Photo credit: Global Diving & Salvage

Bren­dan Cow­an from the San Juan Coun­ty Depart­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment shares his appre­ci­a­tion for all of the peo­ple involved in the Aleut­ian Isle recov­ery efforts.

After 40 days of chal­leng­ing and com­plex work, the Aleut­ian Isle has been lift­ed ful­ly out of the water and onto a barge for trans­port to mainland.

The islands are so appre­cia­tive of the large team of peo­ple that made this hap­pen and are grate­ful the oper­a­tion hap­pened with­out seri­ous injury to any responder.

Despite this effort per­haps appear­ing sim­ple at first glance, it is dif­fi­cult to con­vey the scale and com­plex­i­ty of what occurred and the chal­lenges faced along the way.

First, thanks to Glob­al Div­ing & Sal­vage, Inc. The inge­nu­ity, courage, and per­se­ver­ance of their team, along with the Man­son Marine Con­struc­tion crew, was remark­able to wit­ness. US Ecol­o­gy capa­bly han­dled much of the on-water pol­lu­tion con­trol, with the help of Mar­ty Cheva­lier and his crew, the Islands’ Oil Spill Asso­ci­a­tion, Deb Fritz and Tow­Boa­tUS out of Fri­day Har­bor, and Pin­tail Marine.

Focus Wildlife’s team spent days and days on the water help­ing to min­i­mize wildlife impacts, and a whole team of local marine mam­mal experts from the Whale Muse­um, SeaD­oc, and oth­ers were on the water or on call through­out to help with orca mon­i­tor­ing and deterrence.

The local com­mu­ni­ty real­ly stepped up, hous­ing and feed­ing respon­ders and show­ing island hos­pi­tal­i­ty to respon­ders who spent more than a month away from their homes and fam­i­lies to sup­port the response. In par­tic­u­lar, Can­dace Rags­dale and the rest of the team at Roche Har­bor were remark­able with their sup­port amidst their busiest time of year. San Juan Island Fire & Res­cue shared bunk space with respon­ders and Fri­day Har­bor Labs went above and beyond with find­ing sleep­ing space. Many oth­er local hotels and rental oper­a­tors worked extra hard to accom­mo­date the team.

Last but not least, a huge thank you to our agency part­ners who lit­er­al­ly embed­ded them­selves in our com­mu­ni­ty over this response. The U.S. Coast Guard Pacif­ic North­west has had staff on-island from day one, and they’ve tru­ly been a plea­sure to work with. Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy’s team has been a calm and steady pres­ence and their field staff have dropped every­thing in their lives to mobi­lize to the island. The Wash­ing­ton Depart­ment of Fish & Wildlife team were com­mit­ted and high­ly com­pe­tent. Swinomish Tribe has strong­ly sup­port­ed this effort from the begin­ning and their patrol boats have been a steady pres­ence on the water. Nation­al Ocean­ic and Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion sci­en­tists have sup­port­ed with weath­er and tidal mod­el­ing, and Cana­di­an respon­ders from the Coast Guard and Fish­eries and Oceans have pro­vid­ed expert sup­port as well.

And final­ly, I want to men­tion that the own­ers of the ves­sel have been vest­ed and com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing this response from the very begin­ning. A com­mon and under­stand­able reac­tion fol­low­ing a cri­sis of any kind is to find some­one to blame or vil­i­fy, and while an inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing, rest assured that the local Wash­ing­ton fam­i­ly that owns this boat has been dev­as­tat­ed by the reper­cus­sions but 100 per­cent devot­ed to the response.

There is always a dan­ger when com­pil­ing lists of leav­ing some­one vital off — and to those I have, just know that the work that went into this was a true tes­ta­ment to the amaz­ing things that hap­pen when good peo­ple put their minds and hearts to some­thing and work smooth­ly togeth­er to achieve it. Thank you one and all!

San Juan Island School Dis­trict sends along news about awards grant­ed to three local high schoolers.

