News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Those of us who look at the Grand Coulee Dam and think “how in the hell did they manage to build that?” will have the opportunity to have that question answered in detail by an engineering expert. Raymond “Paul” Giroux will be making a free presentation on “Building Grand Coulee Dam,” Saturday, Aug. 25, at 6:30 p.m. at the Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center. The roughly hour-long presentation will highlight the construction of the primary structure, which was completed by the spring of 1942. Giroux spoke to The Star about what made the constru...
Grand Coulee 8/12 - A man pulled on Alcan Road near the rodeo grounds was cited for driving with no valid operator’s license, no insurance, an expired registration, and a disfigured plate. Complicating matters further, the vehicle had been registered to a woman who had reported the vehicle stolen in 2016 to Wenatchee police. The police there considered it a civil matter due to the owner having let a friend borrow it, but who later sold it. Because of the uncertainty of the situation, the officer had the vehicle impounded. The driver and p...
The Grand Coulee Dam Rotary Club is offering cash assistance grants of up to $500 to those affected by the Grass Valley Fire. Assistance is available to those in need due to fire loss or emergency evacuation expenses. If you or someone you know needs help, contact Club Treasurer Jerry Kennedy. He can be reached at 509-631-4567....
Okanogan County Fire District 8 firefighter Brett Read, 38, was injured while fighting the Grass Valley Fire in Douglas County Saturday. Read and another firefighter were attempting to leave their work area when the fire behavior unexpectedly intensified, Fire District 8 Chief Ed Townsend said in a statement. Read became separated from the engine he was working on and suffered burns during the incident. The second firefighter on Read’s engine was not injured. Read was taken to Coulee Medical Center in Grand Coulee, and later airlifted to Harbor... Full story
Whipped by wind, a fire that started near the turn to Mansfield Saturday morning sped over grass, sage and stubble, burning one firefighter and threatening homes and property, on its 20-mile race to menacing Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam, parts of which were ordered to evacuate. Eventually, 247 firefighters would respond from across the state, but the initial attack was up to local volunteers. Douglas County Fire Districts 3 and 5 were dispatched to a mile east and a mile south of Sim's Corner, th...
With many cities, counties, fire districts and multiple jurisdictions of every kind coming together in the Grand Coulee Dam community, it can leave many newcomers scratching their heads, but firefighters on the Grass Valley Fire reported seeing a remarkably close community. At a meeting called Monday to give the community information on the Grass Valley Fire, Public Information Officer Ben Shearer, from the Southeast Washington Incident Management Team, said he has been fighting fires for 28 years, but had to give credit to the Grand Coulee...
Despite an amicable meeting of leaders, two local towns could be about to square off in court over disputed costs of just $30,000, if conversations at their respective council meetings are an indication. Coulee Dam Town Council members talked at length last Wednesday night about the major dispute that has Coulee Dam and Elmer City disagreeing about who is responsible for paying for new equipment to lift Elmer City's sewage another 20 feet higher as it's pumped to Coulee Dam's new treatment...
Local skateboard enthusiast Ben Hughes has already received outreach from skateboarding companies after The Star published an article about his ambition to improve on the current skateboarding culture. “The article that was in the paper (‘Skateboarding scene could grow in the coulee’) is a testament to how the internet works,” Hughes, a commissioner of the Coulee Area Park and Recreation District, said at their Aug. 6 meeting. “I named Zumiez in the article, and someone at Zumiez forwarded it on to someone who forwarded it on, and they cont...
A free presentation on “Building Grand Coulee Dam,” by Raymond Paul Giroux, will discuss how the right conditions, people and engineering allowed it to happen at that time. The Aug. 25 program will be presented at 6:30 p.m. at the Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center. “During the early twentieth century, the Bureau of Reclamation was charged with harnessing the water potential of the western United States,” an Aug. 13 bureau press release states. “Critical to this vision was taming the mighty Columbia River. With river flows more than 300,000 c...
Elmer City appoints new council member Elmer City resident Terje Berg was approved to be on the town council at the town’s Aug. 9 meeting. Berg has lived in the area for three years and said that his reason for wanting to be on the council is that he wants to know what is going on in the town. Total fire restrictions for Lake Roosevelt Due to extreme conditions, all fires at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area are prohibited, effective 12:01 a.m., Friday, Aug. 17, until further notice. No open flames are permitted. This includes, but is n...
Star Facebook followers submitted photos of the Grass Valley Fire as it was happening Saturday and Sunday....
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has authorized the use of federal funds to help with firefighting costs for three fires burning in central Washington, including the Grass Valley Fire in Douglas and Grant counties near Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam. Early Sunday morning, FEMA granted the state’s request for federal Fire Management Assistance Grants to help with firefighting costs for the Grass Valley Fire burning in Douglas and Grant counties. At the time of the request, the fire was threatening homes in and around the c...
Grand Coulee Police 8/7 - A man was reported to have been seen carrying a yellow chainsaw on Third Avenue in Electric City. Police didn’t see such a man. - A Lakeview Boulevard woman reported her neighbors were throwing rocks at her house. An officer only saw rocks on the gravel road. - A woman reported that on July 28, someone had taken her black purse with emojis on it from her Dodge Dakota while it was parked at Coulee Hardware. - Vehicles on a woman’s property on Alcan Road are considered junk vehicles, while garbage left on the land con...
