The latest news stories and stories of interest in the Willamette Valley from the digital home of Southern Oregon, from Wynne Broadcasting’s WillametteValleyMagazine.com
Monday, October 31, 2022
Willamette Valley Weather
Riverbend Hospital Put on Active Aggressor Lockdown
At 8:21 pm on Sunday, October 30, 2022, the Springfield Police Department was notified of a series of ‘Text Alerts’ distributed to Riverbend Hospital employees via their internal emergency notification system.
Several alerts had been sent in close proximity that initially notified staff of an ‘active shooter’ situation, followed by a series of decreased level alerts.
Upon arrival, Officers were able to make contact with hospital security staff and the alleged suspect. The suspect had been escorted out of the hospital prior to the distribution of the initial alert. The suspect was located at an establishment away from the hospital campus and complied with SPD Officers.
The suspect was found to be unarmed, in addition to not having been armed during the initial interaction with hospital security. Officers remained at the hospital for several hours in order to determine the root of the alerts and any miscommunication during the incident.
It was deemed that the suspect was not a threat, however, they were arrested on charges of Disorderly Conduct II due to interactions with hospital security staff prior to officers arriving. (source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/717221921691690)
Dozens Attend Groundbreaking Ceremony For Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints Willamette Valley Oregon Temple
On Saturday morning, dozens of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the Willamette Valley Oregon Temple.
The new temple will be constructed on a 10 1/2 acre plot of land at the intersection of International Boulevard and Corporate Way.
“Temples for us are even more meaningful and more sacred places where we’re able to make what we call covenants with God are remind ourselves of why we’re here,” Eugene stake president Brant Cooper said.
Construction is set to start Monday and is expected to last roughly 2-3 years. When construction is finished and the temple eventually opens to the public, it will become Oregon’s third temple. The others are in Portland and Medford.
“I’m just looking forward to having the whole community be able to come in and join us in going through the temple and understanding what it’s about,” Jolynn Britsch said.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, speakers talked about how important the temple would be to them. Speakers included Elder Valeri V. Cordón, who serves as first counselor in the Church’s North America West Area presidency.
The new location is expected to serve thousands of people. According to officials, Oregon is home to over 151,000 Latter-day Saints in 301 congregations.
According to plans for the temple, it will be single-story and span roughly 30,000 square feet.
Transformer Explosion Causes Power Outage For Springfield Residents
According to the Springfield Utility Board an estimated 2,000 Springfield residents were without power for several hours Saturday afternoon.
The outage impacted customers in the downtown area and some outlying areas. It affected customers from about 14th and Main streets to M street and Rainbow Drive, according to a Facebook post from the utility board.
The outage was caused by a blown transformer, according to the Eugene Springfield Fire Department. Three home electrical panels blew up with the transformer, and those families have been displaced, according to department spokesperson Kelsey Hunter. The impacted families are getting support from the American Red Cross, Hunter said.
As of 4:45 p.m., all but 50 customers had power restored. Those still without power were primarily just east of downtown, according to the utility board. Customers outside that area without power are advised to check their power breakers. If that doesn’t fix the issue, the utility board suggests calling 541-746-8451.
If you plan on traveling soon, Interstate 5 drivers going south should expect weekday traffic delays through southern Douglas County for the next two months.
Oregon Department of Transportation says hazard tree removal starts Tuesday, November 1, as ODOT contractors remove trees along the highway that were damaged by the Milepost 97 Complex Fire south of Canyonville in 2019.
The work should occur 7am-3pm weekdays through the end of the year. ODOT says rolling slowdowns will apply to both directions of I-5 traffic and drivers should expect delays up to 20 minutes as southbound traffic will be affected between Weaver Road (Exit 106) and Canyon Creek Pass (milepost 90) while northbound traffic will have slowdowns from Quines Creek (Exit 86) to milepost 97, near Canyon Creek Road.
ODOT says flaggers will stop traffic at each on-ramp in these areas for 10-20 minutes. ODOT says the work also could require lane and shoulder closures in both directions and drivers should watch for construction vehicles entering and exiting the travel lanes. https://tripcheck.com
Long Covid in Oregon
Long Covid, which the Mayo Clinic classifies as suffering from new, returning or ongoing symptoms, can include fatigue, chest pain, joint pain, dizziness, headaches, digestive issues, blood clots and brain fog, which makes it difficult to concentrate.
