News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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As a concerned group of Grant County citizens, we believe that your readers will be as concerned as we are to learn that Grant PUD eliminated build-out of new fiber connections from their 2018 budget. The budget maintains service to those that have fiber, but no new service will be connected in the coming year. Our community group, Grant County Fiber Active, believes that fiber service is a necessity for the future of our county. Without connectivity, businesses, homes and students are completely disadvantaged. Modern agriculture businesses...
I woke up Monday morning and my heart broke. I watched the video and sat in awe once again. A shooting in Las Vegas, 59 dead, hundreds injured and the shooter took his own life. It became obvious as the details emerged that this was a planned-out massacre and murder of many. The why is not known at the time of writing, but with investigation that may emerge also. Is this what America has come to? Violence and unnecessary death fed to us on a daily score sheet. Arguments over the little and big that end up destroying sons, daughters, mothers,...
A dozen years ago, the preface to a report on federal election reform began with these words: “Polls indicate that many Americans lack confidence in the electoral system, but the political parties are so divided that serious electoral reform is unlikely without a strong bipartisan voice.” I can find no part of that sentence that’s not still true. Americans still lack confidence in the electoral system. The political parties are still divided. Serious electoral reform remains unlikely. Perhaps the only change is that the commission issui...
Interior view of the left barrel of the cut and cover section of the feeder canal. In the foreground, forms for a completed pour are still in place. – October 11, 1949...
In honor of breast cancer awareness month, please join me for lunch. I am raising funds for The CCNW Foundation. The foundation provides educational, financial and emotional assistance to inland northwest cancer patients and their families. This foundation provided me emotional support and items of physical comfort in my time of need through my treatments. It’s my turn to give back. Lunch will be served after the CMC Guild cancer walk Oct. 21. We will be serving a homemade chili or chowder bread bowl (homemade by Juan Moreno from The M...
When we look at the history of our nation, it is hard to get the facts straight unless you lived it. By now we know our history books in school are skewed and sanitized to vaguely cover one topic and dive deep into another. It all depends on the culture of the current legislation and education push at the time of print. What’s important to teach during this season can undermine the emotional and topical acceptance of what actually happened to this culture and that group of people. But history does have its place if we choose to read beyond t...
In Washington, the legislative stalemate over permitting new household wells and the state’s construction budget has not only delayed needed funding for public projects, but triggered yet another salvo in the wider conflict over future supplies of fresh water for people, fish and farms. At immediate risk is $4.2 billion in state funding for local water and sewer projects, school construction, mental-health facilities, colleges and universities, and other construction. While there is general agreement between Democrats controlling the House a...
Pictured above is the outlet of the 12 discharge pipes from the pumping plant. The pumping plant site (dark) and the top of Grand Coulee Dam may be seen in the background. Discharge pipes have already been installed in the first three tunnels and these will shortly be connected with the curved crest pipes shown in the right foreground. - September 21, 1949 photo...
Most of us don’t think much beyond an initial “Oh, wow!” reaction when we hear about the rescue of someone from a harrowing situation, but a local man has played that part for most of his life. Archie Dennis was chosen as our volunteer of the year because he’s the kind of guy who shows up anywhere he might be needed in places a lot of people would not want to go. His story and photo on the front page will let us all think of the human beings behind those news stories, whether they’re about rescuing someone off a cliff or recovering a drowning...
At the close of World War II, the winners (the Allies) divided Germany into east and west Germany, Korea into north and south Korea, and Vietnam into north and south Vietnam. The division of Germany produced a threat of military conflict for more than four decades. Germany was eventually reunited without war. The division of Vietnam did produce a military conflict that, in retrospect, seems to have been foolish. Vietnam is reunited. The division of Korea produced a war, and that conflict is unresolved. After Mao Tse Tung gained control of China...
Sometimes a phrase in a movie becomes more popular than the actual flick. The words spoken can mean things to one person that fly completely over the head of another. We use these sayings or movie quotes on a day-to-day basis and they become part of the culture and bring back memories of a time in our lives when going to the movies was a rite of passage, a sign of growing up, a sign of hope. Or it is just plain fun. Here are some of my favorite movie quotes that I use from time to time without even realizing it. Maybe one of the most used and...
Key tax policies emanating from the east and west coasts are like passenger trains passing one another heading in opposite directions. One train is loaded with elected officials proposing changes to reduce taxes while the other is packed with those pushing for new and higher taxes. The cumulative effect of those modifications will impact all of us and our economy, jobs and ability to compete as a state and nation. The adjustments will determine whether we grow, limp along or wither away. Make no mistake, they will impact our pocketbooks and...