Three Fri­day Har­bor High School stu­dents have earned aca­d­e­m­ic hon­ors from the Col­lege Board Nation­al Recog­ni­tion Pro­gram: junior Ava Mar­tin, junior Siena Traynor, and senior Islay Ross. These Nation­al Recog­ni­tion Pro­grams grant under­rep­re­sent­ed stu­dents with aca­d­e­m­ic hon­ors that help them mean­ing­ful­ly con­nect to nation­wide col­leges and stand out dur­ing the admis­sions process. Col­leges and schol­ar­ship pro­grams iden­ti­fy stu­dents award­ed nation­al African Amer­i­can, His­pan­ic, Indige­nous or rural/small town recog­ni­tion through Col­lege Board’s Stu­dent Search Service.

“I am extreme­ly grate­ful to attend Fri­day Har­bor High School and my expe­ri­ences in [Advanced Place­ment] have been over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive,” Ava says. “All of the teach­ers have done a fan­tas­tic job help­ing me learn and they have pro­vid­ed a tremen­dous amount of sup­port. My AP U.S. His­to­ry teacher, Ms. Cald­well, went above and beyond when help­ing me pre­pare for the exam. I am very grate­ful that Fri­day Har­bor High is able to pro­vide me with so many AP course options.”

“Even though the size of Fri­day Har­bor High School can make it dif­fi­cult for class­es to be the most com­pet­i­tive, I appre­ci­at­ed the sup­port from my teach­ers last year,” Siena explains. “Per­haps most impor­tant­ly, I love the way it feels when you open a text­book and the rest of the world dis­ap­pears even though it also con­nects to every­thing you’re read­ing. While you’re sit­ting there, only the text, then the lit­tle high­light­ed por­tions remain. That is the kind of oppor­tu­ni­ty and expe­ri­ence that an AP class allows you to have.”

“It’s easy to feel lim­it­ed when you come from such a tiny island, but the arts com­mu­ni­ty is so spe­cial here,” Islay says. “I’m lucky to have grown up sur­round­ed by unique and sup­port­ive people:

the sculp­tor who showed me how to see shapes in wood;
the painter who taught me the planes of the face;
the artist who walked me through my first life-size sculpture;
the locals who come togeth­er for draw­ing group on Tues­day nights;
the restau­rant own­ers who offered to hang my art on their walls;
my art teacher who would talk through a piece with me for hours;
my mom who lets me use her art studio;
my dad who car­ries my six-foot can­vas­es around;
and any­one who’s ever told me to keep mak­ing art.” Con­tin­ue Reading

Friends of the San Juans share news about their lat­est legal vic­to­ry in sup­port of South­ern Res­i­dent killer whales.

Fos­sil-fuel giant Phillips 66 sub­mit­ted a request to rescind their per­mit appli­ca­tion to con­struct two new stor­age tanks in Fer­n­dale, WA, fol­low­ing a mul­ti-year lit­i­ga­tion process ini­ti­at­ed by Friends of the San Juans. If the stor­age tanks had been built, they would have increased the Phillips 66 Fer­n­dale Refinery’s oper­a­tional stor­age capac­i­ty by almost ten percent.

In 2019, Phillips 66 applied for a per­mit to expand its fos­sil-fuel stor­age facil­i­ties in Fer­n­dale. But in its per­mit appli­ca­tion, Phillips 66 neglect­ed to include pre­dic­tions of how many addi­tion­al ves­sels would vis­it the refin­ery. Since sci­en­tif­ic data clear­ly shows that increas­es in ves­sel traf­fic result in greater impacts and risks to the crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered South­ern Res­i­dent killer whales, such pre­dic­tions are required in facil­i­ty expan­sion per­mits. On that basis, Friends, along with mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, object­ed to the per­mit. Sub­se­quent­ly, Friends of the San Juans pur­sued legal actions to ensure that pro­tec­tions for the South­ern Res­i­dents were upheld by What­com County.

In an email rescind­ing the per­mit appli­ca­tion, Phillips 66 stat­ed, “the com­pa­ny has decid­ed to can­cel the IMO Tank Project. This deci­sion was large­ly based on the pro­tract­ed per­mit­ting process and result­ing restric­tions imposed on the project.”

