As drought in the Western U.S. deepens, farmers are feeling the pain. Some are watching their crops fail, while others are selling cattle because they don't have the grass to feed it.
Anna King calls Richland, Washington home and loves unearthing great stories about people in the Northwest. She reports for the Northwest News Network from a studio at Washington State University, Tri-Cities. She covers the Mid-Columbia region, from nuclear reactors to Mexican rodeos.
Credit: Troy Brynelson / Oregon Public Broadcasting
Stuck in jail, waiting for a psychiatric bed. COVID-19 made an old problem worse By
While Washingtonâs system has been strained for years, state officials and disability rights advocates say it effectively ground to a halt during the pandemic.
Bill Ward didnât want to get out of bed. About the only reason he found to lift himself up was to go to his computer and check the online roster of a county jail more than 600 miles away.
The 78-year-oldâs grandson had been sitting in the same Clark County Jail cell for more than three months. The long wait left Ward perplexed.
Farmers Are Feeling The Pain As Drought Spreads In The Northwest
Nicole Berg s stunted wheat field is so short and sparse she doesn t think the combine can even reach the wheat without, as she puts it, eating rocks. Combines don t like dirt and rocks, Berg says, standing amid the damaged rows. They get indigestion.
Berg is a dryland wheat farmer in the sweeping Horse Heaven Hills of southeastern Washington state. She shows off one head of half-turned golden wheat amid a sea of them. Besides being too short, the plant s kernels didn t fill out properly. See how the wheat head is curled like that? Berg points out. And then you break into it, you might have some berries down here, but this will be empty. There is no wheat inside the wheat head.