Washington Scuba Alliance Needs Our Help

[Tangfish]

Folks,

The legislative session in Olympia is winding down. We are at a critical juncture. Sen. Phil Rockefeller, a great friend of the dive community, has requested $481,000 in the senate version of the budget to get a Dive Site Development Program off the ground - perhaps into the water is a better way to put it. The program is geared to begin replacing a number of dive sites that the dive community will be losing to creosote piling removals, ferry terminal redevelopments, and growth in general.

It's a key program for all of us and we need your support. Here’s what you can do – it may seem small, but trust me, it is REALLY impactful:

If you live in Senator Margarita Prentice’s (Chairman of Ways & Means) district, the 11th (Renton) district, call or email Senator Prentice directly. Her office is (360) 786-7616; e-mail is prentice.margarita@leg.wa.gov; the toll free legislative hotline is 1-800-562-6000.

If you live in Senator Craig Pridemore’s district (Vice Chairman of Ways & Means), the 49th (Vancouver) district, call or email Senator Pridemore directly. His office is 360-786-7696; e-mail is pridemore.craig@leg.wa.gov; the toll free legislative hotline is 1-800-562-6000.

The message is very simple and respectful - "Please support Senator Rockefeller's underwater park budget request. It’s very important to the dive community. Thanks so much!"

If you live in any other district, please call your Senator and ask him/her to contact BOTH Senator Prentice AND Senator Pridemore with the same message - asking for support for Senator Rockefeller’s budget request for the dive community.

To find out your district (and your Senator), go to http://apps.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/Default.aspx

For those who want to really get involved, be in Olympia on Saturday. The Legislature will be around, at least from about 10am to 2pm. Folks from Vancouver would be great - having a dozen divers here would be great. If folks are going out to Hood Canal or passing through Olympia and can spend some time at the Capitol it would be helpful. If you want to do that, call me at 425.830.9545.

Again, it takes just a few moments but you can have a BIG impact... If anyone does indeed call/email (and we DO need you to call/email), would you please let me know.

I'll be in Olympia on Saturday to chat with Sen. Pridemore. It would be good to know who and how many called...

Thanks in advance for this important help!

*Please forward this message on to your friends and family - we need all the support we can get!

Mike

Mike Racine
President, Washington Scuba Alliance
mikera@centurytel.net
425.830.9545

[neoerik]

Boy that was fast, Calvin! Thanks for posting this.

If anybody would like to receive the emails from the Washington Scuba Alliance, sign up over at http://www.wascuba.org. I can personally guarantee that I will NEVER sell or share your information with anyone.

Thanks,
Erik
(WSA webmaster)

[BASSMAN]

I'll be making a call ASAP!
this is Cool!

[nwscubamom]

I called my Senator this morning and asked him to pass on the message to the other two Senators. It was easy, kinda fun, and took all of about 5 minutes, including looking up the phone number!!!

Do it!!

- Janna

[Pinkpadigal]

I have emailed and heard back from my Senator. He is recommending it be approved

[jeff98208]

wow, i am shocked. the first time a politian has told the trueth!!! i guess not all of them are quite so bad, there just might be an honest one or two. anyways on the lighter side, mine said he was on board aswell.

[scarter0908]

Hi, my name is Shauna. I work for Salty's at Redondo and I am in the process of putting together a Redondo beach community blog. Diving is a favorite past time at Redondo and we are in search of diving groups to include in our blog. In the form of links, photos, etc. If you have any ideas, suggestions, etc let me know. It will be a bit of time before the blog is set up but I will make sure to let northwest dive club know. Thank You,

Shauna Bohren
Feel free to call me with any info you have
Saltys at Redondo
253-946-0636

[edm81363]

I contacted Senator Hobbs this morning and asked him to pass along his support.

[nwscubamom]

For those of you just coming into this - the request for help is over a year old, (see post headers). Parks and Recreation *did* wind up getting amounts budgeted toward underwater parks, and has been working with Mike Racine, WSA president. Here's the latest update (and I apologize for not having posted this earlier - been super busy and it totally slipped my mind - what's left of it anyway)

Folks,

Wanted to let you know that it looks like we’re going to have $150K in the 2009 – 2011 capital budget requested by WA State Parks. While not a huge amount of money, it is noteworthy because it indicates the agency is beginning to internalize the needs of the dive community in their budget planning. The money will probably be used to improve entry/exit points or do some preliminary project planning for a dive site development. I’ve asked Mike Allen, the capital projects director, to get together and prioritize potential projects. Here are some ideas:

1. Construct stairs at Fort Casey State Park (Keystone Jetty) to ease entry/exit from the beach.
2. Begin preliminary project planning for a dive site development project at Deception Pass State Park on Rosario Beach.
3. Various entry/exit improvements at Triton Cove State Park (Hood Canal near Brinnon).

If you have other ideas, please post them. At this point, the agency is focused on state park sites only, although they have authority to work statewide with other agencies and county/city municipalities.

Thanks.

Mike

[Dusty2]

The Keystone idea is great! Really needed.

How about that last step at Redondo??? I'd even be willing to contribute time and labor on that one if someone can get an approval on the project!

[nwscubamom]

Great idea, unfortunately, Redondo is not within a State Park.

- Janna

[nwscubamom]

Mike Racine, president of WSA asked me to post this:

This is just a quick reminder that there are only two weeks left in the public comment period for Navigating the Future - the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary's management plan review process. The comment period ends on Friday, November 14, 2008. This is an opportunity for you to take a turn at the helm and influence what gets included in the sanctuary's management plan for the next five to ten years, so please tell us what think!