Phillips 66’s deci­sion is the direct result of its unsuc­cess­ful appeal of the Hear­ing Examiner’s deci­sion in Supe­ri­or Court and to the Court of Appeals. The restric­tions imposed on the project includ­ed an ongo­ing ves­sel traf­fic mon­i­tor­ing con­di­tion that would ensure that the new stor­age tanks would not increase ves­sel traf­fic, as Phillips 66 stat­ed in its per­mit appli­ca­tion. This con­test­ed per­mit con­di­tion was includ­ed to ensure that the project would not increase adverse ves­sel traf­fic impacts on the South­ern Res­i­dent killer whales and the Sal­ish Sea ecosys­tem. Phillips 66’s with­draw­al of the per­mit rais­es the ques­tion of whether Phillips 66 was being com­plete­ly hon­est in stat­ing — in the per­mit appli­ca­tion and through­out the lit­i­ga­tion process — that the two new stor­age tanks would not increase ves­sel traffic.

“The ongo­ing mon­i­tor­ing of ves­sel traf­fic should be a per­mit con­di­tion for all projects that could increase ves­sel traf­fic,” said Lov­el Pratt, Friends of the San Juans Marine Pro­tec­tion and Pol­i­cy Direc­tor. “This will ensure that the impacts relat­ed to increased ves­sel traf­fic are addressed.”

Friends of the San Juans con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor appli­ca­tions for projects that could increase ves­sel traf­fic in the Sal­ish Sea, and engages in per­mit review process­es to ensure that increased ves­sel traf­fic and asso­ci­at­ed impacts and risks are addressed.

I recent­ly read in the news of a pro­posed zon­ing change for the cur­rent com­mer­cial lots on the cor­ner of Mal­com and Argyle in Fri­day Har­bor. As an adjoin­ing prop­er­ty own­er, I strong­ly oppose this zon­ing change for mul­ti­ple reasons.

The cur­rent com­mer­cial zon­ing allows far more flex­i­bil­i­ty; a mixed-use devel­op­ment of both res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial would be a bet­ter use of this devel­op­ment near town. Plus, mixed use allows for much need­ed work­force hous­ing to be built, which is not allowed for mul­ti-fam­i­ly zones but is allowed in com­mer­cial use.

Com­mer­cial zon­ing should be main­tained on the Argyle and Mal­com lot, or at the very least give the devel­op­er the option based on sound eco­nom­ic prin­ci­ples. It should also be main­tained because com­mer­cial zon­ing allows for 51% improve­ments in the form of ground floor com­mer­cial suites and 49% sec­ond floor or off-street live work/space, even with a 50% reduc­tion in allow­able lot cov­er­age to main­tain the his­tor­i­cal integri­ty that includes a 30-foot green­belt set­back from Argyle.

Reduc­ing the project from 60% lot cov­er­age allowed to 30%, there is still more than 21,000 square feet of lot cov­er­age allowed for mixed use development.

Any plan should hold a por­tion in reserve for open space, park­ing or future devel­op­ment; all paving sur­faces should be per­me­able; and all plants should be either food pro­duc­ing or endemic.

Lynn Dana­her
Argyle Suites
Fri­day Harbor

The Library shares their appre­ci­a­tion for com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who sup­port­ed the orga­ni­za­tion’s inclu­siv­i­ty ini­tia­tive dur­ing last mon­th’s Coun­ty Fair Giv­ing Campaign.

The San Juan Island Library is burst­ing with grat­i­tude for the donors who gave to our Inclu­siv­i­ty Ini­tia­tive grant fea­tured at this year’s San Juan Island Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion Coun­ty Fair Giv­ing Campaign.

More than 50 peo­ple con­tributed dur­ing the four days of the Fair and helped the Library earn a $1,000 match from SJICF. The $6,200 raised will be put to use imme­di­ate­ly by pur­chas­ing a ser­vice to trans­late the online library cat­a­log for Span­ish-speak­ing patrons. Over the next year, remain­ing funds will help host a vari­ety of speak­ers to cel­e­brate the voic­es of BIPOC and LGBTQNIA2S+ writ­ers, his­to­ri­ans, and artists as part of the adult pro­grams offered at the Library.

Spe­cial thanks to SJICF for con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide this won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty for local non­prof­its at the Fair.

