“Harry and his Fish,” courtesy of our Flick pool’s Great Beyond
Yesterday afternoon, the Everett Herald‘s Jerry Cornfield reported that the delay in approving a Washington State budget was truly fishy: “Boeing’s opposition to fish study a sticking point in budget,” went the headline. With a government shutdown to come in fewer than five days, it might seem strange that negotiations are getting hung up on a mundane study of how often people eat fish.
But state industries, including 800-lb. gorilla Boeing, are very nervous about how often you dine on sushi, because that consumption rate factors into an algorithmic assessment of “acceptable” water pollution. Our April 2013 story, “Washington State’s Water-Pollution Regs Assume People Hate Fish,” looked into the Department of Ecology’s struggle to balance a directive from the U.S. EPA with political realities.
Northwest Native American tribes, who eat fish daily, have been pitted against the business community. Industry hackles shot up when Oregon raised its fish consumption rate to 175 grams per day. Washington’s guideline rate, in contrast, is 6.5 grams. Any change on the order of Oregon’s could mean a huge difference in businesses’ liabilities.
For a related story, “How Clean is Our Water? How Clean Should It Be?” we spoke with Boeing’s Terry Mutter. “What we’re asking for is something environmentally beneficial, technically feasible, and economically viable,” he argued, claiming that Boeing wasn’t against cleaner waters, per se, but that the adjustment of a multi-factor formula driven by a single variable, fish consumption, could generate impossible standards.
Cornfield’s story notes that the Senate, in special session, added a request for funds for “a comprehensive study to figure out how much fin fish and shell fish each resident will consume over their lifetime,” though the amount was not specified. Studies of fish consumption, though, aren’t hard to come by, and the ones Ecology relies on have already been given U.S. EPA approval, so it’s not clear what the new study would accomplish besides delay.
“House Democrats and Gov. Jay Inslee,” writes Cornfield, “strongly oppose the Senate approach.” Budget director David Schumacher confirmed for the AP that the issue has taken up “time and attention” during these last few days of budget negotiations.
Not much more needs to be said about Dave Hoefler‘s appropriately titled shot of a boy – and his dog at Alki. We just really enjoy how the object of the dog’s attention is out of sight. No one knows how far he paddled into the salty waters of Elliott Bay…or if he did at all.
The Red Cross has an online store with emergency supplies. (Image: Red Cross)
With a 7.7 earthquake to the north at Haida Gwaii and Hurricane Sandy working over the East Coast, it feels like a good time to have Arne (@nwquakes) talk with emergency management expert Carol Dunn (@caroldn) about a higher-risk group: renters. Part 1 is here.
What’s a good strategy for getting together emergency supplies in your apartment, given that you don’t have a lot of spare space?
Storage space can be a problem in rental units, but you shouldn’t make that an excuse not to have backup food and water. Find ways to make it work. Remember, disaster supplies are simply things you own that are useful in disasters. A lot of people’s mental picture of disasters supplies involve shelves of specifically bought supplies gadgets kept in a shed or garage—that actually isn’t the best way.
You should try to make disaster supplies part of your everyday life. Your goal is to find a way to have backup ways to get water, food, medicine, heating, information, and light. The best way to do it is to see what you already have. Designate some space to let you pull your supplies together. This can be a shelf in a cupboard, or under, behind, or inside a piece of furniture.
Tips for Supplies
A demonstrator from Puget Sound Energy shows a man how to safely turn off a utility meter. (Photo: Seattle Red Cross)
Water: Store water either by buying multi-gallon water jugs or by filling cleaned soda bottles with water. Learn different techniques for purifying water. If you don’t have a water heater (which is a good source of emergency water), find out how your building provides heated water. Often there are large central water tanks that hold hundreds of gallons of water.
Talk to the management company or building owners about their plan for a water emergency. Who has access to the tanks? How can residents contact the manager/building owner if none of their representatives are on site during the emergency? Your goal should be to have a gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, but it’s best if you can store even more. It is a lot of water, so be clever in how you store it. Don’t let the large amount give yourself permission to put off doing it. Store what you can to start with.
If you are filling your own bottles, be sure to refill them every six months: tap water can in fact “go bad”; that is, it can get contaminated by bacteria over time. If you have any reason to worry about the quality of your water, purify it before drinking it.
Food: Energy/snack bars and nutritional drinks are easy to store emergency food.
Medicine: Insurance/Medicaid rules often make it difficult to have back up prescriptions. Get in the habit of requesting refills the date you are allowed to request them and not when you are running out. Also keep a list of prescriptions, doses, and the number of your doctor and your pharmacy in your wallet. It is possible to get emergency replacements for prescriptions that were lost due to a disaster. Having the ability to provide information about your medical needs will speed up the process. You can also request replacement prescriptions by going to a public health clinic or an emergency shelter and talking to their staff.
You should get together some first aid supplies in case of injury. Bandages, gauze, aspirin, disinfectant, tissues, plastic gloves, soap: They’re all compact, inexpensive items you’ll need if you get injured and help can’t reach you and you can’t reach help.
Heating: Blankets, sweaters and hand warmers can provide safe heating. Avoid heaters that generate fumes of any sort. In long-term power outages normal ventilation in buildings no longer runs, so air is not moving. Over time, this can make non-electric heating devices, like propane heaters or camp stoves, dangerous—even if their labels say they can be used indoors.
Information: Keep a battery or crank radio handy so you can get information about the location of shelters or emergency food and prescription replacement. If you have a car, consider buying an inverter so it can charge phones and laptops. Emergency information in our area is usually available on local radio stations (often AM 1000, or FM 97.7 or 97.3), online at www.rpin.org, www.seattleredcross.org, and most city government websites, or by calling 211. Keep a paper list of phone numbers for the people and services that are important to you.
Lighting: Use flashlights, glow-sticks, or battery- or crank-powered lanterns. If using batteries, have spare batteries on hand.
The full title of this photo reads: “The Space Needle rising above the fountains of Seattle’s Lake Union Park” but it’s really so much more than that. How often is a splash of water this eye-catching? How often do you find yourself glad that the Space Needle is out of focus? We’re so pleased that Matt McGrath Photography shared this unique capture in our Flickr pool.
As Great Beyond reminds us, summer is winding down. But it’s not too late for one last plunge at Green Lake or your other choice body of water: the 7-day forecast looks positively lovely!
