BRING Hosts Home Tour

BRING Recycling is hosting its eighth annual Home and Garden Tour from 10 am to 4 pm on Sunday, Sep. 11, throughout the Eugene-Springfield area. BRING Recycling began in 1971 as a neighborhood project to collect recycling in Eugene. BRING says its main values are promoting the idea of living well with less. BRING has prevented waste and launched conservation education programs in K-12 schools.  “We evolved from collecting recycling to talking about how to reuse and how to live our lives with less stuff,” says Carolyn Stein, executive director of BRING. Continue reading 

New Treatment Center Surges

Willamette Family Inc., an affordable health care provider that offers services ranging from mental health to substance abuse counseling, recently dramatically increased the number of people it serves at its newest Eugene clinic. Willamette Family’s new Rapid Access Center and Medical Clinic opened January 2016 at 12th and Charnelton, and after serving 123 clients in the first month, Willamette Family says it now serves around 1,000 people per month.  Continue reading 

Former Bundy Attorney Talks to Tea Partiers About the Constitution

Local attorney Michael Arnold was the guest speaker at the monthly 9-12 Project Lane County meeting discussing constitutional law Aug. 9.  Arnold is known for his high-profile cases such as defending mixed martial artist Gerald Strebendt in his murder trial and briefly becoming Ammon Bundy’s attorney after traveling to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge during its occupation earlier this year.  Continue reading 

Preventing Oil Train Disasters

New regulations have not been met

Workers clean up after the Mosier oil train derailment.

A month after the oil train fire in Mosier along the Columbia River, activist groups such as 350 Eugene are upset with the government’s lack of progress and accountability for oil train accidents.  In 2008, Congress passed the Rail Safety Improvement Act, which called for stricter railroad safety regulations to be implemented by the end of 2015. The new regulations have not been met; Congress extended the deadline to 2018.  Continue reading 

Taking The Wild Out Of The Wild Horse

BLM has announced an experiment to sterilize wild horses

Roughly 67,000 wild horses roam the public lands of the western United States, and around 4,000 of them are in Oregon.  The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) considers the current population to be more than double the healthy level for the land and has suppressed the population for decades. Many mustang advocacy groups strongly oppose the BLM’s methods and motives for population control and believe that the agency gives preferential treatment to livestock. Continue reading 

Cleaning The Drinking Water

The McKenzie River is home to a diverse collection of wildlife and is also the source of Eugene’s drinking water. The 90-mile tributary of the Willamette is home to fish like rainbow trout, spring Chinook and mountain whitefish. Unfortunately, the wildlife, as well as anyone else drinking the water, shares the river with beer cans, mattresses and televisions among other waste that has been dumped into the McKenzie. Continue reading 

Women Who Care For The Community

Wendy Wheeler-Coltrane first had the idea to form a local philanthropy group five years ago. A busy schedule and lack of contacts held her back until last year, when Wheeler-Coltrane and Jean Lee began working to found the Eugene-Springfield chapter of 100+ Women Who Care (100+WWC), a group of women who donate to local charities that provide a service for the community.  Continue reading 

The River Is Alive, Come Check it Out

The McKenzie River is more than just a line on the map. It is a living river, constantly shifting and forming the surrounding land, creating a dynamic habitat for hundreds of native species. Sitting atop this vibrant river is Green Island, home to one of the most diverse ecosystems in the Willamette Valley. The McKenzie River Trust is hosting its 8th annual Living River Celebration from 7 am to 5 pm Saturday, June 25, on Green Island. McKenzie River Trust (MRT) is a nonprofit land trust that works to protect and conserve thousands of acres of land in Western Oregon. Continue reading