Five years after first being spotted near Blaine, the northern giant hornet has been eradicated from Washington and the U.S., the state Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced.

The northern giant hornet was previously named the “Asian giant hornet,” and popularly known as the “murder hornet.”

In a news release on Dec. 18, the two agencies declared eradication after three years of no confirmed detections.

The hornet, which is non-native to the area, could have been a threat to honeybees and other pollinators and native insects. The hornets can kill a honeybee hive in as little as 90 minutes. The hornets also threaten human health as their sting is more dangerous than that of honeybees.

Two giant northern hornets were found in Whatcom County, in late 2019. After the initial detection, state, federal and international agencies, along with community members and groups in the state and Whatcom County, collaborated on a multiyear effort to eradicate the species.

The effort included a community trapping program, in which citizens built and set up hundreds of traps at their homes, and a research program to learn more about the species aimed at improving an eradication strategy.

In 2021, the Entomological Society of America changed the name of the hornet to its current name, the northern giant hornet. The move by the U.S.’s largest entomological society came after concerns from entomologists about the hornet’s previous common name, “Asian giant hornet,” and a popular nickname, “murder hornet.” At the time, with an increase in anti-Asian xenophobia and hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic, many entomologists felt the name would bolster anti-Asian sentiment.

Washington’s carbon emissions allowances reached their highest auction price of the year last week, one month after voters overwhelmingly affirmed keeping the state’s cap-and-invest program.

Carbon-emitting corporations, including oil companies, bid every three months on state allowances for their pollution emissions. The money raised in the auctions pays for programs to decrease or mitigate pollution.

Last week, the state received $40.26 per allowance during the bidding on 7.98 million allowances. The range for the first three quarters of 2024 was $25.76 to $29.92 per share.

Despite bouncing back from depressed numbers earlier this year, December’s auction price was still lower than at this time in 2023, and this year’s range is lower than last year’s range of $48.50 to $63.03 per share.

Meanwhile, the state also sold roughly 2.22 million future allowances at $26 each to be redeemed later this decade.

Critics of the cap-and-invest program claimed that the lower 2024 bids were due to uncertainty over November’s results of a voter initiative to repeal the program. Initiative 2117 failed 38% to 62%.

While program critics have blamed the state’s relatively high gasoline prices on the carbon tax that has been in place for two years, multiple factors have affected gas prices, and Washington’s gasoline prices have been among the highest in the nation for decades.

The average price of a gallon of gas in Washington on Wednesday was $3.95, compared to a national average of $3.02, according to AAA. A year ago, Washington’s average cost per gallon was $4.275.

December’s carbon auction raised $379.3 million for Washington, meaning the state received $1.13 billion in 2024. That money — plus roughly $1.5 billion collected in 2023 — goes to numerous state environmental, health, transportation and other programs. Those programs appear to have been a major factor in Washingtonians’ vote last month to keep cap-and-invest.

Washington has been talking with California and Quebec, which also have cap-and-trade programs, to create a three-party alliance that could decrease and stabilize auction prices.

Correction 10:56 a.m. Dec. 12, 2024: An earlier version of this story omitted the sales future allowances, and incorrectly listed the totals of how much the auctions raised. This story has been corrected.

Gov. Jay Inslee has approved a revised plan to populate the Horse Heaven Hills south of Kennewick with the largest wind turbine farm in Washington. 

His approval leaves intact more than three-quarters of the originally requested number of turbines. While Inslee gave his approval on Oct. 18, his office and the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council confirmed that approval to Cascade PBS on Friday. 

This Horse Heaven Hills project has aroused the most contentious disagreement among several clean energy projects in Washington. The proposed turbine farm has drawn scrutiny for its possible impact on Native cultural sites and on wildlife in the area, as well as its visibility from the Tri-Cities. Tri-Citians have also questioned the effects of the wind farm on ferruginous hawk nests.

In September the Site Evaluation Council voted 4 to 3 to approve the recommendation. Opponents of the project have until Dec. 17 to appeal the decision to the state’s courts.

Inslee has been pushing new wind turbine projects and solar panel farms to be located across the state as part of his campaign to trim the state’s carbon emissions. In an Oct. 18 letter posted to the Council’s website last week, Inslee said that the Council had adequately addressed the environmental, cultural and community impacts of the project. But the letter also had an undercurrent of impatience over the delay, since the Horse Heaven Hills project took most of this year to be approved.

“We will not meet our state’s urgent clean energy needs if the path to a final recommendation from the Council spans multiple years and contains conditional micrositing process requirements that further prolong final siting approval for a significant portion of the primary project components,” Inslee wrote. “I strongly encourage the Council to identify opportunities to increase its efficiency and provide for more timely decision-making. You can expect my office to engage with you on this critical issue before the end of my administration.”

