News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 6014 - 6038 of 6735
A presenter from Northwest Medstar states her organization’s features to chamber of commerce members at their Thursday luncheon at Pepper Jack’s. She noted the airborne ambulance service’s advanced equipment, including night vision equipment that made it possible to land a helicopter near Ice Harbor with only the light of four cell phones to outline the landing area. — Scott Hunter photo... Full story
Coulee Dam officials did the math last week after someone said they thought Elmer City residents paid too much for Coulee Dam to handle the smaller town’s wastewater. The average amount per residential unit that Coulee Dam charges Elmer City is $18.78, town officials stated Friday, while Elmer City chages its customers $35. The average was calculated for the years 2008-2012. The billing issue came up at the Coulee Dam Town Council meeting last Wednesday when one speaker contended that Elmer City residents are getting charged about three t... Full story
Jerry Birdwell will resign as a Port District 7 commissioner effective April 1, he advised Chairman Orville Scharbach on Thursday. Birdwell stated Friday that he had a number of things going on that will require that he leave the board. He was named to the commission, which oversees the operation of the local airport and the golf course, last July after the resignation of Larry Maier. The board has been functioning with only two members since Stan Conklin, the third member, has been down south for the winter. Scharbach said the port plans to... Full story
Sensing a sticky wicket, Electric City Mayor Jerry Sands took the issue of joining the chamber of commerce off the city council’s agenda last Tuesday night and it will appear on the agenda again,March 12. The $100 joining fee got an immediate response from Councilmember Bob Rupe, who stated that the city had given the chamber a lot of money and they could take the membership fee out of that. Sands explained that the money given earlier was from its hotel/motel tax funds and was for promoting this area. He said the $100 fee was entirely d... Full story
Electric City’s Bob Rupe has asked that the city’s drug and alcohol policy be reviewed by attorneys so it includes the use of marijuana and other controlled substances. He wrote in a recommendation to the council that language be included in the city ordinance and in employee handbooks that makes the use of drugs, alcohol, and controlled substances a dismissal offense. “The purpose of these rules is to balance the personal rights of an individual and the right of Electric City … and help employees understand what conduct is expected and necessa... Full story
The Electric City Council has decided to cut its meetings from two a month to one. Mayor Jerry Sands said the city had caught up on updating its ordinances and got the arsenic treatment plant up and running, so the amount of business for the council in the city has diminished. The council has regularly met on the second and fourth Tuesday nights each month for decades, but now will meet only on the second Tuesday night of the month. The council also decided to change its meeting hour from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m. Electric City now joins Coulee Dam in... Full story
The Chief Joseph Hatchery is scheduled for completion in May and should be rearing chinook salmon in July. The $49 million facility near Chief Joseph Dam will, by 2015, raise 2.9 million salmon a year to help replace the fisheries lost after the construction of Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, which halted the upstream migrations of salmon. It will employ 11 people once it’s operational. Currently 66 people are working at the site. The project includes two acclimation ponds at Riverside and O...
Here are two complete documents detailing the heart of the debate over Coulee Dam's proposed wastewater treatment plant upgrade. The first is the letter from the town's engineering firm, Gray and Osborne, to the mayor as a review and explanation of the process as it has evolved to this point, essentially the firm's presentation at the town council Feb. 27. The second is Greg Wilder's critical point-by-point rebuttal to that presentation and letter. You can increase or decrease the size of the text in each, using the controls at the bottom of...
The city of Grand Coulee is busy unraveling four years and $70,000 worth of municipal court billings. The money is in the bank, city clerk Carol Boyce stated, but the temporary clerk hired to do the work, Debra Pifer, now has to determine what goes where. The city, county and state all own a piece of the court money. The municipal court handles tickets written by Grand Coulee police officers, and the money is supposed to be paid to the three entities -- city, county and state -- according to a formula that is based on the type and amount of... Full story
Eric Braaten, left, a state Fish and Wildlife biologist, and Joe Sanders close in on a wounded bald eagle in a thicket of brush at Sunbanks Lake Resort Monday. The bird had a broken bone and will be rehabilitated at a Washington State University program, reported Sandy McGinnis of Sunbanks. Braaten said it's mating season, and fighting is the most common cause of injured eagles at this time of year. — Scott Hunter photo... Full story
The school board reversed itself Monday night on decisions it made a month ago on calendar dates for the next school year. The board had decided to hold school on Columbus Day and eliminate the mid-winter break next February. This month, absent board member Ted Piccolo, who promoted the changes in January, the three members present changed everything back to the way the calendar had been presented a month ago. Veteran teacher Sandy Hood, from the Grand Coulee Dam Middle School, told board members that both students and staff needed the... Full story
The chamber of commerce is sponsoring the “Are You Tough Enough” First Annual Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge, April 6-7, out of Coulee Playland. The two-day event features a fishing derby for smallmouth bass, walleye, and rainbow trout and has two age categories, 0-14 years of age and adults. So dust off your rod and reel, read up on the contest, and get your 2013 fishing license so you are all set for the big event. Grand prize is an Achilles 4-person inflatable boat and Yamaha outboard motor. There are other prizes, including money, so the... Full story
