Tag Archive: Puget Sound


It was a sad day in mid July, 2011… We were all stunned at the news that the Whatcom County Council had just approved unanimously to let the Whatcom County Parks build a parking lot in the heart of Lily Point. A plan to bring 30 cars at a time into the sacred grounds of Lily Point, where motorized vehicles have always been prohibited. My two closet friends wearily asked me, what can we do to help? Knowing the failure of Whatcom County to listen to the local community… my thoughts turned to someone outside the area that might help bring attention to this issue, and I said, “Get Me Joni Mitchell” I’d remembered that my friends had mentioned before that they knew Joni, through a friend of a friend. But the idea was really born out of something deeper, something that had caught my attention weeks before. Joni Mitchell put out a new CD in 2007 called Shine. One of the songs on the CD mentions a eagle. “Sparkle on the ocean, eagle at the top of a tree, those crazy crows always making a commotion, this land is home to me.” When I heard the song I knew that Joni was speaking from a voice of experience, and if she felt strongly about eagles, then she would care about Lily Point. My friends hung up the phone, and 3 days later I get a call, “Joni Mitchell is coming into Vancouver Airport, what do you want me to say to her?” So I started to explain what to say, and said I would get back to you. “No, she’s landing in an hour I need to know now!” So I went to the song “This Land” and told my friend just to explain about the parking lot at Lily Point, and how its going to be devastating to the eagles. Well Joni Mitchell was very receptive to my friend and they had a nice talk, and within their discussion Joni Mitchell said that we could use any of her music to help raise awareness about Lily Point. Joni said, “whatever I can do to help, just let me know.” It turned out that Joni Mitchell has a nesting pair of Bald Eagles on her property, and so yes my hunch was right… Joni Mitchell knows about eagles. So now I’m going to let the genius of Joni’s music help me to raise awareness and to take a stand that will impact eagles everywhere. I am honored and inspired by Joni Mitchell’s listening to our struggle, and thank her on behalf of the eagles of Lily Point, who soared just a little bit higher today.

One of the last movements to come out of the 60’s, was the raising of awareness towards our environment. One person encapsulated that whole period of change and creativity and laid it down in one song that captured the essence of a generation. That song was “Woodstock”, who Joni Mitchell wrote (even though she wasn’t there) and first performed it in Monterey. “We are stardust, we are golden, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.” “going somewhere to lose the smog”, i.e. city living and all that comes with it. “I don’t know who I am but life is for learning, “

Well this spiritual raising song didn’t resonate with the people who cut down forests, polluted our water, and removed over 85% of the wetlands that support our fragile wildlife. Instead of stepping on the brakes, industry pushed its foot down harder.

So Joni seeing what was going on, upped the ante and released the song, Big Yellow Taxi. It was released just 10 days before the first Earth Day in 1970. Her message now was much more direct and aimed at the people who were a major part of the problem. “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” coupled with, “don’t it always seem to go you don’t know what you got til its gone”… yes we were losing more things everyday, only many people didn’t recognize it at the time.

“we are stardust , million year old carbon… caught in the devils bargain”, “and we got to get ourselves back to the garden” Yes the devils bargain, our dependence on oil and coal, the dirty cheap energy that powers our lifestyle. So for the next 40 years we have learned about the reality of this bargain, and we have listened to each and every President say we need to get out from under our independence on foreign oil. We were pacified with talk and didn’t notice that not only were things not changing towards us “getting back to the garden” we were really on a course to remove more of the garden.

It was the Vietnam war that raged on through all of this and taught us the meaning of collateral damage. In the natural world the solution to collateral damage was the Endangered Species Act. But as we are finding out in Whatcom County that policy statements and environmental law, and protection of wildlife is still taking a back seat to business as usual; which is if you pay for the permit and jump through a few hoops, you can do what you want. Whatcom County doesn’t even make you prove your development won’t be harmful, they just want the money.