The original plans by Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colorado, called for either a maximum of 147 670-foot-tall wind turbines or 222 500-foot turbines along a 24-mile east/west stretch of the Horse Heaven Hills, producing a projected 1,150 megawatts of wind power. The plans also called for two 500-megawatt solar panel farms on the east and west sides of the 24-mile stretch.

After some back-and-forth between the Council and Inslee’s office, the council set a 0.6-mile buffer around 60 to 70 ferruginous hawk nests, a 0.25-mile buffer around historic Native American fire sites and a one-mile buffer alongside Webber Canyon, another culturally sensitive spot for Indigenous nations. The Council ordered that the eastern solar farm be removed from the plan because of its proximity to sensitive Native cultural sites.

If 500-foot turbines are installed, that would trim the number of turbines by approximately 50, from 222 to roughly 172. If 670-foot turbines are installed, that would cut the number of turbines by approximately 34, from 147 to roughly 113. More precise figures will be calculated later.

A Washington commission will send a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee this week on the proposed Horse Heaven Hills wind turbine farm that would leave intact more than three-quarters of the originally requested number of turbines.

The proposed turbine farm has drawn scrutiny for its possible impact on Native cultural sites and on wildlife in the area, as well as its visibility from the Tri-Cities.

With scant discussion, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council approved the recommendation 4-3 Friday.

Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colorado, originally made plans for two scenarios, calling for a maximum of 147 670-foot-tall wind turbines or 222 500-foot turbines along a 24-mile east/west stretch of the Horse Heaven Hills just south of Kennewick. However, the Evaluation Council decided in February to implement two-mile buffer zones around 60 to 70 ferruginous hawk nests in that area and remove turbines along the north slopes of the hills.

The company says those buffer zones cut Scout Clean Energy’s number of turbines by roughly half. At that time, the company said those changes would trim the projected 1,150 megawatts of wind power to 236 megawatts.

Inslee sent the February recommendations back to the Council, wanting to increase the number of turbines back to the original estimates. In recent months, the Council has discussed trimming some ferruginous hawk buffer zones to 0.6 mile around the nests. In 2021, the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission changed the status of ferruginous hawks from threatened to endangered.

The recommendations approved Friday call for a 0.6 mile buffer around the nests, plus a 0.25-mile buffer around historic Native American fire sites, plus a one-mile buffer alongside Webber Canyon, another culturally sensitive spot for Indigenous nations.

If 500-foot turbines are installed, that would trim the number of turbines by approximately 50, from 222 to roughly 172. If 670-foot turbines are installed, that would cut the number of turbines by approximately 34, from 147 to roughly 113. More precise figures will be calculated later.

Scout Clean Energy’s original proposal also included two 500-megawatt solar panel farms on the east and west sides of the 24-mile stretch. The Council ordered that the eastern solar farm be removed because of its proximity to sensitive Native cultural sites. 

The wind farm has drawn strong opposition from numerous Tri-Citians because the original plan for the turbines would also disrupt a currently pristine view of the hills from the urban area. This Horse Heaven Hills matter has become the most contentious disagreement among several in Washington between wind and solar farms on one side and wildlife preservation on the other.

Washington’s latest carbon auction raised $237.2 million, bringing 2024’s cap-and-invest revenue up to $561.7 million with one more quarterly auction to go.

Carbon-emitting corporations, including oil companies, bid every three months on state allowances for their pollution emissions. In 2023, the first year of the new program, quarterly auctions brought in about $2 billion. 

During 2023, quarterly auction prices ranged from $48.50 for roughly one metric ton of carbon in the first quarter to $63.03 in the third. Those prices were significantly higher than had been expected when the program was designed, and were blamed for adding 21 to 50 cents per gallon to Washington’s traditionally high gas prices.

But both auction prices and related fuel prices have gone down in 2024. 

The 2024 first-quarter auction price was $25.76 per allowance, which raised $135.5 million for the state budget. The second-quarter price was $29.92 per allowance, raising roughly $189 million. The third-quarter auction, conducted Sept. 4, ended up with a $29.88 price per allowance with 7,939,271 allowances sold, the Washington Department of Ecology announced Wednesday.

Reasons for the lower 2024 auction prices are unknown, but one theory is that bidders are unwilling to spend money on a program that could disappear at the end of 2024, after voters decide on a state initiative to repeal the cap-and-invest program. Others believe Washington’s carbon market is stabilizing and that bidders are becoming more savvy about the way they approach the quarterly auctions.

