LET TERS
GAME VS. BIKE
While riding my bicycle home from
work Sunday evening, I found myself
immersed in the buzz and hum of a most
important event. Car after car after bus
after 4x4 pickup after SUV were gleefully,
if a bit impatiently and aggressively,
packing the road, apparently on the hunt
for a place to park to get to a big game at
Knight Arena.
I always do my best to stay off of
sidewalks when I’m riding, and this night
was no exception. I was more than happy
to risk my life and limb in the game traffic.
So, I waited patiently behind the line of
automobiles at the four-way intersection
by the arena as the traffic police waved us
through the busy intersection.
I have two headlights on my bike, one
that blinks, a reflective caution-yellow
vest, a helmet covered with reflective tape,
reflective ankle straps and two red blinking
taillights. But when it came to be my logical
turn to go, the traffic cop looked at me,
turned away and started waving the SUV
through, even though I had started crossing
the intersection. I was easily on my way
when the SUV revved its engine, headed
straight at me and the nice traffic policeman
thoughtfully shouted at me, “That’s a good
way to get hit, sir!” and the SUV driver
yelled, “Yeah!” I thanked them for their
consideration and continued pedaling.
Now, many cyclists might be upset
about being first ignored, then treated
like they had no right of way, but not me.
VIEWPOINT
No sir, because it was obviously a very
important event, and of course the people
in the cars needed to quickly find a place
to park so they could get to the big game to
cheer on their favorite team. I totally get it.
Go Sports!
Steven Colbert
Eugene
THROWING TAX WAIVERS
They’re at it again — “the Eugene
City Council is interested in once again
granting property tax waivers to encourage
apartment and condo developments …”
(R-G 10/16).
What’s wrong with these people?
The Core Campus project going up on
REJECTING FEAR
In sharp contrast with election results
in much of the country, Democrats in
the Oregon Legislature not only kept our
BY DEBR A MCGEE
Stop the LNG Pipeline
IT’S NOT GOOD TO STOP COAL IF WE TURN TO FRACKING
H
ydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology
has enabled production of previously
uneconomic shale gas in North America.
Some believe that using more natural
gas will slow the growth of green house
gas emissions. Five research teams from the United
States, Australia, Austria, Germany and Italy completed
independent studies for a project led by the Joint Global
Change Research Institute. The research analysis was
published in October in the journal Nature with the
conclusion that increased use of natural gas will not slow
climate change, due to increased release of methane and
increased total energy use spurred by inexpensive gas.
Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, Rep. Peter
DeFazio and State Rep. Val Hoyle have all expressed
support for the southern Oregon Pacific Connector
pipeline (extending from near Klamath Falls to Coos
Bay) and Jordon Cove terminal projects, which will
emit 2.16 million tons of CO2 a year and be the only
LNG export terminal on the West Coast. This planned
terminal in the Port of Coos Bay will hold thousands
of gallons of LNG in two 14-story storage tanks on a
sandspit that lies in a tsunami and earthquake zone.
Does that make good sense to you?
The 234-mile planned Pacific Connector pipeline
(transporting 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day) will
create a permanent clearcut, 95 feet wide, destroying
4
Broadway has a rooftop swimming pool
and needs $455,000 a year in tax waivers
to make it work? For $846,000 a year
in waivers we get a hideous monolith
downtown? (It has a swimming pool as
well.) Local landlords are paying property
taxes on vacant units and the city council
wants to subsidize the competition?
We can’t find the money to establish
a “quiet zone” in Eugene so the trains
keep blasting through, the parks division
has $7.2 million in deferred maintenance
projects (R-G 10/30), and in order to pay
for an additional floor on the new City
Hall, the City Council is going to raid
“reserves held by three public works
department operating funds — road, sewer
and stormwater,” $435,000 each for six
years (R-G 11/2). (Road, sewer stormwater
funds for City Hall construction?)
I’m retired and living on Social
Security. I just mailed my property taxes
check and I can’t tell you how much it galls
me that nearly 20 percent of my Social
Security income goes to pay my property
taxes and my City Council keeps throwing
tax waivers at multimillion-dollar out-of-
state developers.
Enough already.
Ted Chudy
Eugene
November 13, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com
roughly 3,000 acres of wildlife habitat on public and
private lands. This includes sites used by northern spotted
owls, imperiled marbled murrelets and 32 plants and
animals protected under the Endangered Species Act.
It will cross 397 water bodies, major rivers (Klamath,
Rogue, Umpqua, Coquille and Coos) and hundreds
of salmon-bearing streams, as well as two mountain
ranges. There may be many serious detrimental impacts
to marine mammals and other sea life. Also, since the
route is mainly in rural and forestlands, pipeline safety
standards for the industry are lower than they would be
in an urban area.
All this, so a Canadian energy company, Veresen, can
ship huge tankers of (think burning lots of fossil fuels)
American fracked gas to China stemming from a pipeline
that will take Southern Oregonian’s land by eminent domain
for private corporate profits. This pipeline will be built by
(out-of-state) Williams Company, which has already had
three leaking/exploding pipelines in 2014 alone.
The huge risks, for the people and the planet,
associated with this pipeline and export terminal are
intolerable. Any short-term gain of “jobs” is completely
canceled out by the risks and damages. This pipeline and
export terminal will reduce incentives for the world to
develop low-carbon energy sources like solar and wind.
So now we know, increased use of gas does not
lower greenhouse gas emissions. Our elected officials
who eschew the burning of coal yet applaud a proposed
LNG pipeline and terminal are either misinformed,
insincere or both. It is as if they want natural gas to
be the supposed less toxic, “low-tar” cigarette. While
true, less carbon is produced when gas is combusted,
the potent methane leaks destroy any benefits to the
atmosphere. We must reject the lies that we can continue
to burn fossils for energy without wrecking the planet’s
life support systems.
Oregonians have a fierce protective love for our
beautiful, pristine, natural environment. We should and
we can stop this pipeline and export terminal. We will
stop it for everyone who loves the beauty of our state
and we will do it for the well being of all people and
the planet. Our politicians will do the “right” thing if
we make them. So send your emails, click on petitions,
call with a message, attend hearings and testify, explain
things to your friends, then get ready to engage in
peaceful dignified acts of civil disobedience. Only
massive bold social movements can turn the destructive
tides created by the psychotic love of money and power.
I say psychotic because surely it is insane to continue
behaviors that will result in our own mass extinction.
We, the people, often feel that we have no power and
insufficient money to create the world we want to live in,
but together we can and must change the course of our
future. We have before and we can now!
Update: On Nov. 7, the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission concluded that there are limited
environmental and public safety impacts from the
construction and operation of the proposed LNG export
terminal in Coos Bay, and those impacts could be
mitigated to less than significant levels.
Debra McGee is an organizer with 350Eugene.