Horse Drawn Farm on Lopez Island — Contributed photo

The Ag Guild sends along news about their recent FARM Fund grants.

The San Juan Islands Agricultural Guild FARM Fund is excited to announce the distribution of $72,048 in grants to San Juan County farms.

The 2022 FARM Fund grants will support projects that strengthen and develop regenerative agriculture in San Juan County while increasing the supply and availability of local food. The FARM Fund is committed to pursuing innovative ways to create a more resilient local food system while promoting the economic growth and viability of San Juan County farmers.

These grants were made possible by generous gifts from Orcasong Institute, Orcas Food Co-op, Regen Fund, San Juan Islands Grange #966, and two anonymous donors.

“We started the FARM Fund with less than $3,000 in 2015, awarding a handful of grants to Orcas Island farms. Those funds were derived from 0.5% of all Orcas Food Co-op produce sales, which continues to make up part of the annual funds,” said FARM Fund Advisory Chair Learner Limbach. “It has been remarkable to watch the fund grow exponentially as a countywide program of the Ag Guild, and we are thrilled to partner with the many amazing farms on Orcas, Lopez and San Juan Island that are receiving grants this year. Strengthening our local food system and regenerating island soils is more important than ever, and we are grateful to all the FARM Fund partners and supporters who have helped grow the fund and make these grants possible.” Continue Reading

The Town of Friday Harbor shares an update about their upcoming water meter modernization project.

In an effort to improve service for its water customers, the Town of Friday Harbor is replacing the current water meters with meters that have radio-read capabilities. These new meters will create a more efficient system, reducing the time employees spend in the field reading meters and instead allowing them more time for maintenance and to respond to emergencies such as water line breaks. The improvement project started this week and will take several months to complete.

We were able to test a few locations around Town starting in January 2021, and determined that this new system is a better option for the Town citizens.

Customers will be notified by the Town of a replacement in their neighborhood via door hangers or phone calls. Town employees do not need to enter residences to replace meters; the Water Crew will access the area where the meter is located. Water service is interrupted for approximately 10 to 15 minutes at each customer’s location during installation and testing. Going forward with this new system, the Water Crew will still require access to all meter boxes at any time pursuant to Friday Harbor Municipal Code. Please do not cover meter boxes or block them off from Water Crew access.

The new model is enabled with smart meter technology — the capability to use other remote devices to regularly transmit readings. These meters will start off by allowing drive-by readings collected by our Water Crew. The final goal for this technology is to allow for the wireless transmission of customers’ water meter readings directly to Town Hall via base stations located on existing water tanks and other structures. The meters can collect multiple reads per day as determined by a set schedule, allowing for better leak detection and improved customer service.

“The new system will help Town efficiently detect and minimize water loss,” said Town Administrator Denice Kulseth. “Smart meters also support our commitment to preserving and protecting our environment by enhancing our ability to detect and stop leaks quickly, reducing carbon emissions by eliminating the need to travel to read meters, and providing customers with up-to-date water usage data so they can improve their efforts to conserve.”

During future phases of the project, Town will provide a wide range of benefits for customers, including an online portal for viewing usage and other information, near real-time meter reading, and eventually the ability to automatically alert customers for leak detection or unusually high usage.

All new meters will begin working immediately, though online capabilities will not be functional until the Town is nearly complete with the project.

• Despite being outbid back in March, the San Juan Preservation Trust are now the successful bidders for the 58-acre Glenwood Inn property on Orcas Island. The transaction is expected to close at the end of June.
• This week the EDC received a $6,000 donation to their fire recovery grant fund from a fundraiser organized by Worth Avenue Yachts of Seattle.
• 17 new hires completed Washington State Ferries’ orientation for new deck employees last week and are now working throughout the WSF fleet.
• Check out the profile of Alchemy Art Center by the San Juan Island Community Foundation.
• Tina’s Place is now open for dinner until 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
• The Stand coffee cart will be at the Port of Friday Harbor’s main dock tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., or until supplies run out. They’re donating ten percent of all sales to the fire recovery grant fund.
• Tommy Dale & the Dangerfields will be live at Brickworks from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight for a free street dance. They’ll also be at San Juan Brewing Co. tomorrow from noon to 3 p.m.

