News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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The town of Coulee Dam still plans on its traditional, spring cleanup help with yard waste despite the fact that the areawide spring cleanup was altered this year. Grant County officials told the Regional Board of Mayors recently that the traditional waving of fees at the transfer station for spring cleanup is not legal, so the mayors agreed on a reduced fee for dumping yard waste, not free. Coulee Dam has its own spot for dumping yard waste, so will continue with that service for its citizens April 3-10. “Since we do not use the landfill to d...
A museum in Colorado will offer a program this week showing historical photographs of the Nespelem area, streaming it live online so you can attend. The Clyfford Still Museum, located in Denver, Colorado, will be live streaming a free program titled "Into the Archives: Photographs from the Colville Reservation." "In 1937, Clyfford Still co-founded an artists' colony in Nespelem, the Indian Agency on the Colville Reservation in Washington state," the museum website explains. "During his time ther...
The local Scouts BSA Troops 24 and 52 will be doing another food drive for the Care and Share Food Bank. It was brought to the scouts’ attention that the food bank is running especially low on food, so they thought another food drive would be a good way to help out, said Kim Stout with the scouts. As they usually do once a year, the scouts will be dropping off bags this weekend, March 20-21, then pick them back up the following Saturday, March 27. They will start picking up about 9 a.m. The local food bank is particularly looking for canned v...
Electric City will be holding its second informal meeting with the community where people can give their input and ask questions about the goings on of the city. The meeting is scheduled for Saturday, March 20, from 1-3 p.m. at the American Legion building on Coulee Boulevard. The mayor, city engineer, and members of the city planning commission and city council will be available to talk to the public. Topics at the meeting include sidewalks being built, the pedestrian waterfront pathway project, an informal poll on a community park, changes to...
American Legion #157 Commander Jim Brakebill spoke to the Regional Board of Mayors March 8 about wanting to create a veterans’ memorial for the Coulee area. Brakebill emphasized the idea for a memorial was only in the earliest stages, and he wanted to involve the mayors and communities so that people could share their input on the project. Various possibilities were discussed in brief, including the options of having lighted flags for the different branches of the military, and of selling bricks with the names of service members printed on t...
Grand Coulee 3/11 - A man reported receiving fraud calls in which the caller said he worked for the IRS, knew the last four digits of his social security number, and said that it had been involved with drug smuggling in Texas. He provided police with two phone numbers he received calls from and was told to tell police if he received another call. - A man reported a package stolen from his porch and showed video of a man wearing a red, white, and blue jacket taking the package. The thief was identified and found at a King Street residence and...
The Bureau of Reclamation has canceled a contract to build its new fire station for the second time, it announced, but construction is expected to restart sometime this spring with a new contractor doing the work, perhaps even while lawsuits among the parties persist, if court records are an indication. The government originally awarded the contract in 2016 to build the 22,000-square-foot fire station, with completion expected in April 2018. Innovative Construction and Design (ICD), a small...
The manager of the local Safeway just asked to get the word out that the pharmacy has four doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine available for anyone to get right now (5:35 p.m. March 12). The doses would have to be thrown out at the end of the shift, so first come, first serve. The pharmacy closes at 7 p.m....
The annual spring cleanup in the area will be different this year due to not having curbside pickup from the cities, as well as there being a charge to dump the yard waste you haul yourself. The Regional Board of Mayors on Monday set April 3-10 as the week for spring cleanup when people can bring their yard waste to the Delano Regional Transfer Station, but this year there will be a charge. A pickup load of 2.5 cubic yards, which is a standard size pickup bed filled level with the sides of the bed, will cost $5.25 per load, including tax. Any...
Staff members at Lake Roosevelt Schools received COVID-19 vaccines at Safeway in Grand Coulee and at the Okanogan fairgrounds this past week as part of a nationwide effort to vaccinate school staff before the end of the month. On March 2, President Joe Biden announced a directive to all states to get every pre-K educator, K-12 teacher, and childcare worker at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine in the month of March. Following that announcement, Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Paul Turner said he began working with Okanogan...
Will the Laser Light Show and Visitor Center at the Grand Coulee Dam, which saw nearly 200,000 people in 2019, open this spring? The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation didn’t answer the question from The Star with a straight yes or no, but did answer. “At this time, the laser light show and Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center will remain temporarily closed in support of the recommended guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” said Public Affairs Specialist Erika Lopez, who works in Boise, Idaho, in an email. Lopez said that the G...
The COVID-19 pandemic, having been prevalent in the US for about a year, has had an affect on the lives of people around the world, including an affect on mental health. “The pandemic has been hard on everyone,” Dr. Marilynn Holman, a psychiatrist at Coulee Medical Center, told The Star in an email. “Financial concerns, social isolation, increased childcare, fear for health of self and others – all can worsen stress and mood.” Holman also said that “those with limited internet/phone access have been particularly impacted as many services or...
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Reps. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) reintroduced March 4 the Hydropower Clean Energy Future Act, a bill to expand clean, renewable, reliable, and affordable hydropower production in the United States and promote innovation of the next generation of hydropower technology. Newhouse, who represents Central Washington’s 4th Congressional District, and Eastern Washington’s McMorris Rodgers, 5th District, put out press releases on the bill, which would specifically recognize hydropower as renewable energ...
