Serving Franklin County, WA
Serving Franklin County, WA
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TOWN OF HATTON, WA 2024 OTTA SEAL PROJECT INVITATION TO BID The Town of Hatton, Washington (Owner) is requesting bids for the 2024 Otta Seal Project. Bids will be received via electronic submission only, through the Horrocks Planroom at www.horrocksplanroom. com, until 2:00 p.m. local time on Thursday, April 18, 2024. That same day, all received bids will be opened virtually and read aloud at 2:15 p.m. via Microsoft Teams. Bid opening information will be sent out to all Contractors on the plan holders list by Wednesday,...
It can be hard to visualize the amount of water it takes to produce a single pound of almonds or the meat used to make a cheeseburger. Every food product goes through a long life cycle before ending up on grocery store shelves. Livestock products start at the farms that grow alfalfa, hay, and other types of feed. Tree fruits and nuts begin with the young saplings that take years to mature and produce fruit. Meanwhile, products such as radishes mature from seed as quickly as...
TOWN OF HATTON, WA 2024 OTTA SEAL PROJECT INVITATION TO BID The Town of Hatton, Washington (Owner) is requesting bids for the 2024 Otta Seal Project. Bids will be received via electronic submission only, through the Horrocks Planroom at www.horrocksplanroom. com, until 2:00 p.m. local time on Thursday, April 18, 2024. That same day, all received bids will be opened virtually and read aloud at 2:15 p.m. via Microsoft Teams. Bid opening information will be sent out to all Contractors on the plan holders list by Wednesday,...
As luxury-brand vehicles continue to swell the market, the average price for a new car in the U.S. has modestly declined, signaling an increased desire for consumer affordability after average vehicle prices hit record highs in 2022. Only 9 out of 275 new car models had an average transaction price below $25,000 in February 2024, according to Kelley Blue Book. This is a sharp contrast to three years ago when 29 different vehicles routinely held average transaction prices...
You may have seen them precariously parked alongside highway ramps or clustered in big-box store parking lots. There are millions of big-rig trucks on United States roadways daily, and often, there is nowhere to park them overnight or during mandated driver breaks. In a Federal Highway Administration survey of more than 11,000 drivers, almost every (98%) driver responded that they have problems finding safe parking, with nearly 3 in 4 drivers reporting it is a regular problem...
OLYMPIA - Gov. Jay Inslee has signed a bill into law to allow for water right modifications in the Columbia Basin Project area. Authored by Rep. Mary Dye, R-Pomeroy, House Bill 1752 authorizes the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to apply and obtain approval for water-right modifications and provides farmers flexibility as new pumping systems are developed to save the Odessa Aquifer. The new law goes into effect June 6. According to Dye, efficient use of federal water would assist i...
OTHELLO — Irrigation water from the East Low Canal is being delayed to allow the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District to work on an upper canal. The Main Canal near Billy Clapp Lake is undergoing a leak assessment and potential repair work, officials said. That means irrigation water to smaller canals and laterals off the East Low Canal won’t be available until the work is complete. Deliveries via the West Canal near Quincy are also being delayed by the work. The delay stems from a potential leak detected by the federal Bu...
ODESSA — The state capital budget approved earlier this month includes $5.5 million in funding for the EL 22.1 pipeline project within the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program. The pipeline project will use surface water from the Upper Columbia River, pumped into the East Low Canal, to offset ground water traditionally pumped out of the Odessa aquifer. The EL 22.1 pipeline project would supply water to about 16,000 acres of irrigated land east of Moses Lake and north of Interstate 90. It includes new canal i...
Job openings are at some of their lowest levels nationally since April 2021, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows. In January 2024, there were 8.9 million open jobs by the end of the month. A year prior, that number was at 10.4 million. While Americans still find themselves largely employed, their capacity to job-hop is quickly falling to levels predating the Great Resignation. Employers continued adding jobs, upping employment by 275,000 in February. The unemployment rate...
The new year kicked off with a slew of layoff announcements from major employers across the country. People placed a heightened focus on layoff news, rooted in fear of an uncertain economy—although despite the headlines, layoffs remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates show that there were about 19.6 million layoffs throughout 2023, compared to 21.8 million in 2019. In January the layoff rate was 1%, a figure that remained relatively steady t...
Gold has historically played an essential role as a store of value in economies worldwide. The U.S. dollar used to be backed by gold, meaning money was exchangeable for an amount of the metal. This is known as the gold standard, which the U.S. started to abandon in 1933 during the Great Depression. With the rise of modern monetary policy, other countries followed suit and switched to the fiat currency used now, which is money backed by a government, not a physical asset....
EPHRATA — A leak in an irrigation canal below Pinto Dam may delay delivery of water to farmers downstream of the West Canal. According to the federal Department of Reclamation, routine monitoring showed a higher-than-normal rate of flow in the irrigation canal, officials said Tuesday, March 12. "This situation has prompted the Bureau of Reclamation to dewater the Main Canal prior to irrigation startup to better understand the source of the seepage water and develop a plan to address it," the agency reported. "As a result o...
