WACD Reading List

Of the 802,000 acres that burned in Washington in 2020, some 725,000 were scorched within the boundaries of the Columbia plateau, including around 600,000 acres of shrubsteppe habitat — an area nearly three times the size of Mount Rainier National Park. That was a lot to burn in a landscape already reduced by half from the original 10 million or so acres in Washington, lost in conversion to farmland and development. The acreage that just burned isn't "lost" in the same sense as ground permanently converted to other uses. It will recover, in different ways and in different places over time. Just what that recovery looks like is something the state Department of Fish and Wildlife is still working to understand.

Crews battled several small wildfires around the Inland Northwest over the weekend, many of them burning dry brush and whipped up by brisk winds. “I feel like we’ve been chasing fires, and particularly human-caused fires, since January. March and April have been, of course, the fourth-driest spring we’ve had since 1895. As such, it’s caused drought conditions for us in a lot of the counties in Washington and you know that Ecology has issued a drought advisory," said Angie Lane, the assistant division manager for the wildfire division in the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

Public agencies aim to provide service delivery in a professional, unbiased manner to the entire community. Generally, they do well providing services to the majority, but they might not always be serving the needs of all equally. This may be a form of benign neglect in pursuit of economies of scale. Attempting to tailor services at an individual level would be costly and time-consuming, based on what Alvin Toffler referred to as, “Diseconomies of complexity.” However, public agencies might be well served in achieving this mission if they altered their approaches in identifying socially vulnerable groups.

The 18 million trees to be planted over the next decade will increase woodland cover in the region from 17% to 20%.

Code Red alerts keep you informed by email, text, social media or even by phone. The alerts will inform you of emergencies like fire or flood, power outage or chemical spill. Also, non-emergency info that really helps plan your day like road closures, etc. Sign up and you choose which alerts you want to receive.

Manson Fire crews responded to two fires Sunday, both put out in a short period of time.

VANTAGE, Wash. — Firefighters have contained a fire that was burning along I-90 eastbound on Sunday afternoon.

As the state prepares for a difficult wildfire season, Avista Utilities has said it doesn’t currently plan to shut off power in efforts to prevent fires.

COVID-19 positivity rate is lowest among those who always wore a mask

Virtually no mandatory cybersecurity rules govern the millions of food and agriculture businesses that account for about a fifth of the U.S. economy. And now, the risk has become real.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington is set to reopen fully on June 30, or when the percentage of residents age 16 and older who have initiated vaccination reaches 70%, whichever comes first. The Washington State Department of Health said on Thursday that 63% of eligible adults have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah said he hopes the new incentives Gov. Inslee announced on Thursday will help push the state closer to the 70% reopening goal.

The Inland Northwest got a double whammy of grim news recently as forecasters predicted significant wildfire risk through this summer and the Washington Department of Ecology issued its first-ever drought advisory for much of the state. The period from February through May 24 saw the least amount of rain in Spokane since record keeping began in 1881, says Jeff Marti, water resources planner at Ecology. March and April specifically were the fourth-driest those months have been since 1895. "That is alarming," says Angie Lane, assistant wildfire division manager for the state Department of Natural Resources. "That area in Central and Eastern Washington is going to be above normal temperatures, below normal precipitation, and that sets us up for potential for significant fires all through the summer."

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley warned that difficult days are ahead for Oregonians after they emerged Friday from a wildfire briefing with federal and state officials. Fire season is picking up speed as higher temperatures and severe drought conditions have already contributed to at least three wildfires that burned in different parts of the state. That has federal, state and local fire officials on high alert, as Wyden said “They have been working around the clock now for months to deal with the very difficult days that are ahead for Oregonians.” Both U.S. senators said they have shifted their priorities this wildfire season. They said they want to make sure federal money set aside for fire prevention funds does not get tapped for other uses, as unprecedented events like last year’s wildfires are costing the state more and more money to fight.

“The more lead time people have to be aware of what’s likely to come their way, the more lead time — we think, we hope — they have to protect themselves and their health,” Dhammapala says. When smoke is incoming, Seattleites can plan to purchase equipment like box fans, filters and N95 masks; reschedule activities; or even plan to evacuate. Less than a year later and just in time for wildfire season, Ecology has a new tool in its toolbelt. The new five-day automated smoke forecast is accessible as part of Ecology’s online smoke map, with days three through five similar to the existing two-day forecast, but using slightly different streams of information. Users can anticipate average daily air quality conditions in 53 separate zones across the state, each pegged to real-time air quality monitors (measuring things like health-affecting ozone and fine particulate matter) and air quality management regions. When it soft-launched with the five-day forecast Tuesday, the map became the first available automated five-day smoke forecast tailored to Washington.

