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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 24, 2005)
| Oregon update Today Wednesday Thursday High: 75 Low: 49 Precip: 0% High: 83 Low: 55 Precip: 0% f 1 High: 81 Low: 54 Precip: 0% IN BRIEF NW Natural asks for more time for cleanup PORTLAND — A gas company responsible for a toxic tar reef that juts into the Willamette River near downtown Portland has asked that it be allowed to delay cleanup for three years. NW Natural’s request in a May 6 letter comes a year after it agreed to remove the tar body suspected of re leasing cancer-causing chemicals into the river. The Environmental Protection Agency wanted the tar body, the most visible feature of in dustrial pollution that has made a 6 mile stretch of the river a Superfund site, removed last summer. NW Natural said it is looking for a way to remove the tar and nearby ground pollution all at once, and needs time to form a comprehen sive and cost-effective cleanup plan. “We said we don’t understand it well enough to remove it right away,” said Bob Wyatt of NW Nat ural regarding last year’s delay. NW Natural has suggested covering the tar with sand while it conducts fur ther study. In its 2004 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commis sion, NW Natural estimated costs for removing the tar body and cleaning pollution at the neighbor ing site ranged from $4.3 million to $12 million. The company expects insurance to pay $8.3 million, and it will ask the state for permission to charge ratepayers the rest. The request for further delay frus trated groups seeking a speedier cleanup. “It’s been too long already,” said Travis Williams, Willamette River keeper executive director and one of the community advisers monitoring the Superfund cleanup. “This site has been known about for years, there was a commitment to do it a year ago and NW Natural is a healthy, robust company that has the ability to get it done.” Black bears in Southern Oregon sign of summer MEDFORD — The best sign that winter is finally over in the Rogue Valley is the reappearance of some unwelcome guests: black bears, who have emerged hungry from months of hibernation. Because it’s not yet berry season, many of the bears find their way into human homes to scavenge for birdseed and garbage. In the process, the animals can cause seri ous damages, tipping over garbage cans, destroying chicken coops and taking dips in ponds. So far this month, 28 people in Jackson and Josephine Counties have called the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to complain about the bears. “If you don’t stop them at the trash-can stage, they often get more assertive in getting their food,” said agency wildlife biologist Rosemary Stussy in Central Point. “The next thing you know, they’re standing on your porch looking through the win dow thinking, ‘What do you have in that kitchen?”’ A black bear with muddy paws recently climbed on Maus and Marianne Bailey’s porch in Ashland to swat down a hanging hummingbird feeder. The bear also munched another one hanging on a manzanita in the Baileys’ idyllic hillside yard. “We’re more intrigued than con cerned,” Marianne Bailey said. “We’re so close to the woods that we get all sorts of wildlife. It’s just this is the first time we had a bear.” The wildlife agency has a policy against trapping and relocating nuisance bears. Doing so could shift the problem elsewhere, dis rupt bears in the relocated areas or transmit diseases. Instead, Stussy said residents who spot a garbage-lunching bear should turn the animal’s intense sense of smell against it. Fill a balloon with ammonia, smear a little peanut butter on it and place it on your garbage can lid, she said. One bite into the balloon and the bear will think twice before rav aging a trash can. Another defense against back yard black bears is to rid property of bear magnets, like compost piles or greasy barbecues. Supreme Court won't hear Nader challenge SALEM — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday announced it won’t consider whether Oregon election officials wrongly kept Ralph Nader off the presidential ballot last November. Without comment, the court de clined to hear Nader supporters’ appeal of an Oregon Supreme Court decision that denied the consumer activist a ballot spot because of flawed petition signature sheets. Nader turned to a statewide peti tion drive after failing at two mini conventions in Portland to get the 1,000 voter signatures needed to qualify for the ballots as an independent candidate. He needed 15,306 signatures to get on the ballot under the alternate method, and petitioners turned in more than 18,000 signatures. But Secretary of State Bill Brad bury said after checking, Nader fell 218 signatures short of being on the ballot. Bradbury disqualified thou sands of signatures for not conform ing to technical rules, such as