So in 2007 Joni Mitchell releases the CD “Shine”, as in shine a light on all these things that are happening that nobody is taking action on. Joni Mitchell even re-recorded Big Yellow Taxi and put it on the new CD. Why? It was still relevant. In fact it is more relevant today then it was 40 years ago when she wrote it. The fact that it is still relevant speaks volumes towards just how perilous a position we find ourselves in today.

So we are going to raise awareness about the truth of what is really going on at Lily Point. Like all issues today, there is far more to consider then what appears on the surface. The eagle is symbolic of seeing the big picture, and with the help of Joni Mitchell, who epitomizes all the eagles attributes, vision, seeing what’s important, peace, a guardian spirit, a guide who’s clarion call can lead us “back to the garden”, if we only listen. You see Lily Point is not just about eagles, its about us respecting the right for eagles and all creatures within the eagles domain to exist without human interference.

Thank you Joni Mitchell for your light and spirit.

Global Blog For Water Day

“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference”

-  Rachel Carson

Following on the footsteps of 10-10-10 comes Blog Action Day 10-15-10 sponsored by http://blogactionday.change.org/ I was asked, along with nearly 4,000 other bloggers, among a global audience of 28 million people, to post today and talk about…. WATER!!!!

Here in the Northwest, where we get more rain then anywhere else in the country, hydro energy powers our industry and homes. We can boast about the Columbia River basin, which at its mouth in Astoria, flows with more gallons per minute than the Mississippi. The Fraser River is the biggest salmon producing basin in the world, and rivers and streams flowing into the Salish Sea feed one of the biggest, most diverse ecosystems on the planet.

So no need to worry about water, we must have plenty, right? It’s been our manifest destiny to harvest and capitalize on all the resources that Mother Earth has gifted us. It’s okay to do as we please and live the American Dream. Thanks to free trade agreements, corporations can now cross borders, build pipelines, and send in super tankers, rail cars, and jumbo jetliners, all so products can now travel an average of 1,500 miles to reach customers. Yeah, it’s the global economy that stretches massive profits and Learjet con trails all the way to Wall Street.

Well, excuse me while I pull out a little William Blake… “Thou art my pride and self-righteousness; I have found thee out: Thou art revealed before me in all thy magnitude and power, Thy holy wrath and deep deceit cannot avail against me, for I am one of the living: dare not mock my inspired fury.”

Yes, many people have been so keen on keeping a lifestyle and culture going and growing that they didn’t notice how directly, and indirectly, our means of obtaining consumer products destroys life and marginalizes basic human rights.

While politicians talk about Middle East oil, we are left unaware that most of our oil comes from Canada, more specifically the Alberta Tar Sands, a scar on the earth covering 54,000 square miles, which is almost larger than the state of New York. Within this operation are 42,000 acres of toxic tailing ponds — the wastewater left after removing oil from the tar sand. Of course, to call them ponds is a bit of an understatement, for they are over 300 feet deep. Every day 2.9 million gallons leak out from these toxic ponds. It’s been called the biggest crime against nature on our planet. Imagine where those toxic waters end up and how much clean water is used in the process. Yet, pipelines to Mexico and the British Columbia coast that travel through even more critical habitat than in Alberta are being planned and backed by politicians who just see the oil revenue it produces.

In 2008, the United Nations agreed that safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. The General Assembly declared a deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.

40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life. 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into U.S. waters annually. Over 80% of items in landfills can be recycled, but they’re not.

Every two years we put as much pollution into the Puget Sound as the Exxon-Valdez spill. So do the math for the 21 years since a drunk Captain destroyed Price William Sound…here’s a recap of that disaster, from studies of both long-term and short-term effects of the oil spill.

Immediate effects included the deaths of, at best estimates, 100,000 to as many as 250,000 seabirds, at least 2,800 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs. The effects of the spill have continued to be felt for many years afterwards. Overall reductions in population were seen in various ocean animals, including stunted growth in pink salmon populations. The effect on salmon and other prey populations, in turn, adversely affected killer whales in Prince William Sound and Alaska’s Kenai Fjords region. Eleven members (about half) of one resident pod disappeared in the year following the spill. By 2009, scientists estimated that the AT1 transient population (considered part of a larger population of 346 transients), numbered only 7 individuals, and had not reproduced since the spill; this population is expected to die out. Sea otters and ducks also showed higher  death rates in following years, partially because they ingested prey from contaminated soil and also from ingestion of oil residues on hair, due to grooming. Some twenty years after the spill, a team from the University of North Carolina found that the effects were lasting far longer than expected. The team estimates that some shoreline Arctic habitats may take up to thirty years to recover.

