FROM PAGE ONE
THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2022
COVID
Continued from Page A1
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group, File
Evening light sets over Crow Creek Road, Wallowa County, on the road from Zumwalt Prairie
on Sunday, May 23, 2021. Two Eastern Oregon nonprofi ts have joined Earth Day Oregon,
including Greater Hells Canyon Council and Wallowa Land Trust. Earth Day Oregon is
scheduled for April 22 and will include a fundraiser by Wallowa Land Trust at the Wallowa
County Chamber of Commerce offi ce in Enterprise.
EARTH DAY
Continued from Page A1
specifi c projects for the fundraiser, but
money raised will be used to help main-
tain ongoing operations and contracts
with local landowners for their continuing
involvement with Wallowa Land Trust.
Earth Day Oregon, founded in 2019,
is a revitalization of previous eff orts
to localize Earth Day in the state,
according to Kelly Ste-
vens, executive director.
The fi rst Earth Day was
held on April 22, 1970,
and it has become a global
event celebrated across
dozens of countries.
“It’s not the fi rst time
Stevens
Earth Day has happened
in Oregon, certainly,” she said, “but I
would say that we really see an opportu-
nity to make it a day, make it a time for
bringing the state together and to have a
really inclusive version of Earth Day.”
Earth Day Oregon has a variety
of nonprofi t organization partners —
ranging from land trusts to food bank
donations. A majority of those organiza-
tions are in the Portland metro area, but
Stevens has been focusing on expanding
the campaign to include more rural com-
munities and nonprofi ts.
“When people look at our web-
site, when they see who our partners
are, they’re going to see opportunities
with conservation nonprofi ts, including
two in Eastern Oregon,” she said. “And
they’ll also see groups that are working
to end poverty, spur local economies
and reduce inequality. And then, also,
preserve our forests and our oceans
and things like that. What we’re really
excited about at Earth Day Oregon is this
more holistic view of what we can all do
together every April.”
Stevens said the campaign has dou-
bled the number of nonprofi ts outside of
the Portland metro area that had allied
with Earth Day Oregon. Roughly one-
third of the nonprofi ts are from areas
outside Portland, she said.
“As Oregonians, we’ve got a pretty
good-sized state, but no matter where
we live, we all care about the beauty
of this state and our communities,”
she said. “By supporting the nonprofi t
partners and the many business part-
ners in Eastern Oregon, people are
ensuring that Eastern Oregon stays
beautiful and those ecosystems are
healthy and people are able to still
work those rural lands, and have
vibrant local ecosystems and vibrant
local economies.”
samples taken during the
week ending March 3. A
spokesperson for her agency
cited delays in “collating and
providing” the data, adding
that more recent results would
be available Wednesday.
The nearly three-week old
OSU results don’t show that
the BA.2 variant, which is
substantially more transmis-
sible than the omicron variant,
is prevalent in Oregon. But
that could change, given that
Oregon’s pandemic trends
have generally lagged the
rest of the country by several
weeks, Sutton said.
More recent data available
to OSU refl ected the same
trends, with BA.2 appearing
in some Oregon communities
but not yet becoming dom-
inant, said Tyler Radniecki,
one of the university’s key
researchers for the program.
And, so far, the wastewater
analyses have shown a con-
sistent decline or plateau in
“viral concentration,” a mea-
sure of how much virus is in a
sample relative to the number
of people who use the waste-
water system. That means
the analyses are mirroring
the continued swift decline in
case counts from testing.
The average case count
on March 22 fell to 233 new
reported cases a day, lower
than at any point since July,
before the delta wave.
Tracking trends
If there is going to be a
surge, wastewater testing
should, in theory, show the
upward trend before official
case counts start to climb.
While research results vary,
Sutton said, “viral con-
centration” in wastewater
samples can start showing
increases as many as seven
THE OBSERVER — A7
days before official case
counts start to rise.
Some of the fundamental
principles of wastewater mon-
itoring for COVID-19 in
Oregon have shifted since it
began in 2020. Back then, offi -
cials assumed there would
come a time when there would
be no COVID-19 in Oregon,
Sutton said. Under that sce-
nario, wastewater surveil-
lance would have served as an
early warning that the virus
had returned. Now, the virus
is present everywhere. That
means testing has a slightly
diff erent purpose — to iden-
tify climbing cases and preva-
lence of variants.
