OLYMPIA – A measure to repeal the state’s new estate tax has secured a spot on the November ballot, elections officials announced Wednesday.
Last month, sponsors submitted nearly 400,000 voter signatures for Initiative 920, exceeding the 225,000 valid signatures needed to qualify for the ballot and cover duplicate or invalid signatures.
A check of about 12,000 randomly selected voter signatures showed an invalidation rate of about 15.5 percent, much less than the error rate threshold of 25 percent the secretary of state’s office had calculated.
Seattle: ‘91 spill spurs protection for coast
A 1991 oil spill that killed thousands of seabirds along the Washington state coast has spurred a plan to provide 200 years of protection for 900 acres of coastal forest – critical nesting habitat for federally protected marbled murrelets.
Tribal, state and federal officials gathered Tuesday at Neah Bay, on the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, to mark completion of a $5.2 million habitat restoration plan to offset damage from the Tenyo Maru oil spill, according to the state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Japanese fishing vessel sank in 540 feet of water about 23 miles northwest of the peninsula’s Cape Flattery on July 22, 1991, after the ship was struck by the Chinese freighter Tuo Hai in heavy fog.
Over the following month, the Tenyo Maru leaked more than 100,000 gallons of oil, which fouled beaches and killed wildlife from British Columbia’s Vancouver Island to northern Oregon.
In December 1989, the same general area was contaminated by 231,000 gallons of bunker fuel from the oil barge Nestucca.
Alaska: Search for missing plane continues
There was still no sign of a missing plane with three people on board Wednesday as searchers continued looking for a fifth day.
The last known coordinates of the aircraft were at a point about three miles offshore between Moose Point and Point Possession in Gompertz Channel north of Cook Inlet, about 10 miles to 15 miles southwest of Anchorage. The last contact with the four-seat propeller-driven plane was about 8:30 p.m. Friday.
Aboard the plane were Ralph Aiken Jr., an East Wenatchee city councilman; Rick Posusta of Boise, Idaho; and Ian Beer of Port Orchard.
Six Civil Air Patrol aircraft were looking Wednesday. At least three of them were equipped with floats for landing on water, said Mike Haller, a spokesman for the Rescue Coordination Center in Anchorage.
Summer of midnight sun ends in Barrow
The summer of the midnight sun in Barrow is coming to an end.
The sun set at 2:04 a.m. Wednesday for the first time since May 10, said Royce Fontenot of the National Weather Service station in Barrow.
But it was a short night, he said. The sun edged back over the horizon just an hour later.
Days will get shorter and nights longer until mid-November, when the sun will set until January and Barrow will begin three months of darkness.
Tina Wolgemuth said she expects it will soon be easier to get her daughters to go to bed.
“Now they ask, ‘Why is it bedtime when the sun is still shining?’ Also, it will be time to take down the aluminum foil from our windows,” she said.
Teri Andreasen said it’s nice to have the darkness back.
“It’s sort of like welcoming old friends back into town after a long absence,” she said. “After so much light, I almost forget that we have a moon and stars and northern lights. I guess that’s what the first sunset does. It is sort of a preview of coming attractions.”
Barrow is about 330 miles above the Arctic Circle.
Associated Press
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