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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 2, 2015)
3C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2015 State geologists seek money for landslide mapping Oregon works to improve landslide maps By HILLARY BORRUD Capital Bureau SALEM — State geologists say Oregon should do more to map past landslides and areas at risk of slides in the future. They’ve asked for more than COLUMBIA 84 TILLAMOOK MULTNOMAH next two years, and the propos- al gained support from Gov. John In front of disaster State geologists want to provide that type of information before di- saster strikes to land use planners and other decision makers across the state, so they can make more in- formed decisions about future devel- opment proposals and efforts to pro- tect existing structures in landslide hazard areas. “You really shouldn’t do this work after a disaster happens,” said SHERMAN 197 97 CLACKAMAS POLK 101 BENTON 20 LANE 5 DOUGLAS COOS 101 JOSEPHINE CURRY 199 5 Source: Oregon Dept. of Geologly and Mineral Industries Bill Burns, an engineering geologist with the Oregon Department of Ge- ology and Mineral Industries. “You want to do it before ... the idea behind this (proposal) is to try to get in front of these things, not behind them. It’s for us to set up a permanent landslide program.” READING LIST WASCO JEFFERSON LINN LINCOLN GILLIAM 26 MARION JACKSON in the community. The disaster prompted then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski to support better mapping of the area. HOOD RIVER YAMHILL lative session. If geologists can also win over lawmakers, they will be able to expand the use of laser-mapping technology that has already led to highly detailed landslide maps for Astoria, Vernonia, northwest Clacka- mas County and a couple other areas of the state. The technology known as LI- DAR, which uses light pulses from equipment on aircraft to collect topo- graphic data, made a big difference in mapping Vernonia’s landslides. State maps previously did not show any landslides in the community, but with LIDAR the state was able to locate Unfortunately, that information only became available after a series LIDAR* mapped area 5 Vernonia, Ore. Oregon is trying to get a better picture of past landslides, but so far has only mapped a small portion of the state using more accurate, modern technology known as LIDAR. The technology has the potential to vastly improve the state’s map of areas prone to landslides. In Vernonia, LIDAR technology identified more than 600 previous landslides in an area where older state maps had shown none. *Light Detection and Ranging Hillary Borrud and Alan Kenaga/ EO Media Group Unlike with other types of haz- ardous events, property insurance is not available for damages caused by landslides. “So what we see over and over is most people when a landslide occurs, they tend to lose everything,” Burns told lawmakers during a hearing earlier this month. “And one of the biggest investments we make in our lives is a home, and losing all that is just devastating.” Most existing topographic maps and these are usually accurate within ogist Vicki McConnell told lawmak- ers during a December legislative hearing. LIDAR technology maps geologic features with a range of ac- curacy to within a few inches. “It’s like putting your glasses on and really being able to see what’s there,” McConnell said. The Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development has also proposed hiring a new tempo- rary employee to help communities incorporate new landslide data into their land use planning, and the gov- ernor has also signaled his support for that proposal. Landslides are one of the hazards Oregon cities and counties must con- sider in their land use decisions un- der state law, and employees of the DLCD are required to work with lo- cal communities to determine how to respond to new hazard inventories, such as landslide data. More mapping LIDAR technology was not widely available at an affordable said. Since then, state land use and geology employees have been working to improve landslide data and planning on a piecemeal basis, projects. This allowed the Depart- ment of Geology and Mineral In- dustries to develop a methodology to generate landslide maps from LI- DAR data. Oregon has collected LIDAR data state, although the agency has not had the resources to map much of that data. A grant from the Federal Emer- gency Management Agency recent- ly helped the state map and ana- lyze landslide hazards in northwest Clackamas County. In a report completed last year, ge- area were located on large, deep land- slides. Matt Crall, a division manager who works on natural hazards issues for the Department of Land Conser- vation and Development, said the agency is working with Clackamas County to include the new landslide data in its planning process. Similarly, the city of Astoria is also working to update its landslide hazard planning documents, to in- clude the new data. Astoria City Planner Rosemary Johnson said the city has contracted with a geologist to combine state data with the city’s existing information on landslides “It’s still in the early stage,” John- son said. Next up for the Department of Ge- ology and Mineral Industries is Mult- nomah County, for which the agency just received another federal grant to do the same type of work as in Astoria and northwest Clackamas County. Although the agency already mapped landslides in Multnomah County using LIDAR data, geolo- gists have not yet analyzed risk levels or generated maps of land susceptible to future landslides. Burns said this will likely be an 18-month project. If lawmakers fund a permanent landslide hazard program, the state will no longer have to wait for grants to map landslide risk. Burns said the current proposal would allow the state to set its own priority list to map certain communities and key areas such as transportation corridors. Links to specialized magazines and journals Diversifying news Nigel Duara in “The Late Show” in Ore- gon Humanities magazine (Fall/Winter issue) writes: What I can offer is this: as media splinters for longer periods of time. This time, it was Vice News with a live-streaming camera and Argus Streaming News, a news outlet that materialized wholesale at the (Ferguson, Mo.) protests. There was Infowars, the right-wing conspiracy theo- Pulitzer Prize. We’re going to be in these places, with these people, affecting the nature of the news. Our role is absolutely necessary — that’s true. But it’s also true that we are altering the story as we report it, and there’s probably no satisfying solution to this conundrum.http://bit.ly/1xwatnn AP Photo Riedel A protester squirts lighter fluid on a police car as the car windows are shattered near the Ferguson (Mo.) Police De- partment. The unrest erupted after a white police officer shot an unarmed black 18-year-old in suburban St. Louis. In Russia, one is ‘for’ or ‘against’ John Freeman in “Russian Winter” in Opera News, (January) reports: In Russia today one is either “for” or “against.” As always, in any society, the indifferent middle lends its weight to the camp that is “for” thus leading to the astronomical 87 percent approval rate that Putin enjoyed in August. Meanwhile, for their loyal support of Putin’s government, Russian artists can expect to continue receiving perks at home and the occasional metaphorical kick in the pants abroad. http://bit.ly/1HZxIc4 Submissions by Matt Winters and Steve Forrester. Daily Mail Feeling poor? Although feeling sorry for yourself is one of the great comforts of human- kind, when it comes to money we Americans should count our blessings. In the past couple years, different economic analysts have come up with average annual income for individuals worldwide. See tinyurl.com/oovskxj, tinyurl.com/kxgzbv6 and tinyurl. 1 percent in the world as a whole. In million of them lived in the USA. Little will have changed since then. dream for many U.S. citizens in this age of a national minimum wage of year ago, Gallup reported based on different assumptions about who to include and big information gaps for much of the world, where there is no ef- an income, meaning half make more and half make less. An online calculator at CNN (ti- A couple years ago when the pro- tests were going on about unfair wealth distribution, with much anger directed at the richest 1 percent in America, the UK’s Daily Mail pointed out that an your income compares with others around the globe. It rather unrealisti- would place you among wealthiest AP Photo/ Maxim Shipenkov, Pool that much, CNN says your income about equals that of 17 industrious Guatemalan farmers. Conta ct your a dvertising representa tive 503.325.3211 From left, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, Kyrgyz Pres- ident Almazbek Atambayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarba- yev arrive for the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Moscow’s Kremlin, Russia, Dec. 23.