out­door adven­tures grew grit­ti­er; in wilder land­scapes, great­ly expand­ing on child­hood camp­ing trips.  My dom­i­nant inter­ests became nature-cen­tered, access under one’s own pow­er.  I felt the thrum of the non-human com­mu­ni­ty of life and  Con­tin­ue Reading

The fol­low­ing is sub­mit­ted by San Juan Island res­i­dent Ang­ie Light with the Tran­si­tion San Juan Waste Reduc­tion Group… My fam­i­ly and I are new to the island, and one of the many char­ac­ter­is­tics of San Juan that we love is the access to won­der­ful farms and farm­ers. Many an evening our fam­i­ly meal is made  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty, WA, USA. – The recent­ly updat­ed Sal­ish Sea Ves­sel Traf­fic Pro­jec­tions (PDF — Nov. 2021) pro­vid­ed by Friends of the San Juans shows that at least a 25% increase in large, ocean-going com­mer­cial ves­sel traf­fic could occur if all of the pro­posed new and expand­ing ter­mi­nal and refin­ery projects are per­mit­ted and  Con­tin­ue Reading

The San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank Com­mis­sion will hold its month­ly meet­ing on Novem­ber 19, from 8:30am-11:30am via Zoom. The pub­lic is invit­ed to attend. Click HERE to down­load the agen­da (includes ZOOM link) and meet­ing mate­ri­als, includ­ing the Cof­felt Farm Lease Rate and Reserve Study. (PDF) To learn more about your Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank,  Con­tin­ue Reading

Call­ing all high school stu­dents on Orcas and San Juan Islands inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal action! Are you pas­sion­ate about the envi­ron­ment? Do you wish to see pos­i­tive change in your com­mu­ni­ty? Join the Youth for Change Envi­ron­men­tal Lead­er­ship Club, a pro­gram led by Friends of the San Juans.  Youth for Change pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for you  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Town of Fri­day Harbor’s free month­ly res­i­den­tial curb­side pick­up of plas­tic film for recy­cling begins Wednes­day, Octo­ber 27th. Cus­tomers have been giv­en “Plas­tic Film Only” recy­cling bins and asked to par­tic­i­pate in a one-year pilot pro­gram spon­sored by the Town in part­ner­ship with SC John­son, the glob­al man­u­fac­tur­er of Windex® and oth­er house­hold brands.   Con­tin­ue Reading

The Pacif­ic States/British Colum­bia Oil Spill Task Force is hon­or­ing Mar­ta Green with a 2021 Lega­cy Award for her com­mit­ted lead­er­ship in devel­op­ing and advanc­ing the San Juan Islands’ Oil Spill Pre­ven­tion Strat­e­gy. Over the last five years, Mar­ta secured grant fund­ing and man­aged two projects to advance oil spill pre­ven­tion mea­sures for the ship­ping lanes through  Con­tin­ue Reading

FRIDAY HARBOR, WA. — As sum­mer Chi­nook salmon runs wane in the Sal­ish Sea, South­ern Res­i­dent Killer Whales typ­i­cal­ly begin to trav­el fur­ther south in Puget Sound in search of prey. A study com­pil­ing 10 years’ worth of data found evi­dence that the whales’ diets shift from pri­mar­i­ly Chi­nook salmon in the sum­mer months to a  Con­tin­ue Reading