Current Stories
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Oregon tree farmers invest in the majestic redwood
Ashland Daily Tidings
11/19/2009
Oregon tree farmers are planting at least 20,000 coastal redwood trees a year in Lane and Douglas counties. They're driven less the awe the big trees inspire in many people, than by the best return on their investment in 30 or 40 years, when the trees are harvested.
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Forests fight climate change on two fronts
Oregon Public Broadcasting
11/19/2009
And at a hearing on Capitol Hill, forest officials and lawmakers discussed ways that federal forestland could help combat climate change on at least two fronts.
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Oregon wolves again star in video -- with pups
Oregonian
11/20/2009
They walk in single file -- black- and gray-coated wolves gliding through a snowy open forest in eastern Oregon. The remarkable video, captured last week by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, is further evidence that wolves are re-establishing themselves here.
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RV park tenants face eviction from affordable housing
Oregonian
11/19/2009
A pastoral campground on the banks of the Columbia River has for decades provided about 60 low-income residents with a clean, cheap, and safe place to live in an Oregon county with a dearth of decent affordable housing. But regulators say it's operating illegally and the long-term tenants must go.
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Questions arise over Obama's salmon plan
Oregonian
11/19/2009
On Monday comes the latest in the long-running court battle over the government's plan to run its hydroelectric dams without pushing Columbia Basin salmon closer to extinction.
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Possible park at Fernhill Wetlands
Oregonian
11/19/2009
Wetlands near a Forest Grove sewage treatment could be turned into a park, a plan that delights area birdwatchers, but there's no money budgeted for the effort in the city west of Portland.
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Views: Sliding backward on climate change
Oregonian
11/19/2009
Portland may be at the edge of the continent, but in so many ways it's right at the center of Al Gore's green thinking.
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State gets grant to study green jobs
Salem Statesman Journal
11/20/2009
The state of Oregon has received a $1.25 million grant from the federal government to study green jobs.
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Oregon entrepreneurs see profits in carbon market
Oregon Public Broadcasting
11/18/2009
Many hope the Copenhagen summit will set up a global carbon trading market, along the lines of what's now being established in California. In Oregon, some entrepreneurs see a public good -- and private gain -- in these markets.
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A bridge over rising waters
Oregonian
11/19/2009
December is the big season for Willamette River cruises on the Portland Spirit, but that's also the big season for heavy rains. The ship's owners worry that the deluge will be so sudden and so great -- courtesy of global warming -- that the river will rise too high for the Spirit to pass under bridges.
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Tap water far 'greener' than bottled in study
Oregonian
11/18/2009
Even in a best-case scenario, drinking bottled water boosts greenhouse gas emissions 46 times more than drinking water from the tap, an analysis from Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality concludes.
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Gore insists on switch to clean energy, new politics
Oregonian
11/18/2009
The person most responsible for raising public consciousness on climate change, Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, is touring the country to tell us how to avert the calamities he has long projected.
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NW trees have profitable potential in climate issue
Eugene Register Guard
11/19/2009
In a state famous for its logging, imagine this: Oregonians getting paid not to cut down trees. The intriguing idea surfaced in a discussion about climate change Wednesday in a US Senate hearing on managing federal forests.
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Cleanup slows of mining Superfund site in Oregon
Oregonian
11/19/2009
Bureaucratic snags threaten to slow cleanup of the state's dirtiest abandoned mine, a Superfund site in southern Oregon that leaches 5 million gallons of fish-killing, acid rock drainage into nearby creeks each year.
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Physicians detail health hazards from coal
Oregonian
11/18/2009
A new report from the advocacy group Physicians for Social Responsibility concludes that pollutants from coal-fired power plants contribute to four of the five leading causes of mortality in the US: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases. Coal plants still provide about 40 percent of the electricity used in OR and nearly 20 percent in WA.
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Pot polluters in Oregon
New West
11/17/2009
It's no secret there are a number of Oregonians who enjoy smoking marijuana. And while that may be the case, there are millions in the West who don't enjoy having their water polluted to produce the plant.
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Failing septic systems vs. OR planning laws
Ashland Daily Tidings
11/17/2009
A smelly and potentially dangerous problem with failing septic systems in Jackson County, OR, soon could be resolved for up to 1,603 rural property owners, with a blanket exception to state planning goals that make it difficult to provide sewer service outside urban areas.
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OR governor orders review of energy tax credits
Oregonian
11/17/2009
Gov. Ted Kulongoski ordered a hurry-up review Tuesday of Oregon's incentives for renewable energy companies in the face of ongoing criticism of the tax breaks, asking whether the increasingly expensive Business Energy Tax Credit is necessary for continued expansion of renewable and wind energy.
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Pigs in the city? Hillsboro's creative compromise
Oregonian
11/17/2009
The City Council expects to approve a plan Tuesday night to annex island properties into the city in order to streamline services and save money.
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Oregon's unemployed giving up looking for work
Oregonian
11/17/2009
It's tempting to present the flattening of Oregon's unemployment rate - at 11.3 percent in October - as good news. But economists, dismal scientists to the core, paint a negative picture.
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Judge won't consider White House salmon plan
Oregonian
11/16/2009
The federal judge overseeing the balancing act between salmon and Columbia Basin dams says he doesn't think he can consider new steps the Obama administration wants to take.
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Preparing Oregon for earthquakes
Oregonian
11/17/2009
Using information gained from an April simulation of quakes ranging up to 9.0 magnitude, engineers can now prioritize which of the 2,671 bridges in the state highway system should get seismic upgrades. That's a $3 billion job, Oregon Department of Transportation spokesman Dave Thompson said.
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Jellyfish swarm northward in warming world
Seattle Times
11/16/2009
Scientists believe climate change and the warming of the ocean has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, upending fishing practices and terrorizing beachgoers around the globe.
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Views: OR governor defends green tax breaks
Oregonian
11/15/2009
The growth in Oregon's renewable energy sector was not by accident - it was by design and the result of public policies that encourage new companies to move here and thrive here, writes OR governor Ted Kulongoski.
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Views: No such thing as free parking
Salem Statesman Journal
11/16/2009
Parking vexes more people than practically any other common issue. That's true around schools, businesses, neighborhoods and downtowns, evidenced by dozens of readers who weighed in on whehter Salem, OR should install parking meters downtown.
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