biz beat
We hear Lorraine Kerwood, founder of NextStep
Recycling and involved in computer refurbishing and
recycling since 1999, is retiring as executive director of
NextStep and passing the torch to John
Barnum. Kerwood has a long history in Lane County
working on environmental and social justice issues,
and is the recipient of many community awards.
Four local entrepreneurs will compete for an
instant cash grant of several hundred dollars at the
next FEAST dinner at 6 pm Thursday, July 19, at the
First United Methodist Church, 1375 Olive St. in Eugene.
FEAST is an acronym for Financing Eugene Area
Sustainable Talent and the event is a form of “crowd-
source founding.” Food chef will be Patty Harrison and
music will be by Buck Mueller. Tickets are $15 to $25 at
emeraldfeast.weebly.com or at the eDev offices, 1445
Willamette St.
Sarah Matsumoto has joined the law offices of
Charles M. Tebbutt in June as a project manager. She
earned her JD from Seattle University School of Law in
2010. Attorney Daniel Galpern joined the growing firm
in May.
Investor presentations at the SmartUps July Pub
Talk will include representatives from regional
companies CellFyre, Magneto Organics, Pathfinder
Learning System, GladSpace and Coyle. The event will
be from 5 to 8 pm Thursday, July 26, at the Oregon
Electric Station.
Grains & Chains Bakery opened recently in the
incubator kitchen located in the Stellaria Building,
home to Hummingbird Wholesale. The business
specializes in traditional Bavarian pretzels and other
organic bread products and delivers by bicycle to
businesses in the area. Founders are McKenzie Davie,
Matt Brown and Nicolai Otte. Call 221-8401 or email
thebikeryeugene@gmail.com
Space for more small food businesses is now
available at Stellaria, and the building is also recruiting
chefs, food artisans and other local food-related
experts for teaching and sharing skills. A workshop
series on fermentation started this week, presented by
Activation Foods. See www.stellariabuilding.com
Lane Arts Council has awarded nearly $50,000 in
program and project grants to area arts organizations
in partnership with the city of Eugene’s Cultural
Services Division. The largest grants went to the WOW
Hall ($6,000) and Maude Kerns Art Center ($5,000).
Other grantees were Arts Umbrella, Lord Leebrick,
Actors Cabaret, PICCFEST, Very Little Theatre, Ballet
Fantastique, Eugene Storefront Art Project, DIVA,
DanceAbility, MECCA, West African Dance Educational
Resources, Rainy Day Blues Society, Oregon Children’s
Choral Festival, New Zone, Eugene Peace Choir and
others. More information at lanearts.org
Heavy metal fans take note: A shortage of
fabricated metal workers was reported by the Oregon
Employment Department this month. Jobs are going
unfilled for skilled welders, structural metal fabricators
and fitters. Demand is expected to increase.
DEEP GREEN
PIPELINE RESISTANCE
PESTICIDE-FREE SCHOOLS
When it comes to cockroaches in the cafeteria and mice in
the classroom, Aimee Code says, “There is risky pesticide use
occurring in our schools.” Code is an environmental health
associate of the Northwest Center for Alternatives to
Pesticides. “The fact that we want to institutionalize caution
makes perfect sense to me,” she says.
Under legislation, enacted as of July 1, all Oregon schools
are now required to implement an Integrated Pest Management
(IPM) plan that would remove harmful pesticides from the
classroom, thus reducing exposure of Oregon’s school
children to potentially dangerous and harmful toxins. “This
law will ensure that previous pest-preventative action is
employed before resorting to pesticides,” Code says,
prompting schools “to think through how to be smart and
manage the problem without using chemicals.”
“There’s a need to just raise awareness where there wasn’t
enough before,” she says. So a group of organizations and
interested parties, including NCAP and Eugene-based Beyond
Toxics (formerly Oregon Toxics Alliance), formed a working
group on the issue.
“We invited members of communities that had rural
schools where parents felt that their children had been
sickened by pesticide exposure,” says Lisa Arkin, executive
director of Beyond Toxics.
What they were working on finding, Code says, were
“smarter alternatives that are going to be more protective and
healthy for children.” “In 2009 we got legislation passed,” she
says. “Implementation was to begin in 2012.”
To prepare for implementation, Tim Stock of OSU’s
Integrated Plant Protection Center’s School IPM Program
created a template for pest management in schools as part of
a pilot project conducted in a partnership with NCAP. “Our
program has trained most of the school districts in Lane
County,” he says, “and is providing more intensive assistance
through the pilot project.”
This will, Stock says, “build up their expertise so they can
eventually serve as a model for their peers.”
For more information, visit OSU’s page on IPM in
schools, wkly.ws/1bd and for a longer version of this story, go
to eugeneweekly.com
— Stacey Hollis
Oregon isn’t the only place on the West Coast fighting
polluting energy pipelines. The Unis’tot’en and
Wetsu’wet’in First Nations have blockaded the pathway of
five proposed pipelines collectively called The Northern
Gateway leading from the tar sands out through ancient
forests and native lands to the coast of British Columbia.
Max Wilbert of Deep Green Resistance is part of a
speaking tour to promote the upcoming Unis’tot’en Action
Camp in early August that will caravan up to Canada and
support the blockade. The Unis’tot’en Action Camp
speaking tour comes to Eugene 6 pm July 25, at the
Maitreya (Strawbale House), 882 Almaden Street.
“That land belongs to the Wetsu’wet’in people,” who
never signed a treaty and ceded their land, Wilbert says.
He says the first pipeline planned is a natural gas pipeline
called Pacific Trails that will carry gas produced by
hydraulic fracking, and it will be followed by tar sands
pipeline along almost the same course.
The pipelines will pass through the small amounts of
remaining ancient forests, he says, as well as salmon
habitat.
The oil would then be loaded onto tankers 10 times the
size of the Exxon Valdez, making tight turns and navigating
through reefs and rocky islands on their way out to open
water, where they will carry the fossil fuels west to China
and south to U.S. refineries in Washington and California.
According to Wilbert, a wreck — ships have sunk in the
area before — and spill could lead to an oil slick extending
to the Puget Sound, through hundreds of miles of salmon,
bear and wolf habitat along the shores.
Wetsu’wet’in organizers have invited indigenous and
nonindigenous allies to come up and attend a gathering
August 4 through 10 on their lands, Wilbert says, where
there will be trainings and skills sharing, and volunteers
will assist the camp with cabins and structures along the
right of way of the pipeline.
At the July 25 presentation Deep Green Resistance
welcomes supplies and donations, including nonperishable
food, money, camping supplies, blankets, buckets, tarp,
rope, white gas, climbing gear and anything useful in a
remote location, as well as ceremonial gifts and statements
of solidarity.
To find out more about how to support the effort, or to
participate, go to wkly.ws/1bq or attend the July 25
presentation.
— Camilla Mortensen
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