Documents filed under Washington’s environmental review process reveal a list of projects in the works for the Mid-Columbia. 
The State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA, often provides the first look at the mixed-use projects, mini-storage facilities, apartments, industrial expansions, subdivisions and more that are working their way through the various planning departments of Benton, Franklin and Walla Walla counties. 
Here’s a look at projects that appeared in the SEPA register in the past month.  

Cities are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to address one of the most persistent sources of housing permitting delays: incomplete applications. And two new streams of federal money aim to help them.

A quarter million Washingtonians who get their insurance through the state’s exchange under the Affordable Care Act face another year of double-digit rate increases. 

A national kidney dialysis provider with a location in Richland will compensate millions of its clients to settle a proposed class action lawsuit after private client data, including Social Security numbers and pictures of checks to pay for services, were released by hackers. 

Seattle-based WaFd Bank is about to expand its footprint and get a new name. 

The city of Connell will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in financing from the state to repair its wastewater treatment lagoons and prevent environmental contamination. 

The cost to buy a home is up, inflation is wreaking havoc and fuel prices are reaching record highs, but you’d never know from looking at Americans’ spending habits. 

Labor union membership continues to climb in the United States, though the increase remains sharply divided by the politics of individual states.

A tribal site sacred to the Yakama Nation near the John Day hydroelectric dam isn’t the only land associated with tribal communities around the nation being eyed by data center developers. 

A new set of worker protections take effect Oct. 1, and state justice officials and business groups are advising business owners to learn what their new obligations are under the law.