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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Mid-Valley
Continued from Page 3A
“We’re so proud to say this little Ore-
gon, Salem-based company is a presi-
dential export of excellence winner,”
Monk said. “That was a big day for us.”
A PPE solution for Salem
An aerial view shows damage along the Little North Santiam River on July 31 in Elkhorn, Ore. DAVID DAVIS/ STATESMAN JOURNAL
Change
Continued from Page 1A
That trend is expected to continue,
with a mix of years that include some
that are historically normal along with
more frequent droughts — and more in-
stances of extreme drought years such
as 2015 and 2021.
But overall, Oregon is expected to
stay wet, O’Neill said. The precipitation
might become more concentrated and
the heat might dry things out faster, but
“Oregon sunshine” isn’t expected to be
reduced overall.
“As a whole, Oregon precipitation is
expected to either stay the same or even
increase by 5 percent annually,” O’Neill
said. “But the character of the precip-
itation we expect to change. That
means more rain in winter and less rain
in the summer, along with less snow-
pack.”
The combination of less rain in sum-
mer, less snowpack in winter and hotter
temperatures has been a major driver of
the increase in wildfires, O’Neill said.
But the changes won’t be evenly dis-
tributed. Southern Oregon’s Rogue Val-
ley, for example, and Eastern Oregon
are expected to see greater extremes.
“A simple way of thinking about it is
that the Willamette Valley might look
more like the Rogue Valley, while the
Rogue Valley looks more like the Sacra-
mento Valley,” Johnson said.
What will grow from wildfire
scars into changed Oregon?
The fundamentals of Oregon’s for-
ests aren’t expected to change drasti-
cally in the warmer climate. Which is to
say, Douglas fir should still be king of
most of Western Oregon, while ponder-
osa reigns over the east side, at least for
the next 20 to 40 years.
“We’re not expecting big, sudden
changes or a major transformation
overnight,” Oregon State University for-
estry professor James Johnson said.
“All the places where Douglas fir grows
now, it should continue to grow and re-
generate after these fires.”
But there could be changes in what
Barnes and Johnson called “transition
zones” — such as the place where Rogue
and Willamette valleys run into the
Cascade Foothills.
The changes are expected to be most
pronounced in Oregon’s drier forests, in
the south and east, Johnson said.
In the John Day area, for example,
burned ponderosa forest at lower eleva-
tions could regrow as sage and juniper
instead. This would include places like
the Strawberry Mountains or areas in
the Blue Mountains near La Grande or
Baker City.
“In areas where there was high se-
verity fire that removed all the pondero-
sa, I’m not sure it grows back there,”
Johnson said. “It’s not a huge area but
what you’d see is the sage and juniper
maybe moving 400 feet up the moun-
tain, replacing the ponderosa.”
In plots where he’s studied how pon-
derosa regrows after wildfire, so far the
trees are doing OK.
“We’ve actually had great regenera-
tion so far,” Johnson said. “One of two
things could be going on. First, while
there is good regeneration it’s possible
the seedlings would be killed by a sub-
sequent drought — little seedlings are
pretty sensitive — and they don’t sur-
vive to become overstory.
“Or,” he said with a laugh. “I could
just be wrong. But of course, that’s not
possible.”
A similar phenomenon is expected to
occur in southwest Oregon’s Siskiyou
Range, where forests between the
Rogue Valley and mountains turns from
a species like sugar pine into shrubs.
“The thing is that when wildfire kills
the trees, the shrubs down there re-
sprout almost immediately,” Johnson
said. “Now, if it just burned once, the
shrubs might take over but eventually
you’d get tree cover back in a decade or
two.”
But in areas like the Kalmiopsis Wil-
derness that have burned severely mul-
tiple times since the late 1980s, eventu-
ally, “the only thing that persists is
shrubs,” Johnson said.
“But if I was an insurance agent
thinking about trees, I’d much rather
insure drought-tolerant trees because
that is what’s in our future,” he said.
What about the
Willamette Valley?
By and large, scientists expect the
Willamette Valley and Northwest Ore-
gon to be least impacted in terms of tree
growing because of the ocean’s ability
to moderate and bring precipitation to
the region.
