The Salish Sea....

[goodbasil]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/091031/canada/canada_us_environment_geography_sea

You can still use your old charts.

[James McMullen]

Tim Yeadon in Big Food has officially been the "Salish Sea Canary" for months now. It's about time th gov'mint got its act together and caught up with the program.

[JimD]

..to change the way we think of these waters ... what happens in Puget Sound also happens in Georgia Strait

I like it. It brings a sense of community and shared concerns for an international region currently divided by politics and arbitrary boundaries.

[David G]

It's a term I first heard from Sam McKinney, years ago. I appreciated the thinking behind it, and applaud the change.

For those of you who don't know Sam... check him out. He was a pioneer, and wrote a few very interesting books. The most germane to this thread is "Sailing With Vancouver:..." My favorite, though, is "Reach of Tide, Ring of History:..."

[Paul Girouard]

I like it. It brings a sense of community and shared concerns for an international region currently divided by politics and arbitrary boundaries.



Yes, all that, AND the city of Victoria's sewer! :(

[Yeadon]

Salish Sea Canary (tm).

[goodbasil]

We'd have to get rid of one of the other seas though.
The phrase, "Sail the eight seas;" doesn't have the same ring to it.


(P.S. I agree. Victoria should do something about the sewage.)

[JimD]

Yes, all that, AND the city of Victoria's sewer! :(

This could help bring pressure to bear on Victoria and the BC and federal governments.

[Lew Barrett]

I've always thought the area between South Sound and Nanaimo is one cruising area, sort of home waters even if it's Canada on one side of the border and the US on the other. Get across the St. of Georgia, and from my perspective you start to be in another cruising area. Once in Malaspina Strait things start to seem different and out of an easy cruise home to me, and that sense of familiarity disappears and wonder sets in. Even more so up Johnstone St. marks an altogether different boating experience.

Salish Sea works for me.

[AstoriaDave]

This was debated vigorously and at length on West Coast Paddler, a Victoria/Vancouver-sourced sea kayaking forum. Pretty much, the Canadian contributors hated the name change. The US contributors were pretty much neutral.

I suspect removing "Georgia Strait" is viewed as a slap on their UK heritage by many folks from BC. I explained that no one on my side of the line was very excited about any name derived from King George III, but it fell on very deaf ears!

Personally, I think it makes good geographic sense and pays tribute to the natives who inhabited the region for centuries. But, conquerors claim the right to name the lands they win, and I suspect Georgia Strait is here to stay.

By the way, I think we need to modify Puget Sound to Pungent Sound at the same time, if my nose is any indication when I am downwind of some of the pulp mills at its edges!

[JimD]

... the Canadian contributors hated the name change. ...I suspect removing "Georgia Strait" is viewed as a slap on their UK heritage by many folks from BC. I explained that no one on my side of the line was very excited about any name derived from King George III, but it fell on very deaf ears!

Personally, I think it makes good geographic sense and pays tribute to the natives who inhabited the region for centuries. But, conquerors claim the right to name the lands they win, and I suspect Georgia Strait is here to stay...

I think of it like a footprint in the sand. Name the footprint after King George if you like. But name the sand after the Salish.

[Paul Girouard]

No one in the Sound should think their **** doesn't stink.

Easy to point the finger at Victoria and claim that city is responsible for the degradation in water quality, but everyone in the Sound bears responsibility for the cesspool that Puget Sound has become.



OK using that logic let extend the "blame" to anyone , any where that has used or shipped anything out of any port in the sound. And also anyone who's ever ran a boat in those waters. Or worked up steam on any river that flows into the sound.

I think asking that a major city, to at least process thier human waste before pumping it into the sound in 2009 is a minor request.

If it was Everett or B-ham, Wa. you can be damned sure our neighbors to the north would be "all over it" like stink on $hit!

YMMV.

[Paul Girouard]

Agreed. Everyone living around the Sound, all users past and present, myself included, bear responsibility for the degradation of the Sound.



Well you should join elf in her quest to rid the world of human kind. It would seem the only solution.

You and her could "lead by example" :D The rest of us my just be inspired enough to follow along:rolleyes:

Hinting, eh! Did "they" mention any other effects, or would that sort of be a given that humans can and do / have and will continue to be a source of pollution.

Oh, what the hell, Victoria should be allowed to dump raw waste in the Sound without any complaints because some else / will contribute in some other way.

