News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 2101 - 2125 of 2203
A small critter is causing big problems in the South Puget Sound. It’s called the Mazama pocket gopher. Some 100,000 pocket gophers inhabit prairie lands throughout northern California, Oregon and Washington. Our state is the northernmost part of its range, where separate populations are scattered in pockets throughout the area, including Thurston and Pierce counties. Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposed to list several subspecies of the Mazama pocket gopher in W...
• Congratulations to local firm Taylor Enterprises, LLC for landing a $4.2 million contract to provide the Grand Coulee Dam with janitorial services. • Electric City’s planning commission should think carefully if asked to alter what kinds of buildings are allowed within the city. Understanding why restrictions are in place should be the first step in either removing them or keeping them. Decisions like that affect everyone’s property values. • In our special triathlon section this week, read about a remarkable young athlete who registere...
Aug. 25 saw a very strong, fast moving storm system blow through our area. We continue to clean up the mess left behind. Winds of 65 miles per hour and above were noted in many areas. Here at the home weather station, where we are a bit protected, we had a gust of 43 mph and a third of an inch of rain from the system. As I write this column, we just experienced another fast moving storm system. Fortunately, it appears this one wasn’t as strong or severe as the Aug. 25 event. Our temperature rang...
• The Columbia River Treaty between the United States and Canada, which the two countries will start renegotiating soon, is one international news story the local community needs to watch. It can affect everything from how much water remains in local lakes to whether, as some very hardy canoeists on the front page would like, we build fish ladders around Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams. • Even while trying to form a better advocate for growing tourism via a local tourism board, the chamber of commerce continues in the interim to entice local...
After reading your Sept. 4 editorial “Might want to rethink that position,” I cannot help but come to the conclusion that maybe you should be the one doing the “rethinking.” 1) Alcohol, tobacco and gambling are also legitimate enterprises in Washington. That does not mean that there are no obvious social, health and moral problems associated with them that taxpayers and participating individuals end up paying for. 2) Your thoughts on waste of public resources are not well thought out. Now, local police agencies will have to undergo another leve...
Along with many others, we were saddened this week by the news of Dakotah Holt’s death, and our hearts go out to his family and loved ones. As a child, Dakotah was a Star newspaper carrier for a time. He was a bright, ambitious kid who seemed eager to do well as we followed his progress through high school. The world is diminished without him in it. Scott Hunter editor and publisher...
Some local municipal councils have passed laws banning local participation in what appears to be on the way to becoming a legitimate enterprise: growing marijuana. With the state’s passage of Initiative 520 last year, and with the guidance last week from the federal Justice Department on how that will jive with federal drug enforcement efforts, local leaders might need to consider to loosening up a bit. Voters passed the initiative to legalize recreational marijuana last fall, and not because they all want to get high. Most just recognize t...
The SeaTac minimum wage initiative is in limbo. The central element of Proposition 1 is a $15-per-hour minimum wage for workers at SeaTac Airport and area hotels, restaurants and car rental agencies. But, it also includes a complex web of employee work rules enforced by the city of SeaTac. On Aug. 26, a King County Superior Court judge ruled that Prop 1 did not have enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Proponents have gathered additional signatures and appealed the judge’s r...
Different strategy, same results There’s an old saying, “There’s more than one way to catch a cat.” It means, if you don’t succeed one way, try again using a different strategy. In this case, the “cat” is the Columbia River — or more precisely, eliminating the dams and commercial use of the river. The activists’ vision of a wild, free-flowing Columbia River has great emotional appeal, but it would have dire consequences for our state. Those dams produce 75 percent of our electricity, maki...
Coulee Pioneer Museum news The Coulee Pioneer Museum thanks the “Historical Book Committee” and “Them Dam Writers,” Edith Lael and 4-Bears for their timely gift so that the museum could purchase access to one of the largest databases to foundations all over the world. Such foundations donate grants to organizations such at the Coulee Pioneer Museum. The museum will be working closely with the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce to receive monies to help preserve the history and heritage of the Grand Coulee Dam Area and share this area’s...
Sadly, this morning, I found yet another causality of the high tension power lines that cross over North Dam Park. Since I’ve been walking the area, about eight or nine months, I’ve witnessed three bird fatalities. The first was a dead Canada goose, second was a dead gull species and today, a night hawk. Though still alive and breathing heavily, it was obviously in bad shape. I moved it into the grass and off the gravel road. My observations are, at best, casual. Interestingly, all the bir...
It happens repeatedly in Coulee Country, even when we invent ways to try to get around our biggest road block to progress. In a community with four town councils and four mayors, we’ve needed to find ways, institutions, to make it possible to tackle common problems and goals: hence, the Regional Board of Mayors was born for the purpose of managing our common landfill, now a transfer station. But the RBOM has little real authority and cannot act decisively when needed. A recent need for an emergency repair at the transfer station may be a l...
I would like to welcome the new Safeway manager, Mr. Ryan Dykes, to Coulee country. I'm sure Safeway has made a good choice in asking you to come and give them and us some much needed help. I know that you have already been asked to give us help with being able to afford to purchase local fuel. It is very disappointing to drive through our neighboring communities and see listed prices 30 cents lower than our hometown stations. My friends and I wish that Safeway would buy the nearby closed service station so we could afford to shop at home....