The theft of a school district food service truck is costing the district over $8,500, according to a Grand Coulee Police Department report issued last Thursday. The truck was stolen during the weekend of Feb. 9-11, and found the following Tuesday abandoned along the I-5 corridor near Seattle. Two district employees were dispatched to Seattle to retrieve the truck, and after getting a new battery for the truck, were able to get it home. The trip, and the tow bill for pulling the truck to an impound yard, cost the district $1,379.50, according... Full story
Vets board to meet The Grant County Veterans Advisory Board will meet March 7 at 4 p.m. at the Grant County Courthouse Commissioners’ Meeting Room. The advisory board administers the Grant County Veterans Emergency Assistance Fund and assists veterans with obtaining benefits through the Veterans Administration. Members of the board are from the local veteran service agencies throughout Grant County. The meeting is open to the public. Roof fix The roof over the police department’s records area in Grand Coulee will be fixed by Coulee Con... Full story
Foss Maritime Company of Rainier, Ore., prepares framing for a cocoon-like structure at Crescent Bay that will soon house sections of the new Sanpoil ferry that will replace the current Martha S ferry at the Keller crossing. The first section, the middle, of the new ferry should arrive sometime during the second week of March. The new ferry will come to Grand Coulee in three sections and be welded together at the new work site. The Sanpoil will be in service sometime this year. — Scott Hunter photo... Full story
Brandon Byers, an English teacher at Lake Roosevelt High School, was named interim principal at the Grand Coulee Dam Middle School by the school board Monday night. Byers is finishing up his principal credentials at Whitworth University this year and is one of three candidates to apply for the position. Byers replaces Lisa Lakin, who has moved over to Center Elementary School as principal. Lakin and Superintendent Dennis Carlson have been co-principals at Center School so far this year since Sue Hinton left the district. Carlson said that... Full story
The bid deadline for the new K-12 school project has been delayed until March 12, Superintendent Dennis Carlson said Monday. Carlson said that the delay is due to a request by several general contractors who said the district wasn’t allowing enough time between the date they had an on-site review and the bid deadline, which would have been Monday at 3 p.m. Contractors were concerned that they wouldn’t have enough time to fully look at the options associated with the bid and get bids back from sub-contractors in time. Postponing the bid deadline... Full story
The bid deadline for the new K-12 school project has been delayed until March 12, Superintendent Dennis Carlson said Monday. Carlson said that the delay is due to a request by several general contractors who said the district wasn’t allowing enough time between the date they had an on-site review and the bid deadline, which would have been Monday at 3 p.m. Contractors were concerned that they wouldn’t have enough time to fully look at the options associated with the bid and get bids back from sub-contractors in time. Postponing the bid deadline... Full story
Charged with finding the bones of a mouse skeleton, students from Center Elementary and Almira School examine owl pellets through microscopes at St. Henry’s Catholic Church’s hall Friday, taking part in the Balde Eagle Festival. More than 200 students from six schools attended the two-day educational event held at the church, the Vets Hall in Electric City, and the Ridge Riders’ clubhouse, coordinated by National Park Service Education Specialist Janice Elvidge. She said there is no way the event could happen without the generosity of local... Full story
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 said the tree was rotten, the stump, at least five feet across, shows no sign of rot. Several other nearby trees also cut down had rotted in the center. “We would watch the eagles fly from the tree to scoop up fish in the lake by the hour,” said Lela Haydock, who lives nearby and had enjoyed the sha... Full story
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 administration and officers pouring through some 13,000 reports looking for any evidence of force used by officers and a variety of other things. Cook asked that the search of documents be at least temporarily discontinued. The request came a day after the newspaper reported on the search that had... Full story
The Colville Tribes will receive the Sierra Club’s “Watershed Hero Award” in special ceremonies Saturday, Feb. 23, in Spokane. The award is for the Tribes’ cleanup efforts in the upper Columbia River of hazardous wastes deposited by slag from Teck Metals, LTD, a mining company in British Columbia. Slag deposits contain mercury, cadmium, zinc, copper, arsenic and lead. Teck, in 2012, admitted that its Trail, B.C., smelter had disposed of 9.7 million tons of contaminants into the Columbia River system. Officials of Teck acknowledged that it had... Full story
Mayor Quincy Snow assured those attending a town council meeting last Wednesday night that the town would follow through on a “value engineering” study of its $4.92 million wastewater treatment plant project. He made the announcement after a long presentation by David Dunn, an engineer from the state Department of Ecology, who came to the meeting to explain the value engineering process. At the end of the presentation, Snow asked if the town should have gone through this process earlier. “It is late in the process for major changes to be made,... Full story
Proctor still in lead Grand Coulee original Shane Proctor maintained his lead in the PBR Built Ford Tough Series by just 53.96 points, despite going just one for three last weekend. Proctor has 3,414.120 points and has earned $116,960.80 so far this season. Silvano Alves is chasing him with 3,360.160 points and earnings of $128,357.02. Recycling goal exceeded Demolition material from A.E. Wright Elementary was 81 percent recycled, School Superintendent Dennis Carlson said. The goal had been 75 percent. Friends of Rachel Club meet Monday...
Orrin Gross leaps onto Coach Steve Hood after taking the state championship at 145 pounds in class 2B high school wrestling at the state meet in the Tacoma Dome Saturday. Mike Gross, Orrin’s father, enjoys the moment at right. Hood took seven Lake Roosevelt High School Raiders to state, of which four medaled. The story is on page 5. — Brittany Cozza photo... Full story