Bainbridge Conversation

Former Bainbridge High School teacher Rory Wilson will share reflections and photos from his rowing odyssey to Hawaii next week.

The presentation is scheduled for 7 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Bainbridge High School commons. The event is free, and donations will be accepted for the Bainbridge Schools Foundation.

Wilson made the 44-day journey from San Diego to Honolulu earlier this fall in a slender homemade craft powered by oars and kites. He called the vessel “KROS,” short for kites, rowing ocean, solar. Wilson’s math students at Bainbridge High helped him prepare for the journey.

You can get a taste of Wilson’s adventure in the video below, which shows KROS dancing through waves under kite power.  Wilson has posted many more amazing images on the KROS page on Facebook.

Photo and video courtesy Rory Wilson, via Facebook

The island’s ban on plastic shopping bags begins Thursday. We’ve posted some of the basics below. Let us know what you think of the bag ban by taking our poll below or leaving a comment.

Why a bag ban?

The City Council unanimously approved the bag ban this spring as a way of reducing litter and unnecessary waste, while promoting reusable bags. Bainbridge is the fifth Washington city to ban plastic bags and the first in Kitsap County. Seattle banned plastic shopping bags in July.

What are the rules?

Starting Thursday, retailers are no longer allowed to provide those thin, single-use plastic bags at checkout. Paper bags will still be available, but the ordinance requires retailers to charge 5 cents for larger paper bags (this doesn’t apply to qualifying low income shoppers).

There are a few exceptions to the ban. Plastic bags are allowed for restaurant take-out food, produce, greeting cards, small hardware items, newspapers, dry cleaning and waste.

What stores does this apply to?

Short answer: All of them. This ban applies to all retailers across the island, not just supermarkets. It also applies to farmers markets and vendors  at festivals. Food banks can still use plastic bags.

Where can I get reusable bags?

Reusable bags are available at island grocery stores and some other retailers. The city is handing out a cloth “Bainbridge Bag” tonight during the Winslow trick-or-treat event from 4-6 p.m, and at the library and City Hall starting Thursday.

Where can I get more information?

The city has more details and links on its Sustainable Practices page. If you’re interested in the nitty gritty, you can read the ordinance here. Watch for a full bag ban story Thursday in the Kitsap Sun.

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Photo credit: Larry Steagall/Staff Photo

Two high profile Bainbridge non-profit groups announced changes in leadership early this week:

Horn joins wildlife shelter

Lisa Horn has been chosen as the new executive director of the West Sound Wildlife Shelter. She will assume her new duties Dec. 3.

Former Executive Director Kol Medina left the shelter to become director of the Kitsap Community Foundation.

Horn has an extensive background in education. She received a master’s degree from the University of Phoenix, magna cum laude, in 2003 and is currently working toward her doctorate in organizational leadership.
For the past six years she has been the director of early learning at the Marion Forsman-Boushie Early Learning Center in Suquamish. She has been an active volunteer, including serving as chairperson for several large fundraising events for local organizations.

She and her daughter enjoy spending time with animals, providing a home for five dogs, three cats, two guinea pigs, a rabbit, six chickens, a horse, a cockatiel and a parakeet.

“With Lisa’s background in education and her organizational skills, I feel confident her enthusiastic personality combined with your continued support will result in establishing the West Sound Wildlife Shelter becoming a national leader in the evolving field of wildlife rehabilitation,” said Gayle Seyl, shelter board president.

(photo by Dottie Tison)

Sivitz leaving KiDiMu

After three-and-a-half years, Susan Sivitz will step down as executive director at the Kids Discovery Museum at the end of the year.

“Susan has been at the center of the nonprofit world of Bainbridge Island for many years,” said Sonya Marinoni, the museum’s board president. “She has been a great leader.”

Sivitz is moving to Boston for six months to complete her undergraduate degree. She joined the museum as director in 2009. She oversaw the completion of the museum’s capital campaign for a new building the transition into a new space in the Island Gateway development.