Feeder Canal, Coulee Dam, Washington - Columbia Basin Project. View taken from the left of centerline a camera station 93+90+ atop the chute wall, looking upstream, showing the turbulence below the overflow structure. This photograph was taken by U.S. Bureau of Reclamation photographers on May 21, 1954. The contractor is L.D. Shilling Company under Specifications No. DC-4055. - May 21, 1954 photo...
In a fine example of disfunction, the current failure of local government to get a simple thing done should lead reasonable people to look for an alternative. It sounds like a simple matter. Some repairs are needed, and called for by the insurers, at the local refuse transfer station operated on behalf of the four local towns by the Regional Board of Mayors. But the process necessary for the RBOM to actually do anything legally requires the ratification of four municipal councils — four legislative bodies designed to deliberate city b...
In May, the Sinclair Broadcast Group — one of the largest owners of TV stations in the country — announced plans to spend $3.9 billion to acquire Tribune Media, parent company of 42 TV stations located in larger markets like Chicago and Los Angeles. The resulting merger would create a broadcasting behemoth of more than 230 stations, reaching some 72 percent of the television viewing audience coast-to-coast. The Federal Communication Commission and the Justice Department are both currently reviewing the deal, as well they should. If the pur...
When President Trump’s administration announced that it would give six months to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, many young people called “Dreamers,” immigrants who grew up in the U.S., were once again faced with uncertainty regarding their future here. In Washington State, there are about 17,000 Dreamers. I have sat down with some of these young people right here in Central Washington, and their stories are compelling. Many were brought here as young children without their say or knowledge, and have grown...
That day is still vivid in my memory. This past Monday, September 11, Patriot Day, marked one of those days in American history we should never forget. Much like Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941; JFK’s Assassination November 22, 1963; and dropping the Bombs that ended the war, August 6 and 9, 1945, these dates are ingrained into our culture and our history. I relive the memories once a year, but I think about it often. I got up that morning like any other morning. I was about to get into the shower before heading to work at Colville Tribal E...
CCT History and Archaeology Dept. records show, left to right Vern Seward, Cashmere St. Paul, Alec Narcisse...
All of the things that went wrong in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 appear to have been corrected with Houston’s recent Hurricane Harvey. Chalk it up to a series of important lessons learned. By now everyone knows that Harvey came ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, dumped a record 51 inches of rain on 22 million people from Corpus Christi to Port Arthur, Texas, and sent thousands to shelters. The hurricane hit Houston, America’s fourth largest city and an urban area which accounts for three percent of our nation’s GDP. It had the m...
I got a funny feeling. We have all had it, and sometimes ignored it. Sometimes we have changed plans just because of it. A gut feeling, a premonition, women’s intuition or whatever else you want to call it. The fact is that we sometimes get these feelings and just know something’s not right, or that something is. Recently I have been stirred, something deep within me that is begging to get out. Not like in the movie “Alien,” where there was an actual monster inside, incubating until the right moment to burst through your chest, but a heartfelt...
In the Fourth Congressional District, the August district work period has been a busy time for me traveling up and down Central Washington to meet with constituents and hear their concerns firsthand. Many communities in our area are dealing with dry weather and wildfires, which are a constant reminder of the vital need for federal land management reform. I held a Forest Service Advisory Panel in Omak with community members, and the feedback I received is that the U.S. Forest Service needs to improve forest health through active thinning and bur...
The 12 rectangular outlet portals of the pump discharge pipes open into a depressed and enlarged entrance to the concrete-lined feeder canal which is 50 feet wide on the bottom, 125 feet at the top and 1.7 miles long. - April 27, 1950 photo...
Two developments among the Colville Confederated Tribes are encouraging because they should mean the creation of many local jobs. The first is still in the entrepreneurial realm of risk, but could pay off. The tribal effort to develop a crop other than trees to grow on its land, and to do it with what could become a growth industry product, has great possibilities. Hemp can yield many useful products but was outlawed in this country in the 1930s along with its psychotropic cousin, marijuana. By taking advantage of more enlightened changes in... Full story
If you have not yet made your choice for the 2016 volunteer of the year, you have through this Friday to choose between Donna White, Cheryl Hoffman and Archie Dennis. Drop us a note at The Star or go to our online poll, marked here in this article online.... Full story
Last February, the European Parliament rejected a tax on robots, but took the first steps to regulate their development and deployment. The legislation also aims to establish liability for the actions of robots including self-driving vehicles. Europe’s governing body, while rejecting the tax to be dedicated to worker training, overwhelmingly passed a resolution to study regulating robots. In an interview with Quartz.com, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he believes that the government should tax companies’ use of robots. That would tem...