Orca whales in the Salish Sea are the most polluted whales in the world. When they die they need to be buried in a HAZMAT site. So many toxins are stored in their fat that Orca calfs are often stillborn.

Most fish stocks are at only 10% of historic levels. Many are not recommended to be eaten more than once a week, and not at all by pregnant women.

To cap it all off, the Puget Sound has been one of the most polluted bodies of water in the U.S. since 1993. So although having water is not an issue in the Northwest, water quality is. However, even in the Northwest now, some aquifers are drying up.

World Water Day is designed to give us pause — currently 3.6 million people die each year because they don’t have clean water to drink, and every day 4,000 children younger than five years old die from preventable, water-borne diseases.

Here’s another startling fact. TriplePundit reports that in the last 10 years, per capita consumption of bottled water in the U.S. has doubled, and we now drink an average of 200 bottles per person each year.

So while millions of people across the world don’t have access to clean water at all, Americans, the overwhelming majority of which have safe and cheap tap water flowing freely, choose to shell out tons of money for bottled water. And the industry is making a killing off of it.

Annie Leonard, who put together the hit Internet video, “The Story of Stuff,” and recently released a book by the same name, has now released a new short film, “The Story of Bottled Water.” Leonard illustrates how the bottled water industry has waged a war on tap water and convinced us to buy their plastic bottles, adorned with snow-capped mountains, even though the environmental and economic costs of bottled water are high.

Food and Water Watch reports that 17 million barrels of oil are needed to produce all the plastic water bottles we use in the U.S. each year — and, shockingly, 86 percent of them will never be recycled.

What many consumers don’t know is that a third of bottled water is actually from the same source as tap water. Companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Nestle, the big three water bottlers, are actually sucking municipal water systems for the product they bottle and sell back to us for hundreds and even thousands of times the cost.

Why do we use nondegradable materials for our disposable products? Plastic, styrofoam, and all the containers that our food comes in never breaks down in the environment. I’m sure many of you have heard of the Pacific Gyre, a flotsam of plastic the size of Texas floating out in the Pacific Ocean.

What about our population? How many new water services will our supply support? Now farmers are fighting with water boards who are dealing with the effects of global warming, decreased snow melt, and the resulting lower flow of rivers that has a negative effect on salmon and other spawning fish. Who gets the water, the farmers or the fish? (see link below)

http://www.grist.org/article/Californias-salmon-vs.-agribiz-interests

So how do we feel about our water now? How do we feel about our culture and lifestyle? Well, it’s all spilt milk, isn’t it! So when people talk about rain gardens and rain barrels; storm water treatment and sewage treatment; and excess fertilizer flowing off farms into the water, creating dead zones, and killing off marine life, we need to pay attention. It’s not an issue with simple answers, and each new home, factory, restaurant, and strip mall only adds to the problem. Cutting trees not only diminishes the habitat for wildlife, but it also removes the root system that holds water in the ground.

http://environment.change.org/blog/view/annie_leonard_tackles_our_bottled_water_addiction

This blog is trying to move with the flow of information and help people see that how we live on this planet does make a difference — that we are connected to the web of life. The more you connect with the natural world the more you’re going to care about how we impact it. We are not immune from what is happening in other parts of the world or from the decisions made in our local communities.

These birds did not survive

These eagles survived spill

The choice for the future is ours, it’s as black and white as these photos.

The Significance of Lily Point Comes Into Question

Everyone is starting to become concerned about the 103-unit home subdivision recently designated by Whatcom County’s Planning Department to have an environmental “Determination of Non-significance,” which supposedly means the project will not create significant negative impacts and that the site and its surrounding area is environmentally “insignificant.” However, many of us totally disagree with that determination.

