Editor's Take: June 09, 2009
seiuhealthcare775nw, flickr
Healing Our Health Care
Congress has begun releasing details of a sweeping healthcare overhaul that could affect all Northwesterners, whether you're sick or well. Locally, former dairies are turning to tourism to stay alive, the Chelan River is getting unusually wet, Oregon's frogs are in trouble and British Columbia's carbon tax shift is giving back to residents.
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Healthcare overhaul to affect everyone
Los Angeles Times
06/09/2009
Spurred on by President Obama and nearly universal calls for change, congressional Democrats have begun to lay out specific plans for overhauling the nation's healthcare system - proposing changes that would affect almost every American, old or young, sick or well, rich, poor, or middle class.
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WA farms turn to tourism to stay alive
Everett Herald
06/10/2009
A group of farmers are hoping to preserve farmland close to Washington's urban core and rejuvenate Snohomish County's love affair with agriculture. They aren't angling for a rebirth of the dairy industry; they just want people to get out of their cars, walk down rows of green vegetables. Pick strawberries, smell lavender. Maybe pet a friendly goat named Oreo.
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Rebooting urban watersheds
High Country News
06/09/2009
A new generation of Bay Area urban creek restorationists is working with renewed vigor to mobilize poor residents around their local waterways, on the premise that improving the local environment can also stimulate the local economy.
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Neighbor, can you spare a plum?
New York Times
06/10/2009
The loquats were ripe and just begging to be picked. Although the tree was planted on private property, the loaded branches hung over the street. Did that make the fruit public property? Yes, decided Asiya Wadud, one of a growing number of urban foragers who looked around their cities, saw trees full of fruit and thought, "Delicious."
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Just add water to Chelan River
Wenatchee World
06/09/2009
They turned on the Chelan River - and it works. The Chelan County Public Utility District is spending nearly $16 million to restore year-round flow into a engineered channel with carefully placed boulders, logs and rocks, all to provide new spawning habitat for steelhead and chinook salmon.
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Oregon's native amphibians on the edge
Oregonian
06/10/2009
Frog species are in alarming decline, victims of habitat loss and fragmentation, pollution, climate change, invasive species and the killing chytrid fungus. In Oregon alone, a dozen varieties of salamanders, eight frogs and two toads are on the edge, and the once-plentiful Oregon spotted frog has vanished from the Willamette Valley.
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Longview man's personal windmill ready to run
Longview Daily News
06/10/2009
After a long wait, Bill Hallanger's very own personal windmill is almost ready to start turning. The Longview real estate agent doesn't expect to get rich by harnessing wind energy for his home, but he does hope to inspire others.
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Oceans, 'blue economy' in trouble
Olympian
06/10/2009
In Washington state, oysters in some areas haven't reproduced for four years. In the Gulf of Mexico, disoriented shrimp jump into the air in what the locals call a "jubilee." Researchers, scientists and Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter painted a bleak picture for Congress Tuesday of the future of oceans and the "blue economy" of the nation's coastal states.
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Needy OR college rejects needy students
New York Times
06/09/2009
Because of the recession, colleges such as Reed College in Portland, Oregon, known for academic rigor and a free-spirited student body, have had to make budget cuts and reject qualified but needy applicants.
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BC carbon tax shift gives more it than receives
Vancouver Sun
06/10/2009
The provincial government paid out $38 million more in carbon tax breaks to British Columbians than it collected in carbon taxes in the first year of the climate-change initiative's implementation.
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