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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2022
IN BRIEF
State reports 19 new
virus cases for county
The Oregon Health Authority reported 19 new
coronavirus cases for Clatsop County on Friday.
Since the pandemic began, the county had
recorded 4,379 virus cases and 38 deaths as of
Friday.
— The Astorian
State releases draft rules for
therapeutic psilocybin program
Oregon has released draft rules for the thera-
peutic use of psilocybin, commonly called magic
mushrooms.
Voters approved Measure 109 in November 2020,
giving the state two years to set up the framework to
regulate legal magic mushrooms in the state.
Researchers believe psilocybin could help treat
depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and addic-
tion, and Oregon’s system would allow for con-
sumption of the substance in a therapeutic setting for
anyone 21 years or older. No prescription or diag-
nosis would be required to take part in the program.
The rules released last week by the Oregon Health
Authority are not complete and are not yet adopted,
but they give a glimpse into what the program might
look like.
The draft rules deal with how training programs
for those administering psilocybin will be evaluated
and credentialed, what the psilocybin itself will be
and how that substance will be tested.
These draft rules contain some interesting take-
aways. Manufacturers can only cultivate or possess
one specifi c species of fungi: Psilocybe cubensis.
According to Jessie Uehling, a professor in the
botany and plant pathology department at Oregon
State University and the mycologist for the Psilocy-
bin Advisory Board, there are more than 200 species
of fungi that are proven to or suspected of being able
to produce psilocybin.
“Psilocybe cubensis is a fungal species to con-
sider focusing on initially because there is a long
history of safe consumption of this species,” Ueh-
ling told The Oregonian.
— Associated Press
Oregon lawmakers may
raise their own pay in eff ort to
increase access to elected offi ce
Community groups, labor unions and the Port-
land Business Alliance are urging Oregon lawmak-
ers to give themselves a raise.
Right now, the base pay for Oregon lawmakers
is around $33,000 a year. But under a bill that had
its fi rst hearing in early February, that would go up
to about $57,000 per year, which is the average sal-
ary in the state. Going forward, it would automati-
cally keep pace with that average. Lawmakers with
children under the age of 13 would also get a $1,000
monthly child care stipend.
Proponents say all of this would diversify the pool
of people who would consider running for offi ce in
the fi rst place.
State Sen. James Manning Jr., a Democrat from
Eugene and a sponsor of the bill, said he knows of
a House member who is working two part-time jobs
to make ends meet. He did not name the lawmaker.
“If you have lawmakers, elected offi cials, that go
into public service and then have to live on public
subsidies, what does that look like for our state?”
Manning asked.
— Oregon Public Broadcasting
BIRTH
Jan. 20, 2022
Birth
KNUTSEN, Ross and Sarah, of Warrenton, a boy,
Colt Robert Knutsen, born in Astoria. Older sibling
is Maverik Knutsen. Grandparents are Bob and Liz
Knutsen, of Warrenton, Sue Larsen, of Astoria, and
Tim Malinen, of Seaside.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Port of Astoria Commission, 4 p.m., workshop session,
(electronic meeting).
Clatsop County Fair Board, 5:30 p.m., 92937 Walluski
Loop, Astoria.
Astoria Historic Landmarks Commission, 5:30 p.m., City
Hall, 1095 Duane St.
WEDNESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, 10 a.m., work
session, (electronic meeting).
Astoria City Council, 1 p.m., work session, City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
Seaside Tourism Advisory Committee, 3 p.m., City Hall,
989 Broadway.
Seaside School District Board, 6 p.m., (electronic meet-
ing).
THURSDAY
Seaside Transportation Advisory Commission, 6 p.m.,
City Hall, 989 Broadway.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Oregon State University
A digital rendition of the PacWave wave energy testing site near Newport.
US Department of Energy awards
$25M for coastal wave energy testing
By ALEX HASENSTAB
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Just south of Newport,
a new wave energy facility
called PacWave is about a
year away from being oper-
ational. It will be the fi rst
commercial-scale, grid-con-
nected wave energy test site
in the U.S. and one of few in
the world.
Seven miles off shore,
the Oregon State University
facility won’t be visible from
the beach. In fact, it won’t
impact beach-goers at all.
PacWave’s chief scientist
and Oregon State professor
Burke Hales said he hopes
the facility will help him and
other researchers learn more
about what impact renewable
wave energy has onshore.
“It’s got very diff erent
characteristics than solar or
wind — the waves are always
going,” Hales said. “The sun
sets, and you can’t harvest
any solar energy when the
sun is down, but the waves
are still persisting … It will
always be there.”
The purpose of the new
Oregon State facility is to test
new and relatively obscure
wave energy technology,
but Hales said the university
can’t do it alone. Research-
ers from across the coun-
try will use the facility to
test the best way of harness-
ing the ocean’s energy and to
explore how eff ectively it can
be transformed into usable
power. The U.S. Department
of Energy awarded $25 mil-
lion to eight diff erent groups,
including two universities, to
do just that.
