MELTDOWN
LINKED
TO INFANT
DEATHS
Eight cities in the Pacific Northwest are
experiencing a dramatic increase in baby
deaths since the Japanese nuclear disaster,
despite media reports that the fallout is
“negligible” in the U.S. mainland.
A CounterPunch.org story June 10 by
Janette D. Sherman, M.D., and Joseph
Mangano documents an increase of about
35 percent in deaths of babies under 1 year
old in Boise, Seattle, Portland and the
northern California cities of
Santa Cruz, Sacramento,
San Francisco, San Jose
and Berkeley. The
Eugene/Springfield
area was not men-
tioned. The statistics
are based on reports
from federal agencies
and the National Center
for Health Statistics.
Deaths in these combined
cities averaged 9.25 per week in
the month before the Fukushima meltdown
and 12.5 per week in the months following
the disaster, according to the authors.
“Spewing from the Fukushima reactor
are radioactive isotopes including those of
iodine (I-131), strontium (Sr-90) and
cesium (Cs-134 and Cs-137) all of which
are taken up in food and water,” reads the
story. “Iodine is concentrated in the thyroid,
Sr-90 in bones and teeth and Cs-134 and
Cs-137 in soft tissues, including the heart.
The unborn and babies are more vulnerable
because the cells are rapidly dividing and
the delivered dose is proportionally larger
than that delivered to an adult.”
The authors cite research on the short-
and long-term effects of the Chernobyl
meltdown and say the biological findings
of Chernobyl cannot be ignored: “Isotope
incorporation will determine the future of
all life on Earth — animal, fish, bird, plant
and human. It is crucial to know this
information if we are to avoid further
catastrophic damage.”
The full story can be found at http://
wkly.ws/12l
Meanwhile in Germany, following a
strong public response to the Fukushima
meltdown and years of warnings from
Germany’s established Green Party,
Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 31
called for her country to shut down its
remaining nuclear plants over the next
decade and replace nuclear power with
solar, wind, geothermal and other
renewable energy sources.
“We need to do the same thing in our
country,” said Pacific Green Party spokes-
man Blair Bobier of Corvallis in his
response last week to Merkel’s announce-
ment. “Nuclear power is dangerous under
the best of conditions and disastrous under
the worst.” — Ted Taylor
BIKE LANES
FOR SOUTH
WILLAMETTE?
Bike advocates won a partial victory in
getting the city of Eugene to install long-
sought bike lanes on a three-block stretch
of Willamette Street in south Eugene, but
the decision could also mean a tough
fight to install the safety measure
on the rest of the busy arterial.
The city had planned to
repave Willamette from 29th to
32nd avenues without adding
bike lanes, even though the
lanes have been in city plans as
a top safety priority for decades.
Members of the city’s Bicycle and
Pedestrian Advisory Committee
(BPAC) and the local GEARs bike
group voiced objections to the City Council
that the city should include the safety lanes
in the rare repaving project.
The city agreed to install the lanes on
part of the stretch, but have them disappear
about 200 feet before the intersection with
29th going north and 50 feet after the
intersection going south.
The city and its consultant argued that
removing one of the five traffic lanes near
the intersection to improve human safety
could cause too many seconds of delay for
motorists during a half-hour, weekday
morning peak traffic period.
The city’s position on elevating traffic
speed over cyclist safety could make for a
fight in trying to remove a lane on
Willamette north of 29th to make room for
bike lanes and wider sidewalks, a major
goal of bike advocates for decades and a
top priority in a new draft bike pedestrian
plan for the city.
If the city wouldn’t install bike lanes on
the three-block stretch, BPAC urged the
city to at least install “sharrows” before
ACTIVIST ALERT
• Local authors and photographers Pam Fitzpatrick
and Paul Dix have visited Nicaragua many times and will
be discussing and reading from their new photo book
Nicaragua: Surviving the Legacy of U.S. Policy at 6 pm
Thursday, June 16, at the Eugene Public Library.
• The city of Eugene is holding a meeting about creating
a space for small dogs in Amazon Park from 6:30 to 8 pm
Thursday, June 16, at the Hilyard Community Center, 2580
Hilyard St. More information at www.eugene-or.gov/
smalldogs
8
JUNE 16, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
LANE COUNTY
SPRAY SCHEDULE
• Western Lane County:
Roadside spray near Coyote Creek,
Notice 201178100446. Ground spray
near Rock Creek, Notice
201178100436. Aerial spray near
Mati Creek, Notice 201177100425.
Ground spray near Pheasant Creek,
Coyote Creek, Camas Swale, Crow
Creek, Siuslaw River, Notice
201178100457. Aerial and ground
spray near Sturtevant Creek, Notice
201178100435. Aerial spray near
Demming Creek, Pigeon Springs
Notice 201178100447.
