TOXIC WATER
IN WEST
EUGENE?
Stormwater spilling into a tributary of
Amazon Creek from the J.H. Baxter
plant in west Eugene meets the numeric
standards for toxics on the company’s
permit, but tests show the water being
released might have toxic chemicals at
levels dangerous for living organisms.
Eugene’s Oregon Clean Water Action
Project (OCWAP) has filed an intent to
sue on behalf of Willamette Riverkeeper.
Doug Quirke of OCWAP says he
hopes that the enforcement action being
filed on behalf of Willamette Riverkeeper
“will not only result in J.H. Baxter
eliminating ongoing Clean Water Act and
Oregon water quality standards
violations, but will also result in J.H.
Baxter taking responsibility for its past
violations by funding a project or projects
that improve water quality.”
Baxter, a wood preserving facility, is
allowed under its National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System permit to
discharge treated stormwater, treated
groundwater and boiler blowdown water
to a storm ditch that feeds into Amazon
Creek, which itself flows into Fern Ridge
Reservoir. Under the permit, Baxter is
allowed to discharge limited amounts of
arsenic, chromium, copper, lead, zinc
and pentachlorophenol.
Pentachlorophenol, also known as
penta, contains dioxin, a known human
carcinogen.
The
Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) banned its
production in 1987, except for its use in
treating utility poles.
Bioassays — tests that use living
organisms to check for the toxicity of
chemicals — of J.H. Baxter’s water from
February through June 2011 show that
fathead minnows, water fleas and green
algae have shown either chronic or acute
toxicity. In the most recent testing,
covering the period June 1 to June 8,
only 7.5 percent of fathead minnows
survived exposure to Baxter’s effluent,
while 100 percent of those not exposed to
Baxter effluent survived.
The letter sent to J.H. Baxter from
OCWAP and Willamette Riverkeeper
alleges Baxter has discharged wastes or
conducted activities that cause or
contribute to a violation of Oregon state
law by introducing toxic substances
above natural background levels in
waters of the state in amounts,
LIGHTEN UP
BY
RA FA E L
A L DAV E
concentrations or combinations that may
be harmful. It also alleges the company
did not conduct another toxicity test
within two weeks of three tests that
exhibited toxicity, as required by its
permit.
“Private companies should not reap
profits at the expense of the waters of
Oregon, which belong to all Oregonians,
and polluters should be required to
improve water quality over and above the
extent to which they’ve caused
deterioration in water quality,” Quirke
says.
J.H. Baxter did not respond to press
inquires before deadline. The Oregon
Department of Environmental Quality
has met with Whole Effluent Toxicity
(WET) test specialist and the compliance
specialist for Baxter about the water
quality issue. — Camilla Mortensen
PLANNED
PARENTHOOD'S
NEW DIGS
Across the U.S., Planned Parenthood
has weathered the political climate much
like Harry Potter and friends defending
Hogwarts from Voldemort. And despite
the best efforts of those bearing the dark
mark, Planned Parenthood is “The Clinic
That Lived.”
“We’re here. Our doors are open,”
Planned Parenthood of Southwest Oregon
(PPSO) President Cynthia Pappas says.
In fact, Southwest Oregon is one Planned
Parenthood region that is brimming with
good news. In September, construction
workers will break ground on a new
Regional Health and Education Center in
Glenwood.
The need for the Glenwood facility
became apparent, Pappas says, because
PPSO’s existing facilities weren’t built to
handle the volume of patients they now
experience. “The Regional Health and
Education Center is going to allow us to
increase our client volume by about 50
percent,” Pappas says. It will also provide
meeting space for parent education
classes, Planned Parenthood’s youth
council and its sex ed boot camp for
educators.
The decision to build between Eugene
and Springfield in Glenwood was made
easy by the transportation infrastructure,
according to Pappas. “There’s an EmX
stop right at our property, we’re as close
to the UO at the new location as the
current High Street location and it gets us
a little more of a direct route from the
LCC campus,” she says. In addition to a
public transport-friendly location, the
new building is aiming for LEED silver
certification.
