Cancer Rates in Whatcom County: Part II

In my original post Cancer Rates in Whatcom County, I suggested some environmental sources that might be contributing to Whatcom County's high cancer rates and talked about how those cancer rates have touched our neighborhood quite personally in the last five years.  The more I examined the graphic below, however, the more concerned I became that the problem of high cancer rates in Western Washington extends beyond Whatcom County.

This chart, from the NCI's excellent state cancer profiles site, shows an arc of cancer in Western Washington starting in Skagit County (looping over San Juan county) and ending in Gray's Harbor County. All of these counties have incidence rates for all sites of over 517.4 per 100K (e.g. more than 1 in 200) . The only one of these counties that does not border either Puget Sound or the Pacific Ocean is Mason County. Most of these counties are "timber counties" of some historical import.  All of them receive substantial rainfall, especially Clallam and Jefferson counties, which may well be among the wettest, darkest counties in the contiguous 48 states.

However this "arc of cancer" may well have something more in common than hard, cold rain.  Most observers of the United States military know that the state of Washington is a heavily militarized state.  Military facilities of all all branches exist up and down the I-5 corridor, in eastern Washington, and in the south eastern corner of the state we have the Hanford complex - still polluted, still requiring millions of dollars to suppress the leakage of any more radioactive isotopes.

There are two nuclear submarine bases in the United States: King's Bay, Georgia and Bangor-Kitsap, WA.  Nuclear submarines are powerful, dangerous creatures armed with a substantial percentage of our nation's nuclear strike force. They are powered by nuclear reactors that use  HEU (highly enriched uranium) at a percentage much higher than territorial nuclear power plants.  The Navy claims that there has never been a serious nuclear submarine reactor accident in its history. In reality these claims would be difficult to independently verify. (1)  No publicly available information exists that monitors the level of anthropogenic or natural radionuclide levels in Puget sound.  My local Department of Ecology had no references or information for me when I asked them about such monitoring.  Still a look at these recent graphics is enough to generate concern in my mind. (I have added the approximate location of Bangor-Kitsap naval submarine base.):

The right hand graphic is  from the NorthWest Training Range Environmental Impact Statement (final) that was released on September 10.  This large and comprehensive document details the impact of Naval training and testing particularly in the Olympic National Park MOAs (Military Operation Areas) where the Navy has apparently been firing depleted uranium (DU) shells into the Ocean for some number of years, among the other explosives and hazardous waste their testing may have contributed to the Olympic MOAs.  I cannot find any discussion in the Impact Statement that attempts a correlation between  NorthWest Washington's high cancer rates and the NorthWest Training Range use of toxic materials. One would think the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Defense might be engaged in joint monitoring of health statistics in regional areas, but I see no evidence of such joint monitoring.

If we are to continue to face high cancer rates in the NorthWest, we need to have frank discussions about the impact that continual or intermittent releases of anthropogenic radionuclides would have on the water cycle, locally grown produce, soil, citizen health etc.  This would require a public monitoring program of radiation levels and cancer profiles in the areas most likely affected by such releases.

"The Most Dangerous Man in America"

Analyst Daniel Ellsberg shakes LBJ's hand. From "The Most Dangerous Man in America"

"I learned that McNamara's grave doubts about the war continued to deepen... What I learned was that it was an American war from the start... It was a crime from the start. And now a fifth president was doing the same...Murder had to be stopped...Keeping silent in public about what I had read and heard made me an accomplice. It was not only they who had kept all these decisions quiet, hidden from the American public. I had kept them quiet....Having expressed my objections, I stayed in place,observed, took part -- in short, I did the jobs assigned to me. Henry David Thoreau  said "Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence."  What if I were willing to give up my top secret clearance, my career, my privileged access to decision makers?...What if I were willing to risk prosecution?"
-Daniel Ellsberg from  "The Most Dangerous Man in America"

Possibly the most inspiring, dramatic film I have seen this year is "The Most Dangerous Man in America", the story of Daniel Ellsberg, Tony Russo, Mort Halperin, Robert McNamara, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and a host of others involved in the prosecution, dissent and ultimately dissolution of the Vietnam War. The film, available at "Film is Truth" in Bellingham, Wa is a gripping, secretive, emotional tale of the life of Dr. Ellsberg and his wife Patricia and the politics and controversy surrounding the release of "The Pentagon Papers", a 7000 plus page document that describes the United States long time historical involvement in Vietnam dating to back to President Truman.

In each chapter of this film, the main characters of this real life political drama examine their roles, their decisions, and the impact of the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War, Watergate, Freedom of Speech, the rights of the Press, the American Presidency.  The film is laced with shots from Vietnam, LBJ's political speeches, trenchant taped conversations between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger (including a discussion of the possiblity of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam), and a discussion of the "Whitehouse plumbers" secret attacks on Ellsberg.

Clearly, this film should be seen together with Robert McNamara's biographical mea culpa "The Fog of War" (also available at Film is Truth in Bellingham, Wa). McNamara ordered the Pentagon Paper study shortly before he left for the World Bank.  Apparently, McNamara and his fellow Pentagon officials structured the study to keep it secret from Johnson and Nixon.  After McNamara and LBJ left, Ellsberg stayed on at the Rand Corporation where analyst Tony Russo, representative Pete McCloskey, and Senator Mike Gravel eventually helped Ellsberg, Russo and Ellsberg's wife Patricia publish the study.

Powerful stuff. Relevant right here and now.

100th post: Admiral Hyman Rickover

This is my 100th post in nearly one year of writing for this blog. During this time, Google analytics tells me I have received 4,760 Pageviews from 3,227 visits initiated by 1,405 Visitors in 387 cities in 47 countries. I am so grateful. In some of my recent research, I came across these quotes below from an inspiring speech by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. I have added part of them to the title of my blog.

