Cascadia today: Hantavirus comes to Cascadia + will Seattle ban data centers? + Wolves recover in WA
Cascadia Day is approaching on Monday May 18, and you've got lots of options to celebrate! If you're in Portland, definitely check out the Gathering Cascadia festival at Taborspace in Portland from 4 to 8 pm. The event has an action-packed lineup of info booths, musical performances, workshops, local food, visual art, and a film screening. Get your tickets here, it's going to be amazing experience!
Three King county residents monitored for hantavirus
Sorry if it brings up pandemic trauma, but KUOW reports that three residents of King County are being monitored after being exposed on a flight to the hantavirus that killed three people on the MV Hondius cruise last week. King county public health says the three are self quarantining and don't have symptoms. Yet another reason to skip those ugly, climate-killing, disease-laden cruises from Seattle to Alaska.
Andrew Engelson
Tolls to lower expected use of new I-5 Columbia River bridge
Oregon Journalism Project reports on a new study that finds that the proposed replacement bridge for I-5 over the Nchʼi-Wàna (Columbia) River, which will be paid for in part by tolls, will have much less traffic than initially projected. The report indicates traffic could be 50,000 vehicles fewer (about a third less) because of the tolls. That means the bridge budget could be short $2.5 billion.
This boondoggle, already ballooning to more than $14 billion, needs to go back to the drawing board. Scale back lanes, simplify, and focus on building light rail between Portland and Vancouver. Enough is enough.
Seattle considering one-year ban on new data centers
As massive, energy-sucking and water-guzzling data centers proliferate across North America to fuel an AI boom that literally no one wants, the Seattle city council is considering a measure that would ban new data centers in city limits for one year, KUOW reports. In related news, power company PGE is proposing to raise rates on the array of data centers in Oregon, OPB reports.
Want to voice your opposition to data centers in Seattle? Sign this petition.
Want to express your opinion on data centers in Oregon? There are a series of online meetings of the Oregon Data Center advisory committee, and public comment is allowed. The next meeting is May 29. More info at Columbia Riverkeeper.
Environmentalists purchase WA timber sale
Washington State Standard reports that the Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition succeeded in raising $32,000 to purchase 2 acres of state forest land near Sadie Creek campground on the Olympic peninsula and prevent it from being logged. It's the first such purchase of state DNR timber land to prevent logging. Of course, environmental groups shouldn't need to do this – WA DNR should place more strict limits on logging and call for the legislature to fund education by taxing the wealthy instead of clear-cutting our forests.
Cascadia wolves rebound
Washington State Standard reports that gray wolves in Washington state wolves have reached the highest level since the state started monitoring their recovery in 2008. There are at least 270 wolves in 49 packs, state and tribal officials report. But, leave it to the feds to mess things up: OPB reports that US fish & wildlife agents in Oregon accidentally killed two federally protected wolves at the request of ranchers and farmers.
Want to help survey wolves in Oregon? Cascadia Wild has a volunteer wolf monitoring project, but move fast, the sign up period ends tomorrow, May 13!
Thanks for reading! Hope to see some of you at the Cascadia Poetry Explosion at 7 pm, Monday May 18 at Vermillion in Seattle! --Andy
Celebrate Cascadia Day with at 7 pm, May 18 at Vermillion in Seattle!
Join us for the Cascadia Day Poetry Explosion at 7 pm, Monday May 18 at Vermillion bar and art gallery at 1508 11th Ave in Capitol Hill. It'll be a fun evening with poetry from Paul Nelson, Matt Trease, Nadine Maestas, and Rhea Melina. Cascadia Democratic Action will be raising money that evening for the Migrant Survival Fund and the Kawaguchi O'Connor Initiative.
