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Paving Puget Sound
Seattle Times
05/11/2008
It happens one creek at a time as bulldozers and pavement disrupt the natural flow of water through the ecosystem, destroying habitat and sending billions of gallons of polluted runoff into the Sound.
At McCormick Woods the next victim is Anderson Creek, once one of the most unspoiled streams flowing to Sinclair Inlet. Today, there are plans to build hundreds of homes around it.
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Priced Out of Seattle
Seattle Times
05/12/2008
Can Seattle really claim to be a livable city when the median home value is half a million dollars and so many who live here feel they may not be able to anymore?
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The Myth of the Stay-at-Home Mom
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/12/2008
As families celebrated the nation's 94th Mother's Day on Sunday, they are coping with a different set of trends -- a rising number of two-career families, growing cost of living, sagging home prices, mounting hours at work and a looming recession. The view from Seattle.
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City wants going green to be easier on taxpayers
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/12/2008
From carpet recycling to curbside pickup of broken televisions and computers, Seattle politicians are considering ways to help shift away from taxpayers some of the burden -- and cost -- of waste disposal.
Such steps aim to encourage a fundamental change in waste-reduction efforts toward "producer responsibility." A national movement also dubbed "product stewardship," the effort is considered a critical factor in moving beyond landfills and in encouraging manufacturers to opt for environmentally friendly product design.
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Public is asked to weigh in on Makah whaling
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/10/2008
The federal government is asking for feedback on a proposal to allow the Makah Indian Nation to hunt Pacific gray whales off the Washington coast.
The National Marine Fisheries Service released an analysis Friday of the environmental and social effects of five different hunting scenarios, plus an option of not allowing a hunt. The agency is considering permitting the killing of up 20 whales over five years.
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Agencies issue plan to run Columbia dams, preserve salmon
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/10/2008
The Bush administration Monday issued its final court-ordered plans for making Columbia Basin hydroelectric dams and irrigation projects safe for endangered salmon.
The proposed changes in operations would cost hundreds of millions of dollars but no dam removals.
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Saving wetlands: a broken promise
Seattle Times
05/12/2008
The state's commitment to our fragile wetlands dates back two decades.
On Dec. 12, 1989, Gov. Booth Gardner announced that half the state's wetlands were gone, and 2,000 acres more were vanishing each year. So he issued an order: For each marshy piece of ground paved, another would be created to replace it.
Not only would the state stop losing wetlands, Gardner vowed, but wetlands in Washington would actually increase.
Twenty years later, the promise has proved hollow. Destruction of wetlands, vital to the health of Puget Sound, is still routine, and attempts to replicate them are too often a failure.
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Green Lanes
KUOW
05/09/2008
Green colored bike lanes have arrived in Seattle. Today (Fri), weather permitting, Seattle transportation crews will create more green lanes in Fremont. The idea is to prevent collisions between bikes and cars.
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Puget Sound on Prozac
Crosscut
05/12/2008
Pretty as it is, our signature waterway is a chemical dump for everything from oil to sewage — and even anti-depressants. You may be surprised (and disgusted) by what turns up there.
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Seattle fish-egg auctions net hundreds of millions
Anchorage Daily News
05/12/2008
The roe is considered a delicacy in Korea and Japan.
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Reservoirs low, despite heavy snows
Tacoma News Tribune
05/12/2008
Our mountains are our reservoirs. In Washington, as elsewhere in the American West, it’s axiomatic. A deep mountain snowpack equals plentiful downstream supplies of water for fish, irrigated crops, municipal drinking water and hydroelectric generators.
But what if the mountains don’t deliver on schedule? What if persistent cool weather holds snow on Cascade Mountain peaks weeks longer than normal? And what if spring rainfall falls short?
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Mount Rainier inn to reopen after challenging renovation
Tacoma News Tribune
05/12/2008
Paradise Inn reopens Friday after a 31-month renovation – much of which won't be noticeable to visitors.
