NASELLE — During their regular monthly meeting on Jan. 15, the Naselle-Grays River Valley School District’s (NGRVSD) Board of Directors received a presentation by students Hannalie Popkin and Trajen Ford about the Columbia River Maritime Museum Miniboat Program.
SALEM — Oregon and Washington state are still figuring out what to do with gillnets on the Columbia River.
About half the salmon swimming up the Columbia River come from hatcheries — most of which are raised to be caught by fishermen. The rest are wild. And many of those salmon are protected under …
From the Center for Whale Research:
OLYMPIA — After state voters soundly rejected a carbon fee initiative in November 2018, climate advocates in the Legislature are trying to curb climate change with a bevy of smaller reforms.
On Jan. 8 a little before 10 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard was notified of a boat needing assistance crossing the Yaquina Bay bar due to high seas. The Coast Guard left the Yaquina Bay station an…
LONG BEACH — An enormous cold-water cyclone has developed offshore Tuesday and is generating significant ocean swells. Rough seas are expected to move closer to the mouth of the Columbia over …
Widespread strong winds are possible tonight into early Sunday morning, the National Weather Service in Portland said Saturday morning.
The head of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association hopes to combat misconceptions about the relationship between orca recovery in the Pacific Ocean and the Columbia and Snake rivers.
A federal judge has dismissed a third lawsuit challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s experiment with killing barred owls to protect threatened spotted owls.
Odds are high that the Pacific Northwest will be warmer than average the next three months, and current drought conditions are expected to persist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrat…
Warm and dry has been the story for much of the Pacific Northwest in recent weeks, contributing to a region-wide snowpack deficit that may continue for months to come, according to speakers pa…
COLUMBIA RIVER — Legislation that will allow the lethal removal of more California sea lions, as well as steller sea lions, from the Columbia River passed two hurdles in the past two weeks and…
A series of storms will cross the northeast Pacific through early next week, the National Weather Service in Portland advises. These storms will send significant westerly swells toward the Pac…
Congress has agreed to make it easier to kill sea lions threatening fragile runs of salmon in the Northwest.
The University of Washington’s College of the Environment has teamed up with Seattle visual analytics company Tableau Software to create a new, interactive visualization for historical observa…
A young male bobcat was released back into the wild Nov. 18 after being found in a family’s fenced-in backyard near Astoria.
National assessment on climate change projects rising temperatures and rising pressure on agriculture to adapt
Pacific Ocean temperatures are rising along the equator, a signal that winter likely will be warmer than normal in the Northwest.
Horror tales from recent earthquakes overseas are moving people in the Pacific Northwest to give a crap about where to crap after a major earthquake.
More hot and dry weather is expected to hang around the Pacific Northwest, exacerbating drought conditions that have gripped the region.
Vicki Markley remembers the scene vividly. The owner of Pinehurst Cabins & RV Park stood on her doorstep two weeks ago as the Rattlesnake Creek Fire approached from across U.S. Highway 95 …
Washington wildlife managers initially opposed sending a helicopter or a search-and-rescue team to save a woman treed by wolves in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, according to recordin…
KLIPSAN — When a woman dropped her cell phone in a Klipsan Beach outhouse in June, she ended up down in the dumps.
U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) have introduced the West Coast Ocean Protection Act to permanently prohibit offshore drilling on the outer continental shelf off …
WASHINGTON ─ Minimum wage in Washington will increase to $11 an hour, from the current rate of $9.47, starting on Jan. 1, 2017.
In one of the most comprehensive studies to date, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have sequenced the genes of a harmful algae bloom, unveiling never-before-seen interac…
BURLINGTON — Police searched Saturday for a gunman who opened fire in the makeup department of a Macy’s store at a mall north of Seattle, killing four females and one man, before fleeing towar…
COLUMBIA RIVER — The Columbia Basin is possibly looking at a summer with progressively diminishing water supplies, because of similar conditions that developed last year across the basin.
Clean-water campaign viewed as anti-farmer
WASHINGTON — In rural Pacific and Wahkiakum counties, there are frequent occasions when a very small group of cops from a mix of city, county and state agencies are on duty. When a call goes s…
The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center is projecting that the El Niño weather pattern will dissipate around late summer, and that there are growing indications a La Niña patt…
TACOMA (AP) — The Latest on the federal fraud trial of Washington State Auditor Troy Kelley (all times local):
OLYMPIA — A decade ago, Seattle entrepreneur Ben Rogovy made headlines for inventing the controversial practice of “Bumvertising” — paying the homeless to advertise his businesses. Now, he’s i…
OLYMPIA — Across the globe, tuberculosis kills more people each year than any other infectious disease, and now it appears to be gaining a foothold in Pacific County and other parts of the Eve…
PACIFIC COUNTY — New state data reveals a disturbing trend: It’s too easy for Washington teens — including those in Pacific County — to get tobacco.
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Top lawmakers in Washington largely exempt themselves from the state’s public records law, and their offices did not release emails sent and received by their government accou…
Legislature shrinks education opportunity gap; governor’s signature next
OLYMPIA — When Logan Bowers opened his marijuana retail store Seattle Hashtag in April 2015, he entered an arena far different from his tech-industry background.
OLYMPIA — The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed the first case of Zika Virus in Washington state.
For Chinook Observer readers who are following this news, here’s a statement by Greg Bretzing, Special Agent In Charge, FBI Portland, released at 11:03 a.m. Jan. 27:
PULLMAN — The Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (WADDL) has found two dogs positive for influenza A, but specific typing has not been conducted.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This powerful story from the south side of the Columbia River mirrors the addiction struggles of too many here in Pacific County. Whittney Ferguson, the subject of the story, wa…
TUMWATER — Washington state’s minimum wage, of $9.47 per hour, will stay the same in 2016 because the national Consumer Price Index did not increase.
PACIFIC OCEAN — The National Weather Service has warned for months that this year’s El Niño weather pattern will be among the strongest on record, with predictions for higher-than-normal preci…
WESTPORT — A sunken vessel in Westhaven Marina no longer poses and environmental risk after Coast Guard personnel removed 500 gallons of oil and water form the vessel’s tanks Monday.
The recent Paris attacks intensified the debate on how America should allow people through its doors just as Washington received its first wave of Syrian refugees.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Nov. 18 the Senate Commerce Committee passed U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-WA) West Coast Dungeness Crab Management Act of 2015. The legislation would make the current fi…
A warming ocean that began long before the most recent El Niño is causing a West Coast drought, first in California and now in the Northwest.
WASHINGTON — A growing number of terminally ill residents have chosen to die on their own terms since the Death With Dignity Act went into effect in 2009. However, a recent report suggests tha…
OLYMPIA (AP) — Voters in Washington were deciding the fate of two statewide initiatives and scores of local races Tuesday night. Here is the latest from the election:
PULLMAN — The discovery in Washington state of a parasitic wasp that kills its host like a scene from the “Alien” sci-fi movie has entomologists cheering from the West Coast to the East.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center released an updated El Nino forecast this week that is in line with previous forecasts in recent months predicting that weather patterns driven by Pacific Ocea…
Bill Baker thought it was silly when his wife lost her CD case in the refrigerator. It was strange when she stopped talking mid-conversation. It was terrifying the first time she had a car acc…
SALEM — Oregon is sending updated checklists for the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami to state and local emergency response agencies across the state.
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