• Both of Fri­day Har­bor High School’s soc­cer teams won yes­ter­day. The boys beat Orcas Island 1–0 on the road, while the girls knocked off Gran­ite Falls 3–2 at home.
• A fundrais­er was held at the ten­nis courts at the high school on Sat­ur­day to raise mon­ey for a bench in mem­o­ry of Ellyn Goodrich, a beloved local play­er who passed away Aug. 31. The event raised $650.
• The espres­so machine is back in ser­vice at Bak­ery San Juan. The espres­so bar is open from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
• Pri­or-year free and reduced lunch appli­ca­tions with the San Juan Island School Dis­trict expire in three weeks. Appli­ca­tions for the 2022–23 school year are due on Wednes­day, Oct. 12.
• The Library’s free Messy Me event, which pro­vides sen­so­ry bins filled with inter­est­ing mate­ri­als and tex­tures for kids ages 2–5 to play with, takes place in the Fri­day Har­bor Ele­men­tary School gym from 2:30–4 p.m. today.
• Here are the week’s spe­cials at Mar­ket Place and Kings.
• Thanks to our adver­tis­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port of the San Juan Update — includ­ing Vote Yes For Our SJ Library.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

SJCT sends along news about the first per­for­mance of its 2022–23 season.

San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre begins its 2022–23 Sea­son with Mau­ri­tius, writ­ten by There­sa Rebeck. The play cen­ters around two estranged sis­ters who inher­it a valu­able stamp col­lec­tion, and their con­flict­ing ideas of what to do with it.

Direc­tor Nathan Kessler-Jef­frey was inspired to take on the play because the sto­ry is “…intense, scary, and dra­mat­ic. The pac­ing is phe­nom­e­nal; the con­flict between the char­ac­ters is present in every sin­gle moment of the play. This is one of [There­sa Rebeck’s] best shows.”

Open­ing night is Thurs­day, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. and the shows run through Sun­day, Oct. 16.

Tick­ets are $24 for adults, $13 for stu­dents, and $5 for stu­dent rush tick­ets. Thurs­days are pay what you can admis­sion at the door —  includ­ing open­ing night. To pur­chase tick­ets, call the box office at 360–378-3210 or vis­it the SJCT web­site.

Cold­well Banker San Juan Islands is look­ing for a year-round full-time Receptionist/Front Desk Man­ag­er. Learn more in the Island Jobs sec­tion of the San Juan Update.

• The saga of the sunken Aleut­ian Isle fish­ing ves­sel con­tin­ues. After being raised to the sur­face over the week­end and hav­ing near­ly 800 gal­lons of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water removed, recov­ery crews deter­mined that inac­ces­si­ble pock­ets of water still on board the ves­sel made it too heavy to lift onto a recov­ery barge. Crews addi­tion­al­ly dis­cov­ered that the cur­rent place­ment of the rig­ging places excess stress on the ves­sel’s struc­ture, which could cause it to break apart when raised. Yes­ter­day the ves­sel and recov­ery crane were moved to shal­low­er water in Mitchell Bay, where it will be pos­si­ble for crews to de-fuel, de-water, and re-rig the ves­sel, and sur­round the entire oper­a­tion with booms to pre­vent con­t­a­m­i­nants from escap­ing the area.
• The Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board has released a pre­lim­i­nary report about the Labor Day week­end crash of a float­plane that had depart­ed from Fri­day Har­bor. Recov­ery efforts for the plane are expect­ed to begin next week.
• The third annu­al scare­crow con­test takes place this Octo­ber. The Cham­ber of Com­merce will be accept­ing reg­is­tra­tions from Oct. 8–15, and then the scare­crows will be on dis­play around town for com­mu­ni­ty judg­ing from Oct. 20–28. Email becki@sanjuanisland.org to learn more about reg­is­tra­tion. The con­test is also spon­sored by the Friends of the San Juan Island Library.
• Saltaire Vine­yard is host­ing an open house this week­end — Fri­day through Sun­day — from noon to 6 p.m. each day. There will be vine­yard tours, wine tast­ing, and bot­tle sales. You can bring a pic­nic with you if you’d like. Saltaire is locat­ed at 3166 Pear Point Rd.
• The Land Bank’s San Juan Island stew­ard­ship staff invite the pub­lic to a tour of the upcom­ing eco-restora­tion of Gar­ry oak habi­tat on the west side of Mount Grant Pre­serve. The event takes place on Fri­day, Sept. 30 from 2–4:30 p.m. and advance reg­is­tra­tion is required.
• Thanks to our adver­tis­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port of the San Juan Update — includ­ing Simon­son & Zam­brovitz.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

