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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2017
Chinese ban on waste imports
Poll: Majority
puts Northwest recycling in limbo oppose state tax
on health care
Too many
contaminants
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
By CASSANDRA
PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Apparently, people in the
United States haven’t been
doing a very good job of sort-
ing trash from recycling — and
the Chinese government has
noticed.
China doesn’t want loads
of paper and plastic waste that
often have contaminants like
dirty diapers inside.
So, the government is crack-
ing down on the shipment of
recyclable material from the
U.S. By the end of the year,
much of the mixed plastic and
paper in recycling bins will be
banned from China.
That leaves companies in
the Northwest without buy-
ers for much of the material
they collect from curbside bins,
which could mean recyclables
will end up in a landfi ll.
Peter Spendelow, natural
resource specialist with the Ore-
gon Department of Environ-
mental Quality, said the loss of
Chinese buyers is a major dis-
ruption in the recycling market.
It’s unclear where all the paper
and plastic will go instead.
“We’ve seen markets go up
and down before, but this is
big,” he said. “When the major
buyer cuts out with almost
no notice — it’s going to be a
struggle for a while. There’s
just no way around it.”
Recycling companies have
warned regulators that they
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
China is concerned about the amount of contaminants in U.S. waste.
may need permission to trash
recyclables while they look for
new buyers.
Some, including Far West
Recycling in Portland, are
slowing down their operations
to more carefully remove gar-
bage to meet China’s new stan-
dards for contamination.
Far West outreach manager
Vinod Singh said he’s most con-
cerned about where his com-
pany is going to send all of its
mixed paper — things like junk
mail, catalogs, small cardboard
boxes and packaging — which
will only increase with the holi-
day season approaching.
“China is by far the big-
gest consumer of mixed paper,”
he said. “They’re the global
consumer.”
There’s already fewer buy-
ers because China is still in the
process of reissuing licenses to
recycling companies. Mean-
while, prices for recyclable
materials are dropping. So,
while Far West is spending
more to sort trash from recycla-
bles it’s also making less on the
materials it’s selling.
“People are starting to get
nervous that we’re putting
things on order that won’t get
there before the ban kicks in,”
he said.
Spendelow said Northwest
recyclers used to sell mixed
paper to local paper mills, but
two of those mills in Oregon
have closed in recent years and
one in Longview, Washington,
stopped taking mixed paper.
Spendelow and Singh both
agreed that people who are
putting materials in their recy-
cling bins can help the cause by
making sure they only put the
approved recyclable items in
their curbside bins.
“The public can’t help
much for fi nding markets for
these materials,” Spendelow
said. “But this is a good time to
really think about what you’re
putting in your bin and make
sure you’re not putting in things
that don’t belong there.”
Things like garden hoses,
plastic bags and Christmas tree
light strings don’t belong in
the curbside recycling bin and
cause major problems at the
sorting facility.
“They get wrapped around
the screens and they clog up the
machinery,” he said. “They just
slow up the process and send
your things on the long road to
the landfi ll instead of the short
road.”
Attorney claims a ‘staggering’
number of Boy Scouts were abused
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
SALEM — Three former
Boy Scouts are suing the Boy
Scouts of America and its Port-
land-area chapter for $21 mil-
lion, alleging it hired a known
pedophile who then sexually
abused them in the 1970s.
One of the attorneys who
fi led the lawsuit said his fi rm
has handled close to 100 sim-
ilar cases against the scouting
organization, and that the num-
ber of victims is “staggering.”
The Boy Scouts of America
knew of thousands of cases of
scout leaders sexually abusing
scouts over decades, attorney
Peter Janci said.
“Following their founding
in the early 1900s, by 1935 the
Boy Scouts had already caught
1,000 scout leaders who had
sexually abused Boy Scouts,”
Janci told The Associated
Press in an email.
“Boy Scout documents
and testimony show that there
were more than 2,000 secret
fi les on pedophile scout lead-
ers created just between 1965
and 1985, and more than
6,000 were created from 1970-
2007,” Janci said. The Boy
Scouts claim to have destroyed
many of the fi les, he added.
The lawsuit against the
Boy Scouts and its local chap-
ter, the Cascade Pacifi c Coun-
cil, says Calvin Malone was
kicked out of scouting after
he had been caught abusing
at least one scout in Califor-
nia in 1970. The suit says that
Malone was hired to be a scout
leader in Portland in 1974.
