Eugene weekly., October 21, 2021, Page 6, Image 6

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IF YOU HAVE BEEN
Human Rights Commission
THE TARGET OF BIAS
Missing the Mark
(OR HAVE WITNESSED OR HEARD
ABOUT A BIAS-RELATED INCIDENT),
PLEASE REPORT
THE INCIDENT.
BEYOND TOXICS SAYS OREGON DEQ’S
CLIMATE PROTECTION PROGRAM ISN’T ENOUGH
TO PROTECT VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES
By Cole Sinanian
STOP THE HATE
ACTS OF INTIMIDATION TOWARDS PEOPLE DUE TO
THEIR RACE, HOUSING STATUS, ETHNICITY, RELIGION, GENDER,
SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND ABILITY ARE BIAS CRIMES
IN THE SECOND DEGREE IN THE CITY OF EUGENE
CALL 541-682-5177 OR REPORT ONLINE AT
WWW.EUGENE-OR.GOV/REPORTHATE
FAMILY SPONSORED OBITUARY
D aviD M ichael G reenfielD
1955 - 2021
David Michael Greenfield died on September 5, 2021 at the age of
66 from a bacterial infection and heart attack. He was born in Newark,
New Jersey on May 7,1955 to Minnie and Arthur Greenfield. He married
Paulette Richards on June 30, 1984 on their property in the foothills of
the coast range in the Fern Ridge area.
David moved to Eugene in the late 1970s where he met Paulette while
they both worked for the Forest Service in Oakridge. He was a tree
planter and a commercial fisherman before starting his own business as
Greenfield’s Tree Service. Later he was a flagsman for Westate Flagging.
He loved sailing at Fern Ridge Lake and traveling to eastern Oregon
and the tropics of Mexico, Central America, Belize, and Costa Rica. He
moved to the Big Island of Hawaii in October 2017 and lived in a 30’ yurt
off grid with his wife.
Throughout his entire life he had a
passion for music, playing guitar since he
was 12 years old. He had a beautiful
voice and loved harmonizing with
others. In Eugene he formed
a band called The Usual
Suspects and played in many
other bands in the Eugene
area and at the Saturday
Market. In Hawaii he played
at the Black Rock Cafe and
regularly at Music Monday
and Sunday Nights at the
roundhouse in Pahoa.
He is survived by a brother
Steven from Irvington, New
Jersey and his wife Paulette
and their dog Lucy of Keaau,
Hawaii.
6
O C T O B E R
2 1 ,
2 0 2 1
E
ugene-based environmental advocacy group Beyond Toxics is criticizing
the Department of Environmental Quality for the program’s weak
stance on certain industrial polluters, such as those in Lane County,
and its failure to fully address the state’s climate crisis, particularly in
vulnerable communities.
As currently drafted, the program’s emissions caps will not directly
affect some of Lane County’s largest industrial polluters because their
greenhouse gas emissions fall below its minimum level for regulation.
“It’s very narrow in scope,” says Beyond Toxics’ Climate Action Plan and Policy
Manager Grace Brahler of the Climate Protection Program. “The cap that is placed on
certain polluters does not follow a reduction aggressive enough to meet our climate
and equity needs for the state.”
The program, slated to take effect in 2022, aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
statewide in compliance with Gov. Kate Brown’s Executive Order 20-04, which directs
the state to reduce carbon emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
However, it does not address toxic co-pollutants — substances that don’t necessarily
contribute to climate change but can still cause health problems and environmental harm.
Studies conducted by Beyond Toxics have found chemicals like creosote, formaldehyde
and ammonia in emissions from industrial plants in west Eugene, where residents have
long complained of foul odors, polluted waterways and troubling health problems.
“Even while we're ratcheting down greenhouse gas emissions, we have to also do
more to bring down the amount of toxic co-pollutants that these facilities emit,” says
Beyond Toxics’ Executive Director Lisa Arkin.
Some of the exempt facilities in west Eugene that have been linked to these co-
pollutants include Seneca Sustainable Energy — a wood-fired biomass plant that
supplies electricity to EWEB — and J.H. Baxter — a wood-treatment facility that was
recently fined by the DEQ for hazardous waste violations and has been accused of
causing cancer in the surrounding community.
Carol Lafon has lived for seven years off of Roosevelt Boulevard in west Eugene,
about a mile from the J.H. Baxter facility. While she says the air quality has improved
since she first arrived, she’ll often wake up early in the morning to a broccoli-like smell
that permeates her neighborhood.
She says that during her first few years in the area, the acrid smell of creosote,
a by-product of wood-burning linked to asthma and other respiratory conditions,
frequently hung in her neighborhood’s air. She says she once stumbled onto a soccer
field near J.H. Baxter littered with dead, mummified frogs, and that she lost two of her
dogs within months of each other to a rare blood cancer that she believes is linked to
pollutants released by the facility.
“We really have to come down on the repeat offenders,” she says. “Either shut
them all the way down because they just can’t behave themselves, or force them to be
responsible. Because they’re really wrecking this whole area.”
Beyond Toxics has also drawn attention to the relatively short list of polluters directly
covered by the proposed program’s emissions caps. It targets 13 of Oregon’s largest
stationary polluters — none in Lane County — and 16 fossil fuel supply companies
operating in the state, but it exempts significant sources of greenhouse gases and
does not set specific reduction goals for the stationary polluters that are covered.
While fuel suppliers would be subject to a declining emissions cap that the DEQ
would set each year, each of the 13 stationary polluters covered by the program would
be required to come up with their own plans for reducing emissions, which they’d then
submit to the DEQ for approval.
“These are sectors and industries that are so different amongst one another in
terms of their processes and what’s resulting in emissions, that it really needs a more
hands-on approach,” says DEQ Climate Policy Analyst Lauren Slawsky.
Theoretically, facilities exempt from the program could be affected if they buy fuel
from one of the covered suppliers, she says. “Ultimately, any fuel users in the state
could be indirectly impacted by this regulation,” Slawsky continues. “As long as they're
using fuel and the fuel is regulated.”
But Brahler is skeptical as to whether or not requiring the handful of companies listed in
the program to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions will actually benefit the communities
most affected by pollution.
“There needs to be a way to measure whether or not this program is promoting clean and
healthy communities,” she says. “But right now, there’s a lack of any real assurance that these
benefits will actually reach communities disproportionately impacted by climate pollution.” ■
The Climate Protection Program is still in its rulemaking phase and is open for public comment until Oct. 25.
The DEQ’s Office of Greenhouse Gas Emissions will then review the comments, before sending the proposal
to the Environmental Quality Commission for approval.
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M