KUOW Blog
News, factoids, and insights from KUOW's newsroom. And maybe some peeks behind the scenes. Check back daily for updates.
Have any leads or feedback for the KUOW Blog? Contact Dyer Oxley at dyer@kuow.org.
Stories
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Gas prices continue to drop across Washington state
Gas prices are continuing to drop in Washington state.
AAA is reporting that the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in Seattle is at $4.94, down more than 31 cents compared to a month ago. The average price for a gallon of regular gas in Tacoma is currently $4.68. It's $4.80 in Olympia.
Gas is still far more expensive in Seattle compared to this time last year, where the average was $4.03 — about 91 cents less than today's average.
Nationally, people are paying an average of $3.85 per gallon. Hawaii and California are seeing the highest gas prices, at more than $5 per gallon of regular gas. Prices remain the lowest in Arkansas, with drivers paying an average of $3.35 at the pump.
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Following arts reporter Mike Davis
After taking care of a few things at KUOW's offices, arts reporter Mike Davis recently toured exhibits at Seattle's Wa Na Wari. He gave us a behind-the-scenes look at his day.
Check out the video below.
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Monkeypox outbreak spreads in WA
The risk of the monkeypox virus, or MPV, remains low for the general public in Washington state, according to health officials.
But the outbreak continues.
There are now 392 cases in Washington, according to the state Department of Health, including infections in one infant and a teenager.
There have been 12 hospitalizations in the state. No deaths have occurred in Washington.
To date, the LGBTQ+ community has seen disproportionate impacts from the virus. But officials stress anyone, anywhere can get infected.
"We must continue to remember this is a contact-based virus. It is not limited to any community,” said Dr. Umair Shah, state secretary of health.
MPV spreads through close, prolonged contact with an infected person's skin or body fluids, or contact with shared objects like clothes or bedding.
"Viruses do not have a pre-determined plan to impact one community over another,” said Manny Santiago, executive director of the Washington State LGBTQ Commission. “Both behaviors and the social context in which a communicable disease is spread have much to do with the impact that it's going to have on different communities."
Health officials say everyone should pay attention to any new rashes on their skin, cover the rash to limit contact with others, and see a health-care provider.
Vaccines are available but the supply is very limited, as is eligibility.
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Seattle's food truck future: Today So Far
- Seattle is reconsidering its food truck regulations.
- Today So Far taking a vacation.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for August 26, 2022.
As Seattle further emerges from the pandemic, I have a hopeful vision of city life. I would love to see a city where some people work from home, or have a hybrid schedule, living in corners of Seattle that are more affordable. And while they are home, they are able to walk down the street to a food truck for lunch, or dinner, or late night munchies.
I'm going to annoy some TSF readers with this statement, but when I lived in Portland (it's OK, I won't mention that city again ... breathe) many years ago, it was pretty easy to grab a bite en route to work, class, or a friend's place. Food trucks were tucked into various corners of the city. An array of innovative, fun, and convenient food was accessible. Upon moving back north, one criticism I had of Seattle, it's that I wished there were more food trucks. The trucks we have are awesome. Why wouldn't we want more?
As KUOW's Ruby de Luna reports, Seattle is reconsidering many of its regulations around food trucks with the aim of making a better business environment for them. These rules have been in place since 2011. But the Seattle Department of Transportation noticed they didn't make much sense during pandemic times (they didn't make much sense in 2011 either, in my opinion), so SDOT modified food truck rules over the past couple years to make things a bit easier. Now, SDOT is looking to update the city's approach to food trucks when these modifications expire in 2023. In short, it wants to "streamline" the food truck process and offer "one-on-one coaching" for businesses.
"I think if SDOT can bring down the street vending permit fees, you should see more food truck activity in the streets of Seattle," said Lori Johnson, executive director of the Washington State Food Truck Association.
"Before SDOT decided to change the regulations, they weren't allowing more than two food trucks per block face, that's why you weren't seeing many of them grouped together," she added. "And it's super hard, and super expensive, to find private property to group them together."
