I'm Tracci Dial, and this is NWPB Weekly News Now.

300,000 chickens are euthanized at a farm in Franklin County north of Tri-Cities, Washington.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture saying bird flu is to blame.

H5N1.

We talked to the state's veterinarian, Amber Idle.

She says the viral load of bird flu is very high right now, and that it's also very hard to fight.

So even when we have the best biosecurity and we're doing everything right, when we have barns in close proximity or we have birds in close proximity, the virus spreads very rapidly and that can be done, you know, through the air can be aerosolized.

The last commercial flock that had to be euthanized was back in October.

It was also in Franklin County.

The last backyard detection and depopulation was in Whatcom County in November.

Since the outbreak started in 2022, more than 2 million birds in Washington have been euthanized.

In total.

An aquifer in Oregon's Cascade Mountain Range could be one of the largest in the world.

Recent research is showing that there's a lot of water stored there in volcanic rock, about three times the max capacity of Lake Mead.

Here is research hydrologist Gordon Grant with the U.S. Department of Forest Service.

We've discovered the scale of water that is stored in the ground is immense, and probably one of the largest mountain storage reservoirs on the planet.

How nature uses that water and what this shows about volcanoes in the area is online.

There are nine cities around Washington getting ready to be fan zones for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Seattle is one of the host cities, but places like Yakima, the Tri-Cities and Tacoma are getting ready to be fan zones.

We can expect live entertainment, food, and interactive fan activities.

Here's Three Rivers Soccer Club coach Humberto Chavez.

We usually don't have that around here.

It's going to be amazing and I think is going to be a lot of fun and also grow our soccer community here.

Some of the other Washington fan zones will be in Bellingham, Spokane, Vancouver, Everett, and Bremerton.

For more on all of these stories, go to NWPB.org, or find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Thanks for joining us for Weekly News Now.