Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 37 - 61 of 3750
I’ve read many letters about windmills recently, but I’ve missed hearing the views of some of the key players. I’d like to hear more from the farmers considering installing windmills. We need to hear more from farmers because they play a vital role in the Palouse economy but face escalating challenges. The unpredictable weather exacerbated by climate change means farmers must explore all options to sustain themselves financially. Wind power income would help. My nightmare scenario is not windmills but bankrupt farmers, no food, and a depre...
To whomever okayed the placement of Roger Sandberg’s sign on the West side ground of the Four Star Service building here in Colfax, as long as that sign stays up, I predict you will see: • Mr. Sandberg lose potential voters. • Four Star lose, at its stores, present and potential customers. It would be tragic if great workers like the ones Bobby Lowe has in the Colfax store and shop would suffer because of this decision, although I wouldn’t go anywhere else. It’s all just basic Marketing/PR 101, or if you missed that class, common sense wou...
If stats could have been kept at Bronings, now Corbeill’s Funeral Home, of whose name appeared on the top line of the book in the Visitation Room of this facility, most of us would know the answer immediately: our old and recently departed friend, Jim Repp. It was uncanny how he could do that and of course he wasn’t interested in any record. I believe he did what he did to show the family, other friends, former or present colleagues, etc. his friendship and thankfulness for knowing the deceased. Or maybe Jim didn’t know the deceased at all a...
I’m not necessarily against wind turbines, I’m against the horrible placement of them around Kamiak Butte and so many residences, one of them being mine. Mary Dupree, I don’t want a 699-foot-tall wind turbine in my back yard; or in anyone’s yard. Do you want one? If so, please call Harvest Hills and ask for a piece of the government subsidized pie you find so heroic. While I worry about the animals they will affect, I worry more about the health and financial repercussions of having these located so close to our homes. The setbacks are ridicul...
Recently, Harvest Hills Wind introduced us to their intended development of an industrial wind complex of 45 turbines in the vicinity of Kamiak Butte. They have presented themselves as wanting to be good neighbors and to work with our communities. Harvest Hills has told us they want to benefit us by expanding our tax base, helping our schools and providing new jobs to the area. Harvest Hills. Sounds nice doesn’t it? Power for 90,000 homes and new money for the county, how wonderful. What’s a few wind turbines among friends? Aren’t they supposed...
Thank you to Travis Frei for his excellent article. Congratulations to Harvest Wind. You were able to find greedy & gullible land owners to sign your contracts for wind turbines. Did the signers read the fine print? You insult the intelligence of those of us who love and respect our land if you think we believe the propaganda you put out. Do you think we believe that you care about our community? If you did care and you see the large opposition you would do us a favor and leave where you are not wanted or needed. To those of you that are so pro...
This year we have witnessed legislators and courts, totally ignorant of female reproductive biology, impose their ideological beliefs on women’s bodies, unfazed by the suffering that has followed. Now we are subjected to witnessing Republican house members attack Dr. Anthony Fauci, slandering his leadership during the Covid epidemic, second guessing the team that brought us the vaccines that got us out of that disaster, showing us they know diddly squat about science and medicine. What’s next? Well, check out Project 2025, coming to you if MAG...
Being a generational landowner in the area designated for wind turbines, I am not opposed to them when thoughtfully placed. Eastern Whitman County is shockingly illogical. Why place the largest of turbines in a populated rural region with high crop yields, adjacent to Kamiak Butte, a thoroughly utilized park in a region photographed worldwide for its astounding beauty? Shocking in placement and proposed size, Harvest Hills has a contracted filing with the FAA for 70 sights with an additional 25 listed as alternates. Turbines will be 699’ (94 ft...
Transitions are hard. When oil derricks first graced the western landscape, towering over homes, these were greeted with mixed emotions, depending on who profited and whose landscape was blighted. Today we face conflicts as windfarms elicit similar emotions. The “No Wind Farms” signs posted around the Palouse are counterproductive, though. Communities must have a meaningful voice in issues of land use, wildlife impacts, cultural values and aesthetics when a windfarm is proposed, but costly delay only prolongs the inevitable. There’s a conce...
Landowners of Whitman County, be aware of enticing offers that Harvest Hills/Steelhead Americas is making to get access to your land for the Kamiak Butte area industrial wind project. You need to realize that they will sell the entire project after completion, they are not long-term partners. You are simply a tool they are using to tap into the billions of dollars of green money (taxpayer money) sprinkled about by the government. Keep in mind, they promise to “restore” the land after the lifespan of the project. There are major flaws with that...
As many of you know, each year your local American Legion, Codd-French Post #41 has been placing small flags at the graves of all veterans buried in the Colfax Cemetery. We do our best to put one at every veteran’s site. This is the first year we have done this without the leadership of Jim Lemon, our former Adjutant and Commander whom we lost on March 12 this year. We did our best to identify every veteran’s grave, but we may have overlooked a few, much to our regret. If you noticed that a small flag was missing from the gravesite of a vet...
I am a fourth-generation farmer in Whitman County and am writing to express my support for the Harvest Hills Wind Project. I know that some people in our community are having a hard time with the change, which is why I want to make sure all voices are heard. Farming is all about helping people. Our farm has provided food for thousands upon thousands of people through the years, and now we have the opportunity to provide for people in a new way. It is a really good feeling to be able to contribute to our community by providing the energy we...