Despite PPSO’s run of positive events,
Pappas admits that the year has been a
rough one. “There’s really a very focused
effort to discredit Planned Parenthood
Raising the national debt ceiling seems
to have turned into a battle between the
adult in the room and the adolescents
from the moon
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
Chip Sherman, Rebecca Morus
and Barbie Wu at work on 'Tis in My Memory Locked
UO Grad Stages Original
Work In Edinburgh
At 22, Rebecca Morus is receiving a crash course in collaborative production and
auteur filmmaking — not to mention fundraising, marketing, promotion, management,
stage directing and starting her own theater company. Since graduating last spring from
the UO’s theater program, Morus has spent the past year readying her original
stagework, ‘Tis in My Memory Locked, for a month-long run at The Edinburgh Festival
Fringe in Scotland, the largest arts festival in the world. Her final fundraising event is
Friday, July 22, at OPUS VII Gallery, and she flies abroad July 28.
This is the quintessence of hitting the road running.
“I didn’t really have a plan and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,”
Morus said during an interview July 18. “I realized I should just do it myself.”
So immediately out of school she founded the Second Earth Theatre Company and
set her sights on Edinburgh’s “Fringe,” as it’s familiarly known, where she and actor
Chip Sherman will perform a multi-media work adapted from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Derived from a short play Morus first wrote as a senior at UO, ‘Tis in My Memory
Locked is an imagined dialogue between Hamlet (played by Sherman) and Ophelia
(Barbie Wu), who will be projected as a film loop on a movie screen.
According to Morus, the production has a Groundhog Day element to it, as Hamlet
— stuck in a kind of limbo after death — tries again and again to reconcile his guilt in
Ophelia’s suicide. The script is composed entirely of lines lifted from Hamlet itself,
making it a sort of reconstructed deconstruction of youthful angst and confusion.
“There’s a lot of clues throughout the play that this was a really deep relationship,”
Morus said of Ophelia and Hamlet, whom she has always viewed as a fucked-up
college-age kid stuck in a bad situation. “I felt like what Hamlet was saying a lot of the
time was exactly what was going through my head.”
Along with Sherman and Wu, Morus has collaborated closely with UO film student
Brian Leonard, who shot and edited the Ophelia segment of the show. “It’s a medium
that’s completely foreign to me,” Morus said of film. She said that the working
relationship she’s developed with Leonard and several other artists has provided her
with reams of useful experience. “It’s like it’s bigger than us,” Morus said of the
interactive production.
Not only was Morus accepted to the Fringe, her work will be staged at C Venue, one
of the festival’s most popular sites. Between Aug. 3 and Aug. 29, Morus and Sherman
will stage 27 performances — more than one a day at an international festival that
attracts some 500,000 attendees.
“Our focus is to establish ourselves as a new theater company that has some
credibility,” she said. To that end, Morus created “The Edinburgh Hamlet Project” on
Kickstarter, a web-based fundraising platform for creative endeavors. “We’ve been
continuously fundraising,” she added.
The final fundraiser for Morus and her Edinburgh Hamlet Project will take place 7
to 9 pm Friday, July 22, at OPUS VII, 22 W. 7th Ave.; there will be food and live music,
as well as wares from sponsors Ninkasi and Sweet Life; for more information, visit
http://wkly.ws/132 — Rick Levin
ACTIVIST ALERT
• Jabali the Reuse Rhino will be one of the main attractions at BRING’s 40th birthday
bash from 10 am to 4 pm Sunday, July 24, in the Garden of Earthly Delights at the BRING
Planet Improvement Center, 4446 Franklin Blvd. in Glenwood. The free festivities include live
music, kids’ activities, demonstrations, reuse crafts and plants for sale, art exhibit, community
and food booths. LTD will provide free bus passes to the event. For more information, email
events@bringrecycing.org
• The second International Copwatch Conference will be July 22-24 at the University of
Winnipeg in Manitoba. See the Copwatch website (http://wkly.ws/12w). For local Copwatch
videos and information, search for “Picture Eugene” on YouTube or Google.
• The Eugene Veg Education Network is sponsoring a free talk on “Personal Food Choices
and Climate Change” with speakers Dale Lugenbehl and Sandy Aldridge at 7 pm Thursday,
July 28, at the McNail-Riley House, 13th and Jefferson.
EUGENE WEEKLY JULY 21, 2011 7