Reader David Moore submitted this photo of a whale breaching by his sailboat Monday.

Reader Chris Beamer Otterson snapped this picture of an orca passing President Point near Kingston Monday. 

Dori Johnson contributed this shot of a mother and calf she took from Fay Bainbridge. 

Thanks to Chris and Dori for sending in photos. If you have a whale pic you’d like to share, please email Tad at tad.sooter@gmail.com or upload it to the Bainbridge Islander page on Facebook.

You can see our whale photos from Monday here and read Chris Dunagan’s piece on orcas in Puget Sound. The orcas belong to the resident J, K and L pods according to whale experts. This was the farthest south the orcas have been spotted this season.

Orcas swim south through Puget Sound between Fay Bainbridge Park and Ballard at about 3 p.m. Monday. (Tad Sooter photos). Here’s Chris Dunagan’s story on what the whales were up to.

A large pod of orca whales put on a show off the east side of Bainbridge Island Monday — albeit a show best enjoyed with binoculars. The whales appeared to be cruising midway between the island and the mainland.

The Orca Network relayed reports of the whales off Point No Point late in the morning. They were spotted off Jefferson Head and Fay Bainbridge Park at about 1 p.m. By 4 p.m. the whales were between Elliott Bay and Eagle Harbor, and still swimming south. Facebook users reported seeing the whales from the 4:40 p.m. Seattle ferry.

Though they stayed far from shore, the whales caused a stir along the waterfront. A few families enjoyed whale watching with binoculars from the beach at Fay Bainbridge in the afternoon and a float plane (left) zipped low overhead, making a bee line for the pod. KING5 even followed the whales live with a helicopter for a while.

If nothing else, it was a good excuse to head for the beach on a spectacular October day.

If you snapped some whale photos Monday, please share them with us. You can email Tad at tad.sooter@gmail.com or post them on the Bainbridge Islander page on Facebook.

Here’s the Friday preview: Bainbridge edition for Sept. 21. Please feel free to give your own events a plug in the comment section below. You can read the Sun’s regional Friday preview here. Above, a heavy fog lifts off Eagle Harbor midday Thursday (Tad Sooter photo).  (more…)

Caddisfly casings cling to a rock pulled from Bainbridge’s Cooper Creek on Wednesday. (Below) a frog keeps a wary eye on its surroundings. (Tad Sooter photos)

When fly fishermen approach a stream they watch for a few familiar bugs. A flurry of mayflies, caddisflies or stoneflies tell an experienced angler what food fish are rising for.

When water quality specialists approach a stream they look for the same insects for different reasons. To the trained eye, those water-dwelling macro invertebrates offer clues to the overall health of a creek.

I received a crash course on stream bugs Wednesday as I tagged along with volunteers from the city’s Water Quality and Flow Monitoring Program, in preparation for a story on the city’s State of the Island’s Waters report, which was released with little fanfare earlier this summer.

Five years of data gathered from all 12 Bainbridge watersheds and around the island’s shoreline went into the report. It’s the first comprehensive study of island water health the city has completed. The report confirmed that many island streams still struggle with high levels of harmful bacteria and nutrients, and low dissolved oxygen.

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Reporter Tad Sooter took some dramatic photos of algal blooms off Murden Cove on Monday. A few nearby residents told Tad the blooms were the brightest they’d seen.

Here’s what he learned about the blooms:

Algal blooms that turned water off several Bainbridge shorelines bright red this week pose no risk to humans or shellfish, according to Kitsap County Public Health District officials.

Environmental Health Specialist Shawn Ultican said the dramatic blooms are caused by Noctiluca, a harmless plankton. Noctiluca blooms are common this time of year and are spurred by sunlight and nutrients in the water, he said.

The rusty-red blooms spread down Manitou Beach and into Murden Cove on the east side of Bainbridge on Monday. Ultican said blooms were also reported in Port Orchard Passage.

