Northwest News

The Washington coast is home to some of the strongest tidal currents in the country. Some want to harness those tides for power. Ashley Ahearn reports a proposed tidal power facility in Puget Sound is running into some trouble.

A Seattle-based seafood company has been fined 430,000 dollars for violations of the Clean Air Act. Ashley Ahearn reports for EarthFix.

Icicle Seafoods harvests and sells salmon, crab Pollock and other fish from the waters of the Northwest and Alaska. And one of the key components of catching fish and bringing them to market – is refrigerant.

The U.S. Forest Service has identified a firefighter killed in Idaho on Sunday as 20-year-old Anne Veseth, of Moscow, Idaho. She was struck by a falling tree at the Steep Corner Fire southeast of Coeur d’Alene. As Jessica Robinson reports, firefighting deaths fluctuate from year to year, but the biggest source of that danger has shifted.

Central Washington was considered at low risk for earthquakes back when big hydropower dams went up on the Columbia River many decades ago. But a recently completed seismic hazard assessment has found greater earthquake potential for the area than previously thought. Now the dam owners have to figure out how to respond. Seismic retrofits could cost ratepayers across the region hundreds of millions of dollars. Correspondent Tom Banse has this exclusive report.

SALEM, Ore. – In Salem, a former Army staff sergeant named Jarrid Starks has run out of the medications that keep him stable. He has severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental and physical wounds of war. But he’s currently not eligible for veterans’ health benefits that would include prescription refills. That’s because Starks was kicked out of the Army for bad behavior. He’s far from alone. Correspondent Austin Jenkins has this story in collaboration with the Seattle Times.

This fall Washington voters will consider an initiative that would allow the growth and sale of marijuana. Friday, the Washington State Office of Financial Management issued its report on how Initiative 502 would affect the finances of state and local governments. KUOW’s Phyllis Fletcher has more.

The gist of the report is “we don’t know.”

The Office of Financial Management uses the phrase “indeterminate, but non-zero” several times in the report. That’s because of what could be called “known unknowns.”