About 2.5 million people in Oregon are in the workforce, according the the 2020 U.S. Census. Here’s the percentage who’ve experienced long Covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention :
Early to mid-June: 12% or about 300,000 people
Late June to early July: 13% or about 325,000 people
Late July to early August: 16% or about 400,000 people
Mid- to late September: 11% or about 275,000 people
The September rate was the third lowest in the country. Only Connecticut and Vermont had lower rates cases, with Vermont on the bottom, according to the CDC .
Sixteen million people of working age in the U.S. suffer with long Covid and of those, from 2 to 4 million people were unemployed in June and July, according to an August 2022 Brookings Institution report, which analyzes Census Bureau survey information. It’s one of numerous papers, surveys, and studies attempting to assess the effect of long Covid on workers, businesses and the overall economy.
The unemployment of so many Americans with long Covid, a lack of a social safety net for many of them, and a labor market that is beginning to turn in favor of employers could collide to create wider economic problems, some economic experts say.
The cost in lost wages has already been great. The Brookings Institution report puts the amount between $170 billion to $230 billion a year. And a National Bureau of Economic Research paper ✎ EditSignpublished in September found that workers with Covid-19 absences could see their earnings fall by about $9,000 in the 14 months afterward.
Andrew Goodman-Bacon, a senior research economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said it’s unclear how the spending habits of people with long Covid will be affected by their illness.
“Some households will certainly have to cut back,” he said. “But some subset of those households will also have ways to sort of insure themselves or be insured by these public programs. … What is aggregate spending going to look like if we enter a recession with a large group of workers with a health condition, a newly acquired health condition hard to predict? It will pull a lot of these levers in the economy, some of which will make consumption patterns change more and some of which might kind of push the other direction.”
Goodman-Bacon added, “The health of the workforce really does matter and it’s mattered for a long time … We’re all really trying to understand the same questions of just how much and right now we don’t know.”
And there are some signs that the labor market may indeed be cooling down. The U.S. unemployment rate ✎ EditSignwas 3.5% in September, the same as in September 2019 ✎ EditSignbefore the pandemic. Companies throughout the U.S. are having less trouble hiring staff, according to The New York Times’ reporting, and the rate of people leaving their jobs sunk to 4.1% in July 2022 from 5.9% in July 2021, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York SCE labor market survey.
If employers become unwilling to keep on people with long Covid or if those workers are forced to quit for health reasons, many parts of the social safety net, including the unemployment system, are not set up well to help them, researchers say.
Andrew Stettner, director of workforce policy and senior fellow at the Century Foundation, said, there are a few states with laws that allow people to collect state unemployment benefits if they cannot work because of their own illness, but “that’s definitely not the majority.”
The Biden administration has taken some action to ensure that people with long Covid have safeguards against discrimination, including guidance on treating long Covid as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy also has a website that links to resources for employers on workplace accommodations for people with long Covid.
But Goodman-Bacon pointed out that as more people return to work, employers may be more likely to keep only the accommodations they find useful and cost-saving, such as allowing remote work which has been shown to increase productivity .
It may also be difficult for people to receive workers compensation when they get long Covid. Tom Wiese, vice president of claims at the MEMIC Group, said that claims of work-related long Covid are challenging to investigate.
“Even if the medical causation and/or origin of the symptoms/disease diagnosis can somehow be linked to Covid, there still remains the workers compensation causality from a legal principle perspective. Did that causation arise out of and occur within the scope of their employment?” he said.
For instance, a woman who had Covid-19 lost a workers comp case in Virginia in 2021 even though she worked in a nursing home when she became sick. Her weekly trips to the grocery store hurt her claim, according to the Virginia Mercury.
There were a couple of times I had to commute and that was really, really hard and exhausting just physically.
Advocates and researchers have proposed a number of policies to provide economic stability to long Covid sufferers, a number which the Brookings report says could increase by 10% each year — and lead to half trillion dollars in lost wages in 10 years — if people don’t begin to recover at greater rates.
In addition to better treatment options, the Brookings report recommends :
- Expanding paid sick leave, which could reduce the spread of Covid;
- Improve accommodations offered to workers such as flexibility on deadlines, longer and more frequent breaks, flexible hours and remote work;
- Provide greater and and more timely access to Social Security Disability Insurance.
Bach and Stettner say Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics need more questions on long Covid and employment on their surveys to better guide policymakers.
The Patient-Led Research Collaborative, which is a group of long Covid patients and researchers, say ✎ EditSignthat there should be a federal advisory committee on long Covid at HHS, that Congress should appropriate funds for states to fund or open clinics treating people with long COVID, pass universal healthcare, and expand access to disability benefits, among other policies.
Lisa McCorkell, a long Covid patient and the cofounder of and researcher for the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, said that although the Biden administration guidance is helpful, there’s a lot of people with long Covid who will still encounter discrimination at work.
