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By Loyal and Charlotte Baker DAYTON–We got out of Algebra II to watch the Watergate Hearings in the spring of 1974 (fifty years ago!) but were more concerned with other things as sixteen-year olds. Later in August, my vacationing aunt and uncle and cousins paid a visit to me on the job at the Green Giant Cannery, mentioning, oh, by the way, Nixon resigned. Except for it being my birthday, which was usually celebrated in the harvest field with birthday buddy Wincel Abel, August 9 was not that momentous to me that summer of 1974. I heard Nixon h...
By Bob Cox POMEROY––We have lost too many good people lately in Garfield County to sickness and illness – people who devoted their lives to Garfield County. Working on Main Street for 20 years, I saw the hard-working people that kept Pomeroy alive and well. All were volunteers who helped make Pomeroy a better town to live in and who honored those who gave back to our community. Whether it was the Chamber or Pomeroy Partners or SWEDA, they all worked for the good of our special place to live....
To the editor, When faced with controversial issues, it is my belief that a person should form their own opinion based on facts and research. When I became aware of the Appaloosa Solar project being planned in Garfield County, I researched the company and renewable energy in order to find facts and build an opinion based not on arguments but on research. Appaloosa Solar LLC., is a subsidiary company of HQC Solar Holding 1 LLC., which is governed by Hanwha QCells Co., Ltd. Although QCells has man...
Editor's Note: This article is continued from the June 6, 2024 edition. Author Gerald Barron of Save Family Farming (savefamilyfarming.org) presents data that contends the condition of the chinook salmon fishery is impacted by numerous factors and that "habitat," such as the four Lower Snake River dams, is not doing the most harm. By Gerald Barron Save Family Farming –Continued from June 6 The report quoted Katie Howard: "She says between nutrient deficiencies, disease, and heat stress, it's har...
By Eric McKeirnan POMEROY––When I occupied a younger body, and all the troubles of the world were my parents’ concern, movies and TV shows played a role in how I would see the world in future days. Since the recent verdict delivered in New York, a memory sparked from the past. It was a movie titled, “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” This land of the lost we now live in made me recall the gist of that movie. The story is about an honest and well-known lawyer (Daniel Webster), who takes on a client who has sold his soul to Satan. If memory se...
Is it possible that the most popular solutions proposed to recover Chinook salmon will fail if implemented? Most proposed solutions to Chinook recovery focus on habitat. Advocates seek to remove dams, convert farmland into large, inflexible stream buffers, and restrict or eliminate water access. This paper will introduce science studies important to this discussion. It will show: 1) Why most salmon species are flourishing 2) The causes for Chinook decline and failing recovery efforts 3) The prop...
Pam Lewison published an opinion in The Seattle Times on April 15, 2024 sounding the alarm of diminishing farms and food producing land. By Pam Lewison Special to The Seattle Times Fourteen farms a week vanished from Washington state every week during the last five years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released data from the U.S. Census of Agriculture and the numbers are shocking. Between 2017 and 2022, our state lost 3,717 farms and ranches. It also lost more than 102,000 food-producing acres. To put these numbers in perspective,...
OLYMPIA–The function and administration of the federal H-2A farmworker visa program is one of the most utilized yet least understood employment programs in Washington state. The H-2A program provides visas to foreign-born workers to legally find temporary farm work in the United States for up to 10 months a year. Washington state is among the top five users of the program. House Bill 2226, and its companion Senate Bill 5996 – concerning collecting data on the H-2A worker program and from certain hand harvesters – focus specifically on the w...
OLYMPIA–This Earth Day, I am reminded of the words of a judge’s decision regarding Seattle City Light’s claim that it is the “nation’s greenest utility.” After finding the utility wasn’t living up to its environmental promises, the judge admitted the claim was “mere puffery.” It could be said about so much of today’s environmental rhetoric. Washington’s governor Jay Inslee claims the state is a leader in cutting CO2 emissions. In fact, CO2 emissions have increased every year he has been in o...
BELLEVUE—With the Republican State Convention in Spokane fast approaching, three NEW common-sense initiatives to fix what’s broken in Washington are inspiring a renewed sense of optimism among conservatives and Washingtonians of all political leanings. The new initiatives would repeal HB 1589 that phases out natural gas, put an end to squatters’ rights, and eliminate sanctuary state policies that prevent local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agencies. The recent death of Washington State Patrol trooper Chris...
As Washington’s CO2 tax, known as the Climate Commitment Act, heads to the ballot this fall, this logo highlighting projects that received funding from that tax will become more prevalent. And you are paying for it. The use of taxpayer-resources to promote the CO2 tax follows the decision by the legislature to send one-time checks of $200 to utility customers funded by the Climate Commitment Act just two-months before the November election. It is part of a pattern we are likely to see a...
By Eric McKeirnan Special To the East Washingtonian If you read my stuff, you might remember that a group of people, some from Waitsburg, Tekoa, Pomeroy and the Tri-Cities joined about an equal amount from the wrong side of the state and went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2018. I will give you the” Boys in the Boat” version of that journey. If you saw the movie the “Boys in the Boat”, you probably watched a young man go to college, get a scholarship by rowing for the U of W, then go to Germany and win an Olympic Gold medal. “Yea!...
