Environment Watch

• Legislative workshop for enviro groups
• Comments due on Duwamish site cleanup
• Conference on Georgia Basin ecosystem
• CityClub legislative preview Jan. 9
• Ecological forestry seminar in January
• Ecology says Everett site is clean

Motorists' habits spur call for tax increases

Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren't raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.

Sustainable Sites looks at green from the ground up

By KATIE ZEMTSEFF

Green building rating systems, like LEED, focus on finished buildings but largely ignore how the land under and around them is treated. A new rating system called the Sustainable Sites Initiative has been created to change that.

Bids due in March for U-Link tunnel

Sound Transit is seeking contractors to build 11,400 feet of tunnel between the University of Washington and Capitol Hill for its University Link light rail line.

Work continues on I-5 noise wall

Crews from Granite Construction are continuing work on a project to install three noise walls along the west side of Interstate 5 between Fifth Avenue Northeast and Northeast 92nd Street. Work started in July.

BLM signs plan for more Ore. logging

Five years after signing an agreement with the timber industry, the Bush administration has delivered its plan for nearly doubling the timber harvest on a patchwork of federal lands in Western Oregon.