Fish-consumption rates are more controversial than they sound, because they affect how much pollution industrial and municipal plants are allowed to discharge into lakes, rivers and Puget Sound. Business and local-government interests reacted with alarm after the Washington Department of Ecology suggested last year that its revised regulations would require that people need to be safe eating 157 to 267 grams per day, or 11 to 18 pounds per month. Current rates are set between 6.5 and 54 grams per day. Read more here.
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Yesterday, less than five months after the removal of the Elwha Dam, adult Chinook (king) salmon were observed in Olympic National Park. These are the first observed Elwha River salmon to naturally migrate into the park; the Elwha Dam became operational in 1913, twenty-five years before the establishment of the park, blocking over 70 miles of fish habitat from passage. Read more about this historic event here. The nautilus, a creature that pulled easily through the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, now hangs on the brink of extinction because it has become coveted by human beings. Read more here; ESS‘ Peter Ward is quoted.
Preliminary new findings suggest that, contrary to previous assertions, consistent rain and warm temperatures may have given the Mongols the energy source they needed to conquer Eurasia: grass for their horses. Read more here; OCEAN‘s Avery Shinneman is mentioned. Global mining giant Anglo-American and its Canadian partner, Northern Dynasty, want to dig one of the world’s largest open-pit mines – up to three miles wide and thousands of feet deep – in the near-pristine watershed of Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. Learn more about this proposal and the controversy surrounding it; SAFS‘ Thomas Quinn is quoted. The Elwha Dam removal was finished earlier this year, and Lake Aldwell behind it has drained. While the effects can be seen clearly in the public lookout and webcam installed with a view of the former Elwha Dam site, what is less obvious is the work in the fall and winter in which 30,000 native plants were planted both at the Elwha Dam site 5 miles from the mouth of the Elwha River and 8 miles upstream from there, near the Glines Canyon Dam. Read more here. In the southeastern region of Peru, gold mining is colliding with efforts to protect human health and ecosystem function. Jason Scullion, a graduate student in SEFS, and others talk to Nature about Peru’s gold rush and the struggles to optimize economic prosperity with environmental sustainability. Read it here! |
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