Morning Press: Hospital care in Mexico; sewage in river; suit filed against city

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Here are some of the stories that grabbed readers’ attention this week.

Woman’s Vancouver family fights Mexican hospital over her care

A woman and her Vancouver family say she was held hostage by a hospital in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, earlier this week, and they were ordered to pay $55,000 to secure her release, after she was injured on vacation.

Spokane’s Brandi Gallagher, 34, was vacationing with two girlfriends at an all-inclusive resort in Cabo San Lucas, when she fell on a metal spike and punctured her lung in two places Sunday night, said Gallagher’s aunt, Kim Gallagher Tortora, 60, of Vancouver.

“That’s where the nightmare began,” Tortora said in a phone interview Wednesday.

• Brandi Gallagher’s family says she was held hostage, ordered to pay thousands after injury while on vacation

Another 80,000 gallons of raw sewage released into Columbia River

In a mere 15 minutes, about 80,000 gallons of feces, urine and laundry waste rushed into the Columbia River on Wednesday. The untreated sewage release occurred between 10:42 and 10:57 a.m. while a contractor was calibrating pumps at Vancouver’s Westside Wastewater Treatment facility. The release was initially believed to be closer to 100,000 gallons, but the city later revised the figure.

This is the second such spill this month.

• Spill was during routine calibration; public was immediately notified

Employee files harassment, discrimination claim against city of Vancouver

Assistant City Attorney Debra Quinn has filed a tort claim and whistleblower complaint against the city of Vancouver for harassment, discrimination, retaliation and a hostile work environment.

Quinn’s claim outlines multiple allegations of harassment and gender discrimination, as well as personal and widespread retaliation.

The tort claim, filed with the city Sept. 20, states that since City Attorney Bronson Potter was appointed in 2014, “he has deliberately and intentionally created a hostile work environment against women, minorities and women over 40, that I find personally offensive to me as a woman, minority and person over the age of 40.”

• Assistant city attorney seeks institutional changes

As Sikh congregation makes progress on temple, neighbors wonder

Depending on whom you ask, the main thing still missing from the golden Sikh temple that’s risen in northeast Vancouver is either interior finishing or neighborhood outreach.

At 21,000 square feet, “It will be the second-largest gurdwara (temple) in the state,” after the one in Burien, spokesman Pawneet Sethi said.

The Columbian asked for a tour of the stunning construction site on Northeast 20th Street, and walked through last Friday with several members of the board of the Guru Ram Dass Sahib Gurdwara.

• Group hoping for a grand opening in spring

Recycling’s dirty problem

During a weekday morning at the West Vancouver Materials Recovery Center, a truck dumped its load on the concrete floor of the center, a glass bottle could be heard breaking.

Jason Hudson, division president of Waste Connections, Inc. (which operates the facility) explained that the bottle should have gone in a different bin. He also picked out other contaminants, six-pack rings, Styrofoam, pet-food bags and plastic bags that well-meaning consumers errantly placed in the bins in hopes of them being recycled.

“You can see quite a bit of (plastic) film in this load,” said Hudson, referring to another contaminant that’s notorious for gunking up recycling equipment and polluting bales of recycled paper.

• County residents put wrong items in bin, hinder system; industry braces for changes with China