While larger auction prices have been linked to higher gasoline prices, too many extra factors cloud any precise correlations. Numerous economic, geographic and other factors affect the rise and fall of Washington’s prices at the pump. For decades, Washington’s gasoline prices have been among the highest in the nation.

On Wednesday, Washington’s average price for regular gas was $4.16 per gallon compared to a national average of $3.25, according to AAA. Oregon has economic and geographic factors somewhat similar to Washington’s, except for a cap-and-invest program. Its gasoline sold at an average of $3.76 per gallon this week. 

“Despite efforts to repeal this landmark climate law, the [cap-and-invest program] continues to bring real, tangible relief to our communities as we respond to the impacts of climate change. ... While the repeal effort may have placed slight downward pressure on the price of pollution permits during the auction bidding process, more notably, prices have remained consistent with California and Quebec’s price trajectories,” said a joint press release from Climate Solutions, Washington Conservation and The Nature Conservancy.

Washington is talking with California and Quebec to become a three-party alliance, which is expected to decrease and stabilize auction prices.

The state has fined The Home Depot $1.6 million for selling illegal hydrofluorocarbon products after two years of trying to get the corporation to comply with the law, the state Ecology Department announced Thursday.

The Legislature passed laws in 2019 and 2021 to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbon products or HFCs. They are used mostly for refrigeration and air conditioning and can leak into the air if the equipment is damaged. According to Ecology, HFCs have hundreds of times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide.

One of the new state restrictions banned the sale of R-134a canisters at retail stores beginning in July 2021. R-134a is an HFC refrigerant used in automotive air conditioning systems with a global warming potential 1,430 times that of carbon dioxide, the news release said. Vehicle manufacturers had already begun phasing out the use of R-134a.

However, the Home Depot’s website continued to sell equipment with R-134a refrigerants through at least September 2023, according to Ecology. The Home Depot informed Ecology that it sold 1,058 units of the prohibited products in Washington between April 12, 2022, and Sept. 5, 2023, the state news release said.

“Restricting HFC products and equipment is key to achieving the state’s statutory greenhouse gas emission limits and ultimately getting to net zero by 2050,” said Joel Creswell, head of the Ecology Department’s Climate Pollution Reduction Program, in the news release. “HFCs safely sealed inside air-conditioning systems can be recovered, recycled and reused, but when they leak out, they become a major contributor to climate change.”

A 2008 state law that sets Washington’s carbon-reduction targets of 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, 70 percent by 2040 and 95 percent by 2050. 

Washington has fallen short of its original predictions of how much money its cap-and-invest program would raise in the first half of 2024; the actual total for the first half of the year is about $324.5 million. 

Late last year, state officials predicted that carbon pricing auctions would raise $941 million in the first half of this year. But auction prices have dropped dramatically. 

Carbon-emitting corporations, including oil companies, bid every three months on state allowances for their pollution emissions. 

During 2023, quarterly auction prices ranged from $48.50 for roughly one metric ton of carbon in the first quarter to $63.03 in the third. Those prices were significantly higher than expected, and were blamed for adding 21 to 50 cents per gallon to Washington’s traditionally high gas prices.

In 2024, the first-quarter auction price was $25.76 per allowance, which raised $135.5 million. The second-quarter auction price — publicly announced Wednesday — was $29.92 per allowance, raising roughly $189 million.

Reasons for auction price decreases are unknown, but there has been speculation. One theory is that bidders are unwilling to spend money on a program that could disappear at the end of 2024, when voters decide on a state initiative to repeal the cap-and-invest program. Others believe Washington’s carbon market is stabilizing and that bidders are becoming more savvy about the way they approach the quarterly auctions. 

While larger auction prices have been linked to higher gasoline prices, too many extra factors cloud any precise correlations. Numerous economic, geographic and other factors affect the rise and fall of Washington’s prices at the pump. For decades, Washington’s gasoline prices have been among the highest in the nation. On Wednesday, Washington’s average price for regular gas was $4.38 per gallon, compared to a national average of $3.45, according to AAA.

Washington State Ferries is inviting companies to express interest in building five new hybrid diesel/electric ferries. 

The bid process, announced Monday, is the latest step toward getting two new ferries running in Puget Sound by 2028, two more by 2029 and a fifth by 2030, said Steve Nevey, the Washington Department of Transportation’s assistant secretary for the ferry system.

Some politicians, including the Republican candidates for governor, have called for replacing the first two hybrid ferries with diesel-only vessels, predicting that diesel ferries can be finished quicker. But state officials say at this point, hybrid ferries can be built faster. 

“This hybrid electric design is the quickest path,” Nevey said.

