Wednesday, February 5, 2020 A9
The Dalles Chronicle
TheDallesChronicle.com
Understanding Columbia Gorge Master Naturalist
field course apps open Feb. 1
Leap Year: Feb.
29 is ‘leap day’
This is a close repeat (how
about an “encore”?) of a
column written in 2016.
In 2020 we have an extra
day, as we have every four
years. 2020 is a “leap year”
and we’ll have an extra “leap
day,” Feb. 29.
Ah, but we don’t always
have a leap year every 4 years!
Are you aware that 1900 was
not a leap year?
A bit about the interesting
history of our calendars:
As most of us are aware,
we have leap years because
the Earth does not orbit
around the Sun in precisely
365 days. Instead, it orbits
in 365.2426 days. That’s
pretty close to 365 and a
quarter days, so adding a day
every four years keeps us in
step with the seasons. That
ensures us that the dog days
of summer are in August,
Thanksgiving comes in
November, and Christmas is
in December. Can you imag-
ine singing, “I’m dreaming of
a white Fourth of July?”
It was not always this way.
Calendars were once based
on the phases of the Moon.
The Moon’s orbital period
also does not fit evenly with
365 days, so the calendar was
periodically adjusted by the
Romans, who added a few
days every couple of years. It
was not only confusing, but
corruptible. Pontiffs—reli-
gious figures who got to call
the shots on this—some-
times added days to keep
their political allies in office
by lengthening their terms,
or refused to add days to
kick out their enemies more
quickly. And we thought
our political system had
problems!
That was corrected by the
“Julian” calendar, a reform
promoted by Julius Caesar.
That calendar established 12
months, with a day thrown in
every four years to keep the
seasons in line.
That’s where we are today,
you might say. Not quite.
Tossing in a leap year
every four years helps a
lot, but remember that
number—365.2426? Notice
that it’s not quite 365 and a
quarter. It’s about 11 minutes
short of a quarter day.
Given enough years, that
begins to add up. We gained
about three days every four
centuries, and after a few
centuries it began to impact
how the seasons align with
the months. By the 1500s,
the first day of spring was no
longer March 21, but rather
occurred on March 11.
Since the first day of spring
is tied to Easter, that didn’t
settle well with the Catholic
Church. Pope Gregory XIII
introduced a revised calen-
dar, the Gregorian calendar,
which we still use today.
Because we were gaining
about three days every four
centuries, that calendar takes
away three leap years every
four centuries.
See if you can follow this:
every year that is exactly
divisible by 100 is not a leap
year, unless it is divisible by
400. Confused? Relax. You
probably won’t have to worry
about it in our lifetimes. It
only involves years such as
1900 (divisible by 100, but not
400 and thus not a leap year),
2000 (divisible by 100 and
also 400, so it is a leap year),
and 2100 (like 1900, not a
leap year). It cleverly removes
three leap years every four
centuries.
Gregory had another
problem though. On Feb. 24,
1582, he signed the decree
In
the
Sky
Jim
White
establishing his calendar.
But by then we had already
gotten out of sync by 10
days, with the first day of
spring occurring in March
11 instead of 21. His solu-
tion? Simple, just drop those
days! The big switch came
in October, 1582. We had
October 1, 2, 3, 4, …..then 15.
October 5-14 didn’t happen.
If you have ever download-
ed the planetarium program
Stellarium (www.stellarium.
com), check it out—those
dates are not there!
The change was not
immediately picked up in
the non-catholic world, but
others eventually changed
for the convenience of
international trade. The
British Empire (including
us) changed in 1752. Greece
was the last to accept the
change, in 1923.
So enjoy your extra day on
Saturday, Feb. 29, now that
you have a better under-
standing of where it came
from.
Maybe you have a
friend born on that day,
who laments not having
a birthday every year. Tell
your friend that it could
be worse—imagine the
poor kids born on October
10, 1581. When did they
get to celebrate their first
birthdays?
Oregon State University
Extension in Hood River
and Wasco counties is
again offering the Master
Naturalist Eco Region
Course. The goal of the
course “is to train pas-
sionate volunteers for
Gorge-based organizations
that offer environmental
education, stewardship
or community science
projects,” said an OSU press
release.
The application
process opens
on Feb. 1.
An information night
has been scheduled for
Monday, Feb. 3 from 6-7
p.m. at the Hood River
Extension Conference
Room, 2990 Experiment
Station Drive. All are wel-
come to attend.
About the program
Students will travel from
the east to the west end of
the Gorge, learning from
local educators about the
flora and fauna as well as the
geological and human forces
that have shaped it. Students
will also practice the skills of
a naturalist, including obser-
vation and interpretation.
The course includes seven
sessions: April 5 and 19, May
17 and 31, July 26, Aug. 30
and Sept. 27.
Sessions are all day
and occur on Sundays.
Continuing education credit
is available for teachers.
Applications are due March
1.
For more information or
to apply, visit oregonmaster-
naturalist.org/Ecoregion_
courses or contact Ann
Harris at 541-386-3343 or
ann.harris@oregonstate.
edu.
Master Naturalist field course will be offered by OSU Extension
again this year in an effort to train volunteers for environmental
education, stewardship and community science projects around
the Gorge.
PERS reforms face delay, tight timelines
Claire Withycombe
■ By Oregon
Capital Bureau
changed Oregon’s costly pen-
sion system, which is about
$27 billion in debt. Legislative
SALEM—Public workers budget analysts expected
who expected to contribute the changes to save public
more to their savings in July employers $1.2 to $1.8 billion
in pension costs every two
to make up for cuts to re-
tirement benefits will have years, starting in 2021.
The Oregon Public
to wait until September.
Employee Retirement
The agency that pays
System, known as PERS,
out billions in retirement
is a hybrid. There’s a basic
benefits to Oregon public
pension and a 401(k)-style
workers is delaying a new
program designed to allow savings account on top.
One revision re-routed a
employees to try to counter-
balance recent benefit cuts slice of employees’ salary
that previously went to the
by the Legislature.
savings account to help pay
Last year, lawmakers
for the pension instead.
Employees will contribute
the same amount of money
to their retirement, but a
greater portion will go to
fund pensions. As a result,
employees say they will end
up with less money when
they retire.
“If they’re going to delay
the implementation of
the part that would allow
members to spend their
own money to keep their
retirement whole,” says Joe
Baessler, associate director of
AFSCME Council 75, a union
representing mostly public
workers, “They probably
should also suspend the di-
version, at least until they can
figure all this stuff out.”
The delay in the savings
account’s start is one signal
that the reforms in Senate Bill
1049 appear to be stretching
the agency’s abilities.
State workers have spent
17,200 hours over six months,
through December, put-
ting the changes into place,
according to PERS records.
More than 150 employ-
ees have been involved in
helping to make the changes,
according to PERS.
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