KUOW Blog
News, factoids, and insights from KUOW's newsroom. And maybe some peeks behind the scenes. Check back daily for updates.
Have any leads or feedback for the KUOW Blog? Contact Dyer Oxley at dyer@kuow.org.
Stories
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The West returns to Seattle: Today So Far
- What music Today So Far readers suggest for newcomers.
- The West Seattle Bridge is back up and running.
- Narcan vending machines come to Pierce County.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for September 19, 2022.
“It’s been a huge pain in the butt!”
That's what West Seattle resident Deborah Wolf told KUOW's Natalie Newcomb while discussing how long the West Seattle Bridge has been out-of-commission.
With the bridge down, a 12-minute trip between West Seattle and SoDo or downtown turned into a 45-minute trip, at least. Wolf said the bridge's absence turned West Seattle into an "accidental island.” For example, Wolf had to switch all her doctors from Seattle-based offices to West Seattle offices. Otherwise, she'd be on the road for two hours for an appointment.
Well, now the West Seattle Bridge is open! Commuters probably know this from the eruption of cheers Sunday, or from the 100,000 drivers estimated to use the bridge each day. Those who haven't evolved to work from home, or who have the option, will be rolling onto the commute.
This also means that the rest of Seattle can return to the West, which in turn means that Bill Brown can finally tell his sons Noah and Liam they can go to Alki Beach. The family lives in Greenwood. They bought a kite to fly at Alki, but haven't been able to use it while the bridge was down. The usual 20-minute drive would have take far longer.
“They've been asking me for three years to go back," Brown said. "And I'm like, 'No, no, no, we'll wait.' So we're happy it's back.”
"It's an otter kite and we literally just bought it," Liam told KUOW.
Seattle Now notes that more than 600 people have died from overdoses in King County this year. In cities, naloxone (or the brand name Narcan) has become well-known. The drug, often carried by 911 responders, can reverse an overdose. But in more rural areas, it can be more difficult to get. That's why places like Orting in Pierce County are now using Narcan vending machines.
It's exactly what it sounds like — a machine that dispenses an overdose-reversing drug.
"Here in Orting, we're a rural community so there is not a lot of services or access to other services around us," said Recovery Cafe’s Rena Thompson. "... it's about 30 minutes to a hospital or a treatment center."
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Military providing water to Yakima Valley homes after tests show it contaminated area's wells
Military training exercises contaminated the drinking water of nearly 100 homes in the Yakima Valley.
New test results show that the drinking water wells near the Army’s Yakima Training Center are contaminated with chemicals that increase the risks of certain kinds of cancer and other health conditions. The military is now providing bottled water for drinking and cooking to those residences.
The contamination stems from a firefighting foam that the military used at the training center for decades, up until 2016. The foam contained dangerous chemicals that increase the risks of certain kinds of cancer, thyroid disease, and other health conditions. The chemicals can also harm people’s immune systems.
Over the years, the chemicals leached into drinking water near military bases around the United States, including on Whidbey Island and in the Yakima Valley.
While the military tested the wells it might have contaminated, it did not previously provide safe drinking water to affected households. Now that the test results are back for Yakima, the military has begun providing residents enough bottled water for drinking and cooking.
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New to Seattle? Our readers suggest you listen to this
I asked readers of KUOW's Today So Far newsletter what music they would recommend to the incoming director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, Greg Spotts.
But really, what music would you recommend any newcomer to Seattle? What are the region's sounds?
While Spotts' current career has been in city government, in a previous life (a 1990s life), he had a boutique talent management job working with music artists of the day. So when he came to Seattle, he filled his office with "Seattle vibes" by playing Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, etc. In an SDOT blog post, Spotts said he knew there was more to Seattle music.
So I asked readers to make some recommendations. The parameters were more "Northwest" than simply Seattle. From funk to punk, indie rock to folk, hip hop and Star Wars albums, there is a lot of Northwest music to cover.
I started things off by suggesting: Murder City Devils; Beverly Crusher; Sunny Day Real Estate; The Black Tones; and The Hoot Hoots (specifically the "Rainbow Squadron" album).
TSF readers had a few ideas of their own.
Diane suggests Sleater-Kinney from Olympia.
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Coast Guard postpones effort to remove sunken fishing boat after lifting it to surface
Salvage crews raised a sunken fishing boat from the bottom of the sea near San Juan Island Saturday, but they have been unable to remove enough fuel and seawater from the vessel to lift it onto a barge and transport it away from the critical orca habitat where it sank five weeks ago.
