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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2016
Families reach $60 million in landslide settlements
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Family members of victims of the Oso landslide, including
Dayn Brunner, left, and Seth Jefferds, right, react in King
County Superior Court, Monday in Seattle, after the an-
nouncement that a settlement had been reached in a lawsuit
brought by survivors and family members of people killed in
the slide against the state of Washington and a timber com-
pany that logged an area above the site of the slide.
SEATTLE — Survivors
and family members of peo-
ple killed in the nation’s dead-
liest landslide have reached
$60 million in settlements with
the state of Washington and a
timber company that logged
an area above the site of the
collapse.
Just as opening statements
were due to begin in a Seattle
courtroom Monday, Grandy
Lake Forest Associates agreed
to settle liability claims for $10
million. The announcement
came just after the state on Sun-
day reached a $50 million deal
with the plaintiffs.
The slide on March 22,
2014, killed 43 people when
it wiped out a rural neighbor-
hood in Oso, northeast of Seat-
tle. Survivors and relatives of
the victims alleged that logging
above the slide and construc-
tion of a retaining wall along
a bank where the Stillagua-
mish River undercut the hill
increased the danger, and resi-
dents were never warned about
it.
Pam Sanford, whose brother
was killed, called it a “huge
relief” that she wouldn’t have
to sit through the trial, which
had been expected to last nearly
four months.
“Reliving those details is
something I am done doing,”
she said.
The plaintiffs illed sev-
eral pews in a courtroom in
King County Superior Court on
Monday. Judge Roger Rogoff
told them that while no legal
proceedings could bring the
victims back, “I hope the set-
tlement you’ve reached in this
case can bring you some mea-
sure of closure.”
Some of the plaintiffs
dabbed tears from their eyes.
Dayn Brunner’s sister, Sum-
mer Raffo, was buried and
killed as she was driving to
work along State Route 530.
When her body was found ive
days later, her hands were still
gripping the wheel.
Some of the money from the
settlement will go toward a per-
manent memorial at the site of
the slide, he said.
“My No. 1 priority was to
ensure my sister’s legacy lived
on,” Brunner said. “Today was
an afirmation of that.”
Later Monday, Rogoff
ordered the state to pay more
than $1.1 million because its
expert witnesses in the litiga-
tion were deleting emails that
should have been preserved.
Rogoff ordered the state
to pay more than $394,000 in
costs and attorney fees due to
the deleted emails and to pay
nearly $789,000 in punitive
damages.
Washington
Attorney
General Bob Ferguson has
acknowledged one of his law-
yers knew for the past year and
a half that experts hired by the
state to determine the cause of
the 2014 slide were deleting
emails among themselves.
While the settlements largely
end the case as far as the state
and timber company are con-
cerned, some issues remained.
Snohomish County had
been a defendant before being
dismissed by the judge. The
plaintiffs are appealing that
decision, arguing that the
county was also liable.
Animal rescue becomes baby beaver believers
By JORDAN NAILON
The Chronicle
CENTRALIA, Wash. —
One might think there would
be an inherent empty nest syn-
drome that sets in after your
one and only bald eagle lies
the coop.
Luckily for Claudia Supen-
sky at For Heavens Sake Ani-
mal Rescue and Rehabilitation
in Rochester, she’s got Bar-
klee the beaver around to keep
her spirits up, reported The
Chronicle.
Supensky released America
the eagle back into the wild. The
well-attended event marked the
culmination of a miraculous
seventh-month recovery from
a broken wing. At irst, it was
thought that America would
never ly again.
Supensky, though, never
gave up hope on the majestic
bird and patiently nurtured the
eagle back to health.
Supensky insists she was
not sad to see America ly off
across spacious skies and over
amber waves of grain, since the
whole point of rehabilitation is
to return wild animals to their
natural existence.
Still, having a bucktoothed
baby beaver around the house
hasn’t hurt at all either.
tub and back around again.
Whenever the strip would rip,
Barklee would simply return to
the roll and grab another sheet
and restart the process.
“When I saw her doing it I
said ‘just let her do it. It’s enter-
taining her, and me, and it’s not
hurting anything,”’ said Supen-
sky, who claims there is a video
of the interior decorating effort
loating around somewhere.
A wee baby
Barklee was discovered in
the spring by children play-
ing on a wooded trail in Gra-
ham. Back then, she was just a
wee little baby beaver. Beavers
have strong family ties, and the
mysterious separation from her
family unit was a bad omen for
young Barklee, so the decision
was made to ind her a rescue
facility.