Essential frontline workers, such as grocery store employees, will begin receiving COVID-19 vaccines later this month, Gov. Jay Inslee announced March 4. Others set to be vaccinated starting March 22 include workers in agriculture, food processing, public transit, firefighters, law enforcement and corrections. Previously, only essential workers age 50 or older who were defined as high-risk were going to be eligible. Also in the next tier are people 16 and older who have a high-risk disability and pregnant women. They join K-12 educators and...
Grand Coulee Police 2/28 - A woman at the Skydeck Motel told police she flew into Spokane to meet a guy and they got a room at the motel. The guy left and never returned. The woman wanted to get back to the airport. Police told her she could catch a bus to Spokane in the morning. 3/1 - Kids were reportedly throwing eggs at several residences along Grand Coulee Avenue. Police didn’t see any kids in the area. 3/3 - A woman on Wenatchee Avenue said that her son pushed her a few times during an argument about the car he was using before he left t...
A young Wilbur man died last night in a one-car rollover, the Washington State Patrol reports. Steven A. Cooler, 28, had been eastbound on SR-174 at the junction with SR-21, just north of the golf course, when the black Audi he was driving veered into the oncoming lane. Cooler overcorrected and lost control. The car rolled and he was ejected, the Patrol investigation found. Cooler had not been wearing a seatbelt. Cooler died at the scene. The crash happened at about 12:46 a.m. March...
The Banks Lake Pumped Storage Project, which would bring an estimated 1,000-2,000 workers to the area during construction and add an extra 500 megawatts of hydropower electricity per hour, is still in the works, if a little Covid delayed. Secretary Manager Darvin Fales of Columbia Basin Hydropower spoke to The Star on the phone Tuesday, with an update on the project for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The gravity-feed system would power two 250-megawatt generating units, or...
A senior trip to Huntington Beach, California is still looking like a go after the board approved the trip contingent on another update in April. About 30 Lake Roosevelt High School seniors are interested in taking the trip on which they would fly to San Diego May 29, bus to Huntington Beach, spend time at an art center, surfing, and at a campfire on the beach before returning to Washington May 31. The trip was discussed at a Feb. 22 school board meeting, but wasn’t yet approved because of confusion as to travel restrictions related to going t...
All eight of Washington's regions are in Phase Two of the state's phased plan for reopening from the COVID-19 pandemic and will be there for "at least several weeks," according to the office of Gov. Jay Inslee. Phase Two of the plan has less stringent restrictions on individuals, schools, and businesses. Regions were required to meet data metrics related to COVID in order to move to Phase Two, and warned that if those stats got worse, a region could move back to Phase One. However, Inslee announ...
After a lengthy discussion with the city attorney, the city council decided Wednesday on a new course for changing Coulee Dam’s animal control ordinance. City Attorney Mick Howe met online with the council to discuss a proposed animal control ordinance. The council had intended to incorporate new language on dangerous dogs, but also tried to address more minor, but common, grievances about dogs, such as barking. Howe advised the council that several aspects of a draft ordinance “simply, we cannot adopt” legally. The council discussed just...
A new book by Colville Tribal member Arnie Marchand titled "What Is Your Name?" describes the way of life of the Okanogan Native Americans, examining the lives of individuals and the history of the people. The book, Marchand's second, is published by Heritage Productions out of Oroville where Marchand lives, and is available on Amazon as well as through the North Central Washington library system, which includes the Grand Coulee Library. "In this work I want to let you know some things about...
Washington’s only private detention center is proposed for closure. House Bill 1090 prohibits any person, business or government from operating private, for-profit detention facilities. It recently passed in the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support, and will receive a Senate vote in the coming weeks. “When you have to report to [stakeholders] that profit, there is a conflict with meeting the needs of those that are incarcerated,” said Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, D-Mukilteo, who was prime sponsor of the bill. “And it’s easy to a...
Grand Coulee Police 2/23 - A woman was banned from the senior center after having been run off from inside and outside the center. The woman has gone through the dumpster multiple times and leaves a mess. Police spoke to her at the post office and told her she was banned. They also asked her about a Safeway cart she had, and she said she would return it. - A veterinary clinic manager was concerned about an employee. Police spoke to the employee’s roommate and a neighbor who both said she was fine the prior evening and didn’t see anything ami...
Student performance at Lake Roosevelt has been going up since the start of the 2020-2021 school year, as students and teachers get used to the routine and gain from more in-person time with teachers, school leaders say. In the first quarter of school, which ended on Nov. 9, Lake Roosevelt Junior/Senior High School, Principal Kirk Marshlain said, roughly 68% of 7th- through 12th-grade students had one or more Fs and/or no credits. On Jan. 4, that number dropped to roughly 60%, and at the end of...
Newly elected Grant County Commissioner Danny Stone spoke with the Grand Coulee City Council during their Feb. 16 meeting held via Zoom. Stone is the first county commissioner from the northern part of the county in recent memory, possibly since Fred Ludolph in the 1940s. Stone introduced himself and told the council that he was available to talk with them. "If you need something," Stone said, "I can't tell you I can always fix or help, but I can sure be a part of the discussion and be...