January 21 - 27, 2016
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IN THIS
ISSUE
Wrestlers triumph at northwest conference, page 6
Canadian analyst predicts alltime low for the loonie
Health and Wellness special section, page 9
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
Pet Care special section, page 10
Flying over Drayton Harbor
By Steve Guntli
s A seaplane makes a low pass over Drayton Harbor.
Birch Bay-Lynden Road repairs begin By Steve Guntli Crews have begun repairs to the Birch Bay-Lynden Road I-5 overpass. The overpass was damaged last May when a transporter loaded with an excavator clipped the underside of the overpass. One support girder was seriously damaged while another suffered minor damage. The overpass has been operating with reduced lanes since the accident. Washington State Department of
Transportation (WSDOT) crews will be replacing the 60-foot girder on the underside of the bridge. “The crews will cut out a piece of the existing bridge with the damaged girder,” said Jason Koreski, project engineer for WSDOT. “We’ll then replace the old girder with a new one before pouring a new concrete deck to connect the bridge again.” Traffic on the overpass has been reduced to one lane of alternating traffic. Flaggers will direct traffic during peak travel hours,
Alcoa idling postponed through June By Steve Guntli Workers at Ferndale’s Intalco plant can expect a few more months of employment. On January 19, Alcoa announced it would postpone the idling of the Intalco Works aluminum plant in Ferndale through the end of June. The company announced in November
Photo by Ruth Lauman
it would be shutting down operations at the plant in late March, putting 485 employees out of work. Alcoa representatives cited changes in energy and raw material costs on the global market in their decision to keep the plant open longer. According to an Alcoa news release, once all announced curtailments and clo-
sures are complete, the company will have approximately 25 percent less operating smelting capacity and approximately 20 percent less operating refining capacity by mid-2016. Globally, Alcoa will have 2.1 million metric tons of operating smelting capacity and 12.3 million metric tons of operating refining capacity remaining.
and a temporary signal will be used outside of peak hours. Some of the work will require occasional nighttime closures of both southbound lanes of I-5 near exit 270. At those times, southbound drivers will be instructed to exit at Birch Bay-Lynden Road and immediately access the south entrance to I-5. WSDOT representatives expect construction will be complete by April, barring any delays for severe weather conditions. Follow up on the project’s progress at wsdot.wa.gov.
INSIDE
The value of the Canadian dollar may drop to an all-time low by the end of the year. The loonie slipped to 69.9 cents on the U.S. dollar on January 11, the first time it’s dipped below 70 cents since 2003, and Canada’s top-ranking forecaster says the decline hasn’t stopped. David Doyle is an analyst for the Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. He was ranked the most accurate forecaster of the Canadian dollar by Bloomberg News and accurately predicted the loonie’s current decline to 69 cents in February 2015. Doyle predicts the loonie will drop to 59 cents on the dollar by the end of the year. This would be an all-time low; the previous low was 61.1 cents in 2002. The drop in the price of oil has been a major contributor to the loonie’s decline. Crude oil is currently priced at $27 a barrel, the lowest it’s been in 13 years. Since the mid-1990s, oil has become one of Canada’s main exports, and provinces like Alberta and Newfoundland, with their rich oil reserves, have been hit hardest by the loonie’s decline. “You could imagine the situation is worse today than it was in the 1990s,” Doyle said in an interview with the Financial Post. “We’re much more dependent on oil than we were in the past.” The impact of the declining loonie on the economy in Whatcom County has been difficult to quantify. According to a study from Western Washington University’s Border Policy Research Institute, fewer Canadians are crossing into the U.S. to shop. The study showed 20 percent fewer crossings in 2014 than in 2013, and a (See Loonie, page 7)
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