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Salmon on Prozac? A new study will look at what King County’s wastewater chemicals do to fish and orcas

A new study funded by and focused on King County, Washington, aims to go beyond the sensational “salmon on cocaine” headlines to get us closer to understanding what chemicals in wastewater means for the life cycles of salmon and orcas that eat them. It has become a frequent topic of discussion within state government — especially after the Governor’s Orca Task Force made reducing exposure to pollution a top priority.

Over the next year, researchers will explore how effluent from King County’s three largest plants and nearby waters affect orca prey species and orca exposure.

Jennifer McIntyre.
McIntyre

The researchers will collect effluent from the West Point, Brightwater and South plants and water from nearby drainage outfalls, then send it to a lab to get a breakdown of the compounds in it. In the spring, they’ll expose juvenile chinook salmon from a hatchery to effluent mixtures at a laboratory in Puyallup run by Jen McIntyre, assistant professor in the School of the Environment at Washington State University.

“We will dilute the treatment plant effluent with clean water to simulate for fish exposure to different ‘strengths’ of effluent from the treatment plant, such as occurs in receiving water,” McIntyre says.

Beyond measuring bioconcentration of chemicals and evaluating for impacts both acute (death) and chronic (limited growth and reproduction), they’ll be studying biomarkers in the blood and liver that can show subtle negative health impacts, including metabolic, endocrine or behavioral disruption.

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Crosscut

 

Why protests around the world often involve public transportation

In Hong Kong, Santiago, and New York City, protesters have disrupted, delayed, or even boycotted subways.

In acts of civic resistance, protesters have taken up space in stations, sometimes disrupting or delaying services. And since transit systems are often seen as an extension of local government and of the officials that run them, they’ve become a ripe setting for civil disobedience.

For people in major metropolitan areas, transit systems are vital, connecting them to jobs, schools, and social communities. They’re largely perceived as a public service, funded by taxpayer money and fares although owned and operated — either partially or completely — by the government.

And since transit systems are an extension of the local government, it’s fair to assume that specific policies (like fares, increased policing, or service hours) reflect the priorities of the state.

Andra Chastain.
Chastain

As Andra B. Chastain, an assistant professor of history at Washington State University, writes in her explanation of how the metro system is a microcosm of Chile: “Transportation is not just about having a well-run system from the standpoint of economists or engineers, but about people’s basic dignity.”

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Vox

Revisiting the Archaeology of Bears Ears with Bill Lipe on Monday’s Access Utah

William Lipe.
Lipe

Bill Lipe is professor emeritus of anthropology at Washington State University. He has spent much of his more than 50 year career in Utah archaeology beginning with the archaeological salvage of Glen Canyon before the dam construction and on into Cedar Mesa where he became a leading scholar in the early Basketmaker agricultural societies of southeastern Utah. Dr. Lipe began his work at a time when there was little federal legislation protecting archaeology or guiding preservation efforts. He became a leader in the development of what we now know of as Cultural Resource Management archaeology. Because of his involvement in CRM and his work in Cedar Mesa, he remains one of archaeology’s main voices in the Bears Ears controversy.

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UPR.org

Political groups and candidates like Facebook ads

You might call it the Facebook Election.

Many voters are “cutting the cord” from cable TV, and candidates and political organizations are turning to Facebook to attract Virginia voters in Tuesday’s legislative and local elections.

It is no surprise why advocacy groups and politicians are turning to Facebook. It’s the most popular social media platform and can deliver ads targeted to users based on gender, age and other demographics — at a cost much less than television.

Travis Ridout.
Ridout

Washington State University professor Travis Ridout says Facebook’s ability to reach a majority of Americans makes it attractive to political campaigns.

“Facebook also allows [a] campaign many different ways to target voters, making it an efficient way to reach desired audiences,” said Ridout, who teaches government and public policy.

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WHSV 3

Language is power

Language, says Kim Christen, “is really about relationships. Languages bring to life relationships to other human beings, to ancestors, to ancestors that aren’t human, to landscape, to histories, stories—to knowledge.”

Kimberly Christen.Christen is a professor of digital technology and culture and director of the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation at Washington State University. The Center develops collaborative projects between scholars, students, and diverse community members, with an emphasis on ethical curation and equitable access. One of the projects is the co-curated and managed Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal, a trove of Native American culture and a resource for teachers and community members working together to revitalize Native languages and cultures.

Christen prefers the term revitalization to preservation because, she says, “preservation conjures the idea that these materials and languages are not ongoing, critical parts of living cultures.” The word also invokes a past in which the U.S. government simultaneously sought to document disappearing Native languages while, “at the same time, they were promoting genocide.”

That, says Christen, was “a perverse notion of preservation.”

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WSU Insider