In brief: I-90 work will slow traffic
Drivers motoring west from Coeur d’Alene on Interstate 90 will need to slow to 45 mph this weekend as crews continue repairs to three bridges.
Crews will start at 7 a.m. today on the bridges, located between the interchange with Northwest Boulevard and the Huetter rest area, and are expected to continue working through Monday, according to an Idaho Transportation Department news release. Traffic will be limited to one westbound lane.
“The asphalt overlay on the bridge decks continues to deteriorate because of severe winter weather the area has been experiencing,” according to the release. Workers will remove the asphalt overlay, work normally done in the spring.
Work last weekend on the bridges slowed traffic to a crawl at times, and vehicles reportedly backed up as far as Highway 95. The speed limit will revert to 55 mph after construction and remain until further notice.
PENDLETON, Ore.
Mixed outlook for Chinook runs
Fishery officials project a strong return of spring chinook to the Columbia River this year, but a weak showing on the Willamette.
A panel of federal, state and tribal officials forecasts 269,300 spring chinook to return to the mouth of the Columbia, the largest return since 2002.
The forecast is largely based on the big return of spring chinook jacks – sexually immature 2-year-old fish – last year. More than 16,600 passed Bonneville Dam last spring, compared with 2,908 in 2006 and a 10-year average of 8,234, according to numbers from the Fish Passage Center, which collects data on juvenile and adult salmon passage through the mainstem hydrosystem in the Columbia River Basin.
Though the forecast for spring chinook on the Columbia River looks good, the spring run on the Willamette River is expected to be the lowest since 1997 – about 34,000 fish.
If the predictions come true, “2008 will mark the only time in recent years in which the expected Willamette run is weak and the expected Columbia River run is strong,” according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Fishery officials monitor fish runs during the season, primarily via dam counts and fish catch data, as Oregon and Washington fish and wildlife agencies plan and execute commercial and sport fisheries on the mainstem and tributaries.
SEATTLE
Fortuneteller jailed for scam
A 79-year-old fortuneteller convicted of scamming $220,000 from a Seattle woman who wanted help getting her ex-boyfriend back has been sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison.
Sophie Evon and her daughter-in-law, both self-proclaimed gypsies, persuaded the 26-year-old woman to give them the cash in 1999 so they could pray over it and break a spell that another woman had cast on the man. The victim took much of the money from her mother’s retirement account, authorities said.
When the victim returned to Evon’s home the next day, the fortunetellers were gone, along with the money.
Evon was later arrested in Canada, but faked stroke symptoms in an unsuccessful effort to be found mentally unfit for trial and then escaped again, court documents said. She was arrested again in Alberta last fall.
Her daughter-in-law and partner in crime, Sylvia Lee, received an 18-month sentence in 2001.