That said, trees species such as
Douglas fir, which was never ideally
suited to the valley, might not grow on
tree plantations on the edges of the val-
ley the way it did in the past.
Douglas fir should still be happy in
the Coast Range and Cascade Foothills,
but it might not work in an increasingly
hot and dry valley.
“People did plant Douglas fir and ce-
dar in the lower elevations, but now
with the drought, those species are
really struggling,” Barnes said.
Added Johnson: “Douglas fir is rela-
tively drought-tolerant for a western
species, but not so much that it can
withstand weeks and weeks of hot and
dry temperatures. It wants to be at
1,500 to 3,000 feet and it should thrive
in that niche for quite a while.”
What are timber producers
doing amid climate change?
Along with farmers, few businesses
are more impacted by climate change
than logging companies.
“When you plant a tree, you’re
watching it and cultivating it for maybe
40 to 60 years in the hopes that at some
point you can see value from it,” Barnes
said.
There are a few things, he said, that
timber producers are planning to do.
In the lower elevations where
drought is becoming more prevalent,
some are planting more drought-resis-
tant trees — valley pine or oak instead
of Douglas fir, for example.
But they’re also working in tree nurs-
eries on establishing drought-resistant
genetics, specifically for Douglas fir, in
the same way farmers select for fruit or
vegetables.
“We pay attention to trees that are
thriving in drought conditions and take
seeds from that to add to nurseries,”
Barnes said. “We obviously want genet-
ic diversity also, but it’s another tactic
we’re seeing, so that when we’re re-
planting after, say, an event like the La-
bor Day Fires, we have the best chance
of success.”
Oregon is known for being a land of
trees, and that isn’t expected to change
dramatically, at least in the next few
decades.
But foresters and scientists are pre-
paring for a state that’s just a little bit
different.
Children
Continued from Page 2A
In the Willamette Valley, counties run
the gamut, with acceptance of the vac-
cine appearing to fall along political
lines.
In Marion County, the rate among
children who have received at least one
shot is 57.4%, compared to a rate of
72.9% for adults. In Polk County, the
rates are 56.9% and 76.1%, respectively.
In the 2020 election, these counties
were evenly split between Republican
Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.
Biden edged Trump in Marion County
48.8% to 47.7%, while Trump took Polk
County 49.1% to 47.5%.
In counties that went more decisively
toward Biden, vaccination rates are
higher.
In Lane County, the vaccination rate
for adults who have received at least one
shot is 75.3% and for kids is 66.7%. The
county voted 60% for Biden.
Benton County, which voted 68% for
Biden, boasts a 78.1% vaccination rate
among adults and for 12-17 year-olds a
minimal drop-off to 77%.
April Holland, deputy director of
public health for Benton County, said
the overall rate could even be higher
once the county and Oregon State Uni-
versity coordinate vaccination data.
Data currently suggests that 43% of
18 and 19-year-olds in the county have
received at least one shot, which is a sig-
nificant outlier from the other age
groups. It is assumed many people of
those ages are OSU students who might
have been vaccinated elsewhere.
Holland attributes the county’s vac-
cination success to much of the county
having existing access to health care
and a history of embracing public health
measures surrounding the pandemic.
But there is still vaccine hesitancy in
some areas of the county, particularly
Manuel Ruiz Cervantes, 17, receives the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech
COVID-19 Vaccine during a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Lancaster Health on
Aug. 24. BRIAN HAYES/STATESMAN JOURNAL
those that are more rural.
“We were thrilled with vaccinating
more than 2,000 people in a day back in
the spring. Now we celebrate every first
or second dose given,” Holland said.
“The work is worthwhile as long as
we continue to increase those num-
bers.”
As far as their strong marks with chil-
dren, Holland says it is likely that suc-
cess is due to the similarly high vaccina-
tion rates among their parents.
The county had a “teen day” vaccina-
tion event and hosted a number of clin-
ics at schools, giving kids an opportuni-
ty to get vaccinations after class or on
the weekends.
Those school-based clinics are likely
to continue through the winter as vac-
cines are made available to younger
kids.
In Marion County, Salem-Keizer Pub-
lic Schools used a similar strategy by
hosting free mobile clinics at a number
of schools over the summer.
