WACD Reading List

The Northwest's Bull Kelp fields support a wide array of sea life, but they're disappearing.

As wildfires have burned throughout the Northwest this summer, some forest stands have fared better than others. Managers say that’s thanks, in part, to thinning and prescribed burns, which have made the stands more resilient in the face of wildfire. “What we’re trying to do is get our stands into the structure of what they used to be,” said Pat Ryan, Northeast region state lands assistant manager with the Washington Department of Natural Resources, referring to an era when forests were less dense.

Many Washington state educators feel the hot-button term is being unduly conflated with teaching anything about race and racism.

"Equity" literally means "the quality of being fair." While "equality" relies on the virtue of sameness, "equity" recognizes that different people may need different tools and accommodations to accomplish the same goal. Sameness may still be the ultimate goal (sameness in opportunity, in dignity, in access to physical or monetary resources), but to get there, different processes may be required, just as Pachovas needed different accommodations to have equal access to his college's sidewalks and buildings. Equity recognizes that treating different people the same can be just as unfair as treating the same people differently.

The Twenty Five Mile Fire is now burning almost 10,000 acres at Lake Chelan north of Wenatchee. It’s also threatening more than 720 homes with evacuation notices, with many of them at the highest level where people are asked to leave immediately. Ryan Rodruck with the state Natural Resources Department says the weather this weekend could present a challenge to firefighters.

Whoosh Innovations said its fish passage system could transport salmon quickly over the Snake River dams – and generate $60 million over 10 years by diverting water from fish ladders to hydropower turbines. One Northwest company thinks it may have a better way to help adult salmon make it up and over the Snake River dams.

An Asian giant hornet nest was found Thursday in Whatcom County, Wash., about one-quarter mile from where a hornet was sighted earlier this month, according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture. Department entomologists will develop a plan to eradicate the nest, which is in a rural area east of Blaine near the Canadian border. The eradication likely will be next week, the department said.

With temperatures soaring in the triple digits, the National Weather Service in Seattle issued a Red Flag Warning for Lewis County and other areas of Western Washington on Sunday.  The …

How to be a caring and thoughtful leader while holding your team to high standards.

CONCONULLY – The Muckamuck Fire flirted with Conconully and cleared out the town on Sunday, Aug. 15, but flames were kept at bay and, as of Monday morning, were headed toward West Fork Salmon Creek. The blaze is one of more than a dozen burning in Okanogan and Ferry counties.

A large, new portion of the Twenty-Five Mile Fire at Lake Chelan is now under the most intense evacuation status. The length of 1st Creek Road, which is west of Lake Chelan State Park, is under a Level 3 (Go Now) condition, as is most fire’s footprint along and east of Lakeshore Road to the north

The Biden administration is recommending booster doses for most Americans who received a coronavirus vaccine in order to combat waning immunity and the prevalence of the delta variant. In a joint statement Wednesday, top administration health officials said people would need boosters beginning eight months after their second dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine.

Strong winds on Monday led to fire growth in central and eastern Washington that prompted new mandatory evacuations and burned homes, fire officials said. A fire northwest of Spokane that started Sunday near the town of Ford caused residents to scramble to leave their homes on Monday, The Spokesman-Review reported.

FORD, Wash. — The Corkscrew Fire in Ford, Washington destroyed 20 buildings, including eight homes, as it grew to more than 13,000 acres. The fire is located 16.5 miles west-southwest of Deer Park. It's being called the Corkscrew Fire and is burning in timber, grass and brush. This has caused several evacuations in the area.

Even if you can’t smell it, that doesn’t mean it’s not impacting you. “Your nose is not a good tool,” said Emily Fischer, an atmospheric scientist and associate professor at Colorado State University.

A wildfire raced through more than 6,000 acres Monday east of Ford and filled the horizon north of Spokane with a wall of smoke. Fire officials called for the immediate evacuations of Ford and several communities as fire threatened hundreds of buildings.

Nonprofit organizations are more vulnerable than ever to fraud or errors in the organization’s financial statements. With employees, management, and board members focused on helping people in the communities the nonprofit serves, time and attention to key financial internal controls has more than likely been refocused to the organization’s mission and purpose.

For over four hundred million years, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi have been forming symbiotic relationships with plants around the globe. Found on almost every continent and in approximately 80% of vascular plants, these important fungi play a pivotal role in plant nutrient uptake in diverse ecosystems.

USDA Meteorologist, Brad Rippey, said much like the small grains, pasture and rangeland across the region have been hit hard by the drought and hot temperatures.

The region's hot, dry conditions are hampering efforts to put out wildfires. One of those is burning in Stevens County. It started in a building near Ford yesterday afternoon.

“I’m the most tenured person on my team,” my friend Joyce, a senior marketing manager, told me. “But I feel like a new hire.”

SPOKANE – Fire restrictions are being extended on public lands administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Spokane District and the Bureau of Reclamation in eastern Washington. The temporary ban was renewed Aug. 7 in Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Douglas, Ferry, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lincoln, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman, and Yakima counties.

Last September, we shared an article about the benefits of controlled burns and other Indigenous practices for wildfire management and mitigation. Now, the Bootleg fire in Oregon is offering up some more evidence to support that Indigenous practices could be lifesaving in a climate change-fueled fire future.

Portions of the Pacific Ocean cooled considerably in July, affirming that a La Nina weather system likely will form this fall, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center pegged the odds of a La Nina prevailing in November, December and January at 69%. Most likely, the La Nina will be weak, according to NOAA, though the agency estimated the chances of a moderate La Nina at 1-in-3 and a strong La Nina at 1-in-10.

The first live Asian giant hornet sighted in 2021 in Washington state was found attacking a paper wasp nest in a rural area of northern Whatcom County earlier this week. According to a Washington State Department of Agriculture news release Thursday, Aug. 12, the report was confirmed as being an Asian giant hornet, which are popularly known as “murder hornets.”