PHOTO BY KELLY BEAL, BEAL DESIGNS
Vote for Lucille!
LOADS TOO
HEAVY FOR
BRIDGES
UGLY DOGS
ARE GOOD DOGS, TOO
El Diablo, "the Chihuahua from hell" who became a star on Cesar Millan’s
Dog Whisperer TV show, isn’t the only rescue from Eugene-based Luv-a-Bull
looking for fame. Lucille, a pit bull with the head of a gargoyle, the body of a bat
and a tendency to spin in circles, has entered the 2011 World’s Ugliest Dog
Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, Calif.
Liesl Wilhardt, Luv-a-Bull’s founder, writes in an email encouraging dog
lovers to vote for Lucille, “We want to have Lucille’s story bring more attention
to the plight of badly bred, unwanted pit bulls and their need for rescue and
love.”
She adds, “We don’t really think she is ugly.”
Lucille was adopted from Luv-a-Bull and now has a loving home in Portland.
She will be heading down to California for the contest on June 24. While the
ugliest dog in the world will be decided by a panel of judges, ugly dog fans can
vote for their own favorite (and check out the full panel of ugly dogs) at http://
wkly.ws/12p — Camilla Mortensen
happening people
BY PAUL NEEVEL
BETH LITTLE
Born and raised in Orlando, Fla., Beth Little studied history at Guilford College in
Greensboro, North Carolina, where she also met her husband, Tim Little. After
graduation, they drove a VW van to Alaska for a summer in the fisheries,
discovering Eugene along their route. “We came back, bought a ’69 school bus,
and drove to Eugene,” Little recalls. “We went to national parks. It took months.”
A year later, in 1987, the Littles began selling wood and canvas deck furniture at
the Saturday Market. “I felt a kinship to the market community from the start,”
she says. “The structure of representation and the amount of volunteerism is
paramount to its success.” She served as chair of the market board in the early
’90s, and she learned about management first-hand in two years with the
nonprofit Family Resources and five years at Burley Design. Little became
general manager of the Saturday Market in April 2000. “Our sustainable
practices have bubbled up from customers and vendors,” she notes. “Now we
sort 100 percent of waste and compost at least 1,000 pounds every Saturday.”
Tim Little owns Built to Last Woodworking. The couple’s deck furniture can be
seen at the Oregon Country Fair, Booth Two.
8
JUNE 23, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
Despite the efforts of Native American,
conservation and activist groups, 200
massive loads of tar sands equipment have
been steadily making their way up the
Columbia River and over twisty mountain
roads to Canada where they will be used in
greenhouse gas generating oil production
and the destruction of boreal forests.
Groups have objected to Imperial Oil’s
Kearl Module Transport Project (KMTP) not
only because it uses U.S. rivers and highways
to facilitate toxic tar sands extraction, but
also due to the effects on the roads, on
nearby salmon streams and on local residents.
The trucks and their loads combined can
weigh up to half a million pounds. Last year,
after EW reported on the heavy haul,
Congressman Peter DeFazio made headlines
when he sent a letter to Secretary of
Transportation Ray LaHood in which he
wrote, “If Idaho and Montana issue oversize
load permits in violation of the federal bridge
formula, American taxpayers will pay the
price for the unprecedented wear and tear on
our highway system.”
Trish Weber of All Against the Haul says
the group obtained copies of the engineering
evaluations of the infrastructure that was
performed by the Idaho Department of
Transportation (IDT) and the Montana
Department of Transportation (MDT),
respectively. She says her group
commissioned an independent engineering
analysis of these evaluations by Scott Kent, a
professional engineer with a doctorate in
structural engineering. Kent determined
from information included in the IDT bridge
evaluation calculations that the KMTP trucks
exceed the allowed weight per axle as
calculated
by
the
Federal
Highway Administration (FHWA) federal
bridge formula.
In a letter sent to DeFazio and Sen. John
Tester, Weber wrote, “The states of Idaho
and Montana, by permitting the KMTP, have
not done an adequate job of protecting
federal highway infrastructure.”
Weber, who is also a professional
engineer, says as a result of the letter she flew
to Washington, D.C., in early June for
meetings with the FHWA. While the analysis
and permitting for the heavy loads has been
done by state agencies, FHWA told Weber it
has jurisdiction over bridges on I-90 and
bridges more than 20 feet long on all the state
highways.
Weber says she met with Michael Onder,
team leader for truck size and weight division
at FHWA, and he brought the analysis to
bridge engineering department, which said
the questions raised are valid concerns and
should be answered. Weber says, “That was
what we needed to hear as opposed to ‘this is
no big deal.’”
She says, “The primary concerns are
MDT and IDT not looking at the same
trucks. Every truck that goes through Idaho
goes through Montana.” She says Idaho
reviewed 14 different truck size and weight
configurations, while Montana analyzed
only one.
As a result, Weber says Idaho found that
extra measures were needed to protect
bridges from overloading. In Montana the
plan is to slow the trucks down to five miles
per hour as they cross the bridges. Not only
does Weber question whether that is enough
to protect the federal bridges — “These
trucks are so extreme this could be the one
in a hundred time it doesn’t work,” she says
— the question arises of how the trucks will
not hold up traffic for more than the legal
10 minutes while slowing down for each
bridge. — Camilla Mortensen
SIERRA CLUB
SPREADS
SOLAR PANELS
This year when Rudolph and company
prance across Oregon roofs, homeowners
may want to request that they try not to
scuff the solar system.
Oregon has an odd relationship with
energy, especially coal, importing coal-fired
energy even as the Boardman plant is slated
to shut down by 2020. The solar industry is
growing and already employs more
Americans than the U.S. steel production
sector, according to the U.S. Solar
Foundation.
Oregon’s Sierra Club and RS Energy are
partnering to offer rooftop solar installations
at rates affordable to what may be a
surprising share of homeowners. After the
Sierra Club announced the deal on June 13,
Oregon Sierra Club Director Brian Pasko
says they received 120 requests for
assessments in the first 24 hours. “It’s an
amazing response,” he says.
The discounts are being offered to all
Oregon Sierra Club members. Non-
members can join the Sierra Club and
immediately be eligible for the evaluation,
and RS Energy will help customers wade
through the details of financing the projects.
David Richards of RS Energy says that
incentives can cover up to 75 percent of a
system’s cost. “EWEB offers a really nice
incentive,” Richards says. “They pay an up
front amount for the system; that lowers the
homeowner’s cost. The homeowner’s also
eligible for a $6,000 state tax credit and a 30
percent federal tax credit.”
The typical system requires about 350
square feet and is made mostly of silicon,
with a glass top and aluminum frame.
Richards says the systems are fairly flush to
the roof and usually dark black or dark blue.
While it may surprise homeowners that
solar power can be aesthetically pleasing,
Richards says that the recent drop in price
seems to be a bigger surprise. “I think the
biggest thing that people are not aware of is
that it has become significantly more
affordable than it was even a year or two
ago,” he says.
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