Guest Opinion

As cloud computing and AI companies push to build new data centers that could consume as much electricity as small cities, Eastern Washington is showing up on the list of possible locations.

A safe, affordable home gives people room to build a life. It lets families settle into a neighborhood, seniors stay near care and community, workers live near their jobs and young people build a future.

By Joshua Pierce

By Bob Pishue

By Curtis Hampton

The people of Washington have waited long enough. For decades, the Hanford site has been a symbol of scientific achievement and environmental burden – a place where commitments were made to clean up the nation’s largest inventory of radioactive tank waste, yet too often delayed by technical setbacks and bureaucratic inertia. That must change, and it must change now.

Eight years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 27, 2018, decision in Janus v. AFSCME, too many public employees still don’t know a basic fact about their jobs: Union membership is a choice, not a condition of employment. So are the dues that come with it.

Last week’s Upriver fire tore through a Spokane neighborhood nestled against a wooded area, leaving over 200 acres burned, 15 homes damaged or destroyed, and one person dead.

The Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies program at Eastern Washington University is facing near -certain death. The program is a skeleton of its former self, suffering from attrition and administrative devaluation over the past several years. A devastating blow is likely to come soon, as the board of trustees is set to vote on eliminating the GWSS major at its meeting Thursday. If that happens, faculty in the program could be fired.

By Shari McMahan

More than five years after hospitals were required by law to post prices for their services, over 500 nationally, including 19 in the Mountain West (nine in Washington; four in Montana; three in Idaho; and three in Wyoming), failed to meet transparency requirements this year – keeping healthcare costs higher for everyone.

Across the Mountain West, data center construction has been slowed by local opposition, fueled in part by misunderstandings about the water consumption associated with the industry. Articles like “AI Chugs a Bottle of Water Every Time You Chat With It,” and “The Dark Side of Data Centers Part 2: Water Guzzlers” give the impression that data centers are uniquely intense in their water consumption. This phrasing has also shown up in recent legislative bills. Idaho’s recently passed HB 895 claims data centers “require significant amounts of water.” Washington HB 2515 says data centers “are also major users of … water.”

By Dana Harbaugh and Kim Sample

By Tricia R. Serio

By Alisha Benson, Emilie Cameron and Latisha Hill

When you enter the housing market, you likely assume that the process is transparent: homes for sale are visible to everyone, you can compare properties based on a complete set of data, and you can trust that price discovery is happening in the open. For decades, the centralized marketplace has been the bedrock of American real estate, ensuring that value is determined by the collective wisdom of the crowd rather than backroom deals. However, those assumptions are becoming increasingly fragile.

By Chris Reykdal

By Manasvi Khullar and Reema Navalurkar

By Emily Strasburg