Regional News

Today on Inland Journal, two segments about the health of forests in our region.

Later, we’ll hear part of a session from a Western Governors Association workshop conducted Tuesday in Post Falls. It focused on improving the resilience of forests in the region.

But first, this week, Washington state Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz released a plan to create a dedicated fund to pay for forest health and wildfire prevention. She proposes a surcharge on property and casualty insurance premiums. Her office estimates the increased cost for the average household will be a little more than a dollar a month and raise about $63 million a year.

A new statue was put in place in Redband Park in Spokane on Wednesday. Redband Park was formerly known as Glover Park in Peaceful Valley.

The statue is of a redband trout, a native fish of the Spokane River.

Sponsors of the project included the city of Spokane, Spokane Indians baseball team, TC Energy, Spokane Tribe, and the Spokane River Forum.

The forum’s Andy Dunau says the "Redband Rising" statue is designed to call attention to the fish, which has been in decline for many years.

The Coeur d'Alene Tribe has officially pulled out of a pact with the state to oversee the lake management plan and Governor Brad Little has asked for a third party to conduct a review and analysis of the previous lake management efforts.

Idaho Governor Brad Little says he’s pleased that state and federal agencies are making forest health projects a higher priority. The governor led a panel discussion Tuesday in Post Falls that was focused on natural resource management. That includes increasing timber harvests in the region’s federal forests.

The venue was a daylong Western Governors Association workshop to “Reimagine the Rural West.”

Leaders in the western states have a variety of common issues with which they’re wrestling. One of the most pressing, especially in southern Oregon and northern California, is how to manage the power grid when wildfire danger is high.

That was one of several energy-related issues discussed at a Western Governors Association workshop, held today [Tuesday] in Post Falls, Idaho.

The Spokane chapter of Habitat for Humanity is dedicating four new homes in Deer Park today [Tuesday]. They’re the newest additions to what will eventually be a 114-home development in the north Spokane suburb.

Of Habitat’s Hope Meadows' new homeowners, one is a couple with six children that migrated from Sudan. They’re part of a development that CEO Michelle Girardot says is about half finished.

The Medicaid program in Idaho will officially expand at the start of 2020. Voters last year approved an initiative that mandates that. State officials say almost half of Idahoans who are eligible (more than 43,000 out of 91,000) have signed up for coverage since the beginning of the registration period on November 1.

The state continues to negotiate with the federal government on a handful of waivers that would allow Idaho to deviate from Medicaid rules.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission has reached a partial settlement with Avista for a rate increase in gas and electricity rates.

The settlement also deals with the company’s plans to phase out coal-generated power for its Washington customers.

While nurses at Spokane’s Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center are making strike preparations if no agreement can be reached on a new contract, their counterparts at Providence Kadlec Regional Medical Center in the Tri-Cities have reached a tentative contract agreement.

Sacred Heart nurses are getting strike training, after mediation with Providence last Friday produced no breakthrough, say nurses' union officials.

Efforts are underway to beef up the steelhead breeding population in the Snake River by releasing adult females that have already made one trip to the ocean and spawned previously.

Unlike salmon, steelhead can migrate to the ocean and return to spawn more than a single time. But few of the fish that have previously spawned make it that far back upriver after their first breeding because of the difficulty in migrating past all the dams.

A new survey conducted by several Spokane organizations finds a real need for affordable healthcare in the community.

The survey quizzed over 200 people of low or moderate income who have received assistance from the Spokane Regional Health District, Transitions, The Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, and other organizations.

The Department of Ecology says Washington State saw a small decrease in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the most recent data released.

According to the latest data from the department, total carbon emissions rose 1.7 percent in 2016 to 97.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, then fell slightly in 2017 to 97.5 million metric tons.

November is National Native American Heritage Month, and the downtown branch of the Spokane Public Library is featuring an exhibit by local photographer Robert Charloe which showcases decades of his work exploring the experience of American Indians in the northwest and beyond.

The Washington State Board of Health today voted to ban an additive contained in vaping products that they believe could be responsible for a rash of lung injuries reported nationwide.

The additive is called vitamin E acetate. It's used in many vaping products, often as a thickening agent.

At a hearing in Spokane Monday, the health department’s Kathy Lofy described how CDC testing found the compound to be a common element in samples of fluid collected from lungs of 29 patients in 10 states with vaping-associated lung disease.

An astronaut who grew up in Spokane is part of the program put on by the Spokane Symphony this weekend in their tribute to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

The performance features three space-themed music selections, Holst’s The Planets, Berlioz’s Around the Earth in 90 Minutes, and Debussy’s Claire De Lune.

The Washington State Department of Ecology held a workshop this week to discuss ways that dischargers that release chemicals called PCBs into the river can meet legal limits of those chemicals, even though current technology is not quite ready to do that.

The so called “variances” would loosen the current standard of 7 parts per quadrillion for the chemicals that have been linked to cancer in humans by allowing the dischargers more time to meet those standards, in some cases as long as 20 years.

The Spokane Symphony is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing this weekend with a special performance that features three space-themed music selections.

Those selections include Holst’s The Planets, Berlioz’s Around the Earth in 90 Minutes, and Debussy’s Claire De Lune, with special guest conductor Roger Kalia.

Attorneys for a south Spokane neighborhood organization have filed a suit against the Spokane County Planning Department’s director for allowing a large development to go forward.

The Spokane Youth Sports Association has plans to construct a 20-acre sports complex in the Glenrose neighborhood.

Neighbors say that project would bring increased traffic, congestion and lights to the area and hurt its rural character.