Internal scout documents
Janci provided show the Boy
Scouts warned the Cascade
Pacifi c Chapter, soon after it
hired Malone in 1974, that he
had provided alcohol to scouts,
but made no mention of sex-
ual abuse. Janci said Malone
has testifi ed that he abused a
scout in California and that the
boy turned him in to the Boy
Scouts. Janci says the Boy
Scouts knew of the abuse and
started a secret fi le on Malone.
The three former Boy
Scouts in Oregon said they
were allegedly sexually
assaulted by Malone in 1974
and 1975 when they were 10
to 13 years old.
After being fi red from the
Boy Scouts in Portland in
1975 — documents show it
was because he had spent more
than $1,000 in scout funds on
himself — the Boy Scouts
allowed Malone to rejoin
scouting in Montana, the law-
yers said. Four men have sued
the Boy Scouts in Montana for
sexual abuse Malone allegedly
perpetrated there.
Malone was convicted of
rape and child molestation in
1993 and is being held in a
special detention facility for
sex offenders in Washington
state.
The Boy Scouts of Amer-
ica said Wednesday it can-
not discuss ongoing litigation.
But Matthew Devore, chief
executive offi cer of the Cas-
cade Pacifi c Council, said in a
statement that “the Boy Scouts
of America is outraged there
have been times when scouts
were abused and we sincerely
apologize to victims and their
families.”
Devore said since these
alleged crimes occurred, the
Boy Scouts have strength-
ened efforts to protect youths,
including screening for adult
leaders and staff, crimi-
nal background checks, and
requiring two or more adult
leaders be present at all times
during scouting activities.
The alleged abuse and cov-
er-ups recall scandals hitting
the Catholic Church for shel-
tering pedophile priests, Janci
said.
“We don’t know the num-
ber of victims, but we know
that there were thousands
of perpetrators,” Janci said.
“There were likely exponen-
tially more pedophiles who
were not reported.”
SALEM — Most Ore-
gonians oppose a proposed
$600 million tax on health
insurance policy premiums
to fund the state’s Medicaid
program, according to a sur-
vey by icitizen.
About 58 percent of 645
respondents surveyed online
by the Nashville pollster
said they oppose the tax,
while 35 percent support
it. Icitizen did not verify
whether respondents were
registered voters, only that
they were Oregon residents.
Three Republican state
lawmakers want to refer
parts of the law — which
raises a variety of revenues
to help the state pay for the
Oregon Health Plan, the
state’s version of Medicaid.
“We have not done any
polling so I have nothing to
compare it to, but I would
say it is consistent with
feedback we have received
from folks who signed the
petition,” said state Rep.
Julie Parrish, R-West Linn,
who spearheaded a petition
for the referral.
Petitioners must gather
nearly 59,000 signatures by
today to place the referral
on the ballot for a January
special election.
‘Connect some dots’
The
survey
asked
respondents: “There is an
effort to refer Oregon voters
a new, nearly $600 million
tax on health insurance pol-
icy premiums. The money is
intended to cover the costs
of the Oregon Health Plan,
the state’s Medicaid pro-
gram. Would you support
this new tax on health insur-
ance premiums?”
Parrish said the repeal
represents only $380 mil-
lion out of the $600 million
tax. “We’re not referring the
entire thing,” she said.
Petitioners, who include
Parrish and Republican state
Reps. Sal Esquivel of Med-
ford and Cedric Hayden of
Roseburg, want to repeal a
0.7 percent tax on hospitals
and providers.
Other sections of the law
they want to refer to vot-
ers are taxes on insurers,
the Public Employees Ben-
efi ts Board and coordinated
care organizations, the
regional provider networks
for Medicaid patients. They
also want to stop a provi-
sion of the law that allows
insurers to increase premi-
ums by up to 1.5 percent to
recover costs of the insurer
assessment.
Patty Wentz, spokesper-
son for the Oregon Health
Care Coalition, said the
poll appears to be timed to
achieve a political end.
