Washington’s public officials — like officials everywhere in the U.S. — have an uneasy relationship with open-records laws. Even those who philosophically believe in governing in the daylight of public scrutiny are likely to believe their time is sometimes wasted by intrusive demands for yea…
If the question could be resolved via citizens’ initiatives, there’s little doubt about the outcome: Pacific Northwest states would follow California in supporting a move toward year-round day…
As Virginia’s Democratic governor learned to his regret in recent days, a huge majority of Americans remain disgusted by the toxic bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan and all it stands for.
As a society, we have made such progress against once-common illnesses that we forget they are still around and still potentially life-threatening. The measles outbreak in Southeast Washington…
One of the primary duties and pleasures of being an adult is conveying knowledge of the past to future generations. Accomplished through storytelling, archiving records, and preserving physica…
CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT — Readers may be interested to know that much of Cape Disappointment State Park is actually owned by the National Park Service, which acquired title to most of the former U…
Questioning the fundamental usefulness of government is the backbone of some American political factions, notably including the now seldom-mentioned Tea Party. Most of these righteous skeptics…
A federal judge has dismissed a third lawsuit filed by an environmental group to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from shooting barred owls in an experimental attempt to boost numbers o…
We at the Chinook Observer seldom if ever struggle to come up with a full load of news for our weekly newsprint edition — news we update much more frequently on our website and Facebook page. …
As we wish all our readers a Merry Christmas and an enjoyable holiday season, it is fitting to reflect on some positive aspects of this week and next’s week’s fresh start with the New Year.
The Trump administration’s environmental policies are the ultimate screw-you moment for the youngest Americans as well as for generations unborn. Following on the Environmental Protection Agen…
After a very sunny and dry start, the Pacific Northwest’s December is now expected to turn wet and windy — at least for a while.
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It’s time to get your flu shot — if you haven’t already. You owe it to yourself, and to protect the people around you.
Long Beach
President Trump created a firestorm — a phrase that could describe almost any of his actions — when he said last month that he would issue an executive order ending “birthright” citizenship fo…
Every year the Don R. Grable American Legion Post 48 in Ilwaco holds its annual law and order awards.
Columbia River salmon need all the friends they can get. So why is former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber still demonizing some of the most knowledgeable and passionate salmon advocates?
In Mark McClain, Pacific County has an excellent prosecutor. He should be re-elected.
Elections for U.S. House are every two years but the advantages of incumbency mean real chances for change come up less often.
“Neonic” is a word that sets off alarm bells among those who are reflexively opposed to pesticides on farms and ranches.
This month reporters from our sister publication, the Capital Press, tried to put a dollar figure to the impact of retaliatory tariffs placed on U.S. agriculture products to farmers and ranche…
A recent incident in Long Beach helps spotlight the precarious nature of coastal residents’ struggles to find and keep affordable housing.
It was always going to be ugly. The Washington Legislature’s first major effort to implement court-ordered statewide full funding for K-12 education has upset decades of local school levy arra…
Perhaps nothing personifies the late Sen. John McCain better than this episode from his 2008 presidential campaign.
Despite its factions and feuds, Oysterville remains a really remarkable community success story. Even its quarrels are encouraging in a way, indicating it is a place that stirs passionate feel…
Americans have looked down our noses at the Chinese, whose dirty air we’ve seen on television — dreary gray and brown, shrouding ugly streets in a kind of sickly twilight. How disheartening it…
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Chinook Observer is joining this week with publications around the U.S. to issue a warning about the ongoing assault on America’s free and independent press, one of the para…
If it looks like a scene from the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean,” that’s because it is.
‘Beauty and the Beast’
The press is not the enemy, despite what President Donald Trump has said. His relentless campaign against independent journalism is a self-serving strategy meant to shield himself from account…
There’s a well-known story of a Long Beach mayor decades ago who unscrupulously made sure his family had the only fireworks stand in town. Such self-dealing was once all too common. Today’s Lo…
The Food and Drug Administration is taking another look at proposed nutritional labeling rules after a hue and cry from cranberry, honey and maple syrup producers.
Cape promotion well deserved
In the last 20 years, we doubt a year has gone by without some sort of tragedy on the Oregon and Southwest Washington coasts.
It’s unsurprising that Cape Disappointment State Park is on the verge of losing an important campground. It’s also unsurprising — but nevertheless disappointing — that federal and state agenci…
The Chinook Tribe’s tenacious efforts to survive as distinctive original residents of this place — and to convince bureaucrats of their legal existence — could form the basis of an intricate l…
Giving a fresh face to a popular attraction, the Boys & Girls Club of the Long Beach Peninsula is taking the reins of the Ocean Beach Education Foundation’s 26th annual auction.
The quest for bitcoins, the cryptocurrency that exists only in cyberspace, probably doesn’t weigh heavily on the minds of most Northwesterners.
Several recent happenings have caught the editor’s eye, but don’t require full-blown windy editorial commentary. Here are a few opinions offered about local and regional news in the past coupl…
The fight over using man-made chemicals to control burrowing shrimp in Willapa Bay has now been going on about three times longer than the Trojan War — close to three decades. Like that classi…
Opioid overdoses are killing an average of 115 Americans a day, with 40 percent involving prescription painkillers. Opioids accounted for two-thirds of country’s 63,600 overdose deaths in 2016.
Both desirable and dangerous, coastlines are a front-row seat for the splendors, rewards and hazards of the living, crashing ocean. A new analysis of tsunami risks published last week shouldn’…
A Chinook Observer editorial cartoon from more than a century ago recorded the adversarial relationship between fishermen and all the species that enjoy eating salmon. Specifically about outwa…
Wednesday is a special day for this newspaper.
The U.S. Navy is once again eying state parks on the south Washington coast and Columbia estuary as training sites for SEALs, the service’s elite special-operations group. Pacific County parks…
A century ago the economies of rural areas were held back by lack of electricity, phone service and adequate highways. Nowadays, slow internet connections can be a similar handicap — one the P…
Washington’s Legislature has a split personality when it comes to government openness: Good for everyone else, but not for themselves.
Among much other public property he hopes to sell off, President Trump wants to market one of the largest assets ever built in the Pacific Northwest. As part of a plan to help fund his fantasy…
A weekend clam-digging adventure came to a sorrowful end for two families last weekend when women drowned in Pacific County.
A look back at several years of news about the Columbia River Dungeness crab industry highlights trends and problems that are coalescing into a need for a better coordinated response.
Tuesday’s pre-dawn tsunami watch was a useful reminder of the need to be a well-educated and prepared coastal resident.
For all who care about the fishing industry and Columbia River heritage, the end of The Gillnetter is a sad occasion marking the close of an era. Combined with the atrophying of the Columbia R…
As we wish all our Pacific County neighbors and subscribers around the world a happy and safe new year, we cannot help but look ahead to 2018.
A public-private collaboration between Peninsula Pharmacies, Ocean Beach Hospital and Willapa Counseling Center, the new medical facility in Ocean Park has to be counted as one of the Peninsul…
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