- The blanket of old growth forest that covered the Willapa Hills surrounding Raymond, on the Willapa River in Pacific County, fueled the town’s growth from a handful of farms to a mill town bustling with trains filled with freshly cut logs, mills running 24 hours a day, and ships laden with lumber bound for the East Coast, South American, San Francisco, and Hawaii in less than a decade after its founding in 1903. When a combination of overharvesting, environmental laws, and changes in the global market severely reduced logging and milling in the 1980s and 1990s, Raymond residents looked to new, more sustainable ways to utilize the surrounding hills, rivers, and bay to create jobs and sustain their community.
- County conducts massive park cleanup (dispatchnews.com)
Snohomish County agencies spent Thursday and part of Friday last week engaged in a massive cleanup effort of the area known as Steelhead County Park, which is located just south of Sultan along the Skykomish River. Widely used by homeless and transient individuals as an illegal camping area, the total weight of the garbage removed from the wooded, riverside piece of property topped out at over 12 tons; roughly equivalent to that of a 38-foot, 84-passenger school bus.