“We’re still seeing a lot of people not get the accommodations that they need,” she said.
It can be difficult for some long Covid patients to access the health care they need to establish that they are covered and some employers still don’t believe they need to offer accommodations such as breaks or starting work later in the day, McCorkell said.
She said that although she’s seen people forced out of the workforce due to a lack of accommodations from employers, not many people have the resources to fight that termination, and it’s also hard to take on legal issues when you’re sick.
Stettner said that it’s important employers adjust and provide accommodations for workers with long Covid, because the workforce is changing in the long term.
“We had a very large generation of workers born in the ’40s and ’50s and those workers are reaching retirement age,” he said. “We really don’t have enough workers to grow the economy and we need to be able to accommodate those who are able to work, even if they’re not able to work full time, 12 months a year. We have to do better at that. It’s an economic necessity for us to do that as a society.”
Customers invited to weigh in on Pacific Power’s 2023 rate request
Public forum set up as two separate webcasts Nov. 7 to provide additional access to customers
PORTLAND, Ore.—Oct. 31, 2022–Pacific Power and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) would like to hear from you. You are invited to participate in a Public Participation Hearing (PPH), about Pacific Power’s general rate case application.
This public forum is part of a formal proceeding that will be documented and placed into the record so the CPUC can make a decision regarding Pacific Power’s request. Customers can make comments to the CPUC Administrative Law Judge overseeing this application.
As part of the CPUC’s ongoing efforts to protect customers and community members and to provide the greatest access, these hearings will be held remotely. The Public Participation Hearing can be accessed on the internet, or listened to over your phone, with the information below. Providing your feedback on Pacific Power’s request will help the CPUC in the decision making process.
| DATE & TIME | DETAILS |
| November 7, 20221:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. | Webcast: adminmonitor.com/ca/cpucPhone number: 800-857-1917Passcode: 1767567# |
Please note: If you need a language interpreter, please contact the CPUC’s Public Advisor’s Office using the contact information below at least five business days before the Public Forum.
Background — On May 5, 2022, Pacific Power filed its General Rate Case Application (A.22-05-006) with the CPUC. The application is requesting a total of $27.9 million. This rate increase is driven by current economic trends and wildfire mitigation efforts including: Investments in and maintenance of Pacific Power’s system infrastructure such as poles, wires, and other equipment needed to deliver electricity to customers.
- Enhanced vegetation management including annual inspections, pole clearing, and increasing trimming clearances in high fire threat areas.
- Implementation of the resilience improvement plans approved by regulators to maintain safety and reliability in the face of increasingly extreme weather events. These investments include, but are not limited to, installation of covered overhead wire, expanded network of weather stations, meteorology and emergency management staff and system protective devices to localize and minimize safety power shut-offs.
How could this affect my monthly electric rates?
If Pacific Power’s rate request is approved by the CPUC, the average residential monthly bill using 850 kilowatt hour per month would increase by approximately $33.37 or 25.8% per month. These rates would not be effective until sometime in 2023, based on the timing of a final CPUC decision.
About Pacific Power
Pacific Power provides safe and reliable electric service to more than 764,000 customers in Oregon, Washington and California. The company supplies customers with electricity from a diverse portfolio of generating plants including hydroelectric, thermal, wind, geothermal and solar resources. Pacific Power is part of PacifiCorp, one of the lowest-cost electricity producers in the United States, with 2 million customers in six western states. For more information, visit www.pacificpower.net.
New Timber Harvest Rules Aim To Protect Fish While Providing Long Term Economic Benefits
The Oregon Board of Forestry approved more than 100 changes to the Forest Practices Act at a special board meeting Oct. 26. The rule changes are a result of the mediated and groundbreaking Private Forest Accord (PFA) that brought together representatives from conservation groups and the timber industry. The changes will impact timber harvest activities on more than 10 million acres of private and non-federal forests in the state.
“The rules we adopted are just one of a great many changes coming from the Private Forest Accord that will advance how Oregon protects its natural resources and responds to the climate change crisis, while also providing some stability for the communities and economies that rely on the forest products industry,” said Jim Kelly, Chair of the Oregon Board of Forestry. “This agreement captures the spirit of cooperation and negotiation we have in this state, where we move past our differences to find solutions.”
The goal of the PFA and the Forest Practices Act rule changes is to provide long-term certainty to industry while providing enhanced protection to critical aquatic species.
“The timber industry is vital to many rural Oregon communities,” said Kelly. “This agreement balances these critical social and economic components with the need to better protect critical forest habitat, which is also incredibly beneficial for Oregonians,” said Kelly.