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

Seth Bundy shares news about the ultimate frisbee scene on San Juan Island.

Right here in town, at Linde Community Park, something is happening. A new sport is blossoming on the Island — ultimate frisbee. Played in more than 40 countries by hundreds of thousands of people, ultimate combines the movement skills of soccer, basketball, and football in a non-contact field team sport involving a flying plastic disc.

Ultimate is unique among competitive sports in that games are governed by the Spirit of the Game, a tradition of sportspersonship that places the responsibility for fair play on the players rather than referees. This requires teamwork, open communication, respect for opponents, and cooperation – all important social and emotional learning skills.

Ultimate gained popularity as a competitive sport at colleges and universities in the early 1980s and has steadily grown ever since. Now, kids as young as fourth grade play on school teams and participate in ultimate camps. If you live on the island, enjoy team sports, and have never tried ultimate, you need to check it out.

At Linde we have pick-up ultimate for all ages and genders on Monday evenings, and Spring Street International School has been playing on Friday afternoons. This summer, during the week of June 27 to July 1, Seth Bundy is running an ultimate frisbee camp for youth aged 10-15. The camp is from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Advance registration is required. This is an opportunity to get some exercise, meet friends, and learn a new sport.

Photo credit — Center for Whale Research

The Center for Whale Research recently published a report about their May 22 encounter with transient killer whales in Haro Strait. You can read the full report at their website.

• The street striping work that was supposed to take place in town yesterday has been postponed to some time in June due to weather.
• There’s a fundraiser happening now to help out Rick Waldron.
• The County Planning Commission will hold a public hearing at 9 a.m. on Friday, June 17 to receive public comments about its 2022 Annual Docket, which is the process through which members of the community request changes to the County’s Comprehensive Plan and Unified Development Code.
• The library is holding a trivia night (with prizes) for students in grades five through eight on Friday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the library meeting room. No registration is required.
• An exhibition by mixed media painter Karen Benson takes place at WaterWorks Gallery next Friday, June 3 from 4 to 7 p.m.
• Here are the week’s grocery specials at Market Place and Kings.

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

Freezer Burned is an ongoing series for the San Juan Update, written by Steve Ulvi. Read the previous story in this series.

A Yukon River Maverick

(This story is creative non-fiction; respectfully embellished where fact and anecdote blur, an informed yet speculative tale. No one knows just what happened during the last days and hours of the active, intentional life of Richard O. Cook. He was a maverick, seamlessly at home on the lower Tatonduk River, and a friend. He was masterfully depicted as an Alaska bush-dwelling character in the 1977 classic, Coming into the Country by John McPhee).

Stooped some, slight of frame with corded muscles, Dick Cook hardly appeared to be 70 years along the path of life. His thinning dark curly hair bloomed at the edge of his sweatshirt hood; eyes steady, wheels turning in his head as always. Cook sipped black tea from a tannin-shellacked cup near the river’s rising edge. Unsurprisingly, his teeth also showed his love of strong tea. Brushing away hovering mosquitos, staring upriver, he pushed his hood back to better assess the clearing sky; his untamed beard and hair looked to be trimmed by a sharp knife, his worn clothes and a hooded sweatshirt always the same.

Cook’s unremarkable log shack tucked on a small forested island at Pass Creek, piled with decades of stuff, had burned and collapsed a couple of years back.  A stone’s throw behind where Cook stood, close to the charred pile was his mold-freckled wall tent, elevated cache and strewn camp. A year before, he had loaded his old 4×4 truck with building materials, put it on a raft in Eagle, guided it 27 miles with his canoe, landed at his cabin and motored up the Tatonduk River gravel bars (in violation of many laws, conservation ethics and common sense) for a couple of miles. It still sat on a high bar 4 miles down; unmoving. Cabin rebuilding stalled out. One of his cherished sled dogs, inbred for decades in a prideful Cookian selection process, roamed and barked at red squirrels who chattered teasingly in the grey-green spruce canopy. Continue Reading

San Juan County shares news about COVID booster availability for children on San Juan Island.

Booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are now available for children ages 5-11 years. The Washington State Department of Health expanded booster dose eligibility to following guidance and recommendations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and the Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup.