If you're a food truck in Seattle, you can find a plot of private property, in a decent corner of the city, with plenty of foot traffic and customers, to set up shop. Or you can go through the city to find a public spot to dish up. But this is Seattle, so either of those options are going to come with hefty price tags. Either the private landowner is going to want sky-high rent (or what some would laughably call "market rate"), or the city is going to want sky-high fees, but that will hopefully change as SDOT evolves into 2023.
Among the changes SDOT is proposing, that limit of two food trucks per block will be nixed. Also, restrictions that push trucks 50 feet away from buildings will be gone. And a ban on food trucks from being within 1,000 feet of a high school will go away.
Further changes for street vending will go beyond food trucks and influence outdoor dining alongside restaurants. And they will open up street-side vending to businesses outside of food, like flowers and crafters.
There's one other piece of not-news that I want to address with all the TSF readers out there.
Here's the thing: Nina and I eloped in 2020. Two years later, we're going to have a honeymoon. So in other words, I'm going to be away and Today So Far will be taking a break for a couple weeks.
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California bans new gas cars by 2035. Northwest states to follow.
The California Air Resources Board voted Thursday to ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars by the year 2035. The move is expected to trigger big changes in the Northwest and beyond.
While the new rules don’t affect cars and trucks that are already on the road, the end is in sight for the sale of gasoline-powered cars up and down the West Coast.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says his state will adopt the California rules by the end of the year. Washington Department of Ecology officials say they will begin the process in September.
Inslee advisor Anna Lising said the state will still pursue its more-ambitious but nonbinding goal of ending gasoline car sales by 2030.
“It’s the law,” she said.
Oregon officials say they’re also following California’s lead to start turning away from the internal combustion engine.
California has mandated a steep increase in sales of zero-emission vehicles, such as electric and fuel-cell cars, starting in just four years.
- 35% by 2026
- 68% by 2030
- 100% by 2035
A limited number of plug-in hybrids, which can run on electricity or gasoline, would still be allowed on the market.
"The combustion engine has endured for a hundred years, right? But like the way of the steam engine, it’s time for it to phase out," California Air Resources Board member Davina Hurt said before the vote. "It’s necessary, and it’s the technological advancement I think we all want to see for a better world."
Across the country, 15 states (including California) follow California’s policies on zero-emission vehicles. Those states account for about a third of all car sales nationwide.
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Take a breather from the news with these arts and culture picks
Every week we reach out for recommendations on events around Seattle. Today, KUOW’s Kim Malcolm spoke to Crosscut’s arts and culture reporter Margo Vansynghel.
This is a series of outdoor dance performances. It's contemporary dance. The dancers are performing in the natural environment, so it's always a little bit different. Whim W’him started doing this during the pandemic, so that when all the venues were closed you could still spread out, and be socially distant, and safely watch art. This summer they’re presenting a performance called "Touch," which explores the ways we come together to support each other.
Anthony White: Limited Liability, at Seattle Art Museum
This show is running until January of next year, but I still think you should go see it right now. I love that there's so many symbols in it, so many things that you can decode. You can kind of keep coming back to the work. I kind of compare it to being like a digital era archaeologist. You just go back and you try to dig it up. He also has this interesting technique that I really like. He uses kind of a hot glue gun. There's strings of plastic that come out and he kind of paints with that. When you come closer to the paintings they have this really interesting texture. Go and see this star before he leaves for New York or LA.
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Washington is saying 'bye-bye' to gas cars ... eventually: Today So Far
- Washington is on the road to nixing gasoline cars. But the switch to EVs is easier for some, and not so easy for others.
- 135,000 green crabs pulled from Washington waters.
- The risk of monkeypox to the general public and children remains pretty low.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for August 25, 2022.
Washington is doubling down on its goal to nix the sale of new gas-powered cars in the years ahead, speeding up the state's transition to electric vehicles.