Holland said polling in Benton Coun-
ty suggests there will be high demand
for the pediatric vaccines, and that clin-
ics might have longer wait times as
younger patients could require more
support.
“We’ll be adjusting our flows and
we’re even considering some comfort
items, such as a stuffed animal or some-
thing, for them to hug while they’re get-
ting their shot,” Holland said.
She also expects pharmacies and pri-
mary care physicians to be the main way
parents get their kids the vaccine. The
state is not planning mass vaccination
sites like were held when shots were
first made available to adults.
A bigger challenge
In Linn County, public health officials
In 2020, Monk and his team worked
to fight a problem much closer to
home. Just miles away from the fac-
tory, staff at Salem Hospital was deal-
ing with dwindling personal protective
equipment supplies as the COVID-19
pandemic took hold.
Monk remembered waking up the
morning of April 1 with the idea that
the company could use its facilities
and technology to help first respond-
ers and frontline workers. That day, he
connected with Salem Health leader-
ship. He quickly got a call from the
head of procurement at the hospital.
“He said, ‘We’re interested. What can
you do? We are desperate,’ “ Monk said.
Monk talked with doctors and
nurses about their needs and over the
weekend, he and his team worked to
make a prototype of a lightweight PPE
gown designed to be breathable but
protect staff from droplets and conta-
gions.
He showed it to hospital leadership
on a Monday, got approval on a Tues-
day, and began production and started
delivering the gowns that Friday.
They supplied thousands of gowns
to Salem Hospital and soon began
supplying surrounding hospitals and
fire departments.
Monk remembers showing produc-
tion employees a photo of his niece, a
nurse at a hospital in Stayton, telling
them “this is who you’re protecting...
that picture really resonates on the
frontline.”
To date, they’ve produced 700,000
PPE for hospital staff and first re-
sponders.
Going forward, Monk has been
working to create Surge Kits to provide
shelter, PPE and supplies during disas-
ters like wildfires and the threat of the
Cascadia earthquake and tsunami.
Nineteen of the kits, which include a
military-grade tent, food, formula, wa-
ter and other supplies, could create
shelter and supplies for 150 people in
three hours, Monk said.
The idea of the Surge Kits led to the
creation of the micro-shelters for the
homeless — a concept many, Monk in-
cluded, believe can provide enough
stability for the unsheltered popula-
tion to access services, jobs and per-
manent housing. He said having so
many people, especially vulnerable
populations like those over age 55 and
women, living on the streets is a trage-
dy he wants to help fix.
“I love where I live,” Monk said. “I
love solving problems locally.”
If you have an idea for someone we
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editor
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are having a more difficult time getting
vaccination toward herd immunity lev-
els.
Adults in the county have a 66% vac-
cination rate for at least one shot, while
children are at 42%.
The county voted 60% for Trump in
2020. Linn County is a largely rural
county that stretches east from outside
Corvallis and includes the towns of Al-
bany, Lebanon and Sweet Home.
Linn County Health Department
health administrator Todd Noble said
politicization of the vaccine has impact-
ed vaccination rates, as has the long-
standing misinformation campaign
against the virus and treatments.
Noble encourages Oregonians not to
trust any politician talking about vac-
cines, and doesn’t direct people even to-
ward well-respected medical institu-
tions.
Instead, he tells people to talk to their
personal physicians. Noble said this is
the most effective way to change minds
and encourage vaccination.
“We have no interest in shaming peo-
ple … that’s not effective and we don’t
want to do that. This shouldn’t be politi-
cized in any way, shape or form,” he said.
Noble said his focus has been to make
the vaccine as accessible as possible.
The county has run mass vaccination
clinics and currently has a mobile clinic
that will drive to a person’s front door to
give them the vaccine if they make an
appointment.
He said it isn’t clear why the rate for
children in his county is so much lower
than that for adults. But he believes the
decision to vaccinate is ultimately a
family decision and if families can get
accurate information — and then
choose to vaccinate — everyone will be
safer for it.
“It’s not about the individual only. It’s
about grandmas and grandpas and peo-
ple we see on the street,” Noble said.
“Until we get herd immunity, this is not
going to go away.”