The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) worked closely with the PFA authors to write the new rules that cover several key areas including:
- New and wider stream buffers to protect stream habitat that supports salmon, steelhead, bull trout, and amphibians.
- New design standards and requirements to inventory, maintain and manage forest roads, with an emphasis on replacing culverts on fish-bearing streams.
- Steep slopes will have more trees retained to improve slope stability and reduce sediment that can impact fish habitat.
- Enhanced monitoring to better evaluate rule compliance.
- A new adaptive management program to advise the Board of Forestry on future rule adjustments.
In addition to rule changes, recent legislation also funded the creation of a small forestland owner assistance office, establishment of tax credits to small landowners, started the development of a habitat conservation plan for aquatic species and made investments in training and outreach.
For more information on the Forest Practices Act and Private Forest Accord visit ODF’s PFA website.
With the end of fire season, dispose of yard debris responsibly
The Oregon Department of Forestry and other fire prevention experts urge the public to exercise caution when disposing of yard debris this fall.
With the end of fire season, many Oregonians have debris piles ready to be disposed of that cured over the summer. Preferable options for removal, aside from burning, include composting or recycling. Check with your local disposal company for recycling options.
If burning now is the only option to dispose of yard debris, fire prevention specialists ask people to follow safe burning practices. The following tips can help stop run-away burn piles:
- Call before you burn – Burning regulations vary by location depending on the weather and fuel conditions. If you are planning to burn, check with your local Oregon Department of Forestry district, fire protective association, fire department, or air protection authority to learn about current burning restrictions or regulations, and if you need a permit.
- Know the weather – Burn early in the day and never burn on dry or windy days, because fires can spread out of control more easily.
- Clear a 10-foot fuel-free buffer around the pile – Scrape a ten-foot trail down to mineral soil around the perimeter of the pile to keep the fire contained in one place. Make sure there are no tree branches or power lines above
- Keep burn piles small – Large burn piles can cast hot embers long distances. Keep piles small, maximum of four feet by four feet. Add debris to the pile in small amounts as the pile burns.
- Always have water and fire tools nearby – When burning, have a charged water hose, and shovel on hand to put out the fire. Keep the area around the pile damp during the burning process. When finished, drown the pile with water, stir the coals, and drown again, repeating until the fire is out cold.
- Stay with the fire until it is out cold – State laws requires monitoring of debris burn piles from start to finish until it is out cold. This law is intended to ensure sparks or embers that jump from the fire can be put out quickly.
- Recheck burn piles. They can retain heat for several weeks and restart when the weather warms up and winds blow.
- Never use gasoline or other flammable or combustible liquids to start or speed up your fire.
- Burn only yard debris – State laws prohibit burning materials or trash that create dense smoke or noxious odors.
- Costs of run-away debris burns– State law requires the proper clearing, building, attending and extinguishing of open fires all year. If your debris burn spreads out of control, you may have to pay for suppression costs, as well as the damage to your neighbors’ properties. This can be extremely expensive.
More tips on wildfire prevention, including campfire safety, motorized equipment use, and fire-resistant landscaping can be found on the Keep Oregon Green website. Find public use restrictions for Oregon Department of Forestry protected lands before your burn.
ODFW Issues Warning Of Sea Lion Disease Outbreak Along Oregon Coast
There is an increase in the number of stranded California sea lions along the entire Oregon coast due to leptospirosis, a naturally-occurring bacteria that can also sicken dogs, people, other wildlife, and livestock.
A release from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said dogs are most at risk of getting the disease while the risk to people is small.
Dog and horse owners should discuss the merits of vaccination for leptospirosis with their veterinarian. ODFW and Oregon Parks and Recreation urge beachgoers to leash their dogs and keep at least 150 feet away from live or dead sea lions.
The disease can spread when an animal or person is in contact with urine or other bodily fluids of an infected or dead sea lion.
Leptospirosis outbreaks occur sporadically in marine mammals. Outbreaks can result in increased strandings and mortalities among sea lions. The Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network has documented over 150 sick or dead sea lions along the Oregon coast since the current outbreak began in late July of this year. Necropsies on seven sea lions confirmed all tested positive for leptospirosis.
Sick or injured seals, sea lions, whales or dolphins can be reported to the Oregon State Police at 800-452-7888.
Voting in Oregon feels GOOD
It’s time to get #VoteReady: Just grab your ballot and a blue or black pen!
You don’t even need a stamp It’s not a test: you can vote on every candidate and measure, or leave some blank How you vote is private. Make a plan to vote! http://OregonVotes.gov#TrustedInfo2022
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