Friends of Badger Mountain, Current Vice President and Board Member, Former PresidentMarc SpinnerWhat is Friends of Badger Mountain?We are a board of volunteers, with approximately 12 active members. Friends of Badger Mountain (FOBM) is a group of professionals interested in trail building and the preservation of open space in the...

Every year on Arbor Day school children across the United States are told about the many benefits trees provide to people and the environment.To drive the point home, schoolchildren are given saplings to plant, so they can watch them grow and feel a connection to the environment. Invariably there are...

A 600-megawatt wind farm south of Kennewick will employ 300 during construction and help cement the region’s status as Washington’s center for wind energy.Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colorado, will apply for a conditional use permit from Benton County for its Horse Heaven Wind Farm project later this year.Pat Landess,...

A new Tri-City nonprofit has formed to push for a faster cleanup at Hanford and transition to energy research and development.Bob Ferguson, Bill Lampson and Gary Petersen established Northwest Energy Associates with the twin missions of advocating for a faster cleanup and for a long-term focus on energy research.Ferguson, former...

Benton County Sustainable Development Manager Adam J. FyallNumber of employees you oversee: 3You have a unique role in Benton County government. What do you oversee and how did your job come to cover such diverse areas?I primarily manage our economic development, natural resources, intergovernmental affairs, Hanford-related and parks functions. While...

Wildfires and wintertime wood fires helped drive Yakima, Spokane and the Seattle area to the top of the nation’s worst cities for air pollution, according to the American Lung Association’s 2020 State of Air report.The Tri-Cities was not on the list, but Benton County received a failing grade for air...

Property rights are often considered a “bundle of sticks” where a person can own varying interests in land.The person can own the entire bundle—called “fee simple.”Or a person can own distinct and specific interests in a piece of property. One form of ownership is the ownership of only the oil...

We are learning many painful lessons during the coronavirus shutdown. A key lesson that if a policy isn’t economically sustainable, it isn’t environmentally sustainable. This is a particularly important lesson to remember when considering how to promote recovery of salmon and steelhead populations on the Snake River.Earlier this year, the...

Several federal agencies just released a massive court-ordered federal study (called an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS) about the Snake and Columbia river dams.If you had other things on your mind last month, that’s more than understandable. Also, you didn’t miss much: the EIS is just another federal study aimed...