Island Scene
Ride the wave to the Orca Bowl with FHHS students PAGE 9
Daylight Savings
Time to spring forward; set clocks one hour ahead, this Sunday, March 8
Letters
The pen? It’s powerful, use it, don’t abuse it; the bill is worse than the bite, at PIMC PAGE 6
Journal
The 75¢ Wednesday, March 4, 2015 Vol. 108 Issue 9
Building boss benched
Data deficiency? Buying time? NOAA says two years needed to decide on a possible expansion of orcas’ critical habitat
Whistleblower put ‘on leave’ over misconduct allegations
By Emily Greenberg Journal Reporter
By Scott Rasmussen Journal Editor
ANACORTES REAL ESTATE GOVERNMENT HISTORY WEATHER
For someone who just had a baby and is up every couple of hours nursing, Caitlyn Johnson doesn’t look tired. Her strawberry blonde hair is shiny and clean, her skin glows, her smile is wide. Perhaps it’s her attitude. “Everyone tells you it’s going to
ISLANDS
Journal Reporter
SHAW/OUTER
By Emily Greenberg
2015
SAN JUAN
‘First’ baby makes two
be so hard,” Johnson said. “I keep thinking it’s going to be so fun.” Weighing in at a small, but healthy 5.13 pounds, Iris June Johnson was born Feb. 19, just after 3 p.m., making her the first baby of the year in San Juan County and her mom the winner of the Journal’s Annual Baby Derby. “People kept mentioning it,” she said. “I thought, ‘there’s got to be a baby before me.’” Born nine days past her due date, and nearly two months into the new year, Iris June is only the latest first baby of the year in the nearly 30 years since the Journal’s
See TIME?, Page 4
ORCAS
See BENCHED, Page 5
Contributed photo
If the petition put forth by the Center for Biological Diversity turns into a proposed rule, the Southern Resident’s critical habitat will extend down the coast.
LOPEZ
San Juan County’s chief building official remains on paid administrative leave and his employment with the county is in doubt. And, the merits of his report of improper government action, a so-called “whistleblower” claim, would appear to be up in the air as well. An eight-year county employee, John Geniuch was escorted out of his office at the Community Development and Planning Department Feb. 11 by two senior-level managers and placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation involving a trio of concerns over employee conduct. He left the building without incident, according to Friday Harbor attorney Nick Power, who represents Geniuch in the labor-management dispute, and who described his client’s exit from the building as civil, a matter-of-fact affair and “no big deal.” “He packed up his stuff and left,” said Power, who joined his client at CDPD prior to his departure. “That’s about all there was to it.” Hired as a plans examiner, Geniuch was promoted to deputy building official in late 2010 and appointed chief building
The critical habitat afforded to the endangered Southern Resident killer whales could expand to include 700 miles of coastline, but it won’t happen anytime soon. National Marine Fisheries Service, the agency that will oversee the decision, says it will need until 2017 to gather scientific evidence and make an informed ruling. Local orca advocates say the expansion is long overdue and the delay effectively allows military to obtain permits for continued testing and training off the Washington coast. A petition for revision of the Southern Resident’s critical habitat was filed nearly a year ago by the Center for Biological Diversity, a San Francisco-based environmental organization that focuses on protecting endangered animals and their habitats. That petition was accepted by NMFS Feb. 23. “It’s a bittersweet response,” said Center Oceans Director Miyoko Sakashita. “On one hand they [NMFS] have taken steps to protect and expand the critical habitat, but it’s quite disappointing that there won’t be a proposed rule until 2017.” If successful, the proposal would extend Endangered Species Act protection to the whales’ winter foraging range off the coastline of Washington, Oregon and California. The critical habitat, as it stands today, consists of roughly 2,500 square miles within Puget Sound—the core of the orca’s summer range. With the recent addition of two newborn calves, the Southern Resident population totals 79 animals, still a 30-year-low. Endangered animals with critical habitat protection are twice as likely to be in recovery, Sakashita said.
Journal photo / Emily Greenberg
Caitlyn Johnson & her daughter, Iris.
Baby Derby began. And, there’s more than just bragging at stake. See TWO, Page 3
Winner of six 1st place awards in Washington Newspaper Publishers Association 2014 BNC, 17 in all
2015 Almanac is here!