Category: Our Environment

Posted inEconomic Security, Our Environment, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

LIVE from Seattle: Huge turnout for final scoping hearing on Gateway Pacific Terminal

by Andrew Villeneuve

This after­noon, the U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers, Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy, and What­com Coun­ty (the co-lead agen­cies) are hold­ing the sev­enth in a series of scop­ing meet­ings to deter­mine how to best pro­ceed with an envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment for the pro­posed Gate­way Pacif­ic Ter­mi­nal and Custer rail­road spur at the Wash­ing­ton State Convention […]

Posted inEducation, Healthcare, Our Environment

King (Err… Regent) Coal

by Patrick Stickney

A sign that nobody likes doing the wrong thing every sin­gle time, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Regent Craig Cole (a much-ref­er­enced-to coin­ci­den­tal last name)wrote an op-ed pub­lished in the Belling­ham Her­ald advo­cat­ing for increased fund­ing of our high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem. Craig Cole is also the Pres­i­dent of Brown & Cole, Inc. and the spokesman for SSA […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

Colorado gets new national monument thanks to President Obama; will Washington be next?

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er today, with the stroke of a pen, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma trans­formed one of Col­orado’s most beloved and best known sights — pre­vi­ous­ly pro­tect­ed as Chim­ney Rock Archae­o­log­i­cal Area — into Chim­ney Rock Nation­al Mon­u­ment, exer­cis­ing his author­i­ty under the Antiq­ui­ties Act of 1906. The move brings the site one step clos­er to the coveted […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

Wolves’ comeback breeds tensions

by Kathleen Reynolds

A con­tro­ver­sial and divi­sive fig­ure is rear­ing its scruffy head in Wash­ing­ton. Absent from our state for at least sev­en­ty years, the wolf is mak­ing a vig­or­ous come­back. And while Native Amer­i­cans hon­or it in sto­ry, ani­mal lovers appre­ci­ate its eco­log­i­cal role (not to men­tion its fam­i­ly loy­al­ty and intel­li­gence), many ranch­ers dis­trust it because […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Our Environment, Policy Topics

Republicans mock Jay Inslee for supporting companies that are succeeding

by Patrick Stickney

Con­tin­u­ing to posi­tion them­selves as the unapolo­getic oppo­nents of any pol­i­cy direc­tion with the word “clean” in it (clean ener­gy, clean elec­tions), the Repub­li­can Par­ty has nee­dled Democr­tic guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Jay Inslee for envi­sion­ing a clean ener­gy econ­o­my for Wash­ing­ton and for sup­port­ing clean ener­gy in his 2008 book, Apol­lo’s Fire. Accord­ing to them, every […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Events, Live Coverage, Our Environment

LIVE from Providence: Saving Public Transportation: A Matter of Social Justice

by Patrick Stickney

Although it seems like the ear­ly after­noon (still on West Coast time), it’s as good a time as any to talk about the nation­al pat­tern on defund­ing pub­lic trans­porta­tion and tran­sit’s place as a social jus­tice issue. This pan­el was a reminder about work which is being done back in Wash­ing­ton state by the Transit […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

Whatcom County residents gather to oppose proposed Cherry Point coal terminal

by Patrick Stickney

Res­i­dents of What­com Coun­ty came out today to ral­ly in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed coal ter­mi­nal at Cher­ry Point, weath­er­ing the wind and then hail as they voiced their force­ful oppo­si­tion to the project. The ral­ly was held before a pre-scop­ing meet­ing held to explain how the envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment of the pro­pos­al will take place. […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

U.S. Senate rejects the latest Republican plot to open the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling

by Andrew Villeneuve

Some good news for a change from the oth­er Wash­ing­ton today: The U.S. Sen­ate has resound­ing­ly reject­ed the lat­est Repub­li­can plot to open the Arc­tic Refuge’s Coastal Plain to oil drilling, defeat­ing an amend­ment offered by Pat Roberts of Kansas intend­ed to allow big oil com­pa­nies like Shell or BP to begin despoil­ing one of […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

ExxonMobil pipeline bursts in Montana, spilling crude oil into Yellowstone River

by Andrew Villeneuve

As if we need­ed anoth­er reminder that the oil indus­try is a dirty indus­try… An Exxon­Mo­bil pipeline run­ning under the Yel­low­stone Riv­er in south cen­tral Mon­tana rup­tured late Fri­day, spilling crude oil into the riv­er and forc­ing evac­u­a­tions. The pipeline burst about 10 miles west of Billings, coat­ing parts of the Yel­low­stone Riv­er that run […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Our Environment, Policy Topics

Grays Harbor Paper: 1993–2011

by Andrew Villeneuve

Grays Har­bor Paper, which has for years sup­plied the Harbor/100 paper that we at NPI use for our every­day print­ing needs, announced yes­ter­day that it is shut­ting its doors per­ma­nent­ly and lay­ing off two hun­dred and forty peo­ple in the process. GHP’s pres­i­dent, Patrick Quigg, released a state­ment attribut­ing the shut­down to the fol­low­ing major […]