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Becky Kramer

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News >  Idaho

Sandpoint residents step toward future

SANDPOINT – Richard Kuhnel’s carbon footprint is steadily shrinking. He and his wife, Berta, work out of home offices, which means their 1992 Subaru Legacy seldom leaves the garage. Last summer, the Sandpoint couple doubled their garden space, growing vegetables without pesticides or power tools. And when they needed a storage shed, Kuhnel built it out of recycled lumber.
News >  Idaho

‘Howl boxes’ echo wolf calls

NORTHEAST OF USK, Wash. – As darkness fell, the howl of a wolf rose over the Selkirk Mountains – a plaintive and drawn-out sound that lingered over ridges covered with fresh snow. After an expectant pause, the howl rang out again.
News >  Idaho

Avista promoting natural gas

Beulah Townsend keeps her apartment at a comfortable 71 degrees, and still pays less than $34 per month for utilities. “I like the double-pane windows,” said Townsend, a retired travel agent.
News >  Idaho

Avista says profits double in 2008

Higher electric and gas rates that took effect Jan. 1 helped double Avista Corp.’s year-to-date earnings, company officials said. The utility reported net profits of $56.1 million through the end of September, compared with $24.4 million for the first nine months of 2007.
News >  Idaho

E-waste drop-off an instant hit

Nearly 2,000 people brought their outdated electronics to a recycling event Saturday at Huppin’s Warehouse. The free drop-off was so popular that traffic snarled on the Broadway freeway exit. Lines of pickups formed, with old TVs and computer terminals stacked in the truck beds like cords of firewood.
News >  Idaho

Cougar Bay residents seek protection for ospreys

Osprey have been a stately presence in Lake Coeur d’Alene’s Cougar Bay for three decades, building as many as 20 nests annually on log pilings in the quiet inlet. If their nesting area vanished, it would be a loss for the community, several landowners say.
News >  Business

Carbon offsetting not profitable yet

Carl Mattson gets a small cash bonus for practicing no-till farming on his 4,000-acre dryland wheat farm near Chester, Mont. Seeding his fields without plowing keeps carbon locked in the soil. “We don’t expose the organic material to oxygen, so we aren’t releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” explained the third-generation farmer, who sells credits from his greenhouse gas-reducing farm practices on the Chicago Climate Exchange.
News >  Business

Potlatch’s earnings off sharply

Potlatch Corp. reported third-quarter earnings of $25.3 million on Thursday, down from net earnings of $41 million during the third quarter of 2007. Sales of toilet paper and other tissue products were a bright spot for the Spokane-based company, officials said. Net earnings in Potlatch’s consumer products division were $10.9 million – more than double last year’s third-quarter earnings for the division.
News >  Idaho

Counties balk on lake plan

After three false starts, the state of Idaho and Coeur d’Alene Tribe reached agreement this summer on managing a century’s worth of mining pollution at the bottom of Lake Coeur d’Alene. The long-awaited plan is intended to keep the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from stepping in with a Superfund remedy for 83 million tons of lake mud tainted with heavy metals. Taking action to protect Lake Coeur d’Alene’s water quality will keep the metals capped at the lake bottom, the plan says.
News >  Idaho

Redband fighting for survival

The fish thrashed in Jason McLellan’s grip, its olive-green body a blur. Distinctive scarlet bands – visible in flashes – ran down its sides. “Relax, relax,” said McLellan, a fisheries biologist, as he measured and weighed the trophy-size redband trout. “You’re too feisty.”
News >  Idaho

Dock storage plans discussed

Cougar Bay is a rarity on Lake Coeur d’Alene: a quiet, natural area where canoeists and kayakers spy nesting bald eagles, great blue herons, and even visiting flocks of white pelicans. That’s what dozens of neighbors told Idaho Department of Lands officials at a meeting Thursday night. One by one, they stepped up to a microphone, voicing concerns about a proposed dock business in the bay.
News >  Idaho

Officials try to salvage Blue Alder sale

The Blue Alder timber sale east of Coeur d’Alene was supposed to offer a little something for everyone. Loggers would profit from 950 acres of timber harvest. For environmentalists, the sale promised an eventual return to open, parklike stands of ponderosa pine and western white pine, improving habitat for flammulated owls, pygmy nuthatches and other sensitive species.
News >  Spokane

