Filming of the second season of “Whale Wars” is under way, and today Paul Watson, leader of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, claimed to have the Japanese whaling fleet on the run.

I’d like to ask a question of all you readers of Water Ways. Would you like me to provide occasional updates on Sea Shepherd’s controversial tactics, or do believe it is wrong to give this organization the extensive publicity it is already receiving?

I’m open to arguments on both sides.

Meanwhile, let me tell you what has been happening with Sea Shepherd and its television series “Whale Wars,” which completed its first season on Animal Planet this week and is going into reruns.

A news release issued today quotes Watson:

“It does not get more real than this. While people are sitting in their living rooms watching our campaign against the whalers that took place last season, we are at the same time in the icy hostile seas of Antarctica engaged with the whalers this season. There is an Animal Planet crew on board and the cameras are rolling for season two of Whale Wars.”

Yesterday, Watson reported that Sea Shepherd’s boat, the Steve Irwin, caught up with the harpoon ship Yushin Maru #2. The small Delta boat was launched with the idea of pelting the ship with stinky butter bombs, but it had to be called back because of high winds and rough sea conditions.

Watch the video by Sea Shepherd.

The Yushin Marin #2 was a ship that members of Sea Shepherd boarded last year, one of the dramatic moments in Season One of “Whale Wars.” Because of that controversial action and other life-risking incidents, the series quickly picked up an audience and was a big winner for Animal Planet, according to Variety magazine, which reports on show business.

This year the Japanese ship reportedly has installed a net over its side to prevent any further boardings.

Meanwhile, producers of the program have invited Japanese officials to participate in the second season, perhaps to offer a more balanced view of events.

As you may have heard, actress Daryl Hannah has joined the crew for this year’s campaign in the Antarctic. Hannah, best known for her mermaid role in the movie “Splash,” is a longtime supporter of environmental causes. She has been forcibly removed from more than one protest demonstration, and she runs a personal Web site that covers a lot of environmental issues. I wonder what her presence will add to the show.

It seems Sea Shepherd is getting wrapped up in show business as well as continuing controversy and criticism — including Watson’s claim of being shot against denials by the Japanese. Watson apparently believes all the publicity will help stop the whaling, and now he’s getting more attention than anytime in the last 30 years.

I don’t know where things will go from here, but I can’t help but watch.

Glacier Northwest has begun work on the controversial pier that will eventually support its gravel-mining operation on Maury Island. See updated story by Leslie Brown in the Vashon Beachcomber.

Meanwhile, a protest demonstration got underway this morning near the construction site. Kathy Fletcher of People for Puget Sound reported about 50 protesters as well as some 10 dinghies and kayaks at 8:30 a.m. this morning.

Yesterday, a contingent of 20 to 30 killer whales — apparently including members from all three Puget Sound pods — visited the South Sound area, not far from the Glacier site. I thought maybe they had come south to join the protest, but during the night they turned north and came up through Puget Sound.

If you recall, the orcas were cited among reasons to deny the construction activity in an aquatic reserve frequented by the whales in winter.

As of 11:30 a.m. today, the orcas were in Admiralty Inlet north of the Kitsap Peninsula, according to Howard Garrett of Orca Network, who was among the widely scattered whales when I talked to him by phone.

See Orca Network for reports of whale travels. In case you’re not aware of it, anyone can sign up for e-mail reports of whale sightings, typically compiled at the end of each day.

By the way, People for Puget Sound has scheduled a “Bremerton Moonlight Beachwalk” Thursday in Bremerton and a “Starlight Beachwalk and Bonfire” Friday in Burien. Reservations are recommended for both events.

Those who attended Puget Sound Partnership’s “celebration” on Monday were treated to a video featuring experts, policy folks and other concerned people describing the values of Puget Sound and its various threats. It included some impressive footage of the waterway and its environs.

This afternoon, the video was posted on the Puget Sound Partnership’s Web site.

