The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

Stanley Henry Spieler lived from February 15, 1935, to April 28, 2013. The son of Henry and Irene Spieler, Stanley was born in Boise, Idaho, and peacefully passed away at his home in Coulee Dam,...

A fire in a service bay at Jack’s Four Corners Union 76 that could have been a disaster was quickly extinguished by a combination of firefighters mid-morning Monday. A vehicle in the service bay at...

Walk-in freezer bid accepted Coulee Dam council voted to accept a bid of $8,650.60 from Cascade Mechanical of Omak to replace the walk-in freezer at the Melody Restaurant. The Community Building The Melody is located in is owned by the town. The...

Grand Coulee is going to make an effort to get a daycare center in its Central Business District zone. The public interest in a daycare center has attracted the attention of city officials, and the ways and means of making a zoning change was...

If Mark Jenson, the Bureau of Reclamation power manager sees it as a hardship living right here presently, he should have tried it before we got our Variety Store. A lot of us enjoy life in Coulee Dam because each morning, Iris, our town’s mail...

EPHRATA, Wash. - The Bureau of Reclamation will temporarily reduce water deliveries today (Tuesday, April 30) to irrigation districts in the Columbia Basin Project while engineers assess damage to the Main Canal just below Pinto Dam located in...

The power outage in Coulee Dam will likely last until 5 or 6 p.m. tonight, one source told The Star. Lynne Brougher, with the Bureau of Reclamation, said USBR personnel are helping Coulee Dam crew and...

The Bureau of Reclamation is having trouble attracting and retaining new skilled employees, Power Manager Mark Jenson told a number of local leaders Monday afternoon. Jenson said that often a combination of local factors creates a problem for...

The largest producer of hotel/motel taxes in the area proposed changes to the way the funds are used at a meeting of some 20 community people Monday. Pat Welton, managing partner of Sunbanks Lake Resort, stated that the three local municipalities...

The Bureau of Reclamation reported this week that it had received an exception to the federal government hiring freeze so it could fully staff its Grand Coulee Dam tours. The Bureau had earlier stated that it might have to trim the number of days...

The Colville Tribes pitched the Elmer City council last Thursday to provide the town’s official police force. Appearing at the town council were Public Safety Director Bill Elliot and Tribal Police Chief Corey Orr. Elliot told the council that the...

Two local residents, Andrea Marconi and Angela Feeley, who appeared a few weeks ago before Grand Coulee’s city council to look into starting a daycare service on Main Street, met the same results again last Tuesday night. They were informed that...

The Colville Tribes will hold their fourth annual Earth Day celebration, Monday, April 22, at the powwow grounds near Nespelem. Joaquine Bustamante, of the tribal recycling program, told the local Rotary Club he’s hoping for some 1,600...

Martha (Woelk) Glick Stefanik was born on Pentecost Sunday, June 8, 1919, to Abraham A. and Anna (Goertz) Woelk on a farm one mile north of Goessel, Kansas, and passed away from natural causes on...

Political stupidity in Washington, D.C. is about to come down hard on our local area. Some economists argue that the sky will fall because of the “sequester,” a budget cut imposed by Congress and signed by the President in 2011 in a move...

Tours, visitor center hours and laser light show offerings might be curtailed because of budget cuts, officials confirmed this week, but they’re still hoping for a reprieve from the national budget cutback known as “sequestration.” Although...

There is good news and bad news for those who visit the area to see the laser light show. The new show won’t be ready until mid-July. However, the all-new laser equipment will be able to show the old laser show. Until recently that ability was an...

Two women proposing a licensed day care center on Grand Coulee’s Main Street found out why it is said “You can’t beat city hall,” but they’re not stopping their effort to start a daycare. Andrea Marconi and Angela Feeley, who told council m...

A family shocked by the loss of their home to fire Thursday night is also amazed at the instant support pouring in from the community. Fifteen years ago, Warner Whybark built their home on a hillside overlooking Banks Lake in the North Shores...

Ten Years Ago Paying to protect Grand Coulee Dam does not come cheap to the Bureau of Reclamation, which pays the Washington State Patrol and area police departments a high price for their services. Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam have negotiated...

Grand Coulee Police 3/11 - Police entered a home on Cardinal Road NE because of a report of domestic violence. A couple who had given another couple permission to stay there wanted them to leave. The officer asked the four to work it out, but...

An explosion at Grand Coulee Dam Saturday morning damaged the right powerhouse when a line and equipment connecting a generator and transformer exploded. No one was injured. A “buss,” essentially...

A “stakeholder” group met Tuesday to try to put the finishing touches on the script for the all- new laser light show. The schedule for the inaugural show now has slipped to mid-summer, Bureau of Reclamation Public Affairs Officer Lynne Brougher...

A suggestion to finance a rebuild of Coulee Dam’s wastewater treatment plant over a period longer than it will last should raise concerns. It’s certainly something that could be done for the sake of lowering rates, but would you finance a new...