I’m still wiping my brow of perspiration from all that heat. The National Weather Service reported some near- and new-high temperature records throughout the region. Here at the home weather station we had a new record of 102.3°F on July 2. We recorded a total of 18 days at or above the 90°F mark. We didn’t come close to the all-time high of 113°F that occurred in 1939. Our low for the month was on the 13th at 52.9°f. Precipitation was a measly 0.29 inches, well below the mean of 0.48 inches....
Gov. Jay Inslee was in New York for the world rollout of BMW’s new electric car, the BMW i3, which is partially built in Washington. We are all justifiably proud of our state’s role and see the car as a harbinger of Washington’s economic future. The BMW i3 features parts made from carbon fiber processed at the SGL plant in Moses Lake. Because it is strong and lightweight, carbon fiber is used in the production of jetliners, fighter planes and race cars. Now, it’s making its way into the retail market to produce lighter. more fuel-efficient vehi...
History was made 80 years ago, July 16. Thousands of people gathered at the Grand Coulee Dam site in 1933 as Gov. Clarence Martin oversaw the groundbreaking for the dam. With a sledge hammer in hand, Martin promised that Grand Coulee Dam would deliver cheap power and millions of gallons of irrigation water to a country upended by the depression. It took more than eight years to build the dam. The hard work and hot, dry climate claimed 77 lives but helped millions of people. The Grand Coulee Dam stands as a monument to hard-working people. On Ju...
This year’s graduating seniors entered college just before the Obama administration began. But while these successful graduates are now ready to move on to the next stage in their lives, the administration hasn’t achieved the same kind of progress on one of its signature initiatives: creating open government. On his first day in office, President Obama committed his administration to creating “unprecedented levels of openness in government.” And even though his record on open government issues has been far from spotless, particularly in area...
June was wetter than the month’s mean. We measured 1.32 inches of precipitation at the home weather station compared to a mean of 0.99 inches. Our high temperature was 92.9°F and occurred on the last day, while the coldest day of June was on June 1 at 44.8°F. Records for June are: highest rainfall - 4.29 inches in 1937; lowest rainfall - 0.04 inches in 2003; one day maximum - 2.31 inches in 1996. I was recently asked by a reader of this column to define the difference between the words “average...
Ginger, our 30-pound, 15-year-old cat never really did much in the way of activities. Mostly just eat and lay on the porch. For 11 years she laid in her favorite cat bed on the porch, just looking around, getting fresh air. But last Friday, while laying in her favorite spot, she was attacked by two dogs, dragged off the porch and killed in her yard. She was 15 years old and arthritic, missing all but one or two of her teeth. Fifteen years is a long time. Ginger was there in the happy times of my mother’s marriage; she was there when my f...
Thank you for making The Star available. It brings back many memories. I am in Oregon and have lived here since we moved from CD in 1951. My father, Les Hubbard was first a shovel operator and then crane operator. My grandfather, Hartley E. Hubbard (1889-1970) was a rock mason and did the rock work in the parks, and after he retired did the rock work on the Community Church. He lived in Lone Pine and we lived in Koonsville and Coulee Dam on Camas Street. Those my age (73) that grew up there will remember some of my teachers: Mrs. Foley, Mrs....
The Star will be closed from 1:45 to 4:15 p.m. this afternoon due to scheduling conflicts with news events. We will re-open by 4:15, and the deadline for classified ads will extend to Tuesday noon. Classifieds can be entered online anytime here: http://www.grandcoulee.com/classifieds. And news announcements and letters to the editor can always be emailed in to star@grandcoulee.com or placed in the physical dropbox outside the front door....
A dry April into a dry May I’ve been checking into the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center’s three-month prediction (June, July and August), and it states, “…an equal chance of above or below normal temperatures and below normal precipitation.” April 2013 wasn’t a wet one with only 0.91 inches of precipitation. We seem to be on course, here’s a review of some past Aprils (2012 – 1.08 inches, 2011 - .84 inches, and 2010 – 1.12 inches). The high temperature in April was 78.5°F wh...
There’s an old saying that oil and water don’t mix. That may be true, but apparently they coexist quite well. Traveling through Sweetwater in west Texas, you see an interesting mix of irrigated farming, cattle ranching, oil production and wind energy. Farmers draw water from wells to irrigate fields and provide drinking water for people and livestock. Scattered across those same fields are traditional oil wells that have been pumping crude since 1921. Less than 10 miles from Sweetwater is the Roscoe Wind Farm — 627 wind turbines standing in ir...
Mr. Ward is right about living here in Coulee Dam. We have the Credit Union to save our money, the Variety Store to spend our money, Harvest Foods to purchase maple bars and the waste water treatment plant to piss the rest of our money away. Bruce Bartoo Coulee Dam...
Grand Coulee area and the reaches of The Star newspaper, one of our own, and my son, Major Kevin Billups USAF, has been nominated, one of four, to win the prestigious and deserving title as 2013 MILITARY FATHERHOOD OF THE YEAR AWARD! He needs all of our help to win this title and it’s very simple. Once a day, every day, until May 12, log into the site on Facebook: 2013 Military Fatherhood of the Year Award (link is http://bit.ly/10RadNQ), and simply vote for him. He is a wonderful, hardworking, honest, bright, a loving son, husband, brother, s...