The Aleutian Isle, a 58-foot salmon fishing boat, released a 2-mile sheen of diesel onto the surface of Haro Strait when it sank. The unusual effort to lift it 240 feet from the sea floor was launched after officials decided pumping up to 2,600 gallons of diesel and oil still on board to the surface was not feasible at that depth in the swirling currents of Haro Strait.
After deepwater divers secured the boat with cables near its bow and stern, a floating crane lifted it toward daylight during a brief window of slower currents Saturday afternoon.
Even before it broke the surface around 2 p.m., onlookers from San Juan Island’s western bluffs said the air smelled intensely of diesel. Iridescent sheens of diesel could also be seen on the surface, but officials said the amounts were not more than they expected.
Boats towing absorbent booms mopped up what diesel they could, while 7,000 feet of boom protected key stretches of shoreline on San Juan Island’s west side.
“There are big dents on visible port side,” ocean-acoustics researcher Val Veirs, who lives nearby, reported shortly after the Aleutian Isle surfaced. Veirs said Saturday afternoon that crews were pumping “very dirty water” from the vessel lying on its starboard side, suspended in place by cables from above.
The salvage crews removed approximately 775 gallons of “oily-water mixture” from the Aleutian Isle, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Washington Department of Ecology spokesperson Ty Keltner said sea water and diesel remained on board late Sunday afternoon.
“The vessel is sitting on its side, and crews are unable to safely access the parts of the ship to remove the remaining water and fuel,” Keltner said by email.
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Sunken fishing boat ready to resurface after 5 weeks on sea floor
Coast Guard officials say a salvage team is ready to lift the Aleutian Isle off the sea floor near San Juan Island on Saturday.
The commercial fishing boat sank nearly five weeks ago while participating in a tribal fishery for sockeye salmon.
It left a sheen of diesel fuel two miles long in prime habitat for the region’s endangered orcas.
Emergency officials say divers have plugged up the boat’s fuel tanks, but they expect some pockets of diesel will escape as a floating crane hauls the boat more than 200 feet to the surface.
“We do expect some sheening, and we are prepared for a lot of release, but we don’t anticipate that,” said U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Valerie Higdon.
More than a mile of oil-absorbent floating boom is in place along San Juan Island’s west shore, and more is being installed around the crane barge.
Specialists are on standby to start banging pipes underwater and scare away any endangered whales that come close to the potentially oily operation.
Divers have been limited to working 30 minutes at a time by the extreme depth and dangerous currents, according to the San Juan County Emergency Management. Now they await safe conditions (weak currents) for lifting.
Safe windows for the work are expected around 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday, according to the Coast Guard.
Why the Aleutian Isle sank is still under investigation. KUOW learned that the boat built in 1974 had apparently run aground in Anacortes on Aug. 12, about 24 hours before it sank.
A marine surveyor found the boat, valued at $710,000, to be in average to above average condition and "well maintained" in December 2020, according to inspection records obtained from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife under a public records request.
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Sky-high career goals: Today So Far
- My days in journalism may be coming to a close, eventually, now that my dream job is becoming more and more likely. And we can thank Sen. Maria Cantwell for that.
- Our Northwest harvest is not looking so cherry these days ... literally.
- Apparently, male hummingbirds are kind of jerks. Some female hummingbirds are adapting. Science!
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for September 16, 2022.
My days in journalism may be coming to a close, eventually, now that my dream job is becoming more and more likely. And we can thank Sen. Maria Cantwell for that.
Cantwell and a handful of other senators have introduced the ORBITS Act, which aims to develop technologies and methods to address space junk. There's a growing number expired satellites, leftover launch equipment, and old pieces of machinery floating around the Earth right now — about 900,000 pieces, according to Cantwell. They pose a risk to spacecraft making trips up there, or to satellites monitoring weather, communications, etc. Or, they pose a threat to folks on the ground, should they eventually fall and fail to completely burn up. That's why senators want to develop ways to clean up our sky-high mess.
By now, I am sure you can see exactly where I am going with this. Clearly, these senators are making my dream job possible — cleaning up space junk as represented in the Korean sci-fi cinematic sensation "Space Sweepers." You knew that's where I was going, right? This proposed bill aims to develop technologies to address space junk, which obviously means future me could jet around the planet, collecting debris like a space-age Fred Sanford! I can see it now ... blasting off while singing "whomp whomp wanna" alongside my cunning crew and android best friend.