Dear Editor, The “woke” have once again said right out loud what is their agenda, and once again it is being ignored by the mainstream media, because it is too evil to contemplate. They, the “woke” are advocating for “after birth abortions”. They are openly advocating for infanticide. They want to kill babies. In an article for the Journal of Medical Ethics, pro-abortion activists Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva state, “…after-birth abortion should be permissible. … [W]e propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather t...
Regarding the Todd Myers column published April 25, “Inslee using tax money to sell his tax policy.” First, I have living in Washington state for over 80 years. I have seen the climate change over and over; that’s the natural cycle. The climate will continue for the next 1,000 years. Inslee and his jack-booted attorney general are both card carrying communists, who believe everything you earn should be turned over to them. Inslee does not have the right to use taxpayer money to extort more money from the hard-working people of Washington state...
Dear Editor, Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have simply given too much power to too few people to hold for too long in America. Power has shifted from localities to states and from states to the central government over the past hundred years or so. This shift diminished the power of hundreds of thousands of state legislators, county commissioners, city and town council members, and local judicial bodies and consolidated that power in the hands of 535 Congresspersons, nine Supreme Court justices, and 1 power-mad...
Most Palouse farms are multi-generational farms. I recently heard a story of a 3 generation, 150-year farm from a landowner who has signed a contract to have windmills. I think the point of his story was that he is now proud to be the generation that ruins the beautiful landscape of the Palouse. Let me ask all windmill contract holders this, would your parents and grandparents be proud to know that windmills as large as the Seattle space needle are being constructed on the family land? Wind power money did not build your family’s legacy and y...
To build a new home in rural Whitman County, landowners must obey “viewshed” rules that prevent new homes from impacting the views and privacy enjoyed by their neighbors. They also must comply with “highly visible property” rules that discourage folks from building on hilltops. They must sign and notarize an affidavit acknowledging that farming comes first here, and that they and their heirs accept that. Neighborliness comes from the heart, not from laws. But I am happy to comply. I don’t want my freedom as a landowner to offend my neighbors...
*Regarding the article in the Gazette “Senator Schoesler keeping tabs on gun case” published April 18* Much as I appreciate the Gazette, political opinion regularly creeps into what I would prefer to be objective news reporting and I cringe every time. Here, the easy tell is gratuitously describing Mr. Johnston as “an unelected Supreme Court commissioner” (no parallel note that Bob Ferguson is Washington’s elected attorney general?). In fact, Johnston is THE Washington Supreme Court Commissioner, an important state office that he has upheld we...
The Whitman County Commissioners will be meeting Monday morning, April 29th, 2024. April 30th is the day that we all associate with the payment of our property taxes. Regrettably, our federal tax dollars are about to be used to reduce the value of our property and change life in the Palouse for the foreseeable future. Federal subsidies placed in the hands of powerful foreign interests intend to mark our beautiful skylines with obnoxious intrusions that will deface what we all love and provide no lasting benefit to those of us that live here....
Carmela Conroy gives Eastern Washington voters the unusual, important opportunity to elect a foreign policy expert as their U.S. Representative. As a foreign service officer for 24 years, she served in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Norway, New Zealand and Tom Foley’s Japan office. Voters must weigh foreign policy experience much more than usual in their 2024 voting decisions. Foreign policy expertise is also prerequisite for ending the tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Trump has accepted uncaringly. Like retiring Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, no...
In last week’s Whitman County Gazette, Vestas/Steelhead Americas/Harvest Hills Wind claimed their “goal is to be responsible to community” and “to partner with the communities”. This is disingenuous PR messaging and we’re not fooled. They do not have our best interest in mind. If Harvest Hills Wind truly wanted support for their project, they would have been transparent from the day they entered the county. A true partner would have initiated an early dialog with the residents of Whitman County on site selection, protecting land/home v...
Let’s have a look at the benefits of dams to human life with a special focus on Grand Coulee Dam. It is the largest hydroelectric producing facility in the U.S. and provides enough electricity to power about 2 million households every year, 68% of all Washington state households. Please keep in mind too, that it is just one of 145 hydroelectric dams in the state. Grand Coulee dam prompted the creation of the “U.S. Bureau of Reclamations Columbia Basin Project” which converted 670,000 acres (over 1,000 square-miles) of formerly arid waste...
Have you ever hiked Kamiak Butte County Park? Have you enjoyed the expansive views of the rolling fertile food-producing agricultural fields of the surrounding Palouse countryside? Did you know there is an Industrial Wind Company (Harvest Hills Wind) who wants to place 45+ ginormous wind turbines around the south and west side of Kamiak Butte? They want to place these monstrous machines (reportable could be 600-700 feet tall) in prime farm ground (which is designated as agricultural ground of state-wide importance). These wind turbines will be...
“Polluters pay. People get a carbon cashback” sums up the impact that the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA) would have. The EICDA was re-introduced in the House of Representatives last September and is currently languishing in committees. Briefly, the EICDA puts a price on carbon at the source of the fossil fuels – the well, mine, or imported tanker – therefore making it simple to administer and uniform across sources of greenhouse gases. It would take the revenue from the price on carbon and distribute it to every individ...
Most likely, very few Washington state residents have ever seen a starving child. While living in three African countries for 17 years, I saw a few children with kwashiorkor (a protein deficiency evidenced by extended stomachs and sparse reddish hair), but only once at the JFK Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, did I see a child on the brink of starvation. Believe me, it was traumatic. I wanted the medical personnel to hurry, do something, rush right away to treat this emergency. Today, we learn of countless children starving in Gaza and Sudan....
