Area to open for geothermal drilling
By KATY SLADE
Of the Emerald
On or soon after Feb. 11, the
Forest Service regional forester is
expected to give the go-ahead on
leases enabling leaseholders to
begin plans for geothermal test
drilling in the Breitenbush area of
the Mt. Hood and Willamette Na
tional Forests.
According to Edwin Stout, lands
and minerals official for the
agency, “It isn't likely we’ll go
through all that (work involved in
the proposal) and then turn
around and say no to it.”
The work Stout referred to is a
340-page Environmental State
ment (ES) prepared by the Forest
Service, which has been open to
public scrutiny since Jan. 11. (The
agency is required to wait one
month after publication before
making a decision.)
Stout said many applications for
leases have already been re
ceived, but approval of the pro
posal \mII allow competitive bidding
in the most desirable develop
ment areas to begin.
The Bureau of Land Manage
ment will oversee the iease award
ing. If test drilling or further de
velopment takes place, the U.S.
Geological Survey Agency will
supervise proceedings. The Fish
and Wildlife Department will also
have a role in geothermal de
velopment.
Among the possible uses of
geothermal energy are generation
of electrical power, space heating,
and industrial processing.
Oil companies are expected to
be the dominant industry in
geothermal development, says
Stout, due to the similarity in ex
ploration techniques.
“The oil companies have the
know-how and the drilling equip
ment. They’re the only ones who
know how to drill five to 10,000
feet,” he said.
Stout mentioned one oil com
pany (Sunoco Company) has a
number of applications in the
Breitenbush area.
The ES lists a number of draw
backs to geothermal development
in the area, some of which are:
• Inability to gather important
information at this time. Environ
mental groups such as Friends of
the Earth criticized the ES for its
lack of specific information. Stout
says specific information cannot
be obtained until test drills deter
mine the extent of the resource.
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• Degradation of the quality of
recreation in the Breitenbush area
(which includes five
campgrounds, surrounds
Breitenbush Hot Springs, and lies
adjacent to the Mt. Jefferson Wil
derness).
Undesirable consequences of
the development could also reach
the Bull of the Woods Area and the
Olallie Lake Scenic Area.
Effects would include a highly
unpleasant and easily detectable
odor if hydrogen sulfide is found in
the geothermal reservoir, noise,
dust, industrial machines and
buildings, an increased chance of
forest fires if industrial activity is
introduced to the area, and level
ing of steep slopes to facilitate dril
ling and development, which
would drastically alter the scenic
values of the region.
The ES lists elk, small ground
dwellers and birds as those most
likely to be displaced or killed if a
geothermal development occurs.
Stout agreed development
would “change the character of
the countryside”.
The impetus for geothermal de
velopment, he said, stems from
the Geothermal Steam Act drawn
up by Congress in 1970, with sub
sequent regulations set by the
Geological Survey in 1973 enabl
ing federal agencies to implement
the Act.
The area considered in the ES
by the Forest Service originally
covered 44,282 acres of the
Breitenbush area, but 17,225
acres were subsequently ex
cluded from present development
to “protect soil, wildlife, recrea
tion, visual and Wilderness val
ues”, the ES states.
Stout said measures taken by
developers to minimize the unde
sirable effects of development
would add to costs, but added that
if a rich resource is discovered,
“all kinds of things could be done."
“This is a very young industry,”
he continues. “Maybe they could
put everything underground.”
Nurse helps terminally ill cope with death
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) —Joy
Ufema’s work requires a thick skin
and a soft heart. She helps termi
nally ill patients die their own way.
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A registered nurse at Harrisburg
Hospital, she listens to their
thoughts, makes sure they get the
best of care even if it means bend
ing some rules and protects their
rights.
“I found the basic premise is
there are no frail human beings. I
think there’s an innate quality in us
that human beings can handle
anything,” said Ufema, now in her
fifth year as a death and dying
nurse.
“I believe in being explicitly
honest and real. If you choose not
to respond to that because you
can’t take it, then that’s your
choice. I promise not to make any
value judgements on how you
handle it,” she added.
“What’s important is that the pa
tient calls the shots all the way."
Ufema, 35, has counseled
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some 400 patients. She had been
in nursing for about a year when
she asked her superior if she
could set up a program to help the
dying.
Her work was inspired by Dr.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss
psychiatrist who has done exten
sive studies on death and dying.
But Ufema's work is unique be
cause few hospitals have similar
programs. And death is a topic
generally treated as taboo.
“I’m having a great deal of dif
ficulty understanding why we
don’t discuss death in our society.
It's the one thing we all have in
common,” said Ufema.
Ufema pays a visit to a patient
after a physician breaks the news
about a terminal illness.
“I ask a patient if he feels like
sharing with me what it's like to be
seriously ill. And that context is
that I know, and he knows,”
Ufema said.
“Dying means a loss of control
over life. So if he has some con
trol, I think that’s valuable. I en
courage the dying patient to take
control over the remainder of his
life. I think it's important to finish
things his way,” she added.
"My greatest asset is simply
being real. I’ll tell a dying patient
I’m uncomfortable being here. I
don’t want to be here, but I am.
And I’m scared. I’m not coming in
here with a clipboard and a lab
coat. I don’t wear a black cape and
come in saying, ‘You’re dying.
You're dying, ” Ufema said.
“Part of it is that I have a
genuine concern about their con
dition at this time. And part of it is
also saying I have no idea what
you’re going through. I’m not
going to tell an empathetic lie and
have them say to me, Oh, yeah?
When did you die of leukemia?’ ”
she added.
One of her patients was Edward
A. Miller, a 32-year-old lawyer
who worked for the state. He died
recently of lung cancer.
Miller was able to rationalize his
fate.
“I’m not upset about dying. It's
the breaks. You can't do anything
about it. You can’t blame anyone.
You can’t do anything to prevent
it. I don’t think it takes courage to
die. Everybody dies,” he said in an
interview last month.
He was a unique patient in that
he already accepted his death be
fore meeting Ufema. But his rela
tionship with the death and dying
nurse meant a lot to him.
“Joy’s intelligent. She under
stands what I'm going through.
She’s interested. Such communi
cations are a means of building up
one’s own sense of worth,” he
added.
“There are some people I can’t
talk to about death. It would be too
tough for them, or they would not
understand. It's always nice to
have another friend like Joy,
someone who cares about you.”
“And she does a lot of little
things, like making sure the
nurses are around and I’m being
taken care of. If you’re treated like
a lump of flesh, you begin to feel
like one. You can’t be anything but
depressed,” Miller said.
Ufema does have critics. Some
hospital personnel call her the
“Death Squad.” But her program
is gaining greater acceptance.
“I’ve had doctors hang up on
me or throw charts. And I’ve been
bodily taken out of a patient’s
room. But that’s changing. There’s
a better understanding,” she said.
Ufema disregards the dangers
of developing strong emotional
ties with people who have only a
short time to live.
“I’m absolutely emotionally in
volved. I think that’s why I’m effec
tive,” she said.
“There are some patients who I
have just cried over. There were
some emotional things in our dis
cussions or just the whole injus
tice of having to die," she added.
“Some days I’m super de
pressed because dying is such an
injustice. The rewards come from
a good death. By that I mean the
patient has called the shots all the
way — taken control and finished
it his way,” Ufema said.
Local lifestyles studied
A two-day symposium on small-scale technology for solving neigh
borhood problems will start today at the University. Headlining the
symposium will be a speech by Tom Bender, editor of Rain Magazine
The symposium, sponsored by SEARCH and the Survival Center
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