Today's headlines:
- It’s the first day of school for many Inland Northwest districts, including Spokane. Lisa Leinberger goes to Indian Trail School, in the heart of the city’s recovering wildfire area, to check on its readiness for students.
- The Washington Department of Transportation plans a land bridge over Interstate 90 to allow better pedestrian access in the divided East Central neighborhood.
- Two members of the “Spokane 3” defendants found guilty of federal conspiracy charges are appealing their convictions.
- Audrey Nelson tells us about an optimistic future for Bonaparte Meadows, an ecologically-sensitive wetland area of Okanogan County.
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It’s back to school today for Spokane Public Schools. SPR’s Lisa Leinberger went to Indian Trail Elementary School to learn how it’s preparing for students who have been impacted by the Spokane Complex fires.
Melissa Skindlov is a parent and guest teacher at Indian Trail Elementary school. She knows there is a lot of work ahead for the community after the Spokane Complex fires. For the last month, she has been helping to deliver donations to families in need.
She says the first day of school couldn’t come at a better time for the students to spend some time with each other.
SKINDLOV: “I think that families need that and I think the kids need routine. I will say leading up to this, especially with my kids and some of their friends, you just see a sadness on their faces.”
Skindlov says families will need some extra support from the community not just a month from now, but six months from now. While she and other parents have been collecting kitchen items for many families, she knows that in a few months, the students will need winter items: coats, boots, hats, gloves and even sleds.
If you would like to donate, visit SpokaneCommunityResources.org.
I’m Lisa Leinberger.
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Two of the defendants known as the “Spokane 3” are appealing their convictions on federal conspiracy charges.
Jac Archer and Justice Forral were arrested during an anti-ICE protest in downtown Spokane in May 2025. A federal court convicted them in a high-profile case in June of this year. Now both are seeking acquittals or new trials.
Jess Marsden with Protect Democracy spoke at a press briefing Tuesday morning.
Jess Marsden: The motions that have been filed in the Spokane case, I think, lay out powerfully how nonviolent protest is deeply rooted in our history and also our legal system. It's protected and we should sort of insist in court that the courts defend those rights.
The government convicted a third defendant, Bajun Mavalwalla II, of aiding and abetting conspiracy. He filed his own motions in June.
The government has received an extension to respond to Archer’s and Forral's cases. Archer says they expect that sometime in October. After that, the defendants will have a chance to file replies before a hearing is scheduled.
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The Washington State Department of Transportation is planning to build a land bridge over I-90. As SPR’s Audrey Nelson reports, the project aims to reconnect Spokane’s divided East Central neighborhood.
Department of Transportation representatives and community partners have spent the summer visiting markets and council meetings across East Central.
They’re asking neighborhood residents to fill out surveys and share their ideas for the Liberty Park Land Bridge: a proposal for a non-motorized walkway across I-90.
LaGoo: WSDOT is very aware of what the freeway going in did to the East Central community. It split it in two.
Nicole LaGoo is a spokeswoman for the transportation department. She says that when I-90 was built in the 1950s, it drove a wedge through the diverse, working-class East Central neighborhood.
Because of that history, LaGoo says, the department is now prioritizing residents’ input.
The Department of Transportation received $8 million in state and federal funding for the planning phase of the land bridge. A construction phase is not yet funded. LaGoo estimates the department will finalize a plan by the end of 2029.
I’m Audrey Nelson reporting.
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Climatologists say the Inland Northwest will likely see the same sort of weather in September as it has most of the summer.
Catherine Fitzpatrick is a hydrologist from the National Weather Service in Portland.
Catherine Fitzpatrick: “The next three months, precipitation will remain below normal and temperatures will remain above normal. We have a 90% chance of a very strong El Nino. El Ninos are associated with snow droughts for our region.”
Much of the region experienced normal or near normal precipitation last winter and spring. But much of it fell as rain. That meant the snowpack in most areas was often less than normal and, because of the warm spring, the runoff came earlier than usual. Many Northwest rivers, including the Spokane and Kettle, are experiencing record low stream flows.
There is one glimmer of hope, says Jeremy Wolf, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Spokane.