"Aristotle believed that happiness was to be found in the use of the intellect. In other words, ignorance is not bliss; it is oblivion. The inspired prayer does not petition for health, wealth, prosperity, or anything material but asks, "God, illumine my intellect." Man cannot find purpose in his life without expanding and using his intellectual qualities. By liberal learning I refer to  discerning taste, wise judgement, informed and critical perspectives that transcend specialized interests and partisan passions, the capacity to understand complexity and to grow in response to it. You don't go to Heaven if you die dumb."...
"A nation, or an individual cannot function unless the truth is available and understood. No amount of good by our leaders or the media will offset ignorance and apathy in the common citizen. Since the United States is a democracy, the broad answer is that all of us must become better informed. It is necessary to learn from other's mistakes. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself. Reading is one method of accomplishing this purpose. A house without books is like a room without windows. A parent who brings up children without surrounding them with books wrongs his family."

The Table (in Bellingham, WA)

Editor's Note: "The Table" has been replaced with "100 North". I have not had chance to eat their yet. However, the Yelp Reviews are very enthusiastic. -RMF

"The Table at Night" (in Bellingham, WA)

There are remembrances I have in my life (almost all before child) of the near perfect night in a relaxed bistro tucked away in some corner of paradise, urban or not.  I remember many times hiking the day in Pt. Reyes, CA and then finding some elegiac ending to the day  at a small cafe in Fairfax, Marin County.  I have memories of long walks through Portland's  northwest corner only to end up dining in style at a some wonderful brewpub or Indian restaurant.  There have been days spent walking around the Green Lake or Ballard or Fremont neighborhood in Seattle or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco or college ave in Berkeley. All these days eventually ending at some small place that was informal, wholesome, welcoming, hip, full of the vitality of youth...and (most importantly) reasonably priced.

You can find such culinary experiences here in Whatcom County, but they are bit limited, hard to find and not always open late for dinner.  "The Table" (in Bellingham, WA) is such an experience and IT IS open late for dinner. Located right next to Mt. Baker theater, "The Table" boasts food so wholesome, your soul glows with happiness for at least a couple of hours after you consume their ($8!!) half portion of spaghetti that features Katie Hinton and Anna Rankin's Bellingham Pasta with pork/bison meatballs.  The fresh tomato sauce tastes like the chef composed it from hand picked fruit seconds before serving. I had with my meal a "lemongrass" soda, one of the lightest, least over-sweet, and most refreshing drinks I've ever consumed.

A great meal in a brilliant cafe gives the soul something it can't necessarily find elsewhere: a singular pause of some sort, perhaps a clear, elicit memory of youth staring back at you through the reflection of  lights in the surrounding downtown.  Marriage, parenthood, and middle-age bring us many gifts, but it is especially good to seek out experiences that make us remember the spirit and hope of our youth, even if they come wrapped in a pork/bison meatball!

The Table. 100 North Commercial Ave, Bellingham, WA.

"The Ghost Writer" and "The CIA in Academia"...

Warning: This is a plot spoiler review of Roman Polanksi's "The Ghost Writer"

Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" (Brosnan, McGregor,Williams,Cattrall, Belushi,Wilkinson and others) is now available as a rental at Film is Truth in Bellingham, WA. This is a thrilling, tantalizing, odd-angled political piece that is a something of a hybrid of Hitchcock's Torn Curtain (Newman, Andrews), The Thomas Crown Affair (Brosnan, Russo), and Polanksi's own brilliant 1999 effort The Ninth Gate (Depp, Olin). Film critics will recognize in this film certain structures and devices that create significant political drama. They will also recognize historical cinematic devices of both Hitchcock and Polanski. But something about this Polanski effort, based on Robert Harris' novel "The Ghost", is politically very daring. Perhaps very Bourne in its suppositions.

The "MacGuffin" of the film appears to be the printed autobiography of "Adam Lang". "Adam Lang" is a thinly veiled characterization of ex British Prime Minister Tony Blair played with muscularity by Pierce Brosnan. However,  the virtual "MacGuffin" or perhaps the  "deus ex machina" of the movie is the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in academia. The presence of the Central Intelligence Agency in institutions of higher learning was once a much discussed topic (1,2,3,4) due to certain revelations from the Church Committee and others during the '60s and '70s.

How involved is the Central Intelligence Agency today in university life?  Commentators note that ex CIA directorates migrate openly from "the company" to university life these days, but there remains precious little discussion about recruiting, propaganda, and intelligence gathering at Colleges and Universities during the last ten years. We have an interesting picture of the CIA's involvement in the business world due to the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson trial and book, but where do we find a comprehensive picture of the CIA's involvement in American and foreign universities?

Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" begs further answers to this question.  But be forewarned, as the university asset/professor (played with insidiousness by Tom Wilkinson) warns Ewan McGregor: "Do you know how to get out from here? Turn right toward the end of the driveway and head toward the street. Turn left and you will travel deeper into the forest where you may never be heard of again."

"The Ghost Writer". Don't miss it. Especially if you live on campus.

Cancer Rates in Whatcom County

Radius from the Y-Road Landfill Site Inspection

An accompanying paper for this post is "Cancer Rates in Whatcom County".  It contains screenshots from NCI's State Cancer Profiles, particularly their micromap section (java interactive), that back up my statistical assertions below. Also, St. Joseph's annual cancer reports are informative.

There are those subjects that few want to talk about in Whatcom County.  Our high cancer rate is one of them. Cancer rates in Washington state are significant. Regrettably, Whatcom County, helps lead the  way in such significance.  This isn't  a subject that gets much play here.  The "new" Bellingham of ex-urbans, WWU parents and students, and the professional classes really don't want to discuss the fact that they are quite possibly raising or sending their children to the cancer capital of the West Coast. As you might imagine, neither  the "development class" or their political supporters want this information well-known.  Indeed we have a first class cancer treatment center here at St. Joseph's, although much of the childhood cancer is treated in Seattle.