An additional mRNA dose will help further protect children and slow disease spread across Washington and in San Juan County. 

This expansion of booster eligibility comes as COVID cases are continuing to steadily rise across the country, state, and within our own community. The myth that COVID is always a mild disease in children needs to be dispelled. The updated booster dose recommendations are:

• Children ages 5-11 years should receive a booster dose five months after completing their primary vaccine series of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
• Immunocompromised children should receive their booster dose at least three months after their primary series

The next vaccination clinic on San Juan Island takes place on Tuesday, May 31. This clinic is for children ages 5-11 only.

• That’s the new hand-operated scoreboard located beyond the center field wall of the baseball field at Linde Community Park. The Purple and Gold Club raised money for the project earlier this year.
• Active and reported COVID cases on San Juan Island are trending down, from 82 on Friday to 55 yesterday.
• The Family Resource Center shared the good news that their utility assistance programs helped 322 island households with $82,300 in funding last year.
• There’s a Friday Harbor High School grad night fundraiser taking place tonight from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Masonic Lodge at 15 Second Street N. It’s all-you-can-eat spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread with a dessert auction at 8 p.m. It’s $20 per person and takeout is available.
• Due to the high number of COVID cases in the community, San Juan Island Fire & Rescue is postponing their open house, which was scheduled to take place on Saturday.
• Madrone Cellars & Cider is now open six days a week — Friday through Monday.
• Desolation Sound is performing on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. at San Juan Vineyard.

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

The Town sends along an update about the street striping happening in Friday Harbor tomorrow.

Street striping throughout the town of Friday Harbor is scheduled for Wednesday, May 25. The goal is to complete re-striping of major streets, as well as some of the secondary streets. The work schedule is weather dependent.

Motorists should use caution when they encounter road striping operations. The contractor will place orange cones to signify freshly painted areas. Do not drive across the wet paint stripes. Although the manufacturer claims the paint will dry quickly under ideal conditions, your vehicle tires will likely track the paint if crossed when it is still wet. This tracking will not only make the finished striping job look sloppy, but the paint may transfer onto your vehicle if not cleaned off immediately.

If you drive through road paint, go to the car wash and pressure rinse the area right away before the paint has a chance to set. This will loosen and remove most of the paint unless it has dried for more than a day. Avoid solvents or scouring as this will likely damage the finish of the vehicle.

As always, drive carefully and thank you in advance for proceeding with caution in areas where crews are working in the roadway. Contact Town Hall at 360-378-2810 with questions or concerns.

The Friday Harbor Port Commission will hold a regular meeting on Wednesday, May 25 at 12 p.m. Items up for action or discussion at Wednesday’s meeting include:

• Approval of the Jolly Trolley lease modification and settlement agreement
• Friday Harbor Seafoods business transfer
• Canoe club discussion
• RV dump discussion
• Legion tree trimming
• Department of Ecology holding tank program
• Revisiting lease renewal discussion
• Beginning 163 Lands Master Plan addendum

You can view the live stream of the meeting online via Zoom or attend in person at the San Juan Island Yacht Club.

The live stream of the meeting operates in listen-only mode; comments are not accepted in real time unless you attend in person. To submit a comment for presentation to the Commission, you must send a message to [email protected] — with the subject line “Public comment” — at least 24 hours before the meeting.

The Town shares an update about the availability of tourism-related grant funds.

The Town of Friday Harbor’s Lodging Tax Advisory Committee is accepting applications through September 12 for grants to fund tourism promotion of events and activities taking place within the town in 2023. Preference will be given to those operations and activities that encourage tourists to visit during the shoulder and winter seasons. Summer activities are acceptable but should be scheduled to avoid what are recognized as high-traffic weekends.

LTAC grants are awarded annually by the Town Council and are funded with the state’s hotel-motel tax, collected on all in-town lodging stays of less than 30 days. Grant proposals are reviewed by the LTAC, which is made up of council members, lodging owners, and community members appointed by the Mayor. The Town Council takes the LTAC’s recommendations under advisement when determining final grant awards.

Interested parties should review the LTAC request for proposals and grant application. Applications must be submitted to Town Hall no later than 4:30 p.m. on Monday, September 12.