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Photo of Andy Matarrese

Stories by Andy Matarrese

Columbian environment and transportation reporter

Terry Toland, an energy resource manager with Clark Public Utilities, leads a tour of the River Road Generation Plant. A bill in the Legislature exempts the plant from proposed green power requirements.

Renewable energy bill would exempt Clark Public Utilities

Terry Toland, an energy resource manager with Clark Public Utilities, leads a tour of the River Road Generation Plant. A bill in the Legislature exempts the plant from proposed green power requirements.

March 11, 2019, 6:02am Clark County News

A Senate bill that would require utilities to switch to 100 percent renewable energy sources by 2045 includes an exemption to the rule for Clark Public Utilities. Read story

Interstate 5 tunnel: To be or not to be?

March 10, 2019, 6:00am Clark County News

As predictable as traffic jams heading onto the Interstate 5 Bridge, state legislators are back in Olympia talking about Columbia River crossing options. And like other unchanging, interminable cycles, so returns talk of a tunnel solution to the river crossing problem. Read story

Participants’ faces show triumph and disappointment during the 2018 Solar Car Challenge at Hudson’s Bay High School.

Students set to compete Saturday in Solar Car Challenge

Participants’ faces show triumph and disappointment during the 2018 Solar Car Challenge at Hudson’s Bay High School.

March 8, 2019, 6:05am Clark County News

Hundreds of local students will hit the track this weekend for the return of the Solar Car Challenge, hosted by Clark Public Utilities. Read story

An investigator photographs the scene of a police shooting in Hazel Dell on Thursday, March 7, 2019.

Fatal officer-involved shooting reported in Hazel Dell

An investigator photographs the scene of a police shooting in Hazel Dell on Thursday, March 7, 2019.

March 7, 2019, 4:00pm Clark County News

Two Vancouver police detectives shot and killed an armed man during a traffic stop Thursday afternoon in Hazel Dell. Read story

A travel-time sign gives traffic in the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 just south of the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds an estimate for traffic down the road. Signs like these use roadway sensors and radar devices to measure the speed and density of passing traffic, and a computer program uses the information to estimate travel times between two points.

Clark Asks: How do highway reader boards calculate travel times?

A travel-time sign gives traffic in the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 just south of the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds an estimate for traffic down the road. Signs like these use roadway sensors and radar devices to measure the speed and density of passing traffic, and a computer program uses the information to estimate travel times between two points.

March 5, 2019, 6:05am Clark County News

Battle Ground’s Jen Kootstra, now retired, doesn’t make the commute south on the interstate highways in the county as much as she did when she was still working as an engineer for HP. Read story

Crews work to remove a downed tree on northbound Interstate 5 Tuesday afternoon in Salmon Creek. Traffic backed up miles south for roughly 40 minutes until the tree was cleared.

Tree falls across I-5 in Salmon Creek, blocks traffic northbound

Crews work to remove a downed tree on northbound Interstate 5 Tuesday afternoon in Salmon Creek. Traffic backed up miles south for roughly 40 minutes until the tree was cleared.

February 26, 2019, 3:28pm Clark County News

A tree fell over Interstate 5 in Salmon Creek on Tuesday afternoon, blocking northbound traffic for about 40 minutes. Read story

Snow piles up at the trailhead of June Lake Trail on the south side of Mount St. Helens in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. It is a popular snowshoe route.

Washington, Oregon snowpack levels up

Snow piles up at the trailhead of June Lake Trail on the south side of Mount St. Helens in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. It is a popular snowshoe route.

February 22, 2019, 9:27pm Clark County News

Weeks of colder temperatures and consistent heavy precipitation has bolstered the snowpack in Oregon and Washington’s mountain ranges, bringing snow levels closer to the long-term average. Read story

Bomb squad removes grenade from car at Vancouver VA campus

February 21, 2019, 7:43pm Clark County News

A call about a stolen vehicle at the Portland VA Vancouver Medical Center campus led to the bomb squad responding after officers found a grenade in the car. Read story

Ducks swim through a body of water at Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Washougal. A mix of private groups and state, federal and local agencies hope to reconnect Gibbons Creek, which runs through the refuge, to the Columbia River, turning roughly 960 acres at the site back to a floodplain. Below: A deer looks up from grazing at Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

BPA finishes environmental review of Steigerwald floodplain restoration plan

Ducks swim through a body of water at Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Washougal. A mix of private groups and state, federal and local agencies hope to reconnect Gibbons Creek, which runs through the refuge, to the Columbia River, turning roughly 960 acres at the site back to a floodplain. Below: A deer looks up from grazing at Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

February 14, 2019, 9:01pm Clark County News

The expansive, $22 million project to restore the floodplain around the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Washougal cleared a major hurdle after an environmental impact analysis was competed this week, and preliminary work on the project is set to start this summer. Read story

Mount St. Helens as seen from the camp chapel at Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway in Amboy in July.

Public-lands bill gives boost to volcano warning, monitoring systems

Mount St. Helens as seen from the camp chapel at Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway in Amboy in July.

February 12, 2019, 10:37pm Clark County News

The wide-ranging Natural Resources Management Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and which passed Tuesday in the U.S. Senate, includes a provision to improve volcano early warning and monitoring systems. Read story