Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Solar power is getting a lot of attention these days as our country strives to reduce greenhouse gases. Sunny cities like Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Antonio have ramped-up solar power production; however, in cloudy coastal municipalities such as Seattle, investments in “sun power” have been lagging. One reason is Washington is blessed with an abundance of low-cost and carbon-free hydropower which accounts for three-fourths of our electricity generation. Electricity from the Columbia Riv...
Solar power is getting a lot of attention these days as our country strives to reduce greenhouse gases. Sunny cities like Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Antonio have ramped-up solar power production; however, in cloudy coastal municipalities such as Seattle, investments in “sun power” have been lagging. One reason is Washington is blessed with an abundance of low-cost and carbon-free hydropower which accounts for three-fourths of our electricity generation. Electricity from the Columbia Riv...
In recent years, papermakers in Pacific Northwest have been losing ground. However, today there is a ray of hope. Surprisingly, that optimism results from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first days of the pandemic, grocers couldn’t keep toilet paper on store shelves even though paper mills were running 20 percent higher than normal capacity. Cardboard plants also were operating full bore making shipping boxes for medical supplies and personal protective gear. As Amazon and online sales ramp up bec...
America’s unemployment rate is suddenly approaching historic levels. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began almost two months ago, roughly 30.3 million people have filed for jobless benefits. “That is more people than live in the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas combined, and it’s by far the worst string of layoffs on record. It adds up to more than one-in-six American workers,” Associated Press writer Christopher Rugaber reported at the end of April. However, the Economic Policy Institute (EP...
As we get deeper into the COVID-19 pandemic, we are finding more Americans to thank. Until recently, truckers have been behind the scenes just doing their jobs, but as shoppers learn how groceries and necessities reappeared on shelves, they join the list of unsung heroes. Business Insider (BI) reported truckers are the reason America's grocery stores, online retailers, hospitals, gas stations, and even ATMs have remained stocked. They number 1.9 million. It’s estimated that grocery stores w...
If you think the run on toilet paper is just an American thing, think again. On March 10, Business Insider (BI) reported: “The spread of the coronavirus has brought with it panic-buying of food and household essentials, despite the attempts of governments to discourage stockpiling. But no item has made more headlines than the humble toilet roll.” “From buying enough toilet rolls to make a throne, to printing out blank newspaper pages to serve as extra toilet paper, people have had a seemi...
Nobody knows how deep the impact of the coronavirus will be, but one thing that it is destined to test is how effectively people will work from home. Washington is at the point of the spear. Of the 22 U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19, there are 19 in our state. To avoid further exposure, employers are encouraging telecommuting, canceling meetings, events and travel, and, taking extra caution to sanitize work locations. Seattle-based Alaska Airlines is among the carriers taking additional...
Last week, we visited the Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona. It is part of our National Parks “bucket list.” The trip was a real eye-opener. The Canyon is spectacular. It is hard to believe over a billion years ago it was flat ground and covered by ocean waters. In ancient times, there was too much water. Today, it is a deep gorge with a ribbon of water running through it. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, over a mile deep and 10 to 18 miles across. The famed Colorado River runs t...
The 2020 race for the White House is heating. It’s shaping up to be a referendum on America’s market-based economic system. The central question is government or the private sector going to provide our basic products and services? Last May, a Monmouth University Poll found most Americans say socialism is not compatible with American values, but only 4-in-10 hold a decidedly negative opinion of it. Americans are divided into two dominant camps – 29 percent have a positive view of capit...
While wind farms generate “greenhouse gas free” electricity, there is increasing concern over the rapidly growing number of worn out blades ending up in landfills. Those blades, housed on giant towers reaching over 200-feet in the sky, are starting to reach the end of their useful life (15 to 20 years) and are being taken down, cut up and hauled to dumps in Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming. Adding to the spent blade disposal problem is utilities are retrofitting existing wind farms with lon...
Keeping hospitals and health workers healthy is key to fighting diseases. With new and more deadly viruses, the job is more challenging. Although the coronavirus has captured the world’s attention, it is important to note the Center for Disease Control estimates that 80,000 Americans died of flu and flu complications in the winter of 2017-2018 - the highest flu-related death toll in at least four decades. The coronavirus outbreak is very serious. According to the New York Times, China’s Hea...
Government leaders, doctors, and medical researchers worldwide are working feverishly to stop the spread of the coronavirus and keep it from becoming a global pandemic. Wuhan, one of China’s major transportation hubs whose population approaches 11 million, is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak which is spreading like wildfire. Wuhan was put on lockdown. The fear is widespread prompting China’s government leaders to build a 1,000 bed hospital within a week. Professor Shenglan Tang, an exp...
A year ago, much of America’s heartland was inundated by Missouri River flood waters. At least 1 million acres of US farmland in nine major grain producing states were under water. More than 14 million people were impacted. Damage exceeded $1 billion. With 11 dams on the Missouri, why was the flooding so severe? Why didn’t the dams absorb the excess waters? If dams are above the flooded areas. The last impoundment is at Gavins Point Dams in South Dakota and heavy rainfall and snow melts were dow...
