Here’s a Halloween tour of the Murray Morgan Bridge. You’ll see why state engineers closed it to traffic last week – probably for good.
A lift span – we hope so, anyway.
Looks like the innards of a shark. It’s really the innards of a bridge column.
Rusted through. But it is holding up the bridge (for now).
Note the rusted out rivet head. There are
…If you like your news raw…..The feds came out today with a new plan to protect endangered salmon on the Columbia-Snake River system, hoping to pass muster with a federal judge in Portland who rejected a previous plan.
Is the plan an improvement or not? Depends on who you ask. Environmental groups and fishing interests quickly pronounced the plan no better that the earlier one. They still advocate removing four federally-owned hydro dams on the Snake River.
An alliance of utilities, ports, farmers and business groups says the new proposal is a big improvement and should satsify the judge.
Here is the raw, unfiltered, immediate reaction from both camps. Just read on.
In the wake of a tawdry sex scandal involving an alleged gay male prostitute, the state House of Representatives didn’t waste any time purging Rep. Richard Curtis, R-La Center, from its ranks.
News of Curtis’ resignation came over the AP wire at 1:52 p.m. Within an hour, his bio was already off the House’s online roster. A note on the site read: “This Representative’s page is no longer available. The Representative you are looking for is no longer a member of the Legislature and the page has been removed accordingly.”
However, whoever was responsible for the
…The chances of restoring or rehabbing the Murray Morgan Bridge in its historic form are receding toward nil, although the city is hiring a consulting firm to make another assessment. All we know at this point is that DOT Director Paula Hammond seems far more interested in resolving the issue than her predecessor, and the city needs the transportation link that was provided by the old bridge. Not replacing the bridge should be off the table.
State should establish licensing requirements for house inspectors. Right now, there is no guarantee these guys have any idea what they are doing,
…Before it connected to Sea-Tac Airport, Sound Transit’s light rail project used to be ridiculed as the “Train to Nowhere.”
Now – according to Seattle Times editorialist Bruce Ramsey – it’s the “Train to Fife.” Maybe his theory is that Fife sounds like a more ridiculous destination than “Nowhere.”
An excerpt from Ramsey’s rail-bashing column in today’s Times:
…Light rail to Fife. Imagine that. Imagine what it will cost, and how many people who now stream by Fife’s car dealerships will get out of their cars, buy a ticket and wait for the train that stops
If Gary Coy, the owner of Sperry Ocean Dock, succeeds in building a berth for a couple more huge, gray ships near Schuster Parkway, it won’t be without a fight.
No one who has ever driven Schuster can possibly have missed the two 600-foot military transport vessels – both of them hulking and ugly as sin – that are parked more or less permanently at the dock. Coy wants to do an expansion that would bring in another one or two.
Coy came by last week (see Dave Seago’s post) to explain and defend. Today the
…Terry Conner, former Tahoma Audubon Society president, brought down the house at the group’s annual breakfast this morning with a slip of the tongue.
Extolling the virtues of birds, Conner noted that arctic terns “circumcise the globe.”
After the laughter settled, the group presented awards to:
State Rep. Pat Lantz, D-Gig Harbor, for work on geoduck legisation.
Tacoma City Councilman Tom Stenger for work on the Green Tacoma Partnership.
The Woodbrook Hunt Club for protecting Fort Lewis prairies by opposing the Cross Base Highway.
Sara Siemens-Luthy for promoting nature education in