We moved to Fri­day Har­bor in 2017 and met Ron over cof­fee and street chats short­ly there­after. Through our con­ver­sa­tions we have got­ten to know Ron and have come to appre­ci­ate his pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­tence and as impor­tant­ly his love of com­mu­ni­ty and his gen­uine con­cern for peo­ple. Addi­tion­al­ly, we sense a fair­ness in lis­ten­ing and embrac­ing “the rest of the sto­ry” mind­set as law enforce­ment requires dis­cern­ing judge­ment. We have per­son­al­ly seen him on his days off reach out to oth­ers in need and lend a help­ing hand. We can’t imag­ine a more suit­able Sher­iff for our islands than Ron Krebs.

Jer­ry and Deb­bie Mercer
San Juan Island

Local vol­un­teers for the Statewide Health Insur­ance Ben­e­fits Advi­sors pro­gram share news about their upcom­ing infor­ma­tion­al session.

If you turn 65 this year, you need to get ready to enroll in Medicare. Depend­ing on your cir­cum­stances Social Secu­ri­ty may enroll you auto­mat­i­cal­ly. Oth­er­wise you will have to sub­mit an appli­ca­tion to get Medicare cov­er­age. Our pre­sen­ta­tion will help you under­stand whether you need to sub­mit an application.

Peo­ple enrolled in Medicare have deci­sions to make about how they will be cov­ered. To make an informed deci­sion you will need to under­stand a lot of new infor­ma­tion. Medicare has its own vocab­u­lary and rules. There are dead­lines you need to meet and penal­ties — some last­ing a life­time — for not doing things at the right time. SHIBA’s online pre­sen­ta­tion will explain all of these terms and rules.

You will have to choose among sev­er­al ways to receive your cov­er­age. Medicare cov­ers most health issues, but not every­thing. There are also fed­er­al and state pro­grams avail­able to help peo­ple with very low incomes and lim­it­ed assets pay their Medicare pre­mi­um and reduce their drug costs, and in some cas­es their Medicare copays and deductibles. Our pre­sen­ta­tion will give you the tools you need to make your decisions.

Join SHIBA vol­un­teers tomor­row, Sept. 20, at 1 p.m. To reg­is­ter, email shibasjco@yahoo.com or call 360–376-5892. You’ll need to pro­vide your first name, last name, and email address.

SHIBA is over­seen by the state’s Office of the Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er to pro­vide free, unbi­ased, con­fi­den­tial coun­sel­ing in San Juan Coun­ty. The orga­ni­za­tion is spon­sored local­ly by the Inter Island Health­care Foun­da­tion.

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety of Fri­day Har­bor shares a look at the adopt­able ani­mals of the week — two younger chi­huahuas who came to San Juan Island by way of Bak­ers­field, California.

We’re Mox­ie and Tilly and we’ve been besties ever since meet­ing a few years ago in a cof­fee shop we both fre­quent­ed. We formed a fast friend­ship and bond­ed over our shared appre­ci­a­tion for a good cud­dle — us chi­huahuas are known for it after all! Soon we were spend­ing all our cof­fee shop hours togeth­er as we teamed up to cre­ate and launch our YouTube series and blog, Cud­dle Cul­ture, the suc­cess of which has led us to be the well­ness influ­encers that we are today. We aim to edu­cate all to the ther­a­peu­tic and health ben­e­fits to cud­dling. We also dis­cuss the cul­ture, recent sci­ence, cur­rent trends, and how-to’s of a good cuddle.

Although we don’t plan on slow­ing down on social media, we are at a point in our lives where we’re ready to find our for­ev­er fam­i­ly. As besties and busi­ness part­ners, we are deter­mined to find a fam­i­ly that will take us both. Although we love cud­dling we require gen­tle­ness and for this rea­son are hop­ing for a kid-free home.

Learn more about Mox­ie and Tilly here.

The Town of Fri­day Har­bor is look­ing for two full-time Util­i­ty Work­ers for its Water and Waste­water depart­ments. Learn more in the Island Jobs sec­tion of the San Juan Update.