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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Former S-R reporter missing

Compiled from staff and wire reports The Spokesman-Review

A former Spokane resident who is a reporter for a Virginia newspaper has been missing for more than a week.

Officials at the Daily Press in Newport News say they fear Ward L. Sanderson, 35, is wandering the streets, disoriented.

Sanderson was raised in Spokane and graduated in 1993 from Gonzaga University, where he ran track and studied journalism. He later was a reporter for The Spokesman-Review.

He left Spokane to work in Germany for Stars and Stripes and made several reporting trips to Iraq.

Sanderson, who has worked for the Daily Press as a military reporter since March, last went to work on May 31, according to a story on the newspaper’s Web page. He was detained briefly on June 1, when military police found him wandering near a military base.

“At the time he told military police he had left his vehicle at a bank parking lot because he no longer needed it,” Lou Thurston, Newport News police spokesman, told the Daily Press.

Bumping into a colleague the next day, Sanderson reportedly said that he was merely out for a walk. He hasn’t been seen since by those who know him.

On June 6, Sanderson was scheduled to take a day off from work, the newspaper reported. Movers showed up at his apartment with his belongings from Germany, but Sanderson was not there.

Then, on June 8, Sanderson’s work identification card arrived at the Daily Press, mailed in a U.S. Postal Service envelope. The back of the ID card instructs anyone who finds it to mail it to the Daily Press.

Bunker Hill report to be presented

It’s been about 10 years since the Environmental Protection Agency started cleaning up heavy metal contamination from a history of mining in the Silver Valley.

Within two years, the EPA expects to be finished with cleanup within the Bunker Hill Superfund “box,” which is the 21-square-mile site in the immediate vicinity of the old Bunker Hill Mine.

Aside from some continued work on water quality within the box, the EPA will then focus on cleanup of the larger Coeur d’Alene Basin.

A draft review of cleanup activity thus far inside and outside the Superfund “box” and of whether the work is protecting human and environment health has just been released by the EPA.

This week, the agency is holding five open houses on the review findings and recommendations in North Idaho and Spokane. The public has 30 days to comment on the draft.

“The major issues revolve around whether or not certain remediated areas are becoming recontaminated,” said Angela Chung, the EPA’s Coeur d’Alene team leader for cleanup.

Spokane’s open house is scheduled for from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Room 140 of the Spokane Regional Health District, 1101 W. College Ave.

An executive summary of the review is available online at http://yosemite.epa.gov /r10/cleanup.nsf /bh/five+year+reviews.

Reward offered in grizzly killing

Priest River, Idaho The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the illegal killing of a grizzly bear near this northern Idaho logging community. The bear’s remains were found by employees of the Idaho Department of Lands over the weekend while they were working near the middle fork of the East River just north of Priest River.

Grizzly bears are listed as threatened under provisions of the federal Endangered Species Act and are also protected by Idaho statutes.

Illegal killings of the bears account for 90 percent of their deaths in the Selkirk Mountains. State wildlife officials say that poaching is a major hurdle to the species’ recovery in the region. To report information about poaching, tipsters can call in anonymously to the Citizens Against Poaching hotline at (800) 632-5999

King County election chief resigns

Seattle King County’s election superintendent is leaving his post following a court challenge of November election results that revealed problems with the voting process in the state’s most populous county.

Bill Huennekens will step down as superintendent effective July 11, the county said in a statement Tuesday. He’s been reassigned to supervise enactment of recent federal voting rules, which require installation of handicapped-accessible balloting equipment at more than 500 county polling sites.

Huennekens did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

Republicans who challenged Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire’s slim November victory in court focused their attention on Seattle-centered King County, a Democratic stronghold.