“There was nothing wrong
with her at all. She was just a
baby that still should have been
with her mother,” said Supen-
sky, who noted that the process
of rearing and reintroducing
a beaver to the wild will take
between two and three years.
“It’s very labor intensive to
raise a baby beaver.”
Supensky has now assumed
the unlikely role of beaver den
mother.
Moving outside
Pete Caster/The Chronicle
Barklee the beaver takes a swim in his pool inside an en-
closure at For Heaven’s Sake Animal Rescue and Rehabil-
itation in Rochester, Wash.
For the irst few months, she
had to bottle-feed Barklee, and
the baby beaver lived inside the
house in the bathroom. Using
the bathtub as her pond, she
would take branch and leaf
clippings and ill all of the crev-
ices around the tub in an effort
to outit her new home and to
keep the water from draining
away.
Supensky said it was
uncanny to see such a strong
set of natural instincts emerge
from a beaver bound to a
bathroom.
Once, much to Claudia’s
delight, Barklee discovered
how to work a roll of toilet
paper from the wall and pro-
ceeded to pull the two-ply
sheets off in a single strand,
weaving it in between the gaps
between the toilet and the bath-
BELLINGHAM, Wash. —
Michael Schneider of Lummi
Island is lean and tanned, with
white hair, a short white beard,
and an intelligent face.
Not the sort of person you’d
expect to see thumbing a ride,
but the kind of person you
might decide to drive to his next
destination.
The 72-year-old retired
teacher has become a Johnny
Appleseed of the beneits of
hitchhiking. He considers
ride-sharing a commonsense
way to help the environment
that has been discouraged by a
culture of fear.
“I’m the only guy out there,”
he said. “You can drive from
New York to San Francisco and
not see a hitchhiker.”
A native of the Midwest,
Schneider taught math and
drama in New York and Col-
orado, then lived in Oregon
before moving to Whatcom
County nearly a decade ago.
As a teen, he hitched through
Europe, a common diversion for
young people. But unlike most
thumbers, he has continued to
hitchhike, reported the Belling-
ham Herald.
While living near Denver,
Schneider sometimes hitched
more than 40 miles to his teach-
ing job. His topcoat and brief-
case apparently did the trick; he
was never late for work.
When he lived in Bend, he
hitched to promote his idea of
a membership-based ride-shar-
ing program, akin to a nonproit
Uber for hitchhikers. His plan
didn’t take hold, but ride-shar-
ing programs have surfaced
elsewhere in the country.
Seeing the country
In recent years, Schnei-
der has traveled to distant parts
of the country, then hitchhiked
to explore the local history
and scenery, and to meet local
residents.
“It’s a unique way to see the
country,” he said.
He traveled to western Wis-
consin four years ago, then
hitched south to Postville, a
small town in northeast Iowa.
The reason? Schneider had
enjoyed a book, “Postville: A
Clash of Cultures in Heartland
America,” about the town’s
response in the 1980s when
members of an orthodox Jewish
sect opened a kosher slaughter-
house nearby.
The following year he lew
to Kansas City, Missouri, and
hitched west to Lawrence, Kan-
sas, to meet a woman who was
trying to start a ride-sharing pro-
gram, then thumbed his way to
Denver.
In 2014, he lew to Atlanta
and hitched through Tennes-
see, Alabama, Mississippi and
Louisiana.
“Southerners know that
Northerners are afraid of them,”
Schneider said, “and they can’t
igure it out because they know
they’re nicer than us.”
In September he traveled
to Knoxville, Tennessee, and
hitched through Kentucky coal
country before lying home
from Cincinnati.
“I spent eight days just
moseying,” he said.
Again, a book contributed
to his choice of destination.
Schneider had read “Storming
Heaven,” a novel based on the
real-life “Battle of Blair Moun-
tain” in 1921, when 10,000 coal
miners clashed with 3,000 coal
company supporters and law
oficers. Their weeklong battle,
including biplanes that dropped
bombs, left dozens dead.
In Benham, Kentucky,
Schneider visited the Kentucky
Coal Mining Museum, where
a loor of exhibits showcases
Loretta Lynn, who grew up in
nearby Butcher Hollow and
who started her family and sing-
ing career in Whatcom County.
