CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Dan Bacher writes—Fishery Council Adopts Salmon Options for 2016 Season: “The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), the federal body that oversees the management of ocean fisheries on the West, yesterday adopted three public review alternatives for the 2016 West Coast salmon season at their meeting in Sacramento. The Council will select a final alternative at their next meeting in Vancouver, Washington on April 9-14. Commercial, recreational and tribal fisheries will see restrictions this year due to salmon declines along the West Coast. The proposed seasons and regulations vary widely by region and type of fishery. ‘The mix of salmon runs this year is unusual,’ said outgoing Executive Director Donald McIsaac in a PFMC news release. ‘In the north, the return of fall Chinook to the Columbia River is forecast to be exceptionally high again, but expectations for wild coho runs to the Washington Coast and Puget Sound areas can only be described as disastrous. In the south, the Sacramento River fall Chinook are healthy, but Klamath River fall Chinook are so poor that the Council’s policy calls for a low ‘de minimis’ catch in ocean fisheries.’”

owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Ridley Creek State Park: “Ridley Creek State Park is a 2,600 acre park in Delaware County located about sixteen miles west of Philadelphia. (Website) The park contains 13 miles of hiking trails, a 5 mile paved multi-use trail that allows bicycles, and another 5 mile horseback riding trail. The Hunting Hill Mansion (pictured above) was built in 1914 and serves as the park’s main office. Other facilities and attractions include picnic grounds, fishing in Ridley Creek (which is stocked with trout), and also Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation, which is a reproduction of a working late 18th century farm. The part of the park around Sycamore Mills is also a registered national historic district.”

Snow goose in Merced National Wildlife Refuge,

Senor Unoball writes—Dawn Chorus: Refuge Rain Bringing Out the Birds: “As you know, California has been suffering from a drought over the past few years. It was looking dire for ducks last fall, as low water levels meant that migrating ducks, geese, and other birds would not have good habitat and food when they arrived from Alaska and other northern locales.vHowever, the winter rains did appear, with decent amounts of rain in December and January. February was dry again, but, as I write, March is quite rainy indeed in Northern California.vSo, how are the birds in the various Central Valley refuges?vWe decided to go find out. In January, Ms. Unoball and I loaded up on a couple of days to go birding, first, north of us at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge north of Williams off I-5. A couple of weeks later we visited the Merced and San Luis NWRs to the east of Los Banos.vWe found geese. We found swans. We found egrets.”

Calla Lillies

enhydra lutris writes—The Daily Bucket - My Yard Report for March 2016: “Castro Valley, CA, February 2016 (East Bay, south of Oakland, about 397 foot elevation). I decided to try to document the status of my yard as to what is budding, poking up out of the soil, blooming and the like photographically. I get a better take on the fullness and extent of any blooms and it doesn’t matter if I don’t know the names of all of our plants. The first in this series is here January Yard Report. The second is here February Yard Report.”

Orca getting a little sun.

OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - aquatic news items of interest: “This is the second edition of The Daily Bucket’s bimonthly nature news roundup. I have a particular interest in aquatic ecosystems and environmental integrity, so I have picked a few articles with that focus. For more information, click on the link in any of the short summaries.First up, you may have heard about the exciting baby boom of orcas in the Southern Resident population over the past year: 9 new calves! But amidst our joy here, there appears to be a problem: a sex ratio imbalance. One baby is a known female, 4 are known males, and the others are as yet undetermined. Since females lead the families of these highly intelligent and social creatures, a decreasing number of females will affect the population beyond just fewer mothers of future orcas. The concern scientists have is that the industrial toxin load in the Salish Sea is creating a male bias due to their hormone-disruptor effect. Even though some pollutants like PCBs and DDT are banned now they remain in environment and bioacculmulate in top predators like orcas. The sheer numbers of babies looks promising but the dearth of females spells a new crisis in this dangerously small population.”

CLIMATE CHAOS

Meteor Blades writes—WunderBlog: NASA's report on February's record-breaking heat is an ominous milestone: “ Jeff Masters and Bob Henson at Wunderblog at Weather Underground have posted a stunning analysis and commentary. The headline: ‘February Smashes Earth's All-Time Global Heat Record by a Jaw-Dropping Margin.’ Here’s what they had to say about it: On Saturday, NASA dropped a bombshell of a climate report. February 2016 has soared past all rivals as the warmest seasonally adjusted month in more than a century of global recordkeeping. NASA’s analysis showed that February ran 1.35°C (2.43°F) above the 1951-1980 global average for the month, as can be seen in the list of monthly anomalies going back to 1880. The previous record was set just last month, as January 2016 came in 1.14°C above the 1951-1980 average for the month. In other words, February has dispensed with this one-month-old record by a full 0.21°C (0.38°F)--an extraordinary margin to beat a monthly world temperature record by.”

