Spokane council expresses concerns about nuclear waste trains
The Spokane City Council is expressing its displeasure at the possibility of trains carrying liquid nuclear waste through Spokane.
The council voted last night to send a letter to the regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency and Governor Inslee, among others. They say they’re concerned about the lack of outreach to the public about a change to the nuclear waste cleanup agreement between the federal and state governments.
The letter was drafted by Councilman Zack Zappone. During a public comment period, Dave Bilsland said the issue reminds him of past concerns about trains with dangerous cargo.
“I want to stand up and say, ‘Hell no!’ We will not have nuclear crap coming through this town. We have over 200,000 people in Spokane alone, 400,000 in the county that would be affected by a derailment," he said.
The council voted 5-1 to send the letter. The lone vote against was cast by Michael Cathcart, who thinks the city should send a harder-edged ‘no’ message.
“I don’t know that I’m willing to compromise on that, so I will likely be drafting my own letter that also asks additional questions and tries to get a little bit further in the weeds on this," he said.
Oregon state and tribal officials have also expressed concerns about the possibility of trains with nuclear waste passing through their state.
Opposing sides line up funding ahead of Idaho ballot initiative vote
The campaign to eliminate partisan primaries and implement ranked-choice voting in Idaho has amassed more than $1.1 million ahead of the November election.
Campaign finance data show the majority of money raised by Idahoans for Open Primaries comes from donors within the state.
More than two-thirds of that $1.1 million came from companies, trusts or political action committees.
That included big donations from the election reform PAC Unite America, Reclaim Idaho and the charitable foundation linked to the founder of Northwest River Supplies in Moscow.
Idahoans for Open Primaries hasn’t spent much just yet. It had about a million dollars in reserve as of Sept. 20.
Only two groups have spent money to oppose Proposition 1 so far.
One is a PAC called Republicans for Idaho. They paid $86,000 for billboards to defeat the measure.
Republicans for Idaho is run by two employees at online personal care company Melaleuca and lists the company’s Idaho Falls headquarters as its address. Melaleuca is owned by the state’s richest man and notable Republican operator, Frank VanderSloot.
As end of fire season draws near, officials tally the numbers
Washington had a pretty typical fire season this year, according to state agencies. But Oregon set records for the total number of acres burned.
It’s still a little early to say how everything wrapped up this year for Northwest wildfires. But the days have been cooler and wetter, helping crews contain wildfires.
The Pioneer fire accounted for much of the total acreage that burned in Washington this summer. The fire is still burning and has consumed almost 61 square miles.
Across the state, nearly 422 square miles have burned.
While that may sound like a lot, the Department of Natural Resources’ Thomas Kyle-Milward, said that’s kind of the number he expects. Four hundred twenty-two square miles works out to about 270,000 acres.
“Really 300,000 acres is not a terrible number,” Kyle-Milward told Northwest Public Broadcasting. “It's the fifth-fewest acres we've had burn statewide in the last decade.”
In Oregon, it was a different story. There, nearly 3,125 square miles (two million acres) burned. That’s the greatest wildfire extent the state has seen since the early 1990s.
Mapping Washington’s landslide-vulnerable places continues, slowly
It’s been more than a decade since the Oso landslide ripped through a river valley in central Washington, killing 43 people and destroying dozens of homes. But even years later, efforts to map potential hazard areas around the state are still in progress.
After the Oso slide, the legislature created a hazard team made up of five state geologists who use aerial data called LIDAR to study the landscape.
Program manager Kate Mickelson told KUOW public radio the group started in the Puget Sound region and have worked their way south, putting an emphasis on people and infrastructure near steep terrain. A new $300-thousand-dollar federal grant will allow them to complete their mapping in Clark County over the next two years. They’ve also stepped up mapping in parts of eastern Washington, where the potential for landslides is intensified by wildfires.
U.S. Rep. Susan Del Bene is pushing for more federal funding through reauthorization of the National Landslide Preparedness Act. That law is set to expire at the end of this month.
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Reporting was contributed by Doug Nadvornick, James Dawson, Lauren Gallup, and Bellamy Pailthorp.