March 5 - 11, 2020
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IN THIS
ISSUE
GLM Wine Co. caters to the weekend connoisseur, page 7
Food drive underway for dogs and cats, page 13
How to vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary, page 15
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
No local cases yet, but health officials are preparing for the coronavirus By Oliver Lazenby
(See COVID-19, page 12)
s At the Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras Party on February 25, attendees enjoyed a family dinner of pancakes and gumbo at the Blaine Senior Center. Entertainment was provided by a professional Dixieland band, Josh’s Mardi Gras Stompers, and the Blaine High School jazz band. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Blaine Harbor Music Festival, which takes place every July.
Photo by Molly Ernst
Elenbaas defends ‘terrorism’ remark, citing citizen suits By Jami Makan Newly elected Whatcom County councilmember Ben Elenbaas defended his controversial remark likening a local environmental nonprofit organization to domestic terrorists, citing the group’s use of “citizen suits” to help enforce environmental laws. In a statement to The Northern Light, Elenbaas said he stood by his comments made at the February 11 Whatcom County Council meeting, in which he criticized the civic participation of RE Sources, a Bellingham-based nonprofit organization founded in 1982 to advocate for the environment. “If you look at the definition of domestic terrorism, you might even identify with some of the stuff that they do as that,” he told councilmembers prior to a vote on whether to increase the budget of a recycling education program delivered by RE Sources.
Elenbaas’ remarks were rebuked by fellow councilmember Todd Donovan, who called the comments “kind of frightening” for comparing legal actions like petitioning and picketing to terrorism. The remarks were also condemned by Shannon Wright, executive director of RE Sources, who said that they put the group’s staff and their families at risk. “The act of branding constituents with baseless, explosive labels in council’s chambers endangers them,” Wright said in a February 17 letter to councilmembers. Elenbaas suggested that environmental litigation brought by RE Sources to enforce statutes against major polluters meets the definition of terrorism. He pointed to the group’s use of citizen suits, a decades-old procedure in which private parties take action to enforce environmental laws like the Clean Water Act. Citizen suit provisions
were written into most of the major environmental laws during the 1970s, and are legal avenues for nonprofits and other (See Elenbaas, page 5)
INSIDE
The new coronavirus started to spread in Washington state from unknown sources, one step ahead of the state department of health’s ability to adequately test for it. Local health officials now say it’s only a matter of time before the disease spreads in Whatcom County. With 27 confirmed cases of the virus in King and Snohomish counties as of early March 4, local health officials are no longer aiming to contain the virus. Rather, they’re working to slow its spread so that it won’t overwhelm local health care institutions. “Containment is no longer the most effective strategy,” said John Wolpers, incident commander for a team that the Whatcom County Health Department assembled to manage a potential local outbreak. Whatcom County held a meeting to update elected officials and others on March 2 at its Unified Emergency Operations Center in Bellingham. “We are now moving to mitigation and personal prevention as our primary approaches,” Wolpers said at the update. “It is the consensus of public health officials that it is not a question of if, but a question of when, communities will have confirmed cases.” As more cases popped up in western Washington, beginning on February 28, Whatcom County’s incident response team ramped up its communication and coordination with elected officials, school districts, businesses and other organizations throughout the county. Washington governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency on February 29, directing state agencies to do everything reasonably possible in the effort to respond to and recover from the outbreak. The new coronavirus disease, called COVID-19, is part of a large family of socalled coronaviruses that include the common cold and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). It was first detected in China late last year and, as of March 4, had infected more than 90,000 and killed more than 3,000 in at least 65 countries. Of those, 80,000 cases were in mainland China. Like the flu, it killed mostly older people and those with underlying health conditions.
Letters . . . . . . . . . 4 Sports . . . . . . . . . . 6 Classifieds . . . . . 11 Coming Up . . . . . 14 Police . . . . . . . . . 14 Tides . . . . . . . . . . 14
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BETWEEN WORLDS : Harmony from Discord
Daniel Bolshoy, guitar | Jessica Choe, piano MARCH 15, 3PM MT BAKER THEATRE WWW.BELLINGHAMSYMPHONY.ORG