Courtney Flatt Reporter
Courtney Flatt is a Richland-based multi-media correspondent for Northwest Public Broadcasting and the Northwest News Network focusing on environmental, natural resources and energy issues in the Northwest. She began her journalism career at The Dallas Morning News as a neighbors editor. There, she also wrote articles for the Metro section, where she reported on community issues ranging from water security to the arts. Courtney earned her master’s in convergence journalism at the University of Missouri and developed a love for radio and documentary film. As a producer at KBIA-FM she hosted a weekly business show, reported and produced talk shows on community and international issues. Her work took her from the unemployment lines, to a Methamphetamine bust, to the tornado damage aftermath in Joplin, Mo.
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Alana McGee feeds Lolo snacks each time she finds a truffle. McGee has found her dogs work better for “higher value” snacks, like steak and chicken.
The forest smells slightly damp. Grasses cover logs. Sticks decay on the ground. Unknown animals have surely left scents as they traipse about, eating meals and wandering around this recently thinned stand about an hour north of Seattle.
But all those smells – undetectable to the human sniffer, or at least this allergy-suffering reporter – don’t matter to Lolo, a Lagotto Romagnolo. The Italian dog is hot on the hunt for black truffles.
“They re often called Oregon black truffles, but we have quite a lot of them in Washington. They just beat us to the naming,” says Alana McGee.
Originally published on May 4, 2021 9:52 am
Bonneville Power Administration’s Knight Substation makes this area in Klickitat County attractive to renewable energy companies. CREDIT: Courtney Flatt/NWPB
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You can see Mount Adams rising from the horizon on a grassy hilltop on Amy Hanson’s land. Farms reach out in most directions. Homes dot the landscape.
Hanson and her husband invested more than a decade and thousands of dollars into this property, driving nearly 200 miles from Chehalis on weekends to build fences and whatever else they could afford as the years went on.
She might not be walking distance from everyone, but recently Hanson and her neighbors in rural Klickitat County have become closer than ever. They’re banded together to fight a new giant knocking at their doors: big solar.
Originally published on May 5, 2021 8:04 pm
When the Grand Coulee Dam was built between 1933 and 1941, it effectively blocked salmon from traveling to the upper reaches of the Columbia River. CREDIT: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
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The first time salmon were released above Chief Joseph and, later, Grand Coulee dams, Hemene James watched elders from the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. Many weren’t even old enough to remember when salmon last swam in those waters.
In their faces he saw pure emotion, as salmon slipped into the waters where they hadn’t been since Grand Coulee Dam blocked their path in 1942.