Battles done, mining to begin

CHESAW, Wash. – For nearly 20 years, miners and environmentalists battled over Buckhorn Mountain, a knobby outcropping in the Okanogan Highlands. The 5,800-foot mountain near the Canadian border contains roughly 1 million ounces of gold, worth about $900 million at today’s prices. But years of permit battles and litigation stymied efforts to extract the gold.
News >  Idaho

Bringing history up to date

To research the brief political career of William Williams – a candidate for Lincoln County sheriff in 1894 – Nancy Ellis turned to her computer. Washington State Digital Archives helped her track down the relevant facts. Williams ran on the Populist ticket, won the election, but was never sworn in.
News >  Idaho

Digital archives bring history up to date

To research the brief political career of William Williams – a candidate for Lincoln County sheriff in 1894 – Nancy Ellis turned to her computer. Washington State Digital Archives helped her track down the relevant facts. Williams ran on the Populist ticket, won the election, but was never sworn in.
News >  Idaho

Deadline nears to file Zonolite claim

People who don’t know whether their homes contain Zonolite Attic Insulation might consider hiring a home inspector to check, said Spokane attorney Darrell Scott. “They could quickly identify it, and it would be peace of mind,” said Scott, who represents several Spokane County clients with Zonolite.
News >  Idaho

Avista wins rate hikes

Start putting money away for those winter heating bills. Avista Corp.’s Idaho customers will see double-digit rate increases on their next monthly statements.
News >  Idaho

Avista rate increase coming

Monthly electric bills for Avista Corp.’s residential customers are likely to go up in November. Company officials said the anticipated increase is the result of lower credits from the operation of federal dams. The Bonneville Power Administration initially expected to give Avista a credit of $19 million to $23 million through its “residential exchange” program during fiscal 2009. Instead, BPA will pay out $3 million.
News >  Idaho

Phosphorus permits a year off

Crafting a new plan to limit phosphorus discharges into the Spokane River will take at least another year, state and federal officials announced Friday. Phosphorus is harmful to the river’s aquatic health. Found in fertilizers and treated sewage, phosphorus contributes to algae blooms and water quality problems in the reservoir behind Long Lake Dam, including low levels of dissolved oxygen crucial for rainbow trout.
News >  Idaho

Zonolite deadline draws near

A deadline looms for people whose homes or businesses contain Zonolite Attic Insulation, a granular, gray-gold material tainted with shards of asbestos. Property owners have until Oct. 31 to file a claim with Zonolite’s manufacturer, W.R. Grace & Co., or risk forfeiting any future compensation for removal costs.
News >  Idaho

Lead cleanup in ‘the box’ complete

Scraping lead-tainted soil from yards within “The Box” – a 21-square-mile area that took the brunt of emissions from the Bunker Hill Smelter’s smokestacks – took two decades and cost more than $50 million. But the yard cleanup is officially done.
News >  Idaho

Avista request gets rough reception

Avista Corp. should cut its request for higher electric and natural gas rates by at least 40 percent, the Washington Attorney General’s office wrote Friday in a stinging critique of the utility’s request for a rate increase worth $37 million. “We’re in a cycle where Avista and other utilities are having rate cases almost annually,” said Simon ffitch, a senior assistant attorney general. “It’s really tough on customers.”
News >  Idaho

Contractor arrested on deception charges

The former owner of Lake City Builders, whose 2006 bankruptcy led to calls for tougher standards for Idaho contractors, was arrested Thursday in Fallon, Nev., on charges of theft by deception. Myck T. Beard’s home-remodeling business amassed about $500,000 in debt before he filed for bankruptcy and left the state.
News >  Idaho

Designating wilderness in Washington state

As a medic at an Army hospital in France, Dick Slagle kept a small snapshot close to him. It was a photo of White Mountain, the southernmost peak in northeast Washington’s Kettle Range. Just before he was drafted, Slagle spent the summer of 1942 on the mountain, working as a fire lookout.