A3
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2019
Research suggests solar
energy and agriculture
can work together
By JES BURNS
Oregon Public
Broadcasting
Tom Banse/Northwest News Network
Rail cars stopped on tracks near Union Station in Portland.
Northwest train service plans still
uncertain after 2017 derailment
Diffi culty fi nding
better rail cars
‘... EVERYBODY IS WORKING
IN A GOOD FAITH EFFORT TO GET
BACK ON THE BYPASS AND BACK
TO THAT ENHANCED SERVICE
AS SOON AS WE POSSIBLY CAN.’
By TOM BANSE
Northwest News Network
A holiday wish of many
Pacifi c Northwest rail fans
is more roundtrips on the
Amtrak Cascades schedule
with greater speed and reli-
ability. But in order to beef up
train service between Seattle
and Portland, a bypass route
south of Tacoma needs to be
reopened. There is still no
fi xed date to return Amtrak
trains to those tracks where a
deadly derailment happened
just over two years ago.
“There are a lot of vari-
ables that need to come home
to roost,” Washington State
Secretary of Transporta-
tion Roger Millar told public
radio in an interview. “Right
now, I don’t have a precise
schedule. But everybody is
working in a good faith effort
to get back on the bypass and
back to that enhanced service
as soon as we possibly can.”
The DuPont, Washing-
ton, derailment happened on
what was to be the fi rst day
of more frequent Amtrak
service between Seattle
and Portland. Washington
state was all set to subsidize
six daily roundtrips — up
from four — using the new,
faster bypass route between
Tacoma and Nisqually.
The expanded and then
retracted Amtrak Cascades
schedule of late 2017 would
have had trains leaving both
Seattle and Portland every
two to three hours throughout
the day. The inland bypass
route has to be reopened to
add roundtrips because of
freight rail congestion on the
waterside BNSF mainline.
At this rate, it will be
spring at the earliest before
motorists see Amtrak trains
speeding alongside Inter-
state 5 south of Tacoma. This
month, the rail advocacy
group All Aboard Washing-
ton telegraphed impatience
with the delays and said the
bypass route should be reac-
tivated as soon as possible.
“We believe that further
postponing Cascades ser-
vice on the Point Defi ance
Bypass — for which we
Roger Millar | Washington state’s secretary of transportation
have already paid $181 mil-
lion — is detrimental to the
interests of the Puget Sound
region, the Pacifi c Northwest
and the traveling public as a
whole,” All Aboard Wash-
ington’s leadership wrote in
a blog post. “The taxpay-
ers of Washington state have
invested a signifi cant sum of
money to improve a useful
service along a busy corridor.
Let’s make that improved
service a reality without
delay.”
This summer, the Pierce
County Council and Lake-
wood City Council voted
unanimously to oppose
resumption of fast rail ser-
vice on the Point Defi -
ance Bypass until all 26
safety improvements rec-
ommended in a National
Transportation Safety Board
crash investigation report
are made. One of the hardest
recommendations to achieve
is to acquire replacement rail
cars that meet tougher crash-
worthiness standards.
On that point, Amtrak
and train car maker Talgo
recently moved three bare-
ly-used train sets out of stor-
age in Indiana to a mainte-
nance facility in Milwaukee
in preparation to bring them
to the Pacifi c Northwest next
year. Talgo insists its older
train cars are crashworthy,
but is supplying its newer
Series 8 model.
“Some of those enhance-
ments include PTC (posi-
tive train control) and fea-
tures to align with the service
provided in the Amtrak Cas-
cades corridor,” wrote Talgo
VP for Public Affairs &
Business Development Nora
Friend in an email confi rm-
ing the refurbishment plans.
Another variable affect-
ing enhancement of regional
train service is the cau-
tious stance of Sound Tran-
sit, which owns the bypass
line tracks. The agency is
revamping safety protocols
in the wake of two investiga-
tions this year that said fail-
ures by Sound Transit con-
tributed to the December
2017 Amtrak derailment,
which killed three people
and injured more than 60.
