April 6 / BMW, partner pick Moses Lake for parts plant
A joint venture formed by European automaker BMW Group and carbon fiber manufacturer SGL Group announced it plans to invest $100 million in a new manufacturing facility in Moses Lake. The plant will employ 80 people and will manufacture thousands of tons of carbon fiber annually to be woven into sheets and shaped into durable, lightweight panels to form the chassis for BMW's all-electric Megacity vehicles, the joint venture said.

April 1 / Suit looms over freeway work pollution
Spokane Riverkeeper, a program of the non profit Center for Justice here, said it plans to file a Clean Water Act lawsuit to stop what it claims are illegal storm-water discharges into the Little Spokane River and Deadman Creek by contractors working for the Washington state Department of Transportation on the North Spokane Corridor project. Spokane Riverkeeper accused DOT of failing to address or prevent polluted storm-water discharges. DOT says it has followed required self-reporting and remediation whenever discharge issues have arisen and has tentatively set a meeting with Spokane Riverkeeper.

April 1 / Spokane Farmers' Market to move
The Spokane Farmers' Market Association said it will relocate its open-air market to a grassy lot near Fifth Avenue and Browne Street owned by Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital. The association is leasing the space for $1 a year plus half the property taxes. It said it plans to move from a limited-access church parking lot on Second Avenue near Division Street because of construction nearby.

March 30 / Companies here get energy funds
Gov. Chris Gregoire announced that three northeast Washington companies will receive a total of $3.2 million in federal energy-efficiency and transportation funds. Demand Energy Networks Inc., of Liberty Lake, won a $1.5 million grant to develop electricity storage devices. Borgford Bioenergy LLC, of Colville, won a combination loan and grant of $770,000, to develop a bioenergy park. Ponderay Newsprint Co., of Usk, Wash., was awarded a $1.4 million loan and grant to install an energy-saving voltage optimization and control system.

March 29 / Council approves plan to raze Y
The Spokane City Council agreed on a sharply-divided 4-3 vote to accept $4.3 million in Spokane County Conservation Futures funds to pay the city's debt on its purchase of the former YMCA building in Riverfront Park. Acceptance of the funds requires the city to tear down the five-level, 76,000-square-foot building, which is adjacent to part of Spokane Falls, and return the site to a natural state.

Corrections & Amplifications
Road House Cycles, of Post Falls, currently is selling about 10 new Big Dog brand motorcycles and 50 to 60 used motorcycles a year, down from 50 to 60 Big Dogs and 70 to 80 used bikes before the recession. The used-motorcycle sales figures were omitted from a story in the Journal's March 25 issue.



Community 1st Bank, of Post Falls, was omitted from the Banks and Savings & Loans list in the Journal's March 25 issue. The bank's headquarters and lone branch are at 707 N. Post St., in Post Falls, and as of Dec. 31, it had total deposits of $36.9 million, assets of $46 million, and net loans and leases of $32 million. Its 2009 return on average assets was -0.46., and its return on average equity was -1.87.



Also, JPMorgan Chase Bank's total national assets were $1.6 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2009, and its total net loans and leases nationally were $536 billion, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data. Those figures were reported incorrectly in the list.