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The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) recently sent the following businesses $1,600 “expedited enforcement offers” for violating the Clean Water Act by failing to monitor industrial stormwater discharges from their facilities: Eagle Plywood Specialties (Harrisburg), Georgia-Pacific Wood Products NW (Philomath), Gheen Irrigation Works (Harrisburg), Natron Wood Products (Jasper) and Sundance Lumber Company (Springfield). Continue reading
• Weyerhaeuser Company, 744-4600, plans to aerially spray 57 acres near Jones Creek in the Coast Range with Accord XRT II, Polaris SP, Rotary 2 SL, Sulfomet Extra, Metcel VMF, Foam Buster, Induce, Insist and/or MSO. See ODF notification 2014-781-00827 or call Robin L. Biesecker at 935-2283 with questions. Continue reading
Like it or not, the Common Core and the associated Smarter Balanced testing are on their way. As the Statesman Journal wrote last week, the Smarter Balanced test will cost Oregon about $4.5 million more than the old Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. As the story says: Continue reading
Last week the Lane County Blood Bank sent EW an email that says, "Halloween is a great time to talk about blood and we’d like to bring some attention and educate your readers on the need for blood in our community." Err, umm, yes, I suppose Halloween is a good time to talk about blood, now that you mention it. And nothing says Halloween like the Lane County Bloodmobile, right? Continue reading
• The Lane County Poverty and Homelessness Board will meet from noon to 1:30 pm Thursday, Oct. 16, at the Carmichael Conference Room, Lane County Youth Services Serbu Campus, 2727 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Call 682-3798 for more information. • A free talk on “Surveillance, Suppression and Secrecy” with Nadine Strossen of the New York Law School and ACLU will be at 7 pm Thursday, Oct. 16, at the UO Law School, Room 175. Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center on campus. Continue reading
Sweet Potato Pie is closing after 20 years in business in Eugene, first downtown on 11th Avenue and then at 775 Monroe St. next to Sweet Life in the Whiteaker. The store features locally made clothing and natural products and Saturday will be the last day. Owner Elizabeth Thompson says the move away from downtown was expensive and foot traffic in the Whiteaker has been bad. She has kept the store going over the past five years by working full-time jobs around town. Continue reading
“I always loved drawing,” says Ken O’Connell, a San Francisco Bay Area kid who arrived in Eugene in the 1950s to attend Woodrow Wilson Junior High School and South Eugene High School. “I had an amazing art teacher, Larry Goldade. He got me on a pathway to study art.” After graduating from the UO, O’Connell served two years in the Navy off Vietnam, married Gwyneth, a fellow South Eugene grad, and spent a year in Eastern Oregon, teaching art at five different high schools. He returned to Eugene for an MFA and got a job at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario. Continue reading
If the public really understood the illogic behind U.S. Forest Service management, including those endorsed by forest collaboratives, I am certain there would be more opposition to current Forest Service policies. First, most USFS timber sales lose money. They are a net loss to taxpayers. After the costs of road construction, sale layout and environmental analyses, wildlife surveys (reforestation and other mitigation if required) are completed, most timber sales are unprofitable. Continue reading
With full-day kindergarten and the new Smarter Balanced standardized tests looming on the horizon, Eugene School District 4J can’t afford to lose any source of funding. That’s why the district is asking voters to renew a five-year local option levy on the Nov. 4 ballot. Continue reading
Mikhail Gorbachev says that CNN creator Ted Turner “has set a new standard for what a single individual can do to address the most challenging problems threatening our survival.” That is according to the blurb on the back of author Todd Wilkinson’s Last Stand: Ted Turner’s Quest to Save a Troubled Planet, published by Lyons Press in 2013 and copyrighted to Turner Works, LLC. Continue reading