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 geologist Nick Zentner will be at Dry Falls State Park Visitor Center this coming Sunday, March 1 at 1 p.m. in one of his "pop up" events, where the popular prof just shows up to talk with the geologically curious. If you're me, that sounds like a perfect Sunday afternoon. (If you're new here, this is one of the most interesting geological areas on the planet.) Zentner, the "Science Outreach and Education Coordinator" at Central Washington University, shares his knowledge in entertaining... Full story
Grand Coulee’s recently adopted Ordinance 1105 is headed back to committee after city officials concluded they need clearer direction on how to enforce it and how quickly property owners must comply. The council briefly revisited the ordinance near the end of its Feb. 17 meeting, focusing not on whether to keep it, but how to implement it. ClerkTreasurer Lorna Pearce told council members that as staff prepared notification letters to business and property owners, several unanswered questions emerged. Chief among them: Who is the designated o...
There’s a lot of hatred in the world today. For a while, starting from when I was a young girl, it was classless to openly display your bigotry. People would whisper among themselves about “the others,” and epithets were spoken at cocktail parties and behind closed office doors, but people were savvy enough not to come to work wearing white sheets. Lately, however, that has changed. I’ve already talked about the damage being done to our Jewish communities by the blatant antisemitism displayed by anti-Zionists of all stripes, including other J...
The Lady Raiders will head to the first round of state Saturday, after vanquishing Mabton in the game for third or fourth in District 5 last weekend. The Vikings (13-11) are the top team in the Eastern Washington Athletic Conference East, but the Lady Raiders (14-10) took them down in East Wenatchee last Saturday, 61-37. Despite that score, Lake Roosevelt took some time catching up after Mabton's early five-point lead and did not pull decisively ahead until late third quarter. which ended for...
If you’ve ever dealt with a construction project, you may realize the near certainty of finding more problems than you planned for. Now apply that concept to an industrial plant built decades ago. The Grand Coulee City Council on Feb. 17 approved a significant electrical upgrade at the city’s wastewater treatment plant and advanced several related engineering agreements with Gray & Osborne, Inc., moves aimed at improving safety, reliability, and longterm compliance at the regional facility. The most expensive of the actions was a roughly $24...
Facing a steep jump in sewer treatment costs, the Elmer City Council voted last week to shift its utility rates, raising sewer charges while cutting water rates in an effort to limit the impact on residents. During a public hearing on Ordinance 393, ClerkTreasurer Kelly Ross laid out the numbers now confronting the town. Under an injunction stemming from a legal dispute with Coulee Dam, Elmer City is being billed $98.98 per household per month for sewer treatment and plant loan repayment alone. That does not include the town’s own sewer c...
If you have an old American Flag that's tattered and torn, official protocol calls for a proper disposal. That involves retiring the nation's symbol with respect, not a trash bag. That's where Addison "AJ" Cannon comes in. Cannon, almost 18, is working on getting her Eagle Scout rank, which involves an ambitious project to supply the local area with flag retirement boxes for used flags. She has been working with American Legion Post 157, which will have a key to the boxes. She presented one...
The Lady Raiders won their first game in the 2026 District 5 2B Girls Basketball Tournament, lost the second, and will play Saturday, Feb. 21 against Mabton at 4 p.m. at Eastmont High in East Wenatchee for third or fourth place and seeding into the state tournament in Spokane next week. To get this far, Lake Roosevelt's young team had to first beat White Swan's Cougars, who had held LR to a one-point win in January. The Raiders took them by 27 points on Friday, 71-44. Coach Jeremy Crollard said...
The educational leader who has led Nespelem School District since 2020 will resign at the end of the school year. Dr. Effie Dean, who took over in June of 2020 as the Covid pandemic was disrupting education and society in general, informed the district board of directors Jan. 30. Monday night, directors voted to begin the search for a new superintendent, engaging Northwest Leadership Associates, of Wenatchee, to begin the search and vetting process. Dean’s last official day is June 30. She told The Star on Tuesday that she is not certain of h...
In a change from a prior policy considered by the Regional Board of Mayors, the Delano Regional Transfer Station may soon accept credit cards following an Electric City Council vote on Feb. 3. Electric City administers the transfer station operation. It’s workers and administrators are city employees. New Mayor Blake Martin brought up the fact that only cash and checks have been accepted for payment at the transfer station, options that increasingly seem too limited in modern society. “I mean, I know I don’t really carry cash on me,” Martin...
The Lady Raiders basketball team missed the league championship by just two points Tuesday night as they took second in the 2026 CW2B League Girls Basketball Tournament and Brewster held onto a 46-44 win at Okanogan High School. LR's loss came after a big win for Lake Roosevelt's girls Saturday afternoon in Omak against Okanogan's Lady Bulldogs, 60-33. The Lady Raiders took the lead away from Okanogan early in that game and piled it on. Lady Raiders will be headed to Eastmont High School Feb....
The Raiders ended their basketball post-season Thursday after one game against the Bridgeport Mustangs that went into overtime. The Raiders were up by 13 points early in the third quarter but the Mustangs picked away at that lead, overtaking it by a point with just under two minutes to go in regulation. The Raiders led again but Bridgeport tied it with a foul shot at 54 each with 16 seconds left. The Raiders pulled ahead by two halfway throught the four-minute overtime, 58-56. But the Mustangs...
