NOTE: the sit­u­a­tion is chang­ing quick­ly and cas­es are increas­ing. This will be a long update, but please read the entire doc­u­ment. There are a num­ber of crit­i­cal details that it is impor­tant the com­mu­ni­ty be aware of. Thank you! Since the last update on Fri­day Decem­ber 24th, there have been 54 new con­firmed or prob­a­ble  Con­tin­ue Reading

Here’s a let­ter to you from SJI Fire & Res­cue… San Juan Island Fire and Res­cue (SJIF&R) remains com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ous improve­ment in our ser­vice to our islands’ com­mu­ni­ties to ensure pro­fes­sion­al, qual­i­ty, and com­pas­sion­ate emer­gency response and ser­vice. Why does SJIF&R respond to med­ical calls? First: SJIF&R’s guid­ing prin­ci­ple is do what is right for  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Town of Fri­day Har­bor has not­ed that water lev­els in the water stor­age tanks in Town are dan­ger­ous­ly low and the Town is there­fore impos­ing an imme­di­ate water rationing order and may lat­er need to ini­ti­ate planned ser­vice out­ages to main­tain ser­vice. We have no indi­ca­tion that there are major leaks in the dis­tri­b­u­tion  Con­tin­ue Reading

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

To Town Water Cus­tomers: The recent cold snap has caused pipes to freeze in hous­es and build­ings that have nev­er had that issue before.  Due to increased water usage, we know there are more leaks in the sys­tem.  We ask every­one to check their hous­es, inside and out, to make sure they don’t have burst  Con­tin­ue Reading

In the Mail­bag today we have this let­ter from Nathan But­ler, Super­in­ten­dent and EMS Admin­is­tra­tor… We have seen the recent let­ter from Fire Chief Norvin Collins regard­ing our agency and merg­er talks. He bad­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed our agency, and his let­ter is an object les­son in why we have opt­ed not to try again at merg­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

Since the last update on Fri­day Decem­ber 17th, there have been 13 new con­firmed or prob­a­ble cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty. Cur­rent case count is now 479. How­ev­er, there are a num­ber of sus­pect cas­es cur­rent­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion that are not yet count­ed in the total case count pend­ing con­firm­ing test results, but may con­tribute  Con­tin­ue Reading

The dog licens­ing sea­son is upon us! The San Juan Coun­ty Auditor’s office gets the excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to name the celebri­ty dog each year and award them the first dog tag. For 2022, the hon­or goes to Churchill, a 14-month-old Bernese Moun­tain Dog who is the unof­fi­cial greeter for the Elec­tions Office. Encour­ag­ing two-legged mem­bers  Con­tin­ue Reading

Snow is cur­rent­ly in the fore­cast for this week­end. If you would like to learn more about how the Coun­ty pri­or­i­tizes and responds to snow events on Coun­ty Roads please vis­it Map Gallery | San Juan Coun­ty, WA see where you can view our pri­or­i­ty maps and plans for snow removal. Please remem­ber, win­ter weath­er  Con­tin­ue Reading

The fol­low­ing sto­ry comes to you from Wild Fish Con­ser­van­cy… In anoth­er legal defeat for Cooke Aqua­cul­ture, a sec­ond Wash­ing­ton state court has reject­ed efforts by the seafood giant to sue Wash­ing­ton state over the ter­mi­na­tion of the company’s lease for their Port Ange­les net pen oper­a­tion. On Tues­day, the Court of Appeals issued an  Con­tin­ue Reading

Dick Grout shares this pho­to of Dwight Col­ley being sworn in ear­li­er this week as the new com­mis­sion­er of San Juan Fire Dis­trict 3 by Judge Kathryn Loring.

Since the last update on Fri­day Decem­ber 10th, there have been 16 new con­firmed or prob­a­ble cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty. Cur­rent case count is now 466. While the trans­mis­sion source is not known for all these cas­es, a num­ber are tied to recent hol­i­day trav­el or recent family/friend gath­er­ings. There are approx­i­mate­ly sev­en unvac­ci­nat­ed  Con­tin­ue Reading

In response to the crit­i­cal lack of mar­itime and fer­ry trans­porta­tion work­ers, and the con­tin­ued need for high-wage careers for islanders, the EDC has launched a Mariner Train­ing Ini­tia­tive. Work­ers seek­ing a new career are invit­ed to the EDC’s new pro­gram on mariner work­force devel­op­ment. First, on Jan. 29th, 2022, the EDC will offer a  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

Sto­ry by Louise Dus­trude… Wash­ing­ton state attor­ney gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son spoke at the Decem­ber meet­ing of the League of Women Vot­ers on Mon­day about the great vari­ety of issues cur­rent­ly being con­front­ed by his office. Speak­ing to the group on Zoom, he called his office “the largest law firm in the state,” and said they  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