Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 43 - 67 of 3749
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....
Close your eyes for a moment and allow your mind to envision Palouse Falls, one of the most scenic locations in our region. Now, alter this vision to include the construction of several 500-700-foot high wind generators, each located on private land, but placed adjacent to, and on opposite sides of the Palouse River as it cascades over the falls. For those of us living in Pullman, we might similarly envision one such generator placed conspicuously atop the Physical Sciences Building on the Washington State University campus. Now apply those sam...
Pullman might be significantly improved it turned into a golf cart community, where electric-powered golf carts would be allowed on all city streets. By having a maximum speed limit of 15 mph and speed bumps on all streets, Pullman would be a community where golf carts could safely mix with larger vehicles on the same roadways. Residents could set up solar battery charging stations for thier carts without having to use the 60-cycle, 110-volte electricity available from Avista. A community using a substantial amount of power from independent...
I am writing to those that have signed up for this travesty of windmills in our beautiful Palouse area. I implore you to think this through. Do you care about your future generations? Do you care about the destruction of wildlife? Do you care that your neighbors property will be devalued greatly? Would you like your property to be devalued which it will be? Out-of-area corporations are looking to make big money in our area. You won’t. Do you care about prime farmland being taken out of production forever? Do you think these companies will c...
Don’t you fact-check opinion columns? After reading State Sen. Shelley Short’s bizarre, March 8 pack of lies about Washington House Bill 1589, I see that truth is optional at Free Press Publishing. This bill simply removes Puget Sound Energy’s obligation to hook up gas lines to new construction. It does not, as Short says, “force 900,000 Puget Sound Energy natural gas customers in Western Washington to junk their gas furnaces, water heaters and stoves.” Nor does it make owners of old homes replace wiring, or force restaurants to refit old...
Among Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers’s negative legacies she leaves, her most impactful may be on immigration. However, she still has time to improve that. Donald Trump cares nothing about our country, just his election. Accordingly, he recently ordered all Republicans to scuttle the bipartisan, long-negotiated Senate deal supporting Ukraine and limiting immigration that would be a victory for President Joe Biden. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, an election-denier, obeyed Trump by withholding a full House vote despite enough b...
Public records must remain open and accessible A special report urges the mobilization of civic leaders, organizations, businesses and all residents to work together to save the state’s Public Records Act. The report is available online for viewing and downloading at washcog.org. State lawmakers and the courts continue to whittle away at the landmark public records law, which was adopted overwhelmingly with a citizens’ initiative in 1972. Since then, state legislators have passed more than 650 exceptions and have tried repeatedly to exempt them...
While driving down the road to I-90 from Cheney, I saw F-135 refueling planes circling around Fairchild Airforce Base. It occurred to me that there are many military airplanes waiting to be deployed. These airplanes could be used to avoid further starvation and death in Gaza by airlifting food, water and medicine in this war-torn region. And, to help Americans to honor our value for human life, we could send hospital ships like Mercy Corp, to the Mediterranean Sea to treat injured women and children, and of course men. Involving the military...
