Friends of the San Juans

On August 29, 2019, Friends of the San Juans appealed Whatcom County’s conditional approval of a 300,000-barrel external floating roof crude oil storage tank and an 80,000-barrel external floating roof fuel oil storage tank in a tank farm located within the Phillips 66 Ferndale Refinery. On behalf of Friends members and the 73 living Southern ... read more

What do you see? This image contains a hidden a future. The fine grains of sand on this beach can sustain thousands of forage fish eggs – these eggs will become the small fish that sustain the Chinook salmon, that sustain the endangered Southern Resident orcas. It’s your donation that will ensure that the future ... read more

The Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) need your voice and support! Their designated critical habitat is being revised and expanded to include the marine waters from the U.S. international border with Canada at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, south to Point Sur, California. Friends supports the proposed revision of the Critical Habitat Designation ... read more

We finished our fourth and final 40th anniversary celebration in Seattle on November 8! We are honored to protect what we all love about the San Juan Islands and the Salish Sea with the help of our awesome community! Thank you for your continued support!

We are happy to report a successful outcome to the bold legal action we took against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2018. They will now have to give more scrutiny to sea walls, bulkheads or other armoring in the Salish Sea. This is a very important ruling for forage fish – who feed ... read more

Join us next week as we speak up for the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW). The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are holding a scoping meeting on Tuesday, November 12th from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Brickworks in Friday Harbor (150 Nichols St.). Click here to see the full ... read more

Please join us in asking the San Juan County Council to impose an immediate moratorium on the issuance of new Vacation Rental Permits. The moratorium should remain in place until the county implements regulations that meet the public need. It will not effect currently permitted vacation rentals. There are currently no county-wide limitations on the number of Vacation ... read more

Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has issued a Mitigated Determination of Nonsignificance for Cooke Aquaculture’s proposal (SEPA No. 19056) to farm biologically-engineered steelhead (aka Triploid Rainbow Trout) in the net pens Cooke Aquaculture used to farm Atlantic salmon. Open water net pens are “Confined Animal Feeding Operations” that generate disease and pollution. There could also be ... read more

Friends of the San Juans is seeking citizen scientists to help conduct beach surveys for spawning forage fish over the next two years. There will be a survey training session on October 26 from 9 am – 1 pm with researchers from Friends and Salish Sea Biological at the Old Town of Friday Harbor Fire ... read more

Approximately 150 people attended the second Community Conversation on Vacation Rentals, held at the Orcas High School Cafeteria on Wednesday evening September 25, 2019. Introductions and a review of the agenda and process were presented by Diane Berreth. Yonatan Aldort, the appointed leader of the Vacation Rentals Working Group, delivered an opening comment. Five presentations ... read more