Wastewater testing can
provide early warning of an
impending surge because
people can shed virus in their
feces before they even know
they’re sick.
That means that within
several days of a person
shedding virus, a testing lab
could theoretically identify
that virus in the wastewater,
said Dr. Ken Williamson, an
expert with a Washington
County company that par-
ticipates in the OSU testing
program. By contrast, it can
take as long as two weeks
between someone getting
infected and registering their
illness in offi cial case counts,
he said.
Radniecki, the OSU
researcher, said waste-
water testing is immune to
the biases involved in clin-
ical testing and case sur-
veillance. When it comes to
regular swab testing, offi-
cial case counts only cap-
ture people motivated to
get checked for COVID-19
at a location that reports
the results to health offi-
cials. But wastewater testing
catches everyone who uses a
public wastewater system.
“If you fl ush, you partici-
pate,” Radniecki said.
ANIMALS
Continued from Page A1
in six consecutive elec-
tion cycles before it fi nally
passed. It was voted down
fi ve times. If our initia-
tive does not pass this
November, we want to
make sure it’s on the ballot
again in 2024.”
‘Their hearts are in the
right place’
Farmers balked at
the proposal, stating it
wouldn’t be worth the
eff ort or the ink to do a
story about the initia-
tive. Prominent La Grande
hunter Steve West, of the
TV show “Steve’s Out-
door Adventures,” said the
proposition likely would
fail to gather enough sig-
natures to make it on the
ballot.
“The people who come
up with this, their hearts
are in the right place
because they’re so attached
to animals,” he said. “The
reality is they will never
get enough votes to pass
something like this. I just
don’t see any chance in
hell that they even get
100,000 signatures to even
get it to a ballot. It’s just so
out there.”
West said proposals like
these have an unintended
side eff ect of uniting
groups that are opposed to
similar initiatives.
“If anything, my bet
is this is something that
would solidify and unite
the ranchers, farmers and
hunters,” he said. “It’s
probably going to unite the
other side just to stamp it
out once and for all.”
Offi cials from the Con-
federated Tribes of Uma-
tilla Indian Reservation
said they’re not worried
about the initiative, citing
treaties that would super-
sede the law. They are,
however, watching closely
in the event the tribes
need to take a reactionary
approach to the proposal.
“We’re continuing to
watch and see how far it
goes, and see what hap-
pens in July to see if they
get their initiative ful-
fi lled with the required
signatures,” said Jiselle
Halfmoon, interim com-
munications director for
CTUIR. “Then, of course,
we’ll readdress it, but
at this time we’re pretty
secure in our situation.”
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
Cattle graze the fi eld at a ranch on Airport Lane, La Grande, on Thursday, March 17, 2022. Initiative
Petition 13 organizers say the ultimate goal of the campaign would be to ensure all animals in Oregon
have the same rights and protections that companion animals enjoy.
Law experts say
the proposal is
misunderstood
Russ Mead, a professor of
law at Lewis & Clark Law
School in Portland, said what
the proposal says it will do
and what the two opposing
factions for the proposition
say it will do diff er greatly.
“Oregon’s animal cru-
elty laws have a long list of
exceptions,” he said. “For
example, hunting and killing
livestock is exempt from
Oregon’s animal cruelty
laws. IP13 removes these
exemptions. The result is
not that hunting and killing
livestock will be illegal if
IP13 passes, it is just that
when you hunt, you need to
be humane. When you kill
livestock, you need to be
humane.”
The website for IP13
states its goal is to enact leg-
islation that would make it
so that “animals on farms,
research labs, exhibitions
and in the wild would no
longer be allowed to be
intentionally injured or
killed.” However, Mead dis-
agrees with the drafters of
IP13 and their proposed mis-
sion statement on the IP13
webpage. The law as it is
proposed, he said, would
need to be considered in
courtrooms to fi nd the exact
limitations and framework.
