Environment

Invasive green crabs are prolific all over the world. Officially called European green crabs , they are known for outcompeting native shellfish. On the East Coast of the U.S., they have been blamed for damaging shellfish harvests and decimating sea grass beds, which are critical habitat for juvenile salmon. Now they’ve been discovered at Dungeness Spit near Sequim, on the Olympic Peninsula. It's alarming simply because of the location: a place famous for the iconic Northwest native crab. And the

The King County Council has formally launched an investigation into what caused the catastrophic failure of its largest wastewater treatment facility in early February. During the failure, about 30 million gallons of raw sewage flowed into Puget Sound. At 2 a.m. on February 9 , catastrophic flooding shut down the West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood. A unanimous vote by the council has confirmed selection of a team of wastewater experts from the global engineering firm

Seattle’s March for Science is expected to be the second largest one in the country, second only to Washington D.C. That’s according to the activists behind it. The event is coinciding with the annual Earth Day celebration , when people who care about the environment traditionally get out there to show their colors. Many people who don’t normally show up for political protests are planning to march for science tomorrow. Take Bruce Congden. He’s the dean of STEM and social sciences at Seattle

The city of Seattle has reached a settlement in one of two civil suits against homeowners in West Seattle, who allegedly hired people to illegally cut down about 150 trees on public land. Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold thanked Seattle’s city attorney for responding to her call for help when she first read about the unauthorized cutting in The Seattle Times . She said the settlement sends a message because it’s not just a minor fee. Two of the couples are paying $440,000, which is more

The Puyallup Tribe says it will not go along with plans to put a liquified natural gas facility on a site at the Port of Tacoma. The site is located on land that lies sandwiched between parcels on its reservation . The tribe says its biggest concern is that its reservation lies in an urban area. And the heart of that is the Port of Tacoma. John Weymer is a spokesman for the Puyallup. He says there have been several minor spills of fossil fuel oils coming in on trains over the past few years. “So

Passions run high on the issue of how to best protect resident killer whales in the waters off the San Juan Islands. A public comment period on a proposal that could help them ends Thursday. Orca whales communicate underwater with complex calls that researchers say are a language all their own. And they use echolocation to find their way around. But the southern resident orca population is on the brink of extinction. At last count, there were only 78 left in the wild. That prompted the idea of

When funds are tight, it might be tempting for government to try to raise taxes or fees. But what if you could just inspire people to opt in and pay extra to support something they love? That’s the idea behind a new campaign for a specialty license plate that would generate funds to support conservation lands in the San Juan Islands. “So, basically a regular license plate is about $30, a specialty design license plate is about $60. And $28 of those dollars go to the organization that has

Climate change is one of those issues that tends to turn people off. It’s not much fun to think about the consequences of the carbon pollution and the subsequent warming of the atmosphere. But Seattle Times Writer Lynda V. Mapes spent the better part of two years studying how it affected one tree while she was on a science fellowship in upstate New York. Her book about that experience is called "Witness Tree: Seasons Of Change With A Century-Old Oak."

Temporary fans and sump-pump hoses are whirring along inside the West Point Treatment plant. It’s still dark inside the tunnels where on February 9, a flood of sewage busted doors off and submerged everything up to 12-feet high. Where we’re standing, we would have been underwater. Plant manager Robert Waddle switches on a flashlight to show me around. “So every electrical panel you see here has either been replaced or will be replaced, a lot of our power is coming in; it’s temporary. You know,

The breakdown last month of Seattle’s wastewater treatment plant has poured hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated stormwater and raw sewage into Puget Sound. Repairs alone will cost an estimated $25 million. And it’s expected to take till the end of April to get the West Point Treatment Plant back to normal. Until then, the broken wastewater facility will be violating its permit and polluting Puget Sound. The state’s Department of Ecology has a dual role to play as it works with the