News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Old cars are becoming a problem in Coulee Dam, just one of many that are increasing because the city’s ordinances don’t wield enough clout, according to one city council member. Councilmember Keith St. Jeor said he gets complaints from people who know the city has laws on the books to keep unlicensed cars from accumulating on the streets but they see no enforcement. “We don’t have a fee or fine schedule,” St. Jeor said, urging the city to create one to blanket many ordinances with a progressively increasing cost per violation. St. Jeor said...
When it comes to Brewster, there have been years when Lake Roosevelt could have claimed a moral victory if they'd held the Bears to two touchdowns by halftime, but not this year. The two teams looked like a good match on LR's field Friday night, better than Brewster's winning score of 19-8 might let on. "I think we played hard. We just lost our focus late in the game," Coach Geary Oliver said, and injuries didn't help, putting the team down three offensive line starters. "The replacement...
A month into the new school year, the school district in Grand Coulee Dam is teaching 23 fewer students than a year ago, the superintendent reported Monday night, but the Nespelem district has gained more than expected in its new, limited high school program. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Rod Broadnax told the school board 10 specific students had not yet shown up but may yet. He did not say which grades those students would be in. Broadnax reminded the board that enrollment numbers affect the budget. In Nespelem Tuesday night...
How does that shirt hanging in your closet — that one (or five) you haven’t worn for a long time — fit in with high school spirit? Believe it or not, a week of school-spirit activities in October will include a clothing drive at Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School that the community can participate in — either with donations or usage of what gets collected. The “LR Closet” is an intra-class competition to see which class can gather the most donations during Spirit Week, which will culminate in the annual homecoming football game Friday, Oct...
Lake Roosevelt's cross country athletes have been running all over - from Manson to Okanogan to Kettle Falls - and they're scheduled in Tonasket, Omak and Winthrop coming up. Their times at the Trojan Invite were reported last week. Below are Raider results from Okanogan with 11 other schools, and from Kettle Falls, with 17 other schools. The Raiders are scheduled to run in Tonasket Wednesday, Omak Oct. 4, and at Liberty Bell Oct. 7. Okanogan Invite LR varsity boys Place Grade Athlete Time Note...
A mechanic repairing his company’s semi-trailer died Sept. 11 at Coulee Medical Center as he was repairing its suspension, the company said in a press release. Mike Coppess, of Bellevue, Washington, was 68, married and the father of two, said Rich Braedt, director of Clinical Operations for Heritage Imaging. Emergency personnel responded to the scene at the hospital, where Coppess was pronounced dead. The trailer he was working on contained magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment, a service the company has been supplying at Coulee Medical C...
Coulee Dam is reviewing a proposed change in the rules that govern how property owners can rent their property for short periods of time. The change is sought by those who want to meet what they say is a consistent need in the local market already served by online companies like Airbnb that serve both property owners and renters for stays under 30 days. The city council spoke with Mike Manning of SCJ Alliance, a planning consultant for the city at their Sept. 13 meeting. Manning has been drafting changes to the city’s Comprehensive Plan to spel...
The Raiders dominated the visiting Vikings of Mabton Friday in a game that racked up yardage for the Lake Roosevelt offense and showed off strengths of several Raiders, including some off the bench. LR prevailed 54-14, even after affording field time to less experienced players going into the second half up 40-0. Before the first home game of the season Friday, the team and fans paid homage with a moment of silence for their former coach and mentor, Bubba Egbert, who died in a horse-related acci...
Hundreds turned out for the Fish Fest at Spring Canyon last Saturday for what Emilee Franklin hopes will become an annual event. Franklin, and education specialist at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area, said the event drew over 500 people into the park. Five of them actually caught fish, but 175 caught free fishing poles at the event that was put on to help kids learn to fish. "I think for the first year of the park ever doing anything like this in the community, it was a pretty big...
Commissioners of Grant County Port District 7 have been in negotiations with the Colville Tribes for a possible sale of Banks Lake Golf Course. Commissioners met in a special meeting Sept. 6 to consider the sale and its details in a closed session, then reconvened to vote on giving President Jim Keene authority to continue to negotiate. The purpose of the special meeting stated on the agenda was to discuss a “Purchase and Sales agreement — Real Property.” The only action to be taken: “Motion to accept, reject, or ‘accept-with-changes’ the CCT P...
The city of Coulee Dam has agreed to pay over $70,000 to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failure to file paperwork on time regarding its new wastewater treatment plant. A “Consent Agreement” and “Final Order” detail the town’s alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and its operating permit. They include not submitting a notice to both EPA and the Colville Tribes on time that the new plant was up and running or that the old plant had been taken offline. EPA said the city was years late in giving written notice that it had develop...
Merle Roberts, of Grand Coulee, earned a blue ribbon in photography last week at the state fair in Puyallup. Roberts named his photo, in dramatic dark gray shades of a local tree growing right out of rock, "Its A Tough Life." It took Best of Scenic for black and white photography. He entered it in the International Photography Exhibit at the fair, which he said meant he would go up against entries from New York and California, or even Hong Kong. "Yeah, you have to butt heads with the biggest...
When it burned down on Oct. 12, 2021, Almira's school was so completely destroyed that only about 33 bricks of the old red-brick school could be salvaged. Those are now encased in concrete outside the brand-new school the community opened Aug. 31 for an open house and celebration by the community. They filled the new multi-purpose room to overflowing, necessitating moving the staff from the side of the new foldout bleachers to up onto the new stage, where the music and drama teachers plan to...
