DEADLINE: IJNR Puget Sound Institute — Western Washington State

The expenses-paid Puget Sound Institute — Western Washington State will take place July 8-16, 2011.

Application deadline: Extended to Wednesday, June 8, at 7 PM Mountain Time

This journey will enable 14 competitively selected reporters and editors to explore the Puget Sound estuary and its surrounding shores and uplands. The group will visit Hood Canal, the Duwamish Waterway and the Port of Tacoma, as well as fisheries, wetlands and farms along the Skagit River delta. Journalists will gain exposure to storm-water management challenges in upland subdivisions and to conservation issues that confront public and private forestlands. At low tide, they will don rubber boots and wade through mudflats to rake the muck for clams and oysters. The trip may include a flight over the entire estuary in small planes and a voyage aboard a whale-watching vessel. Themes to be examined during the program are likely to include:

• Snowpacks, Headwaters and Forests: Sources of Sustenance for an Estuary
• The Shellfish of Puget Sound Basin: Cultural and Economic Significance
• Ever-Rising Pressures: The Opportunities and Risks of Land-Use Conversion
• Challenges of Managing Growth: Where Should All the Newcomers Live?
• Reconciling Rivalries: Food Crops and Salmon Habitat in a River Delta
• Houses, Jobs and Commutes: Reducing the Environmental Burdens of Traffic