Northwest News

A recent discovery in an Idaho potato field has Northwest spud growers worried. Researchers this week reported that insects from the Twin Falls area tested positive for bacteria that cause “zebra chip disease.”

It will be at least two weeks before a popular hiking trail in Olympic National Forest re-opens to the public. The Mount Ellinor Trail was closed this week due to reports of aggressive mountain goats.

Despite wildfires burning hundreds of homes in the last few weeks, the Cabinet member who oversees the U.S. Forest Service said [yesterday] Tuesday there have been fewer fires this year compared to this time last year. Tom Vilsack made the comments during a stop in Idaho. From Boise, Scott Graf has more.

Some firefighters from the Northwest have been sent to blazes across the West. But the firefighters still at home are playing the waiting game.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano visited Boise Tuesday. They toured the center that coordinates national wildfire response efforts.

Some firefighters from the Northwest have been sent to blazes across the West. But as Jessica Robinson reports, the firefighters still at home are playing the waiting game.

The town of Port Orford, on Oregon’s south coast, may soon be without a port. Residents are rallying Wednesday to urge the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge their navigation channel. Amelia Templeton reports.

Overdose deaths from a popular painkiller called Methadone appear to have peaked nationally. That’s according to a CDC report released Tuesday. The Northwest has one of the highest Methadone prescription rates in the country. Correspondent Austin Jenkins has more.

Each year on a long, steep stretch of looping highway in southeast Washington, hundreds of skateboarders test their grit. A helmet, a leather body suit and wicked skill are all that stand between glory and a face full of asphalt. It’s called the Maryhill Festival of Speed near Goldendale. Correspondent Anna King caught up with one young couple that travels the world for downhill skateboarding.

This week crews are cleaning up about 30 train cars full of coal that overturned near Mesa, in Eastern Washington. The accident has raised questions about proposed increased train shipments of coal through the nearby Columbia River Gorge. Correspondent Anna King has more.

Oregon voters likely will decide this fall whether to ban gillnet fishing in the Columbia River and other state waters. Campaigners say they turned in enough signatures
Monday to qualify their gillnet ban as a ballot measure in the November election. Oregon requires more than 87,000 valid signatures on petitions for initiatives that change state law.

Eric Stachon is spokesman for the Stop Gillnets Now Coalition. He says the group turned in more than 138-thousand signatures to the Oregon Secretary of State.