Talking about the high cancer rates in Whatcom County doesn't make you  friends with anyone: not families, not developers, not government officials. But we should talk about it more.  In the past five years, many people that we know have contracted cancer. Five of them lived within a thousand feet of our home. One was a middle-aged health professional. She had a vibrant family, involved professional husband, and she passed away several years ago after battling off her first round of breast cancer.  Another was a nurse (breast cancer-survived). Another a grandmother (intestinal-survived). And the most recent was a family friend - a bright, 12 year old girl seemingly with everything going well for her in life - a beautiful family in a beautiful home; their lives now turned upside down by childhood leukemia. No one who has actively tracked cancer stats in Whatcom County should be surprised about such evidence. Whatcom County (est 2009 pop ~200K) averaged 998 incidences of cancer per for each year between 2003 - 2007 according to the National Cancer Institute.  998!  Without using age or other quantification, this could be construed to mean each of us here  has a 1 in 200 chance of contracting cancer each year.

What are some of the possible causes of toxic pollution in Whatcom County? Take your pick:

• pollutants in the water supply
• oil refinery effluent from two refineries
• agricultural pesticides
• at least two "treated wood" facilities
• an ex- pulp plant town
• an ex-chlor-alklai factory town
• a reputedly sordid  history of toxics disposal with
• small scale toxic landfills reputedly dotted around the county
• an ex naval ship building town (WWII mine-sweepers)
• an ex-coal mining town 
• heavy diesel soot from the thousands of big rigs running supplies (e.g. lumber) from B.C. to CA on I-5
• native population with terribly low Vitamin D levels in their blood
• lots of smoke particulate in the winter from families who burn for heat

In truth, Whatcom County and Bellingham have a  toxic history that they have been trying to unwind, cover-up, or cover over for quite awhile (1). What can we do about this now?  I don't know. For just a few examples, there may be more mercury buried in Bellingham Bay than any other spot in the nation (2). There is a potentially toxic dump that exists in our watershed  for which there is some very critical environmental testing! (3)   At this point, an enlightened government and populace would be addressing the problem as best they could with preventative care and open discussion. How you do that is unclear to me, although some people have had ideas.  At some point soon, I hope we find the courage to start talking about this subject more openly.

"How to Make an American Job"...

Andy Grove, the legendary electrical engineer, CEO and business philosopher of Intel Corporation, has a thought provoking article on creating American jobs posted on Bloomberg July 1st.  Grove, one of the true visionaries and heroes of Silicon Valley, is renowned among techies, industrialists, and his employees for his articulate and straight-forward talk about discipline, organization, business creativity and reality.  His discussion of "strategic inflection points" in "Only the Paranoid Survive" (1999) has inspired the top economic leaders throughout Silicon Valley and the World for over ten years now.

Grove gave the business world and silicon valley professionals a paradigm to understand economic crisis and change as a constant. Now he has some interesting thoughts on increasing employment that are not so oriented to the individual adaptation. Grove argues that startups and innovation are not the correct solutions to unemployment.  He is unnerved by the amount of Chinese investment capitol in Silicon Valley. He argues that the shift of production to China has functionally emasculated the American economy. Here are some of his thoughts:

"The underlying problem isn’t simply lower Asian costs. It’s our own misplaced faith in the power of startups to create U.S. jobs."

"You could say, as many do, that shipping jobs overseas is no big deal because the high-value work -- and much of the profits -- remain in the U.S. That may well be so. But what kind of a society are we going to have if it consists of highly paid people doing high-value-added work -- and masses of unemployed?"


"Long term, we need a job-centric economic theory -- and job-centric political leadership -- to guide our plans and actions."

Grove argues that fundamental market efficiencies of Silicon Valley are leading to national economic destruction. He argues for a strong nationalist, protectionist and (essentially) socialist industrial policy that will protect American economy and industry.  Grove, a refugee of central economic planning of the Soviet Bloc, makes the surprisingly powerful argument that without greater centralized economic control and planning now, an economic revolution driven by unemployment will collapse our capitalist economy:

"The first task is to rebuild our industrial commons. We should develop a system of financial incentives: Levy an extra tax on the product of offshored labor. (If the result is a trade war, treat it like other wars -- fight to win.) Keep that money separate. Deposit it in the coffers of what we might call the Scaling Bank of the U.S. and make these sums available to companies that will scale their American operations. Such a system would be a daily reminder that while pursuing our company goals, all of us in business have a responsibility to maintain the industrial base on which we depend and the society whose adaptability -- and stability -- we may have taken for granted. 

I fled Hungary as a young man in 1956 to come to the U.S. Growing up in the Soviet bloc, I witnessed first-hand the perils of both government overreach and a stratified population. Most Americans probably aren’t aware that there was a time in this country when tanks and cavalry were massed on Pennsylvania Avenue to chase away the unemployed. It was 1932; thousands of jobless veterans were demonstrating outside the White House. Soldiers with fixed bayonets and live ammunition moved in on them, and herded them away from the White House. In America! Unemployment is corrosive. If what I’m suggesting sounds protectionist, so be it."

This is powerful use of economic logic from the mouth of America's most renowned businessman/logician. It espouses an economic path in opposition to  thinly disguised libertarian/capitalist logic that calls for less government control, taxes, etc. Grove details how we have sold out the American worker by outsourcing manufacturing and implementing as policy the type of advice scholars like  Alan H. Meltzer routinely offer:  less government spending and interference with "market forces". To use Grove's analogy, we have been "oiling our own guillotines" in the name of "economic efficiency". Grove calls for more protectionism of manufacturing and American employment.

American capitalism has stopped functioning to our benefit. The only real solutions are greater centralized economic planning, nationalization, and the redistribution of wealth.

