Local
Island Scene
Students paint fresh history of island farms
Guest Column
From Friday Harbor to American Camp, by foot
page 8
Who gets to make the call when Constitutional rights, religious precepts clash?
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page 7
Journal
The 75¢ Wednesday, June 5, 2013 Vol. 106 Issue 23
of the San Juan Islands
www.sanjuanjournal.com
You can make it here Local companies, workers thrive on quality of life By Steve Wehrly Journal reporter
Contributed photo / Courtesy of WSDOT
State transportation workers scan the wreckage of the I-5 Skagit River Bridge, making preparations for installation of a temporary replacement beginning sometime next week.
Bridge fix fast tracked Feds provide funds for temporary replacement; expected by mid-June By Steve Wehrly Journal reporter
“Like pieces for a gigantic erector set,” thousands of steel beams, connectors, supports and fasteners have already arrived and are being assembled into a temporary bridge to replace the collapsed I-5 bridge over the Skagit River in Mount Vernon. According to Bill Killeen, president of Acrow Corporation of America, the manufacturer of the bridge, about 20 truckloads of the silvery-gray hot-dipped galvanized steel are on site or on the way to Mount Vernon, as are Acrow construction specialists from Tampa, Fla., Vancouver, B.C. and Camas, Wash. “We’ve built thousands of bridges around the world over the past 60 years, many of them under emergency conditions,” said Killeen, who noted that he personally worked with an Acrow Bridge
team rebuilding more than 60 bridges around Mount St. Helens, in the aftermath of the 1980 eruption. The northern section of the bridge fell into the Skagit River, May 23, when a southbound Mullen Trucking Co. truck hauling a large housing for mining equipment clipped one or more load-bearing supporting struts as it crossed the bridge. The over-height truck was accompanied by a pilot car with a vertical measuring pole which, according to witnesses, also struck the bridge in front of the truck following behind. Three people were rescued from two vehicles that plunged into the water along with the bridge. All three were unharmed and released from local hospitals after being checked out and warmed up. Killeen said his company started loading trucks at marshaling yards near Acrow’s Parsippany, N.J., headquarters and at rented storage near Camas, Wash., less than 24 hours after the collapse. The trucks were dispatched immediately after contracts were signed, some with tandem crews driving day and night. The two side-by-side temporary bridgSee Fix, Page 4
Part 2 of a two-part series on island manufacturing Who says manufacturing can’t work in the San Juan Islands? Not Travis Ayers of Luxel, David Marsaudon of Window Craft , Robert Herrick of Lacrimedics, or Hawk Pingree of San Juan Distillery. All four companies have become established, and all four owners intend to stay. Hard work and unique products are the foundations of their success here, but each credits their employees (except the dis-
tiller, which has a single, new, part-timer) and each thinks this is a great place to be headquartered. Last week’s Journal reviewed Luxel Corporation and San Juan Distillery, both located on San Juan Island. This week the Journal will take a look at Window Craft, Inc., of San Juan Island and Lacrimedics, Inc., of Orcas Island. Window Craft, Inc. David Marsaudon has carved out a top-of-themarket niche during almost 35 years of making wood windows on San Juan Island for luxury homes across the country. A few of his clients are so exclusive that contracts specify he can’t publicize the customer’s identity. Marsaudon, a woodworker since age 14, started making windows by himself in La Conner in 1977. An early
Inslee asked to delay healthcare decisions
Reacting to proposed mergers and affiliations between secular and religious hospitals in Washington state, the ACLU and a coalition of civil rights and health advocacy groups have sent a letter to Gov. Jay Inslee asking him to impose a six-month moratorium on decisions by the state Department of Health on applications related to Gov. Jay Inslee hospital ownership, operation, or management. “Patients are at risk of being denied medically appropriate health care due to the unprecedented number of medical facilities in Washington that are considering or are planning mergers with religious health care corporations,” the coalition states in the letter. “When such mergers take place, secular hospiSee DELAY, Page 4
2011 Special Award; Second Place: General Excellence from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association
contract from San Juan Island alerted him to the high-end construction market here, so he brought his saws and joiners to Friday Harbor in 1979. His long-term workforce of nine skilled carpenters is “essential” to his success, he says, but the level of woodworking expertise needed is such that, like Ayers at Luxel, he’s had to train some workers to meet his standards. But having trained them, they stay. All nine have been there more than five years, most more than ten, several for 20 or more. At the 22,000 square foot factory next to the airport, Window Craft hand-builds six varieties of windows, vertical and horizontal sliders, and window screens that match the windows. See Make, Page 5 IN YOUR COMMUNITY SHOP SAN JUAN ISLAND FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
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