To the editor, I am just recovering from a month of agony with shingles. The most painful thing I have ever been through, and the very worst part, it could have been prevented if I had only had the shot. So, I am writing to encourage any of your readers who have not had the shingles shot to run, not walk, to the nearest health provider and ger the shot! Zonia Dedloff Starbuck, Wash....
By Eric McKeirnan Special to the East Washingtonian Maybe one half of the things that I submit, make it to the pages you are holding in your hands. The paper's edition dated, Feb. 22 ran a piece of how to arouse awareness politically and how to pull lefties back into the life raft. The editor attempts to persuade me to believe that my dictionary holds the magic words that can deflect hatred. I kinda wish she would show me which words those are, and exactly how those words are to be lined up?...
Spring, oh sweet spring, how your splendor bades me, with spectacle of green emerging from winters arms, bending into an explosion of color. Spring, oh sweet spring how your rain awakens what was once benumbed, welcome home birds red, yellow, green, blue, all afresh. Spring, oh sweet spring how you birth life anew, preparing for longer, warmer days of porch sitting and ice tea sipping. Spring, oh sweet spring how you tenderly sing of life renewed, to open the gate of hope, winding through all, near and afar. Spring, oh sweet spring, how you...
By Sen, Mark Schoesler, Rep. Joe Schmick, and Rep. Mary Dye OLYMPIA–The 2024 legislative session is now in the history books. After 60 days, in which 201 House bills and 180 Senate bills passed the Legislature, we can report a mix of great successes and disappointments. We fought hard for public hearings on all six citizens' initiatives to the Legislature. Closer to the end of the session, Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate reluctantly agreed to hear three of the measures but s...
As a farmer's daughter, and later during the first five years of my previous 19-year-marriage, a farmer's wife, the standing rule was to never say anything about how things were going, such as "How's harvest?" The answer to that was always "I'll tell you when it is over." I broke that rule. In a recent column in this space, I reported that I was finally well after living through one illness after another from last September through February, compliments of some of my music students. I spoke too...
By Roger Harnack Let's take a few words that should be on the minds of all Eastern Washingtonians concerned over efforts to breach Snake River dams - agreement, restoration and sovereign, to name a few. Recently in the White House, President Joe Biden signed onto the "Commitments in Support of the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative and in Partnership with the Six Sovereigns" agreement. The so-called "sovereigns" refers to the states of Washington and Oregon, and four tribes - the Yakama in Wa...
To the editor, I've looked at life from both sides now..." by Joni Mitchell A story told in our community is an older adult female went to CC Rural Public library and was immediately confronted by a large display featuring a book opened to a page with sexual images. She was upset, especially for the children. The library had been a place she enjoyed going to. Being of a similar generation I understand her shock at seeing a book with sexual content on display. It didn't happen when we were...
OLYMPIA–Back in February 2020, I met Puddles, Washington state's first mussel detection dog, and her handler, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Pam Taylor. A rescue dog from a shelter in California, Puddles, a Jack Russell terrier mix, was brought to Washington state in 2019 and trained to sniff out zebra and quagga mussels. The mussels are smaller than a thimble. In 2020, while working the boat check station on the Washington-Idaho border near Spokane, Puddles discovered i...
The week of Feb. 19-23 could have been called "budget week," as the Senate held public hearings or approved its version of the three state supplemental budgets (operating, capital, and transportation) that adjust the two-year spending plans passed by the Legislature last spring. The first to emerge was the capital budget, which was passed by the Senate 49-0 on Feb. 22. The Senate's capital budget is about priorities over pork. It addresses important needs, including helping communities in...
This morning, I sat at my desk in Dayton to begin the editing process for this week's Dayton Chronicle and East Washingtonian, and for the first time since the beginning of January, I have a clear mind–or clearer than what I had become used to-I no longer feel like a walking zombie. Since school began in September, my students have brought to me a new ailment each week-some type of cold, flu, sinus issue, and headache, all of which is compounded by my seven-day-a-week, 16-hour-a-day schedule (...
OLYMPIA–It is with a mix of encouragement and disappointment that the Senate majority leader says four of the six citizen initiatives to the Legislature "might" have public hearings scheduled before the end of the 2024 session. But don't hold your breath. We are now nearly two-thirds into a 60-day session, with only a handful of committee meetings remaining before adjournment on March 8. Despite repeated efforts by Republicans asking for majority Democrats to hold hearings on the initiatives, w...
Have you noticed the same ol’ message; that of what is constantly rehearsed in the media over and over and over again, has become so very tiresome? It sure has with me. I am tired of hearing how awful the right is, and, in turn, how awful the left is, and how they are wrong and we are right and vice versa. It seems for the last two decades, the ability to express one’s opinion has been slowly and methodically stifled. An opposing opinion becomes racist, transphobic, antisemitic, misogynistic, or whatever the latest trend is to close the door of...
OLYMPIA–Several days ago, the Wall Street Journal issued a report about California's "soaring electricity rates." Average residential rates for investor-owned utility customers have surged by 72% to 127% over the past 10 years. About 2.5 million households in California are behind on their bills, averaging $733 in arrears. According to the Energy Information Administration, California has the second highest average retail price for electricity at $.22 per kilowatt hour. Fuel prices in C...