Gov. Jay Inslee made the announcement Wednesday, noting California's move to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035. Washington already has a goal of all-electric car sales by 2030. That goal is non-binding, but Inslee said that Washington intends to "adopt California's (regulations) by the end of this year." This market shift would have a dramatic effect on electric car sales.
As KUOW's John Ryan reports, electric vehicles made up 8% of new-car sales in Washington in 2021 (12% in California, and 4% across the USA). So there will have to be a significant shift in the years ahead if Washington wants to meet its mission of all-electric new car sales.
"We look forward to partnering with California and the Biden Administration to quickly eliminate our country’s #1 source of GHG emissions," Inslee said via Twitter.
At the risk of sounding negative amid some good news, I do have one suggestion/question for Gov. Inslee and the lawmaking brains down in Olympia: Can this California/Biden partnership please make things more affordable?
A lot of folks would gladly step into an electric car. But there's a reason I'm not driving a Tesla right now, or Chevy Bolt for that matter. Heck, if I didn't have to take out a new credit card just to buy an eBike, I'd hop on one of those too. Electric cars have been getting cheaper, but they still cost an average of $10,000 more than their gas counterparts. If you want to install a charger at home, that will also cost you between a few hundred bucks to more than $1,500.
Sure, there's the used-car market, and someone will bring up tax credit this, or extended savings that. But the fact is that a lot of working folks live on a monthly paycheck schedule and don't get that far. Their options are: cheap gas car now; expensive electric car; or our local transit system. Honestly, our local transit system isn't always an option, so that brings us back to the gas car. If we really want to get more EVs on the road and change our traveling culture, we have to get lower-income people over this pricey hurdle.
It should be noted that the goals Washington and California are talking about only deal with new cars. Used gas-powered cars will still be on the road. Just throwing that out there in case there are any enterprising Washingtonians who want to start up an affordable gas-to-electric car conversion company. Read more here.
In other environmental news, Washington crews have pulled an impressive 135,000 green crabs from local waters. The invasive green crabs have been advancing into Washington waters since the late 1990s. They threaten our local crabs, which our local menus rely on, as well as shoreline habitats. They're a problem.
A few solutions have been suggested, such as eating them. Or, one East Coast distillery has proposed making whiskey out of them (yep). But so far, the best option has been to pull as many out of the water as we can. Read more here.
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Bat tests positive for rabies in Thurston County
For the fourth time this year, a bat in Washington state has tested positive for rabies. The latest case was discovered in Thurston County after the bat flew into someone’s bedroom.
If a bat gets in your bedroom, or a child comes into contact with one, you’re asked to try to capture the bat to have it tested. The CDC's website has information on how to safely catch a bat indoors. You can also call your local public health department for advice.
The rabid bat was one of three that entered the bedrooms of sleeping Thurston County residents on recent summer evenings. According to the Thurston County Public Health Department, all three bats were caught — one by a cat, another by a dog, and the third by the humans of the house. That enabled the Washington state Public Health Lab to test all three for rabies.
The bat that had been caught by the cat came back positive. Fortunately, the cat was up to date on its rabies vaccinations. It will now get a booster dose. Its owners will get precautionary vaccinations.
Public health officials warn that you can’t tell if a bat has rabies from its appearance. Rabies can be transmitted through a bite or a scratch. The other rabid bat cases in Washington this year were in Mason, Snohomish, and Kittitas counties.
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As population grows, this Eastern Washington county looks to nuclear power
The elected board in charge of a Central Washington public utility has agreed to keep pursuing small nuclear reactors as an option to meet future energy needs.
The Grant County Public Utility District anticipates that continued growth in the Moses Lake, Ephrata, and Quincy areas will require a new power source beyond the two big Columbia River dams it now operates.
RELATED: New climate law could give Northwest green businesses a boost, including nuclear
This week, the PUD board greenlighted further exploration of a small reactor option — billed as safer and simpler than previous nuclear plants, and more dependable than wind and solar.
“There is a lot of positive potential here," said Kevin Nordt, chief resource officer for the PUD. "We know there are a lot of unanswered questions. To get those answered is going to take some additional work.”
