Sound Bites: Bite-Sized Bits of News From Around Puget Sound

A warning of radiation leaks at the nation’s largest nuclear dump was a false alarm, according to a Reuters report early in February. The alarm went off in an area of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, near Richland, Wash., where spent reactor fuel is stored in liquid-filled basins. Emergency workers blamed “instrument malfunction” for the alarm, which is designed to warn of any airborne radiation released at the Hanford site. The false alarm triggered evacuations and a lock-down of hundreds of employees. Here’s an interesting bit of history: Hanford produced plutonium for the nation’s first atomic bombs under the Manhattan Project 60 years ago and has stored a wide variety of nuclear waste since then.

It’s against the law in Washington state to receive public money to fund religious instruction, but divinity student Joshua Davey says the law is a violation of his First Amendment freedom to practice religion. Last year, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Washington’s laws did indeed violate Davey’s right to freedom of religion.

In February the state asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit decision. It hopes the court will find a way to reconcile Washington state’s Constitution, which prohibits the use of tax-supported funds for religious instruction, with the U.S. Constitution, which establishes the freedom of religion. “The free exercise of religion is one of the most important rights guaranteed to American citizens, but each state should have the right to decide whether its taxpayers will be required to pay for a student’s religious instruction,” Attorney General Christine Gregoire said.

An alarming number of private laboratories have recently been caught falsifying test results for water supplies, petroleum products, underground tanks, and soil, according to an Associated Press report. The fraud has not only caused millions of people to fill their cars with substandard gasoline or to drink water not properly tested for safety, but it has also undermined the government’s ability to ensure Americans are protected by environmental laws. Officials don’t know if an increasing number of labs are falsifying results or if more are simply being caught doing it. In some cases, the labs duped the companies that submitted samples for testing. In other cases, the companies were part of the conspiracy.

Current vacancies on Bellingham city boards, committees and commissions, as of February (Candidates must have been Washington residents for the past three years; must have lived within Bellingham city limits for the last two years; must be a registered voter; and must be a U.S. citizen.):

Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (2 seats)

Board of Code Appeals (2)

Building Services Division Advisory Board (7)

Community Development Advisory Board (2)

Mayor’s Neighborhood Advisory Commission (2)

Whatcom Museum Society Board (2)

Public Works Advisory Board (2)

Sehome Hill Arboretum (2)

** Several board positions require specific skills or level of experience. Pick up applications, or check on vacancy status and requirements, at the Mayor’s Office at City Hall, 210 Lottie Street, Second Floor. Or go online to www.cob.org and look under “Mayor’s Boards and Commissions” on the “Mayor’s Office” page.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported recently that about 60 percent of the 35 largest U.S. meat plants failed to meet federal food safety regulations for preventing a deadly E. coli bacteria in their products. A year of large-scale meat-product recalls, which stemmed from more than 100 illnesses and a handful of deaths, involved such large meat producers as Cargill, ConAgra Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride and Smithfield Foods.Garry McKee, administrator for USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said consumers should not be alarmed. The problems were scientific and design issues and not direct food-safety issues, he said. But the companies were told to fix the problems by the end of February. President Bush’s 2004 fiscal budget included millions of dollars for food safety, which would increase the number of meat inspectors and double the number of E. coli tests at ground beef plants.

As people have suspected for some time, contact with an arsenic-type compound (called chromated copper arsenate) on treated wooden playground equipment can slightly increase children’s risk of getting lung or bladder cancer later in life, according to a Reuters report. The increased risk is mostly due to arsenic residue that children get on their hands, then ingest because of hand-to-mouth contact, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The industry has long contended that the amount of arsenic people absorb from the treated wood is small compared to the amount they’re exposed to naturally in the environment, but the safety commission plans to petition in March to ban the treated wood. In their report, they recommended that children wash their hands with soap and water immediately after playing on treated-wood playground equipment and that children not eat while on the treated equipment.

A last-minute provision added behind closed doors to President Bush’s spending bill, passed by Congress on Feb. 13, could jeopardize the whole organic industry in the United States. The provision, added at the request of Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., will permit livestock producers to certify and label meat as “organic” even if the animals have been fed partly or entirely on conventional rather than organic grain, according to a New York Times report. Fieldale Farms Corporation, a Georgia poultry producer, says there is not enough organic feed available; others complain that organic feed is too expensive. Information from Organic Trade Association members indicates that this is not really the case. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., hopes to strike the provision from the bill. “This whole thing is absolutely outrageous,” Leahy said. “After years and years and years of work, to have someone sneak it in in the dark of night and wipe it (the organic standards program) out makes no sense. It’s a poke in the eye of a lot of very hard-working organic farmers.”

The Park Store, located on Blue Canyon Road at the south end of Lake Whatcom, is the last remaining building of what used to be the town of Park, Wash. Shelly Harper and Bob Van Houten bought the building about three years ago. Now the two of them sell motorcycle parts. Locals complained because they thought the store was going to be used for a restaurant. One woman, who lives nearly half a mile away from the store, was worried about the crowd drawn to a motorcycle-parts store. But Whatcom County Council OK’ed a rezone that will allow the shop to continue with business as usual, according to The Bellingham Herald. Apparently the store and its owners drew supporters from customers in Whatcom County to British Columbia.