Workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation have removed the last of the reactor fuel from the deactivated Fast Flux Test Facility and shipped it to Idaho almost a year ahead of a legal deadline.

The research reactor is being shutdown to allow it to be put into a long-term surveillance and maintenance mode at minimum cost by August 2009.

The Department of Energy was required under the Tri-Party Agreement to have the last of the fuel removed from the reactor by next March. That included 375 fuel assemblies transported to central Hanford earlier for storage - they will be considered for disposal at the nuclear waste depository atYucca Mountain, Nevada. In addition, the Hanford facility had 11 sodium-bonded fuel assemblies that were shipped to the Idaho National Laboratory to have uranium extracted for possible reuse by commercial nuclear power plants.

The first of 11 shipments to Idaho was made in October, with contractor Fluor Hanford receiving word the last shipment arrived May 1.

(Tri-City Herald)

A Florida company has decided not to build a biofuels plant at Colfax that would have used canola.

Losonoco officials say canola can’t compete as a crop right now with the current high price of wheat.

The port of Whitman County says the plant could have brought 25 jobs to the region.

A smaller-than-expected return of chinook salmon prompted Washington regulators to close chinook fishing at the end of the day Sunday on sections of the Snake and mid-Columbia rivers, which had been scheduled to remain open through mid-June.

The current forecast is for 180,000 returning chinook, down from 269,300 initially projected by Washington and Oregon fishery managers.

Columbia River treaty tribes also agreed to close their main stem spring chinook fisheries Sunday.

Areas covered by the early closures include the Columbia near the Ringold Springs hatchery in Franklin County; the Snake from the railroad bridge at confluence with the Columbia upstream to the no-fishing zone below Ice Harbor Dam; and the Snake from the Texas Rapids boat launch upstream seven miles to the boat launch about a mile upriver from Little Goose Dam.

Sport and commercial fisheries below Bonneville Dam on the Columbia have been closed since mid-April, and the recreational fishery between Bonneville and McNary dams closed Saturday.

In addition, almost all recreational salmon fishing has been closed on rivers throughout California, and a chinook closure was ordered on the lower Willamette River in Oregon.

With the 2008 legislative session freeze on fundraising behind her, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire raised twice as much money as GOP challenger Dino Rossi in April.

According to figures provided by the respective campaigns, the Democratic governor raised about $1.3 million in April, while Rossi’s campaign brought in about $625,000 during the same period.

Combined with previously reported contributions, Gregoire has raised about $6 million and has $3.8 million in cash on hand. Rossi’s totals were about $4.4 million raised and about $3 million on hand. Disclosure reports show that Rossi has spent $1.2 million but spending in April was not included.

Detailed public disclosure reports are due next week.

(Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

U. S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, giving the Democratic presidential contender five of Washington’s 17 superdelegates.

Larsen joins fellow Reps. Adam Smith and Brian Baird, Gov. Christine Gregoire, and Democratic National Committee member Pat Notter.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, also has five superdelegates in her corner – Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, Reps. Norm Dicks and Jay Inslee, and King County Executive Ron Sims.

The state’s other seven superdlegates remain undecided. They are Congressman Jim McDermott, former House Speaker Tom Foley, State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz , Vice Chairwoman Eileen Macoll, and Democratic National Committee members Ed Cote, Sharon Mast, and David McDonald.

The U.S. Marshals Service says a Washington registered sex offender who disappeared after cutting off his state issued GPS tracking ankle bracelet has turned himself in to police in Camden, Arkansas.

David Torrence, a Level 3 offender, had been released from prison on April 20 after serving a one-year sentence for failing to register as a sex offender. State Department of Corrections officials were unable to find adequate housing for the 43-year-old offender so he was fitted with the tracking device, given a sleeping bag and permitted to live beneath a bridge in Snohomish. His ankle bracelet was found on April 24th at an apartment complex near Lynnwood.

Since the incident, the head of the DOC ordered that victims of sex crimes must be notified when those convicted of attacks remove their GPS tracking device.

Torrence was one of nearly 90 Level 3 sex offenders who had been assigned to GPS monitoring since the program began late last year. Of those offenders, four have removed their ankle bracelets and with Torrence’s apprehension only one, James Murphy, remains on the loose.

The DOC started using GPS tracking late last year in reaction to Gov. Christine Gregoire’s promise to keep people safe from sexual predators.

(Seattle Times)

President Bush on Thursday signed into law a bill to establish the first new wilderness area in Washington state since 1984.

The House gave final approval to the Wild Sky Wilderness bill last month. It designates 167 square miles in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest north of Seattle as federal wilderness, the government’s highest level of protection.

Wild Sky, first introduced in 2002, covers approximately 106,000 acres of low-elevation forest on the west slope of the Cascades. The wilderness designation will block development and other economic activity in a sprawling area north of U.S. Highway 2 that includes habitat for bears, bald eagles and other wildlife, as well as streams, hiking trails and other recreation.

The bill signed on Thursday also designates a site on Bainbridge Island, where hundreds of Japanese-Americans were forced from their homes on the way to internment camps during World War II as a national historic site.

(AP)

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna on Thursday announced that social-networking site Facebook has agreed to take significant steps to better protect children on its Web site.

Wasden and McKenna joined attorneys general nationwide in signing an agreement with Facebook, in which they emphasize their shared goal of protecting children from inappropriate content and unwanted contact by adults.

Facebook agreed to provide automatic warning messages when a child is in danger of giving personal information to an unknown adult; restrict the ability of users to change their listed ages; require users under 18 to affirm they have read Facebook’s safety tips when they sign up; act more aggressively to remove inappropriate content and groups from the site; and maintain a list of pornographic websites and regularly sever any links to such sites.

In addition, companies offering Facebook users services called “widgets” will now have to implement and enforce Facebook’s safety and privacy guidelines.

The agreement is similar to one that MySpace reached in January with 49 states and the District of Columbia. MySpace agreed to head a task force, which Facebook has joined, focused on developing technology to verify the age and identity of social networking site users. The task force will report back to the attorneys general every three months and issue a formal report with findings and recommendations at the end of 2008.