Going Green Pays Off in Bellingham

Heading out for an evening sail on Bellingham Bay

Waders, rain jackets, rain hats. Sorry – no sun.”

So read the sign in front of a sporting goods store near Everett, Washington, though the cold, driving rain discouraged us from checking out specials on rain gear.

We were on our way to Bellingham, Washington for the annual spring conference of the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association, though to be honest, we were also looking for some spring weather. Of course, we were realistic enough to understand that if you head for the West Coast rain forest you’re likely to find rain.

We found rain, and people at local businesses were apologetic about the weather. They were also weary of cold, wet weather and were eager to get some warm sunshine. The skies did clear and we had a chance to enjoy some sunshine while we took advantage of opportunities to get away from hotel conference rooms and poke around this maritime city.

With bright sunshine to set things off, Bellingham looks mighty green right now, with lots of spring flowers to add colorful highlights. We also learned the city is green in other ways as well. We had a presentation by the director of a local non-profit, Sustainable Connections, an agency working to improve the local business climate and quality of life by emphasizing ‘green’ ways of doing business, including renewable energy sources, reducing waste (one business was featured for reducing waste by 90 percent), expanding local farming and similar efforts.

The efforts seem to be paying off and they’ve gotten a lot of recognition for it. The Environmental Protection Agency rates Bellingham as the nation’s number one Green Power Community. They also have the nation’s largest increase in public transit ridership. More to the point, perhaps, is their number two national rating for local retail vibrancy.

Sustainable Connections’ logo includes this slogan, “Think local, buy local, be local.”

A representative from the local Convention and Visitor Bureau boasted that the Bellingham area ranks in the nation’s top ten for clean air, health and happiness, bike ridership, and as a place to live. Though the city is known as a maritime center, agriculture is the area’s number one industry. In fact, the county raises 65 percent of the country’s red raspberries. For variety, the area also has the nation’s second largest numbers of artists, per capita, after Santa Fe, New Mexico.

All in all, Bellingham seems an attractive city, with its combination of scenery, outdoor recreation and bustling downtown area. It’s a good demonstration of how emphasizing so-called green values, such as renewable energy, reducing waste, and boosting local agriculture, contributes to a community’s economy and quality of life.

On the dry side of the Cascades is Wenatchee, which bills itself as the “Apple Capital of the World.” It’s quite a sight, right now, with miles and miles of apple orchards bursting into bloom. When I toss an apple into my hunting lunch next October I’ll have to keep in mind that last week I might have seen the blossom that produced the fruit.

We’ll close with a literary note. The New York Times ran a book review last week of “Evel, the High-Flying Life of Evel Knievel: American Showman, Daredevil, and Legend,” by Leigh Montville. It’s one of the more entertaining book reviews I’ve seen.

The reviewer, Dwight Martin, says “This book is, like Knievel’s life, slick, pulpy, eye-filling, exhaust-belching and in the end a bit boorish and irksome. Its ideal form would be a mass-market paperback flecked with glitter. It should come with a grape Slurpee, a little packet of Pop Rocks and a cocktail-size American flag to wave between your thumb and forefinger at weary moments.”

Evel Knievel, or Bobby, as he is still remembered by those who knew him before his high-flying daredevil days, was never dull, and always controversial, even here in his hometown. Judging by the Times review, this biography seems equal to the man of whom a San Francisco Examiner sports writer described before the Snake River Canyon jump, “The contest is Evel Knievel versus the canyon. The canyon is the sentimental favorite.”

Litter? Be part of the solution!

Litter! Don't be a slob!

Remember the Seinfeld episode when Kramer and Newman filled a postal truck with cans and bottles to haul to Michigan and make a big killing with that state’s 10-cent deposit return? Naturally, that trip ended in disaster. The Seinfeld show was a comedy, and disaster is the foundation of a lot of comedy.

Still, they had the right idea. When you buy a beverage in Michigan you pay a 10-cent deposit and when you return the container for recycling you get your money back. That’s not exactly a new concept. A few years back that’s the way we bought beverages. We paid a deposit on the glass bottle and brought the empties back to the store and either got our deposit back or traded for the deposit on the next set of bottles. Kids looking to pick up some spare change could usually find it by picking up bottles.

Michigan gets a 90 percent return on cans and bottles. The rest of the country? The national average for aluminum cans runs around 50 percent and just 25 percent for plastic bottles. Aluminum can recycling peaked at 68 percent in 1992. So, what happens to those containers that don’t get recycled? Much of it ends up in our landfills where it lasts virtually forever.

The rest, sad to say, ends up as litter. A friend commented that her father takes a daily six-pack walk, meaning that he doesn’t come home until he’s collected at least half a dozen aluminum cans. I do sort of the same thing, as every time my dog and I take a walk I pick up aluminum cans, and the numbers of cans scattered on city streets is mind-boggling. From the middle of February to the middle of April I accumulated 31 pounds of aluminum, and that’s a big pile of aluminum. On the bright side, at the current price of 60 cents per pound, I got a nice payback for healthful exercise.

