Cheers: To the Vancouver Housing Authority. The VHA has received approval from the federal government that allows for flexibility in spending money to better serve local residents. An extension of the authority’s Moving to Work program waives some federal regulations regarding how money is spent and leaves room for innovative programs that can be tailored to meet local needs.
The housing authority still must use federal dollars in a cost-effective manner and must encourage people to become more self-sufficient, but the flexibility in how it does that is essential to developing programs that work. One frequent failure of government is uncompromising guidelines that try to fit programs into a one-size-fits-all paradigm. Allowing for local officials to decide how money is spent in the community will benefit local residents.
Jeers: To white-nose syndrome. There is concern about Washington’s bat population with the discovery in the state of a fungus-caused affliction that has killed millions of creatures in North America. That is of particular worry at Mount St. Helens’ Ape Cave, which attracts about 150,000 hikers during the summer and has conditions that are ripe for the spread of the fungus.
Bats are essential for controlling insect populations and play a role in the ecological balance of the region, and U.S. Forest Service officials are hoping that educating hikers can help ward off the fungus. In this country, when one bat becomes infected with white-nose syndrome, about 90 percent of the colony typically dies within two years. “It really heightens the need for the public to be aware,” wildlife biologist Mitch Wainwright said of the discovery of the syndrome in Washington.
Cheers: To environmental victories. A proposal to build the world’s largest methanol plant at the Port of Tacoma has been canceled, and that is good news for Washington. Northwest Innovation Works, a China-backed company, has withdrawn from efforts to build a $3.4 billion facility on the city’s waterfront, citing a laborious government review process.
Projects such as a giant methanol plant — and a large oil terminal proposed for the Port of Vancouver — run counter to the type of industries Washington should be developing and attracting. The vast environmental concerns that come with these proposals outweigh the benefits provided by jobs and taxes, and the projects fail to position the state for the economy of the future.
Jeers: To federal inaction at Hanford. Officials at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are pumping 3,000 gallons of leaked radioactive waste back into a 46-year-old storage tank, providing the latest example of problems at the site. “The good news is right now we have no indications that waste has reached the environment,” said a statement from the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns the site.
For decades, the federal government has been derelict in its duties to clean up Hanford and to protect the residents of Washington and Oregon. Those duties have been reinforced several times by the courts, but still have been ignored. So, to the federal government, here’s a suggestion: Instead of pumping waste back into the tank, how about cleaning up what is considered the world’s most toxic waste site?
Cheers: To Earth Day. We allowed Earth Day 2016 — it was Friday — to slip by without mention, so here’s some fodder for thought: Let’s make every day Earth Day. Washington rightly takes pride in its long-held interest in ecology, an ethos that undoubtedly is a result of living in a region blessed with much of nature’s wonder. And while Earth Day has grown in attention and the variety of events since its founding in 1970, there is no reason to leave concern for the environment to one day a year.