ClimateDenierRoundup writes—No Moore Denial, Please: “Canadian climate denier Patrick Moore got up-close and personal with members of the European Parliament and high-level EU officials at a dinner, where he spoke on the hyperbolic topic of ‘Climate Demons or Climate Gods.’ According to an investigation by DeSmog UK, Moore’s ticket to the talk and his presentation were covered by EURACOAL, the ‘voice of coal in Europe.’ Moore is well-known for his strident views on carbon pollution, including the idea that, ‘We should celebrate CO2 as the giver of life it is,’ so it makes sense that he would be willing to celebrate coal at an industry fete. He also showed up at the Paris climate talks with the Heartland Institute, CFACT, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute at their anti-action ‘counter-conference.’ It was only yesterday that we were forced to defend climate scientists from the accusation of being paid-for ‘spin doctors.’ EURACOAL’s aim, according to the European Energy Foundation (EEF) is to ‘discover the truth behind climate science.’ The zeal behind Moore’s climate denial, it seems, can be measured in dollars and cents. ”

December 2015

Pakalolo writes—NASA: 20 miles across and 30 miles long, Nansen Ice Shelf will soon break off Antarctica: “NASA has advised that a floating shelf of ice off the Antarctica coast of Victorialand, Antarctica ​ is ready to calve an enormous iceberg into the Southern Ocean. This shelf buttresses two valley glaciers ( Reeves ​ and Priestly​) from emptying into Terra Nova Bay. Scientists Christine Dow and Ryan Walker noted that in just two years, a small crack grew large enough to spread across nearly the entire width of the Nansen Ice Shelf: In early March 2016, with southern winter soon to set in, satellite imagery indicated that the cracking ice front was still attached to the shelf. Even in winter, strong winds can prevent the water beyond the shelf from freezing, so it is unclear whether the front will separate soon or hang on like a loose tooth.”

ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Double Dose of Duplicity at Daily Caller: “There are two recent opinion pieces at the Daily Caller (yes, technically some of the content there is ostensibly factual reporting) that warrant calling out. One for its oddly anti-jobs message, and the other for its Orwellian-named source, the ‘Independent Institute.’ Ryan Yonk writes about the management of our National Wildlife Refuge System, finding fault with the basic prevailing philosophy of wilderness management. While his argument has more of a basis in reality than most we see at the Daily Caller, what really stands out is his byline as research fellow at The Independent Institute (TII). Surely a group with a name like that would be independent of any sort of corporate influence, right? Of course not. As usual, SourceWatch has the goods. TII has been funded by such esteemed sources as Philip Morris, ExxonMobil, the Kochs, and was once used as an advertising front by Microsoft. Meanwhile, Justin Sykes of Americans for Tax Reform wrote a piece critical of solar job growth. The thrust of his argument is that subsidies are bad, even if they're creating jobs.”

ENERGY

Nuclear, Coal, Oil and Gas

Lefty Coaster writes—Obama does a U Turn on allowing Offshore Drilling along Atlantic Coast from Georgia to Virginia: “This morning President Obama reversed course and canceled his plan to auction off leases for offshore drilling along the Atlantic Coast. By Suzanne Goldenberg: The Obama administration promised to protect Atlantic waters for future generations on Tuesday, raising expectations that waters off the US east coast and Alaska would be protected from oil and gas drilling. The expected decision reverses Barack Obama’s move just last year to open up a vast swath of the Atlantic coast to drilling – and consolidates the president’s efforts to protect the Arctic and fight climate change during his final months in the White House.”

Meteor Blades writes—Pushed hard by opponents, Obama administration reverses, says no new drilling off SE Atlantic Coast: “Back in January 2015, the Obama administration pleased oil companies and kindled fierce opposition when it announced the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s five-year plan for offshore oil development off the southeast Atlantic Coast. Tuesday, Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell announced a surprising retreat:"We heard from many corners that now is not the time to offer oil and gas leasing off the Atlantic coast," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said. "When you factor in conflicts with national defense, economic activities such as fishing and tourism, and opposition from many local communities, it simply doesn't make sense to move forward with any lease sales in the coming five years."