And yes, I know I'm mixing my pop culture metaphors. It's called a mashup and I stand by it.
Of course, that future may be a ways off. The ORBITS Act has to make its way through DC, for starters. Then, technology has to be developed ... I guess I shouldn't be planning my space career just yet. Looks like you're all stuck with me. Read more about Cantwell's bill here.
Our Northwest harvest is not looking so cherry these days ... literally. Folks may still be complaining about our hot summer temps (an annual Northwest tradition), but you might forget that we had an unusually long and cold spring. There was snow falling on cherry crops in April, a time when we expect them to be blooming in order to start cherry making. This means that a lot of cherries didn't show up this year, and Washington's 2022 harvest is about 80,000 tons short. The Northwest is a major producer of cherries and it's unclear right now how this will affect prices. Read more here.
When Nina and I moved this summer, we were stoked that the new place came with a small backyard, something we haven't really ever had. We were further pleased that this small yard came with a hummingbird feeder, ready to go. Nina got into making nectar — no dyes in our feeder. And it worked!
What we witnessed next was a flying, zipping ballet of savage horror! Turns out, hummingbirds are kind of violent jerks who beat up on each other a lot. All those TikTok videos lied to us!
Why do I bring this up? Get ready for some fascinating, curious, science out of our own University of Washington. This is apparently pretty normal behavior for these birds, at least it is for the males with their brightly colored plumage. Female colors aren't as bright and showy. They generally want to go unnoticed. But as KUOW's Natalie Newcomb reports, some female hummingbirds have started to evolve to take on male colors. Jay Falk is a UW postdoctoral researcher and was involved with a study that monitored this recent color change.
“That coloration is a signal to say to other hummingbirds, 'You better watch out. I'm a bully. If you attack me, I'm going to fight back,'" Falk said.
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TikTok: The newest corner of the KUOW community
Hello TikTokers, KUOW is your newest to-the-point pal on TikTok.
For example, KUOW's Joshua McNichols has been reporting on Seattle's housing woes for some time now. But this is an issue with a lot of nuance and moving parts. So perhaps sitting down with Joshua and a glass of lemonade will help.
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If you're going to SeaTac, wear a helmet and wave your hands over your head
If you're walking around a park with a potential risk of encountering any birds, be sure to wave your arms around your head to ward the winged-assailants off. It might be best to wear a helmet while walking, too. That's the advice from SeaTac city officials warning of an aggressive owl in a local park.
Multiple owl interactions have recently been reported at North SeaTac Park. The city says that the problem is likely stemming from a barred or great horned owl, and it's possible it's a young owl "learning the ropes." One park visitor reports seeing a family of barred owls in the area.
Officials have their fingers crossed that the aggressive behavior will go away by winter.
Talons are a major weapon in an owl's hunting arsenal. A great horned owl's talons can provide 500 pounds of pressure and has been likened to the force of a German shepherd's bite. It is known to be a particularly fierce predator. Barred owls are known to be very territorial around their nests, especially if they have eggs or chicks.
If you're planning to visit the park, or any area with owls, there are a few things you can do to prepare.
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Female hummingbirds are mimicking males to avoid aggression
When you think of a hummingbird you probably think of a small sweet bird.
But, hummingbirds are also very aggressive, especially males.
According to a new study, some female hummingbirds are evolving to look like males to avoid aggression.
Male White-necked Jacobin hummingbirds have a flashy bright blue head, iridescent green back, and a white stomach and tail.
In comparison, their female counterparts are muted in color. They have a speckled front and the iridescent olive green back. The drab colors make it easier for the females to hide with their young, from predators or other aggressive hummingbirds.
Jay Falk, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington, says females are trying to deceive other aggressive hummingbirds by adopting the bright colors.
“That coloration is a signal to say to other hummingbirds, 'You better watch out. I'm a bully; if you attack me, I'm going to fight back,'" Falk said.
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What music do you recommend to Seattle newcomers?: Today So Far
- What Seattle music would you recommend to newcomers? In this case, Greg Spotts, the new director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.
- 911 calls in parts of King County are being upgraded with mental health professionals.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for September 15, 2022.
What Seattle music would you recommend to newcomers? In this case, Greg Spotts, the new director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.
