Bellamy Pailthorp
Environment ReporterBellamy Pailthorp covers the environment beat from the Seattle offices of KNKX Public Radio News, where she has worked since 1999. She also has a deep interest in indigenous affairs and the Salish Sea. She holds a Masters in journalism from New York's Columbia University, where she completed the Knight-Bagehot fellowship in business reporting in 2006 mid-career during her stint on KNKX’s Business and Labor Beat from 2000-2012.
From 1989-98 she lived in Berlin, Germany freelancing for NPR and working as a bi-lingual producer for Deutsche Welle TV after receiving a Fulbright scholarship in 1989 for a project on theater studies and communist history. She holds a Bachelors’ degree in German language and literature from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. (Yes, she is fluent in German.)
She strives to tell memorable stories about how we will power our future while maintaining healthy cultures and livable cities. Character-driven
Outside work, she practices yoga, walks half marathons with friends, backpacks with her husband and extended family, reads and watches fiction with nieces, enjoys tasting new foods and admiring all kinds of animals -- especially her two house cats, who often remind her she should spend more time sitting on the couch with them.
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Seattle area protesters turned out in full force on Friday in reaction to the Supreme court decision that overturned Roe V. Wade. Thousands of protestors gathered, demanding protection for abortion rights. -
On Wednesday, a Washington state jury ordered Cooke Aquaculture to pay the Lummi Nation $595,000 in damages for a 2017 net pen collapse. Canada also announced plans to phase out open water net pens in the province.
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As boating season heats up, so do encounters with marine wildlife. Concerned citizens aim to educate others on whale wise behavior. State wildlife officials appreciate the help with their force spread thin and different enforcement protocols for the endangered southern resident orcas and transient, or Bigg's, killer whales.
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Only two species of turtles in Washington are native. And one of those, the western pond turtle, nearly went extinct here in the 1990s. 30 years ago, the state began collaborating with partners at the Woodland Park Zoo to bring them back.
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A group of native carvers from the Lummi Nation has hit the road again from Bellingham. The House of Tears Carvers will make stops in Oregon, Idaho and Washington over the next two weeks, as they call for dam removal on the Lower Snake River, through storytelling, conversation and prayer.
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Members of the Muckleshoot Tribe joined officials from King County this week to celebrate completion of an important levee removal project east of Auburn, Wash. The massive Lones Levee was built in 1959.
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For lower income households, making the switch to solar power has been mostly out of reach. Even so-called community solar programs most often require an investment up front. That’s starting to change.
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For the first time Washington state will lease public timber lands as carbon sinks – preserving older forests to absorb greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. It will use carbon markets to generate income from stands of timber by not cutting them down. The Department of Natural Resources will sell leases on 10,000 acres of its most ecologically-valuable forests in Western Washington.
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The remote Makah Tribal Nation in Northwest Washington took swift and decisive action to protect its people from COVID-19. Two years later, the tribe has finally begun letting outsiders in.
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The owners of the Electron Dam on the Puyallup River reached a settlement with conservation groups that prevents the project from re-starting unless or until they have addressed impacts on endangered fish.
