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About Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2016)
March 18, 2016 CapitalPress.com 11 Oregon Supporters of daylight saving ban fall back Sage grouse sighting By PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau SALEM — A ballot ini- tiative to end daylight saving time in Oregon is on hold un- til 2017. Medford resident David Miles launched a petition drive in November to abolish the tradition by 2018. Miles said his force of about 20 volunteers was in- suffi cient to gather the re- quired 117,578 signatures to place the measure on the bal- lot in November. As of Sun- day, the group had collected about 1,000 signatures, Miles said. “We have our sights set on next year,” Miles said. “I had to look at it realisti- cally, as much as I would have loved to have it on the ballot this year,” he added. Miles said he plans to start a Go Fund Me page to raise money to hire paid petitioners next year. The community service offi cer with Jackson County Sheriff’s Offi ce said he start- ed the initiative after feeling tired of complaining every year about losing sleep and adjusting clocks and deciding he should do something about it. Submitted photo Medford, Ore., resident David Miles launched a petition drive in No- vember to abolish daylight saving time by 2018. Miles said his force of 20 volunteers was insuffi cient to gather the required 117,578 signatures to place the measure on the ballot in November. Adjusting the clock for- ward in the spring may cause spikes in workplace accidents and traffi c crashes, according to multiple bodies of research, including one by the Univer- sity of Colorado. A University of California- Berkeley study found that a two-month extension of day- light saving time in Australia during the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 failed to cur- tail electricity demand. Lawmakers in several states, including California, have proposed alternatives to daylight saving changes or asked that voters decide on whether to keep the practice. “What I would really like to see the country say is enough is enough and end daylight saving nationally,” Miles said. He said if more states opt to abolish the practice, there may be more momentum for a national change. Oregon Sen. Kim Thatch- er, R-Keizer, introduced a bill in January 2015 that would have let voters to decide whether to abolish daylight saving in 2021. Dozens of Oregonians tes- tifi ed in favor of the measure. The legislation stalled in the Senate Rules Commit- tee because some lawmakers were concerned about being out of sync with Washington and California, according to Thatcher’s offi ce. The country had an on- and-off-again relationship with daylight saving time un- til 1966 when Congress codi- fi ed it to try to simplify a con- fusing patchwork of different time zones across the coun- try. Individual states were allowed to opt out. Arizona, Hawaii and some U.S. territo- ries have chosen to remain on standard time. The No More Daylight Saving Time in Oregon ini- tiative was the fi rst that Miles sponsored. “I’m not upset it didn’t get on the ballot,” he said. “I learned a lot. I understand that some of my goals were unrealistic. It’ll give me more of an ability to be successful next time.” In the meantime, he main- tains a Facebook page where he’ll give supporters updates on the effort. https://www.facebook. com/nomoredstinoregon/ ConAgra plans $30 million Boardman expansion EAGLE, Idaho — ConAgra Foods, Inc. an- nounced Friday that its Lamb Weston processing facility will expand operations in Boardman, Ore. The $30 million investment will add additional processing capacity for making formed products such as hash brown patties and potato puffs. The ad- dition of the line at the compa- ny’s existing facility is expected to add 50 jobs to the 390 people already employed by the com- pany in Boardman. With continued increase in demand for frozen potato and formed products, this capacity expansion is necessary to fulfi ll Lamb Weston’s global growth projections, according to a press release from the company. Construction of the process- ing line is expected to begin this spring, with completion in 2017. The added line will increase processing capacity by approx- imately 50 million pounds. “With the frozen potato cate- gory growing globally, we have tremendous opportunity to sup- port our customers’ growth in the U.S. and around the world,” said Lamb Weston President Greg Schlafer in a press release. “To capture that growth, we need to make more products. Expanding our operations in the Columbia Basin — with access to great potatoes, people and ports — just makes sense.” The facility in Boardman is close to growing, storage and shipping operations, with easy access to the Port of Morrow. The company opened an ini- tial expansion of the facility in June 2014, adding 300 million pounds of capacity with a new fry line. That $200 million proj- ect included plans for the addi- tion announced Friday. “Lamb Weston’s planned expansion shows their contin- ued commitment to the Port of Morrow, Boardman and the Mid-Columbia region as the right place to do business,” said Gary Neal, general manager of the Port of Morrow. “Their ongoing investments add good paying jobs to our region and we are fortunate to have such great partners at the Port.” Lamb Weston employs ap- proximately 4,500 people at a corporate offi ce and seven man- ufacturing facilities in the Co- lumbia Basin, and operates 22 manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe and China. raises Oregon wind power concerns By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press A wintertime sighting of sage grouse could prove signifi cant in the legal con- troversy over proposed wind turbines on ranchland in southeast Oregon. Nearly fi ve years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Land Man- agement approved a 12-mile transmission line across its property that’s necessary for the construction of a 100-megawatt wind power project in Harney County. Ranchers and community leaders hoped the installation of wind turbines on private land would provide a new source of income and jobs in the rural county, which has long stagnated economically. The Oregon Natural Des- ert Association and the Audu- bon Society of Portland fi led an unsuccessful lawsuit to block the transmission line, but the BLM says continued legal uncertainty has prevent- ing the project from moving forward. The dispute has now land- ed before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held oral arguments in the case in Portland, Ore., on March 10. During the hearing, ap- pellate judges Raymond Fisher and Marsha Berzon sharply questioned why the BLM omitted mention of sage grouse being sighted in vicinity of the project in late winter. Plaintiffs argue the sight- ing lends credence to their claim that the bird — for- merly a candidate for Endan- gered Species Act protection — uses the area for over-win- tering habitat. “Wind-swept ridges are precisely the types of places you’d expect to fi nd these ORE. 395 Area in detail 20 Burns Crane 205 Harney Lake Malheur Lake 78 Proposed wind farm project site N Diamond MALHEUR NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE Wind mills Capital Press graphic birds in the winter,” said Pe- ter Lacy, attorney for ONDA. The environmentalists claim that BLM’s approval of the transmission line violated the National Environmental Policy Act because the agen- cy didn’t specifi cally analyze whether the project area con- tained winter habitat for the species. Instead, the agency ex- trapolated that sage grouse didn’t inhabit the area over winter from data collected at nearby sites, noting in its “environmental impact state- ment,” or EIS, that no birds were sighted after December. Judge Fisher said this extrapolation was based on error, since the record of evi- dence shows that a consultant observed four sage grouse in the area during a visit in Feb- ruary. “There is a factual mis- statement that appears in the EIS,” he said. “I don’t know how you get around that.” Judge Berzon also seemed troubled by the BLM’s mis- take, saying that if the agency is going to extrapolate, then the extrapolation should be based on particularly solid data. ROP-11-2-1/#4N