Northwest Briefly: Puget Sound orcas spotted off California
Published 10:47 pm Tuesday, January 29, 2008
FRIDAY HARBOR — A Puget Sound pod of orcas has been spotted off California’s Monterey Bay.
The siting Sunday makes this the sixth winter in a row that L pod has been seen so far south.
Whale expert Ken Balcomb, of the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, says it’s a sign there aren’t enough chinook salmon to support the orcas in Washington waters.
The National Marine Fisheries Service says until recent years it was thought the orcas never traveled south of the Columbia River.
An orca recovery plan issued by the agency last week calls for increasing the number of chinook salmon in Puget Sound.
Olympia: Religion policy chafes chaplain
A change in state prison policy allows inmates to profess to belong to more than one religion.
The change that took effect last month is a result of a lawsuit from an inmate who said the state had prohibited him from worshipping as both an American Indian and Seventh-day Adventist.
Multiple religions may be OK with the Department of Corrections but it’s not with Catholic chaplain Tom Suss.
He took a leave from his job at McNeil Island Corrections Center because he says the policy conflicts with his faith. He says he couldn’t minister to an inmate who claims to be a Catholic and a pagan at the same time.
Here’s breakdown of the top prisoner religious preferences as compiled by the Department of Corrections in September: Protestant, 5,544; none, 2,092; Pagan, 1,839; Catholic, 1,534; American Indian, 1,252; Islamic, 1,078.
Seattle: Man charged in Capitol Hill killing
A man with a long police record, including a shooting at a bus stop, has been charged with the fatal stabbing of a woman in Seattle on New Year’s Eve.
King County prosecutors filed the first-degree murder Tuesday against 48-year-old James Anthony Williams.
If he is convicted of slaying 31-year-old Shannon Harps, a Sierra Club organizer, Williams could be sent to prison for 25 to 33 years.
Police say Williams lived about 10 blocks from Harps, who was attacked outside her Capitol Hill condominium. Detectives wrote that the two apparently did not know each other and described the killing as random.
According to documents filed in court, Williams admitted the killing. Investigators also wrote that he shouted, “die, die die” during the attack.
Yakima: Reservoir’s cost exceeds benefit
The costs of building a massive reservoir in central Washington’s Yakima River basin exceed the benefits more than previously thought.
That’s according to a draft environmental impact statement released by the Bureau of Reclamation on Tuesday. The report examines the potential for three proposals aimed at improving water supplies in the basin, where irrigators and communities face having their water rationed during drought years.
The largest proposal is the Black Rock reservoir, which would pull water from the Columbia River into a 1.3 million-acre-foot reservoir. The impact statement estimated the reservoir would result in a benefit of 16 cents for each dollar spent to build and operate it, down from a 28-cent benefit two years ago.
Rosalia: Boy who fell in swimming pool dies
A 6-year-old boy who fell into a pool at his home near Rosalia, in Whitman County, has died at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.
Officials say the boy fell through ice Monday in the partially drained pool. Emergency crews found him submerged in the deep end and were able to revive him before he was airlifted to Spokane.
Associated Press