Nordt says the PUD is far from inking any deals. Its evaluation so far has sidelined a next-generation design from Portland-based NuScale Power.
Nordt says his team will now focus on the price and risks of a partnership with nuclear developer X-energy. That Maryland-based company initially proposed to build its first modular reactor complex at Hanford near the Northwest’s only operating nuclear plant near Richland, Wash.
The PUD says the Richland location was only proposed as a possible site and that no decisions have been made. A PUD spokesman says it's exploring other locations in Central Washington.
This story has been updated .
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Half a world away, Renton celebrates Ukrainian independence
Aug. 24 is Ukrainian Independence Day. This week is the 31st anniversary of the country's holiday. It’s also been six months since Russia began its invasion.
Local Ukrainians will still be celebrating the holiday.
On Saturday, Aug. 27, Renton’s Liberty Park will be full of Ukrainian music, dancing, and food. There will also be a parade to show off traditional Ukrainian clothing. The celebration is open to all from noon to 8 p.m.
“We can feel the pain, we can feel the horrible tragic [tragedy] that our Ukrainian fellows and friends and family, struggling right now," said Liliya Kovalenko, organizer of the event in Renton. "We'll have the sadness inside; you have this feeling that we're still in the middle of the war, will still have to do plenty of work before... we'll be free and we can rebuild our country and live a peaceful life."
Kovalenko has family in Western Ukraine. On Aug. 24, Independence Day, loud sirens wailed amid attacks as her family repeatedly went into a bomb shelter. They were forced to shelter 17 times that day.
Kovalenko suspects Russia attacked the area near her family, which is normally safer, because of the national anniversary. That’s why, even if she’s far from her home country, she still plans to celebrate.
“This Independence Day of Ukraine, it's still showing that we are the fighters," she said, adding that honoring Ukraine's independence is a form of fighting, too. “Ukraine is fighting for their human rights, in general, just to exist, to live on their land, to be able to talk in their language."
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Seattle needs more trees: Report finds city has work to do to meet its leafy goals
A preliminary report from the Seattle Urban Forestry Commission states that Seattle is losing its tree canopy cover.
The report says the city has lost 255 acres of tree cover since 2016. That's roughly equal to the size of Green Lake.
The area surveyed includes trees in public spaces, natural areas, and private lands.
Seattle has a goal to achieve 30% tree canopy, citywide, by 2037. In 2016, the city had 28.6% tree cover. This latest report finds that it decreased to 28.1% in 2021.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell says the loss of canopy in recent years means the city might not meet its 2037 goal. So it will have to re-evaluate some things, and plan some sort of course correction.
The report released this week is preliminary. A final report is due to be released this fall.
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Changes coming to Seattle food truck rules
Seattle might drop some restrictions for food truck businesses.
The Seattle Department of Transportation is revising regulations that have been in place since 2011, when the city allowed food trucks and carts on public streets and sidewalks. Before 2020, the city issued vending permits for food trucks, carts, and stadium vendors.
Alyce Nelson, public space manager for SDOT’s street use program, said they’re looking to remove some restrictions to allow vending opportunities for new and existing food businesses.
“Some of the restrictions that we had for vending pre-pandemic didn’t seem like they were necessary anymore,” she said.
Such restrictions include prohibiting vending within 50 feet of brick and mortar businesses.
“There’s this great symbiotic relationship between breweries and food trucks,” Nelson said. “A lesson learned from the pandemic is we removed that setback on a temporary basis.”
SDOT might drop that buffer requirement, but it will also look at other siting considerations before granting a permit. Nelson said she hopes these improvements will help businesses and create more active community spaces.
“We see our vending program as a way of adding vibrancy to neighborhoods, getting people more and active in their communities,” she said.
And it’s not just food vending. The city is considering expanding its Market Street program that works with community groups to close streets for events and arts and crafts vendors.
The department is finalizing the proposal before sending it to the city council for approval later next month.
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