VIEWPOINT
LET TERS
BY SAMANTHA CHIRILLO
COUNTY DEBACLE
Biomass Burning
THE UNSPOKEN REALITIES OF SUBSIDIZED POLLUTION
I
n a Viewpoint on Aug. 1, 2012, Roy Keene described how Timber
Town Eugene buzzes along nearly oblivious to the forest destruction
and herbicide poisoning around it. Much like a frog in a pot of water
brought to a slow boil, the timber industry relies on what geographer and
author Jared Diamond has referred to as “landscape amnesia” — slow
environmental degradation that would be offensive if only at a faster pace. The
scenario with the Seneca biomass power facility is disturbingly similar. The
Lane Regional Air Protection Agency (LRAPA) might let Seneca have its way,
but no ad campaign on the part of Seneca is going to hide from the Eugene
public the reality that biomass energy, like the chemical clearcut regime it
emerged from, is a dirty, destructive dead-end.
Already belching disease-causing pollutants night and day, Seneca requests
to increase its pollution without using the best available control technology
for the most dangerous particulate matter, PM 2.5. While the federal appellate
court recently overturned the biomass industry’s exemption of new facilities
from CO2 regulation, Seneca is off the hook under the accepted grandfathering
of facilities existing before 2011. Biomass energy, promoted by our own local
air agency and public utility offi cials as clean, renewable, sustainable and
carbon-neutral, is none of these. Too bad Eugene Water and Electric Board,
which buys Seneca’s biomass electricity, recently cut its conservation and
effi ciency program that was reducing energy demand and helping ratepayers.
What’s sustainable or fair about subsidization?
Top biomass promoters, including Gov. John Kitzhaber, Sen. Ron Wyden
and Congressman Peter DeFazio, tout Oregon as a huge, underutilized biomass
fuel and power region. How much will the public benefi t from the latest
extractive industrial ploy? How many jobs will it bring in contrast to medical
bills from the increased pollution? How much revenue will it return to at least
offset public subsidies?
The Seneca facility requires huge volumes of chips and even whole trees.
Not only are the logging and logging roads publicly subsidized, so was
construction of the facility and is the never-ending transport of biomass to the
facility. Seneca is getting trees from as far as Forest Service “stewardship”
contract projects east of the Cascades. These subsidies will attract more
Senecas to Oregon.
Highlighted recently in the national press, in the Southeast U.S. the
burgeoning biomass industry heralds the fi nal stages of forest exploitation,
punching in new, heavily subsidized, thoroughly poisoned tree farms, wood
pellet facilities and terminals for export to the United Kingdom.
Already manipulated like a third world country, Oregon suffers from
increasing raw log and chip exports, including heavily undervalued public old-
growth trees chipped as “culls” because of rot or fi re scars. Weak Oregon Forest
Practices Rules and an untaxed timber industry are reducing the private forest
to fi ber suitable only for burning while putting more pressure on public forest
to provide construction-grade trees. What will be the effects of subsidized
biomass fuel harvest be on our already contested forests?
How can we protect our health, our forests and the climate from the
increasingly global demand for energy and biomass fodder and fuels?
Especially from economically powerful countries like China who consumed
their own forests centuries ago and are already consuming ours?
These are the unspoken realities of the emerging so-called “clean and
sustainable” biomass industry in Oregon — questions Wyden and DeFazio,
in their rush to do the bidding of their corporate masters, are not asking. As
senior legislators in Congress they wield the power to open up public forests
and waterways to biomass extraction and energy production, putting a dirty
industry ahead of cost-effective and job-creating conservation, effi ciency, heat
pump and solar technologies.
Democrats fi ghting for food stamp continuation ought to reconsider their
support for dirty biomass energy subsidies in the Farm Bill.
Samantha Chirillo, M.P.A., M.S., of Eugene, is a research consultant for Conversations on the Forest (conver-
sationsontheforest.org).
4
A ugust 1, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com
When Faye Stewart voted as Board of
Commissioners chair, on a shotgun basis,
to proceed with hiring Liane Richardson
as “permanent county administrator,”
Stewart said he “didn’t think they could
fi nd anyone better than Richardson.”
Stewart chose a “wired” hiring process
instead of a normal public approach.
Richardson was hired for Lane County’s
top position without an open process,
without basic background checks, without
even signing an employment application.
Why did Stewart approve the sweetheart
contract, giving Richardson a $15,000
signing bonus as if she were a major
league ballplayer, when Richardson had
no signifi cant prior executive management
experience?