ROSALIA – The winds of change are blowing across the region, with multiple developers pushing for prime agricultural land to become home to wind turbines. And the push for the rural skyscrapers, which can rise to a height of more than 500 feet above the ground - the blades can reach to nearly 700 feet - has area residents, farmers and local leaders concerned the winds are blowing the wrong kind of change into their communities. Around the region, multiple companies are a...
In 2023, a Greyhound bus exiting an Illinois highway collided with three semi-trucks parked along an exit ramp, killing three bus passengers. That same year, a woman in Modesto, California, crashed into a parked truck and subsequently died. In 2021, a man in North Carolina was hospitalized after hitting a trailer while swerving to miss a parked semi-truck. His car then caught fire. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, there is only one truck parking space for ev...
The Small Business Administration backed loans worth $27.5 billion through its primary lending program in 2023—rising well above pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels as government officials aim to stabilize the economy. Many small businesses get their start and scale up with SBA loans, which increased lending to Black, Latino, and women entrepreneurs in the past few years in step with efforts to become more equitable. Flippa found the county within each state where applicants were a...
Picture the scene: Your alarm wakes you at the crack of dawn. The suitcase you packed the night before stands accusingly in the corner. You brace yourself for the long ride to the airport and the even longer queue of security checks. To make matters worse, after dashing to the airport and getting through TSA, you discover your flight has been delayed. There are many reasons delays happen: maintenance or crew problems, extreme weather, air traffic, etc. But, according to data...
Low pay, minimal opportunities for growth, and disrespectful work environments are just a handful of the top reasons employees quit their jobs, according to a Pew Research Center survey from 2021. Of course, there are myriad reasons workers might put in their notices, ranging from the mundane, such as moving to a new state, to the dramatic, like having blow-up arguments with a supervisor. Quits are down from the recent span of historically high rates during the Great...
OLYMPIA — A bill extending the Pesticide Application Safety Committee unanimously passed the Senate, 49-0, on Tuesday, Feb. 6. Senate Bill 6166, sponsored by Sen. Rebecca Saldana, D-Seattle, extends the provisions of the Pesticide Application Safety Committee and its advisory group until July 1, 2035. It also removes requirement for virtual meetings, allowing in-person meetings to take place. The committee’s work was originally set to expire July 1, 2025. The Pesticide Application Safety Committee was established in 201...
SPOKANE VALLEY – USDA’s Natural Resource and Conservations Service in Washington is opening a second application batching period for the Agricultural Conservation Easements Program – Agricultural Land Easements. While applications for easements are taken on a continuous basis, the deadline to be considered for Fiscal Year 2024 second funding is March 11. NRCS Washington has more than $1 million remaining to allocate, officials said. The agency intends to retain those funds in Washington for farmland preservation. The progr...
SPRAGUE – The current water supply outlook for Washington is an early assessment, but it shows little snowpack through December. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program hydrologistMatt Warbritton, the snowpack is significantly lower-than-average, but overall precipitation is only slightly below average, thanks to December rainfall. Because of the strong El Nino events this year, the reg...
There are at least 216 gray wolves in 37 packs in our state. Thirty-one of those gray wolf packs are in North-Central and Northeastern Washington. Senate Bill 5939 – relating to protecting livestock from wolf predation – seeks to give affected livestock raisers a chance to mitigate the confirmed and probable predation deaths of their animals. The bill would allow owners of livestock to monitor a depredation and kill the first gray wolf that returns. The bill lays out the liv...
This month’s article isn’t so much a Mythbuster, but a retrospective on where we’ve been with cow type and the implications of the changes over time. As I write these lines it’s only several days before Thanksgiving. It is the holiday season and in my line of work, it is really easy to find a lot of things to be thankful for and have hope for a great future in agriculture. I’m the eternal optimist, I also acknowledge that immense stressors are facing our agricultural producers. The holiday season is a great time to reflect o...
WINONA — The new Rebel Flat Cree trestle on the Palouse-Coulee City railroad line was dedicated Thursday morning, Nov. 2. Speakers included 9th Legislative District Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, McGregor Co. Chairman Alex McGregor and state Department of Transportation Rail, Freight and Ports Program Manager Jason Biggs. The new span replaces the 197-foot wooden trestle destroyed Aug. 19 in the Winona Fire, which burned 2,525 acres and several buildings. The new bridge n...
OTHELLO – More than $1 million has been earmarked to help four area businesses develop and maintain solar arrays to generate power for agricultural use. The USDA has announced Othello-based Basin Farmworks, Weyns Farm and Sage Hill Electric will receive Rural Energy for America Program grants. Big Bird Farms of Harrington is also receiving a grant. Weyns Farm, 8289 Kulm Road S.E., was awarded $1 million to purchase and install a 1080 kilowatt solar array. The project is expected to generate 1.49 kilowatt-hours and save the f...