NEWS BRIEFS
CONTINUED FROM P.6
rate that beekeepers consider acceptable.
Clothianidin, an insecticide used on
crops like corn and sugar beets, was found
in pollen stored in the hive. The Purdue
scientists also found that bees have multiple
mechanisms of pesticide exposure,
including farm machinery exhaust
materials, agricultural soil and even
dandelions visited by the foraging bees.
Clothianidin is acutely toxic to bees and
may weaken their ability to survive other
threats like mites and weather.
Sierra Club’s Many Rivers Group Chair
Sally Nunn says eliminating substances
toxic to bees should stay on the local radar.
“For those of us who love fresh, local
peaches, tomatoes and other produce,
safeguarding our pollinators in Lane County
and beyond should be a high priority.”
Local beekeepers are trying to protect
their colonies by establishing spray-free
zones. Doug Hornaday, who began keeping
bees a year ago, says, “The actual
honeycomb starts to poison the bees after
five years.” Hornaday believes there is
neighborhood support for the first zone
around Madison Meadows, and he hopes to
establish more zones “one block at a time.”
For
more
information,
contact
healthybeeshealthygardens@gmail.com
— Shannon Finnell
WOLVES
IN THE HOUSE
(AND SENATE)
Predator advocates are wary of the latest
anti-wolf and anti-cougar bills that have
been introduced to the current abbreviated
session of the Oregon Legislature and call
the bills a waste of time and money.
Sally Mackler of Predator Defense says,
“This is a session that’s supposed to be
focused on the budget and on the economic
crisis we are facing. If we had all the time
we had spent on the cougar bill we could
have fixed the economy by now.”
Mackler says a bill to reverse the voter-
mandated ban on sport hunting cougars with
packs of dogs has been introduced at every
session for the past 15 years. HB 4119,
which would allow the hunting of cougars
with hounds on a county by county basis,
will be heard before the House Agriculture
and Natural Resources Committee on
Valentine’s Day, Mackler says. She calls the
bill a “poorly thought out and bad idea,” and
says among its problems is that “county
administrators are not trained to make
wildlife decisions.”
In 2010 Oregon sold almost 50,000
cougar hunting tags, Mackler says. She says
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has
not given her the information on how many
tags were sold in 2010 and how many
cougars were killed
Mackler says Predator Defense also
objects to HB 4158, a bill that would call for
“the conservation of wolves to include
killing wolves.”
She says, “If that isn’t an oxymoron, I
don’t know what is.”
She says there are “already vehicles in
place to address depredation by wolves in the
Oregon wolf plan that are very specific.”
Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and
the Center for Biological Diversity have sent
letters to Sen. Jackie Dingfelder and Sen.
Floyd Prozanski saying the bill “threatens to
undermine both wolf recovery in Oregon
and the state’s Endangered Species Act” and
asking the legislators to defeat the bill, which
is being pushed by the Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association.
A letter to Gov. John Kitzhaber signed by
21 conservation groups asks the governor “to
strongly and clearly oppose any legislation
that would circumvent the state Endangered
Species Act.”
Mackler says that “Less than 5 percent of
depredation in Oregon is due to predation
and a tiny fraction of that is due to wolves.”
She says 95 percent of livestock deaths are
due to exposure, illnesses and pregnancy in
cattle, which she calls preventable on the part
of ranchers “if they took a more active roll
in the husbandry of the animals.”
Cattle, Mackler says, unlike wolves, are
not an endangered species in Oregon.
— Camilla Mortensen
CHILD CARE CUTS
Oregon’s diminishing coffers have put many social services at risk, and Employment
Related Day Care (ERDC) is no exception. Money has been set aside for the program,
but advocates fear it will get lost in the budget fray.
ERDC subsidizes the day care costs of low-income families using a formula that
accounts for income and child care costs in a family’s zip code. The income ceiling for
a family of four is $40,800 a year.
Stacy Michaelson, a policy associate at Children First for Oregon, says that the
average monthly cost of child care for ages 0-6 years can reach $939 in higher-cost
metro areas, gobbling up a huge portion of a family’s income.
Springfield resident Shae Dutchover, a single mother of a 3-year-old, works full-time
earning more than minimum wage and is working toward a bachelor’s degree, but she
says there’s no way she could afford both child care and rent without ERDC. “I feel
really strongly about not wanting to be a part of the system and have the state help me
out,” Dutchover says. “I’m trying not to perpetuate that; I’m trying to get out of that
— to where I can support myself and pay for my own childcare.”
But ERDC is now in an
enrollment freeze as it waits for
the current families to leave the
program.
ERDC was capped at 9,000
families at the end of 2010 in
response to a budget shortfall,
- Bobbie Weber, OSU research associate
but Michaelson says that was
with the understanding that
money would be set aside in an education stability fund and the program would be
restored to at least 10,000 families by the end of the current budget cycle. But the money
was moved to the general fund and now funding for ERDC is in jeopardy.
Advocates working to save ERDC are asking the Legislature to release $6 million
from the education stability fund to return the caseload to its goal of 10,000, and they
say they’d like to see money that stems from federal grants go toward helping fund the
program, which has almost 3,000 families on the waiting list with 100 more added each
week.
Michaelson says that ERDC is also a big factor in the child care industry, which she
says is a $25 billion industry in Oregon, and she says the state’s child care providers “by
and large are small business owners, and so it’s also about small business owners being
able to stay open.”
Bobbie Weber, a research associate at OSU’s Family Policy Program, studies the
social effects of programs like ERDC. What Weber found when she and her colleagues
interviewed more than 500 parents who used ERDC and programs like it nationwide
was that it made the difference between families “being able to make it or not.”
Weber says the research shows the subsidy stabilizes employment. “Parents who
receive a child care subsidy stay employed longer,” she says. “Also it may mean if that
job ends, having access to the subsidy allows them to get another job.”
Without the subsidy program, parents patched together child care in whatever form
they could manage — family members, older children, a neighbor the family didn’t
know very well — in an unstable network that didn’t benefit the children the way
steady providers did, Weber says. “And what often happens is they lose their jobs
because it doesn’t hold up.”
— Shannon Finnell
‘Parents who receive a child care
subsidy stay employed longer.’
At the Eugene Water & Electric Board, we’re empowering citizens with
resources to save money and energy in their homes and businesses.
For example, Jennie Cupp encouraged her landlord to replace her
windows with ENERGY STAR qualifi ed windows, saving money on her
electric bill, keeping her family warm, and increasing her landlord’s
property value. To fi nd out about EWEB’s energy-saving programs for your
own home, visit eweb.org/saveenergy or call 541-685-7000. Maybe
yours will be the next powerful tale we tell.
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EUGENE WEEKLY FEBRUARY 9, 2012 7