Around the Bay

City schedules wayside horn demo
The city of Blaine has scheduled a series of demonstrations of a wayside horn system by representatives from Railroad Controls Limited for Thursday, March 22.

The demonstrations are scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday at the Bell Road crossing and at 3 p.m. at the Hughes Road crossing and are part of a process to allow trains to avoid blowing their horns within city limits.

Blaine senior center slated to receive new roof
In a regular meeting of Blaine City Council, members voted 6-0 to award Mt. Baker Roofing with a $121,000 contract to replace the center’s 20-year-old failing composition roof with a more durable metal one.

The current roof has caused interior water damage to the center, city staff said.

Construction will begin as soon as weather permits, and is scheduled to be completed within the next four months.

Volunteers needed for state math competition
Organizers for the 2007 Washington State Math Championship are seeking volunteers for their competition March 31 at the Blaine high school.

Volunteers are needed to serve as test correctors and proctors, who work to ensure teams are in the correct classroom, explain and enforce rules and read all mental math test questions aloud to the competitors.
Math skills are not required. Correctors check answers on the 2,900-plus tests that are taken.

The event is sponsored by ConocoPhillips Ferndale refinery and coordinated and hosted by Blaine school district.

More than 1,300 5th-8th graders from 72 schools are registered to compete.

Lunch will be provided for all proctor and corrector volunteers.
For more information, call 360/332-0363 or e-mail gwildermuth@blaine.k12.wa.us.

Celebrate Earth Day with NSEA
Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association is hosting a series of work parties in Whatcom County during upcoming weekends in to help restore streamside habitat for salmon. Volunteers are needed to plant native vegetation, and remove invasive plants, and perform other duties.

The next work party for Birch Bay is scheduled for 9 a.m. March 31 at Terrell Creek near BP Cherry Point refinery. From I-5 north, take a left on Grandview Road. Follow Grandview west to the stop sign at Jackson Road.

Turn right on Jackson Road and follow past the Terrell Creek bridge. Turn left into the parking lot at Birch Bay Bible Community Church. The NSEA tent will be located across Jackson Road, northeast of the church.

Tools and gloves, as well as refreshments by the Bagelry, Erin Baker’s breakfast cookies, the Community Food Co-op in Bellingham, and coffee from Starbucks Coffee and Tony’s Coffee will be provided. Participants are advised to wear sturdy shoes and weather-appropriate clothing.

Dates and times for other county work parties can be found at www.n-sea.org.

Governor awards $7 million to Blaine for Lighthouse facility
Washington state governor Chris Gregoire signed legislation this week that would award $7 million in infrastructure loans to the city of Blaine.   

The funds will be used to help construct the city’s new Lighthouse Point wastewater treatment facility, which is being constructed to serve the projected demand for the next 20 years, public works director Steve Banham said.

The plant uses the latest membrane filtering technology to produce reuse-quality water and minimize impacts to local shell fishing.

“This is a key first step in bringing together the various state grants and loans that will be needed to fund this critical project in 2008,” he said. “With this and the USDA Rural Development funds remaining from the old plant, we have almost a third of the funding we will need to construct.”

The low-interest loans are administered by the Public Works Trust Fund and are designed to help local governments and public utilities finance critical public works projects, such as bridges, roads, solid waste, domestic water, sanitary sewers and storm sewer systems. Funds come from the Washington State Public Works Board.

By Tara Nelson