Ten Years Ago An Electric City man involved in the town’s adoption of a nuisance ordinance last year believes the town, rather than neighbors, should instigate its enforcement. “I hate that neighbor has to turn in neighbor,” Jerry Sands said....

Gray & Osborne engineers outlined ways for Coulee Dam and Elmer City to get their monthly sewer rates down in a letter to Coulee Dam Mayor Quincy Snow that was distributed after the last city council meeting. Coulee Dam residents currently pay $59 a...

The explosion at Grand Coulee Dam this morning was not a transformer or a generator, but a line and equipment connecting the two. Conflicitng reports this morning suggested that one or the other had...

In this community, whose economy is based overwhelmingly on a federal payroll and outsourced contracts, not a lot is yet certain about how the latest fiscal political drama emanating from the other Washington will play out. “Sequestration”...

Gray & Osborne engineers outlined ways for Coulee Dam and Elmer City to get their monthly sewer rates down in a letter to Coulee Dam mayor Quincy Snow that was distributed after last Wednesday’s city council meeting. Coulee Dam residents currently...

Ten Years Ago The roar of boat motors will fill the air of Banks Lake this summer as competitive boat racing returns to the Gand Coulee Dam area. The Northwest Water Competition is organizing the...

Enough is enough. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has apparently adopted a reckless and callous attitude toward community assets not made of concrete or steel, assets that make living easier in this semi-arid desert, assets that often take much...

A 100-year-old cottonwood tree on Banks Lake whose branches attracted as many as 10 eagles at a time is no more, cut down by the Bureau of Reclamation a couple of weeks ago. While Bureau employees...

A public disclosure request for information from police documents made a few weeks ago by police officer Sean Cook has been discontinued at his own request, The Star learned this week. A request the Grand Coulee officer made recently had the police...

Grand Coulee Police 2/12 - An official with the Head Start program at Center School told police that someone had taken the lock off a storage shed where games and toys are stored. Nothing was taken, the report stated. It was thought that the entry...

The man you can’t say “no” to was awarded two plaques at the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce’s 2013 installation and awards banquet last Thursday night at Pepper Jack’s Bar &...

Ten Years Ago Arguments against an additional drawdown of Banks Lake next August centered around two premises at a meeting in Coulee City last night: one legal, the other heartfelt. No one at the...

December 21, 2012, wasn’t the end of the world as we know it, but it was the end of this world for Arthur T. “Ted” Winiecki, 87, of Virginia, Minn., dying that Friday, at Virginia Regional...

Ten Years Ago A local woman and her family must deal with mixed emotions as the nation prepares for war. She left Sunday to assume her post in the Army for at least the next several months in western...

December 21, 2012, wasn’t the end of the world as we know it, but it was the end of this world for Arthur T. “Ted” Winiecki, 87, of Virginia, Minn., dying that Friday, at Virginia Regional...

Greg Wilder, 69, a Coulee Dam activist, said last week that he plans to file for the office of mayor as an “agent of change” when the filing period opens in May. Wilder has been at odds with two-term Mayor Quincy Snow, and the town...

A local group of stakeholders will get the first look at the text for the all new laser light show within the next couple of weeks. Participants include the Colville Confederated Tribes, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Coulee Area Chamber of...

Coulee Dam Mayor Quincy Snow, Greg Wilder and Elmer City Councilmember Larry Holford all met with the Colville Tribes Community Development Committee Tuesday to discuss the proposed wastewater treatment facility. The meeting, originally set for 9:30...

Elmer City’s town council is divided about what to do in regard to Coulee Dam’s proposed wastewater treatment project. Both Mayor Mary Jo Carey and Councilmember Larry Holford indicate interest...

Elmer City Mayor Mary Jo Carey said her town would rather be part of Coulee Dam’s wastewater treatment plant project than develop its own plant. In an interview, she said Elmer City’s council voted to move forward investigating its own plant as...

Visions of a snow day likely danced in the heads of children aboard Grand Coulee Dam School District buses struggling on the Coulee Dam hill Monday morning. The section of State Route 155 owned and...

Ten Years Ago A plan to help fish by changing the way dams in Montana are run will leave Banks Lake 10 feet lower in August, possibly affecting tourism. The Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation will put the plan they call VARQ into...

January New mayor takes over Chris Christopherson became the mayor of Grand Coulee Jan. 3. after winning the popular vote in November. He and former mayor Tammara Byers traded seats, as she took his old spot on the city council. Sewage plans...

Ten Years Ago A painting depicting American military history hangs in the Veterans of Foreign Wars center mainly due to hours of volunteer labor from two local women and a local veteran. Columbia Art Association members Darlene Morova and Edith Lael...

It wasn’t hitting four beach-heads in WWII, alcohol, Copenhagen or cancer that brought Swede down, but the old age of 95. Four months shy of his next birthday, George H. Walberg went home Christmas...

Ten Years Ago The city of Grand Coulee’s police department will return to policing Grand Coulee Dam next year under an agreement the city reached with the Bureau of Reclamation. A program started locally gives families unable to afford fishing gear...