Northwest Washington Fair, Another road closure in Lynden, UW moves to BIG10 in 2024, Washington buys old psychiatric hospital to provide more beds for the mental ill, Climate Change affecting hydroelectric power
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KMRE brings you local news for Tuesday, August the 8th. Good afternoon, I’m ______.
STORY: Northwest Washington Fair
The Northwest Washington Fair opens in Lynden this Thursday.
The event is expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors to the area over the next week. Visitors can enjoy carnival rides, vendors, daily entertainment, and exhibits with local agriculture and animals. The fair will have performances by Tammy Harris Barton, Ne-Yo, the Lynden PRCA Rodeo. Admission to is fifteen dollars with discounts for children and seniors, and free tickets for kids under five. You can find parking in downtown Lynden, or at the Fisher School where shuttles will run to the fairground.
More information about free and reduced gate admission can be found online at the Northwest Washington Fair website.
STORY: Another road closure in Lynden
State Route 544 is slated to be closed for a month starting in late August.
Washington State Department of Transportation plans to remove an existing partial barrier that runs under State Route 544 at the unnamed tributary to Fourmile Creek, located about three-and-a-half miles south of Lynden, and replace it with a four-sided recast concrete box culvert. The new culvert will open up more than half a mile of fish habitat to native fish species like salmon and trout.
Construction is set to begin on Monday, August 21st, after the conclusion of the Northwest Washington Fair. State Route 544 is expected to remain closed until September, with a detour to State Route 546. Detour signs are set to be posted five days before the closure.
STORY: UW moves to BIG10 in 2024
The University of Washington announced on Friday that they will be leaving the Pac-12 and joining the Big Ten Conference at the beginning of the 2024 school year.
The UW won’t be the only school to switch. The University of Oregon, UCLA, and USC also announced that they will be changing conferences in 2024. The decision comes after long-held worries about the upcoming Pac-12 television rights deal with Apple TV. In this new deal, Apple would pay up to fifty million dollars per year to each Pac-12 school if the league achieves its goal of five million new subscriptions. While the compensation was competitive with other conferences, many schools found the goal unrealistic. The Big Ten offered a more standard broadcast contract with members receiving guaranteed payouts that are not conditional on subscription goals.
Washington joins seven other schools leaving the league. Only four schools remain in the Pac-12.
STORY: Washington buys old psychiatric hospital to provide more beds for the mentally ill
Washington has purchased a recently-closed psychiatric hospital in Tukwila, according to a Monday announcement from the Department of Social and Health Services.
Cascade Behavioral Health Hospital was one of the state’s largest privately owned psychiatric hospitals before it closed in July. The state is expected to pay nearly 30 million dollars to the previous owner – Acadia Healthcare – based in Tennessee.
Before its closure, it treated a mix of voluntary and involuntary patients with substance use and mental health concerns.
The hospital will serve 20 so-called “civil conversion” patients from Western State Hospital who have been involuntarily committed for treatment. State law allows for involuntary detainment of patients experiencing a mental disorder or a substance use disorder and deemed dangerous to themselves or others, or unable to meet their basic needs.
The state was recently ordered by a federal judge to discharge or transfer many of the civil conversion patients from Western State. The hospital needed to make room for patients it’s required to care for under a long-standing legal settlement to keep people with severe mental illness from being warehoused in jails.
Cascade Hospital is currently licensed for 137 in-patient beds. The hospital will eventually create full-time staff positions and ramp up its patient population said DSHS spokesman Tyler Hemstreet. In the meantime, it will be staffed by contract workers.
STORY: Climate change affecting hydroelectric power
The Pacific Northwest’s dams are facing problems as many dams turn 100 this decade. Droughts in the region have taken a toll on our river systems, and hydroelectric power is not as effective as it once was.
The dams need expensive upgrades to combat environmental changes, and it will be difficult to supplement the power necessary for larger cities on short notice. In some cases, the cost outweighs the benefits, and dams and facilities may be removed rather than upgraded.
A report released from Stanford researchers finds that there is a heavier reliance on fossil fuels than in past years, indicating that clean energy will be harder to achieve than previously thought.
Without meaningful modeling for climate change in how we plan for energy generation, the report suggests we will be not prepared for the energy demands of the future.
WX: Sunshine
The weather forecast for Bellingham predicts a partly sunny day, with a high near 76*. At night it will be mostly cloudy, with temperatures that are set to drop into the 60s. There will be a 40% chance of rain after midnight, with light and variable winds. Any potential rain or showers are likely to persist through Wednesday morning.
OUTRO:
Today’s newscast was produced by volunteers AnThu Nguyen (ANNE-two new-WIN), Myles Weber, Emma Toscani and Carlos Braga. Tune in to local news on KMRE weekdays at 3, 4 and 5 p-m. For news tips and feedback, send us an email at news@kmre.org or call 360-398-6150. KMRE is a nonprofit community radio station, powered by listener donations. I’m ________________ and thanks for listening.
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