letters
TO THE EDITOR
the desert and over some mountains to the
Columbia River near The Dalles.
F. Del Helm
Eugene
AND THE POOR SUFFER
Seneca, with the approval of the state
of Oregon, wants to continue the practice
of burning the chips, wood debris and
even whole trees from the site of former
clearcuts. Allowing nonsustainable logging
to take place is bad enough. Taking away
biomass from the forests for any reason,
(which when decomposed with the help of
fungi, insects and microorganisms,) will be
the foundation upon which the forest will
re-grow, is lack of foresight. Without abun-
dant vegetation to photosynthesize oxygen
and consume CO2, this planet will die.
Furthermore, burning cellulose produces
more greenhouse gases than burning coal.
There are some local politicians who
call this method of producing electricity
green or clean. I am referring to Mayor
Piercy, Rep. DeFazio, Sen. Wyden
and Gov. Kitzhaber. There are others
who refer vaguely to the economy, but
biomass provides fewer jobs than truly
green sustainable forestry and energy
production. To create electricity there are
more modern and reliable methods. Using
the power of the sun, wind and geothermal
will get civilization simultaneously out of
the energy crisis, climate change, war over
resources and weak economy.
Putting solar collectors on every
rooftop and spreading windmills out
evenly to account for loss of power during
transportation is the way to go. In this
manner, we would have our energy needs
met and wouldn’t have to worry about the
destruction of our forests.
David Ivan Piccioni
Eugene
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OAK STREET
LACK OF FORESIGHT
It’s encouraging that the UO is fi nally
starting to consider more appropriate
locations for their Riverfront Research
Park expansion. It’s depressing that they
continue to cling to an unhealthy obsession
with vast parking lots. Gas hit $4 a gallon
this week, and is going to go nowhere but
up. Parking lots are for dinosaurs.
The Pacifi c Northwest is home
to a growing number of 21st century
construction projects. In Seattle, they are
designing the super-green Cascadia Center
for Sustainable Design and Construction.
It will include facilities for lots of bicycles
and a small pool of electric cars, but
tenants will be expected to commute
via bikes and public transit. Portland
is planning the Oregon Sustainability
Center, which provides just bicycle
parking and street rail access. In beautiful
downtown Eugene, LCC is busy building
a green housing facility for 250 students. It
will provide generous parking for bicycles
and zero parking for cars. The building
is located conveniently close to the city’s
totally amazing EmX system.
The UO is a world-class institution
of higher learning. It wants to become a
growing center for world-class research.
So why design a 21st century facility
surrounded by an asphalt pasture for ugly,
smelly, stupid horseless carriages? If the
Texas developer insists on building a weird
anachronism, maybe it’s time for a new
developer — maybe a progressive Oregon
developer, someone with their eyes on
tomorrow, not yesterday (if expansion is
truly necessary).
Richard Reese
Eugene
WILLAMETTE STREET
The Seneca biomass-fi red generator
(cover story, 5/12) is profi table, not eco-
nomically sustainable, because the compa-
ny, owned by perhaps the wealthiest man in
Lane County, Aaron Jones, is planning on a
$10 million tax break — half its investment
— from the state government.
This is the Oregon government that
is so broke it is cutting to the point of
destroying programs that actually reduce
the cost of services, provide living-wage
jobs (such as home health care workers),
put armies of volunteers in effi cient
service to the those whom no one else will
help, and rescue families with children
from desperate and dire straits.
The Seneca situation is somewhat anal-
ogous to the largest and most profi table cor-
poration in the history of the world, Exxon
Mobil, getting ongoing federal tax breaks,
for doing what it does best — making rich
people richer and poor people poorer.
Finally, if you think sending forest
nutrients up an urban smokestack and
into landfi lls while using enough water
for 1,444 households is renewable or
ecologically sustainable, the Oregon Joint
Committee on Tax Credits would like
to add you to their list of special (very
special) interest supporters.
Robert Beal
We the People — Eugene
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OLD ARGUMENTS
Thank you for publishing my
Viewpoint, “Smells Fishy” in your April 21
issue. In light of Congressman DeFazio’s
reply, “Breaching Dams?” (5/5), and other
feedback, I’d like to make a clarifi cation.
In my opinion piece I summarized that
the Northwest Power and Conservation
Council determined the Northwest could
meet its increased electricity needs over
the next 20 years, remove the lower Snake
River dams and retire all Northwest coal
plants, and save on energy bills. This actu-
ally represents the fi ndings from a related
study called “Bright Future” by the North-
west Energy Coalition, an alliance of en-
vironmental, civic, and human service or-
ganizations, progressive utilities and busi-
nesses. The two plans differ on replacing
the energy from the four lower Snake River
dams. NPCC’s analysis looked at energy
replacement primarily through gas and
coal, a proposal many conservation groups
would never support. Instead, salmon and
clean energy advocates call for the forward
thinking found in “Bright Future.”
There is a lot more to the story and fi ght
for salmon in the Snake River Basin than
can be discussed by DeFazio, or myself, in
this forum about the pros and cons of dam
removal. I stand by what I wrote: DeFazio
seems clouded by old arguments on this
issue. What is needed most right now is his
political will to step away from supporting
status quo hydro power operations and
start embracing sustainable values that
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EUGENE WEEKLY MAY 19, 2011 5