Monthly News Archive:
September 2007
Table of Contents:
- Climate policy conundrum for rural county in Washington
- Clark County OKs vast urban expansion
- Home, wage gap widens
- Greenland ice melt shocks scientists
- Plans to dump PCB-tainted soil in Elliott Bay raise concerns
- Plan aims to keep land for wildlife, limit sprawl
- Severe drought conditions spread across Inland Northwest
Climate policy conundrum for rural county in Washington
WENATCHEE — Less than a decade from now, the Chelan County PUD could be required to pay a dirty East Coast coal-fired utility for the right to continue to operate the PUD's own diesel-powered electricity generators in remote Stehekin.
It could also be subject to tough air-quality quotas that are thought to be unachievable using existing technology.
Sound illogical?
Those are some of the concepts that PUD analysts are trying to wrap their intellects around to prepar...Read the full story
September 27, 2007
Add Comments...Clark County OKs vast urban expansion
Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to allow development on 19 square miles of rural Clark County , a major step in the county's long journey from sleepy military and farming community into full-fledged metropolis.
It was among the biggest urban expansions since the state of Washington started regulating growth in 1994, and might be the biggest ever, a state planner said.
Businesses will line long streches of Interstate 5, state Highway 503 and the north shore of Lacamas Lake . Hundreds of acres of new residential subdivisions, apartments and row homes will be allowed on...Read the full story
Home, wage gap widens
House value is 7.7 times income, census data show
Ken Kam, of Honolulu, scoped out second-home possibilities during a Seattle visit last month.
"It seems like it's an up-and-coming and popular place," he said while looking through a Queen Anne town-house development in which units start above $800,000. "The prices are still lower than in Hawaii."
Two doors down, Tim Hug and David Hofmann were washing a BMW outside the town house they moved into in June after relocating from San Francisco.
San Francisco's still more e...Read the full story
Greenland ice melt shocks scientists
Rising sea level - Climate models failed to foresee the acceleration, and the far-reaching effects are likely to bring more Northwest rain
KANGERLUSSUAQ, Greenland -- The vast ice sheet that coats Greenland up to 2 miles thick is reacting to global warming far faster than scientists thought it would.
It makes some of them wonder whether they've underestimated the speed of changes a warmer climate brings.
A few decades ago, Greenland's glaciers had little bearing on Oregon. Now they're melting and sliding into the ocean quick...Read the full story
Plans to dump PCB-tainted soil in Elliott Bay raise concerns
Environmentalists fear effect of toxic mud on animals and people
Port of Seattle Chief Executive Tay Yoshitani says he wants to run the "cleanest, greenest and most energy-efficient port in the United States."
But some environmentalists are calling the meaning of his words into question because of a port project that has received permission to dump PCBs in Elliott Bay.
PCBs are polychlorinated biphenyls, toxic chemicals used as fire retardants that were banned in the 1970s. They are so toxic and so ...Read the full story
Plan aims to keep land for wildlife, limit sprawl
A habitat conservation plan that supporters say could reduce the conversion of timberland to housing tracts in Lewis County was submitted to federal agencies Tuesday for approval.
The first-of-its-kind proposal in the country for a collective group of small forestland owners would replace state forest and fish rules on up to 134,000 acres owned by 2,400 small-scale tree farmers, who would have the option to participate.
If approved, the plan would protect landowners from federal Endangered Species Act sanctions when protected species are harmed or killed and reduce the amoun...Read the full story
Severe drought conditions spread across Inland Northwest
Severe drought conditions are expanding across the Inland Northwest, with forests and fields crackling under weeks of heat and rivers trickling with record-low flows, according to a briefing issued Thursday by the National Drought Mitigation Center.
All of Idaho is now under severe drought conditions and a third of the state – mostly centered in the Clearwater River area of north-central Idaho, where huge wildfires have burned this summer – is considered to be suffering from extreme drought, according to information from the University of Nebraska-based drought tracking center.
...Read the full story