Oregon State is not a
recipient of the funding, as
the university will be host-
Oregon State University
Crews drill tunnels for underground cables connecting the
wave energy capturing devices and the power grid connection
facility at Driftwood State Recreation Site.
ing researchers at their facil-
ity and must remain neutral.
The
Department
of
Energy entered into a part-
nership with Oregon State in
2016 to build the PacWave
South facility for explor-
ing how to capture the car-
bon-free wave energy cre-
ated by wind blowing over
the surface of the sea.
“The thing that I think is
really important about this
funding announcement is that
even though it didn’t fund
OSU directly, it shows the
DOE is really committed to
this facility,” Hales said.
Construction of the off -
shore facility began in June
2021. The approximately
$80 to $90 million facility
is expected to be operational
in 2023, and grid-connected
Oregon to receive $262M in wildfi re
recovery funding for federal forests
By CASSANDRA
PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
The U.S. Forest Service in
Oregon will be getting more
than $262 million in federal
disaster funding to help with
wildfi re recovery.
The money is part of
$1.1 billion in disaster assis-
tance that passed last year to
help regions across the coun-
try recover from a variety of
natural disasters over the last
three years.
Oregon’s U.S. Sen . Jeff
Merkley and U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden, both Democrats, sup-
ported the Extending Gov-
ernment Funding and Deliv-
ering Emergency Assistance
Act of 2021, which passed in
September with more than a
billion dollars in funding for
recovery eff orts after wild-
Kristyna Wentz-Graff /Oregon Public Broadcasting
Fire damage can be seen on the hills in Willamette National
Forest in April.
fi res, hurricanes, tornadoes
and other natural disasters.
More than a million acres
of land across Oregon burned
in the Labor Day wildfi res
in 2020, calling attention to
the need to manage trees and
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testing is anticipated to begin
the following year.
In addition to the wave
energy capturing devices in
the water, cables connect-
ing the devices to the power
grid will run underground a
mile off shore then another
6 miles along the bottom of
the ocean. Researchers will
conduct the majority of their
testing at a shoreside grid
connection facility that will
be located near Driftwood
Beach State Recreation Site
north of Waldport.
Hales said some esti-
mates show wave energy
could produce up to 10% of
U.S. energy. The research
groups will be testing a vari-
ety of models that can cap-
ture energy from the oscillat-
ing movement of the waves
and transmit it to shore.
“The other thing is sur-
vivability — seaworthiness,”
Hales said. “These devices
are intended to be deployed
and stay out in the ocean for
years, and they can’t sink.
They can’t break loose from
their anchor lines. The Ore-
gon coastal ocean is a very
demanding place. And so if
they can survive there, then
that’s a really good proving
ground.”
The groups chosen to test
the technology will have a
few years to complete their
testing before a new round of
research groups come in.
Portland State Univer-
sity received a $4.5 million
award from the Department
of Energy, and the Univer-
sity of Washington received
$1.3 million. Additional
funds are going to CalWave
Power Technologies Inc. of
Oakland; Columbia Power
Technologies Inc. of Char-
lottesville, Virginia; Dehlsen
Associates LLC, of Santa
Barbara; Oscilla Power Inc.
of Seattle; Integral Consult-
ing of Seattle; and Littoral
Power Systems Inc., of New
Bedford, Massachusetts.
Hales said that other,
privately funded research
groups may also bid to per-
form testing at the facility. In
the future, he said, Oregon
State will likely perform their
own research at the facility,
as well.
With this new facility
Oregon will be ground zero
for wave energy testing in
the U.S., Hales said, and the
research could benefi t other
parts of the country that don’t
have the extensive renewable
energy options that Oregon
has, such as solar and wind.
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brush in federal forests to
reduce the risk of wildfi re.
In a statement, Merkley
said the additional wildfi re
recovery funds announced
Wednesday are a direct result
of his work as chairman of an
appropriations subcommittee
that makes decisions on fund-
ing the U.S. Forest Service.
“Over the last three years,
Oregon’s forests and sur-
rounding communities have
been devastated by cata-
strophic wildfi res, adversely
impacting Oregonians, our
lands, wildlife and waters,”
Merkley said. “This fund-
ing will fi ll a critical gap in
wildfi re response and recov-
ery by investing in restoring
these landscapes, rebuilding
trails and recreational access
points, and helping grow a
more resilient forest.”
Wyden said in a statement
that, “restoring forests’ resil-
iency to reduce fi re risks” will
be a signifi cant part of Ore-
gon’s recovery from exten-
sive wildfi res.
“Oregonians know in
painful detail how wild-
fi res have ripped a destruc-
tive path through our com-
munities statewide in recent
years,” Wyden said in a state-
ment. “I’m glad these fed-
eral funds will help our state
recover from these disasters.”
Additionally, the Biden
administration
recently
announced a $3 billion plan to
reduce wildfi re risk through
forest management actions
that would remove fl amma-
ble material through selec-
tive logging and prescribed
burning.