News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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It was so long ago that carbon paper was at the center of the controversy around my first big scoop. As a junior in a high school journalism class, I’d turned in a story about a very popular teacher who would be resigning at the end of the year, a tip I got by ferreting through a wastepaper basket outside the admin office and coming up with a sheet of crumpled carbon paper that contained the details. The story wasn’t published because the publisher, which was the school, felt it would be inappropriate and too disruptive, or some such reasoning....
In 1964, the United States and Canada ratified the Columbia River Treaty to increase coordination between our countries on power generation and flood control issues, along with critical support of irrigation, navigation, and ecosystem habitat needs. While the treaty has provided a useful framework for these needs, there are severe distortions that have greatly — and unfairly — burdened Americans living in the greater Northwest region. With a 60-year term, the earliest the treaty could have been terminated was 2024. In anticipation of the end...
Sometimes this time of year can be hard to swallow. No not because of the “Coulee Crud” that seems to hang in the air and embed in everyone’s throat. It is because we see more and more commercialism of the holidays and less and less about the beginnings and the spirit behind it all. For example, last year at this time a huge debate was going on. You know, the debate about the classic Christmas tune “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and how some thought it was sexist and needed to be grounded from all ho...
Bridges shouldn’t have to sink to be replaced. However, at times that’s what it takes. Too often, new projects succumb to years of fighting among interest groups and endless political bickering. In 2013, opposition killed the Columbia Crossings project, which was formed to construct a replacement I-5 bridge across the Columbia River connecting Vancouver and Portland. We all want more roads and bridges as long as they are in the other persons’ neighborhood and someone else pays. But that attitude is not realistic as our population expands and m...
By the time the Scheibner Brothers set up their sawmill, William Fleet had been on the land for a while. Born in New York in 1836, at the age of 19 William sailed around the Horn and started a career in the far west as a millwright and pack train manager. For the next twenty-five plus years William Fleet traveled between New Mexico, California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and finally into Washington state with Dan Paul. While Paul settled around the Coulee City area, Fleet continued up into the...
Looking back is much easier than looking forward, but it’s not like no one is trying. Two opinion pieces on this page point to turning points in two different areas of society that will converge at some point to change the future, hopefully for the better. Rep. Dan Newhouse points out the need for STEM-educated people to fill burgeoning demand for workers in science, technology, engineering and math careers and the bill he supports to increase such education in rural areas. And Don Brunell, a career-long observer of economic trends in Washingto...
Science, technology, engineering, and math – more commonly known as STEM – have become some of the most highly demanded careers in our nation’s economy. Schools across the country and in Central Washington have emphasized education programs to help prepare students for future careers in fields from chemistry and earth sciences to computer engineering and physics. Quality STEM education programs are essential to train the next generation of American minds. Central Washington’s students are bright, and many of them are interested in pursuin...
In the coming decade, investors are betting that hydrogen will become a prominent fuel that can eliminate CO2 discharges from the vehicles it energizes. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the transportation sector has dominated the growth in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions since 1990, accounting for 69 percent of the total increase. It is important that hydrogen technology advances rapidly because cars, trucks and buses are a growing contributor to greenhouse gas...
Talks of an airport to serve the Grand Coulee Dam project began soon after work on the "Low Dam" began in July 1933. The airport would be located at Mason City near the sand pile with the runway extending north-south along what is now Central Drive and Camas Streets. Work on the airport began in January 1934 with the completed gravel runway being 3,500 feet long by 400 feet wide. The first plane to land was from the Washington National Guard, landing on March 3, 1934. Following runway upgrades,... Full story
This looks like somebody’s off-the-wall dream. We are in an earthquake zone, and I, for one, don’t want any 30-foot water tunnels under me. Also, the tunnels shown are only from North Dam to the Grand Coulee city limits, which is the simple part. Where are the details thru Grand Coulee? Or on the Lake Roosevelt side? Not much room there for a two-machine powerplant, unless you put it in Poop Lagoon. The Banks Lake discharge works shown look like they’ll discharge directly in to Coulee Playland. Anyone who’s boated on Banks Lake knows about t...
We live in a day when the caliber of our elected officials is in question. And for good reason as it becomes apparent that they continually lie to us, often when the truth would serve them better. I like a bumper sticker I saw recently that states, “The truth is out there.” There is one politician that stands apart from others: former President Jimmy Carter. While he didn’t have a distinguished one-term presidency, he is a distinguished person and continues to be so to this present day. There were a couple of things that marred his presi...
November is recognized as National Native American Heritage Month, and I believe this is an important time to remember and celebrate the contributions and history of our Native friends and neighbors in Central Washington and across the United States. With 29 federally-recognized tribes across the state, Washingtonians from every corner of the state live alongside Native Americans who contribute to our communities through entrepreneurship, military service, and sharing their rich and storied history. The Yakima Herald-Republic recently...