But beneath fields covered in tightly knit rows of corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops, a toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is wreaking havoc, according to our newly published analysis in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science. The study, the most comprehensive review ever conducted on how pesticides affect soil health, should trigger immediate and substantive changes in how regulatory agencies like the EPA assess the risks posed by the nearly 850 pesticide ingredients approved for use in the U.S.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said while the source of the patient's exposure to the H10N3 virus was not known and no other cases were found among the local population, there was no indication of human-to-human transmission yet. Yet avian influenza viruses that have little impact on birds can be much more serious in people, such as the H7N9 strain that killed almost 300 people in China during the winter of 2016-2017. The WHO has said there had been only rare instances of person-to-person spread of the H7N9 virus.

Joe Del Bosque is leaving a third of his 2,000-acre farm near Firebaugh, California, unseeded this year due to extreme drought. Yet, he hopes to access enough water to produce a marketable melon crop.

“You can learn more from speaking to someone in 15 minutes than spending your life doing something. I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do by watching other people,” he said.

Our natural tendency to add rather than subtract stems, in part, from it being much harder to “demonstrate competence by subtracting,” Klotz explains. Monumental feats of architecture, like the Great Pyramids and Great Wall of China, stick in our minds because of their grand scale, and are integral to how towering civilizations demonstrated their superiority.

Nearly all of Washington is in moderate to severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Eastern Washington is mostly a dryland farming region. Producers don’t divert water or irrigate their fields with sprinklers. Their plants can’t grow without rain. “We can’t turn on the irrigation,” Whitman County farmer Gary Bailey said. “Mother Nature does that for us, and she seems to have taken a break this year.” Farmers can see signs of the drought already.

Berg is a dryland wheat farmer in the sweeping Horse Heaven Hills of south-eastern Washington. She shows off one head of half-turned golden wheat amid a sea of them. Besides being too short, the plant’s kernels didn’t fill out properly. “See how the wheat head is curled like that?” Berg asks. “And then you break into it, you might have some berries down here, but this will be empty. There is no wheat inside the wheat head. It’s a sad situation. It’s farming though. You know, thank goodness for crop insurance.”

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 26, 2021--Today, NuScale Power and Grant County Public Utility District (Grant PUD) announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to evaluate the deployment of NuScale’s advanced nuclear technology in Central Washington. The agreement underscores the increasing demand for innovative small modular reactors (SMRs) to provide communities with reliable and affordable clean energy.

Local agencies can verify vaccination status for employees and visitors by asking to see a copy of a vaccination record, having a person sign a form saying they are vaccinated, or allowing a person to just tell them they’ve been vaccinated and 'checking a box.' For employees, make sure your process complies with the requirements on pages 13-14 of DOSH Directive 1.70. However, be aware of medical privacy laws; only ask for the minimum information you need (vaccinated or not — or have an exemption) to decide whether to provide services in person or by some other method. Don’t keep a copy of a medical record if you don’t have a good business reason to do so — just have staff ask to see the document and document that you’ve seen it.

Bees play a critical role in ecosystem health and sustainability across the globe. They pollinate flowers, trees and other plants that in turn provide food and habitat for other creatures. Their role in pollinating agricultural crops is invaluable. But recently scientists have observed that many pollinating species, including wild bees, are declining in range or abundance and the Midwest United States has among the lowest predicted bee abundance.

The Pacific Northwest has a Mediterranean climate, with wet winters and very dry summers. Thus, it is important for us to approach summer with full reservoirs, ample mountain snowpack (which provides melt water during the summer and early fall), and a nice late spring dousing to wet down the vegetation and soils. And it looks like we will have all three.

NESPELEM — The Colville Business Council has lifted all public safety measures instituted last year to protect the community from COVID-19. A resolution first passed March 25, 2020, imposed multiple public safety measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, including the closure of the Colville Indian Reservation and limits on gathering sizes. The measures were extended on multiple occasions as the pandemic continued to remain a threat. The tribe announced May 21 that all restrictions were lifted immediately.

Hesitancy to get vaccinated against the coronavirus has justifiably drawn considerable attention because some counties and neighborhoods are lagging far behind in the campaign to stamp out COVID-19. Less often do you hear about the COVID-19 vaccination overachievers. In recent weeks, pockets of the Pacific Northwest have exceeded the threshold for community immunity. But the variability of inoculation rates across the region limits the protection earned, according to health officials.

May is Wildfire Awareness Month and the State Fire Marshal’s Office is reinforcing the importance of being prepared after 2020 saw more than 1,500 wildfires that burned over 823,000 acres in Washington. Deputy State Fire Marshal Robert Wittenberg said residents should prepare in part by putting together both an evacuation plan and a family communication plan, which designates an out-of-area friend or relative as a point of contact in case your family is separated.

Labor and Industries is responsible for keeping the workplace safe. Their guidelines say employers must confirm the vaccination status of employees before allowing them to take off their masks and no longer socially distance. While the employer doesn’t need to keep a copy of the vaccination card or an attestation letter, they do need to keep a record that it was checked, and use the same method for all employees.