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Ecology headquarters built in 1993 slated for $11 million repair
Olympia Olympian
05/12/2008
At 450 feet long and 45 feet tall, it's a big wall. And it's going to be expensive to replace, at $11 million of the public's money.
The entire eastern length of the Department of Ecology's headquarters in Lacey is scheduled to be torn down and replaced next year. The Legislature funded the project this spring, after the deteriorating structure was judged a potential safety hazard.
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Style, taxes define Senate race
Portland Oregonian
05/12/2008
When a Washington congressional candidate started circulating a "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq," Oregon's leading Democratic Senate candidates both endorsed it on the same day.
House Speaker Jeff Merkley and Portland lawyer and consultant Steve Novick jostled to make sure that neither would gain an advantage on an issue so important to voters in the party's May 20 primary.
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Olympia Food Bank Sees Jump in Demand
Olympia Olympian
05/09/2008
The number of individuals seeking help increased 27 percent to more than 17,000 in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, food bank executive director Robert Coit said. The number of households seeking help rose 28 percent to more than 7,000, he said.
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Backing off Biofuels
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/09/2008
Local officials behind the enthusiastic rush toward biofuels are tapping the brakes, thanks to mounting concerns about the impact on food supplies and the environment. Representatives of Seattle, King County and the University of Washington this week said they wanted to take a closer look at where the fuel comes from and what effect it's having on the planet.
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Wild Sky Wilderness Backers Celebrate
Everett Herald
05/09/2008
In July 2001, environmentalists, east Snohomish County residents and federal lawmakers marched along a path among old-growth trees near Troublesome Creek north of U.S. 2. It was a part of a tour to show off a wild area that some thought should be preserved forever.
On Thursday, most of those areas were added to Washington's protected areas.
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Kitsap Commissioners Oppose Pit-to-Pier
Kitsap Sun
05/09/2008
Kitsap County commissioners Josh Brown and Steve Bauer said during a forum Wednesday night that they will oppose the proposed pit-to-pier project in Jefferson County because of its potential effects on the water quality of Hood Canal.
Besides water quality, Brown cited the risks of barges and ships running into the Hood Canal bridge and interfering with Navy ships.
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Bush signs bill for Wild Sky Wilderness
Seattle Times
05/09/2008
Nearly six years after it was first introduced, a bill to create a Wild Sky Wilderness northeast of Seattle has become law.
President Bush signed a bill Thursday making Wild Sky the first new wilderness area in Washington state in nearly a quarter-century.
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Bush signs Wild Sky Wilderness into law
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/09/2008
For the first time in more than two decades, Washington state is getting a new wilderness area because President Bush signed legislation Thursday to protect more than 106,000 acres of forests and streams in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.
Environmental advocates and lawmakers who had pushed for the Wild Sky Wilderness Area applauded Bush's signature and said they looked forward to other wilderness projects in the state.
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Boats are bringing in limits of halibut on the coast
Olympia Olympian
05/08/2008
Last week, spring chinook fishing in Columbia River tributaries was a real challenge and not very productive. And it’s not looking any better this week.
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Bush Signs Wild Sky Into Law
Everett Herald
05/08/2008
President Bush signed legislation this morning to create the Wild Sky Wilderness, ending a nine-year political journey to provide tough federal protection on thousands of acres in eastern Snohomish County.
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Duwamish: We Are Not Extinct!
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/08/2008
The Duwamish -- the tribe of Chief Seattle -- is suing the federal government to reverse its determination that they are extinct as a people.
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Biomass Power: Grays Harbor Yay, Tacoma Nay
Aberdeen Daily World
05/07/2008
Offered the option of teaming up to be part of a new $100 million biomass generator that would burn wood waste, Tacoma Power decided against it.
The utility concluded that the risk of partnering with Simpson Investment Co. to be part of a new generator on the tideflats of Tacoma was too great and the power too expensive to add up to a benefit to the ratepayers.
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Apparently Sea Lions Not Shot
AP
05/07/2008
Federal officials did an about-face Wednesday in an investigation of the deaths of six sea lions at Bonneville Dam, saying their initial assumption that the animals had been shot to death was wrong.
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