The proposed project will take over the western portion of Lily Point and have a big impact on the health of the tidelands and riparian forest that are essential to the sustainability of the critical habitat. So instead of feeder bluffs providing nutrients to the spawning herring and juvenile salmon, the waters below this development will be fed a steady diet of toxic storm water runoff. In fact, the more people that live on the shoreline, the higher the level of mercury and PCBs we find in our local fish. The general recommended limit for humans to consume fish throughout the region? One meal per week. So what does this mean for the Orcas and eagles that eat fish everyday? It’s obvious questions like these that are not being addressed in the planning process that has everyone so concerned.

Where do all these contaminants come from? PCBs usually come from legacy industrial sources but other contaminants come from the streets and homes of our neighborhoods. They come from fertilizers we put on our grass; detergents we use to wash our dishes, cars, and clothes; pharmaceuticals we flush down the toilet; and oil and gas that leak from our cars. All this and more shows up in the wild fish that swim our waters, bite our lures, and end up on our dinner plates. So why are we even considering putting 103 homes in the middle of critical habitat? Oh yes, Whatcom County needs the money it has already spent, and doesn’t have for tomorrow.

A scientific report commissioned by the Puget Sound Partnership estimates that each day 150,000 pounds of toxins spill into Puget Sound through polluted runoff. It’s hard to get our minds around 150,000 pounds of toxins a day, particularly when we live in a rural county with a relatively small population. So it is equally as hard to get our minds around a planning department that wants to approve developments that have been identified as detrimental to the ecosystem, and then place them on our most sacred and environmentally sensitive land. Some have said that is why Whatcom County has gone through two Planning Directors in the last three years, after each Director became fed up and frustrated with being forced to make short sighted decisions. Without a Director or any support for current trends in correcting past bad development patterns, it seems things are only going to get worse for local residents and efforts to restore the Salish Sea to acceptable health levels.

Bald Eagles Indicators of Troubled Process

The developers are well aware of the significance of the rich tapestry of life that supports Lily Point, but when they filled out the SEPA questionnaire, they purposely failed to mention the presence of Bald Eagles on the property. In fact, they inaccurately identified squirrels and song birds as the only wildlife on the property. After the developers were required to answer the question for the third time, they decided to acknowledge the presence of eagles. Presumably someone at the County noticed that there was a Bald Eagle Management Plan prepared in 2007 by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), and that eagles have been observed nesting in several locations on the property since the mid 90’s.

It seems that nobody at the County has actually read the Bald Eagle Management  Plan, or they would have noticed that it clearly states that the eagle nest location was not located at the time the plan was written. This kind of begs the question — How do you devise a plan to protect the eagles and their nest when you don’t know where it is? The reason the nest location is not known is because the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) agent visited the property in September, when all the Point Roberts eagles have long since flown north to catch the summer salmon runs. The agent actually states, “We didn’t see any nesting activity.” Well, anyone with a basic knowledge of eagles knows that nesting season is from February to July.

In the wild eagles are considered an indicator species for the health of the ecosystem. As a predator they are at the top of the food chain; consequently, anything harmful in that chain will make its way to the eagles’ diet. Apparently eagles are also now an indicator species for “overlooking environmental impacts” in planning major developments, as the Bald Eagle Management Plan with no nest location was followed with a traffic study that doesn’t mention the impact on border crossings, which is really the “only” traffic issue in Point Roberts. Additional failings are a geological report that doesn’t address the 40 acres proposed for development in Phase One, and a septic plan that sites a drainfield for 103 homes in a location that, according to the State of Washington Department of Health, is unsuitable for its stated purpose in two-thirds of the drainfield area. What about the handling of the storm water runoff, the big pollutant in the Sound? There is no mention of that in any of the developer’s reports of course, because then the developers would need to write a report to find out what the impact would be on the Lily Point Marine Reserve that taxpayers ponied up $4.2 million to protect in 2008.

