Community Voices

Summer streamflows in the Nooksack Basin have been declining for decades, while the need for irrigation water grows as summers get hotter and rainfall diminishes.

Racial Unity Now-Lynden’s approach of addressing racism under a Christian framework may indeed “be the bridge” for community engagement.

A community resident finds herself without long-term housing after a downward spiral into homelessness.

Despite a difficult start to a difficult life, a woman in her 60s looks forward to finding housing — and reconnecting with family.

Our concept of the “deserving poor” needs to expand past attitudes mirroring 17th and 18th century mores that drive today’s ambivalent response to homelessness.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day is observed on May 5, and in an installation at the Lightcatcher Building through May 15.

A local civic action group is hoping Bellingham’s next police chief will work to strengthen community cohesion and be transparent and accountable to the public.

Sharing the story: A rough road from abuse during an upper-middle-class childhood to an adult life of “camping out,” estrangement from loved ones and time in prison have led one man to the Light House Mission, a new sense of purpose and a better time of life.

Salish Current’s recent Trust 2022 forum on media and democracy highlighted ongoing challenges the news industry faces — but also charted a pathway for how local newsrooms can potentially revitalize our civic life and institutions, notes Community Voices contributor Derek Moscato.

Much change has happened since 1910 when the idea of an International Women’s Day was proposed by Clara Zetkin at the International Conference of Working Women. A lot still needs to change, notes a Community Voices contributor.

Whatcom farmers are calling for communitywide collaboration in pursuing solutions to flooding and water supply issues in the Nooksack River Basin.

What awaits us in the new year? Salish Current asked our readers and writers to take us there by sharing one thing they look forward to doing in 2022.

Given the high volume of rain and flooding during the past few weeks, it may seem strange to talk about water scarcity in the Nooksack River system. Although the watershed has ample water in the winter (often too much water), it holds too little in the summer to support healthy salmon. Complicating the water supply issue are the adverse effects of climate change.

Farmers are in a powerful position to help curb climate change, and many locally already are taking steps to do so, note dairy farmer Katherine Steensma and author Stevan Harrell. While this bodes well for the future of agriculture here, there is more to be done to stop “wasting and poisoning the good and beautiful things of the world”: natural resources.

East Whatcom County parents want their youth to stay drug- and alcohol-free. To that end, the Mount Baker Community Coalition engaged a local teen as a Summer Youth Prevention Fellow in a collaborative effort with alcohol and cannabis retailers, to increase safe storage and reduce youth access to those substances.