Thursday, August 18, 2016
OFF PAGE ONE
TESTING: Asked Emergency Board to allocate money to pay for costs of testing
Page 8A
East Oregonian
Continued from 1A
what we saw in Portland was the
community didn’t have access to
information, and in fact, when you
have large institutions information
can get lost over the years,” said
Emily Nazarov, operations policy
analyst with the Oregon Depart-
ment of Education, who headed up
the rulemaking.
“By creating a plan you
have one place that community
members and parents can look
to ind out how does the school
district address radon, how does
the school district plan to address
water.”
The Board of Education pushed
ahead with the rule despite protests
from school advocates who said
the timeline was too tight and
expressed worry about where to
ind money to address the cost of
testing and mitigation.
“You are setting up a framework
by which we have assurances at
the state level that our schools are
taking action in a comprehensive
way toward health and safety,” said
Oregon Chief Education Oficer
Lindsey Capps. “It’s an imperative
that every student should be enti-
tled to.”
The requirement will entail
hundreds of millions of dollars in
additional costs to schools in the
form of testing, supplying bottle
water, mitigation and testing
individuals who might have been
exposed to high levels of lead,
according to the Oregon School
Boards Association.
Portland Public Schools estimates
that taking those steps will cost that
district an estimated $7 million, said
Joe Crelier, the district’s director of
risk management.
The cost of just testing lead
in water for drinking and food
preparation is estimated to cost
$10,000 for a small district and
about $1 million for a large
district, according to district repre-
sentatives who attended a July 25
meeting on the proposed rules.
Legislative leadership has
asked the Emergency Board to
allocate money in September to
pay for costs of testing but not
mitigation, Nazarov of ODE said.
The Legislative Fiscal Ofice is
working on a proposal to present
to the Emergency Board Sept. 23,
according to school advocates.
Legislative Fiscal Oficer Ken
Rocco was not immediately avail-
able Wednesday to provide that
number.
Gov. Brown in April directed
the Oregon Department of Educa-
tion and Oregon Health Authority
to review existing requirements for
environmental testing and address
the problem of lead in drinking
water. During the review, health
and education oficials learned that
neither the education department
nor the health authority had rules
to require schools test for lead.
The health authority has the
power to require testing of public
water systems, but schools are
excluded from the agency’s juris-
diction. The proposed rule would
require school districts, charter
schools and education services
districts to conduct lead and radon
testing and to submit an environ-
mental monitoring plan to ODE
for keeping water, air and physical
spaces safe for students and staff.
The health authority already
had authority to require schools to
test for radon, but the new rule will
provide comprehensive guidance
to schools on all of the testing
required. Schools will be required
to report their test results to the
education department and to the
community annually.
The agencies asked schools to
test for lead during the summer.
Most of the districts have either
completed or are in the process
of testing, Nazarov said. The
agencies
recommended
that
schools identify sources of lead,
stop access, communicate results
to staff, students, parents and
the community and mitigate and
repair the problem.
A survey of 104 schools earlier
this month by the OSBA found that
88 percent of respondents were
in the process of testing drinking
water for lead. Most of the other 12
percent had either already tested
water or had a plan in place to do
so after classes resume in the fall.
SUICIDE: Taught them they have a choice HOMICIDE: Four-day
Continued from 1A
She pondered the invi-
tation, while researching
Kenya and the rising number
of suicides there.
Suicide is an uneasy
subject almost anywhere in
the world. Kenya, however,
struggles more than most.
Attempting to kill oneself in
this African nation is illegal.
Bodies of suicide victims
are often logged to remove
demonic spirits and buried at
night with no ceremony.
The World Health Orga-
nization ranks the nation
29th in the world at 15.58 per
100,000 deaths, but not all
suicide is reported. Especially
perplexing is the high suicide
rate among youth. School
stress triggers some of the
suicide attempts, Womack
said.
“They take exit exams
which determine if they go up
to the next grade,” she said.
“If they fail, they feel like
they’ve shamed their family
and they’ve wasted their
sponsor’s money. They can’t
bear the humiliation.”
Womack accepted the
invitation, not as the BMCC
suicide prevention specialist,
but as a longtime volunteer of
Good Samaritan Ministries.
