Tagged: Washington

OLYMPIA,Wash. -- Wrangler cigars, Bronco cigarettes and other products by the firm General Tobacco, will be prohibited in Washington state beginning in February. The company owes the state millions in late payments.

In 1998, Washington signed on to a national tobacco settlement agreement. One of the outcomes: tobacco companies compensate states for money spent on patients with tobacco-related illnesses.

Washington state attorney, David Hankins says General Tobacco hasn't paid up since July of 2009.

Oregon is pushing its coastal counties to standardize the sound of tsunami warning sirens. Washington state has already done so. Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

Oregon's Emergency Management Office uses the words “mish mash” to describe the current array of tsunami warning sounds. Seaside, Oregon for example has used a steady siren wail during evacuation drills.

Columbia and Snake River irrigators have run out of patience with the state of Washington's slow work to increase irrigated acreage that was agreed to in 2006, according to Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association leaders.

If the state will not support efforts to allow irrigators to use some of the water freed up by conservation efforts, irrigators will no longer be willing to support the state's other conservation projects, said Darryll Olsen, a consultant to the irrigators association, during a meeting with the Herald editorial board.

RICHLAND, Wash. - The Obama Administration says it plans to appoint a blue ribbon panel soon to determine the fate of the nation's radioactive waste. For years now the waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation has been destined for a deep hole in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. But as he promised in his campaign, President Obama stripped funding for Yucca. Now, Hanford officials are wondering where all the high-level waste in Washington State will go. Richland Correspondent Anna King reports.

Today in northeastern Washington, state attorneys will try a man accused of buying gall bladders that were taken from bears. Authorities say the organs are popular items on the black market. The practice of buying and selling bear parts is illegal in Washington, as Inland Northwest Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports.

A watchdog group is crying foul on the federal government's plan to pump more water out of the Columbia River in Eastern Washington. The government plans to build a massive pipeline near Moses Lake with federal stimulus money. Richland Correspondent Anna King explains. 

At issue is the federal government's plan to build a massive pipeline near Moses Lake to pull more water out of the Columbia River to help irrigate crops. Rachael Paschael Osborn with the group Center for Environmental Law & Policy says she became concerned with the pipeline when she realized how large it was.