WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2019 ❚ SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
Arsenic found in Victor Point drinking water
Tracy Loew
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Students and staff at Silverton’s Victor Point Ele-
mentary School are being supplied with bottled water
following the discovery of unsafe amounts of arsenic
in the school’s well water.
A sample of drinking water collected Sept. 10
showed arsenic levels at 26.5 parts per billion, more
than twice the federal safe drinking water standard of
10 ppb.
A previous sample, taken July 24, showed arsenic
levels at 17.6 ppb, also above the federal action level.
The district got the results of the second test on
Sept. 17, and released a letter notifying the community
on Sept. 23.
In their letter, district officials said that while ar-
senic levels are above the federal safe drinking water
standard, they are below the state-set level, of 35 ppb,
known to cause acute harm.
That means there's not an immediate health haz-
ard, but drinking the water for a long period of time
could cause health problems.
The water still is safe for washing hands, dishes and
other surfaces, district officials said.
District spokesman Derek McElfresh said officials
waited to tell the community about the problem until
they received results of the follow-up sample, because
the first sample was taken during the summer when
the building was unoccupied.
“When the building is shut down like that and you
don’t have a lot of water use, sometimes you can have
levels that spike,” said Lorin Stanley, the district’s
maintenance and facilities director. “As soon as water
use resumes, they go down.”
The school year started Sept. 3, with teachers and
other staff returning in late August.
Oregon requires quarterly testing following a sam-
ple with high arsenic levels, and uses a running annual
average of those samples to determine whether a wa-
ter system must take action, said Greg DeBlase, an en-
Side by side: Runner
helps special needs
teammate to finish
Pete Martini Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Earlier this month at Bush’s Pasture Park, Shannon
Campbell anxiously watched as hundreds of high
school boys and girls ran in a cross country meet.
Her son, Jackson, was among them.
But as she took pictures of Jackson on the course,
Shannon noticed the same boy running alongside
Jackson, a boy she didn’t know.
She finally shouted to the unknown runner, “What
is your name?”
“Mihir,” the runner yelled back.
Who was Mihir, and why was he running with her
son?
Thirty minutes later, she would find out.
Jackson Campbell’s condition
Jackson Campbell was born with Arnold Chiari
brain malformation, a condition where a portion of
the cerebellum comes out the base of the skull a little
farther than usual.
.”
Jackson also has a general cognitive disability that
is unrelated to the brain malformation.
“He’s just got cognitive delay,” she said. “And so dif-
ferent subjects are strengths, and others are weak-
nesses.”
Decision to go out for cross country
Jackson has always been a sociable kid, but his
parents have been looking for ways to get him more
engaged with other high school students.
“With his disability, sometimes he gravitates to-
ward younger peers because that’s who he connects
with the most,” Shannon said.
Jackson joins the team
When Jackson joined the team, he immediately
made an impression on the coaching staff.
Cross country is a no-cut sport in high school, and
with so many participants at so many skill levels, the
team atmosphere is inviting.
Jackson Campbell, left, and Mihir Joshi run together
at the Saxon Invite cross country meet at Bush's
Pasture Park in Salem on Sept. 7.
SHANNON CAMPBELL / SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
“In meeting Jackson, he’s very charismatic and
outgoing and wants to be there and (you) can tell that
he wants to connect with people,” South Salem assis-
tant coach Robert Salberg said. “I think the running
environment, especially cross country, is unique for
that because everybody is at different levels of fitness
and levels of ability.”
Even though Jackson had an outgoing personality,
Salberg said he noticed early on that he was negative
See RUNNER, Page 3A
Rents set to jump in 2020
Jonathan Bach Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Renters paying $970 a month to live in the average
two-bedroom Salem-area apartment could see their
rent jump to a maximum of $1,066 next year. That’s
assuming the apartment is 15 years or older and is
subject to Oregon’s new statewide rent control law,
which lawmakers passed in February.
Landlords can raise rents by 9.9% in 2020 thanks
to the rent control law spearheaded by Oregon Demo-
crats. The Oregon Department of Administrative Ser-
vices on Wednesday released next year’s rate, which
ticks down slightly from 2019’s 10.3% cap. Under state
law, the rate combines annual Consumer Price Index
changes with a flat increase of 7%. Landlords don’t
have to raise rates all the way to the state-sanctioned
ceiling.
Oregon is in the midst of a housing crunch. Still, the
rent control law won’t likely limit fresh housing sup-
ply because of the 15-year exemption and fairly broad
latitude given to landlords for increasing rents, ac-
cording to the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis.
