Western cities lead the national movement for a higher minimum wage.
Washington
Posted inArticles
Washington’s Swinomish sue to halt Bakken oil trains
Many communities fight transport of crude oil through their towns; some find legal footing to succeed.
Posted inArticles
Drought persists in the Northwest, despite winter rains
Water supplies and drought outlooks are grim in most Western states.
Posted inMarch 16, 2015: Wild Ride
Latest: A Washington county puts the brakes on a new oil-train facility
In the wake of recent oil-train derailments, Skagit County wants Shell to do a full environmental review.
Posted inArticles
Washington’s wolverines stage tenuous comeback
The carnivores are recolonizing the northern Cascades, but they face an uncertain climate future.
Posted inMarch 2, 2015: Unite and Conquer
Big dig, big disgrace
A new mega-tunnel won’t save Seattle from the tyranny of traffic.
Posted inArticles
After a string of accidents, refinery workers strike for safety
Federal and state investigations have found lax safety practices at oil refineries going back a decade.
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Dry January means more drought across West
After a rainy December, many states now have lower-than-normal snowpacks.
Posted inArticles
Livin’ on the dredge: Army Corps mucks out the Snake
Do the benefits of barge traffic outweigh the cost of dams?
Posted inArticles
Salmon ground is holy ground
As bishop of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, my territory is home to the Columbia River, one of the great rivers of our continent. Whenever I have time and the Spirit allows, I travel throughout this region learning about its history and cultures, and studying its blessings and gifts. In Christian […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2014: The Dust Detectives
The Latest: EPA released final cleanup order for Duwamish River
A million cubic yards of toxic sludge will be dredged from Seattle’s only river.
Posted inArticles
Duwamish River to get $342 million more for cleanup
The EPA’s order aims to undo decades of industrial pollution to Seattle’s only river.
Posted inNovember 24, 2014: Transportation Transformation
Trains carrying oil raise tough questions in Northwest
As crude oil rail shipments increase, residents fear derailments and explosions.
Posted inArticles
Virus implicated in starfish wasting disease
A team of scientists have figured out what’s killing West Coast sea stars, but bigger mysteries remain.
Posted inArticles
Landscape-scale conservation gains ground
The Nature Conservancy just announced its largest Washington land purchase to date.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Utilities experiment on the rural Northwest
Real-time response to demand could radically shift how the grid operates.
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
Fear the falcon
A man and his raptors take on Washington’s dump scavengers.
Posted inGoat
Closure of federal sheep facility would be a victory for grizzlies
On the last day of August, 2012, a collared grizzly bear dubbed 726 by federal wildlife biologists vanished into the rugged Centennial Mountains on the Idaho-Montana border. A few weeks later, they recovered his collar near an established campsite. It appeared to have been cut, stoking suspicions that hunters may have shot the bear, a […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
How to publish a newspaper in the midst of wildfire
Rural weekly newspapers remain vital to their communities, and as a publisher-editor, it’s my job to keep readers informed about and connected around the things that are important to them. So how do you respond when nearly every means of doing that job is wiped out in one superheated burst of flame? In mid-July, what […]