Paint spill totally cleaned up

Staff at the Department of Environmental Quality Coeur d'Alene office say the agency is working with Greg Delavan, owner of Delavan's Marina, on the cleanup of some paint chips that fell into the marina water on Tuesday.

DEQ representative Marc Kalbaugh visited the site twice that day, said Geoff Harvey, DEQ waste remediation manager, and confirmed Delavan had immediately hired an environmental cleanup company.

Although Harvey hadn't been updated on the site's progress on Wednesday, he believed the release was totally cleaned up, he said.

Harvey added that the company Delavan hired to clean up the paint on Tuesday, Able Clean-Up Technologies, must file a cleanup report that will be reviewed and approved by the DEQ.

This is the typical manner that a release of this size is handled, he said.

"Anybody who releases material, whether it's petroleum or any material, we work with them to clean it up," Harvey said. "We don't go to enforcement unless somebody is unwilling to do it, or it's so big."

Local dancers hit it big

Two Inland Northwest youth who have taken on a flair for ballroom dancing made a national impression last week.

Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Kane of Newman Lake Wash., and 14-year-old Bayley Brooks of Hauser took four titles at the U.S.A. Dance Nationals on March 31 and April 1 in Baltimore, Md.

Competing against 58 other couples, the pair won the gold and silver awards in both the youth and adult categories for international-style ballroom dancing.

Both attend Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy.

Nicholas' father Dennis said the wins were very impressive.

"It was pretty incredible, being from North Idaho and Eastern Washington, it's not exactly the dancing hub of the U.S.," Dennis said. "It was quite something."