OneIssueGuy writes—Big Credit to Obama, Reversal on Atlantic Drilling: “Nothing official yet but it looks like Obama is reversing course on more drilling. I wasn’t posting during the rox/sux debates but certainly I would have fallen under the sux umbrella for reasons such as Atlantic drilling. It’s not that I don’t like Obama, it’s that Atlantic drilling is absolutely the wrong policy in a world heating up at an astonishing rate and in dire need to move away from oil/gas dependency.”

Lower says one well-known source than in the 1860s.

rjsigmund writes—US rig count at a record low while US oil stores at a record high; global rigs for February: “never before in the history of the US oil and gas industry was there so little drilling going on as there was in the week just ended...the graph above, from an article on this week's rig count at Zero Hedge, shows the total count of rotary drilling rigs running in the US over the past 41 years of Baker Hughes' Excel formatted records; showing that, over that span, we hit a new record low for drilling this week...my own scan of the static Baker Hughes typewritten records revealed the that rig count was at least twice today's count in the previous recorded decade going back to 1968, which closed the year with an average of 1569 rigs active in the US, and the highly respected Oil & Gas Journal says this may be the lowest rig count since the infancy of US oil and gas industry in the mid-19th century, ie, back to "the early part of the Pennsylvania oil boom" in the 1860s...”

A few of the leaders who fought Arch Coal's Otter Creek coal mine.

Mary Anne Hitt writes—Western Leaders Win Big Over Nation’s Biggest Planned Coal Mine: “Let’s start this victory column with a staggering number: For years Arch Coal had its eyes set on mining upwards of 1.3 billion tons of coal from Montana’s Otter Creek coal reserves—a move that would create the largest new coal strip mine in the US. The company had hoped to export it through Northwest ports such as the Millennium Bulk Terminals project proposed on the beautiful Columbia River in Longview, Washington. But last week—after several years of tireless, amazing work by ranchers, farmers, tribal leaders, and community advocates—Arch Coal announced it will pull its applications for the proposed project. While this long-awaited victory is the latest sign of the tailspin the US coal industry is facing, it’s also the latest demonstration of powerful community opposition winning against destructive energy projects. Thanks to the sacrifice and hard work of these advocates, more than one billion tons of coal and carbon will stay in the ground, Montana’s beautiful Otter Creek country will be spared from the ravages of surface mining, and local tribes and ranchers can continue their way of life.”

CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS​

Mass Southpaw writes—"A Climate Emergency" — A Case for Bernie Sanders: “Amazingly, to those of us who think about it all the time, climate change doesn’t rank very high among the priorities of Democratic voters this year. Voters are, by and large, failing to understand where we are in time. Our failure to act on behalf of the planet and future generations is, unquestionably, one of the great moral failings of this present moment. It is, in many ways, a reflection of our privilege as citizens of a wealthy nation that is somewhat more insulated (for now) from the devastating impacts of a warming planet and increasingly acidic oceans. Polls show that young people and people from the Global South — in other words, the populations who will have to live most directly with its consequences — are more concerned with climate change than older Americans. This younger generation has grown up with climate change. They are legitimately scared and are crying out for drastic change now. The only relevant question in this moment is: Will we listen?”

6412093 writes—Will Senator Sanders' Energy Plan Drive Up the Costs of Gasoline and Home Heating? “Senator Sanders’ Energy Plan dazzles the reader. It promises to cut carbon pollution by 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 by cutting fossil fuel subsidies, outlawing fracking, and other measures. What would it mean to ban fracking; which is the injection of materials and liquids underground to gain access to new fields of oil and gas? The United States would lose about one-half of its domestic oil production we banned fracking. We would have to increase our oil imports by 193 million gallons per day to meet current demand. Our increased demand for foreign oil could certainly drive up prices, if we stopped fracking. Gas was about $3.50 a gallon just 5 years ago, compared to about $2 now. Sander’s plan to ban fracking could drive up gasoline prices by restricting supplies.”

Kerry Eleveld writes—Kasich calls clean energy just too darn expensive for Ohio: “Ohio Gov. John Kasich made clear Sunday during a town hall in Youngstown that Sec. John Kerry has really been wasting his time with all these silly climate talks. When a questioner asked him how he would bring “clean energy and green jobs” to Youngstown and mentioned Kerry's recent efforts in Paris, Kasich took a pass on the opportunity to think big, instead telling the voter that the cost of clean energy is just too steep to invest in, reports Emily Atkin: ‘I think when [Kerry] went to Paris, he should have gone there to get our allies together to fight ISIS instead,’ Kasich said to applause. He added that clean energy would be too expensive to implement in the Mahoning Valley, where the manufacturing industry has suffered in recent years. ‘Youngstown has a history of manufacturing, okay, you know that, right?’ Kasich said. ‘You want to bring more jobs back to the Mahoning Valley, in things like manufacturing? You better have the cheapest energy you can have in the world. Do you know how much these alternative energies cost? A lot more than our traditional energy sources.’”

OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT

Dan Bacher writes—Dear Jerry Brown: Delta Tunnels Proposal Is Built On A House Of Cards: “Restore the Delta (RTD) today released a powerful open letter to Governor Jerry Brown from Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, RTD Executive Director, stating ‘It’s time to detach your legacy from the Delta Tunnels proposal.’ ‘It’s time to face the reality that this plan is falling apart,’ she said. Brown’s controversial California Water Fix to build the Delta Tunnels is in its biggest crisis ever as lack of a finance plan for the project to build the twin tunnels diverting Sacramento River water under the Delta becomes more obvious every day. The Brown administration is currently reeling from a barrage of national and international news coverage of the Securities and Exchange Commission decision to fine the Westlands Water District, the major financial partner of the proposed Delta Tunnels, for engaging in ‘Enron-style’ accounting in order to fool the bond market.”

LakeSuperior writes—#FlintWaterCrisis - Developments and News from Today and Yesterday: Governor Rick Snyder and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy are schedule to testify before the U.S. House of Representative’s committee investigating the #FlintWaterCrisis tomorrow (Thursday). Here's a Rick Pluta/Michigan Public Radio story about the hearings in Washington DC on the #FlintWaterCrisis; Governor Snyder and EPA. Administrator Gina McCarthy appear tomorrow: wemu.org/... Detroit News article on U.S. House committee rejecting aid package on Flint. Rep. Debbie Dingell is quoted: www.detroitnews.com/...

WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS

Dan Bacher writes—Karuk Tribe, Conservationists Add Klamath National Forest to Westside Lawsuit: “The Karuk Tribe and four environmental groups today expanded their complaint in federal court over the controversial Westside Post Fire logging plan to include the United States Forest Service and the Klamath National Forest. The groups filing the complaint include the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild), Center for Biological Diversity, and Klamath Riverkeeper. The suit alleges the Klamath National Forest Plan, as approved by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, ‘illegally increases the risk of extinction for threatened populations of coho salmon.’ NOAA Fisheries is an agency that the late Zeke Grader, the longtime Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, nicknamed ‘No Fisheries’ for its many failures to protect salmon and other fish over the years.”

SUSTAINABILITY & EXTINCTION

Putting the roof on the Tiny House Fit for a King.

wjhamilton29464 writes—Bring Tiny Houses to Mount Pleasant and Build a Better Town: “There are hundreds of people living outdoors in the Charleston area, including over a hundred in Mount Pleasant. By building a Tiny House Village here, we can provide affordable housing for some of those people, bring them into active participation in our community and restore to them the pride and opportunities of citizenship. Free the Charleston Tiny Houses proposes that the Town of mount Pleasant host the region's first Tiny House Village at the part you are planning to build on the North end of town. In return for a town regulated village of 25 tiny homes and occupancy of up to 50 people, the residents would contribute labor and community service hours to build and maintain the park and support other town civic, cultural and emergency response activities. The residents of the village would provided a Civilian Conservation Corps style volunteer force for the town. The area needed for the village would be less than an acre and the location is flexible. It just needs to be on high ground and within walk able distance of a CARTA bus stop.”

AGRICULTURE​, FOOD & GARDENING

whynotme413 writes—Wonders Of Wetland Plants: “It happens every day. Precious land that provides habitats for many different types of wildlife is being destroyed, but you’re not as powerless as you may feel. It’s entirely possible to create your own mini-wetland area in your own back yard. With a little research, you’ll find that most of your typical wetland plants don’t require a large reservoir of water to thrive. If you can find an area of your land that is naturally damp and equipped with a heavy clay soil, then you’ve got everything you need to get started. Building your own personal wetland area will not only benefit your immediate environment, but you’ll be providing a nurturing habitat for many different types of creatures. Butterflies, bees, frogs, and several different types of birds will find your creation delightful. Your mini-wetland will also serve to store and filter your lawn’s runoff water when it rains. The bottom line benefit is that you’ll enjoy the true essence and beauty of nature in your own back yard.”