Featured are folks including Kari Koski of The Whale Museum, Mike Racine of Washington Scuba Alliance, Mary Ruckelshaus of NOAA Fisheries, Dave Herrera of the Skokomish Tribe, Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish Farms, Steve Bauer, a Kitsap County commissioner, and Steve Sakuma, a Skagit Valley farmer.

Some of these people are directly involved in the Partnership process. For example, Sakuma is a member of the Leadership Council; Bauer is a member of the Ecosystem Coordination Board; and Ruckelshaus is a member of the Science Panel.

Monday’s celebration called attention to the release of the Puget Sound Action Agenda, a blueprint for restoring Puget Sound to health.

The Northwest region of the Environmental Protection Agency announced today that its enforcement program has been responsible for increased inspections and doubling the amount of pollution reduced and treated this year, compared to last.

In a news release, Elin Miller, EPA’s regional administrator in Seattle, had this to say:

“Our enforcement results speak for themselves. We’ve increased our inspections, more than doubled the pounds of pollution reduced or treated, and required more than $57 million in process improvements to ensure future compliance. This translates directly into better health protection for both the environment and local communities.”

I always like to give credit where it’s due, especially when the truth runs counter to perceptions about the Bush administration (or anyone else). I don’t doubt the findings, but the information does not tell us whether the EPA has done a great job this year or a poor job last year. In fact, some of the results show that 2006 was better than 2008. And how do these results compare to EPA records under previous administrations?

I was not able to find comparable statistics, but I did find footnotes saying the methods of calculating some stats have changed, so I quit looking. If anyone would care to add some perspective, I would welcome it.

For specific numbers, review the EPA’s Web page called 2008 Region 10 Compliance and Enforcement Annual Results.

The regional office lists these “federal case highlights.” More information can be found in news releases linked from this EPA Web page.
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Washington Department of Natural Resources has approved a 30-year lease to allow a dock in the Maury Island Aquatic Reserve. It was the last approval needed for construction of a gravel mine that has been the subject of intense opposition by environmental groups.

Robert McClure, environmental reporter for the Seattle PI, calls the approval the most controversial of Land Commissioner Doug Sutherland’s eight years in office. Sutherland has taken this action in his final weeks as head of the DNR, having lost in the November election to Peter Goldmark.

Goldmark issued a statement saying he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision.

“The timing of this decision, only one day after the Puget Sound Partnership brought forward their plan to clean up Puget Sound, is very troubling,” Goldmark was quoted as saying in the Seattle Times. “While I understand there is only one lands commissioner at a time, this decision does come after the voters of Washington sent a very clear message.”

Amy Carey, president of Preserve Our Islands, was not pleased with Sutherland’s decision. She told the Times, “It’s disappointing he felt he had to stick to Glacier’s needs and agenda. There’s absolutely no reason that this decision had to come out now other than that Glacier wanted it now. It’s a really pitiful legacy as his tenure ends.”

In a news release, Sutherland said, “This has been an extremely rigorous process, and our aquatics staff have examined every document submitted to us and to the permitting agencies to be sure that we have addressed the issues. I directed staff to add requirements to protect this aquatic ecosystem in the long-term—which they have. This lease agreement accomplishes the goal of environmental protection while allowing existing commercial activities.”

Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound, had this to say in her blog:

One of the black clouds hanging over the Puget Sound Partnership’s celebration the other day was the bleak budgetary outlook. Optimism about the new plan is tempered by the knowledge that money will be hard to come by. Not to sound too naïve, but since it’s expensive to undo the harm that we’ve done to our Sound over the years, why would we proceed to do more? Saying “no” to a bad idea like the Maury Island gravel dock doesn’t restore the Sound to health, but at least it’s a pretty cost-effective way to avoid making things worse.

Maybe I’m also naïve to think that in a year when we lost seven more of our endangered orcas, most likely to starvation, responsible decision-makers would say no to a project that puts one of the whales’ favorite winter fishing grounds at risk. Perhaps the whales had heard what was up in Sutherland’s office on Tuesday, when they decided to spend that very day hanging out in the Vashon area—their first visit of the season.

