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Inside Washington |
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Written On: March/April 2008 |
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Boeing beats Airbus in orders but delays 787; tanker deal under appeal
CHICAGO — According to the Associated Press, rivals Airbus and Boeing Co. garnered a record 2,754 orders in 2007. Boeing sold more planes, but Airbus delivered more aircraft to its customers. Boeing also stated it would push back the much-anticipated 787 inaugural flight by up to three months. This means a delay of the 787’s test flight to the end of the second quarter due to problems in Boeing’s supply chain and slow progress on the assembly line. While Boeing originally planned to deliver the 787 in late 2008, delivery of the airplane will not occur until 2009 under the new schedule. In a disappointing move for Boeing, the Pentagon recently awarded the $40-billion aerial refueling aircraft contract to Airbus and Northrop-Grumman Corp. If Boeing had won the bid, the military would have replaced its aging fleet of Boeing-built KC-135s with Boeing KC-767s, which are already in service in the Italian and Japanese air forces. Now, the U.S. Air Force’s primary aerial tanker aircraft will be the KC-45A, a design derived from the civilian Airbus A330-200.
Schweitzer Engineering Labs to hire more than 300 employees in 2008
PULLMAN — Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. will hire more than 300 new employees this year as the company continues its worldwide expansion. Many of the new employees will work at the
company’s Pullman headquarters. Positions include software, hardware, and research engineers; integration and automation engineers; manufacturing and mechanical engineers; market managers for metals, mining and the petrochemical industry; supplier quality, power, and protection engineers; flight department, manufacturing, administrative, and SEL University personnel; technicians; and internships. The company is expanding in response to worldwide growth in utility sales, especially in certain industrial sectors like the petroleum industry.
Centenarian buildings become living history
SEQUIM—From the Peninsula Daily News: Two historic buildings have a new home at the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Museum and Arts Center. The buildings are the 116-year-old Washington Harbor schoolhouse and the 133-year-old Captain Morris House, once owned by a sea captain who sailed from the East Coast around Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America, to the Northwest. Both of the structures were formerly located 1.2 miles away at the intersection of Sequim-Dungeness Way and Medsker Road. An auction for the museum funded the $13,500 move. Once restored, the schoolhouse and the Morris residence will become living history exhibits.
Wanapum Dam fish bypass wins civil engineering award
BEVERLY — The Grant County Public Utility District’s $30-million fish bypass project at Wanapum Dam, six miles south of Vantage on the Columbia River, received Northwest Construction magazine’s Best Civil Engineering Award for 2007. The Future Unit Fish Bypass consists of a 290-foot-long chute with an opening of 18.5 feet and an exit width of 90 feet. The chute will carry a bypass flow of 20,000 cubic feet per second. Combined with the ongoing installation of new fish-friendly generating turbines, the PUD’s goal is to achieve a 95-percent survival rate for juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating to the Pacific Ocean.
Vancouver high school wins BPA’s 2008 Regional Science Bowl
PORTLAND — Mountain View High School of Vancouver, Wash., won first place in the Bonneville Power Administration’s Regional Science Bowl at the University of Portland recently, after battling through a full day of competition to best 63 other teams. The Science Bowl is a quiz-show-style, round-robin competition aimed at raising and encouraging students’ interest in math, science and technology. Fifteen colleges and universities offer scholarships to members of the top three teams. The winning high school teams will compete at the national championships in Washington, D.C., later this spring.
T-Mobile leases space at new data center in East Wenatchee
EAST WENATCHEE — T-Mobile will lease 200,000 square feet of space at Intergate.Columbia, a Sabey Corp. data center project in East Wenatchee, Wash. T-Mobile is the first tenant of the Sabey facility, projected to cost more than $100 million. Sabey plans to build two data centers, totaling approximately 380,000 square feet of space, by 2009. Douglas County PUD recently completed a electrical substation to supply power to the new data center. Sabey has arranged for up to 30 megawatts of electricity from the PUD and will pay for about 80 percent of the substation’s $7.9-million cost, according to PUD officials.
Gates Foundation donates $1 million to premature birth research
SEATTLE — From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $1 million to Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute for research on the prevention of premature and stillbirths worldwide. The donation will fund studies at the hospital’s new Office for Prevention of Prematurity and Stillbirth. This office is partnering with researchers and investigators worldwide to gather information on premature births and stillbirths. The researchers will examine information from birth registries, vital statistics databases and medical literature and present their findings in Seattle in 2009. More than 1 million babies worldwide die of complications resulting from premature birth.
Lufthansa inaugurates new nonstop route from Seattle to Frankfurt
SEA-TAC — A new air route is coming to Sea-Tac International Airport. Germany’s Lufthansa Airlines will offer daily, nonstop service between Seattle and Frankfurt beginning March 30. The new flight will not only connect Seattle to Germany, but will also allow Lufthansa passengers to make connections to 135 destinations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Russia, Africa and India. The addition of Lufthansa will bring the total number of European service routes at Sea-Tac to five: British Airways to London, Northwest Airlines to Amsterdam, SAS to Copenhagen, Air France to Paris, and Lufthansa to Frankfurt.
Port of Tacoma contractors complete second phase of restoration project
TACOMA — Port of Tacoma contractors breached the Puyallup River levee to create another off-channel site for salmon along the river. They followed the tide out with excavation equipment, then led the tide back in by laying rock along the now-shallow shore. The new channel will fill with water at high tide, providing a rich feeding and resting place for juvenile salmon before they head out to Puget Sound. The local Puyallup tribe welcomed the salmon back to the river with a traditional Northwest Indian celebration at the beginning of the fish migration season. The port will soon plant native vegetation.
