November 25, 2003

Environmental Watch: Hall heads Golder's Ecological Services

REDMOND -- Golder Associates hired Will Hall as a senior project manager and natural resources planner in its Redmond office.

As principal planner at Snohomish County Surface Water Management, Hall directed the county's watershed planning, salmon recovery and marine resources programs. He will lead Golder's Ecological Sciences team.

AMEC adds staff in Seattle office

KIRKLAND -- AMEC hired senior engineer Marlea Haugen and senior special inspector Rodger "Rod" Ferguson for its Seattle-area Earth & Environmental office.

Haugen will work in geotechnical, materials and emergency-management engineering. She has experience in quality assurance, quality control and emergency management, and is certified as a water systems risk assessor, technical director and supervising laboratory technician.

Ferguson has experience in construction inspection and materials testing. He is certified to inspect reinforced concrete and masonry, shotcrete and fireproofing, soils, soil nails, hold-down installations, reinforcing steel and rebar.

Hazardous materials group meets Dec. 2

SEATTLE -- The Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Academy of Hazardous Materials Management will hold its next quarterly meeting 6 p.m. Dec. 2 at the Rock Salt Steakhouse in Seattle.

A representative of the state Department of Ecology will discuss the Beyond Waste program, which focuses on long-range plans for reducing and managing hazardous and solid waste in Washington. The cost is $25 with a reservation by Nov. 26, or $30 without a reservation.

For details on the event, which starts at 6 p.m. with a presentation at 8 p.m., contact Peggy Willingham at (206) 392-9854 or peggy.willingham@alaskaair.com.

PSE: Lake Tapps hydropower not viable

BELLEVUE -- Puget Sound Energy will stop generating power next year at its 92-year-old White River Hydroelectric Project at Lake Tapps.

The Bellevue-based utility subsidiary of Puget Energy said in a news release last week that getting a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to continue plant operations past Jan 15., 2004, would cost far more than other available energy resources.

Since 1912 PSE has diverted water out of the White River into Lake Tapps, a diked reservoir the utility built to store water for its nearby hydropower plant. If the utility were to continue to operate the facility, licensing requirements under the Endangered Species Act would cost power customers about $100 million more than other available resources over 20 years, according to the utility.

PSE and the Lake Tapps Task Force -- a coalition of elected officials, government agencies, property owners and others -- are working on a plan to develop a regional drinking water supply at Lake Tapps.

Volunteers wanted to monitor Duwamish

SEATTLE -- The Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition is looking for volunteers to help monitor dredging operations on the Duwamish River.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed the Lower Duwamish Waterway as a Superfund site in 2001. Dredging at the first seven "early-action sites" began this month. The coalition, a watchdog group, wants volunteers to monitor dredging from shore, maintain a time/incident log, and photograph observed violations of dredging protocols. The group will share the data with regulatory agencies.

For details email BJ Cummings, subject "volunteer monitor," at info@duwamishcleanup.org.

Should Lake Roosevelt be Superfund site?

SPOKANE (AP) -- Lake Roosevelt should not be declared a Superfund site, three Republican members of Congress from Washington contend.

Over 60 years, Teck Cominco's smelter Trail, British Columbia dumped 10 million tons of slag laden with heavy metals into Lake Roosevelt, a 130-mile-long impoundment of the Columbia River behind Grand Coulee Dam.

The slag covers beaches near Northport. The Washington State Department of Health says the beaches pose a health risk.

In a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Reps. George Nethercutt, Jennifer Dunn and Doc Hastings advocated an alternative cleanup proposed by the Eastern Washington Council of Governments, a group of county commissioners funded by Teck Cominco.

EPA notified the Vancouver, B.C., company it has until Dec. 16 to agree to pay for further Columbia River cleanup studies. EPA also wants reimbursement for about $1.8 million in preliminary studies.

Mini-tree farms come with instructions

McKENNA, Pierce County (AP) -- Weyerhaeuser Co. is marketing 20-acre plots in a tree farm to people interested in building a home -- and maybe harvesting timber on the side.

The Federal Way company's Forest Reserve program lets those who buy the parcels build on part of the land while managing timber on the rest.

Weyerhaeuser has sold about 65 of 100 lots and offered to sell 100 more. The company is getting rid of its 4,400-acre Vail Tree Farm, about 45 minutes from Olympia and Tacoma. The plots sell for $102,000 to $180,000 and contain an average of 8,000 trees each. It's all second- or third-growth, mostly Douglas fir with some hardwoods. Buyers get four hours of instruction on forestry management.

Weyerhaeuser owns 2 million acres in Washington and Oregon and 8 million in the United States. It cut and replanted trees in the region for decades, but its focus gradually shifted to the Southeast and overseas, where wood is produced more cheaply.

Ecology buys water rights to protect fish

SEATTLE -- The state Department of Ecology has invested $4.1 million to keep water flowing in river basins where fish populations are most at risk.

Ecology is working on plans to restore 16 basins where inadequate stream flows have threatened fish runs. Ecology has spent $4 million since 2001 to acquire five water rights in the Yakima and Walla Walla watersheds, returning 4,284 acre feet of water in areas key to fish survival, according to the department.

Avista gives CWU a fuel cell

ELLENSBURG -- Spokane-based fuel-cell maker Avista Labs delivered a photo electronic membrane fuel cell to Central Washington University, which the university will use in a fuel-cell education program.

The Northwest Energy Technology Collaborative and Bonneville Power Administration paid for the $10,000 device with part of a $100,000 grant, which the state energy office awarded for hydrogen and fuel-cell education.

The grant is also paying for 200 fuel-cell model car kits, which will be given to schools to teach students about fuel cells, said Northwest Energy Technology Collaborative Director Jeff Morris. For details visit www.nwetc.com.