Newsbriefs

Paybacks …

The city of Grand Coulee has agreed to reimburse New Cingular Wireless about $1,500 for excessive charges over a period of almost two years.

In its claim, the wireless firm says the city applied a local utility tax against a portion of its bill that had already had the tax applied. The council voted to pay the claim at its last meeting.

Gas tax improves for city

Grand Coulee stands to receive $16,492 a year for the next three years from Grant County in a fuel tax redistributing plan. Previously the city received just over $6,000 a year. The new schedule goes through 2014.

Back billing brings in

money

Grand Coulee has received over $86,000 since it hired a third party firm to bill and recover aged ambulance billings. The company doing the billings started in December, 2011, and is still trying to recover payments for services not previously billed.

Architect firm gets added job for $400K

The school board approved a revision of its contract with Design West, the architectural firm doing the drawings for the new K-12 school facility at its meeting Monday night. The new revised contract is for $3.34 million, a change of about $400,000. The change is due to the board’s request for Design West to do plans beyond the educational wing of the new facility so they will be ready to go if the district is successful in finding additional funding.

Unsafe

toxin near Bridgeport

An unsafe level of a naturally occurring toxin was detected in algae blooms at Rufus Woods Lake near Bridgeport, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Friday afternoon.

Officials posted Washington State Department of Health warnings against swimming, water skiing and other in-water activities at the lake near Bridgeport.

The toxin of concern is anatoxin-a, a nerve toxin produced by some blue-green algae blooms found in water bodies throughout the state. The toxin can be lethal to animals if ingested at high enough concentrations.

While it’s safe to eat properly cleaned and gutted fish, the water should not be consumed and steps should be taken to keep livestock and pets away from the water. Boaters are advised to avoid areas where algae blooms are present, officials advised.

Access to Rufus Woods Lake remains open to the public.

For more information about toxic blooms, see the Department of Ecology algae website http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/plants/algae/index.html and the Department of Health website http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/algae/default.htm