NORTHWEST
Saturday, January 24, 2015
East Oregonian
Megaload protesters report
being contacted by FBI
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP)
— Activists who oppose the
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equipment through parts of
Idaho and Washington say
they have been contacted by
FBI agents.
Helen Yost of Moscow,
Idaho, said she recently re-
ceived a text message that un-
settled her.
“I need to speak with you,”
the December message said.
“Please give me a call. I am an
FBI agent.”
The Spokesman-Review
reported Friday that Yost, 57,
is a co-founder of Wild Idaho
Rising Tide, a climate-change
action group that opposes the
megaload shipments. Yost has
been arrested twice while pro-
testing the shipment of equip-
ment to Canada’s tar sands oil
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She was among the 20-or-
so protesters at the Port of
Umatilla in November 2013
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ery equipment to the oil sands
of Alberta, Canada.
The group also opposes
rail shipments of crude oil and
coal through the Northwest.
“We don’t see ourselves as
posing any threat,” said Yost,
who refused to talk to the
agent. “We see the FBI contact
as being unwarranted.”
Yost is one of a dozen ac-
tivists in Idaho, Washington
and Oregon who say they’ve
been contacted by the FBI
in recent months, said Larry
Hildes, a Bellingham, Wash-
ington, civil rights attorney.
Agents have shown up on
their doorsteps, at their work-
place or contacted them by
PORTLAND — One girl
is in a Portland hospital par-
alyzed from the neck down
and another, who’s been dis-
charged, is hobbling around
with a brace. They don’t
have polio, which would
cause similar symptoms. But
doctors have no idea what’s
wrong.
There is no cure, at least
not yet, but their syndrome
has a name: Acute Flaccid
Myelitis.
“It’s a living nightmare,”
said Mikell Sheehan, moth-
er to Bailey, who was dis-
charged in December.
The Sheehans, who live
in Welches, have become
close with an Albany family,
whose 7-year-old daughter
McKenzie Andersen is in
Randall Children’s Hospital,
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Two
Pendleton-area ness,” said plant manager
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HQHUJ\HI¿FLHQF\XSJUDGHV out that by questioning
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Smith Frozen Foods in more than $50,000 annu-
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Pendleton Grain Craft
in Pendleton made the
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release from Energy Trust al energy costs by $25,000.
“We got employees ex-
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Smith Frozen Foods FLWHG DERXW ¿QGLQJ ZD\V
replaced several existing to save, and ourselves to
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QHZ HQHUJ\HI¿FLHQW PRG- usual,’” said Trent Inskeep,
els, saving an estimated Grain Craft production
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year, according to the re- equipment are turned on
lease. Energy Trust of Or- DW D VSHFL¿F WLPH $OO WRR
egon provided technical often the answer is ‘we’ve
guidance on the improve- always done it that way.’”
As part of the initiative,
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a $499,999 cash incentive. Grain Craft found that a
Among the changes wheat dust suction motor
to the tunnels are welded at its grain elevator was
seams and fans located out- running unnecessarily 24
side the tunnel, eliminating hours per day. That change
fan motor heat from the re- alone delivered $15,000 in
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Energy Trust provid-
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tegic Energy Management Smith $23,000 for par-
initiative, which trains staff ticipating in the training.
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East Oregonian
EO file photo
A protester raises his fist in the air after learning that Omega Morgan has called off
moving the megaload in December 2013 at the Port of Umatilla.
phone, he said.
Hildes said he’s told his cli-
ents not to talk to FBI agents.
“We honestly don’t know
what they’re up to, or why,
and that concerns us,” Hil-
des said. “Nobody associated
with any of the groups has
ever done anything danger-
ous or violent. Some of the
folks have been involved in
civil disobedience, but that’s
not a federal issue.”
The complaints follow
demonstrations last summer
against oil trains in Oregon
and Western Washington,
where some protesters were
arrested for blocking the rails.
The actions targeted the Ev-
erett rail yard, an Anacortes
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terminals.
With the Keystone Pipeline
headed for a vote in Congress,
Hildes said he suspects the
FBI is monitoring protest ac-
tivities related to tar sands.
Ayn Dietrich-Williams, an
FBI spokeswoman in Seattle,
said she couldn’t answer ques-
tions about any contacts with
protesters. In most instances,
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nor denies that investigations
are taking place or that specif-
ic individuals have been con-
tacted for questioning.
