Bonnie Stewart

 A Seattle think tank is questioning the financial stability of a company that wants to build two coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest.

A Washington man was hit with more than one million dollars in fines and cleanup charges stemming from a derelict vessel’s oil spill in the Columbia.

The Washington Ecology Department fined Bret A. Simpson and Principle Metals LCC, four-hundred and five thousand dollars for the spill and billed them for another six-hundred and eighty thousand dollars in cleanup costs.

Simpson was scraping the barge, the Davy Crockett, in the river near Camas, Washington, when it began leaking oil in 2010.

The public is getting thirty more days to comment on a proposal to move coal through the Northwest.

The new public comment period begins December first for the Morrow Pacific coal project. It would transport coal by train to Boardman, Ore. From there, the coal would be loaded onto barges and shipped down the Columbia River.

Five forest projects in the Pacific Northwest have been awarded nearly 10-million dollars in federal funds for forest restoration. Today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the funding and a new plan for managing the national forests.