Spokane likely to continue sending water to Airway Heights
The Spokane City Council will vote tonight whether to deepen the city’s involvement in providing water to Airway Heights.
Public Works Director Marlene Feist says the measure would update a 1984 agreement in which Spokane agreed to provide water in supplemental and emergency cases to the West Plains city.
Feist says Spokane increased its water exports in 2017 after the discovery of PFAS contamination in West Plains wells.
“We’re getting rid of the emergency provisions for recognizing that these are long-term permanent supplemental water for the community. And then we’ve made provisions to allow them to grow and to have ways that they can access additional water," she said. "This agreement, really we’re looking at additional water service and deliveries through the next decade.”
Feist says Airway Heights will use $15 million in state money to help it pay the costs of building additional and better connections to the Spokane water system.
Feds send more money to Spokane International Airport
Washington U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell says Spokane International Airport will collect $18 million from the federal government to redesign and rebuild its Taxiway A.
Spokane is one of seven in the state to receive money through the federal Airport Improvement Program, which the president signed into law in May. Spokane’s allocation is the largest in the state.
Lawsuit alleges improper staff behavior at Washington juvenile corrections facilities
Nearly 200 people have joined a lawsuit against Washington state for negligence after they say they were sexually abused by staff at juvenile prisons.
The allegations span six decades and more than 100 staff members ranging from guards to librarians.
"I think just the scope of this from the 1960s to the 2020s and the number of different employees involved really goes to show that this is an institutional failure in making sure that these employees are adequately supervised and that these really vulnerable kids are protected," said Vanessa Firnhaber Oslund, an attorney representing the plaintfiffs.
She says it's one of the largest-ever lawsuits of its kind involving incarcerated youth.
Nancy Gutierrez from the state Department of Children, Youth and Families, which oversees the facilities, says the agency gives inmates multiple ways to report sexual abuse and sends allegations to law enforcement.
Gutierrez says the agency has had a rise in tort claims in the past few months after the state lifted the statute of limitations for child sex abuse civil suits.
Washington health officials hope to continue testing kiosks
Washington state health officials say they’re happy with a pilot project that has provided free COVID and flu tests to people in underserved communities.
Kristina Allen, the community testing supervisor for the state Department of Health, says people can find the tests in high tech, climate-controlled vending machines.
“An individual would go up and interact with a touch screen and give a small amount of information in order to retrieve a test and it’s actually dispensed right out from there. If an individual is getting something like a PCR test, they would go ahead and self swab their nose and put the test back into the machine and then we have a courier that will pick that up and take it to a lab," she said.
The results are reported back to the donor.
Allen says the kiosks are most prominent in areas where people are less likely to have access to affordable health care, both urban and rural, including some in Spokane. She says local health districts and tribes have also added extras to the kiosks, such as naloxone and fentanyl test strips. She says more than eight thousand COVID tests have been dispensed.
The kiosk project is scheduled to stop at the end of the year after its federal funding runs out. Allen hopes other funding can be found to continue it next year.
WSU research looks for presidential debate-related volunteers
A Washington State University researcher is recruiting study participants across the political spectrum with the hopes of improving political discourse.
Paul Bolls, the founder of the Murrow Media Mind Lab at Washington State University, will record viewers' live reactions to the September 10 presidential debate. He hopes that will provide new insights into ways media can affect politics.
“I think science, particularly this kind of science, can be used to improve journalism practice. And maybe help us all think maybe more carefully about the consequences and effects of the way we cover politics and the way we as citizens talk about politics," he said.
Participants will complete two self-report questionnaires prior to the debate. They’ll wear rings used to measure emotional responses on a second-by-second basis while they watch.
The study protects individual’s privacy, Bolls says, and only uses the information provided as part of a larger aggregate.
Bolls is currently recruiting 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats between the ages of 30 and 65.
Reporting contributed by Doug Nadvornick, Ann Dornfeld and Rachel Sun.