“Before Sound Tran-
sit allows Amtrak to resume
Cascades service on the
Point Defi ance Bypass, we
will verify that all necessary
changes have been made to
correct identifi ed defi cien-
cies,” Sound Transit CEO
Peter Rogoff wrote in a
memo to his board, obtained
by public radio. “We will not
assume, but rather rigorously
verify, that Amtrak’s person-
nel training and testing pro-
grams for operation are more
than suffi cient.”
Rogoff listed upgrades
that are already in place to
prevent a repeat of the derail-
ment of Amtrak Train 501.
Sound Transit has added
trackside warning signage,
put in a graduated speed limit
and instituted a “crew focus
zone,” which requires the
conductor and locomotive
engineer to be in communi-
cation about the upcoming
sharp curve where the speed-
ing Amtrak train hurtled off
the tracks onto I-5 two years
ago.
Rogoff also noted that an
automated emergency brak-
ing system that federal reg-
ulators have long wanted
is now fully operational in
the corridor. The technol-
ogy, formally known as pos-
itive train control, is in use
on all passenger trains in the
Pacifi c Northwest.
WSDOT Rail Division
spokesperson Janet Mat-
kin said her agency plans to
hold further meetings with
local elected offi cials in west
Pierce County. Matkin added
that the rail division would
present to city councils and
probably organize one or
more open houses in the new
year to provide reassurances
to concerned residents about
the return of fast trains to the
Point Defi ance Bypass line.
State Sen. Steve O’Ban,
a Republican whose district
includes the derailment site,
said he wants a third-party
certifi cation of safety before
allowing the resumption of
Amtrak service on the route.
O’Ban directed staff to draft
a bill for the 2020 legislative
session that would task the
state Utilities and Transpor-
tation Commission with that
evaluation.
An Oregon land use
commission moved last
May to restrict commer-
cial solar development on
prime farmland in the state.
The rule takes millions
of acres with some of the
highest potential for solar
energy production off the
table.
But research from Ore-
gon State University is
showing that agricul-
ture and solar develop-
ment don’t have to be at
odds from a production
standpoint.
In fact, solar arrays
can work in tandem with
and sometimes boost sys-
tems that are benefi cial for
agricultural.
Oregon State master’s
degree student Maggie
Graham has been studying
the effectiveness of pur-
posefully planting pollina-
tor habitat in and around
solar arrays.
“Pollinator habitat is
in decline in the state and
nationwide as a result of
land use change,” Graham
said.
“So in communities
that are wanting to install
renewable energy and pro-
mote pollinating insects
(this kind of system) would
be a possibility.”
It’s relatively rare that
commercial solar arrays
take advantage of the land
around and between pan-
els. Graham said develop-
ers will sometimes pave the
ground or put down gravel.
Graham looked at the
effectiveness of plant-
ing a mix of native plants
that attract pollinators —
like bees and butterfl ies —
around a commercial solar
array near Medford. Most
agriculture relies on polli-
nators in some way for pro-
duction. She counted the
number of fl ower blooms
and insects in areas under
the solar panels, between
the solar panels and in areas
to the side of the array.
What she saw in her pre-
liminary data collected last
summer suggests the solar
array did not detract from
pollinator use.
“We found that in both
fl owers and bees, there
were more of them in the
aisles between the panels
than outside,” she said.
The fi ndings suggest
that the plants were actu-
ally more robust in the
areas between the panels
than the areas where there
were no solar structures
at all. More robust plants
attracted more benefi cial
insects.
Graham says, based on
previous research at Ore-
gon State, shade could be
the difference. One study
looked at how livestock
pasture forage grew around
solar arrays.
“We found that bio-
mass (the amount of plant
material) increased and soil
moisture increased under
the array. In a water limited
environment, that allowed
these plants to grow bet-
ter,” she said.
Chad Higgins, an Ore-
gon State agriculture pro-
fessor, says in most of Ore-
gon, farmland had plenty of
sun — it’s water that’s the
limiting factor in determin-
ing where to grow crops.
He sees a broader opportu-
nity to specifi cally design
solar arrays on farmland to
provide shade and decrease
the amount of water needed
to grow crops.
“The general idea is to
start thinking about light as
a farm resource, just as you
would think of the soil or
the fertilizer of the plants or
the water. Why not harvest
and manipulate that light
for maximum agronomic
benefi t?” Higgins asked.
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