• If you have suffered any ill
effects from ODOT spraying, please
let Forestland Dwellers know. We
are encouraging ODOT to mow or
manually manage vegetation in lieu
of spraying.
Compiled by Jan Wroncy, Forestland Dwellers:
342-8332, www.forestlanddwellers.org
29th to encourage cars to share the road
with cyclists. But the city also refused to
paint the sharrow bike marks in the car
lanes, arguing that they shouldn’t be placed
on busy streets. That’s contrary to other
cities use of sharrows and the city’s own
planned use of the markings on busy 13th
near the UO.
Northbound cyclists can use an easement
through an apartment complex to reach a
parallel street, the city argued. But the
easement requires a detour, is frequently
used for parking and some apartment
residents have objected to its use.
The stretch of Willamette before 29th
is a major safety choke point for cyclists
trying to reach the Woodfield Station
shopping center’s Market of Choice and
the many businesses north of 29th. To the
east a lack of through streets provides no
parallel alternative route and to the west
lie steep hills. Willamette has the third
highest number of bike accidents in
Eugene, according to a recent city study.
— Alan Pittman
A version of this story first appeared at EugeneCycles.com
WOPR: BACK
FROM THE
DEAD?
Conservationists and forest advocates
rejoiced in July 2009 when Secretary of
the Interior Ken Salazar announced that
the Western Oregon Plan Revisions
(WOPR), a plan to ramp up logging in
Northwest forests by 400 percent, was
• Community Alliance of Lane County’s Back to Back
program will show two short films starting at 6:30 pm
Thursday, June 16, at the CALC building, 458 Blair Blvd.
Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story tells of the city’s
purchase of 350 acres and the corruption, lies, politics and
baseball involved. The Road to the Big Leagues details the
Dominican Republic’s influence on the U.S. national
pastime. Popcorn will be served and discussion will follow.
Contact Silver at CALCBack2Back@gmail.com or call 485-
1755 ext. 206.
• The Lane County chapter of the Oregon League of
Conservation Voters is planning its summer event, “Food
“legally indefensible and must be
withdrawn.” But a federal judge in the
U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.,
ruled in April 2011 that Salazar acted
illegally when he did not ask for public
comment when he withdrew the WOPR.
Salazar withdrew the WOPR, which was
put into place by the Bush administration,
because he concluded the plan was illegal
— its implementation didn’t review the
potential impacts on endangered species
such as the northern spotted owl.
Ariel Hiller of the Bureau of Land
Management’s public affairs says “the
WOPR is back — however there are two
important points.” She says due to transition
language, since it takes about two years to
plan a sale, current BLM sales must comply
with both the WOPR and the Northwest
Forest Plan (NWFP). She says the BLM is
offering timber sales that are “consistent
with both 2008 resources management plan
and the Northwest Forest Plan.”
Secondly, Hiller says, “We have other
lawsuits that may change our status as we
move forwards.”
She adds, “Right now we are kind of
sitting back and digesting the challenges
and opportunities.”
Oregon Wild, along with a number of
other conservation groups, filed a motion
on June 3 for an injunction on the WOPR
because the plan was illegal to begin with,
since there was no Endangered Species
Act (ESA) consultation. The conservation
groups are represented by Susan Jane
Brown of Eugene-based Western
Environmental Law Center and by
attorneys from Earthjustice. Brown says
that along with the motion for summary
judgment, the groups have re-filed a
previous suit against the WOPR that
dropped after Salazar withdrew the plan.
She says the federal government has a few
more weeks to respond.
Three pilot projects testing the work of
OSU professor Norm Johnson and Jerry
Franklin of the University of Washington
that are attempting to generate forest
income while preserving the ecosystem
are still going forward, according to Doug
Heiken of Oregon Wild.
“The pilots are going on under the
Northwest Forest Plan,” he says, “but they
can continue with the pilots and re-kill the
WOPR. It’s not mutually exclusive.”
The pilot projects range from a
Ponderosa thinning project near Medford,
which Heiken calls less controversial, to
“regeneration harvests” in Roseburg and
Coos Bay that he says are “kinder, gentler
clearcuts.”
“They need to initiate the process in
order to kill the WOPR correctly,” Heiken
says. “Do it with public comments and do
it correctly and be done with it,” he says.
— Camilla Mortensen
for Thought — Celebrating What’s In Our Backyard,” from
noon to 3 pm Sunday, June 26, at a private home in the
River Road area. Contact Ashley@olcv.org or call 968-
8269 to RSVP.
• Public comment on the proposed 2011 Management
Plan for the Elliott State Forest began June 1 and ends
Aug. 29. The draft maps and plans are online at http://wkly.
ws/12j and comments may be addressed to the State
Forests Planning Specialist, ODF, 2600 State St., Salem
97310, or emailed to ODFStateForestsComments@odf.
state.or.us
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