The City Council has approved Spotts for the role and Mayor Bruce Harrell still has to make it official. Spotts has already been on the job in an interim capacity. He's currently asking Seattleites to reach out and take him on a tour of their neighborhoods — by foot, bike, bus, or other — to get an idea of challenges they face.
One point I noticed while writing this all up for KUOW's Blog is that Spotts worked in the music industry in a former life, before going into a career working for cities. This was back in the '90s when he owned a "boutique talent management" company that helped produce albums for REM, Jewel, and Alanis Morissette, among others. With music roots in the 1990s, and Seattle being such a big part of that decade, Spotts says he filled his office with "Seattle vibes" when he came to town by playing music by Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, and others. In an SDOT blog post he stated, "I know there is so much more Seattle music to listen to, but that was an awesome start."
Which brings me back to music recommendations. Now, to be accurate, the "Seattle sound" was actually a Northwest sound. Screaming Trees were from Ellensburg. Nirvana emerged from Aberdeen/Olympia. So I'm opening this up to our PNW region when I ask: What music artists (newer or older) would you recommend as a primer for SDOT's new director Greg Spotts (or any newcomer)?
To start off, I'd like to throw out there: Murder City Devils; Beverly Crusher; Sunny Day Real Estate; The Black Tones; and The Hoot Hoots (specifically the "Rainbow Squadron" album). Any music recommendations? Email me at dyer@kuow.org.
Have you heard the term "co-responder"? You're going to hear it a lot more as police in our region begin adding mental health professionals into the mix when they take certain calls.
As KUOW's Amy Radil reports, five cities in North King County (Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Bothell, Kenmore, and Kirkland) have teamed up to ensure that such mental health resources are available seven days a week. The effort is being ramped up to offer a team that can even respond to some calls without an officer present.
In Seattle, Mayor Bruce Harrell has convened a workgroup to address this same issue — adding more mental health professionals for 911 calls. The Seattle Fire Department has already made moves in this direction, and is currently expanding the effort. Its Health One teams launched in 2019. SFD added a third unit this year. When firefighters and EMTs respond to a call, they may encounter someone who needs specific help beyond their scope. They call the Health One team to follow up.
These efforts are happening as King County faces an ongoing decline in mental health treatment beds. KUOW's Natalie Newcomb reports that the county is slated to purchase a long-term residential mental health treatment center in North Seattle. Here's the thing: This purchase won't add any more beds for mental health treatment for our region. If anything, it will just preserve a few, about 64.
King County Executive Dow Constantine recently noted that the county has lost about a third of such beds over the past four years, during a time when the need for these services has increased. According to one King County Council member, the county had 355 residential treatment beds in 2018; today we have 264. That count is about to go down even further (to 244) after another facility closes down later this year. Read more here.
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'A new dawn' for carefully planned burns in Washington state
As crews continue to fight the Bolt Creek Fire in Snohomish County, and others burning around Washington, the state's land management agency is speaking out about the need for prescribed burns.
"Right now, we're in, really, a new dawn for the nation of recognizing that there's a tradeoff of smoke will happen one way or another, and it's really up to us to decide when we'd like to see that and how we'd like to see that," said Kate Williams, a burn planner with Washington's Department of Natural Resources.
Williams says carefully planned burns remove fuels that could lead to catastrophic wildfires. She also says plants and animals benefit from lower-intensity fires, which return nutrients to the soil and open up vegetation.
Resource department crews conducted prescribed burns this past spring, for the first time in 18 years.
But the practice has risks. Earlier this year, two planned burns in New Mexico got out of control, leading to the largest wildfire in the state's history.
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Why U.S. Sen. Cantwell has her eye on the sky
You wouldn't immediately realize it by looking at the night sky, but there is a lot of "space junk" up there.
That's why U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, has got her eye on cleaning up a sky-high mess. Cantwell has proposed a bill, called the ORBITS Act, aimed at eventually removing expired satellites and other leftovers in orbit around Earth.
Such space junk, currently in orbit, has the potential to collide with a satellite used for weather monitoring, or communications. Or it could strike a spacecraft. It could also potentially fall to Earth in a fiery crash.
“There are more than 900,000 pieces of space junk passing over our heads every day, including abandoned Government satellites,” Cantwell said in a statement. “This bill will jumpstart the technology development needed to remove the most dangerous junk before it knocks out a satellite, crashes into a NASA mission, or falls to the ground and hurts someone. We must continue to explore space, and we have to do it safely.”
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