Small earthquake shakes island

Anacortes may have shuttered slightly from a minor earthquake during the weekend, but few, if any, residents actually felt it.

The 2.7 magnitude earthquake hit about 3 miles northeast of Anacortes at 12:31 p.m. Sunday, March 23, according to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington.

Anacortes Police Capt. Bonnie Bowers said nothing was logged into the dispatch, not even to notify the department.

“It must have been pretty mild,” she said.




Gene Murphy to receive award March 27

Evergreen Islands will present the Yeoman Award for Environmental Stewardship to Gene Murphy at its 32nd annual meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 27 at United Methodist Church, 2201 H Ave.

Murphy has spent much of life promoting environmental stewardship and was one of three visionary leaders who founded the Skagit Land Trust in March 1992. The amount of land and habitat currently protected by the Trust is more than 5,000 acres including more than 22 miles of shoreline.

In recent years, he played a major part in establishing the Conservation Easement Program, which protects the Anacortes Community Forest Lands in perpetuity. While conservation has been his avocation, vocationally Murphy worked as a technical writer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Site.

Also at the meeting, Sandra Caldwell, Washington State Department of Ecology, and Bob Hyde, Port of Anacortes director, will present Cleaning Up Fidalgo Bay and Its Shores.