Sources for the diesel engines and for some electrical systems that were used for the previous round of new ferries in 2014-2018 have gone out of business, so switching back to diesel ferries would require finding new manufacturers and doing new design work. “We’d have to start all over again,” said Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, the Washington House’s   transportation leader.

“Ship design is a lengthy and complex process,” Nevey added. 

The invitation for bids will gauge potential interest in building the hybrid ferries. The state expects at least 10 bidders nationwide to study whether they want to bid on Washington contracts. The WSF aims to have one or two shipbuilding companies contracted in 2025 to build the five hybrid ferries.

The ferry system is struggling to keep 10 routes that criss-cross Puget Sound fully functional. The system requires 19 vessels during its peak usage period and 17 during the off-season. With some ferries being maintained or under repair, the fleet usually has 16 to 18 vessels in service at a time. WSF aims to expand that to 21 to 26 vessels by 2040, 22 of which would be hybrid diesel/electric, to reduce the fleet’s carbon footprint by 76%.

After contracts are awarded in 2025, the ferry system expects the design work to take one year and construction to take two years.

The ferry system is seeking to replace its second-largest vessel — capacity 144 vehicles — with a model capable of handling 164 standard cars. The hybrid vessel — capable of a top speed of 17 knots — would be faster, lighter and more fuel-efficient than its predecessor, he added.

Grizzly bears will roam the North Cascades region for the first time in 27 years under a restoration process conducted by the National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the two agencies announced Thursday. 

According to the agencies’ restoration plan, they will capture 25 grizzly bears from the Rocky Mountains or interior British Columbia and release them in the North Cascades over five to 10 years. The aim is for this initial population to grow to 200 bears in 60-100 years. 

Agencies have not yet set a timeline to relocate grizzly bears to the North Cascades. The National Park Service will publish updates on its website.

Federal agencies say restoring a grizzly bear population would bring back ecological interactions crucial and beneficial to the region’s fish and wildlife habitat, including seed dispersal to replenish plant life and regulation of the prey population. The U.S. portion of the North Cascades region spans 9,800 square miles. About 85% of the region is under federal management. 

However, not all welcomed the news. U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Yakima, has proposed legislation to prevent the relocation, noting the potential impact on residents, livestock and wildlife. 

“This administration is, once again, disregarding local public opinion and instead catering to the whims of coastal elites and the out-of-touch environmentalist lobby, which has been rushing to finalize this plan since its inception,” Newhouse said in a news release Thursday. 

Grizzly bears inhabited the North Cascades for thousands of years, but the population has declined due to killing by humans. The species hasn’t been seen in the North Cascade since 1996. The species is currently classified as threatened in the lower 48 states. 

The bears will be designated as a nonessential experimental population under the Endangered Species Act, which provides additional flexibility in restoring a species’ population. 

The bears will have radio collars to provide wildlife managers with updates on their movement. Sightings of the bears are expected to be rare during the first 10 to 20 years of the restoration effort. 

The restoration decision follows a two-year environmental impact evaluation process, which included more than 12,000 comments from the public. 

A Washington commission recommended approval Wednesday of a slimmed-down wind turbine project just south of the Tri-Cities.

The Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council voted 5-2 to recommend that Gov. Jay Inslee approve the Horse Heaven Hills turbine project. The original project had faced criticism for threatening endangered ferruginous hawks and ruining views.

Inslee now has 60 days to make his decision. EFSEC is a committee of representatives from several Washington state agencies.

Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colorado, originally made plans for a maximum of 141 or 222 wind turbines – depending on approved height – along a 24-mile east/west stretch of the Horse Heaven Hills just south of Kennewick. However, the state council decided in February to implement two-mile buffer zones around 60 to 70 ferruginous hawk nests in that area and remove turbines along the north slopes of the hills. 

The buffer zone cuts Scout Clean Energy’s number of turbines by roughly half, though the precise number won’t be available until the company maps out a new plan. The company said the changes trim the projected 1,150 megawatts of wind power to 236 megawatts.

Scout Clean Energy’s original proposal also included two 500-megawatt solar panel farms on the east and west sides of the 24-mile stretch. EFSEC ordered that the eastern solar farm be removed because of its proximity to sensitive Native cultural sites. 

The wind farm has drawn strong opposition from numerous Tri-Citians because the original plan for the turbines would disrupt a currently pristine view of the hills from the urban area, and could disturb the ferruginous hawk nests. 

"By partially approving the Horse Heaven wind and solar project, EFSEC is balancing the need for renewable, clean energy with potential impacts on tribal cultural resources, wildlife and surrounding communities,” said the council’s chairwoman Kathleen Drew at Wednesday’s meeting.