1.6 Million foreclosures in the first six months..

On the basis of Realtytrac figures, the Washington Post, Reuters, and MSN are reporting that 1.6 Million homes have entered the foreclosure process in the first half of 2010.  Bloomberg is reporting that 18.9 Million homes are now vacant in the United States.  Home ownership rates are apparently at their lowest levels in a decade.  Below is a screen shot from Realtytrac covering Whatcom County. It lists a total of 685 foreclosed homes. June 2010 added 105 homes to that total.:

We will not 'recover' from this downturn until we start supporting a full employment economy.  Six months ago, I outlined what I think the President must do to create job growth in this country. I realized today that I support those thoughts now more than ever.  FDR had a term for the elite of America that did not support the development of a strong middle class. He called them "economic royalists".  Today, we are faced we a demand side depression that only massive government intervention can solve.  Control and direction of economic production IS the mechanism to stimulate a malfunctioning capitalist economy.  Barack Obama needs to act unilaterally NOW before it is too late. The massive and traditional stimulus monies are not sufficient enough to save us from economic conflagration.   We need a stronger command and control economy that directs economic production and the redistribution of wealth into the economic cycle before it is too late.

Where we are at in Bellingham and Whatcom County : Q2 2010

I am in the process of examining economic activity for Bellingham and Whatcom County for Q2 2010. Whatcom County (Bellingham MSA) total estimated population is approximately  ~200,000 as of July 2009 according to the latest American Community (Census) Survey:

Right now, both Whatcom County and the City of Bellingham are also nervously examining their projected 2010 and 2011 budgets, along with a few thousand other nervous, anxious, depressed city and state government officials nationwide.  It's a bit like a long term famine for Americans here, perhaps as close as we have come to understanding what a permanent impoverished economy may look like.

In reality, the highways are full of cars, city and social services are being remarkably well kept up, the streets have yet to become scary, and the summer days and evening are beautiful. So why worry?  If that is your mindset and you believe that mindset helps you retain your creative edge and energy, please don't look at the charts below.  There is something to "looking on the sunny side of life".  But on the other hand, continued plunging city and county revenues will eventually take us into a very severe economic environment. Something needs to change.

City finance director John Carter's Q1 - 2010 and May 2010 presentations are the most informative and current documents to date.  Here are some relevant charts reprinted from those presentations. The first chart documents the 6900 jobs lost since June 2008. Director Carter notes that "total jobs in Whatcom County" continue to shrink"  and that the number of jobs in Whatcom County (Belingham Metropolitan Service Area) is that same as it was in fall 2004. Well, I was here for fall 2004 and it wasn't entirely too bad. Maybe we are still just taking the edge off a six year housing bubble. However, employment has been in a steep dive for the last two years:

The second chart tells us what the biggest part of the bottom was when it fell to earth: Construction, of course. We were the prototypical "construction bubble economy" for a few years. Not clear from the presentation whether this is all Whatcom County or just Bellingham. (Most likely - all Whatcom County) :

Ouch!! That's a big drop in units constructed!  Those construction workers, realtors, and mortgage bankers are not so busy these days, if they are here at all.  With that drop has come cutbacks in city, county and school budgets, increases in bankruptcy and foreclosure.  There's a good chance the housing industry won't rebound for quite awhile as consumers liquidate debt, struggle with high unemployment, poor credit scores, foreclosure and oversupply of housing. Our little corner of the world has had its share of liquidation and pain, especially for the last two years. Remember that most bankruptcies are household bankruptcies. They are a good indication of general economic health:

This last chart below gives us an idea how all of this has affected City of Bellingham General Fund revenues. This is a May 2010 presentation and compares figures (as near as I can tell) from January to May of the years noted for General Fund revenues only.:

You can extrapolate a bit to understand what has gone on to keep declining revenues from experiencing a complete slide into oblivion -some re-proportioning of the city sales tax revenues , some "carry-over" property tax assessments/increases, some increasing utility taxes- about the only category that couldn't be 'fudged' or 'nudged' a bit was B&O (Business and Occupation) taxes. Unfortunately, B&O is a fairly direct measure of business income in the city of Bellingham. Note that we have had some not inconsiderable direct stimulus from the Federal Government.  Washington has received a considerable amount of stimulus funding and has a considerable amount more to receive. On recovery.gov, you can see who got the $$$. It looks like 98225 has received about $30 M to date:

Whatcom County is a also a recipient of the "Canadian effect" which is particularly strong right now. (Sorry, don't have a good chart or graphic for this at the moment.)

Conclusions
So how long can we keep "fudging and nudging" if total employment and B&O taxes continue to slide?  Probably not too much longer.  Mayor Pike is talking openly now about how we have little fat left to trim off the budget. A continued slide in employment and business revenue will see city/county services and employment cut dramatically. Unfortunately, that employment is a big part of Bellingham and Whatcom County total employment. If private sector employment doesn't pick up that slack then total local business and government revenues will plunge further.  Dramatic strategies could be undertaken at some point: Big public works projects could be halted. Police, Fire, public safety could dramatically reduced. Levying additional local sales/B&O taxes may not help offset continued slides in property valuations or contribute to increasing discretionary spending levels or increasing business expansion/employment. So that leaves us with a some substantial, if difficult to implement solutions:

(1) We can keep pumping stimulus dollars from Federal/State sponsored projects (Waterfront, Airport) into Whatcom County (via the Port of Bellingham among other entities.)
(2) We could receive more dollars from initiative I-1098.
(3) We could recruit more employers to Whatcom County and help sponsor more small businesses.

Okay, so let us talk briefly about these options in the next post and what job creation, if any, we can look forward too in the near future in Whatcom County.

The Canadian Effect...