peti tion circulators not having properly signed each sheet. Nader supporters accused Brad bury, a Democrat and backer of De mocratic presidential nominee John Kerry, of using trivial concerns and applying unwritten rules to keep Nader off the ballot. Nader drew 5 percent of the Ore gon vote in the 2000 presidential race, which many Democrats argued was mostly at former Vice President A1 Gore’s expense. The state Supreme Court ruled that Bradbury acted within his pow ers in checking the petitions. Using some unwritten procedures to do that did not make them illegal, the court said. — The Associated Press Universities fail to reveal sexual harassment cases THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SALEM — Students at Oregon’s public universities are vulnerable to re peat cases of sexual harassment be cause schools fail to tell them about confirmed cases of sexual harassment, according to the results of an investiga tion published in the Statesman Journal of Salem. The newspaper’s investigation also found that punishments for con firmed harassers are usually kept from the general public, and that public universities have not done comprehensive surveys on the number of students who get sexually harassed by professors and peers. And according to the newspaper, many students do not know how to file a sexual harassment complaint. The newspaper began investigating the issue of sexual harassment on campus after it reported on a case at Western Oregon University, in which a former professor was accused of sexu ally harassing his graduate student. In that case, Western Oregon offi cials refused to release details about disciplinary action taken against pro fessor Gary Welander. Officials said the records are part of the professor’s confidential personnel file and exempt from public disclosure. The Statesman Journal asked Ore gon Attorney General Hardy Myers to order the university to release the doc uments, citing a public right to know. But the newspaper’s request was denied on grounds that the records are not subject to disclosure under Oregon’s public-records law. Sexual harassment is part of a hid den, mostly unreported, wave of vic timization that occurs on college cam puses and mostly targets young women, said Phyllis Barkhurst, execu tive director of the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force. “Talk to somebody who’s being sex ually harassed — they see no benefit in reporting,” Barkhurst said. “They feel like it targets them.” As it stands now, repeat harassers can remain invisible within campus communities, said Kathleen Moore, a professor of philosophy at Oregon State University. “The thing that is most troubling for us is how we fail in our duty to warn students because of all the personnel rules that sustain all this secrecy and silence,” she said. Still, sexual harassment complaints are relatively rare at Oregon’s seven public universities, according to school statistics. Since 1999, the schools have re ceived 39 student complaints of sexual harassment against faculty or staff, ac cording to public records obtained by the Statesman Journal. Harassment was found in 22 of those cases, resulting in sanctions ranging from written reprimands to firings and formal apologies. Moore said complaint data doesn’t reflect the reality of campus harass ment because it reveals only “the tip of the iceberg.” Moore instead uses a simple meas urement technique: a show of hands. “Our faculty women’s network had a meeting recently, for example, and people asked a question: How many of you know about sexual harassment that is going on right now? I would guess about a third of the people raised their hands,” Moore said. Still, change could be on the way. After the Western Oregon University story broke last winter, Gov. Ted Ku longoski ordered a systemwide re view of sexual harassment policies and procedures at the state’s seven public universities. On June 2, reports from the seven universities, along with recommenda tions for change, are due to come be fore the governor and the state Board of Higher Education. 1996220 THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON DEBATE TEAM RESOLVED: The University of Oregon should not conduct research funded by the military 7:00 PM,Webneoday, May is i8iLillii) [BuoineM School, 955 E. 13^) Admwmon: FREE COME EARLY Debatora: jaton Lear, Laurel Moeolien, Kara Borden,Jenny) Mcbride Sponooro: UO Honors College Foremko Program, UO Concerned Faculty for Peace and Justice Volunteer Fair May 24th EMU Ampitheatre 10am - 3pm Participating Organizations: • SASS • Red Cross • Kidsports • Looking Glass • Child Advocacy Center • Greenhill • Women Space • PeaceCorps • Souljourn • CASA Find out how you can get involved, then stop by the CIP office in the EMU Breezeway to find out how you can get upper-division credit for volunteering! Special thanks to our sponsor: & Q) •<=»•