[TimH]

Greater Victoria to stop flushing untreated sewage in sea

After decades of complaints, the British Columbia capital of Victoria plans to stop flushing millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the waters between Vancouver Island and Washington state.
By PHUONG LE (http://search.nwsource.com/search?searchtype=cq&sort=date&from=ST&byline=PHUONG%20LE)
The Associated Press


After years of bad publicity — including a campaign by "Mr. Floatie" — the British Columbia capital of Victoria plans to stop pouring millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the marine waters between Vancouver Island and Washington state.
Regional politicians last week approved a $1.2 billion plan to build four treatment plants to handle about 34 million gallons of raw sewage that Victoria and six suburbs pump into the Strait of Juan de Fuca each day. The cities are home to about 300,000 people.
"It's the first time we've had the region say, 'It's the direction we're going to go in,' " said Christianne Wilhelmson, with the Georgia Strait Alliance, which has pushed for sewage treatment for years.
Environmentalists say the treatment should improve the marine environment and public health. Others, however, argue the money could be better spent elsewhere, and that sewage pumped into the strait is sufficiently diluted by water and fast-moving currents. The strait separates the island from Washington's Olympic Peninsula and leads to Puget Sound.
For years, the effluent issue has been a sore point on both sides of the border, contrasting with Victoria's self-promotion as a tourist center, a gateway to the wilderness forests and rugged marine coast of Vancouver Island, and a city of prim and proper homes, shops, gardens and tea rooms worthy of its royal namesake.
"It's the only city in Canada where people resolutely cling to the notion that Victorian waste is different from other waste," said Lara Tessaro, a staff attorney with Ecojustice in Canada.

more (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009323284_webvictoriasewage10m.html)

[Paul Girouard]

I wonder what progress has been made since that article?

Originally published June 10, 2009 at 11:14 AM | Page modified June 10, 2009 at 5:58 PM

[AstoriaDave]

Agreed cities such as Victoria should treat their sewage. And, that excessive input of nutrients from human waste is a major problem for bodies of water such as Puget Sound which do not exchange with the broad ocean. Sewage outfalls in Puget Sound pretty much just concentrate the nutrients in the nearby waters. That is a bad thing. In contrast, after tertiary treatment, nutrients (excluding any heavy metals or other toxins) can actually assist beneficial marine organisms to grow, under the right conditions, and are not always a bad thing to direct to well-flushed waters.

But, the poster who noted that deep sediment from Puget Sound stinks of sulfur is incorrect in suggesting the high H2S content is strictly due to humans. In fact, deep sediment (and often shallow finegrained sediment) often becomes anoxic owing to poor access to oxygen. Under those conditions the natural breakdown of sulfur from dead microscopic sea critters stops at H2S and does not proceed to sulfate (SO4). Sulfate typically washes away as a salt or gets trapped in sediment. In any case, sulfates have no odor.

[Paul Girouard]

My point, which is quite simple, but one you seem to have missed, is that Victoria is only a part of the problem.





Ah, not really BUT ................. What part of "it's a given that people will / have / and will continue to be a part of the polution issue" is unclear to you?

[Paul Girouard]

Perhaps you would be happier if people who pose issues that you find troubling would just disappear. Did I understand that part correctly?



It's a connect comment to another thread , so you may have the context partly right , but the joke part may be to embedded/ cryptic.

She never answered on the other thread.

[Robert L.]

Well I would say that the Salish Sea is now "official", cause I heard it on the news. ;) A local story on one of the area NPR stations (KPLU - Jazz and Blues format) did a story about a new baby Orca being spotted near the San Juan's in the Salish Sea. So as not to be left behind I am sure that the other radio stations will soon be using it also which means that sooner or later the TV folks will be asking what the heck is this Salish Sea thing we keep hearing about and decide it will be the new must say buzz word.

[TimH]

If you cant discover new lands just rename the ones you already have!

[KAIROS]

...a new baby Orca being spotted near the San Juan's in the Salish Sea..... it will be the new must say buzz word.

Yes, as a 'must-say buzz word', this new Salish Sea term is being erroneously used as a replacement for the already named water bodies that make it up. It is just a new politically correct way to refer to the combined waters of the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca, the waters between them around the San Juan Archipelago, and Puget Sound to the south.

So, Salish Sea is a very general term and should not be used except when referring to the entire region. I live here because I love the Salish Sea, but if I were describing where to find a new baby Orca, I might use the term Haro Strait. Referring to something in Monterey Bay as being in the Pacific Ocean would be a similar gross generalization. Salish Sea does have a nice ring to it, though.

I suppose what partly inspires my rant is that I am also a Cartographer envisioining how in the world to go about placing a 'Salish Sea' label on a map of the entire region without obliterating everything. The waters here are too intricate and circuitous to support such a label on a map. The term also refers to waters so diverse physically and biologically that it has little meaning. HUFF.

But it is stylish. I suppose it will grow on me.