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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 2009)
HI-TECH TROOPS ON HOLD MAY HAVE OREGON BEEN EXPOSED TO TOXICS One of President-elect Obama’s strategies for pulling the country out of reces- sion is to invest in new and “green” technologies and education that will put the U.S. back in a leadership role in the global economy. But will an infusion of capital into Oregon U.S. companies and universities happen in quickly enough keep exposed ahead of to the a National Guard Soldiers serving Iraq may have to been Chinese, Brits and Russians? the senator downturn in the economy, a lot of advanced toxic chemical, according to With a U.S. investigating the exposure of hun- U.S. technology is currently on hold, while awaiting dreds of troops to the carcinogen they capital. were protecting a water pumping “The Russians are making a massive financial commitment, not only in research plant in 2003. but “There in financing potentially viable guardsmen business initiatives,” Oregon nanotechnol- may have been some or women said from Oregon on the site that were exposed well; we this need to get the bottom that,” Evan ogy consultant Brian as Lundquist week in an to interview with of EW. “The Sen. Chinese Bayh, D-Indiana, told MSNBC 5. scientists and engineers in nanotech. The are training thousands of new Jan. research Bayh before said the including than 100 patents from Indiana, to month last troops, (October) we saw more nanotech applied were for by exposed a Chinese highly toxic than hexavalent as an anti-corrosive university the whole chromium, University used of California system.” agent. “There were piles Whether of this stuff, big orange piles. created dust storms there was much of Obama’s strategies will It mean more money right away for so the UO’s it growing lying around,” Bayh said on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow nanotechnology center remains to be seen. UO is Show. considered to be on the Last month 16 Indiana Guard soldiers sued research. KBR, the contractor forefront of “green nano” National and chemical-related nano The Oregon responsible repairing the Qarmat Institute Ali plant, (ONAMI) alleging the company knew about Nanoscience for and Microtechnologies operates in collaboration the but PSU failed and to warn or protect the troops from the carcinogen, with toxin OSU, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on according nanotech to press The reports. is the former of research. patents KBR from denied academic liability. research KBR often end up being sold subsidiary (“transferred” Halliburton, corporation that Vice Dick before is the industry the term) to private firms or the President government, but Cheney reaching ran the market taking office. products and processes can be a with improved long lawsuit alleged that the exposure and The expensive process. may Lundquist, have caused nasal tumors soldiers president and in CEO of and perhaps one Now death already. The toxin Nanotechnology (www.nanotech-now. is com), the same made famous by the based chemical in the Portland area, says in movie Erin about the a town in order for the Brockovich, U.S. to compete, country California exposed to the carcinogen. needs to do more than just fund research. The U.S. financing Army has denied “We need to help new the U.S. troops com- were by technology the exposure. But panies endangered ramp up their and start Bayh called marketable for an investigation producing products.” similar to the He use said of that Agent Orange in Vietnam, “venture capitalists and IPO a toxin that Army of denied decades markets are the cautious putting for money into had hurt its soldiers. Type II diabetes and emerging technology. The government can a make long a list difference of other by chronic filing illnesses this need have for been linked to a Agent Orange exposure, capital, owning stake in these companies according to the Veterans Administration, and speeding up the time from discovery to and may qualify vets for disability pay- market.” ments. Pittman problems, Lundquist One — of Alan the funding said, is that the technology is changing so quickly that private venture capitalists are wary of funding a manufacturing plant that could be obsolete before it goes into production. Shortening time-frames is a key to being competitive, he added. And existing manufacturing companies also need access to the new technologies in order to stay up-to-date and competitive in the world mar- ket. The BLM decided on New Year’s Eve to push through with the Western The U.K. website www.contractoruk.com says the British is plan- Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) despite concerns from Gov. government Ted Kulongoski and ning Environmental to make £1 billion of venture capital available to “help early-stage technies the Protection Agency about endangered species protection and who have fallen victim to comments both the borrowing crisis and the retreat of seed investors clean water as well the from thousands of concerned citizens and from the sector.” groups. The WOPR would dramatically increase logging on over environmental British emergency fund public will be targeted primarily “innovative spin-off