The economic analysis office did raise concerns about
the rent cap or construction exemption constricting in
the future.
Josh Lehner, an economist with the economic
analysis office, told the Statesman Journal that with
the “relatively high cap,” Oregon rents aren’t likely to
increase by the maximum allowable rate “across the
board.”
“Some units will see the maximum,” Lehner said by
email. “Anecdotally, I have had a dozen or so phone
calls this month from landlords looking for the figure,
trying to see if they can get it before the Sept 30th re-
porting deadline. But how widespread the maximum
will be applied, only time will tell.”
Contact reporter Jonathan Bach by email at
jbach@statesmanjournal.com or by phone at 503-
399-6714. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathanmbach.
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vironmental health specialist for the Marion County
Health Department who has been working with the
district.
The state doesn't require public notification.
But the district decided to do a second sample right
away, McElfresh said, and to tell the public soon after
the results were in.
“In the interest of the safety of the students, we de-
cided it was better to take another sample now, get a
confirmation, and implement some fixes,” he said.
The Oregon Health Authority’s drinking water data-
base shows that Victor Point had an additional test
with a high arsenic level, of 12.3 ppb, in September
2007.
Arsenic has been identified in all but one of the
school's other drinking water tests over the past 15
years, but levels have been below the federal limit.
The school district is working with Marion County
and the Health Authority to figure out next steps,
See ARSENIC, Page 2A
A breath of
fresh(er) air
Zach Urness Salem Statesman Journal | USA
TODAY NETWORK
After two wildfire-filled seasons, Oregonians got a
chance to catch their breath this summer.
Oregon’s fire season was the mildest since 2004
and the least expensive since 2010, according to sta-
tistics from the Northwest Interagency Coordination
Center.
Statewide, wildfires burned just 67,795 acres this
year compared to 883,405 acres a year ago. Cost also
plummeted, dropping to $58 million this year com-
pared to a record-high $530 million in 2018.
“This year was a relief,” said Dana Skelly, wildfire
fuels manager for the U.S. Forest Service. “We had
two really long and difficult years. It was nice to have
a break.”
One reason for the lack of wildfires was that Ore-
gon’s forests never dried out to the level of the past
two years, thanks to cooler temperatures and greater
humidity, especially in the mountains.
Even when wildfires ignited, “we never had a fire
environment that was set up for explosive growth,”
Skelly said.
Fire danger is measured based on the “energy re-
lease component” in forests — how hot a forest is
likely to burn. Three of the past five years, Oregon has
been at the highest level of danger, while this year,
“we were average or even below average most of the
year,” Skelly said.
Another factor was that when Oregon had major
lighting events, which occurred multiple times this
summer, the systems came with rain.
“A lot of systems came with either significant
moisture or were followed up with a wetting rain that
was enough to quell most wildfire activity,” Skelly
said.
The highest-profile wildfire of the summer was the
Highway 97 Fire, which burned along Interstate-5,
grew to 13,119 acres and briefly brought hazardous air
quality to southwest Oregon before full containment
by fire teams.
The season's largest fire was the 23,400-acre Po-
ker Fire remote southeast Oregon.
Fire teams also employed an aggressive strategy
during lightning events, putting firefighters in place
during lightning storms, patrolling and snuffing out
fires while they were small.
“We like to have smokejumpers available because
often we get a lot of lightning on the crest of the Cas-
cades, which is primarily wilderness and we can
more rapidly deploy smokejumpers and sometimes
rappellers into the wilderness than having ground
crews hike in," Deschutes National Forest spokes-
woman Jean Nelson-Dean said in August.
Allowing a few wildfires to burn?
The light season provided some opportunity to al-
low wildfires to burn, but it mostly occurred in East-
ern Oregon.
The Granite Gulch Fire, for example, was allowed
to burn 5,555 acres, in a controlled way, in northeast
Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness.
“The best way to describe it is a ‘managed fire,’ be-
cause while we’re not putting it out, we do check it
with water drops to make sure it’s staying where we
want it,” said Nathan Goodrich, zone fire manage-
ment officer for Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in
August. “By doing it that way, it really has been a
great fire throughout its lifespan.”
Goodrich said that after decades of suppression,
the fire, and others like it, helped restore more natu-
ral conditions that could limit more catastrophic fires
See WILDFIRES, Page 3A
An air unit drops fire retardant gel over the
Milepost 97 Fire on July 25.
DOUGLAS FOREST PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION