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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes News: Happening Person: Wayne Thompson FAIR ENERGY BILL PASSES The Oregon Fair Energy Bill, SB 527, passed in the state Senate on June 13 by a unanimous 29-0 vote. The bill will now go to the House. Lisa Arkin of the Oregon Toxics Alliance helped to draft the bi-partisan bill with Sens. Bill Morrisette (D-Springfield) and Doug Whitsett (R-Klamath Falls), and Reps. Phil Barnhart (D-Eugene) and Bill Garrard (R-Klamath Falls). In recent years, residents of Coburg, Turner and Klamath Falls have complained to their legislators about the inability of local governments (and their constituents) to weigh in on decisions about large gas-fired power plants proposed in those areas. Under current law, the governor-appointed Energy Facility Siting Council has the authority to override state and local land-use regulations in approving new power plant siting. The Fair Energy Bill would require the siting council to work with local governments if they object to such an override. The bill also directs the siting council to consider the environmental impacts of proposed facilities and examine applicants' qualifications and financial backing when reviewing power plant siting applications. In addition, the bill creates a Task Force on Regional Energy Policy to make long-term energy recommendations, including how to determine the need for new facilities and how to give priority to renewable energy projects. "Both our elected representatives and the public noticed that the siting council was approving energy projects that exceeded Oregon's future need, and could destroy our environment while shipping energy to more lucrative markets elsewhere," Arkin said. "The bipartisan support for the bill indicates that everyone felt the need to build a better public process into our power plant siting rules." — Kera Abraham
MORE THAN ONE AGENDA The first item on the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority (LRAPA)'s June 14 board meeting agenda was clear enough: to interview two candidates for the open at-large board position and then appoint one of them. The interviews happened. The appointment didn't. Candidate Barbara Allen, who works with special education students in Springfield, emphasized research linking learning disabilities with air pollution. Candidate Marie Richey said that air quality shouldn't be a polarizing issue. "Our breath is sacred," she said. "That doesn't mean I'm anti-business and pro-environment." The motion to appoint Richey failed 2-6, and the motion to appoint Allen failed 4-4. The Eugene representatives were split on the latter vote, with Betty Taylor and Drew Johnson in favor and Gary Rayor and Earl Koenig opposed. The board then voted to re-open the application deadline until July 8. Drew Johnson questioned the legality of the board's stated preference for a Springfield resident, but LRAPA Interim Director Jim Johnson assured him it was legal. "Are you going to advertise for an at-large member from Springfield who is anti-environment?" asked Taylor, earning chuckles from the standing-room-only audience. Some attendees felt that rejecting both Allen and Richey was the plan all along. "I'm not surprised," says Eugene resident Leslie Maguire. "This wasn't about the quality of the candidates. It was about an agenda." Public health advocates allege that the LRAPA board is too slanted toward industry, while pro-business activists complain that the board is environmentally biased. Recent R-G articles suggest that the board's four Eugene representatives vote as a pro-environment bloc despite meeting minutes to the contrary. Koenig usually votes in line with pro-business board members Dave Ralston, Glen Fortune and Faye Stewart. Rayor, like at-large representative Carol Tannenbaum, is a swing vote — when he shows up. (Rayor has missed three monthly meetings since October, and he plans to miss the July meeting as well.) Taylor votes staunchly along the public-health line, only recently with the support of new Eugene appointee Drew Johnson. — Kera Abraham
GARDENERS GET BIG BILL The city of Eugene has hit the Eugene Garden Club with a $14,600 bill for paving the alley behind their 1645 High Street club house. The house is used by the club for meetings, classes and fund raisers. Councilors had asked if the fee could be reduced or waived for the non-profit, as is done for some other types of property owners, but city staff said that current city code doesn't allow a reduction or waiver for the Garden Club. They said the club could get a loan to pay the money off at $175 a month for 10 years. The city uses a complicated formula for charging land owners in the West University Neighborhood for its alley improvement program. Half of the cost of each alley is charged to properties based on their alley frontage. The other half is charged to properties within 160 feet of the alley based on their square footage. Each property gets a weighting factor from one to 10 based on its use as a home, store, office, etc. — Alan Pittman
SILENT SUMMER Since the Pesticide Use Reporting System (PURS) was created by the Oregon Legislature in 1999, it has not once been implemented. Why? Pesticide industry lobbyists have successfully strong-armed legislators to keep PURS funding out of the state budget for six years running (see "Strength Through Weakness," EW 6/2). At a public forum on June 1, Lane County Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Pete Sorenson advocated to change that. In addition to supporting PURS, which would require all herbicide spraying in Oregon to be reported, Sorenson advocates allowing counties to make their own decisions about herbicides for the next 10 years. According to Amy Pincus Merwin of the Forestland Dwellers' No-Spray Group, the use of herbicides is a serious public health concern. "The only benefit is to the people who manufacture them," she says. Herbicides are sprayed over forests from helicopters, which is supposedly the most efficient way of dispensing them. But this method allows herbicides to be dispersed by the wind, so that the affected area is uncontrollable. One component of "Agent Orange," the carcinogen used to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, is still being used as an herbicide in Oregon forests. The town of Deadwood has "a history of three different clusters of herbicide poisoning related diseases, most recently latent or slow growing cancers," says Pincus Merwin. She herself developed cancer after exposure to a now-illegal component of Agent Orange. She says Imperial Chemicals, one of the world's leading producers of herbicides, also produces Novadex, the leading breast cancer drug. There are alternatives to the use of herbicides. One, called the "waipuna" method, kills brush through the use of hot foam. The other alternative is simply not to clear-cut and to manage forests sustainably, leaving the diverse plants that naturally exist in a healthy forest. The Forestland Dwellers' No Spray Group will soon have a website at www.forestdwellersno-spray.orgfor those who want more information or want to get involved. — Ursula Evans-Heritage
YOUTH FARM OPENS SOON The FOOD For Lane County (FFLC) Youth Farm Project, now in its seventh consecutive season, will once again open its organic produce stand at the Farm's Springfield location Saturday, June 18. The stand offers a wide variety of seasonal organic produce at very affordable prices. Everything is grown on site by a crew of low-income youth ages 14-18. The Youth Farm was started in 1998 to provide young people with little economic prospects the opportunity to participate in a cooperative organic garden while earning an income at the same time. The farm employs a seasonal crew chosen from a diverse group of at-risk youth throughout the area and is situated in an economically depressed part of Springfield where organic products can be otherwise hard to find. Drop-in volunteer opportunities are available to anyone at the farm on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9 am to 2 pm. The stand is located at 705 Flamingo Ave. off Game Farm Road in Springfield and will be open from 10 am to 2 pm every Saturday through September. For more information visit the FFLC website at www.foodforlanecounty.org — Dave Constantin
CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS Local historian Doug Moss tells us Eugene Skinner built his cabin in the fall of 1846, not in 1847 as reported in our "Urban Farming" news brief last week.
