Haggen Inc., the Bellingham-based retail food chain, has implemented a program to certify that seafood sold in its 33 Top Food & Drug, Haggen Food & Pharmacy and Larry's Market stores meets federal mercury content standards.

Haggen will use testing procedures developed by Micro Analytical Systems Inc. to ensure that seafood sold in its grocery stores is below the maximum level allowed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for mercury.

The seafood sold in Haggen's stores will carry a label that it is "Safe Harbor certified" as meeting FDA guidelines.

Haggen operates TOP Food & Drug stores in Tacoma, Puyallup and Lake Tapps in Pierce County.

Beset by huge fuel cost increases and nagging inspection issues with its mainline fleet of MD-80s, American Airlines said today it will accelerate the delivery of new Boeing 737s into its fleet.

American's CEO Gerard Arpey said accelerating the delivery of the 737s will help the airline reduce its fuel and maintenance costs over the MD-80s which average some 17 years old.

Here's what Arpey told American employees:

We are moving forward with a number of important investments in American's long-term future. As part of our ongoing fleet modernization, we are further accelerating the replacement of our MD-80 fleet with more efficient 737-800 aircraft. We now expect to take delivery of 34 new 737s next year, with 36 more to arrive in 2010.

American previously had been scheduled to take delivery of 27 737s in 2009 and 3 in 2010.

The developer of the massive Point Ruston urban village on the site of the old Asarco copper smelter has hired Tacoma communications firm JayRay to promote the project.

JayRay has helped Point Ruston managing partner Mike Cohen in the past with announcements and Web sites for the project.

Cohen is converting the site of the former copper smelter near Point Defiance Park into a mixed use development with more than 1,000 condominiums and houses, retail spaces and restaurants, a Silver Cloud hotel and office structures.

Construction of the first single-family view homes has already begun on the hill where the Asarco smokestack once stood.

Cohen will soon break ground for the first of the condominium buildings on the site.

JayRay, founded in 1970, provides advertising and public relations services to regional and national clients. Its headquarters is in Tacoma.

Airlines, desperate to save fuel and generate more revenue, have cooked up myriad plans to enhance their bottom lines: taxiing with one engine, eliminating blankets, pillows, magazines and window shades, reducing the pretzel count to five, eliminating galleys and creating new light-weight service carts.

Now, a German aircraft interior design company has crafted another revenue-enhancing idea: urinals in aircraft restrooms.

Dasell cabin interiors says it has already sold some of the urinal-equipped men's rooms to an airline that's buying Airbus A380 superjumbo jets.

Dasell Cabin Interiors claims the urinals will provide benefits for men and women alike as well as for the airlines.

For the airlines, substituting urinal-only washrooms for some now equipped with conventional stools will cut space requirements (How can aircraft restrooms be any smaller than they are now?). For each urinal-only washroom installed, the company claims, the airline will gain enough space to install four additional seats. The new restrooms will also cut the amount of water used to flush and thus the weight the plane must carry.

For male passengers, who typically account for 70 percent of coach fliers, the urinals will offer quicker trips to the washroom and shorter queues.

For female passengers, the new restrooms will mean shorter lines and more hygienic conditions, the company claims.

Thurston County has imposed an emergency six-month ban on development at the site of a proposed port cargo facility in Maytown, The Olympian reported today.

Port of Tacoma Deputy Director John Wolfe said the moratorium doesn't affect the port's plans for now.

"We don't have plans on filing a rezone request anytime soon," Wolfe said.

The Port of Tacoma owns 745 acres in Maytown.

The Tacoma and Olympia ports have partnered to study a possible rail logistics facility on the property.

The proposal has garnered much controversy in Thurston County, with residents concerned about environmental, quality of life and other effects such a facility could have on the area.

The development ban also won't affect the gravel mining permit the port holds for the site.

That permit is needed to retain the property's value, port staff have said.

To keep it, the port will need to remove a certain amount of gravel from the Maytown property by the end of this year.

Wolfe said the port doesn't have plans to mine, but the ban wouldn't prevent mining activity on the site.

For now, the port is focused on figuring out whether there's a need for the logistics center and "exhausting efforts to find alternative sites," Wolfe said.

"This gives everybody some breathing room," Thurston County Commissioner Diane Oberquell said in The Olympian.

She said the move was necessary to freeze development activity because a pending request to rezone the land was so complex that county staff members might not have been able to process it in a timely fashion, The Olympian reported.

"We were concerned that we wanted to preserve everyone's rights," Oberquell said.

A public hearing on the ban will be set within 60 days.

The ports' joint agreement expires in June, after which it could end or be extended.