After years of arguing that Grand Coulee is treating it like a paying customer instead of a co‑owner of the regional wastewater treatment plant, Electric City is turning to the courts. The City Council voted Tuesday to seek a legal judgment on the 1984 agreement that created the joint facility, saying Grand Coulee has ignored board decisions, relied on a costly contractor, and refused to enter mediation. The two cities are parties to a 1984 interlocal agreement that created the jointly owned t...
OLYMPIA - A protest at the Capitol Saturday called for the removal of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "everywhere." With more than 1,500 attending, the rally joined similar nationwide protests after the recent ICE-involved killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Evergreen Resistance organized the protest. The group is Olympia's branch of the nationwide organization 50-50-1 (50 states, 50 protests, one movement). "We're a group that does not want our nation to become more...
It is uncommon for me to respond to letters to the editor; however, Mr. Russell’s recent submission [Letters from our Readers, Jan. 28] warrants a reply. When broad accusations are presented as fact, it becomes necessary to address them with clarity and evidence. Mr. Russell asserts that Democrats support “pedophile’s, murders, rapist’s, criminal gang members, robbers, drug dealers and traffickers, domestic violence, and fraudsters.” Such sweeping claims are serious and should be supported by verifiable facts rather than rhetoric. I encourage... Full story
By the end of the first quarter, the play was as fierce as a championship overtime. The Liberty Bell coach was calling out the seconds left to her players, but the clock ran out before they could will in another two points for a tie to head off the 16-14 psychological advantage for the Lady Raiders. Much of the first half was like that, but the LR girls were relentless, beginning their undeniable assent in the second quarter to leave the Lady Mountain Lions with a loss, 78-37 Friday in Coulee...
In their "best game" of the season the Raiders almost pulled out a win the Mountain Lions at home Friday in a game that showed the possibilities. Pushing through a tough season, missing a key player, the Raiders are near the bottom of the Central Washington 2B with a win-loss of 2-4, 7-13 overall. You wouldn't guess that by watching them play Liberty Bell (5-1, 18-3) as they adapted and persevered after adding their first two points five minutes in. By the end of the game, they'd taken the lead...
A big boulder fell from the wall of the Grand Coulee during the night, blocking most of two lanes on SR-155 along Banks Lake. Drivers could still drive around it where it was coned off at a wide spot in the shoulder of the road on an area of light traffic. But drivers Saturday morning found one-lane (mostly on a pull-out) traffic on the highway just south of the entrance to Steamboat Rock State Park. The Washington State Department of Transportation sent out an alert on its mobile app about 3...
A Grand Coulee man was arrested Jan. 18 after reportedly admitting to shooting his rifle at a boat on Rufus Woods Lake to try to “scare the occupants away,” a sheriff’s report says. Deputies of the Douglas County sheriff arrested Shawn W. Robison, 41, after an investigation, a Jan. 22 release from the sheriff’s office states. One of the five people on the boat called to report the shots, and deputies were dispatched at 8:14 p.m. to the “1000 block” of Strahl Canyon Road, in a remote section of the county about 25 minutes northwest of Grand Co...
Elmer City’s residents already pay around $68 a month for their sewer service, not the $14 stated incorrectly in an article last week, but that amount will still go up following a court ruling last December. The $14 cited at a town council meeting is what Elmer City had been paying Coulee Dam for treating sewage at the time. Okanogan Superior Court Judge Kathryn Burke ruled on Coulee Dam’s preliminary injunction seeking payment from Elmer City at double the $80 rate Coulee Dam charges its own customers. The judge didn’t agree to that high a rat...
In our local Grand Coulee Dam School District, we have and always have had amazing staff. As a community member for several decades, I’ve shown appreciation for many of their successes but I’ve barely scratched the surface of impactful differences they make in the lives of their students every day. Great school districts have staff who realize that schools must manage their funds properly, provide a safe and secure environment with sound mental wellness options for their students, among many other common-sense priorities that come before aca...
Elmer City must pay a lot more for the wastewater treatment service it buys from Coulee Dam, a county judge ruled recently, which may force Elmer City residents to have to pay more for their utilities. The town council endorsed a plan Thursday to increase rates to cover the bill in dispute for 2025, although the town is working on an appeal. In the meantime, residents who are used to paying $14 a month for their sewer service will have to pay considerably more. Coulee Dam's own residents pay...
A big boulder fell from the wall of the Grand Coulee during the night, blocking most of two lanes on SR-155 along Banks Lake. Drivers can still drive around it where it's coned off at a wide spot in the shoulder of the road on an area of light traffic, but drivers should expect one-lane traffic on the highway just south of the entrance to Steamboat Rock State Park. The Washington State Department of Transportation sent out an alert on its mobile app about 3 a.m. Saturday warning of a... Full story
A Grand Coulee man was arrested Jan. 18 after reportedly admitting to shooting his rifle at a boat on Rufus Woods Lake to try to “scare the occupants away,” a sheriff’s report says. Deputies of the Douglas County sheriff arrested Shawn W. Robison, 41, after an investigation, a Jan. 22 release from the sheriff’s office states. One of the five people on the boat called to report the shots, and deputies were dispatched at 8:14 p.m. to the “1000 block” of Strahl Canyon Road, which is at about its intersection with Road 32 NE in a remote sect... Full story
The city of Grand Coulee will write a letter endorsing a local effort to explore forming a regional "fire authority," the city council voted Tuesday night. A fire "authority" differs in state law from a "district" in that it is possible to include emergency medical services in it. Each of the affected areas in the currently proposed area must write a letter of its intent to move forward with such a study. The vote at Grand Coulee was unanimous, ticking off one more box on the list of things to...