Environment
Shutdown threat hangs over Washington’s national parks
People traveling to Washington’s national parks may be met with locked gates and closed visitor centers come Sunday. The National Park Service says most of the parks it manages across the country would close during the partial federal shutdown that is likely to start over the weekend. How exactly the situation will play out in […]
There are new proposals to bring back grizzly bears in the North Cascades
Grizzly bears could get another chance at returning to Washington’s North Cascades, under a framework two federal agencies unveiled on Thursday. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and National Park Service released a set of options to bring the hulking animals back into the area — a wild expanse of glaciated peaks, dense forests, and […]
Green renewable hydrogen needed urgently, leaders say, but industry faces challenges
This article was first published by the Oregon Capital Chronicle. To meet emissions reduction targets and tackle climate change, Oregon will need to build a clean and renewable hydrogen industry as fast as possible, according to state leaders. But they face challenges that could take years to overcome. That was one of the takeaways from […]
Washington Lands commissioner race gets even more crowded as Dave Upthegrove jumps in
King County Council Member Dave Upthegrove entered the race for Washington Commissioner of Public Lands on Monday, becoming the fifth Democratic candidate vying for the job of managing state public lands and forests. Upthegrove, a former state lawmaker who ran unsuccessfully for the lands chief job in 2016, created a campaign committee in May but […]
WA prisoners struggle with wildfire smoke as ventilation upgrades go unfunded
When the wildfire smoke arrives, Harry Whitman has nowhere to go. “When there’s smoke or there’s a fire, they lock you in,” Whitman said. Whitman, president of the advocacy group Black Prisoners’ Caucus, is incarcerated at Airway Heights Corrections Center. The prison is located less than 10 miles away from Medical Lake, Washington, where Gray […]
In new collaborations, tribes become stewards of parks and monuments
In a rural area of Michigan’s Thumb region, a small state park preserves a collection of sandstone carvings that date back many hundreds of years. One of the carvings, a figure with a bow and arrow, symbolizes ancestors shooting their knowledge ahead seven generations. Some might say that arrow landed in 2019. That year, descendants […]
U.S. Senate lawmakers grapple with Western drought
Decades of drought in the West has made water quality and quantity a major issue requiring government funding and innovation to fix, members of a U.S. Senate panel said Wednesday. Demand for water in growing municipalities is stretching agricultural and tribal communities, while shrinking availability is leading to higher water prices, witnesses told the Senate […]
New tree-planting projects to sprout in Washington with help from $36M in grants
Call it seed money. More than a dozen Washington communities will receive a combined $36.3 million from the federal government for urban forestry projects. The funding is part of about $1.1 billion in competitive grants the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded across the country last week to plant and maintain trees in urban areas. The […]
Washington Senate’s budget-writing panel gets a new leader
Sen. June Robinson, an Everett Democrat, was named Thursday as the new chair of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, the budget-writing panel responsible for developing tax policies and deciding how the state spends billions of dollars each year. Robinson, the committee vice chair for the operating budget and revenue the last three sessions, was […]
The latest clash over managing Washington’s wolves
Eleven conservation groups are asking Washington state to tighten its guidelines for when wolves that attack livestock can be killed. The groups are concerned too many wolves are dying needlessly under the current system. Their petition to Washington’s Fish and Wildlife Commission describes the existing standards the state uses to authorize lethal action against the […]
‘Marred by litter’: Millions of pounds of trash soil Washington roads and state lands
Washington has a litter problem. Nearly 38 million pounds of garbage and other debris were strewn across roads, rest areas and state lands last year, according to a new Department of Ecology-commissioned study. That’s nearly 5 pounds per resident annually. The bulk of the waste – about 26 million pounds – is found on roads […]
Searching for fixes to the farm fuel carveout in Washington’s climate law
Farmers and truckers say the state is ignoring their ideas for how to fix a troubled exemptions system that is supposed to shield them from fuel price hikes under Washington’s new climate law. The Washington State Department of Ecology launched a series of stakeholder meetings this summer to iron out the exemptions, which are available […]