Male greater sage grouse perform mating rituals for a female grouse, not pictured, on April 20, 2013, on a lake outside Walden, Colorado. The Trump administration completed a review of plans to ease protections for a struggling bird species in seven western states, but there’s little time to put the relaxed rules for industry into action before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Hanford contractor to lay off 30 workers

KENNEWICK, Wash. — Hanford contractor Mission Support Alliance plans to lay off 30 workers as its Department of Energy contract expires.

The layoffs are set for Thursday, Jan. 21, the last full business day before the expiring contract held by Mission Support Alliance transitions to a new 10-year contract awarded to Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, the Tri-City Herald reported.

Many employees at Hanford work 10-hour shifts Mondays through Thursdays. Typically, most employees transition to new contractors at Hanford, with the new contractor bringing in new management.

Mission Support Alliance employed just over 1,900 employees at the end of September, which was the end of fiscal 2020 for DOE. The contractor could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon, Jan. 15. The layoff announcement was posted online by the Washington Employment Security Department.

Mission Support Alliance, which has held the sitewide services contract since May 2009, is owned by Leidos Integrated Technology and Centerra Group. The new contractor has largely the same ownership — Leidos, Centerra and Parsons Government Group.Robert Wilkinson, the president of Mission Support Alliance, also will be the president of Hanford Mission Integration Solutions.

The new contract covers the services needed by DOE and other contractors performing cleanup work to operate the 580-square-mile nuclear reservation. It includes security and emergency services, land management, information technology and management of the HAMMER training center.

It also covers utility and road services, including maintenance and upgrades to support the upcoming operation of the $17 billion vitrification plant in the center of the site.

Seattle officer fired after investigation into racist remark

SEATTLE — Seattle’s interim police chief has fired an officer for making a racist remark about a Black man last year, following an internal review into the incident.

The review came after three officers reported their colleague’s comments, The Seattle Times reported Sunday, Jan. 17, based on records released by the city’s police watchdog, the Office of Police Accountability.

The unnamed officer, who worked for the department since July 2017, was fired in November.

In late March 2020, the officer and the three others had responded to a trespass call at a North Seattle hospital that led them to remove a Black man.

Days later, the now-fired officer referred to the Black man as “Kunta Kinte,” a central character in author Alex Haley’s 1976 novel “Roots,” about a young African man sold into slavery, according to the investigation.

When an investigator questioned the accused officer, he said he used the name “because the individual was African” and he could not remember his name.

It was “abundantly clear” that the officer’s statement constituted biased policing, Office of Police Accountability Director Andrew Myerberg said.

“The use of ‘Kunta Kinte’ to refer to any Black person, let alone an individual of African descent, is racist and in direct contravention of policy,” Myerberg wrote.

Sage grouse review done, but scant time for Trump’s changes

BILLINGS, Mont. — The Trump administration has completed a review of plans to ease protections for a struggling bird species in seven states in the U.S. West, but there’s little time to put the relaxed rules for industry into action before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The ground-dwelling, chicken-sized greater sage grouse has been at the center of a long-running dispute over how much of the American West’s expansive public lands should be developed.

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration in 2019 from its plans to relax rules on mining, drilling and grazing across millions of acres of land because of potential harm to the sage grouse. After releasing an environmental study in November aimed at justifying the changes, BLM officials said in a notice Jan. 11 they stand behind their plans.

— Associated Press

But the ruling that blocked the changes is still in place. And with just days left before Biden’s inauguration, environmentalists said the Trump administration’s latest move won’t change anything, barring a last-minute reversal by the court.

Sage grouse once numbered in the millions but have seen their range that stretches across portions of 11 states diminished by oil and gas drilling, wildfires, grazing and other pressures. The Obama administration, with Biden as vice president, adopted restrictions in 2015 meant to protect the best grouse habitat and keep the bird off the threatened and endangered species list.

Under Trump, the Interior Department in 2017 began to ease the restrictions on drilling, mining and other activities and adopted new land use plans for the seven states in 2019. Months later, the changes were blocked — and the Obama plans restored — by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise, Idaho.

Bureau of Land Management officials did not reply to emailed questions about whether they will ask Winmill to lift his injunction.

The Trump administration changes would have affected public land in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California and Oregon. Sage grouse territory in Montana, Washington and the Dakotas would not be affected.

— Associated Press