7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2018
WORLD IN BRIEF
Eric Huff was heading to the Grand Canyon
with his girlfriend when they came across the
crash. The semi’s trailer was upside down and
“shredded to pieces,” and the front of the Grey-
hound bus was smashed, he said, with many of
the seats pressed together. Part of the side of the
bus was torn off, he said.
Associated Press
At least 7 die as
Greyhound bus,
semitrailer collide
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A blown tire
on a semitrailer may be to blame for a deadly
head-on crash with a commercial passenger bus
along Interstate 40 in New Mexico near the Ari-
zona border, according to authorities.
At least seven people were killed, and many
of the 49 passengers aboard the Greyhound bus
were injured.
New Mexico State Police said the semi was
headed east on the freeway Thursday afternoon
when one of its tires blew, sending the rig carry-
ing produce across the median and into oncom-
ing traffic, where it slammed into the Grey-
hound heading to Phoenix from Albuquerque.
The National Transportation Safety Board
and New Mexico state police are investigating.
Passing motorists described a chaotic scene
with passengers on the ground and people
screaming.
Trump cancels pay
raise for federal workers
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump
is canceling pay raises due in January for most
civilian federal employees, he informed Con-
gress on Thursday, citing budget constraints.
But the workers still could see a slightly smaller
boost in their pay under a proposal lawmakers
are considering.
Trump said he was nixing a 2.1 percent
across-the-board raise for most workers, as well
as separate locality pay increases averaging
25.7 percent.
“We must maintain efforts to put our Nation
on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal
agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,”
Trump said. The president last year signed a
package of tax cuts that is forecast to add about
$1.5 trillion to federal deficits over 10 years.
As workers across the country head into the
Labor Day weekend, Trump cited the “signifi-
cant” cost of the federal workforce, and called
for their pay to be based on performance and
designed to recruit, retain and reward “high-per-
forming Federal employees and those with crit-
ical skill sets.”
Democrats criticized Trump for moving to
cancel the scheduled pay raise, citing tax cuts
he signed into law last December. That law pro-
vided steep tax cuts for corporations and the
wealthiest Americans, and more modest reduc-
tions for middle- and low-income individuals
and families.
Canadian court halts
Pacific pipeline project
TORONTO — Canada’s Federal Court
of Appeal on Thursday halted the conten-
tious Trans Mountain pipeline expansion that
would nearly triple the flow of oil from the
Alberta oil sands to the Pacific Coast — a set-
back that comes just as the government is buy-
ing the project.
The court ordered the country’s National
Energy Board to redo its review of the pipeline,
saying the original study was flawed and lacked
adequate consultations with First Nations
peoples.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government
approved Trans Mountain in 2016 and was so
determined to see it built that it announced plans
this spring to buy the pipeline. The sale will be
finalized as early as today.
It faces stiff environmental opposition from
British Columbia’s provincial government and
activists. Houston-based Kinder Morgan earlier
halted essential spending on the project and said
it would cancel it altogether if the national and
provincial governments could not guarantee it.
In a written decision, the court said the
energy board’s review was so flawed that the
federal government could not rely on it to
approve the pipeline. The court concluded the
federal government failed in its duty to engage
in meaningful consultations with First Nations
before approving it.
“Meaningful consultation is not intended
simply to allow indigenous peoples “to blow off
steam,” the decision said.
Clinic: ‘We definitely want the support of the community’
Continued from Page 1A
Clatsop Behavioral Health-
care and Columbia Memorial
Hospital have partnered since
June on a treatment option at
a Warrenton clinic that com-
bines behavioral counsel-
ing with Suboxone, a drug
used to help lessen the crav-
ings for heroin or prescription
opioids.
Methadone is more addic-
tive, and more likely to be
abused, than Suboxone, which
is why doses are mostly given
daily at methadone clinics
instead of prescribed once or
twice a week for people to
take at home.
Even as opioid abuse has
reached epidemic propor-
tions in the United States, the
image of drug addicts lining
up at a methadone clinic every
day is too much for some
communities.
“We definitely want the
support of the community,
as much of it as we can get,”
Ford said. “And we realize
we’re not going to get all of
it.”
Pamplin Media Group
A methadone clinic could offer treatment for opioid addic-
tion in Clatsop County.
Substitution treatment
Warrenton Mayor Henry
Balensifer does not want a
methadone clinic in Warrenton.
The city is already home to
the Suboxone clinic and the cri-
sis respite center, which helps
people in mental health crisis.
The mayor believes a metha-
done clinic would place another
layer of stress on police.
Balensifer also has ideo-
logical objections to substitu-
tion treatment — replacing her-
oin or prescription opioids with
methadone, with no time limit
on a cure.
“I think that if we’re going
to invest money into getting
people help, then it should be
to get them out of addiction,”
he said. “And methadone has
got a pretty bad reputation over
the years, and it earned that
reputation.
“So I’m not excited to bring
additional potential problems to
the city.”
Balensifer said if the idea is
“simply risk reduction, we’re
not doing anybody a favor other
than subsidizing someone’s
drug habit in a cleaner manner.”
Astoria Mayor Arline
LaMear said drug treatment
options are worth pursuing,
but she does not know the best
place for a methadone clinic.
She noted that Helping Hands,
a Seaside-based nonprofit that
works with people who are
homeless or struggling with
drug and alcohol abuse, chose
a former Uniontown boarding
house for a new facility because
it is closer to other social ser-
vices in Astoria.
“But I don’t know that cit-
izens are going to be thrilled
about having it here in Astoria,
either,” she said.
Sheriff Tom Bergin and Dis-
trict Attorney Josh Marquis
were skeptical last year about
the county’s needle-exchange
program, but they agreed not
to try to block approval. Needle
exchanges and methadone clin-
ics are practical approaches that
treat drug addiction as a dis-
ease, yet can be in conflict with
the zero-tolerance view of ille-
gal drug use often expected of
law enforcement.
Drug abuse, and the lack of
treatment available locally for
people on the Oregon Health
Plan, is intertwined with crime
and contributes to overcrowd-
ing at the county jail.
“I’m for treatment as long as
we can get people back on the
track of being, I guess, produc-
tive citizens in our community.
And if that’s what it takes, then
fine,” Bergin said of a metha-
done clinic. “I’m not a big fan
of methadone unless it’s some-
thing that can be utilized to
wean people off the addiction.
I know it’s a long, hard process,
but it needs to be done, it’s not
something that should be just
maintained.
“I think there needs to be
goals involved with that type
of treatment. In other words,
you need to reach milestones.
And they need to be reached
methodically and clearly.”
Marquis said CODA, which
will likely run the methadone
clinic, has an impressive repu-
tation. The provider, which has
been involved in methadone
treatment for decades, has par-
ticipated in national research on
addiction and recovery.
“I am supportive of it,” the
district attorney said, “because I
think it’s unrealistic, when people
are in addiction, to expect that the
only alternative is abstinence.”
Round trips
Round trips from the North
Coast to the Portland metro
area, and in some cases, Salem,
for methadone can be disruptive
for people trying to shake drug
addiction. Spending eight times
more money on travel than
treatment is also unsustainable
for the Oregon Health Plan, the
state’s version of Medicaid.
Geographically,
Clat-
sop County is in the mid-
dle of the three counties under
the umbrella of the Columbia
Pacific Coordinated Care Orga-
nization. Ford said adminis-
trators are looking at locations
from Astoria to Seaside for
the methadone clinic, with an
eye toward property that offers
some sense of privacy.
“We’re serious about doing
it,” she said, “because we think
it’s a really important addi-
tion to the addictions treatment
ecosystem.”
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