Daily Score Blog

A terrific piece of journalism today in a small town paper, the Hood River News. It's a close look at the economic impacts of this season's anemic snowfall, a subject we've been following this winter. The article puts some hard numbers to the story of shuttered ski areas in Hood River County, Oregon.

Here's a look at Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort (which is just one of many struggling ski areas in the Northwest). By the numbers:

Employees, January 2004: 1000-plus

Employees, January 2005: 47

Payroll, typical year: $4.5 million

Payroll, this year: $1.5 million

Ski visitors last year: 350,000

Ski visitors this year: 76,000

Without skiers, receipts shrink for eateries, hotels, and even beer-makers. The losses add up, especially when you multiply the effects by the dozen or so ski resorts along the Cascades. Sadly, the consequences for rural ag-dependent counties like Hood River may be more serious than lost ski revenue. Low snowpack in the winter means less water in the summer for economic staples like apples, cherries, and pears.

Last week was predicted to bring new snow and a chance for late-season re-openings, but the weather forecasts were wrong. At the moment, it's 39 degrees at the Summit at Snoqualmie, which will likely stay shuttered until next winter. At Mt. Hood, the National Weather Service is currently predicting highs into the mid- and upper-40s for the rest of the week.

I didn't know this: in Canada, automobile fuel economy is expressed as gallons per mile, not miles per gallon as it is in the U.S.  (Well, really, it's liters per hundred kilometers, but if you're south of the 49th parallel and a metric-system-phobe, gallons per mile is essentially the same thing.)

Now, I don't mention this just to expose my lack of cultural knowledge of my northern neighbors.  I mention it because it seems to me that liters-per-kilometer is a much better way of expressing the fuel efficiency of autos.

It's hard to feel sorry for Jeff Reifman-he's a former Microsoftie who, for lack of better information on investment choices, was forced to agonize about the most socially responsible way to salt away his millions.  But his recent Seattle Weekly article is a useful primer for those struggling with synching their money decisions and their values. Because, as Reifman points out, it's pretty darn confusing.

He explains the various ways that socially responsible investment (SRI) firms choose their investments and the compromises they make ("there's no such thing as a perfect company," says one manager); and gives pointers on investment depending on how much change you've got-and what kind of change you want to see. A surprise to me was that some SRI companies actively work with corporations to improve their behavior, providing even more "change" value per dollar invested.

For me, the highlight of the weekend's news was Matthew Preusch's Sunday Oregonian article on central Oregon's renewable energy industry.

The crux:

. . . a private-public group called the Business Alliance for Sustainable Energy that launched an effort last week to promote the 65 Central Oregon companies working with renewable power or energy efficiency in a nine-county area east of the Cascades between the Columbia River and California.

The companies already employ more than 200 people and generate more than $20 million in sales annually . . . . The group hopes to increase those sales figures at least 30-fold and multiply the number of jobs by 20 over the next 10 years.