[Note from Janna: to see comments from the public meetings that took place already, go here:
http://olympiccoast.noaa.gov/protection ... ngcomments

And to submit your own ideas (like maybe how the OCNMS can be more diver-friendly or how overfishing should be stopped so there's something left for us to look at in the Neah Bay area, or how they can look at the REEF data we've gathered over the past 6 years to see how the area is being affected by overfishing) oh wait...those were my ideas. So yeah, to submit YOUR ideas, go here:
http://olympiccoast.noaa.gov/protection ... oping.html ]

SAVE-THE-DATE January 29 & 30, 2009: The sanctuary's Advisory Council will be holding a workshop on Thursday and Friday, January 29 and 30, 2009 to review the comments received during the public comment period and make recommendations about which issues should be included in the sanctuary's management plan. This workshop is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC and will include time for public comments. Location and other details to follow....

[Biodiversity_Guy]

There are only two weeks left in the public comment period for the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary's management plan review process. The comment period ends on Friday, November 14, 2008.

Please consider submitting comments similar to:

That portion of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary within the Strait of Juan De Fuca is the only portion of the Sanctuary easily accessible by scuba divers. This is one of the few places in all of Washington State that scuba divers have a significant possibility of encountering Tiger Rockfish, China Rockfish, Canary Rockfish and other long-lived rockfish species while diving.

Please manage this portion of the Sanctuary from a "Watchable Wildlife" perspective so that scuba divers from around the state, nation and world have a place within Washington where these long-lived rockfish species can be seen and photographed.

Comments can be submitted via e-mail to: ocnmsmanagementplan@noaa.gov

[cardiver]

Is anyone else getting other peoples sent e mail from WSA? I keep getting hammered with other peoples e mail that is sent to WSA!

[scottsax]

Is anyone else getting other peoples sent e mail from WSA? I keep getting hammered with other peoples e mail that is sent to WSA!

I don't know about hammered, but I've gotten about 7 or so emails into the account I (apparently) used to join the WSA. The WSAMembership email address looks like it sends to all the members. Probably should've used an invalid reply-to address when the notice to the membership for comments on the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary's management plan was sent.

[bnboly]

I just dropped my email subscription because of all the emails I'm getting - someone there needs to start managing their email server!

[Tangfish]

Yeah, I was getting them too. The frustrating thing about it is all the people who kept replying to the email, saying "why am I getting these?!" when, well... *that's* why we were getting them. I don't know what happened with the mail server, but the recipients sure weren't making the situation any better. I hope Janna and crew are able to solve the problem and it sucks that they're going to have lost a ton of email subscribers over this. Technology, what can you do?

[Curt McNamee]

Is anyone else getting other peoples sent e mail from WSA? I keep getting hammered with other peoples e mail that is sent to WSA!

Yes, I got a ton of them today. I hope the problem gets fixed, my iphone was filling up.

[nwscubamom]

Guys, I am SOOOOO sorry.

It is all my fault.

I set up this email listserv last night, and thought I had all the little settings done correctly, and looks like I majorly botched things up. I left early this morning to head up to Sund Rock to do low dissolved oxygen diver observations with biodiversityguy (David) and had NO idea of the path of destruction I was leaving in my wake. I am so sorry!

I thought I had it set up so that replies would NOT go to the list, but only to the poster.

Got home tonight to a LOT of WSA spam emails, like many of you experienced, as well as VERY ANGRY emails from people for this having happened. I will be up late tonight sending out personal apologies to all who wrote something. A few sweet folks were understanding and one guy even called and left a message, offering his help to sort out the settings.

Man, I feel like crawling under a rock, I am so embarrassed. I HATE spam email - in fact David and I were having a discussion about that very topic today on our surface interval. And meanwhile unbeknown to me, I was the CAUSE of that very thing.

I went in and set the 'emergency moderation' setting so no posting can take place until I get this sorted out.

Guys, I am SO sorry...please don't blame anyone but me personally - it's not WSA's fault at all....just little ol' me, the volunteer secretary for WSA!

- Janna

(And I still have all my gear to clean)

[Huskychemist]

Got home tonight to a LOT of WSA spam emails, like many of you experienced...

No worries here. I just kept hitting delete and figured the problem would be solved at some point. It wasn't like I didn't recognize where the e-mails were coming from...

[Tangfish]

Alright, so in support of Janna, WSA and forgiveness for the hiccup - Janna, how do we sign back up for the newsletter?

[nwscubamom]

Thanks for your understanding guys.

I am SO completely embarrassed by this whole thing - you know and I consider myself fairly computer-savvy. This email list interface I'm working with is SO confusing. (open source mailman).

I want it set so it will accept emails ONLY from a moderator, not from the members. It's to be an announcement only list. Any replies to what I send out, would go only to me. But I'm not sure how to set that up in this particular interface. The REEF email list that I manage has a much more understandable interface.

If you have any suggestions of a good email interface that could be used as I described, PLEASE let me know.

And Calvin and others - as moderator I saw that many of you unsubscribed to yesterday's mess. (If I were you, I would have done the same thing!) I'm trying to send out individual email apologies to all who made comments or requested to be removed (or who were savvy enough to get themselves removed already). So if you'd like to be added back on, just say the word.

- Janna (still hiding under a rock)

[Tangfish]

Yeah, add me back on. I just had to stop the insanity at the time. I already get 400-600 work emails a day. ](*,)

[nwscubamom]

Got my letter done to the OCNMS planning folks. Anybody else write one?

- Janna

[octofish]

Got my letter done to the OCNMS planning folks. Anybody else write one?

- Janna

Yup! Missed the Aquarium info session but did this, at least