Because of their color, Noctiluca blooms are often wrongly associated with harmful “red tide,” which causes paralytic shellfish poisoning. Red tide is caused by different plankton species and isn’t noticeable in the water, Ultican said.

For more information on beach closures and shellfish advisories, visit www.kitsapcountyhealth.com.
–Tad Sooter

In the above photo, Stephanie Bowen and her 2-year-old son Alex take a look at the bloom that spread across Murden Cove on Monday.

See more of Tad’s photos below.

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Here’s a batch of Milt Priggee’s comic takes on the Bainbridge city manager search, plastic bag ban, Winslow Way-Highway 305 park project and the reputation of Bainbridge police.

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UPDATE: Most of the sewage was contained in a nearby wetland. The city and sewer plant operator plan to pump out the sewage on Monday. Click here for our latest story on the spill.

Public health officials are warning people to steer clear of Tani Creek and Blakely Harbor Park’s beach after sewage leaked into a wetland near the Fort Ward sewage treatment plant.

Here’s our report from yesterday.

The wetland, which sits next to a public trail, connects to Tani, which flows into Blakely.

The state Dept. of Ecology warned that “contact with fecal contaminated waters can result in gastroenteritis, skin rashes, upper respiratory infections and other illnesses. Children and the elderly may be more vulnerable to waterborne illnesses.”

The Kitsap Public Health District has taken water samples from Tani and Blakely to see how far the contamination spread from the wetland. Results were expected today, but it looks like we’ll have to wait until Thursday afternoon for confirmation the sewage spread beyond the wetland.

Sewer district board member Sarah Lee estimates between 3,000 and 5,000 gallons of partially-treated sewage leaked from a hole in a 40,000-gallon tank.

The cause of the hole is not yet known, but it doesn’t appear it was punctured or damaged by force.

The health district isn’t sure how the mess will be cleaned up – if at all. The sewer district pumped out some of the sewage from their grounds on Friday, shortly after the leak was discovered.

On Monday, the health district discovered the sewage had traveled out of the treatment plant property and into the wetland, which is down-slope of the plant.

It appeared much of the sewage was caught and partially contained by a “log jam” in the wetland, according to health district water specialist Stuart Whitford.

Water test results will guide next steps. Cleaning the mess could include pumping out portions of the wetland. If the testing shows relatively low levels of contamination, the health district and Ecology officials may take a hands-off approach.

I’m off for the next two days, so look for environmental reporter Chris Dunagan’s followup story on the testing results.

RePower Bainbridge from Climate Solutions on Vimeo.

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Bainbridge’s efforts to curb energy use was highlighted in a video produced by Olympia-based Climate Solutions.

In it, former councilwoman Hilary Franz describes the RePower Bainbridge campaign and its success in getting residents to boost home energy efficiency.

Climate Solutions also highlighted similar efforts in Bellevue and Libby, Montana through their Solutions Stories video series.

Mayor Kirsten Hytopoulos wants Bainbridge to be the fifth city in the state to ban plastic bags.

Read all about it here.

Hytopoulos plans to make a formal proposal shortly after the largely new City Council reconvenes early next month.

Her proposal is patterned after the one the Seattle City Council unanimously approved on Monday, and follows similar bans passed by Bellingham, Mukilteo and Edmonds. She’s also working with Environment Washington, the group that helped pass the Seattle ban, and Town & Country Market, which has been promoting reusable bags for years.

But the inspiration for Hytopoulos’ proposal came – at least in small part – from a viral Heal the Bay-produced mockumentary. Entitled the “Majestic Plastic Bag,” the short video (above) follows the lifespan of a plastic bag as it completes its migration from a grocery store parking lot to the Texas-size wad of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean.

“It’s horrible and it’s funny,” Hytopoulos said. “I may try to get the council to bear with me and watch it.”