Today's headlines:
- School starts in the next week or so for some Inland Northwest districts. Lisa Leinberger looks at how schools in wildfire-affected districts are getting ready for students.
- Avista goes before a state committee next week as it asks for a rate increase.
- A Northwest energy committee says the region needs more power, especially from renewable sources, and soon.
- We talk with the arborist from North Idaho College about planting dozens of new trees on campus to replace big Ponderosa pines that have been blown down during the last year.
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Spokane is still in the initial stages of recovery after the Spokane Complex fires. But starting next week, students in the area are going to have to navigate another hurdle: The first day of school. SPR’s Lisa Leinberger reports.
Spokane Public Schools open on August 26. Last week, the district announced inspections and testing at the three schools within the former Level 3 evacuation area: Flett Middle School and Indian Trail and Woodridge elementary schools.
COO Travis Schulhauser explained the process in a district video.
SCHULHAUSER: We have professional organizations coming in, testing air quality throughout the entire school. We have the HVAC system being tested, and then we also have another company come in and do complete inspections of the facility.
The district has also said that displaced students may qualify for support through the McKinney-Vento Act that helps students stay in their original school and this includes transportation. Visit the district’s website for details.
At Gonzaga Prep, the school has a large collection of resources available to students on its homepage, gprep.com. These include backpacks of school supplies, food assistance and counseling.
In the Mead School District, students and families are directed to resources at Spokanecommunityresources.org.
St. George’s School, opens to K-12 students during the last week of August. It was also under the Level 3 evacuation. Once employees could return to campus, they quickly organized a community relief fund, said Head of School Jamie Tender.
JAMIE TENDER: We also have counselors, um, on campus, and have reached out to the families again, who have been displaced, asking kind of how we can support them.
If you would like to donate to St. George’s fund, visit sgs.org.
For SPR News, I’m Lisa Leinberger
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A Washington state agency is considering Avista Utilities’ request for a rate hike. It will hold a public hearing later this month. SPR’s Audrey Nelson reports.
Avista provides energy service to more than 800,000 customers across the Northwest. In January, the company asked the Utilities and Transportation Commission for permission to raise their rates.
If it approves Avista’s proposal, Avista estimates that customers’ January electricity bill would increase by $33 over four years.
Lena Funston is a communications manager for Avista. She says the company would use the money to comply with state clean energy mandates, as well as to improve wildfire prevention.
LENA FUNSTON: We work on things like grid hardening to create resilience in the existing grid. Things like replacing wood poles with steel poles, strategic undergrounding in areas that are more prone to wildfire risk. And we also have some tools that help us monitor weather-related wildfire risk.
The commission will hold a public comment hearing on Thursday, August 27 at 6 P.M. Avista customers can join via Zoom to share how rate increases might affect them.
People who are unable to attend the hearing can submit comments via email at comments@UTC.WA.gov.
I’m Audrey Nelson reporting.
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The Pacific Northwest needs to build more wind, solar and natural gas powered electricity, and fast, according to new recommendations.
Monica Samayoa tells us more.
The Northwest Power and Conversation Council says the region needs to generate at least 11 NEW gigawatts of energy by 2032. That’s more energy than the entire state of Oregon uses right now.
According to the council, data centers are a key factor. They use enormous amounts of energy and are built much faster than new solar and wind farms.
These recommendations apply to Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The region has never built this much new energy this fast.
The draft recommendations are open for public comment through October 16.
The Northwest Power and Conversation Council expects to adopt a final plan later this year.
Reporting from Portland, I’m Monica Samayoa.
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We’re thinking a lot about trees these days, whether it’s the tens of thousands of trees that have burned in Inland Northwest wildfires this summer…or the trees that have blown down during windstorms the last couple of years.
Those have J.D. Reeves’ attention. He’s the arborist at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene. He’s the caretaker for about 1,700 trees on campus.
J.D. Reeves: “I'm just looking out for the health of the trees, trying to increase the canopy coverage that we have down here, which is – we're going backwards on that, but, you know, that's not our fault.”
Reeves points to three windstorms in particular. January 2021: 107 trees fell. December 2025 and March 2026, 71 trees combined.
J.D. Reeves: “These windstorms have just been absolutely wiping out one specific tree over and over and over again, and that's the large Ponderosa pines. Our oldest in the last storm were about 150. We lost a few of those and, you know, down to the 80-year-old range or so.”
J.D. Reeves: “What we're looking at is now we have big openings in our canopy, and the next time wind comes through, it's coming full force onto trees that aren't used to it because they used to have other trees as buffers. When we get these high winds, these openings that have been created cause trouble for the next trees in line."
It was a significant enough worry that Reeves applied for a grant from an urban forestry program within the Idaho Department of Lands. And he got it, more than $82,000, to start to repopulate some of the forest on campus.
J.D. Reeves: “I've got all the trees picked out and all of that, and the grant is also going to pay for somebody else to plant them. We just don't have the time or the resources to do that down here while we're also doing our normal job. It looks like about 50 of them will be planting this fall. September and October is a great planting time, and the rest of them will be coming in the spring.”
Some will be Ponderosas, traditionally the dominant species on campus. But he has also ordered a variety of other trees.
J.D. Reeves: “There are about, I think, 13 conifer species that are native here in North Idaho, so that gives us a pretty good variety. That's Douglas fir, Grand fir, Hemlock, White pine, Whitebark pine, anyway, and other conifers, Western larch. We're going to be getting 25 different species in total, so that's going to be 12 species of conifers and 13 deciduous trees species. I am getting five species that we don't have at all, but we do that all the time. It's a tree here, a tree there.”
He says that mix will help the NIC forest become more resilient, less susceptible to pests and wind and disease.
Reeves says he’s been planning this project for awhile, even if he didn’t have the money yet to carry it out. He’s been thinking about the right places to plant.
J.D. Reeves: “Tree planting location really, really matters.
"A common problem that we as urban foresters run into is people planting trees like under power lines, close to buildings and things like that, lights and intersections, without considering what the tree is going to be like when it's at its mature size. And so that's partly why you get a whole bunch of trees that are growing under power lines that are just absolutely butchered. So to avoid that, people can just pick a smaller species of tree, which is always a good idea. It's important to keep it in mind, and utility checks matter, absolutely, even if you think you know where everything is in your yard or whatever property you're working at, get those utility checks called in for safety. And yeah, there's my public service announcement.”
I’m Doug Nadvornick reporting.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Lisa Leinberger, Audrey Nelson, Monica Samayoa and Doug Nadvornick, the producer and host of today’s podcast.
Thanks for listening. This is SPR News.
Web support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.