Taxpayers and Experts Tell a Different Story

So as the County planners try to give the developers a free pass to go ahead and destroy the “insignificant” trees, feeder bluffs, marine habitat, and eagles, I thought I would bring in my own expert to talk about the significance of Lily Point. It seems kind of surreal that anyone would have to do this, because when the eastern portion of Lily Point was being considered for State acquisition funding in 2007, 24 scientists came to Lily Point and identified it as one of the most significant shoreline ecosystems in all of Puget Sound. Furthermore, in a salmon restoration fund application, Lily Point was ranked second in priority out of 73 applicants covering 2,500 miles of shoreline in Puget Sound. For all the money spent by the State in the last two years on restoration and preservation, the $4.2 million paid to acquire and preserve Lily Point represents 27% of all the money paid to over 50 projects. Suddenly even the word ’significant’ seems inadequate and lacking in trying to explain just how important Lily Point is. Maybe that was in the report that State planners sent out, but was missed by County staff members who were out that day for a seminar on smart growth.

So I will try and humor the County and pretend that we don’t already know about all the environmental report’s inaccuracies and the true importance and significance of Lily Point. I now feel the need to add an interview with David Hancock to the blog, and let the voice of an expert explain why Lily Point is one of the most significant eagle habitats in the North Pacific. Many of us already understand this, as we have monitored 10 active eagle nests in the five square miles of Point Roberts and have counted between 30 to 70 eagles feeding daily in the tidelands of Lily Point. We have observed that on the property slated for 103 homes that there is an eagle night roost and two eagle nests from the pair that has lived there for the last 15 years. (Yes, we actually know where they are!) So the official state Bald Eagle Management Plan for eagles on the property continues to be unaccountable for the three eagle nests and their locations.

Please watch and listen to David Hancock and let me know if the word “insignificant” comes to mind. David has been studying eagles for 50 years — he’s a biologist, writer, lecturer, and runs the Hancock House publishing business. He’s on the Board of the American Bald Eagle Foundation and is considered one of the top eagle experts in North America. I’m sure if the County asked, he would correct the Bald Eagle Management Plan, and then they would know what a real management plan looks like — and it would include the three eagle nests that the developers, their consultants, and the WDFW can’t seem to find.

Part 1

LPC Science Series Hancock Part 1 from Alexander Stratford on Vimeo.

David Hancock discusses eagle’s and the habitat around Lily Point, and why it is one of the most significant eagle territories in North America.

One of the reasons that many people are trying to persevere this land and protect it.

Part 2

LPC Science Series Hancock Part 2 from Alexander Stratford on Vimeo.

About six weeks ago I needed to pick a date to launch the Lily Point Calling Campaign. I knew I would be on the road until after the 4th, so I just picked the 14th of July with no more thought then it being enough time to get ready after my return. A few days before I left to return home, a friend of mine said, “that’s Bastille day”…. Oh!!! I said, not really having French history very fresh in my mind, so with a quick Wiki stop, I realized that all the symbolism of Bastille Day dove-tailed right into today’s challenges of getting people to care, and to start to actually do something about our interests that are being ignored today, just as they were in 1790 France…

Not enough people realize just what is at stake, and many of the organizations like People For Puget Sound, and Puget Sound Partnership constantly talk about the fact that the problems and issues are a tough sell, when people look out across the waters of the Salish Sea and it still looks beautiful. There are many people taking action and doing great things to restore the health of our environment… but it’s not enough; we need more people involved and we need to raise awareness to the voice of the wild that is being suffocated by the corporate influence on our government and our media.

I kept asking myself, where are the top artists on this?, why don’t we have songs like in the 60’s and 70’s? There seemed to be no voice speaking out for the Salish Sea on the radio waves…. but with radio station ownership now dominated by Clear Channel Corporate type program directors and the shift towards internet downloads radio has been sanitized to the point of obscuring the rock and roll roots that inspired artists to speak out.