There has always been a lot of discussion about the effect of cross border traffic and trade on Whatcom County's economy. The reality is that global trade can erase borders quickly. Canadian's shop here like nobody's business.  Tonight, my wife and I parked in the first row of Costco's parking lot. To either side of us were BC (British Columbia) license plates.  So I checked the six car group that we were parked in. We were the only Americans!  As we drove down the first row with our usual $180.00 Costco run intact, we counted the BC license plates in the first and second row that we could see: 18!!  If that percentage held up, then nearly 20% of all the Costco shoppers that night were from BC.

With Bellingham ready to sue WA state to repeal a recent ruling that will allow Canadians to shop  in US without paying  sales tax, this type of observation is important.  Canada is changing the tax structure in Ontario and British Columbia, merging the PST and GST to create the "Harmonized Sales Tax" (HST).  The reform is creating anything but harmony in British Columbia. However that works out, the Canadians are here in big numbers and they are now (and always have been) an important part of our economy.  The irony about Canadians being forgiven sales tax in Whatcom County is that such a deal really quadruples their bottom line. They are here to take advantage of a the current favorable exchange rate, cheaper groceries, cheaper gas and now less taxes!

I think I will get to know more  Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby, Abbotsford, and Langley based Canadians. It occurs to me they could buy what I need at a discount and carry it to my house before they go home.  Perhaps in exchange I can lease them my spare room for the night!  Would that be black market activity or just one individual optimizing their profit in the global economy?  Heck, if the Costco backed liquor reform goes through in WA state, I think I would exchange their purchase of my bulk wine for a wonderful night here in Bellingham and a free ticket to a Bells game!

"not well equipped to prevent...damage"

It could continue for quite awhile if we can believe William Engdahl or Vladimir Kutcherov.   I find it stunning that the oil industry response is to stress prevention and admit there is little hope for containment:

"Mr. Tillerson admitted that the only way to deal with major spills was to keep them from occurring. “The point is,” he said, “we have to take every step to prevent these things from happening, because when they happen we are not well equipped to prevent any and all damage. There will be damage. There is no response capability that will ensure that you won’t have an impact.”

For a moment, pretend that this was testimony from the management of Chernobyl or a future runaway nuclear accident. The world is wondering, "What do we do about this?" and (arguably) the highest paid oilman in the world says, "we are not well equipped" to prevent damage. In a 2008, Exxon and Chevron made $69 B in profits.  How is it possible that corporations this profitable don't have a good solution to an underwater blowout?

The next time someone wants to drill off the West Coast...

What a complete worldwide ecological disaster. How could such a well-endowed, profitable industry be so unprepared for a deep sea blow-out. NCAR has produced a simulation of the flow of oil from BP Macondo site:

“I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Will the oil reach Florida?’” says NCAR scientist Synte Peacock, who worked on the study. “Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood.”...
“We have been asked if and when remnants of the spill could reach the European coastlines,” says Martin Visbeck, a member of the research team with IFM-GEOMAR, University of Kiel, Germany. “Our assumption is that the enormous lateral mixing in the ocean together with the biological disintegration of the oil should reduce the pollution to levels below harmful concentrations. But we would like to have this backed up by numbers from some of the best ocean models.”


What a complete worldwide ecological disaster this will become. As I have commented in a previous post, producing energy based on carbon and uranium is archaic. The relevant comparison to the BP Macondo disaster is Chernobyl, but since the the well is still spilling into the gulf, it is unclear how devastating the leak will be on the environment.  Should you wish to voice your opinion about this, an "Oil Spill Vigil" will be hosted tonight by MoveOn in Zuanich Park.:

This is from the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center:

Today is the 50th day since the oil spill began. Join MoveOn tonight (Tuesday, June 8) at 7:00 PM at Zuanich Park, 2600 Harbor Loop, Squalicum Harbor in Bellingham, for a gathering to express outrage, to demand change, and to stand in solidarity with the people, land, and animals devastated by this corporate irresponsibility.

MoveOn believes that if enough people speak out, we can make this tragedy a turning point and finally start to do what is necessary to stop our nation’s addiction to oil.

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

'No one ever needed to explain to [RFK] the revolutionary ferocities in the developing countries...."The worst thing we could do," he said, "would be to take as our mission the suppression of disorder and internal upheaval..." No one can doubt that our country  has lost immeasurably in the years to come through the murders of John and Robert Kennedy.'  

from a magazine article entitled "The Statesman" by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. January, 1969

To put yourself on one hell of a cinematic ride for two hours, rent the two-set DVD The Baader-Meinhof Komplex from Film is Truth in Bellingham, WA.  Somewhere in post movie interviews on Disc 1, Bernd Eichinger (both the writer and producer) comments that it is hard today to imagine the chaos of world events between the years 1967 - 1977.  Maybe it is, but you can get a flavor for some of that chaos by watching a wide array of brilliant young German actors and actresses portray the RAF ("Red Army Faction"). To describe the RAF as an American equivalent of the Weather Underground doesn't quite do them justice.

There's something shocking to post World War II Democracies about revolutionary violence initiated by white, middle-class youth and there is good reason it should be so. It is simple to distance yourself from the poverty and revolution initiated by Western imperialism abroad.  When that war is on your doorstep, it is unavoidable. The RAF brought war to the doorstep of West Germany throughout the sixties and seventies. They played "hard ball" as one of their young members says in the film.  Surprisingly, each "generation" of RAF played "harder ball" than the previous generation.

Could the Weathermen or the RAF re-emerge in America and West Germany? Watch The Baader-Meinhof Komplex and speculate...Be forewarned: violence is a frequently chosen option.

The GOM Oil Spill

It's quite the live feed, the "spillcam" as Ed Markey has named it:

I've spent the week and  the weekend reading the devastating New York Times and Wall Street Journal coverage. People are pissed. Most probably, they damn well should be.  Our civilization should face the facts: carbon and uranium based energy are extremely dangerous on every level: political, social, environmental, geo-strategic, health, economic.  The benefits of deriving energy from these two elements were never worth the risks and the side-effects. Time to heal the world, heal the environment, heal our bodies. Time for drastic change.