“Let’s connect some
dots. You have a push
poll with wildly inaccu-
rate information released a
few days before signature
turn-in by a political opera-
tive who has been supported
by the same extreme right-
wing groups as the chief
petitioner, such as the Ore-
gon Firearms Federation,”
Wentz said. “This is a cyn-
ical political ploy with no
relevance to reality, to the
actual referendum, and
what’s at stake for the one
million Oregonians who
count on the Oregon Health
Plan and the more than
210,000 people whose pre-
miums will increase if the
referendum doesn’t pass.
Oregonians who want accu-
rate information should read
the ballot title and the fi scal
impact estimate that were
created through a bi parti-
san public process and are
posted online.”
Division on DACA
Respondents, who were
registered users of icitizen,
fi lled out the online survey
online between Sept. 13
and Sept. 28. The responses
were weighted to c ensus
benchmarks for gender, age,
race, education, region and
party identifi cation in the
state. The margin of error
is 3.9 percentage points
for the full sample of 645
respondents.
The survey also gauged
Oregonians’ views on other
state policies.
A new law expand-
ing coverage of reproduc-
tive health care, including
abortion, to people of all
incomes, U.S. citizenship
status and gender identity
garnered 49 percent support
and 50 percent opposition.
Respondents also were
almost evenly split over a
new law to reduce criminal
penalties for possession of
heroin, cocaine and meth-
amphetamine from a felony
to a misdemeanor.
A majority of respon-
dents, 54 percent, oppose
sanctuary cities, which pro-
hibit police from profi ling
immigrants and from assist-
ing federal authorities in
enforcing federal immigra-
tion law.
More than half of respon-
dents, 51 percent, support
ending the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals. The
program allows undocu-
mented youth brought to
the country as children to
legally work and attend
school here.
Capital Bureau reporter
Claire Withycombe contrib-
uted to this report .
Judge won’t release Iraq War veteran fi ghting deportation
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
SEATTLE — An immi-
gration judge in Washing-
ton state declined to release
an Iraq War veteran from
custody Wednesday while
he fi ghts the government’s
efforts to deport him.
Chong Kim, a South
Korean immigrant and green
card holder from Portland,
struggled with drug addic-
tion, homelessness and
post-traumatic stress follow-
ing his time in Iraq in 2009
and 2010, leading to convic-
Clatsop Post 12
Baked Chicken
Dinner
tions for burglary and other
charges.
Kim’s lawyer and friends
have said he has done well
since completing a substance
abuse treatment program run
by the Department of Veter-
ans Affairs early this year.
But immigration agents
arrested him in April and
brought him to a detention
center in Tacoma, Washing-
ton. They plan to deport him
because of his convictions.
“It’s just wrong to be
deporting an Army veteran,”
said Matt Luce, 41, of Trout-
dale, who attended high
school with Kim and traveled
with three other former class-
mates to the hearing Wednes-
day. “Despite his convictions,
he was on and continues to be
on the right path. This is just a
travesty of justice.”
Kim’s attorney, Tim War-
den-Hertz of the Northwest
Immigrant Rights Project,
said that Immigration Judge
Theresa Scala found that the
government met its burden to
show that Kim posed a danger
to the public or a risk of fl ight,
though he said she did not
explain her rationale in court.
Warden-Hertz planned to
vappeal the decision, which
he said illustrates the diffi -
culty of obtaining bond in
the immigration detention
system.
U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement did not
immediately respond to an
emailed request for comment
Wednesday.
In an earlier statement, the
agency said Kim had been
arrested after “it was deter-
mined he has a prior felony
conviction in Multnomah
County for attempt to com-
mit arson in the fi rst degree,
among other charges.”
ORGAN CONCERT
Saturday, October 7
4:00 pm
with Rice Pilaf, Veggies,
Salad and Bread
First Lutheran Church, 725 33rd Street, Astoria
Friday
Oct. 6 th
performed by Paul Tegels
4 pm until gone
$
8. 00
6PM
“Karaoke Dave”
ASTORIA
AMERICAN LEGION
Clatsop Post 12
1132 Exchange Street
325-5771
of Pacific Lutheran University
A free-will offering will be taken.
Kim joined the National
Guard in 2005 and served in
Iraq in 2009 and 2010 before
being honorably discharged.
He came to the U.S. more
than 35 years ago, at age 5,
and he became a legal perma-
nent resident in 1981. He does
not speak Korean, his friends
have said.