He was struck by Kentucki-
ans’ friendliness and determina-
tion while living in an economi-
Beaver hijinks
Despite the bucktoothed
tribulations, the Supenskys say
they are enjoying having Bar-
klee around, especially for her
special brand of hijinks.
As it turns out, Barklee is a
big fan of stuffed animals. Back
when she was a house beaver,
she escaped her bathroom den
and found a giant bag of stuffed
animals in an adjoining room
and brought them back to the
washroom for a beaver den tea
party of sorts.
“She took that whole zip-
per bag and pulled it back to the
bathroom and then took every
one of them out one by one and
made them hers,” said Claudia
Supensky. “She’s just a hoot!”
State Supreme Court
rules police can’t
inspect packages
Retired math teacher
offers 10 cents a mile
when hitchhiking
By DEAN KAHN
Bellingham Herald
Recently, Barklee started the
transition from the conines of
the house to a beaver-friendly
enclosure outside. After all, For
Heaven’s Sake wants to keep
her as wild as possible in order
to one day release her back into
the great outdoors. Eventually,
the hope is to be able to build
her a full size pond for her to
indulge all of her beaverness.
Early on though, the transition
has been a bit rocky.
“She’s enjoying it part of
the time and the other half
she wants to come back in the
house,” said Claudia Supensky.
The irst night that Barklee
stayed in an enclosure outside,
she chewed a basketball-sized
hole through the 1-inch thick
cedar boards. Luckily, the hole
led only to another chamber of
the building, but Barklee was
eagerly awaiting Claudia’s hus-
band, David Supensky, when
he opened the door for morn-
ing chores.
Associated Press
Philip A. Dwyer/The Bellingham Herald
Michael Schneider, a Lummi Island resident who hitch-
hikes all over the country with a pay-as-he-rides offer to
drivers, poses in Bellingham, Wash. notforsale
cally depressed region.
“There’s a combination of
palpable despair, and also gener-
osity,” he said.
Offers to pay
To increase his odds of get-
ting a ride, and to show his
appreciation for drivers who
stop, Schneider travels with a
sign saying he will pay 10 cents
a mile. Most drivers decline his
offer. Others mistakenly think
he’s asking for help and offer
him money or food.
“The poorer they are, the less
likely they’ll take your money,”
he said.
Schneider says hitchhiking
is safer than people think, espe-
cially with stronger laws against
drunken driving.
He likes to share his story
about hitching from Klamath
Falls, Oregon, to Bend the day
after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
A middle-age woman in an
old Datsun who gave him a
ride asked why he was hitch-
hiking. He answered, in part,
“It’s my way of ighting fear in
America.”
Schneider does follow com-
mon-sense safety practices. He
declines an offer of a ride if the
situation doesn’t feel right, and
he doesn’t hitch at night.
“If I hit a town that’s got a
motel and it’s 4 o’clock, that’s
where I stay,” he said.
PORTLAND — The Ore-
gon Supreme Court has ruled
that a common practice of
police pulling packages from
the mail stream to investigate
them for drugs is unlawful.
On Thursday the court
ruled that Portland police and
U.S. postal inspectors don’t
have the right to lag pack-
ages without a warrant, The
Oregonian reports.
The ruling comes in the
case of Max Barnthouse,
who was 26 in February
2012 when Portland police
and a U.S. postal inspec-
tor set aside a package for
him at the Portland Interna-
tional Airport postal cargo
center. Investigators had a
drug-snifing dog smell the
package and found there was
something of interest in it.
Police then showed up at
Barnthouse’s home in Port-
land’s Belmont neighbor-
hood with the package and
the urgent request to open it
and to search Barnthouse’s
bedroom. Barnthouse con-
sented to both searches, and
police found marijuana and
cash inside the package.
Barnthouse’s attorneys
argue police violated Barnt-
house’s right to be free of
unlawful search and seizure.
Police said the procedures
used in Barnthouse’s case
were typical. On a given day,
they usually pull about 30 to
40 suspicious-looking pack-
ages from the postal cargo
center and walk a drug dog
by them for a “sniff test.”
The dog is correct about 90
percent of the time, an ofi-
cer testiied.
The court ruled the inves-
tigators did not have cause to
pull the package in the irst
place and that they needed a
warrant to do so.
Barnthouse’s
attorney,
Stephen Houze, applauded
Thursday’s ruling, noting
this is the irst time the high
court has ruled on the prac-
tice of police and postal
inspectors pulling aside mail
without warrants.
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