Jeremy Wolf: “The outlooks are calling for slightly increased odds of below normal temperatures and also increased odds of wetter than normal conditions, so could be seeing some changes as we head into this weekend, but also even beyond that.”
Thursday is expected to be another dry and windy day in eastern Washington.
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Since March, the Okanogan Land Trust has been trying to raise $1.5 million to buy Bonaparte Meadows. It’s a stretch of rare wetland in eastern Okanogan County.
Weeks before an August 31 deadline, the campaign finally met its goal. SPR’s Audrey Nelson spoke with Kate Miller — who heads the land trust — and Julie Vanderwal — an ecological restoration practitioner — to learn what’s next for the property.
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AUDREY NELSON: Julie, why is Bonaparte Meadows important? Give me an overview of the environment itself and what that looks like.
JULIE VANDERWAL: Bonaparte Meadows is a really unique site in so many ways. The acquisition itself is 746 acres, and about 265 acres of that is a wetland, and it's a peat wetland. But it's not just any peat wetland. It's a really specific kind. It's one of the rarest wetland types—it's a calcareous fen. And that means that it has really unique chemistry, and this creates unique conditions for rare plants and a really broad diversity of wildlife to thrive.
NELSON: What’s the difference between a fen and a bog?
VANDERWAL: A bog is kind of like a bowl. It's holding water, and it's primarily fed by surface water. Whereas a fen has water flowing through it, and it's primarily fed by groundwater.
This site has statewide significance for a number of reasons. We're all feeling the effects of drought and extreme weather patterns now in ways that we haven't before. And one of the key things that we could do to create resilience is to protect our wetlands, because these are wet green places that change fire behavior and also store water so that our creeks and rivers and aquifers can have enough clean cold water.
NELSON: Kate, do you remember your first time walking through the fen?
KATE MILLER: It just gives every indicator from a distance of being a really distinctive and an ecologically rich place.
I got pulled into this project myself somewhere around the winter of 2023. I got a call from some neighbors to the Bonaparte Meadows property who told me that the then owner, the late Jack Jones, was putting it around in the neighborhood, that he was interested in selling the property. For a couple of years then, at the time, Okanagan Land Trust was simply not in a position — we had some other really big projects on deck that didn't allow us the capacity to pursue this.
And then Jack Jones, the late owner — the former owner died in early 2025. So there was a real feeling of like, oh, we need to do this quickly.
And towards the end of 2025, the strategy of combining grant funding with this private fundraising campaign came together.
So this spring has been kind of a breakneck, just race towards the finish line. And that finish line was provided, I should say, by an option agreement that we entered into with the landowners who are now the sons of Jack Jones. Right around the middle of this month, we crossed that finish line and raised all of the money we intended through this fundraising campaign.
NELSON: Reflecting on the success of that public campaign, what has the community's generosity meant to you? Julie, how about you?
VANDERWAL: Yeah, you know, it's been both humbling and overwhelming and just so encouraging to see our community understand that this site needs to be protected.
NELSON: I do want to pivot and kind of talk about the next chapter. So Kate, I’d love to start with — I know there's sort of a remaining 1.5 million, from what I understand, that you'll need to raise through various grants. Can you talk a little bit about what that will look like?
MILLER: Our primary grant opportunity is through the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office. It's a critical habitat grant, and we will find out the preliminary ranking of our project in relationship to other projects proposed throughout the state by the end of this month.
NELSON: Julie, once those funds come in, what is the vision in terms of what restoration and preservation is required for this site?
ANDERWAL: You know, we're really excited to work on figuring that out. So it's such a large site with such a complex history that the planning process is going to be really important. And so folks are curious right now, asking us, well, what does the restoration look like? What kind of techniques are you looking at? But we are zoomed out at a level right now where the most important thing is putting together our restoration planning team.
That’s Julie Vanderwal, an ecological restoration practitioner, and Kate Miller from the Okanogan Land Trust. They’ve struck a deal to acquire Bonaparte Meadows in Okanogan County. They talked with SPR’s Audrey Nelson.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Lisa Leinberger, Audrey Nelson and Doug Nadvornick, today’s host and producer. Web support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.
Thanks for listening to our podcast. This is SPR News.