“Anyone who says
any activity will become
illegal with the passage of
IP13 is just fl at wrong,” he
said. “With the animal cru-
elty exemptions removed,
the Oregon courts will
need to decide what
animal cruelty is.”
How animal cruelty is
defi ned in the law, Mead
said, is open-ended.
“Animal cruelty statutes
seldom defi ne what is cruel
and what is humane,” Mead
said. “For example, statutes
do not specify that beating a
dog to death with a baseball
bat is cruel. Or that killing
a dog by lethal injection is
humane.”
Mead stated if the pro-
posal did muster up the sig-
natures, and passed in the
November ballot, the pro-
posal wouldn’t turn hunters
into criminals overnight.
“The Oregon courts will
need to decide what, if any,
hunting and fi shing practices
violate Oregon animal cru-
elty laws,” he said. “I could
well see the courts fi nding
leg-hold traps are cruel. But,
I would be shocked if the
courts found a father and
daughter fi shing with a cane
pole animal cruelty.”
Michelson said one of the
secondary goals of the pro-
posal is to help draw atten-
tion to exemptions in Oregon
statutes regarding animal
abuse, and how the animal
abuse laws give protections
to pets but not to livestock.
“We’re one of the few
states that acknowledges
that animals are sen-
tient in our state statutes,”
Michelson said. “Yet our
animal cruelty laws largely
only protect our companion
animals. All the other ani-
mals, whether they’re in
farms or in research labs
or in the wild, or in rodeos
and exhibitions, they’re
exempt from those same
protections.”
Michelson noted the ulti-
mate goal of the campaign
would be to ensure all ani-
mals in Oregon have the
same rights and protections
that companion animals
enjoy.
“Largely, what our cam-
paign is focused on is the
Will there be a surge?
Like much of the rest of
the country, Oregon is won-
dering if the BA.2 subvar-
iant of omicron will bring a
flood of cases to the state.
“I mean, I wouldn’t be
surprised,” Sutton said,
when asked if Oregonians
should expect cases to climb
in coming weeks.
But Sutton added that
existing immunity among
Oregonians due to vacci-
nations or from infections
during the recent omicron
surge likely means it won’t
be as severe as what Oregon
has already seen.
It’s clear that the BA.2
variant’s presence is
growing nationally. More
than a third of last week’s
COVID-19 cases in the
U.S. were the BA.2 sub-
variant, according to U.S.
Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention. In the
region that includes Oregon,
nearly four in 10 cases were
likely of the BA.2 variant,
according to the agency’s
estimates.
University of Wash-
ington COVID-19 forecaster
Ali Mokdad agrees Oregon
will likely be spared a BA.2
surge. Oregon’s cases will
continue to fall through the
summer, he predicted, with
potential increases cases
coming in the winter, when
immunity from vaccines and
infections wanes.
Mokdad said Oregon
and the U.S. as a whole are
facing substantially dif-
ferent circumstances than
Europe. In Oregon, many
people have natural immu-
nity from infections during
the omicron wave, helping
protect large swaths of the
population from the BA.2
subvariant.
“We’re in a much better
place than the Europeans,”
Mokdad said.
right for animals not to be
killed or injured, to not be
neglected, and to not be forc-
ibly impregnated or forcibly
masturbated,” he said. “Our
focus is very intentionally on
that, and so we will continue
the campaign until those
rights are achieved.”
As of Tuesday, March 15,
the IP13 Facebook page had
344 followers, and its post-
ings attract more negative
comments than supportive
ones. If the proposal passes
— either now or in 2024 —
it likely would face lengthy
legal scrutiny, according to
Jacob Mannis, the deputy
district attorney for Oregon
who handles animal cruelty
cases.
“It would require a lot of
things to happen before it
would become the law,” he
said. “I assume that there
would be a round of law-
suits before anything gets
enforced, and then there
would have to be a law
enforcement agency that
would investigate, a prose-
cutor that would prosecute
and ultimately a jury that
would convict, because any-
body in Oregon who’s been
accused of a crime has a
right to a trial by jury.”
Island City Lions Club
THANK YOU
to our sponsors and community for supporting
the 2022 La Grande Gun Show
Gary Anger