The air around us is polluted, and the level of pollution in our air varies constantly. The causes of the pollution fluctuate as well. The pollution consists of gases and particulate matter. Common “natural” sources are forest and range fires, volcanic activity and various gases that originate in nature. Most all of these natural sources are not constant, unlike the sources that humanity produces on a recurring and regular basis. Envision pre-historic human activity after fire became part of...
The Scheibner Brothers in Northrup Canyon also ran a pre-industrial age sawmill on Northrup Creek around the year 1900. Original Steamboat Rock pioneer William Fleet worked as a millwright, helping with the design, implementation and upkeep of the Scheibner watermill. Charles Scheibner and William Fleet, along with one other gentleman, would back up the creek at night with a dike, creating a small pond. In the morning they would run the water down a long sluice that would turn a water wheel and...
At this time of Thanksgiving, we pause to give thanks to those who enrich our lives. At the University of Washington School of Medicine in partnership with Gonzaga University, we are especially grateful for the growing community of friends, professionals and partners in Grand Coulee who help us deliver top-ranked medical education every day. Thank you to the community and physicians in Grand Coulee for warmly welcoming our medical students and enriching their education experience. You are instrumental in training the high quality physicians...
Representative democracy is based on a simple premise. It’s that ordinary citizens can judge complex public policy and political issues — or at least grasp them well enough to decide who should be dealing with them. But the significance of that premise isn’t simple at all. It means that our country’s future depends on the quality of democratic participation by its citizens. So, in an era when our democracy appears to be under great stress, what must we do to keep it healthy? Here are some steps I think we need to take. First, we have to protect...
Each Thanksgiving, I am reminded that in Central Washington, we have a lot to be thankful for. We are blessed with gorgeous national forests and public lands, powerful rivers and dams, and bountiful farm land. As we gather with our families and friends to reflect on our gratitude, let us not forget to thank the farmers and ranchers who produce food to feed the United States and the world. We are fortunate to be surrounded by a diverse agriculture industry, with over 300 unique commodities being grown in Washington state. Many of our state’s p...
This week I am profiling another outstanding senior at Lake Roosevelt High School. I have watched her grow up right before our eyes. She has had many ups and downs in her educational career here within the walls of the Coulee, but she is putting the pieces together and is ready to take on whatever is next. Here is a little bit of my talk with Rosa Carter. “It’s going alright,” is how Rosa answered my first question about her senior year, and then the normally quiet young lady opened up the f...
One of my favorite family photographs shows Billy Curlew, then close to 63, holding the team. My uncle Clair is sitting on the rail, my aunt Eleanor standing right foreground, and my grandfather Sam Seaton standing behind. It was taken about 1925 (based on the apparent ages of Clair, born in September 1915, and Eleanor, about two years older). Billy Curlew was born in 1862 while his band was on a root-digging trip to the present Ephrata - Soap Lake area, at a summer village site called En Tach...
No matter who the experts are, the city administration and the city council who hire them must keep their eyes wide open. Problems in city infrastructure can take a long time to develop and be noticed, but two things are certain: they will develop, and you will pay, sooner or later. So, while the tendency in local governments is to let the experts do their thing, the people we elect to oversee them have a tough job to do in overriding that tendency and holding accountable those who know more than they do. The selection in Electric City of a...
The students of Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers were recently given a second chance. Earlier this year, the future of these programs was threatened when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed closing nine of the 25 Civilian Conservation Center (CCC) programs and transferring the operations of the remaining Centers to the Department of Labor (DOL). This transfer to the DOL would have been contrary to the very mission of the Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers, which aims to train the next generation of America’s w...
The grounding of the 737MAX is testing Boeing’s resiliency. It has turned the company upside down in just six months. Boeing executives and engineers have been under duress since the two fatal crashes killing 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia, and that is likely to extend well into 2020. What started as a continuation of a most successful 2018 for Boeing has turned into prolonged migraine. Hopefully, the world’s most successful aerospace company will weather the storm and quickly con...
In August 1934, the Silas Mason Company, headquartered in New York City, began building a new "all electric" town next to the Columbia River in eastern Washington State. The town, called Mason City, was named after Silas Boxley Mason II, who was the Chairman of the MWAK consortium that won the contract to build the Grand Coulee Dam. Silas was married to Suzanne Dallam Burnett, an accomplished thoroughbred racehorse trainer and owner. Suzanne owned Lexington Kentucky's Duntreath Farms and 1933...
First of all, thanks to everyone who has supported me the past years as Electric City Council member. Congratulations to the Electric City Council and mayor elect. I wish them the best in their journey the next few years. I only hope that the community will support them in this journey at public meetings and at monthly council meetings. Birdie Hensley...
Earlier this week the nation took pause to honor our veterans. The debt we owe to veterans goes well beyond Nov. 11. I didn’t come from a military family; however, my father and three of my brothers were in the military: my father in World War I, and my brothers in World War ll. I am sorry now that I know so little of their service times and experiences. They, like so many, didn’t talk a lot about their experiences, it brought back unpleasant memories. My father didn’t serve overseas, but my three brothers did, in the thick of it. My brothers,...