Today's headlines:
- Yesterday, Greater Spokane Incorporated presented its annual economic forecast to local business leaders.
- A conference that focuses on the Columbia River is virtual this year because of tensions between the U.S. and Canada.
- SPR’s Doug Nadvornick takes a closer look at the cleanup of an abandoned mine in Okanogan County.
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The economy of the United States should grow a little in the next year, according to an economist who spoke in Spokane yesterday. SPR’s Lisa Leinberger was there.
Economist Steve Scranton told Spokane business leaders that the U.S. economy is resilient, despite sentiment polls that consumers are unhappy.
STEVE SCRANTON: “The other thing is that we see that it’s the upper-income consumers that are doing most of the spending, but we are still seeing spending overall from consumers. They are still the driving force of economic growth, if you want to understand the economy.”
He said the economy should grow by 2 or 2.5% percent in the next year, despite uncertainty.
Scranton expects interest rates will probably stay high, even if there is a resolution to the Iran War.
He said one of the causes of consumer uncertainty is housing affordability.
I’m Lisa Leinberger, reporting.
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Columbia River advocates are gathering today to talk about how to address cross-border environmental issues.
Their annual “One River, Ethics Matter” conference caters to environmental, tribal and religious leaders.
It’s a chance for people to talk about the progress made on projects, such as reintroducing salmon in the rivers above dams in the Upper Columbia River.
Carol Evans is the retired chair of the Spokane Tribal Business Council.
CAROL EVANS: “I truly believe that the salmon will come back. Our waters call for them, and they will come back because we're working hard and cleaning up the rivers, developing eco-based river policy, working together by finding common ground. Once we do all of this, we will bring back the salmon so we can heal.”
The “One River, Ethics Matter” conference is normally held in person. But John Osborn, a co-organizer, says the political chill forced the event to be held online.
JOHN OSBORN: “One of the reasons that this conference is virtual is because many Canadians will not come south of the border, given the toxic relationship that we find ourselves in today.”
One of the main topics of discussion is the agreement that governs how the two nations manage the Columbia River. It’s a 1960s-era treaty that both sides agree should be updated.
In 2018, representatives from the two nations began talking about how to do that. Six years later, during the Biden administration, they thought they had developed a path forward.
But in March 2025, the Trump administration paused the talks, and they haven’t been restarted.
Advocates say they likely won’t be revived until after the current president leaves office.
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The Spokane Indians baseball team has revealed a new logo for its ongoing partnership with Fairchild Air Force Base.
The design features a batter swinging a “boom.” That’s the part of a KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft that lets it refuel other planes in midair. Fairchild is home to 68 of these tankers.
OTTO KLEIN: “When we think about the KC-135, and we think about its success, and we think about what we have seen firsthand, the booms — as they’re affectionately known — the boom operators are just such a key piece to it.”
That’s Indians senior vice president Otto Klein.
The Indians have partnered with Fairchild since 2021. Klein says the campaign’s original logo was a cartoon of the KC-135 itself, which appealed mostly to kids.
OTTO KLEIN: “And so when we thought about, ‘How do we create a new logo and a new identity?’ we really needed to think about, ‘What group are we trying to appeal to? Is it all veterans? Is it baseball fans or is it specific military members?’ And what we settled on was, ‘We need to have that magic middle.’”
Klein says Indians players will wear hats with the new “Boom Man” logo during “Fly Together” Fridays this spring. Fans will be able to buy the merch starting November 18, and proceeds will benefit local veterans.
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The Mead School District sent a letter to Governor Bob Ferguson late last month, urging him to opt into the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit Program. The program offers a dollar-for-dollar tax credit to those who contribute up to $1,700 to a scholarship-granting organization.
So far, 32 states have opted into the program, including Idaho. The deadline for states to opt in is January 1.
Last week, we reported that the Spokane Public Schools Board of Directors sent a letter to Ferguson urging him not to opt in to the program.
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The U.S. is home to thousands of abandoned mines. Many are toxic areas.
A two-year-old federal law allows private entities to go in and clean up contaminated sites without fear of being sued. SPR’s Doug Nadvornick has more.
The first completed project is in Washington’s Okanogan County. This fall, Trout Unlimited led the way to rehabilitate Toroda Creek near the Bodie Mine.
K.C. Mehaffey wrote about it for the online publication Columbia Insight.
K.C. MEHAFFEY: When you break apart rocks, certain chemicals — arsenic is one of the ones that — just when it's exposed to air, arsenic leaches out, cadmium, lead, mercury are other common things to kind of be left behind after these mining operations. Unfortunately back then, you know, in the early 1900s, they weren't thinking about where they were leaving these tailings piles. And so they might be right next to a stream, and they're leaching into a stream over time or just sloughing off into the stream. So that's the motivation. Trout Unlimited wants clean water for fish.
DOUG NADVORNICK: So is the Bodie Mine a particularly bad offender when it comes to leaching a lot of these metals into the water? Or is it just one of many?
KCM: It's one of many. Corey Fisher, he's a Trout Unlimited Public Lands policy director, he told me this Bodie Mine is not even a big- or medium-sized project. It's kind of in between medium and small. He said he wouldn't characterize it as small since about 100 tons of material is leaching into this creek every year.
So it wasn't a small project in the amount of material, but it was a relatively small mine compared to some of the ones that are out there.
DN: And what kind of work did they do up there to make it better?
KCM: All they did was kind of move the dirt into a location that would be similar to a landfill. You put down some impervious material on the ground and then move the dirt on top of that and away from the stream so that — so that it's no longer sloughing off into the stream and it's no longer leaching out into the stream.
DN: So not a terribly sophisticated or complicated project. Is that a correct understanding?
KCM: Yes. He told me it was basically a dirt-moving project, and they got it done in like a little over a month, I think. They started work in September, and they were finished by the end of October. They had had a lot of the prior work done, like testing and finding where the rocks that needed to be moved was, and figuring out where it could go ... So they moved, I guess, about 790 tons of mine tailings from the stream bank, and within the stream bed, I guess, about 400 feet of the Toroda Creek itself also had this mine tailing in it.
DN: So he's got one project down. Do they have others on their list they want to do?
KCM: He said Trout Unlimited will probably apply for one in Montana next year. He didn't say which one. And this law only allows for 15 projects. He described it as a pilot law. So if they prove success and get 15 projects done, then they will go back to Congress and try to make it permanent. And on top of that, they're working to try to make it so that any new mining that occurs would have to pay a fee, to help go into a fund to clean up all the old abandoned mines that basically were left behind before we had any laws, environmental laws.
DN: So if I read your article correctly, the owner of the land went along with this — the owner wanted this work done, too. Is that correct?
KCM: Yeah, they had a willing landowner. I guess they still own the shares of the mine, but under no obligation to clean it up because they were not involved in the prior mining. They just bought the claim in the land. And so he said, yeah, they — he called them not a risk. He was not what they would call a responsible party.
DN: K.C. Mehaffey wrote about the cleanup of Toroda Creek, adjacent to the Bodie Mine in Okanogan County, for Columbia Insight. The concise name of the new federal law is the Good Samaritan Remediation Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2024.
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, Doug Nadvornick and Audrey Nelson, today’s host and producer.
Web support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.
