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Outlook The Othello

PUBLISHED SINCE 1947 • HOME OF THE SANDHILL CRANE FESTIVAL • WWW.OTHELLOOUTLOOK. COM • VOL. 73 NO. 28 • 75¢

T H U R S DAY, J U LY 9, 2 0 0 9 Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Partial Sunshine Pleasant & Sunny Sunny & Hot H 82º / L 57º

H 90º / L 60º

H 97º / L 62º

H 88º / L 59º

Tuesday

Mostly Sunny Part Sun w/Shower H 89º / L 58º

H 88º / L 55º

By LuAnn Morgan Contributing writer

See Summit, Page A5

Partial Sunshine

Monday

Quilts versus cancer

Good news for gas

Attendees at the second natural gas summit last week came away with some positive feedback from Williams Companies, the firm that provides natural gas to the Pacific Northwest, including Othello. Representatives had been invited to the summit by the city in an effort to look at ways to increase local capacity in light of industrial growth in the area. “We’re always looking to expand our system,” said Xan Kotter, consultant for Northwest Pipeline, a division of Williams. Roger Krug, of Adams County Economic Development, said Othello has been passing up potential business because of the lack of natural gas. “Either we have a gas supply or we don’t,” Krug said. “Then, we have an economy or we don’t.” Several industries have looked at the Othello area recently. The limited natural gas supply has discouraged that growth.

Sunday

Photo by Bob Kirkpatrick

Dirt was flying through the air as drivers spun their wheels around turn No. 1 in the first heat of timed races at the fairground. The race and demolition derby, which followed after, were just some of the annual SunFaire festivities on July 4. See pages A8 and B2 for more photos .

People typically don’t enjoy going to the hospital. But they would probably like to visit to take a look at the eight quilts hanging in the front lobby. They are the handwork of registered nurse Barbie Dailey. She created the colorful quilts to help Othello Community Hospital’s Relay for Life team raise extra money for the cause. Relay for Life takes place this year on July 24 and 25 at the high school track. The event starts at 6 p.m. on Friday and ends at 10 the following morning. The hospital team was organized by Stella Garza and Kay Hougan-Jones. So far, 18 people have signed up to be on the team. “Plus, there are a lot more working behind the scenes who haven’t signed up yet,” Hougan-Jones said. She is calling her team “The Celebrators” because this year’s Relay for Life has a

See Quilts, Page A5

New dialysis clinic open for business By Bob Kirkpatrick Staff writer

Photo by Bob Kirkpatrick

Tom Kaufman cuts the ribbon signaling the opening of the clinic.

It’s been 20 years in the making, but the doors on the new $1.2 million, 5,500-square-foot Fresenius Medical Care Leah Layne Dialysis Clinic were finally open to the public July 1. The clinic was named in honor of Leah Layne, a former dialysis patient who was a local advocate for improved health care. “This was made possible through the efforts of the entire community,” Bill Briggs said. “We also received a lot of support from former State Representative Steve Hailey and his wife Pat, Representative Joe Schmick and Senators Mark Schoesler and Janéa Holmquist.” Briggs led the grass-roots effort by collecting more than 2,000 signatures to petition the Washington Department

of Health for a Certificate of Need, which is required to show how many people from Othello would be using the facility. Briggs said he personally knew of more than a dozen Othello residents who have been traveling to Moses Lake for treatment, but they will no longer be inconvenienced now that the dialysis center is open. “They can come here now, which frees up the units for people in Moses Lake, Ephrata and Soap Lake who were unable to receive treatment,” he said. Ann Sullivan, Fresenius Medical Care area manager from the Tri-Cities, said the number of Othello residents needing the use of the facility led to the company establishing the local branch. “The community really pushed for this and when the state gave its blessing, based

on a specific mathematic formula, it allowed us to move forward and put four stations at this new facility,” she said. Sullivan said there were 13 patients from Othello being treated at Moses Lake who have had to make the 56-mile round trip three to four times a week. “That made it a really long day for everyone, especially if you had to take public transportation,” she said. “Once they arrived, they would have to wait to get on a chair, then spend three to four hours on a machine, then return home. All in all, it took between seven to eight hours per trip.” Sullivan said the new facility will not be able is to treat patients with limited or no kidney functions altogether. “Renal failure is what we are talking about,” she said. “It is

See Dialysis, Page A5

Gigantic fish killed in Moses Lake By Bob Kirkpatrick Staff writer It wasn’t the Loch Ness monster or Moby Dick, but the 50-year-old, seven-foot, 250-pound sturgeon pulled from Moses Lake conjurs images of mythological creatures lurking below the surface. “We’ve heard all kinds of rumors and fish stories from people who say they’ve heard loud splashes in the lake or thought they’d hooked something big,” Chris Wilson, Moses Lake Irrigation and Rehabilitation District (MLIRD) operations technician, said. “And we’ve pulled all kinds of things out of the water with our aquatic weed harvester but nothing close to the size of this sturgeon.” Curt Carpenter, manager of

MLIRD, said the fish was spotted during a water quality training session and appears to have been killed illegally. It had an arrow stuck near the dorsal fin. So far, there have been no leads as to who killed the sturgeon. “We really have no clue at this time,” Wilson said. “But we think it may have happened during the carp (bow-fishing) tournament the week before we pulled it out of the water.” Jeff Korth, fish program manager, Department of Fish and Wildlife Region II, Ephrata, said it is rare to find a sturgeon that big in any body of water around here. “Sturgeon are not indigenous to this area,” he said. “We raise them in the Columbia Basin Fish Hatchery, but the state does not stock them in Moses Lake.”

There are, however, three ways the fi sh may have made it into the lake. “Moses Lake is part of the irrigation system pumped out of Lake Roosevelt and it’s possible egg larva may have made its way through … they are in Banks Lake and in the Potholes,” Korth said. “It could’ve been an escapee from the hatchery and made its way there through Crab Creek. But the most likely scenario is someone transported it from the Columbia River, which is illegal without a permit.” No matter how the sturgeon got into Moses Lake, Korth said it defied the odds to survive as long as it did. The person or people responsible for the illegal killing of the sturgeon are facing a $500 fine and time behind bars.

Photo submitted by Julie Smith, Moses Lake Irrigation and Rehabilitation District

Chris Wilson, MLIRD employee, on the left and an unnamed Moses Lake resident measure the length of this sturgeon that was found floating belly up in Moses Lake June 23.

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