I should mention that I have been an "energy conservation junkie" for some time in my life.  I have some wild articles I have written on energy conservation that continue to get a lot of attention despite the fact that some of them need to be updated and others are just historical relics of the California energy crisis now.  Most of my stuff is "home power" style hands on experiments with energy conservation and production.  But I've done enough of it to conclude that the solutions to the problems of energy usage are much less finite than they are depicted. Energy is a political commodity. It determines the value of countries, monetary systems, and geo-political winners and losers. My guess is that a good chunk of the "power elite" like reality as such. It affords them cheap and easy profits and political control. The technology I have seen  in hybrids, heat-pumps, and photo-voltaics is exceptional.  Personally, I think clean, renewable, inexpensive energy is a choice that our civilization is being prevented from making. I don't have much faith in the numbers that lock us into the carbon and uranium industry and  most centralized production of energy. My guess is that we can make the choice to solve the conflict, poverty, environmental degradation and hopelessness of the world if we garner enough support, sacrifice, and courage to choose clean renewable energy over carbon and uranium.  Stare at that spill cam  feed awhile and tell me if you don't agree.

The use of carbon and uranium based energy sources have left environmental, political, social havoc and destruction across our globe for that last 100 plus years. They have enriched the prosperous few at the expense of the impoverished many. It should be remembered that oil emerged as primary energy source when it was apparent battleships run on diesel and not coal were the most effective "force projection" tools of their day. The exploitation of uranium, of course, is still heavily tied to military action. Despite carbon and nuclear industry rhetoric, clean and renewable energy sources have always been available. They are even more so today : geothermal, hydro-electric, solar thermal, photovoltaic, wind, wave, and heat pump. Storage options (fuel cells, hybrid lithium batteries, underground steam storage) are vastly improved.President Obama needs Roosevelt style "war authority" to wrap the energy industry of the United States under the national control. Once the majors are nationalized, production can be redirected to a sustainable energy future that can be used to leverage the movement for global peace and not competition for energy sources. Ultimately, we are going to have to realize as a species that using dense elements like carbon and uranium for energy sources has imperiled our very existence. Energy as a commodity should be internationally regulated; the use of energy should be subject to global environmental review.

"Bank Contagion Spreads to Northwest"

The title page in today's WSJ section on "Money and Investing" is the article "Banks Contagion Spreads to the Northwest".  The article describes the closing of Frontier Bank (Everett) and the (functional) buyout of Sterling Financial Corp. by Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Warburg Pincus LLC.  The article uses FDIC data to rank US. States with the most bank failures since 2008. Washington ranks third (behind Georgia and Florida) with 10.5% of all banks in the WA state in failure. The article comments:


"The six Washington banks to fail in 2010 represent about 7% of the state's banks at the start of this year. One Oregon bank has failed. The largest financial institution in terms of assets to fail, Frontier Bank of Everett, Wash., had $3.5 billion in assets and 51 branches when it was seized by regulators April 30. Frontier succumbed to the weight of its construction-loan portfolio. ...
Another measure of the distress can be found in the Texas ratio, [I added link-RMF ] which assesses the probability of failure based on nonperforming loans, reserves, capital and other factors. Some 25 banks in Washington, Oregon and Idaho had a high probability of failure based on that ratio in early 2010, more than double the number a year earlier, according to McAdams Wright Ragen."


I am not sure if  a full accounting of how much Whatcom County has contributed to the nation's banking crisis has ever been done. At a cost of $539M, the closure of Horizon Bank (Bellingham est. 1922) ranks as one of the most costly bank failures in the Pacific Northwest since 2008. However, the closure of Washington Mutual is the largest bank failure in U.S. history period. Other notable Western Washington bank failures include, WestSound, Evergreen,Venture,Rainier Pacific, Frontier, City Bank.  Nearly all of these are attributed to the mortgage/construction speculation and over-building crisis that still plagues the nation and our county.   Of the 451 "troubled banks" on the latest MSNBC/Investigative Reporting Workshop list, 23 are from WA state, although some of these have already been closed/reorganized.  This is from www.realtytrac.com this morning:

Or if you prefer google maps real estate view:

Economist Naomi Klein has argued that the banking and housing crisis should be the swan song of Milton Friedman and neoliberalism's influence upon economics.  I think here in the Northwest we should argue that the collapse of our banking infrastructure should be the swan song of the influence of the construction industry as a mainstay of our economy.  If you don't build high paying jobs, your populace cannot afford mortgage payments.  Construction of housing is a service provided to a strong economy; an economy that has to be stabilized by a versatile, high tech, and stable employment. 


Discussion of the value of home construction for the economy is ongoing in the nation. An excellent summary at Seeking Alpha: "Does Housing Construction Drive Employment?" points out some of the benefits and disadvantages of using housing to drive the local economy.  However, we have to make this discussion pertinent to our local economy in Bellingham/Whatcom County. For example:

• Does over-reliance on the housing economy bring us an economic future that we want here? 
• Who are the winners and losers in such an economy? 
• What do the alternatives look like?

[to be continued]

$15,000 for the (passage of) 109,500,000 barrels of oil?

06.08.10 Update to the original post

After some digging (and with the help of County Councilman Ken Mann and County Prosecutor Daniel Gibson, I learned this:

"We do charge a franchise application fee which is intended to recoup our costs for processing an application for a new franchise or a franchise renewal.  State law allows franchise fees only to the extent necessary to recoup administrative costs incurred by the government, which explains our franchise application fee.  The Council could reset that application fee upward but would have to be able to justify the fee by reference to a demonstrable and reasonable administrative cost that it has incurred or will incur in the processing of the application and/or administration of the franchise agreement.  Here is what the Municipal Research Services website says on the topic:
Franchise Fees
Note that franchise fees allowed under current state laws are limited to the recovery of actual administrative expenses incurred by the jurisdiction. Cities can, however, impose a utility tax on the revenue of the company from services provided within the jurisdiction (see RCW 35.21.860 and RCW 35.21.865)."

