January 20-26, 2022
FREE
Community Newspaper of Blaine and Birch Bay HHHECRWSSHHH Postal Customer
IN THIS
ISSUE
Federal government offering free Covid-19 tests, page 3
DNA tests show 2020 and 2021 hornet nests were related
Girls basketball beats Mount Baker, page 7
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
Buttermint company creates inclusive work, page 15
Sunset brightens Blaine skies ...
By Grace McCarthy
(See Hornet, page 6)
s A fiery sunset painted Blaine skies above the United Church of Christ on Fourth Street January 12. Photo by Keith Lindsey
Local business owner pays for ‘uncensored’ newspaper distribution By Ian Haupt Many Blaine and Birch Bay residents received a newspaper called “The Flame” in the mail last week without a mailing label that left them with questions as to why they had received it and if its delivery was legal. The Flame CEO and co-founder Anna Kane said a Blaine business owner paid nearly $1,900 for copies of The Flame to be mailed to residences in the Blaine and Birch Bay area. This was done legally
through U.S. Postal Service’s Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) service, Blaine postmaster Val Pikalov said. Through EDDM, anyone can mail anything they want – that is legal – to a specific area or route. “It’s targeted mail,” he said. “We take it on the side and put it in every mailbox.” Pikalov estimated that mailing The Flame using EDDM could’ve cost anywhere from $1.20 to $2.45 per copy. There’s no set fee, he said. The cost is based on the weight and size of the mailed material and
Port denies Blaine Harbor lease modification request consistent with city zoning By Grace McCarthy (Ed note: In the interest of transparency, Pat Grubb and Louise Mugar own The Northern Light building at 225 Marine Drive and are co-publishers of Point Roberts Press Inc.) Port of Bellingham commissioners voted 3-0 to deny a lease modification request for a Blaine Harbor property that would expand its residential units and make it consistent
with the city of Blaine’s zoning policy. Commissioners argued expanding residences could set a precedent to gentrify the port’s working waterfront. During their January 4 meeting, port commissioners denied the request of Pat Grubb, owner of The Northern Light building at 225 Marine Drive and publisher of Point Roberts Press Inc., to modify the lease to allow for residential units in up to 30 percent of the building. The residential units would
have only been allowed on the three-story building’s second and third floors, while the ground floor would remain designated for commercial, retail and office uses. Grubb had first requested commissioners consider the lease modification during the public comment portion of the November 16, 2021 port meeting. Grubb told commissioners that a buyer was interested in pur(See Port, page 3)
the size of the coverage area. The Northern Light uses a similar mailing system through the post office that mails copies to all residences in area code 98230. Kane said this was The Flame’s first issue and that they have plans to distribute a new issue every month. Based in Snohomish County and printed in Mount Vernon, the publication is crowdfunded and hopes to distribute across the country, she said. Co-founder and editor-in-chief Nicole (See The Flame, page 2)
Coming Up . . . . . . . 14 Classifieds . . . . . . . 11 Letters . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Police . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Tides . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
INSIDE
The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) has confirmed all of the Asian giant hornet nests found in 2021 were connected to nest ‘zero,’ the first nest found and eradicated in east Blaine. Scientists believe the hornets likely mated and left nest zero before it was destroyed in October 2020. State entomologists eradicated three of the invasive hornet nests in August and September of 2021, less than one mile from where the first nest was discovered. After the eradication of the nests on August 9, September 8 and September 23, scientists conducted DNA sequencing on the hornets. “It’s the best outcome that we could have had from the DNA testing,” WSDA spokesperson Karla Salp said. But, she warned, this doesn’t mean there aren’t other hornets in Washington that are genetically unrelated that the agency doesn’t know about. There were 14 confirmed detections in 2021: Six reported by the public, four caught in WSDA traps and six that scientists caught, according to the WSDA. Through DNA testing, scientists also discovered the U.S. hornets and the nest eradicated on Vancouver Island in fall 2019 were not genetically connected and likely from separate introductions, Salp said. Salp said the agency believes the hornet found in Snohomish County in June 2021 is from a third introduction. “We’ve had what appears to be three separate introductions in a short period of time when there were no known introductions,” Salp said. This could be because people are more aware of the hornets and are reporting them, or because there are more introductions, she said. Canadian scientists will consider the hornet fully eradicated in Vancouver Island this spring after three years of trapping in Nanaimo and the Cowichan Valley have yielded no sightings, according to the
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