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‘Blithe Spirit’ a response to war with lots of laughs
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Journal
The 75¢ Wednesday, November 2, 2011 Vol. 104 Issue 44
of the San Juan Islands
Deal at hand in murder case
www.sanjuanjournal.com
Ghouls and goblins on parade
By Cali Bagby
This is part 1 of a two-part series about the coastal cutthroat on the San Juan Islands
Possible plea bargain revealed Wednesday By Scott Rasmussen
A resolution may be at hand in the case of a San Juan Island teen accused of murdering his mother and of setting their Friday Harbor home ablaze to cover up the crime. Resolved in court, that is. According to court documents, San Juan County prosecutors have reached an agreement with the boy’s attorney. A motion was filed late last week seeking to have that potential settlement presented in juvenile court, Nov. 2. Prosecutors Sharon Hammel claim that the 16-year-old, who is in a Clallam County juvenile detention facility awaiting trial on a no-bail warrant, murdered his mother, Sharon Hammel, and then set fire to the family’s Park Street home in the predawn hours of April 4. He faces one count each of first-degree murder and firstdegree arson. That pending agreement will be offered up as part of See HAMMEL, Page 3
Mystery of a fish
Journal photo / Cali Bagby
Vampires, fairies and a jester or two (above) join in the revelry, as students, teachers and parents sashay through the streets of Friday Harbor Monday in Friday Harbor Elementary School’s Halloween Day Parade.
Three weeks of ferry woes bring up bigger questions By Colleen Smith Armstrong Editor/Associate Publisher
For those receiving email bulletins from Washington State Ferries, it was a frenetic series of messages about broken boats, replacement vessels, missed runs and overloads. For ferry riders, especially inter-island commuters, the last three weeks have been a little strange. “We are going to see increased impacts on service in the San Juans if we don’t get in front of the capital funding,” said Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-San Juan. On Oct. 7, the Yakima, which carries up to 144 cars, went down because of abnormal bearing wear on a propulsion motor shaft. WSF took the 86-car Evergreen State off its normal inter-island route to replace the Yakima. The 34-car Hiyu, which is always on standby for
the San Juans, was put back into the mix as the inter-island boat. The Evergreen is not part of the “super” class, so it goes 12 knots versus the Yakima’s 16 knots. The slower speed and smaller capacity of both the Evergreen and Hiyu resulted in continuous schedule delays and frequent overloads. The Yakima, Evergreen and Hiyu range in age from 44 to 57 years old. Further complicating the situation, the Hiyu’s fire pump shaft was found broken on Oct. 11, while the boat was between Orcas and Shaw. Cars and passengers were off-loaded onto Orcas and the 144-car Elwha made an unscheduled stop at Orcas. The 64-car Chetzemoka, a brand new boat, just so happened to be available (it was on its way to the Dakota Creek Shipyard), so it began covering inter-island runs. The Yakima returned to service on Oct. 16. See FERRY WOES, Page 4
A winner of the 2008 Community Service Award from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association
Mary Lou White sees hundreds of river systems in a year, but she was surprised to find coastal cutthroat living in less than two inches of water in a ditch in the Garrison Bay watershed on San Juan Island. These fish are known for living in extreme circumstance; juvenile cutthroats can live in small pools for up to four months after a stream bed has mostly dried up. Despite their durability, White, a biologist for the Wild Fish Conservancy, fears for the cutthroat’s future. “It’s pretty amazing,” she said. “But this fish can only adapt to so much.” Russel Barsh, director of Kwiaht, the Lopez-based Center for the Historical Ecology of the Salish See FISH, Page 4
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