So currently, according to WA state law, and unlike CA state law, we cannot collect anything like an "energy transit fee".  If true, this needs some reconsideration at the state level.  If Whatcom County could collect fees on the basis of "energy transit", we would a have a significant new source of county and possibly city revenue. I have created a page on this subject to continue research.

05.28.10 Update to the original post:

Here is the original 1985 Franchise document with Trans Mountain. 

Here is the 2010 Bill C18814 passed on March 25, 2010.

Original Post
There are clearly moments in the life of a citizen of Bellingham and Whatcom County where you wake up wondering whether or not you are living in some shadowy, age-old, patriarchal universe; where "old boys" sit in quiet boardrooms glad-handing one another the public's wealth  while deciding the fate of the entire city. The public,  apparently lulled to compliance by the commercial news outlets that seem to publish/broadcast to a sixth grade education level, often sit like quiet lambs awaiting their economic slaughter.

This week has been one of those moments for me.  Cascadia Weekly Editor/Publisher Tim Johnson and Jess  Worth published an excellent environmentalist article "Tarmaggedon" on the destructive  effects of the Albertan oil sands whose product the refineries in Whatcom and Skagit County are now adding to their international mix of oil imports.  The destructiveness of the oil sands mining is hardly novel.  National Geographic Magazine published a blistering and controversial photo-shoot  of the place in March of 2009.  Nor is it news that American refineries are now importing and becoming reliant on this environmentally and energy expensive bitumen goo.  What was astounding to me is that the city of Bellingham, with 2 miles of the recently upgraded Trans-Mountain pipeline buried beneath Whatcom Falls Park, apparently missed a golden opportunity to gather lucrative franchise fees for the ~109 million barrels of oil (300,000 bo capacity * 365 days??)  that may pass under our park next year. Let me explain.

Energy transit fees have created a lucrative worldwide market. From every third world country (like Ukraine) to the major American cities (like Los Angeles), government entities have learned how to take material advantage of their strategic geo-locations. Here is an example from the "city of angels":


"Starting in fiscal year 2005-06, the Administrative Code also allowed council members to pad their respective trust funds by collecting half of the franchise fees paid by companies running oil pipelines in their districts. It required, however, that the money be used solely for street and sidewalk infrastructure improvements. Greuel's audit showed council members have collected a combined total of $7.3 million in such revenues so far.The largest share - 30 percent, or $2.12 million - went to the 15th District represented by Hahn."


So what franchise fee did the city of Bellingham settle for with this newly upgraded "Trans Mountain" pipeline now capable of carrying 300,000 barrels of oil per day across our fine city? :  $15,000 per year. for each of the next ten years.   Bill C18814 was approved 6-1 (with only Jack Weiss opposed.) on Tuesday as Ordinance #2010-05-032.


On Monday, I had e-mailed the entire city council and two county council member in response to my disbelief; I wanted to find out how this number was chosen.  Was it by law, by foot, by SWAG? Only city council member Michael Lilliquist was concerned enough to write me back and his answer was that the city attorney thought that $15K was "market value" for such a franchise fee at the time of negotiation and that the city had secured  $100M liability insurance from the Trans-Mountain company. (I would think they would be materially liable and insured in any event of spill regardless.)  I am astounded that we settled for such a low franchise fee. As I wrote both council members Mann and Lilliquist:


"(300K Barrels/day * $80/Barrel * 365 days ) = $8,760,000,000 of product value per year?   
(As a note, $15K is 1.7123287671232876712328767123288e-6 percent of $8.7B !)"



As far as I am concerned, or until someone explains to me otherwise, this is our good money that COB  left on the table. I can imagine an appropriate fee could have easily been seven figures for each of the next ten years for such a valuable commodity's passage.   What exactly are the economic counter-arguments for negotiating such lightweight franchise fees in times of economic crisis? The council members and the mayor's office may not have been caught red-handed taking brown bags of cash from the oil industry, but they are certainly doing them (not us) a great favor.

Great use of Google Maps...

(1) Goto http://maps.google.com
(2) Choose Satellite
(3) Choose More
(4) Check "Real Estate"
(5) Check "For Sale" and "Foreclosures"

Blaine plays a bit part...in 'car hacking' paper...

Blaine, WA (Whatcom County) has played a  bit part in an emerging field of security research - "car hacking". Researchers from the University of Washington and UC San Diego, funded by NSF grants,  have published a seminal paper on "Experimental Security Analysis of a Modern Automobile". The paper is  being presented this week at the Claremont Hotel in Oakland, California.  Their efforts have received national press in the New York Times. To test "remote hacking" on a live vehicle, the researchers obtained permission to use an abandoned airstrip in Blaine, WA. The researchers thank the City of Blaine for their co-operation in their paper, which includes a brief shot of the Blaine decommissioned airport runway as so:

Entire subdivisions of high-tech office parks have probably started with less inspiration than this. May this be an omen of future wealth and income creation in Blaine,WA.

Blog Traffic at Six months...

In six plus months this blog has received (according Google Analytics) :
1,888 visits from 897 visitors in 240 cities in 30 countries.
The top cities list out like this in Google Analytics for visits:

1. Bellingham 821
2. Bellingham 376
3. Seattle 161
4. Seattle 48
5. Ferndale 34
6. (not set) 33
7. Portland 33
8. Burlington 30
9. Moscow 8
10. New York 8
11. Tacoma 7
12. Bellevue 6

Looks to me like I need more outrageous political comment or scandal if I want to increase readership!

