Hours after federal approval of Shell‘s Arctic offshore-drilling plan, and hours before the Seattle Port Commission‘s public meeting about the Terminal 5/Foss/Shell lease, one of Shell’s two designated drill rigs entered Washington waters. We reported Sunday night that the drillship Noble Discoverer had done a turnaround off the Washington coast and went out of tracking range; early this morning, it reappeared, and entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It’s still headed for Everett first, Shell told The Seattle Times (WSB partner), also saying the other designated driller, Polar Pioneer, is to be towed this week to T-5 from Port Angeles (where it remains visible on webcam as of this writing). (June 2012 photo of Noble Discoverer by Long Bach Nguyen)

As for the Port Commission’s meeting this afternoon, the agenda details finally have been added. They include two potential motions: The first one comes down to, the port can’t/won’t do anything about the city interpretation disallowing the drill rigs until “if and when this code interpretation is deemed a final decision by the City of Seattle.” (The way the Hearing Examiner process works, that usually takes months.) The second one seeks to have the port appeal the city interpretation too. Today’s meeting is set to start at 1 pm at port HQ at Pier 69 on the downtown waterfront and will start with a public-comment period.

9:04 AM: The Noble Discoverer is just now passing Port Angeles.