Sports
Scene
Twice as nice: Wolverines bound for State playoffs
World-class glass illuminates IMA opening
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As I see it
Local officials do a disservice to island’s health care by turning a blind eye to ‘thorny issues’ PAGE 7
Journal
The 75¢ Wednesday, February 25, 2015 Vol. 108 Issue 8
Tsunami? How to survive in San Juans New map by DEM illustrates areas of risk, agency offers steps on how to be prepared By Cali Bagby
Islands’ Sounder assistant editor
Volunteers plant native seeds on Cady Mountain as part of the Land Bank’s “Salish Seeds Project.”
Contributed photo / Shaun Hubbard
25 years of conservation Land Bank marks 25th with acquistion of Lawson Ridge By Emily Greenberg Journal Reporter
Every county in Washington state has the ability to vote in a Land Bank—but San Juan is the only county to do it. “People here have a clear understanding how important the natural environment is to the community as a whole,” said Lincoln Bormann, director of the San Juan County Land Bank. “If we lose that we’ll become just like everywhere else.” This year, 2015, marks 25 years of conservation efforts at the Land Bank, and the celebration is ongoing. A little history first. The Land Bank got its start in 1990 when a group of citizens
became concerned over the quickening pace of development across the islands. The big idea was to conserve as much open space as possible. The Land Bank works by the outright purchase of land to ensure its preservation, or by conservation easements, another mechanism to protect open space. Funded in large part through a 1-percent real estate excise tax, the Land Bank also has the ability to obtain state and federal grants. In a conservation easement the landowner retains ownership, but the Land Bank buys rights to reduce the amount of development allowed on that land. Those dividends are paid to the landowners. This transaction allows “fields to remain fields, and farms to remain farms,” Bormann said. Over the last two decades the Land Bank has made great strides in preserving land on San Juan, Orcas and Lopez Islands, with
more than 20 preserves open to the public—but it takes a village to preserve all that land. The synergy between the Land Bank and noncounty run organizations, like the San Juan Preservation Trust and National Park Service, is what also helps make for successful ventures in conservation.
Milestones
In 2006, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources considered strongly the possibility of selling San Juan Island’s Mitchell Hill to a private developer. See CONSERVATION, Page 4
Experts predict that the next big tsunami could hit the West Coast anytime in the next 50 years. “There are a number of quake scenarios that could impact the islands,” said Brendan Cowan, director of the county’s department of emergency management. “All are real, and could potentially happen tomorrow.” The good news is that when the tsunami comes, islanders can be ready. According to the DEM’s new webpage, entitled Common Tsunami Questions, “In the most likely scenario, San Juan County will have plenty of warning due to the large quake we feel before a tsunami in the form of an extremely large earthquake.” The tsunami could come in 45 minutes or less after a large quake, which is defined as rating 5.0 or greater on the logarithmic scale. Although 9.0 would be incomprehensibly larger than a 5.0, Cowan describes both as large enough to cause concern. “In general, the larger the quake, the bigger the tsunami, but there’s an almost limitless number of scenarios that could cause a tsunami,” he said. “By focusing on the 9.0 quake with our maps, we’re looking at the most studied/best understood and one of the potentially most damaging events.” What complicates matters is that not all quakes cause tsunamis. The quake has to lift the sea floor to be followed by a tsunami, and according to Cowan, the majority of undersea quakes don’t cause a tsunami. To understand how likely it is
Winner of six 1st place awards in Washington Newspaper Publishers Association 2014 BNC, 17 in all
that a tsunami is headed our way one has to look back to 1700 – and a forest submerged by salt water. For many years quake experts believed that the closest fault, the Cascadia subduction zone, was safely aseismic. When they found mysteriously sunken Northwest forests that appeared to have been killed by salt intrusion, in the year 1700, their conclusion changed. It turns out that the eastwardmoving Juan de Fuca tectonic plate is not sliding smoothly beneath the westward-moving North American plate; instead, it’s bunching up, building up tremendous pressure that scientists believe will eventually let loose in the space of a few minutes. If the fault’s five segments all “go See SAN JUANS, Page 4
It’s a girl! See next week’s paper for a story about the Journal’s Baby Derby winner, Caitlyn Johnson