Fountain District Renewal

The Fountain District is really looking up thanks to the hard work of volunteers and city planning staff and two new restaurants. You can find COB urban planning documents for the Fountain District here.  A facebook page for Diamond Jims is here. (I can't find a web page for it...)  A web page for The Fountain Bistro and a facebook page reveal the depth of fans for the "The Fountain Bistro". I sent my parents, wife and daughter there this week and they loved it.  They brought me home the "Farfalle with Smoked Salmon". Fantastic. Diamond Jims has big following. While you are checking out the eats, you might want to check out Elizabeth Park, The ReStore, Broadway, and the Meridian Shopping District.  The Cornwall Park, Lettered Streets, and Columbia Neighborhoods are great urban neighborhoods to live in.

The triumph that was the 11th annual LinuxFest NorthWest...

If you weren't there at Bellingham Technical College this weekend, you missed what is fast becoming the seminal event for Whatcom County's technical community: LinuxFest NorthWest. Don't let those unassuming penguins fool you. At any given hour on Saturday or Sunday, there was more driven, ambitious, brain power in any room at BTC's Haskell than a month's worth pass-thru I-5 traffic in Bellingham.  Coming to Bellingham's annual geek get-together were attendees from Eugene, Portland, Seattle, Olympia, Vancouver, Tri-Cities, etc.  The presentations (or at least the seven hours (1,2) I attended) were brilliant, inspired, and practical. The networking between geeks was great. And the salmon served by BTC's Culinary School at Saturday's lunch was tasty as well.


If there is a hope of Whatcom county becoming a bright light in the technical community of the Pacific North West, it will start at LinuxFest NorthWest.  This weekend, hundreds of people passionate about technology met to exchange ideas, business cards, and flippant thoughts in Bellingham. We ought to do it every quarter - I guarantee there would be that much demand. Congrats to the sponsors, volunteers, and organizers of LinuxFest NorthWest. Maybe #11 was the best yet.  Personally, I would have liked to have seen a greater Whatcom County business and educational presence there. It is not as if we don't have any: CHM2Hill, Logos, DIS, Anvil, FiberCloud, BlackRockCable, WCC, WWU, SPIE, POB,  COB, WC. We have plenty of technical consumers in Whatcom Couty - but I didn't see them in the sponsor list or manning any booths. TAG manned a both as they did last year.  Personally, if I were the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce or any other group concerned about driving technical employment in Whatcom County,  LinuxFest NorthWest is one event I would trip over myself to help sponsor. At least, I would think, twice per year.

the world is debating war now

We should make no mistake about the meaning of President Obama's recent nuclear policy, the Washington nuclear summit and today's Iranian nuclear summit. The world is debating the advent of war in Iran, quite possibly nuclear war.  There are a number of reasons for this, but chiefly:

(1) Iran is about to become a declared nuclear power
(2) The rest of the world powers need Iranian oil and further control of the Middle East and South Asia to fuel their economies.

Once you understand how thoroughly critical to world history both these mandates could be, it is easy to understand why either Israel or the United States may use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran.  "It takes a Democrat to actually use nukes," someone once told me.  This is not a completely empty statement. Obama may have enough chutzpah to actually do it.  There may well be 4.7 trillion barrels of oil left in our good Earth.  But the easiest to extract at the highest profit can be found in Iran and Iraq. And the lure of that cheap oil may be strong enough to risk collapsing the American economy for a few more years.

LinuxFest Northwest

The eleventh annual LinuxFest Northwest will happen Saturday and Sunday April 24th and April 25th at Bellingham Technical College.  This is a wonderful, free, event that allows software engineers, network administrators, consultants and business people of all types to network, learn, and (most of all) to feel as if there really is a tech community in Whatcom County.

I went last year (even though I am mostly a Windows and OpenBSD freak) and had a fantastic time.  Linux really does drive development throughout most of the world now. The influence Linux has in the world of security and networking is undeniably powerful. This year, the organizers have added a touch of social networking to the LinuxFest Northwest website.  I am blown away by the Linux users that are traveling from places like Seattle, Portland, and South Okanagan B.C. to make it the the Festival.

BTW, Bellingham Technical College Culinary Arts will handle lunch on Saturday.  Last year it was fantastic. Your $9.00 cash will get you a choice of:

• Grilled wild Alaskan salmon
• Tri-tip steak sandwich
• BBQ St. Louis pork ribs
• Grilled jumbo vegan Mexican chipotle sausage on a hoagie bun

LinuxFest Northwest!! Don't miss it!

Bloody Easter Sunday...

The "troubles" continue all around in the world - in Peshawar, Dir, Baghdad, Moscow.  All these cities hit by bombings that  killed and injured hundreds during "holy week".   And we ask why?

The major nuclear and economic world powers (China, Russia, United States) substituted sporadic nationalist/terrorist guerilla wars  for the old proxy wars at the start of this century.  More indirect and less traceable, such wars allow the leaders of their countries to blame internal violence on "terrorism" so as to crack down on domestic dissent; all the while scrubbing their hands of the violent networks they have historically developed and run.  These leaders want control of the strategic Middle East and South Asia.  If direct military intervention won't do, then politics, terrorism, bombings accomplish the same. Each side has their players, their objectives, their political dogma, their resources.  And they are strong enough to convince seventeen year-old bereaved Chechen widows to blow themselves up on Moscow subways and let Taliban soldiers waste their lives attacking well-guarded American consulates in Peshawar.

The world is an unsafe place for members of the third world who live on top of strategic oil and gas reserves. Where you find oil, wealth, and military bases you will find nationalist movements, violence, the small arms trade, fanaticism, and grinding poverty. And lots of spooks and assets. Tell me, are we not seeing now in these violent acts, the global build-up to the Iranian War?  And how, dear reader, do you think the next war will effect the economic health of your community?

BTW, Should you like to know what war would look like in Iran...