Local law enforcement agencies will be among those across Washington that will increase DUI (Driving Under the Influence) patrols Aug. 17 - Sept. 3 during what is typically the deadliest time of the year on the state’s roadways, according to the state Traffic Safety Commission. The Ferry, Lincoln, Grant, and Adams County Target Zero Task Force, police departments and sheriff’s offices from Adams County, Othello, Ephrata, Grand Coulee, Grant County, MACC Dispatch, Moses Lake, Quincy, Royal City, Soap Lake, Warden, Ferry County, Republic, Lin...
New air-quality monitors are working in the Grand Coulee Dam area with results accessible by anyone online, thanks to an initiative of the Grand Coulee Dam Rotary Club. Using sensors purchased from PurpleAir, the club has so far put up one sensor, which complements another that member Bob Valen bought for his own home last winter. At least one more is planned for the area. Valen, who writes The Star's monthly weather column, found several years ago that the state's Dept. of Ecology air quality...
The evac levels for the Grass Valley Fire were set to level 1 Monday night, just as a community meeting at Lake Roosevelt High School was about to start (more on that in tomorrow's paper). Level 1 means we need to be aware of the possible danger, but there is no imminent threat. Weather today is predicted to be sunny and very hot, with very low humidity in the afternoon and winds up to 4-5 miles per hour. The National Weather Service has issued an air quality alert covering 13 counties in... Full story
GRAND COULEE 8-11-18 — A fire that started about noon near the Sims Corner Junction on highway 17 has closed highway 174 and all residents on both sides of 174 from Road P east to Grand Coulee are urged to leave immediately. Douglas County Sheriff Chief Criminal Deputy Steve Grossclose said at 6:10 p.m. that the fire is currently past Road Y NE and the Barker Canyon Road on both side of SR-174 and headed northeast driven by strong winds. Evacuations have been ordered along both side of 174 a... Full story
It's 9:30 Saturday morning, and if you don't absolutely have to go outside in the Grand Coulee area right now, you should wait. Smoke is currently making the air "very unhealthy" to breath. Local air quality monitors are reading in the 270-300 range, which is at the upper end of the "very unhealthy" range. Ad advisory issued by the Grant County Health District this week offered this advice about that kind of air: "Everyone should stay indoors, do only light activities, and keep windows closed... Full story
Dawn Lovelace had none of the risk factors for breast cancer. She got it anyway. “I’m a woman … that’s my risk factor,” she said in a recent interview. The nurse and midwife, who basically founded the obstetrics program at Coulee Medical Center 23 years ago, took her own medical advice and went in to CMC for a screening mammogram in January of 2017. “Unreality,” she said of the news. “The sinking in was very hard.” By the following September, Lovelace had had four surgeries. “I’m fine. I’m cancer free,” she said in July. She decided to “emb...
Agencies that control most of the public lands in the region have issued restrictions on the use of fire. “Fire restrictions on lands administered by the Bureau of Reclamation have been modified to prohibit the building, maintaining, attending or using a fire of any type, including charcoal briquette fires,” a press release from the Bureau of Land Management states. The BLM has an agreement with the USBR to operate on their lands for fire management purposes. “An exemption is made for liquefied and bottled gas stoves and heaters, provi...
The Colville Confederated Tribes have proposed a release of salmon above Chief Joseph Dam and Grand Coulee Dam to return the once-native species to waters from which they’ve been absent since the construction of those giant barriers to their migration. The proposal is to release thousands of adult salmon and tens of thousands of juvenile salmon above the two dams in the Columbia River, as well as its tributaries. “There is a spiritual connection between salmon and Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest that is celebrated in many cer...
A capital improvements levy to support the Grand Coulee Dam School District appears to have passed in Tuesday’s election with more than 55 percent of the vote. The levy will enable safety, technology and facilities improvements in the district and then let it pay for some items that otherwise would have come from its general fund as the transition is made to the new system of financing basic education in the state. In other contested primary elections, 4th District incumbent Republican Congressman Dan Newhouse led Democrat Christine Brown 6...
Local Rotarian Roy Hamilton accepts a "Changemaker" award from Rotary District 5060 Governor Sherry Chamberlain Wednesday at the club's meeting at Siam Palace for his outstanding and continual contributions to Rotary efforts and causes, including a recent gift in the name of his late wife, Donna Hamilton, toward eliminating polio. Hamilton took the opportunity to remind the club that donations toward that cause right now at www.endpolio.org are matched twice by the Bill and Melinda Gates...
Grand Coulee Mayor Paul Townsend welcomes Nicolaus D. Johnson as the city's newest patrolman after swearing him in Tuesday. Coming from Yakima, Johnson was recruited laterally, meaning he's already fully qualified to serve without the city having to send him to state academy training. That's important, Townsend noted, because he can immediately take part in the city's contract supporting the Bureau of Reclamation. The city now has eight officers, Townsend said. - Scott Hunter...
Turn your eyes to the sky on Aug. 13, when the Perseid meteor shower will illuminate the darkness, all the darker due to a new moon, as the National Park Service Sky Rangers give guided tours of the heavens on August 10-11. On Aug. 10, from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m., rangers will be at the Crescent Bay area, where the public is welcome to join and look at planets, constellations, and more through their telescope. “We have everything you need to look up, but you are welcome to bring your own telescopes, spotting scopes, or binoculars plus bug spray, a...