Employers are looking at additional benefits to help workers who are stressed out over paying rent, transportation and food, and student loans. Even though job numbers and wages have increased, too often there just isn’t enough money to make ends meet, particularly in high cost-of-living cities such as New York, San Francisco and Seattle. The anxiety is particularly high among millennials, people born between 1980 and 1994. They struggle from paycheck to paycheck. For example, young t...
With the new decade comes an international air pollution regulation which hastens the switch from high sulfur fuel oil to either diesel or LNG in ocean-going ships. The mandate drops the sulfur content from 3.5 percent to .5. While that number sounds trivial, it applies to 62,000 vessels worldwide. Ship owners and environmental regulators battled over the sulfur limit for years; however, starting on Jan. 1, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) implemented it as promised. It has a dramat...
As we launch into 2020 and the ensuing decade, Boeing faces very strong head winds which are major concerns for those of us living in the Pacific Northwest. Things are vastly different now. In my first column of 2019, I wrote that Boeing was poised to have its best year ever. It had strong tail winds propelling it. It would build upon a very successful 2018. Its 737 Max was selling like hot cakes to hungry airlines and plans were in the works to expand production at the Renton assembly plant....
Bridges shouldn’t have to sink to be replaced. However, at times that’s what it takes. Too often new projects succumb to years of fighting among interest groups and endless political bickering. In 2013, opposition killed Columbia Crossings project which was formed to construct a replacement I-5 bridge across the Columbia River connecting Vancouver and Portland. We all want more roads and bridges as long as they are in the other persons’ neighborhood and someone else pays. But that attit...
In the coming decade, investors are betting that hydrogen will become a prominent fuel which can eliminate CO2 discharges from the vehicles it energizes. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) the transportation sector has dominated the growth in US carbon dioxide emissions since 1990, accounting for 69 percent of the total increase. It is important that hydrogen technology advances rapidly because cars, trucks and buses are a growing contributor to greenhouse gas buildups...
Preliminary sales trends from Small Business Saturday show a continuing increase in smartphone purchases even among shoppers patronizing local merchants. According to the Associated Press (AP), Adobe Analytics said smartphone income made up over 40 percent of all e-commerce revenue on Nov. 30. That is up 22 percent from a year ago. Shoppers spent $3.6 billion buying online from small businesses that day. Small Business Saturday was started in 2010 by American Express to encourage people to shop...
In America, our Thanksgivings range from large family-gatherings to Good Samaritans volunteering in soup kitchens serving turkey dinners to the hungry. Now think about what it's like in other parts of the world where people are lucky to have a few slices of bread and some rice to eat. For example, before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it was that way for people living in Poland and Eastern Europe. Communist dictators tightly controlled everything from the farm to kitchen table and...
The grounding of the 737 MAX is testing Boeing’s resiliency. It has turned the company upside down in just six months. Boeing executives and engineers have been under duress since the two fatal crashes killing 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia and that is likely to extend well into 2020. What started as a continuation of a most successful 2018 for Boeing has turned into a prolonged migraine. Hopefully, the world’s most successful aerospace company will weather the storm and quickly con...
Just before Veterans Day, the last known survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor died at age 98. With the passing of George Hursey of Massachusetts, it closed that chapter of World War II---the world’s most deadly conflict in which over 60 million people perished. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941, “the date which will live in infamy.” During the surprise attack, 350 Japanese aircraft descended on Pearl Harbor and nearby Hawaiian military installations in two waves...
Now that President Trump’s impeachment process is formally underway, Democrats and Republicans need to avoid becoming completely absorbed by it. They must work together on other important issues such as immigration, health care, education, infrastructure, environment and trade agreements. Impeaching a president can be all-consuming and is polarizing. It is more prevalent today than it was prior to Richard Nixon’s presidency (1969-74). Before Nixon, only Andrew Johnson had been impeached and remo...
Our state’s economy and way of life hinges on low cost and reliable electricity. Since Grand Coulee and Bonneville dams were completed in the early 1940s, Washington has enjoyed both. We are accustomed to flipping a switch and our lights illuminate. Our state’s electricity supply is abundant and our transmission system is dependable. Washington is heavily reliant on hydroelectric generators----many of which are located in powerhouses on the Columbia and Snake rivers. Only during the severe dro...
Imagine tuning into the Sunday morning talk shows and wondering if the politicians and commentators could possibly find something positive to say about one another or the state of affairs in America. Unfortunately, there is a better chance of snowball lasting in a sauna. But suddenly on Oct. 20 there was a surprise: “BREAKING NEWS” moving across the bottom of the screen about an apple developed in Washington State. Television pundits ignored it; however, the internet was stocked with sto...