She once directed the organi-
zation’s Pendleton ofice.
Womack and her husband
boarded a plane bound for
Dubai on July 9. They lew
next to Nairobi, then Kisumu.
There, they climbed into a car
and traveled two-and-a-half
hours to the community of
Uranga, a rustic town near
the Ugandan border, with
no running water, one paved
road and a network of cow
Contributed photo
Cindy Womack, of Pilot Rock, passes out school sup-
plies to children in an elementary school in Kenya
during a recent trip to the African nation. Her main
reason for going to Kenya was to talk to teenagers
about suicide prevention.
trails.
Womack spoke to about
900 students at one middle
school and two high schools.
There was no language
barrier, she said, since students
spoke English, Luo and
Swahili. During the sessions,
Womack heard stories that
were heartbreakingly similar.
One boy despairing about
school had told his mother he
felt like committing suicide.
When his mother dismissed
the idea, he went outside and
hung himself. Students also
told Womack they worried
about suicide running in their
families. Some admitted they
feared they would eventually
kill themselves, just like other
family members.
“It came down to teaching
them that they have a choice,
that suicide is not something
that just happens to them,”
she said. “It’s something a
person has to choose.”
Since Kenyan students
often use recitation to learn,
she instilled a new mantra, “I
choose life.”
The suicide discussion
was complicated, though,
because of the spiritual beliefs
that shroud the subject. She
said suicide is more taboo
in Kenya than in the United
States and even some coun-
selors consider suicide the
unforgivable sin.
“The kids brought up that
if someone kills themselves,
the people go and beat the
body to get the sin out of
it,” she said. “There’s a lot
of superstition surrounding
suicide.”
Womack said her personal
Christian faith helped her
deal with this part of the
discussion, but other topics
were more typical of her
U.S. presentation. She taught
about the signs to recognize
when someone is considering
suicide.
“It comes down to the
simplicity of knowing how
to look for warning signs and
risk factors and being willing
to ask in a non-judgmental
way the question, “Are you
having thoughts of suicide?”
Womack irst became
interested in suicide preven-
tion after losing her best
friend.
“In 1999, my closest
friend in life called me from
her mother’s house in Boise,”
Womack said. “She indicated
she was depressed. Suicide
didn’t even cross my mind.
Looking back, I realized she
dropped a number of clues
and hints, but at that time I
didn’t know to ask the ques-
tion.”
Three days later, her
friend’s husband called to say
she had died of suicide.
“Don’t be afraid to ask
the question,” she told the
Kenyan students.
In addition to speaking
at schools, Womack also led
a two-day training for 22
counselors.
Womack also offered
a devotional message at
a cabinet meeting of the
governor of Siaya County
where Uranga is located.
Counties are similar to
states in the U.S. Later, she
and Terry dined with the
governor.
Money raised by the
Pilot Rock Baptist Church
and surrounding community
helped fund the mission as
well as provide an online
certiication course for two
Kenyan leaders on suicide
prevention taught by the QPR
(Question Persuade Refer)
Institute.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
LEAD: City of Pendleton tests for lead every 3 years
Continued from 1A
Out of the ive IMESD
facilities,
plus
several
sites tested at the district’s
Outdoor School, almost all
of them had no lead detected
in their water.
Not every district had
perfect results in their initial
rounds of tests.
Both the Pendleton and
Athena-Weston
school
districts recently reported
several sites in their schools
that showed high levels of
lead.
Suzanne
Skadowski
of the EPA public affairs
ofice said lead is a potent
neurotoxin that is especially
dangerous to young children.
According to the EPA,
even low levels of lead in
a child’s blood can cause
reduced
IQ,
learning
disabilities and behavioral
problems. High blood levels
can cause coma, convulsions
and even death.
“There’s no safe level of
lead,” Skadowski said.
Instead of looking at lead
in terms of acceptable levels
or limits, the EPA uses a
metric called an action level,
a threshold that indicates
lead levels are high enough
to warrant pipe, faucet or
some other infrastructural
replacement.
The action level for public
drinking sources is 15 parts
per billion while schools are
20 parts per billion.