Conditions of the lease include the following, according to the DNR:
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My story about a toxic site called the Old Bremerton Gasworks has been picked up by several area newspapers and radio stations. The story talks about cancer-causing chemicals found on property between Pennsylvania and Thompson avenues in Bremerton.

What the story doesn’t say — although you can read between the lines — is that experts have nearly as many questions today as they did before the first study was complete. We know portions of the site are heavily contaminated. Now we must wait for the results from a new round of tests to understand a little better about the extent of pollution, including whether toxic chemicals are leaking into Port Washington Narrows.

Those results should be available in a few weeks. See the story in Saturday’s Kitsap Sun.

The site first came to my attention in the mid-1990s, when former Sun reporter Lloyd Pritchett and I were working on an investigation called “Toxic Kitsap.” See the map of Kitsap’s toxic sites (at that time) and a mention of the gasworks property in a related story.

More than two years ago, Bremerton city officials began looking at this site for redevelopment under the Environmental Protection Agency’s brownfields program. Since it is a waterfront site, a marina and public park were considered possibilities. See the story in the May 23, 2006, edition of the Kitsap Sun. The property still could be developed following cleanup, but the investigation and restoration is likely to enter a new phase.

I’m told by officials with the Washington Department of Ecology that the Old Bremerton Gasworks site, which lies on the waterfront, may get special attention because of the renewed effort to restore Puget Sound.

Like I say, many questions remain regarding where the pollution has been going. How much, if any, has been getting into Puget Sound is an important question. I guess we’ll just wait for the upcoming test results and see what happens next. New information will be reported as it becomes available.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how the Bush administration appeared to be making an effort to cement certain regulations in place before he leaves office. See Watching Our Water Ways, Nov. 5. Since I posted that item, a new twist is being widely discussed in political circles.

First the background: White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten sent out a memo last May calling for all new regulations to be completed by Nov. 1, presumably so the rules could go into effect before Bush leaves office. Generally, they are effective 60 days after publication, though that can vary. It may have been assumed that having things done in early November would prevent the next president from blocking the rules in January.

If you recall, George W. Bush halted some of President Bill Clinton’s rules being pushed through at the midnight hour.

This time, Democrats in Congress may have an ace yet to be played. It’s called the Congressional Review Act of 1996.

The law contains a provision which says any regulation finalized within 60 days before the adjournment of Congress goes into limbo until the 15th day after the new session begins. At that point, the rule is considered final and Congress has 60 days to overturn it with a joint resolution, which is immune to a Senate filibuster.

“In other words,” states a lengthy explanation in Politico, “any regulation finalized in the last half-year of the Bush administration could be wiped out with a simple party-line vote in the Democrat-controlled Congress.”

The analysis last Wednesday by Erica Lovely and Ryan Grim says Democrats are indeed considering such a move. The story includes advice from Jerry Brito, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Brito suggests that Barack Obama “package all of the regulations it wants overturned into one large vehicle to be voted up or down.”

“That would solve the collective-action problem, and it solves the pet-project problem. It would sort of limit special pleading,” he said, noting that each new regulation benefits someone specific who will fight hard to keep it. Lumping them together dissipates that energy.

OMB Watch mentioned the Congressional Review Act in its previous analysis from Nov. 4, which stated that the law has been used successfully only once:

Congress’s only successful use of the act came in the early days of the Bush administration when a Clinton-era rule that would have required better ergonomics in the workplace was rejected.

While the Congressional Review Act is not the easiest law to understand, you’re welcome to link to the text at OMB Watch.

Meanwhile, Kathleen Sutcliffe of Earthjustice, an environmental group, sent out a list of the “most troubling” regulations being pushed through by the Bush administration in recent weeks. For illustrative purposes, I’ll list them here with her descriptions. Of course, administration officials have justifications for each one, which I won’t go into right now.
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I’m not sure whether Kitsap County’s new hearing examiner will mean a shift in the approach to land-use decisions or future outcomes. But circumstances surrounding two recent projects by the same developer caused me to take a closer look. See my story in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun.