“We don’t investigate
anyone for First Amendment
activities,” Dietrich-Williams
said.
Investigations occur when
the agency has reasonable
grounds to believe someone
is engaged in illegal activity or
planning it, she said.
Herb Goodwin, 65, of
Bellingham, said a city po-
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agent contacted him in Oc-
tober.
They asked if he would
answer questions, but he de-
clined.
“It’s actually pretty spooky
to have the FBI show up at
your door, ask one question
and leave,” Goodwin said. “I
think they were there to put
me on notice that I was being
watched.”
Oregon girls dealing with mysterious paralysis
By LYNNE TERRY
The Oregonian
Page 9A
gers and toes.
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case, became paralyzed in
her right leg and arm at the
end of October.
“Nothing has changed in
her paralysis,” Sheehan said.
“What has changed is that
her therapist has taught her
how to walk using a brace
and a walker. If she has her
brace on, she can get around
fairly well.”
A total of 107 children
in 34 states have the same
mysterious syndrome, said
Dr. Richard Leman, pub-
lic health physician at Ore-
gon Public Health Division.
About a third of the cases
tested positive for enterovi-
rus D68, which swept across
the country last year, killing
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Bailey, now 8, tested positive
for the virus.
Leman said results for en-
terovirus D68 are pending on
Oregon’s second case.
Two-thirds of the patients
nationwide have improved
but only one child has been
cured, according to the Cen-
ters for Disease Control and
Prevention.
In September, Colorado
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dren in a Denver hospital
who had suddenly developed
an unexplained neurologic
illness with limb weakness.
That month, the CDC put out
an advisory, asking neurolo-
gists to be on the lookout for
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children 21 or younger, with
an acute limb weakness who
became ill after Aug. 1 and
who have lesions in the cen-
tral part of their spinal cord.
Both children in Oregon
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said.
“It is kind of scary,” he
said. “One case of this is too
many, clearly.”
Treatment is support-
ive, just like polio, which
was eradicated in the Unit-
ed States in 1979 thanks
to nationwide vaccination
program. But there is no
treatment for Acute Flaccid
Myelitis. Doctors don’t even
know what’s causing it.
It started in the Sheehan
household in Welches with
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of October. Everyone was
sick, including Sheehan’s
4-month-old baby and her
son, who’s 5 years old.
But Bailey was hit the
worst. She had a headache
— it felt like an apple press-
ing against her eye, she said
— along with back and neck
pain. Six days later she lost
feeling in her right leg and
arm. Back and forth to the
hospital, Bailey was admitted
to Randall Children’s Hospi-
tal in November.
West Coast seaport talks
resuming after rallies
LOS
ANGELES
(AP) — Labor strife at
seaports along the West
Coast prompted thousands
of dockworkers to rally
against employers they say
are trying to exploit a cri-
sis of cargo congestion at
harbors that handle about
$1 trillion worth of goods
annually.
While labor contract ne-
gotiators took the day off
Thursday, port police es-
timated that 6,000 people
took part in the rally in Los
Angeles and Long Beach,
port spokeswoman Rachel
Campbell said. Hundreds
more rallied in Tacoma,
Washington.
Contract talks were ex-
pected to resume Friday.
Earlier this month a fed-
eral mediator intervened
in contract bargaining that
began eight months ago
but by fall had deteriorated
into a blame game as goods
languished on docks.
Longshoremen
have
been working without a
contract since the previous
one expired in July.
The companies oper-
ating port terminals assert
that workers have slowed
the rate at which they pro-
cess containers brought
from Asia aboard massive
ships, adding to gridlock
as mountains of imports
dwell on dockside yards.
Employers started scal-
ing back work crews this
month, saying they won’t
unload ships at night and
instead are focused on
clearing the backlog from
dockside yards. They say
the strategy is working.
Longshoremen dispute
employer statistics that
indicate their productivity
has dropped and say em-
ployers are cutting back
jobs to hurt workers and
pressure negotiators for
their union into a bad deal.
As for congestion, dock-
workers say they’re not
culpable and cite broader
problems with the supply
chain. Congestion at Los
Angeles and Long Beach
is not improving.
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