two The million acres of Oregon’s lands, including lands at around Eugene. firms that disappointed, set up on the back of university-funded research into confident high-value the ideas” in While conservationists say they are still WOPR the fields of nanotech, and information technology. can be stopped, either biotech, by the sustainability incoming Obama administration or through the Information on Russia’s high-technology push be found en.rusnano.com courts. Doug Heiken of Oregon Wild, one of the can groups that at voiced opposition to the plan throughout the process, says “the last minute approval — of Ted the Taylor WOPR WOPR GETS YEAR-END PUSH appears to be a parting gift from the Bush administration to the timber industry — like a big old-growth clearcut with a red ribbon tied around it.” The timber industry has also expressed reservations about the WOPR, saying that BLM is protecting too much land. “More, rather than less, harvesting is needed to properly manage our federal forests,” according to the American Forest Resources Council. The AFRC also criticized the plan for not creating more jobs. “With Oregon facing unemployment already over 7 percent and a billion dollar budget deficit, this plan should have done more to sustain forest health, jobs and the welfare of our rural communities,” says AFRC’s Tom Partin. Heiken disagrees: “The timber industry claims they want to help create jobs, but we can put thousands of people to work doing watershed restoration work instead of clearcutting,” he says. According to Heiken, “The timber industry appears to be in denial about their role in the economic crisis. Just like the housing and lending industries, the timber industry got too big for their britches.” He says that the timber industry and the economy can benefit from forest conservation. Of Lane County’s recent discussions of using the forests for cap and trade carbon sequestration, he says that while he hopes “there will be wide- spread public recognition of the need to conserve forests to help mitigate cli- mate change,” he is “skeptical that federal forests will be included in any mar- ket-based carbon trading scheme.” According to Heiken, “the county should be working toward a political solution, not a market solution.” — Camilla Mortensen 8 JANUARY 8, 2009 EUGENE WEEKLY news briefs UO FOOTBALL TRAILS ON SAT SCORES Big football SAT gaps “call into question the lengths to which schools will go to win,” the AJC reported. The paper wrote, “Five of the last seven public universities to win col- lege football’s national championship ranked among the study’s bottom 20 in football SAT scores.” —Alan Pittman NORMA GRIER STEPS DOWN Executive Director Norma Grier of the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP) retired at the end of 2009, but she will stay on as a consultant for UO football players SAT scores average the first six months of 2009 while the orga- 147 points lower than the average SAT nization transitions to a new executive direc- scores of other UO students, according to an tor, according to NCAP’s Communications investigative report by the Atlanta Journal- Coordinator Aria Seligmann. Constitution. NCAP works on pesti- The average SAT score at cide reform programs in the UO is 1,100, but the aver- Montana, Idaho, Washington, age score for football players Oregon and California, and is 953, according to the latest for 27 years published NCAA reports studied by the national magazines includ- AJC. The UO’s average foot- ing The Journal of Pesticide ball SAT score ranked 17th Reform. among the 54 biggest college Grier was one of the ini- football programs studied by tial founders of NCAP 31 the newspaper. years ago. She became inter- By comparison the foot- NCAP’S Norma Grier ested in pesticide reform ball average at OSU on the while living in a forested watershed in 1,600-point SAT was 997, or 88 points less Douglas County in the mid-1970s, says than the OSU student average. Seligmann. “During that time, Northwest “Critics say athletes who arrive on cam- lumber companies learned they could grow pus unprepared to compete academically get tree crops faster if they sprayed pesticides, shuffled off to easy majors and unchalleng- and they used the same herbicide as those ing courses and don’t receive much of an used in Agent Orange: a mixture of 2,4-D education,” the AJC reported. and 2,4,5-T. As more and more of Grier’s A recent investigation by USA Today neighbors fell ill, she became touched by found that the UO has an “extreme” concen- their stories and decided she needed to do tration of men’s football and basketball play- something about pesticide spraying. She has ers majoring in political science. The UO’s been working on pesticide reform ever political science program allows “self-direct- since.” ed” courses, which have been a subject of Grier’s three decades of pesticide athletic department abuse at other universi- reform work chronicle the story of pesticide ties. use in the Northwest, as well as its Critics also charged that lower admission reduction. More information is available at standards for football players unfairly take www.pesticide.org class spots from more qualified students. WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
