Nicotine Use Banned & Earthquake Anniversary

Nicotine Use Banned & Earthquake Anniversary plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

It’s been 10 years since the Nisqually earthquake a few miles north of Olympia. The 6.8 magnitude quake shook the Puget Sound area on February 28th, 2001, causing 400 injuries and millions of dollars in damage. Tim Walsh, the state’s chief hazards geologist says people all across the northwest face the risk of an earthquake.

WALSH: The earthquake risks are higher in Western Washington than in Eastern Washington but Eastern Washington does get earthquakes that are on shallow crustal faults like the ones we hear about all the time in California or for that matter like the one that just ruptured in New Zealand. These are closer to the surface so they cause more damage because there’s less spreading of the earthquake energy away from its focus.

This next is starting to become more commonplace. The Franciscan Health System has added nicotine to the list of banned substances detectable in urine tests, like marijuana and cocaine. Anyone who has been offered a job with the Health System will be tested for nicotine use. If you smoke or chew tobacco products a spokesman says they can’t in good conscience simultaneously be a champion for healthy communities and continue to hire people who smoke and use tobacco products.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Too often many of us pass judgment on someone based solely on circumstantial evidence through a second or third party trickle down. It’s easy to do, and it happens in major corporations, small business, cities, and rural communities alike. This is something farmers and ranchers have found themselves facing on a daily basis with more and more regularity. The onslaught of media attention garnered by anti-agriculture activists has painted farmers and ranchers as “big business”, “factory” farmers, or land moguls. In reality, farmers and ranchers are an integral part of their communities; as good neighbors, parents, volunteers, and friends. What most anti-ag activists have not taken the time to do is know those they consider opponents. If they had, they would realize that farmers and ranchers are not about the bottom line no matter the cost, they are about being community members. If farmers and ranchers do not properly respect and care for their land and their animals, it is not just them who suffer, it is also the communities in which they reside and call home that will suffer. Something no farmer or rancher worth their salt wants to see happen.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.