Here are the basics: Reinout van Beynum, a Keyport employee and part-time developer, submitted separate applications for two projects in which he asserted his property rights with “reasonable use” claims. A “reasonable use exception” is used when no reasonable alternatives exist and it isn’t possible to meet environmental standards in the county’s Critical Areas Ordinance. In other words, to deny the application would deprive the owner of the right to use his property in a reasonable way.

They were almost never used until the past year or so, when I’ve seen several come through.

These two van Beynum projects were distinctly different, and nobody can say that a change in hearing examiner made the difference in the decision. Still, a previous hearing examiner, Terrence McCarthy, approved the reasonable use exception for the first property, while the new examiner, Kimberly Allen, denied the reasonable use exception for the second.

You may wish to review the finer points yourself. The rationale of the two hearing examiners is fairly well laid out in their written findings. As I said, the first case (PDF 680 kb) is substantially different from the second one (PDF 1.1 mb).

I’ve always wondered what it means when a hearing examiner agrees with nearly all the recommendations of county planners. Does it mean that the planners are on solid legal ground and that the hearing examiners have little choice but to follow suit? Or does it mean that any bias is the same for planners and hearing examiners, perhaps because they both work for the county commissioners? (I do not mean to impugn anyone on the county staff, because I can honestly say everyone I know there is a true professional. I’m only raising the question, since we are talking about human relationships, which are rarely perfect.)

When I talked to people involved in these recent cases, they saw a clear difference in the new hearing examiner’s approach. Van Beynum tended to think that Allen did not fully understand property rights, while the environmental folks were inclined to see a favorable shift in attitude.

Here’s how Illahee’s Jim Aho saw it: “She questions everything and wants to have a total understanding of the project so she can make an informed decision. She is a bright light. She probes and digs and wants to do the right thing. I haven’t seen that before.”

In a dramatic shift in management policy, the Pacific Fishery Management Council has adopted a new fishing regime for groundfish, such as whiting, cod, rockfish, flounder and sole.

This new approach for the West Coast, called individual fishing quotas, is said to encourage cooperation instead of competition, because each entity involved in the fishing industry will be given a portion of the allowable catch. That way, fishing boats can go fishing when the fish are abundant. They won’t be encouraged to go out in bad weather before the overall quota is reached.

Fishers won’t be forced to dump their dead bycatch, which are fish taken incidentally to the harvest of targeted stocks. Instead, the dead fish will be tallied and counted against any quota for the nontarged species, which will ultimately increase the ability of fishery managers to measure the impacts on all stocks.

The action was taken Friday by the PFMC, which issued a press release today (PDF 156 kb) explaining the action.

You’ll find more about groundfish management on the council’s Web site.

Individual Fishing Quotas seem like they have been waiting a long time for action in this region, and they still won’t go into effect until 2011.

IFQs have been encouraged by diverse groups, including the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, which released a chapter in its 2004 report (PDF 1 mb) that recommended something like IFQs but with a new name: “dedicated access privileges” (see page 289).

The conservative Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) has been pushing for IFQs for since 1996. See “Community-Run Fisheries: Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons” and the recent “Beyond IFQs in Marine Fisheries: A guide for federal policy makers.”

Some environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, have embraced this market-based approach.

The most controversial aspect of the council’s decision on Friday was to allocate 20 percent of the Pacific whiting harvest to processors. The processors said they needed the quotas to protect local business and existing jobs from the prospect of fishermen shipping their catch out of the region.

Pete Leipzig, executive director of the Fishermen’s Marketing Association, has raised moral, legal and practical objections to giving quotas to processors. See Leipzig’s letter to the PFMC.

As he told Seattle Times reporter Hal Bernton, “The council moved in the right direction, but they are still making a terrible mistake.”

ABC World News is reporting that it will feature a story about the seven Puget Sound killer whales that are missing and presumed dead. Locally, watch Channel 4 at 5:30 p.m. A written story with plenty of photos can be seen on the World News Web site.

The Kitsap Sun was the first daily newspaper to report on the missing orcas. For breaking news and regular reports, sign up for e-mail notification or RSS in the right-hand column of “Watching Our Water Ways.”