Wheat stocks dwindle as prices rise in worldwide grain shortage
SPOKANE — From the Tri-City Herald: Washington’s wheat growers are feeling the pain of a worldwide grain shortage. According to the Washington Grain Alliance, supply dwindled due to droughts in Australia and other regions. As worldwide stocks dwindled to their lowest point in 30 years, importers bought 90 percent to 95 percent of what they needed and trading slowed down in anticipation of a dip in prices. In 2007, overall winter wheat plantings were up by approximately 4 percent in Washington. Nevertheless, many wheat farmers do not plan to grow extra acreage in 2008.
Downtown Walla Walla loses about 150 trees in severe windstorm
WALLA WALLA — From the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: A Jan. 4 windstorm hit Walla Walla where it really hurts. The city, well known for its beautiful and extensive tree canopy, lost around 150 trees as a result of the storm. After the winds died down, nearly 1,600 residents brought 622 tons of downed trees and debris to the local landfill. The City of Walla Walla paid more than $43,000 to employees, in addition to $39,000 to private contractors, to clear streets and parks of debris. Sadly, the storm tore out 105 park trees. Approximately 45 other park trees face removal due to storm damage.
Seven counties buck downward trend in statewide housing sales
PULLMAN — From the Associated Press: During the last three months of 2007, Whatcom, Chelan, Douglas, Adams, Walla Walla and Columbia counties all defied a statewide downturn in housing sales. According to a report from the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University, statewide fourth-quarter sales were 99,120, down 25.6 percent in comparison sales of 133,220 homes during the same time frame in 2006. The rates receive seasonal adjustments. While Washington’s decline in housing sales decline mirrors national averages, other western states, including California, Arizona and Nevada, California experienced even steeper declines.
Pangborn Memorial Airport slated for $1 million remodel
EAST WENATCHEE — The Wenatchee World reports: Pangborn Memorial Airport is in line for a $1 million remodel in preparation for more passengers when Horizon Air — the airport’s only regularly scheduled commercial passenger carrier — switches from the smaller Bombardier Dash 8, 37-seat Q-200 aircraft, to the larger 76-seat Q400 aircraft this spring. Currently, the Port of Chelan County plans on renovating the passenger security holding area, modifying sections of the heating and air conditioning system, and installing more seating in the airport. The Federal Aviation Administration is funding the majority of the improvements through a grant program.
Port Townsend donates carousel to town hard hit by Katrina
WAVELAND, MISS. — The Peninsula Daily News reports: A carousel designed and built in Port Townsend, starting in 1991, by a fifth generation carousel maker and woodworking students at Port Townsend High School, is now in Waveland, Mississippi – a town badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The carousel, which never found a permanent home in Port Townsend, was in storage for years. The connection between Port Townsend and Waveland was forged through Port Townsend’s sister city relationship with Bay St. Louis, another Mississippi town that was badly damaged by Katrina. Waveland is now designing a pavilion to house the 20 foot carousel.
New county office planned for Camano Island
OAK HARBOR — From the Oak Harbor Herald: Camano Island, with its steady population growth, needs a new county office building, according to Island County officials. Planners want a facility big enough to hold sheriff, health and planning services through 2023, at a minimum. Currently, county services on Camano are in cramped quarters in a group of buildings on East Camano Drive. The new building would bring these departments under one roof and would be more convenient and user friendly, according to county planners. An advantage in a new building would be a new multipurpose room usable for community meetings.
Sweet Onion Festival moves to downtown Walla Walla
WALLA WALLA — From the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: Walla Walla’s popular Sweet Onion Festival is on the move. For the first time, the 24-year-old event will take place in downtown Walla Walla on July 19 and 20. Downtown is the third location for the festival. Initially, the event was held at Fort Walla Walla Park. In 2004, organizers moved the festival to Walla Walla’s fairgrounds due to its easier access and more extensive parking facilities. This year, the festivities will center around Main Street, which allows the festival closer proximity to the Farmer’s Market.
Wenatchee on track for new multi-purpose center
WENATCHEE — According to the Columbia Basin Herald, construction of the Greater Wenatchee Regional Events Center is moving along smoothly toward a September opening for the building. “There will be two sheets of ice that will be under the same roof, but also it's multi-purpose, so it can accommodate concerts, rodeo, graduations, trade shows — you name it, we can just about do it," said Linda Haglund, the center’s director of sales and marketing. Haglund hopes the center will bring people to Wenatchee during the winter, historically the slowest time of the year from an economic standpoint.
AWB recognizes 25 companies for providing the best places to work
OLYMPIA — AWB presented 25 members with its annual Better Workplace Awards on Feb. 6 at its 2008 Legislative Day held at St. Martin’s University in Lacey. The award honors AWB member companies that demonstrate innovation in the areas of workplace safety, job training and advancement, and benefit and compensation
programs.
Overall Winner
Damar Machine Co., Monroe
Workplace Safety
CH2M HILL, Richland
Goodwill Industries of the Inland Northwest, Spokane
Honeywell, Redmond
Kinross Gold, Republic
Max J. Kuney Co., Spokane
McKinstry Co., Seattle
Nucor Steel, Seattle
Pacific Power, Yakima
Sakuma Brothers, Burlington
Sonoco Products, Sumner
Job Training and Advancement
Brown & Caldwell, Seattle
Burgerville, Vancouver
Columbia Bank, Tacoma
Kinross Gold, Republic
Nob Hill Water Association, Yakima
Innovative Benefit and Compensation Programs
Acme Concrete Paving Inc., Spokane
Brown & Caldwell, Seattle
Burgerville, Vancouver
Gibbs & Olson, Inc., Longview
Harris Group, Seattle
Inland Northwest Health Services, Spokane
Kinross Gold, Republic
Landau Associates, Edmonds
NRG::Seattle, Seattle
Skils’kin, Spokane
Sound Options, Tacoma
The Rants Group, Olympia
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