PCSGA Tidings

THE OLYMPIAN

Shore­line pro­gram is crit­i­cal for clean water, our sur­vival Hen­der­son Inlet. Mud Bay. Nisqually River. Wood­land Creek. These are unique areas across Thurston County that we all know. These are the areas where the water and land meet — these are our shore­lines. Thurston County con­tains 688 miles of shore­lines, and these areas are in peril.

We live, work, fish, swim, and boat here. We can­not take these shore­lines for granted. We build our houses on them to have the beau­ti­ful view. We place our ports and busi­nesses in them to have access to water­ways to ship goods. As a result, we have fewer func­tional shore­lines left. Indeed, pol­lu­tion Con­tinue Reading »

Dear Friends:

As you know, over the last few months the Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources has been involved in a con­certed process to develop our strate­gic plan.  In Novem­ber, we shared draft ele­ments of the plan and asked for your review and com­ments.  The response from that request has been remark­able.  Thank you for your thought­ful review and com­ments.  Your par­tic­i­pa­tion and ideas thus far have been the foun­da­tion for what I know will be a suc­cess­ful prod­uct that we all can use to achieve our impor­tant mission.

I want to take the oppor­tu­nity to update you Con­tinue Reading »

By James Wright, Asso­ciate Edi­tor

Seafood Busi­ness Mag­a­zine, Jan­u­ary 5, 2010

There are many ways to eat an oys­ter — smoked, fried, roasted, baked, boiled, broiled, stewed or steamed. Afi­ciona­dos, though, believe less is more and want their half shells raw, with Mother Nature as chef de cui­sine. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment, on the other hand, believes slurp­ing raw shell­fish is risky busi­ness and in Octo­ber pro­posed that all oys­ters from the Gulf of Mex­ico undergo post-harvest pro­cess­ing (PHP) dur­ing the warmer months to kill the Vib­rio vul­nifi­cus bac­te­ria, a nat­u­rally occur­ring organ­ism that can cause seri­ous — and poten­tially fatal — gas­troin­testi­nal ill­nesses. Essen­tially, the feds want to ban raw Gulf oys­ters for six to eight months a year.

Con­tinue Reading »

By Cate Gable
Observer columnist

Tues­day, Decem­ber 29, 2009

LONG BEACH — Wash­ing­ton is in line to pick up a new con­gres­sional seat if U.S. Cen­sus Bureau pro­jec­tions for pop­u­la­tion hold true. For res­i­dents of Pacific and Wahki­akum coun­ties, this has the poten­tial of shift­ing us into a recon­fig­ured dis­trict of one of the Pacific Northwest’s most pow­er­ful politicians.

A 10^th House seat is likely if the state pop­u­la­tion Con­tinue Reading »