In the late 70’s The Clash emerged as the “socially conscious” and politically charged leader of the music world. With the line, “Phony Beatle mania has bitten the dust” the leader of the band Joe Strummer penned songs that struck a nerve all over the world… and he was keenly aware of the issues and who was behind them. Unfortunately Joe Strummer went on a 15 year hiatus, came back in 1999 and produced 3 CD’s with the Mescaleros and then died of heart failure in 2002.

Strummer sang about global warming, unemployment, discrimination, racial tension and drug use, and wrapped it all within the responsibility we have as adults to do something about it. I’ve been shocked at the language and cautionary rants that have been the same for the last 30 years on all these issues. When you dig into the facts, one quickly realizes that not only have environmental issues become worse, but the rate of environmental decline has steadily accelerated in the 80’s, 90’s and 21st century….

Einstein once said, “You cannot solve a problem in the same state of consciousness that created it.”, and that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” So it seems we are stuck in just talking about the problems and not really doing enough to change things, and continually thinking that elected officials are going to solve our problems because of campaign promises. So there is a grass roots movement that now says… “If we wait for government to solve our problems, it will be too little… too late; if we try to do things on an individual basis… it will be too little; so only by private citizens working together with government can we solve our problems.”

But there are no simple slogans or dictates that are going to mobilize our fractured cultural masses towards reconciliation with our environmental excess. So Lily Point Calling is about getting reconnected to nature, to hearing the call of the wild, a call that comes from your heart. There are many paths to making this connection. For me it was the research I did on eagles that brought a new perspective and comprehension of our history and the collateral damage caused by the American empire, and each empire that rose and fell before it. When you learn about eagles, or Orcas or walk in forests, or see the cycle of life, one can then start to see the value of these things, and when you see that these values are not being respected, hopefully it will compel you to join us.

So today is the starting point. I wrote the lyrics to Lily Point Calling to update the issues that Joe Strummer and The Clash made popular with London Calling, and changed the focus form from London, the center of measured time around the world, old wealth and fallen monarchy, etc. to Lily Point — the jewel of the Salish Sea and the heart and soul of the natural world — that is surrounded by the land sharks who, continue their pursuit of profits at the expense of the natural world.

The State of Washington paid $4.2 million to protect the eastern portion of Lily Point in 2008, after 24 scientists explained how important the ecosystem of Lily Point was, and now the Point Roberts Conservation Society is fighting a legal battle to stop the western portion of Lily Point from being decimated by development. Lily Point Calling is about sending a message to everyone in the Salish Sea watershed to identify your sacred land and start working on a plan today to save it. We’ve posted the lyrics to the song Lily Point Calling, with hyperlinks that will take you to articles, videos and blogs that explain the meaning behind the words. This is a living document that will be updated and changed as new and important information comes in from around the Salish Sea. We will be connecting the dots of activity in each community and linking new communities into how they can get started and what types of actions are working in other communities.

Lily Point Calling is about erasing borders between us: American/Canadian; Native American/First Nations… and coming together as true brothers and sisters of our mother the earth.

So in the spirit of Bastille Day, please join us in a peaceful uprising for the rights of nature… I don’t believe that it is possible to be neutral, to continue to deny the direction consumerism is taking us. To be passive in today’s environment is to cooperate with whatever is going on. We need to intercede in what is going on, and we need to change it. As Thomas Jefferson said,

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to = remain silent.”

Lily Point Calling is nothing more then listening to a voice that is not taught in schools or reported on the nightly news.

Lily Point Calling is a voice coming from the natural world.

It is a voice that is getting very faint…. so we’re trying to give it a little help…. we need to pay attention to the cry from the birds and animals, and end the assault on our marine life.

Thanks to Ivy, Mel, Dave, and Victor for bringing the spirit of The Clash & Joe Strummer back into the fold… and I hope that Joe will forgive me for changing the words to his song, but I couldn’t resist, “phony credit mania has bitten the dust”

Viva la natural world!

For more information & the lyrics please go to: Lily Point Calling hosted by Lily Point Defenders.

Green Resolution Night – April Promo from Alexander Stratford on Vimeo.

Spirit on the Wind – March Promo from Alexander Stratford on Vimeo.

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