Coulee Dam is considering rezoning two properties for a use for which most people think they’re already zoned. Two buildings across Lincoln Avenue from city hall, built as dormitories in the 1930s, have been used as residences, a bed-and-breakfast, an assisted living facility, and as a place to stay for visiting medical professionals working at Coulee Medical Center. The current proposal would alter the city’s comprehensive plan to reflect such uses. A public hearing on the proposal will be scheduled, perhaps as soon as Sept. 27 if pro...
If you've ever wanted to fish but don't really know how, now's your chance to fix that. The Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area is offering "Fish Fest" this Saturday at Spring Canyon, and they'll be giving away free fishing poles to the first 300 kids 14 and under. If you're ready to get "SCHOOL-ed in how to fish," as the National Park Service folks teased on Facebook, show up early during the 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. event to "to learn how to cast, reel, and tie knots." At the free family friendly f...
Students racked up a policy victory at Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School Monday when the school district board of directors voted to implement most of their recommended changes to the dress code, one evening before school began. A group of Associated Student Body officers and representatives had presented their ideas to the board Aug. 14 using a sneaky tactic: they looked and acted exactly like typical high school students, then admitted that only one of the eight of them was meeting the current...
Grand Coulee’s city council voted just days before they had no operator to sign a one-year contract for operation of its sewer plant via an independent contractor, on an emergency basis. At the time on Aug. 23, the current employee had given notice earlier this month to retire on Aug. 25 after months of being the lone operator. The contractor, SJ Environmental, had already been in talks with both Grand Coulee and Electric City about running the plant and doing other related work. The plant processes 184,000 gallons of waste a day in the s...
The plan is to make it across the country in 44 stops, while along the way garnering even more pledges of support for veterans' causes, and, around here, dodging wildfires. A group of bicyclists stayed overnight in Coulee Dam and Grand Coulee Saturday, leaving early Sunday morning on day five of their trek that started at the naval airbase on Whidbey Island. Their "Navy '83 Ride Across America" will get them to their Naval Academy class of 1983 reunion in Annapolis, Maryland in October. Allan...
Firefighters from at least 10 different agencies fought a "stubborn" fire on a windy Friday weather forecasters had predicted could be a bad one. It was. The fire dubbed the Plum Point Fire erupted the same afternoon fires near Coulee City, Quincy, Medical Lake, and Elk started amid a Red Flag warning by the National Weather Service that fires that starting in the windy, dry conditions could spread rapidly. Initially estimated at 60-80 acres about 1:15, the Plum Point Fire was finally kept down...
A longtime community leader who revived the ailing Colorama Rodeo over a decade ago and focused on strengthening its sponsoring Ridge Riders Saddle Club, has died. George Kohout "was the epitome of Ridge Riders and Colorama Pro Rodeo, a community leader, the truest of cowboys from his hat to the bottom of his boots, and one of the greatest men the rodeo world will know from Grand Coulee" an announcement reads on the Ridge Riders' Colorama Pro Rodeo Facebook. "Our community and the area rodeo...
It’s not certain exactly how the wastewater treatment plant that serves the roughly 2,000 citizens of Grand Coulee and Electric City will keep operating after nine days from now. That’s when its current operator will retire. Currently, Grand Coulee has no one to replace that employee, and the city has been in talks to outsource operating the plant to an independent company on a contractual basis. That’s if the union representing employees will allow it, or if the contractor can justify that wage scale. All of that is uncertain, even unlik...
Update: 9:12 p.m. Grand Coulee Volunteer Fire Dept Chief Ryan Fish said all Grand Coulee units were leaving Plum Point. Multiple fire departments were working the fire in Lincoln County. The fire began to grow again about 3 p.m. after it had looked like it was about under control until the wind kicked up. At 5 p.m. three Fireboss planes arrived, and worked for more than half an hour, repeatedly dousing the fire with water from Lake Roosevelt. By 6:30 p.m. flames were mostly knocked down but... Full story
Electric City voters will be asked to decide on whether to de-annex a part of the city they agreed to add back in 2009. The city council voted Aug. 8 that the city should place a measure on the General Election ballot in November to shed the city of some lands annexed to the east of SR-155 south of the causeway across Osborne Bay that belong to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation or the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Other lands on the other side of the highway, including the area containing Sunbanks Lake Resort, would remain within...
Lacy Ward has been working hard and got caught doing it - by the new school district superintendent. Superintendent Rod Broadnax honored Ward Monday night with the first of what he calls the "Superintendent's Spotlight" for "going above and beyond." Broadnax said since his arrival July 1, he's been observing employees and noting who he thinks should be recognized for extra effort, noting Ward's work several times. Ward runs the SHARP Kids program, which engages students after school and had a...
Fire fighters scrambled to attack five fires that started Sunday afternoon as a slow-moving lightning storm torched brush and grass in Douglas and Grant counties and prompted a "county-wide" call from local fire chiefs. In Douglas County, a fire at Road 28 Rex was first reported at 4:26 p.m., followed seven minutes later by reports of fires at Pendell Road, two in Grant County in and near Pleasant Valley on the north side of Banks Lake, and another at Barker Canyon at 4:35. Douglas County Fire...