When the Environmental Protection Agency was formed in 1970, our environmental problems were easy to see: factories belched black smoke, leaded gasoline fouled our air and water, and rivers were so polluted they actually caught fire.

Today, 42 years later, much has been accomplished. Our air is clearer, our rivers are cleaner and aquatic life is thriving in our streams and estuaries.

We have made so much progress that the remaining issues are literally microscopic, measured in parts per trillion. Today, science is the key to establishing if a problem exists and how to respond.

However, the Washington Department of Ecology (DOE) seems to want to move forward without it. read more »

In 1942, the completion of Grand Coulee Dam was hailed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Seventy years later, most of us aren’t aware of what that dam or the others on the Columbia River continue to do for us.

To commemorate Grand Coulee’s completion, the Bonneville Power Administration commissioned legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie to write songs praising the dam that harnessed the mighty Columbia River.

Guthrie toured the region from the Bonneville Dam to Grand Coulee, and within a month he had written 26 songs, the most famous of which is “Roll On Columbia.” read more »

There are dams that should come down and those that shouldn’t.

Demolishing the two dams on the Elwha River west of Port Angeles is a good thing and, hopefully the salmon and steelhead will return in record numbers. The dams were built in the early 1900s to bring electricity to the Olympic Peninsula at a time when salmon and steelhead were plentiful in other Pacific Northwest rivers.

On the Elwha River, the issue was clear: Two barriers were blocking salmon from moving upstream. The care with which the demolition was planned, studied and implemented is a credit to all involved, and now fish can swim up to the high mountain tributaries in the Olympics to spawn and start the lifecycle over again. read more »

On April 21, 1962, the Seattle World’s Fair opened. The “Century 21 Exhibition” ran for six months, drew 11 million visitors, turned a profit and left the Northwest with a wonderful Seattle Center.

A half-century later, many of the fair’s landmarks remain, and the73-acre center is a gathering place for people from all walks of life. It is Seattle’s Central Park.

The Space Needle has become Seattle’s landmark. Conceived in an architect’s note-book, it was constructed in eight months at a cost of roughly $3 million in private funds. read more »

Recently, the EPA proposed new air quality regulations for power plants that activists say will finally kill King Coal.

The rule would require all new power plants to cut emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) by almost 44 percent. While natural gas plants can meet the standard, coal-fired plants cannot without expensive carbon-capture and storage technology that is not commercially available.

While EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stresses the standards will apply only to new power plants, some experts say the Clean Air Act explicitly requires the government to apply the standards to existing plants as well. read more »

When environmental organizations pushed Washington voters to approve their renewable energy Initiative 937, they touted biomass energy — incinerated wood waste — as one of their preferred alternatives to fossil fuel. They reasoned that biomass energy plants would help clear forests of flammable wood debris from dead and diseased timber, put idled loggers and millworkers back to work and produce cleaner, more affordable energy.

But since voters narrowly approved the initiative in 2006, many of those same activists are battling against biomass projects. read more »

Last year, Fotis I. Antonopoulos, a successful Web designer in Athens, decided to set up his own e-business to sell olive oil products. It took him 10 months, winding his way through the city collecting dozens of forms and stamps of approval, including proof that he was up — to-date on his pension contributions, before he could get started.

But, according to The New York Times, even that was not enough. In perhaps the strangest twist of all, his board members were required by the Health Department to submit lung X-rays and stool samples, since his was a food company. read more »

Oregonians loathe a sales tax about as much as Washingtonians detest an income tax. Knowing that, why would Curry County commissioners put a 3 percent sales tax on the ballot later this year?

The answer: Money.

Curry, Oregon’s southwesternmost county, is one of a network of economically distressed rural counties throughout the West with double-digit unemployment and facing the potential loss of federal subsidies.

Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act in 2000 to provide transition payments to counties affected by sharp declines in federal timber sales. Those declines were due in part to measures taken to protect old-growth forest habitat for the threatened marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl. read more »

When you talk about state health insurance exchanges, people’s eyes glaze over. (See, it’s happening right now.) The subject seems far too complicated and confusing.

But we need to talk about them because, as you read this, state bureaucrats in Olympia are making decisions that will affect the cost and availability of your health care benefits. Your insurance company isn’t taking part in the state exchange? It doesn’t matter. The rules will still affect your choices and your costs.

State exchanges are a creature of the federal health care law. They were created to distribute federal subsidies for qualified enrollees and establish how insurers would do business under the new health care law. read more »