Week in Review
Americans have used Superfund laws in the past to sue U.S. companies and force environmental cleanups. Now, two leaders of the Colville Confederated Tribes have become the first to use Superfund laws to sue a foreign corporation. Saying they’ve lost patience with negotiations that have moved behind doors in Ottawa and Washington, D.C., the pair are taking on Teck Cominco Metals Inc., which operates the world’s largest combined lead-zinc smelter at Trail, B.C. For decades, Cominco dumped tons of contaminated slag into the Columbia River, just a few miles upstream of Washington’s Lake Roosevelt. It also dumped an estimated 20 pounds of mercury a day, according to a 1981 B.C. government estimate. The tribe wants that contamination cleaned up, but Cominco refuses to recognize U.S. Superfund legal processes. The tribe, whose reservation borders Lake Roosevelt, contends the U.S. government has done little to settle the matter. “We filed this suit to improve the lake for future generations,” said a tribal elder. A Cominco vice president called the suit disappointing. “We’re being vilified unfairly,” he said.
MONDAY
A law professor at Gonzaga University is defending a death-row inmate in Texas. Professor Ken Williams wants a judge to order a retrial for a woman convicted of shooting her husband and two children. He says the jury should have been told that Frances Elaine Newton was abused by her husband. Time is short: Newton is scheduled to die Dec. 1.
TUESDAY
A man was shot dead when he and a companion forced their way into a North Monroe home, witnesses told Spokane Police. But it’s unclear who fired the fatal shot, and police are looking for the companion, whom they describe as a “known gang member.”
“ The Spokane City Council has voted to change a long-standing city rule that has funded much of the city’s public art. The rule used to require that 1 percent of the construction budget for each public building be devoted to artwork at that building. Now, some of the money can be pooled for artwork in public spaces outside of new buildings.
WEDNESDAY
John Iani, the regional head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is leaving for a legal job in the private sector. Appointed in 2001, Iani has dealt with such tough issues as cleanup of the Coeur d’Alene Basin, heavy metals contamination of Lake Roosevelt and field burning.
“ Spokane County’s sheriff wants to build a pharmacy and hire a pharmacist for the jail. The jail has spent an average of $65,000 a month on inmates’ medical bills so far this year, up from $8,000 a month in 1997.
“ Spokane County voters, who approved a 0.3 percent sales-tax increase for buses in May, likely will be asked in September to approve a 0.1 percent increase for criminal justice and public safety expenses. And in Spokane Valley, voters will be asked to increase their property taxes.
“ The Washington Department of Ecology says it will withhold a low-interest loan for a proposed Spokane County sewage treatment plant because the county won’t likely get the needed permit to discharge the treated effluent into the Spokane River. County officials say they’ll sue over the issue.
THURSDAY
Two U.S. Marine fighter jets collided over the Columbia River, broke up and burst into flames, killing two aviators and sending a third to a hospital. Debris from the two F18s rained down on the river and the town of Arlington, Ore.
“ Two people died in a head-on collision on U.S. Highway 195, south of Spokane. And in a separate accident on Interstate 90 just east of the Washington-Idaho line, a pickup rolled, killing the president of the Seattle Police officers’ union. Each of the highways was closed for hours.
“ A Spokane Valley teen faces felony charges of vehicular assault and injury hit-and-run for the July 1 accident that left a 14-year-old girl in critical condition for nearly two weeks. Jessica A. Napier, 16, was driving a car loaded with teens. The victim was one of two riding on the outside of the car, and fell to the asphalt when Napier rounded a corner. Police say Napier fled the scene, asked her friends to lie about the accident and refused to cooperate with investigators.
FRIDAY
Barnes & Noble College Booksellers will pay $500,000 up front and at least $1 million a year to take over Washington State University’s private, nonprofit student bookstores in Pullman, Spokane, Richland and Vancouver. But the Bookie in Pullman will face competition from three former managers who have quit to form their own store, called Crimson & Gray.
“ Authorities are warning of a scam in which victims are contacted by phone and told they’ve been approved for government grants. The callers ask their marks to pay a fee that’s usually between $199 and $249, and also ask for bank account numbers.
“ Since May, more than a dozen retirees from all over the West and Midwest have spent at least five days a week helping build a 9,000-square-foot expansion at Spokane’s Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church. They are members of Laborers for Christ, a group that since 1980 has helped with 600 church building projects across the country. The workers, mostly retirees, travel in RVs and live at the construction sites.
“ A 26-year-old Spokane man was convicted of raping a 3-year-old boy twice. The boy’s mother invited the man to move into her apartment so he could baby-sit her son and 9-year-old daughter while she attended classes. The boy endured a needless appendectomy after the first rape because doctors thought that’s what was causing him pain. He nearly died of internal bleeding after the second rape.
COMING UP
A Ferris High School teacher who is serving in the National Guard is helping create a new civics curriculum for students in Iraq. Read about it Monday in The Spokesman-Review.