The
challenge
for
Oregon schools is that
the EPA’s action level is a
recommendation rather than
a regulation. In fact, there
are no federal regulations
that mandate lead testing in
schools. There were no state
mandates until Wednesday.
Instead of testing them-
selves, school districts had
relied on the EPA-mandated
water quality reports from
their home cities to assess
lead levels. Skadowski said
the EPA has been increasing
its outreach to schools to
encourage them to test
themselves.
Pendleton Public Works
Director Bob Patterson said
the city’s water supply is
fairly neutral and non-cor-
rosive, but that can change
when it goes through private
water systems.
Pendleton
regulatory
specialist Klaus Hoehna
said the city tests for lead
every three years and the
last test was in 2014.
The city collects 32-35
pint-sized bottles from
across the city, targeting
homes that have older water
systems and are more likely
to have elevated lead levels.
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According to the 2015
water quality report, 90
percent of Pendleton homes’
water sources were 4.5 parts
per billion or below, with
only one home showing
levels above 15.
Hoehna said he sends
a notice to all residents
that participate in the test,
including the residents who
have higher lead levels,
although he has never
received a response.
While cities have been
doing water testing for
years, schools are just
starting to dip their toes into
it and might need to retest.
Rich Long, a main-
tenance employee with
the IMESD, said many
districts collected their
samples during the middle
of summer vacation when
school facilities are used
infrequently.
The EPA recommends
testing water sources after
they’ve been unused no
longer than 18 hours,
meaning some of the test
results may show a higher
concentration of lead than it
should.
Until then, all the faucets
and water fountains that
showed high lead levels
are closed until they can be
remedied.
jury trial set for Sept. 6
Continued from 1A
others, early in the morning
of Jan. 27, drove from Herm-
iston to the Nelson residence.
The group packed at least six
loaded irearms and encoun-
tered Nelson while he and a
female were in his car in his
driveway.
Ayala and at least one other
person shot at Nelson and his
passenger, according to the
document, but “she managed
to crawl out of the vehicle
and hid in the dark, cold night
without being hit.”
Ayala and the rest tried
to chase in their pickup, but
it became stuck in the snow.
When they could not free
the vehicle, the iling states,
Ayala and Vargas walked up
the driveway and continued
to shoot at the female, who
the state refers to as “Adult
Victim 1.”
Ayala then stole Nelson’s
vehicle and led with Vargas
and a third person, stopping
after a 10-mile police chase.
Umatilla County District
Attorney Dan Primus charged
McIver, of Umatilla, with
murder with a irearm before
dismissing the case in early
February when federal pros-
ecutors indicted the trio of
defendants.
Ayala has made two
requests for investigative
documents
and
other
discovery and, according
to Martin, the government
has provided more than 50
volumes of discovery and
anticipates providing forensic
analysis reports and other
information.
McIver, Ayala, and Vargas
remain in custody. The federal
court set the case for a four-day
jury trial in Portland starting
Sept. 6, but Martin also noted
the importance of waiting for
forensic test results.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Madisen Haselbusch, 17, pets the belly of her Nether-
land dwarf rabbit, Oliver, on Wednesday at the Morrow
County Fair in Heppner.
FAIR: Wendler will also show
one steer, two ewes this week
Continued from 1A
with their furry and feathered
friends.
Wendler, who lives in
Boardman, said showmanship
is about proving they know
how to handle their animal,
and answering questions that
demonstrate an understanding
of the breed.
“It teaches me how to learn
new things, such as how to
care for the birds and how to
show and present myself more
clearly,” Wendler said.
Beth Dudley, of Canby,
served as the judge for small
animal competitions. She
said chickens and rabbits are
judged based on the standards
of their breed.
“The questions vary on the
level of the kids,” Dudley said.
Wendler might be inished
with Chabo at the fair, but
she’ll remain busy with one
steer and two ewes left to
show. Sheep conformation
will be held at 9 a.m. Thursday
at the fairgrounds in Heppner,
and livestock showmanship
will be 9 a.m. Friday.
The Morrow County Fair
runs through Sunday, and is
open to the public each day at
8 a.m.
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