The trouble is, the cans I pick up in my neighborhood are trivial compared to the actual problem. A rural Butte resident called to suggest I write about the litter problem. “The roadsides around here are just covered with aluminum cans,” she said, adding that she frequently makes rounds to pick them up but when snow melts in the spring there’s a fresh crop of aluminum.

I told her I fully agree about the littering problem here in our area and that I’d written about it before. I agreed with her suggestion that I write another column about it, though I suspect litterbugs don’t know how to read.

Unfortunately, many of those litterbugs are juveniles illegally drinking beer and they’re chucking those cans out to get rid of the evidence. That’s one excuse. The truth, however, is that litterbugs are nothing but a bunch of slobs.

When I go for walks I often walk across an I-90 overpass and look down on the highway ditch and median and there are aluminum cans everywhere. Bless their hearts; some ‘adopt a highway’ group may pick them up, but that aluminum usually ends up in the landfill.

When I go fishing I walk along the river and find cans everywhere. A pet peeve is people who carefully pick up their cans and dump them in a fire ring. Maybe they think they’re being virtuous that way by not scattering litter. Sorry, you’re still a slob.

In the fall when I’m out hunting in the mountains or the prairies I often find aluminum cans out in the middle of nowhere. For heaven’s sakes, if you can carry a full can with 12 ounces of beverage in your daypack, why can’t you carry back an empty can that weighs next to nothing?

If you’re one of those slobs out joyriding, why not swing by one of the many recycling bins that are placed around Butte and put your cans there?

The late Walt Kelly’s cartoon character Pogo once lamented, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

We have also met the solution, and it is us. Don’t be a slob.

The State of the Fishery in Southest Montana

The lower Ruby River - runoff still on hold

Heavy snow falling outside reinforced a fact we already knew: 2011 is going to be another good water year. It also reinforced the reports Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks fisheries biologists made at last week’s annual George Grant Chapter of Trout Unlimited State of the Fisheries meeting.

If there was a common theme in the reports it was that after several years of healthy water flows on the area’s premier trout waters, fish populations are responding in terms of both numbers and quality. Here’s a brief rundown on the biologists’ reports.

Matt Jaeger reports that Clark Canyon Reservoir is poised for great fishing after several down years following extremely low pool levels in 2000 – 2005. The reservoir is now at full pool, and approaching flood levels this spring. There are numbers of trophy-class fish in the lake and fish stocks are being replenished by natural reproduction in feeder streams in addition to hatchery stocking.

After a number of years with sharply reduced winter flows from the Clark Canyon Dam, which had a significant negative impact on fish populations, Jaeger is hoping stronger stream flows will help rebuild the fishery. He’s also optimistic that stronger flows may blow out some sediment deposits from a tributary, Clark Canyon Creek. The outlook for 2011 is good.

Jaeger reported Poindexter Slough, the spring creek on the outskirts of Dillon, much of it on state land, has serious sediment problems and he hopes to divert some Beaverhead River flow to blow some sediment out. Still, Poindexter has incredible fish populations and is a real fish factory.

Travis Horton, Fisheries Manager for FWP Region 3, reports that rainbow trout numbers in the Jefferson River are up as a result of continuing good water flows and brown trout populations are stable.

Horton talked at some length about northern pike. Pike moved up the Missouri River from Canyon Ferry Reservoir and are now established in the river’s reservoir above Toston Dam. Biologists have found pike in the Gallatin and Jefferson Rivers, including upstream from Whitehall. Obviously, that means it’s entirely feasible for pike to next move into the lower Big Hole and threaten the Big Hole’s blue ribbon trout fishery.

Grayling recovery specialist Jim Magee reports that long-term projects are finally beginning to show some results in upper Big Hole tributaries. He also notes they have documented natural grayling reproduction in the upper Ruby River for the last two years.

Jim Olsen reported on a 2009 study estimating a total of 77,579 angler days on the Big Hole River. The majority, 43,199, were residents and 34,381 non-residents. While that’s a lot of fishing pressure, it’s nowhere near the Madison River, with 173,339 angler days, making it Montana’s most heavily fished river.

Olsen reported on 2010 shocking surveys on the Big Hole, indicating the highest trout densities, some 2,500 per mile, are in the Jerry Creek section of the river, in contrast to 1,500 per mile in the Melrose and Hogback areas. The Pennington Bridge area has the lowest trout numbers, with just 500 per mile. Olsen attributes the low numbers to poor spawning habitat in the lower river, though there is good adult fish habitat. Those fish counts don’t count juvenile fish (under 10 inches) or whitefish, which he notes, “are still the most abundant fish in the river.”

Olsen also notes that while the fish populations in the Jerry Creek area are high, the size of fish is smaller than in the lower river, indicating that fish populations are at or above carrying capacity, and “anglers shouldn’t worry about keeping and eating some of those fish.”

The last two years, FWP has been tagging trout in the Big Hole and early reports from anglers indicate that some fish are real travelers. An example is the 16-inch rainbow trout first tagged in 2009 in the Hogback area. An angler caught and released the fish on March 22, 2010 in the Hogback area. A little more than a month later, on April 26, 2010, another angler caught that same fish near the East Bank area some 50 miles upstream. That’s a tourist!