Why wasn’t Richardson hired, like
many high-level administrators, on an at-
will basis, able to be let go whenever it
met the needs of Lane County? Why did
Stewart approve the contract that promises
her a full year of salary — a plush severance
payment — for simple at-will termination?
And why does Richardson’s contract
automatically extend for two years “if a
change in board members” occurs?
Slipshod management under then
board chair Faye Stewart is why we face
the debacle of Richardson admittedly
overpaying herself, in an arrangement
spawned after her direct request for an
exorbitant pay increase stalled in the cold
light of public opinion — and then once
exposed, responding by putting herself
onto paid leave, at taxpayer expense.
The current mess at Lane County is,
sadly, an all-too-predictable outcome when
a commissioner fails in basic diligence for
the public trust.
Kevin Matthews
Dexter
court observing at Eugene Municipal
Court. Our community is so fortunate to
have so many police women and men who
are a credit to EPD and the community
itself.
Kudos to another hero, Chief Pete
Kerns, who made his repugnance and anger
over this matter crystal clear. I’ve no doubt
his leadership skills will result in concrete,
proactive steps toward zero tolerance
for sexual harassment, unwanted sexual
contact, at the department or anywhere,
ever, by any EPD employee.
As for Zeltvay? No jail time? I thought
voters just green-lighted more jail beds for
criminals such as he? Paid administrative
leave for the past seven months? Appalling.
Even so, anyone can be redeemable; I
hope intensive therapy, not at taxpayer’s
expense, for Zeltvay is at least somewhere
in the picture?
Carol Berg-Caldwell
Eugene
ONE OF OUR CHILDREN
America believes that electing a half-
white president means we are no longer
racist. “Trayvon Martin, found guilty of
killing an armed George Zimmerman
while high on Skittles and iced tea.” Never
mind driving while black or brown (DWB).
Never mind the hoodie. Many of us have
always been guilty of walking while red,
black, yellow or brown (WWB).
In the end, there is only one people.
All of us in this life together. Dead Iraqi
and Afghan children are the same as the
children of Connecticut.
Trayvon was one of our children. Don’t
you feel the pain, America? You can’t kill
people and then go back to your picnic.
Jim Linwood
Eugene
A NATIONAL DISGRACE
A PROPER RESPONSE
And the hits keep coming. Creds and
huge respect and thanks due to EPD offi cer
Kara Williams and other EPD women who
had the ethics and backbone to speak up,
stand up and shine a light on the deplorable
sexual harassment they endured at the
hands, literally, of now-fi red EPD offi cer
Stefan Zeltvay.
It could not have been easy for Williams
and all of those other EPD women, in the
midst of a “blue wall” culture, to take their
stand. But they did. Undoubtedly their
actions protected other women and girls as
a result.
EPD offi cer Scott McKee acted
conscientiously, ethically and responsibly,
too, investigating an offi cer he’d worked
with for nearly 20 years. Imagine the
skills and due diligence steps he took,
working with women and girls who were
fearful of actually fi ling complaints, with
good reason for such fears. For they, too,
were ensconced in the blue wall culture,
some with hopes to advance their careers
in police work, fearful that taking a stand
would harm them. They found the strength
to fi le charges. McKee’s work undoubtedly
helped these women and girls recognize
that justice would be found, and good
police investigatory work was key.
I’ve come to know many police offi cers
from 40 months of nearly daily volunteer
Martin Gilens, a professor at Princeton
and author of Affl uence & Infl uence, says
his database indicates that people favored
increasing the minimum wage by strong
majorities up to the 90th percentile. The
details are that among the poor, 86 percent
supported it. Among the middle class, 81
percent. And among the affl uent, those in
the 90 percent category, 71 percent.
Is there anything at all that has the
citizens of this country more united?
Have legislators been so removed from
citizens that they don’t know this? Is this
not important enough for the media to be
shouting about it at all times? Could an
increase in the minimum wage stimulate
the economy?
When there is no annual cost of living
attached to the minimum wage, each
year’s infl ation rate makes the difference
between the rich and the poor get larger.
This inequity is a national disgrace.
Bob Cassidy
Eugene
SAME RACIST ATTITUDE
Here’s the internet address for a cogent
rebuttal to the type of drivel Jerry Ritter
provided in the July 25 letters: wkly.ws/1ir.
As if Ritter cares one iota about violence in
black communities.
Personally, I’m sick of Ritter’s racist
invective and wish that EW would stop