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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 2, 2020)
january2 2020 free VERNONIA’S volume14 issue1 reflecting the spirit of our community Spaghetti Feed Fundraiser to Help Local Family January 11 event will include a silent auction to support Rick Hood Longtime Vernonia resident Rick Hood is facing a se- rious medical issue, and friends and family have organized a fundraiser to help support Rick and his wife Lisa. Rick, age 51, was diagnosed with Al- pha 1 Antitrypsin at the age of 38. It’s an inher- ited disorder that leads to damage to internal organs, especially the lungs and liver. Rick is now in need of a lung trans- plant, and is on the list and awaiting a match. When that occurs, Rick and family will need to stay in Seattle for at least several months. This fundrais- er will help the family deal with living expenses during this time. Rick is a graduate of Vernonia High School, where he played football and wrestled. He has worked as a log- ger and is an avid hunter, fisherman, and outdoors- man. He is currently undergoing IV transfu- sions weekly, and taking multiple medications and supplemental oxygen to help him breathe. The Spaghetti Feed and Silent Auction fun- draiser will take place at Vernonia Christian Church on January 11, 2020 at 5:30 pm. In addition, an account has been opened at U.S. Bank in the name of “Richard Hood Lung Transplant Fund.” Senior Center/Vernonia Cares Foundation Gets Poured Supporters of the Vernonia Senior Center and Vernonia Cares Food Pantry got an early Christmas present when crews poured the cement foundation for their new, joint facility on December 17. The City of Vernonia project, funded through federal Community Development Block Grants, is being constructed by Five Star Builders. The project also received good news at the end of December from the Birkenfeld Trust concerning their grant application. See story on page 5. Mist School Visits with Santa Santa and Mrs. Claus dropped by the Mist School just prior to the holiday break. Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with members of the Mist Birkenfeld Rural Fire Protection District, brought every student at the school a new hat and a pair of gloves during this annual visit. Is Renewable Energy’s Future Dammed? inside A proposed hydroelectric project on the Little Colorado River shows the tricky trade-offs in transitioning from fossil fuels By Nick Bowlin High Country News 5 law to improve tribal fishing sites 6 student success act meetings 7 hobo corner: oh christmas tree! Just outside Grand Canyon Na- tional Park in Arizona, a year-round, mineral-rich spring turns the Little Col- orado River a vivid turquoise. This final stretch, about 10 miles from the river’s confluence with its larger relative, is one of the West’s spectacular water- ways, with bright water flowing below steep red-rock cliffs. But the view will change dramatically if a Phoenix-based company builds a proposed hydropow- er project. The two dams could alter the flow, discolor the water and flood a Hopi cultural site. The project remains a long shot: It needs the approval of the Navajo Na- tion, whose leaders have been publicly skeptical. It also has to contend with varying river flows and the protected humpback chub, plus a remote loca- tion that will require building extensive transmission lines. The river’s beauty makes this particular project stand out, but it’s just one of a number of proposed hydropower projects around the West. The structure of today’s energy market helps explain hydropower’s ap- peal, even for dubious projects like this one. As it stands, renewables struggle to match power supply to common pat- terns of demand (as revealed by solar energy’s “duck curve”). The result is a renewable energy bottleneck. If the U.S. is to meet global climate goals, an enormous, rapid shift away from fossil fuels is needed. This creates what one recent academic paper calls “green vs. green trade-offs,” exemplified in the West by the recent trend of proposed hydropower dams. Such projects de- stroy waterways and harm ecosystems — but they could also help purge the grid of fossil fuels. Solar power works only dur- ing the day, and wind is inconsistent. To meet peak power demand, which tends to spike at night, utilities rely on coal, nuclear and — increasingly — natural gas. In order to rapidly increase and decrease supply to meet real-time de- mand, gas plants must run all the time. This limits the amount of solar and wind power the grid can accommodate, there- by prolonging fossil fuel use. States are already producing more solar and wind power than their grids can take. The capacity to store the day’s excess solar and wind power for nightly use would solve the problem. Battery storage, while advancing fast, is years away from being both advanced enough to replace gas plants and fully integrat- ed into power production, according to Suzanne Stradling, a University of New Mexico Ph.D. student who is studying the renewable transition. If we could meet peak power without natural gas, she said, “there’s no limit to the amount of solar we could bring onto the grid.” But how do you manage with- out gas power? Coal is a greater pollut- ant, and nuclear waste is politically - as well as environmentally - toxic. That leaves hydropower. Like gas, hydro- power can ramp up power generation almost instantly. Pumped storage dams, which are essentially enormous batter- ies, could meet peak power demand, al- lowing solar and wind energy to chase continued on page 8