Glacier Northwest’s plans to build a new barge-loading dock extending from its property on Maury Island include enough measures to protect juvenile salmon, herring, surf smelt and other fish that linger in the eelgrass beds off the shores of Maury, a state administrative law judge said in a ruling issued last week.
t But candidate wants his family to visit Vashon first.
An osprey flew overhead shortly after Abel Eckhardt and his volunteer-partner for the evening, teenager Peter Evans, eased their red canoe into Meadowlake Pond in Island Center Forest on a recent Wednesday night. The light was beginning to fade, and the pond, nearly inaccessible due to the thick walls of brush that surround it, was still.
Glacier Northwest received its final permit from a government agency last week for its dock-building project on Maury Island and says it could begin constructing the 400-foot pier that would open the door to its 192-acre gravel mine as early as mid-August.
King County this week assumed the cost of providing passenger-only ferry service between Vashon and downtown Seattle, a move that marks the beginning of the county’s eventual full operation of a route that for years has been provided by Washington State Ferries.
Vashon High School seniors will no longer be able to zip to Subway, take a quick trip home or run to the beach during their lunch period as a result of a decision made by the five-member board that oversees the Vashon Island School District.
The state Department of Ecology has decided to require Glacier Northwest to provide extensive public review and comment as the corporation devises a plan for how it will handle arsenic-laced soil at its mining site on Maury.
Last August, after a brief vacation, I returned to The Beachcomber with a gift for Eric Horsting, who had steered the ship in my absence. It was a smooth, pale-gray rock with a poem on it, and it seemed the perfect token for this man who loves poetry and is rock solid and dependable.
Last August, after a brief vacation, I returned to The Beachcomber with a gift for Eric Horsting, who had steered the ship in my absence. It was a smooth, pale-gray rock with a poem on it, and it seemed the perfect token for this man who loves poetry and is rock solid and dependable.
The Vashon Park District failed to get a grading and clearing permit prior to some of its extensive work upgrading the historic Belle Baldwin House at Fern Cove, according to King County officials.
Wendy Braicks, the park district’s executive director, said the lack of a permit was an oversight that the staff quickly addressed. Though called a grading and clearing permit, she noted, the park district’s work on the landscaping around the home has mostly focused on clearing invasive plants from the property.
When Keith Putnam designed what is now the main building at Vashon High School some 35 years ago, he included in one of his mock-ups covered walkways connecting the school’s scattered buildings.
“And the school board said, ‘Why should we have covered walks? Let them walk in the rain; it’s good for them,’” he recalled.
Now, that architectural feature — a hodge-podge of buildings that makes the campus both wide open and, in the winter months, a source of colds and discomfort — is seen as one of its greatest liabilities.
Educators say that kids sit in classrooms wet and cold in the winter months, and attendance falls. They say the fact the campus is “porous,” as some have put it, makes it far less secure in this post-Columbine era, where student safety has become paramount.
They also say an ill-fated educational concept of the ’70s, when Putnam designed Building A, has resulted in a building that today is cramped and unworkable.
When Putnam came up with the design — three large octagons connected to a central area — open classrooms were vogue; no walls separated the classrooms, and the building, though not quite big enough even then, could accommodate all the students, he said.
But the open classroom concept did not last long; walls were soon built to give teachers the noise barriers they needed to teach effectively. And today, Building A — the main classroom building at the sprawling campus — is crowded, dark and difficult, teachers and administrators say.
Earlier this month, the school board agreed to offer up to Islanders a couple of different architectural scenarios for a potential bond levy next February. One of them — the option preferred by many teachers and administrators — includes a new 40,000-square-foot structure that would replace Building A as the main classroom facility: a square, two-story building that would have big windows, adequate classroom space and only a couple of entrances.
Puget Sound Energy officials, saying they want Islanders to use less of their product, have opened up an office on Vashon that will provide information on how to reduce residential energy costs.