Hilly
Habitat The Eugene City Council voted June 8 to move toward protecting rare natural areas in the south hills, potentially reversing a developer victory over regulations two years ago. The move on a 5-4 vote directing staff to consider pileated woodpecker habitat as part of a pending natural resource inventory could effectively reverse a 5-3 decision two years ago by a pro-development City Council to block protection of valuable upland natural areas. "This will get us roughly the same result" as reversing the earlier developer victory, said Kevin Matthews, president of the citizen group Friends of Eugene (FoE), after the council meeting. Efforts to protect rare natural areas in Eugene have had a long and tortured history. Thirty years ago, state land use laws required cities to inventory residential, commercial and industrial land for development and also inventory sensitive natural resource lands for possible protections from development. Eugene completed it's inventory of developable lands long ago, but never did the inventory of natural areas required by state land use Goal 5. A decade ago, pro-developer Lane County commissioners and Springfield councilors blocked implementation of the natural resource inventory as part of the Metropolitan Plan. In 2003, development interests successfully pushed for a last-minute switch in the Eugene inventory process to a "safe harbor" approach. The switch threw out years of staff work and a Eugene Planning Commission recommendation that the city inventory 3,500 acres for natural resources, including valuable wooded areas of the south hills. Instead, the council voted to inventory only about 1,000 riparian acres, about half of which was the Willamette River. The inventory crawled forward under the new methodology and in the meantime a more progressive Mayor Kitty Piercy and City Councilor Andrea Ortiz won election. This year, the state told the city to complete the natural resource inventory by the end of this month, a deadline the city says it won't make. Last month, the Planning Commission held a hearing on the inventory and FoE objected that the city was not complying with state law regarding the "safe harbor" inventory process. FoE wrote that state regulations require the city to include upland areas in the inventory if they are habitat for a sensitive species. The pileated woodpecker is a sensitive species with documented habitat throughout the south hills, FoE noted. Last week the council directed staff to review and update the natural area inventory in light of FoE's new information concerning the presence of the sensitive pileated woodpecker in substantial areas of the south hills. The vote wasn't to directly reverse the pro-developer safe harbor decision two years ago, but FoE's Matthews said it will have a similar result because most of the areas dropped from the inventory under Republican Mayor Jim Torrey in 2003 are woodpecker habitat. "The Torrey council thought they were pushing the inventory through a loophole. But it's not really a loophole," Matthews said. "The OARs [regulations] aren't that stupid." City Manager Dennis Taylor and environmental planner Neil Bjorklund objected to expanding the inventory, arguing it would require they do more work and delay protections for riparian areas in the existing inventory. But Matthews said the city's proposed protections were developed "behind closed doors" for the past two years and are "toothless." In many cases, "what staff did in a black box was a lower degree of preservation" than already exists under current regulations, he said. "It's trash." Matthews faulted the city for shrinking "ribbons of habitat" protection and a provision allowing the city manager to waive protections for any developer without cause, arguing such a provision would needlessly politicize the process. Matthews said some of the provisions are worthwhile, but the city could still separate those provisions and move forward with them while conducting the expanded south hills inventory. The already three-decade battle over the natural resource inventory is likely to continue for years to come. Even after the inventory is completed, the council will have to vote on new regulations for included land to make the inventory meaningful. City staff quickly scheduled a June 27 council meeting at which they and developer interests will likely urge the council to reconsider their June 8 vote.
Wayne Thompson
Medford native Wayne Thompson joined the Peace Corps following graduation from Willamette University in 1964. "It changed my life," says Thompson, who met his wife, Rolly, during training, then lived with indigenous people in the Urubamba Valley of Peru. He and Rolly remain active in the local returned-volunteers group. On his return, Thompson got into teaching to avoid the Vietnam draft, and ultimately taught social studies for 28 years at Roosevelt Junior High and South Eugene High School. When he and Rolly moved to Fox Hollow Road south of Eugene in 1976, they began to raise colored sheep at the suggestion of Sachiye Jones, originator of the annual Black Sheep Gathering (BSG). "I'm the shepherd's helper," says Thompson. "Rolly understands genetics and wool. She's the fiber artist." However, Thompson himself helped put the BSG on the map when he organized the Third World Congress on Colored Sheep in Eugene in 1989. This year's BSG is free and open to the public, June 24-26 at the Lane County Fairgrounds. "We'll have over 600 animals from Western states," he says. "Fleeces are judged, then go on sale. Spinners from all over get in line to buy them." —BY PAUL NEEVEL
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