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About Appeal tribune. (Silverton, Or.) 1999-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 21, 2019)
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019 ❚ SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK Neighbors oppose large hemp facility near Turner Tracy Loew Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK Neighbors of a proposed $15.5 million hemp drying and oil-processing facility are asking Marion County to deny its owners a conditional-use permit. Jupiter Pharma, an Illinois company registered in Delaware, plans to build the factory on a 37-acre farm, at 8710 Parrish Gap Road in Turner, as part of a “soil to oil” operation. Jupiter has contracted with farmers in Marion Coun- ty to cultivate hemp, and has contracts to deliver CBD oil, Michael Winter, the company’s CEO, said Monday. The complex would consist of a 50,000-square-foot hemp storage building; a 15,000-square-foot hemp-dry- ing building; a 12,000-square-foot processing facility; a 6,000-square-foot administrative building; and a 4,800-square-foot motor pool building. In addition to processing its own hemp, the company would offer drying services to other Oregon hemp grow- ers, according to the application. Opponents worry about increased truck traffic on the windy, narrow road, which is also used by school buses, bicyclists and farm equipment. They say odors and particulate matter would inter- fere with farms and a dairy nearby, and bring down property prices. And they worry criminals could try to steal hemp stored on the property. About 80 people attended a community meeting on the proposed facility last week, and some neighbors have hired lawyers. See HEMP, Page 2A A $15.5 million hemp drying and oil-processing facility is being proposed for an area south of Salem. ANNA REED/STATESMAN JOURNAL High costs, unsafe choices Families struggle to find, pay for safe child care providers Whitney Woodworth Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK The Covanta Marion facility in Brooks. DAVID DAVIS AND KELLY JORDAN/STATESMAN JOURNAL Covanta incinerator could close next month Garbage burner may be shuttered as contract talks collapse Tracy Loew Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK Marion County’s contract with Covanta, the garbage incinerator that burns most of the county’s trash, is set to expire next month, and negotiations have stalled. If an agreement isn’t reached by Sept. 20, the facility will close, said Brian May, the county’s Environmental Services Division manager. May said the county is working to reach a temporary agreement, and has a contingency plan in place if the 32-year old facility closes. “We definitely will not have garbage being stock- piled in our streets or anything like that,” he said. It’s unclear whether the outcome of negotiations — successful or not — will cause garbage rates to rise, May said. “We’re in that pause. We need to get some questions answered,” he said. “We’re going to work very hard to avoid rate increases. Our intent is to reduce that impact as much as possible. We’re still operating as if we have a Covanta in our system, but that will be determined in our future.” Meanwhile, some health and environmental groups say it’s a good time to evaluate whether burning trash is still the best option for the county. Sending trash to a landfill would be cheaper and cre- ate fewer greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change, they say. And they worry that there have been few studies of the impact of the incinerators air emissions on neighbors. “Even though nobody likes landfilling it’s the lesser of two evils in this situation,” said Damon Motz-Storey, healthy climate program director at Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Salem garbage ratepayers pay some of the highest disposal rates in the region.” Covanta Marion, a subsidiary of New Jersey-based A truck full of recycling materials prepares to dump its load at the Covanta garbage incinerator in Brooks on July 31. KELLY JORDAN/STATESMAN JOURNAL Covanta Energy Corp., has operated in Brooks, north of Salem, since 1986. The incinerator burns about 550 tons of municipal waste per day, generating up to 13.1 megawatts of elec- tricity. The county’s current contract with Covanta Marion was effective from Sept. 20, 2014 to Sept. 19, 2017. The contract allowed for a two-year extension, which was exercised. Multiple amendments to the contract have been adopted since then, county spokeswoman Jolene Kel- ley said. On Wednesday, the Statesman Journal filed a re- quest, under Oregon’s public records law, for those doc- uments. County officials were not able to immediately provide them. Negotiations for a new contract have been underway for more than a year, May said. See COVANTA, Page 2A Millions of dollars flowing into Mill City Child care in Oregon is in crisis. Tuition for a toddler at a licensed care center aver- ages more than $14,000 a year. But with Salem-area wages well below the annual Oregon average of $53,000, many parents are forced into less regulated — and sometimes less safe — options. Cases of children abused and neglected by care- givers stoke parents’ fears, and even less extreme challenges, like quitting a job or going into debt to care for a child, can have a lasting impact. The high cost of day care While Angela Tipton was still pregnant with her son, she and her husband, Alex, began researching care in the area and reviewing their finances. The re- sults were dismal. Not much was available, and what was available was outside their budget, Alex said. He and Angela are college-educated with solid careers — she a lab manager and he a mental health therapist — and had decent wages. But the $800 and $900 tuitions would be impossible to pay along with their mortgage and student loans. “Even we can’t come close to affording that,” Alex said. “Knowing that I can’t fathom how lower-income families can afford it.” A 2018 study conducted for the Oregon Depart- ment of Human Services and the Oregon Early Learning Division found prices have increased state- wide for all types of care. In the last 10 years, prices have outpaced inflation, especially for infants and toddlers. Toddler home-based care doubled, and toddler center-based care increased by 157 percent. The study, which collected data from about 3,500 small home-based, daycare centers and large home- based facilities, compared the 75th percentile of prices across Oregon. Center-based care for infants and toddlers runs about $1,400 a month. Small-home based care is less than half that amount and large-home based runs about $1,200. According to the report “Oregon’s Child Care Deserts” by Oregon State University, these costs equated to more than $14,000 a year for toddler care at a center. “The big thing we’ve seen change is the affordabil- ity of care,” said Megan Pratt, assistant professor of practice at OSU’s College of Public Health and Hu- man Sciences and one of the report’s authors. “It’s more and more expensive relative to in- comes,” Pratt said. “Family incomes have remained pretty stable over the last number of years, however, the price of child care continues to climb.” Researchers attribute the rise to high labor costs and operational costs of running a child care busi- ness. About 80 percent of the money going into a fa- cility goes to provider wages. “That’s paired with the fact that providers, teach- ers, have pretty low compensation level,” Pratt said. “They make minimum wage or just above minimum wage. They often make less than a fast-food worker. It’s this tricky combination of keeping a business go- See CHILD CARE, Page 3A Bill Poehler Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK Mill City was briefly famous. Make that infamous. Once a shining example of economic benefits of the timber industry, it was frequently cited in the 1990s as an example of the collateral damage caused by envi- ronmental protections. “I was part of the economic development corpora- tion which we formed back in the early 1990s as a di- rect result of George Bush Sr. naming Mill City as a dying timber town,” Mill City Mayor Tim Kirsch said. Online at SilvertonAppeal.com News updates: ❚ Breaking news ❚ Get updates from the Silverton area Photos: ❚ Photo galleries Mill City is getting its first significant economic boost in decades. In the next few years, at least $29 million in infra- structure and other improvements are coming to the city, a municipality many see only as a convenient place to stop along Highway 22 on the drive between the Willamette Valley and Bend. And it started with selling buttons to save a bridge. “I’m like this in my own life. If I get one area kind of going, it just kind of seems to carry over,” said Lynda Harrington, the chair of the Save Our Bridge Commit- See MILL CITY, Page 3B Vol. 138, No. 35 Serving the Silverton Area Since 1880 A Unique Edition of the Statesman Journal QEAJAB-07403y ©2019 50 cents Printed on recycled paper Angela Tipton and her 11-month-year-old son, Ares, play at their home in west Salem on July 17. MICHAELA ROMÁN/STATESMAN JOURNAL