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BIOMASS: Still in research, development phase
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East Oregonian
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last remaining coal-fired power plant.
Rather than install costly emissions
upgrades, the utility is researching
whether the station can be converted
to run on an alternative source of
fuel. If not, the plant will be shut
down completely.
Earlier this year, PGE partnered
with a newly incorporated business
called Oregon Torrefaction, made up
of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry
and
Communities,
Bonneville
Environmental Foundation and
Ochoco Lumber Company, based
in Prineville. The corporation is
providing 8,000 tons of torrefied
biomass needed to run the Boardman
plant for one day, at full capacity.
The process of torrefaction refers
to roasting biomass, such as wood
waste, at high temperatures in the
absence of oxygen, resulting in a
brittle, charcoal-like material that can
be crushed inside the plant. The hope
is that low-value timber, small-di-
ameter trees and forest clutter can
become a sustainable source of fuel
for the plant, while simultaneously
improving forest health and creating
rural jobs.
Not everyone is as optimistic. The
Sierra Club recently issued a report
flagging several concerns with the
project’s impact on air quality and
forest health.
Among its findings, the Sierra
Club reports that PGE would actually
need 12,800 tons of dry wood daily
at the Boardman plant, since torrefac-
tion does burn off some of the mate-
rial’s total mass. Assuming the plant
runs at peak capacity for five months,
that adds up to 1.9 million dry tons of
unprocessed wood annually.
me,” Shelton said.
One reason for the void is a brain
drain that happens when students
from rural America go to the city
for college and don’t return home.
Another, they say, is that fewer
people are going into psychiatry and
behavioral health.
“Psychiatrists are aging out,” said
Eck, administrator for Lifeways in
Pendleton. “There aren’t that many
from medical school going into
psychiatry.”
Those who need mental health
care keep coming, though.
“We served about 6,000 people in
the last year,” Eck said. “That’s just
in Umatilla County. That’s a lot of
people.”
According to the latest population
estimates for Umatilla County for
2016, that would mean Lifeways
provided services to 7.5 percent of
the population in the county.
Lifeways delivers care in a myriad
ways such as traditional counseling
sessions, medication management,
respite care and crisis evaluation.
Sometimes that means helping
someone in crisis at three in the
morning or assisting a law enforce-
ment officer who is dealing with a
mentally ill person on the streets.
Care also involves in-school coun-
seling, a walk-in clinic in Hermiston,
two peer centers and assessments at
the Umatilla County Jail.
Lifeways budgets just over $9
million for Umatilla County oper-
ations. Dollars mostly come from
Medicaid, though Lifeways accepts
private insurance and Medicare as
well. Clients pay on a sliding scale.
Community Counseling Solutions
in Heppner has a similar model. It also
runs the David Romprey Warmline
for people in crisis, two residential
treatment facilities — the Columbia
River Ranch and Lakeview Heights
— plus an acute care center called
Juniper Ridge in John Day. CCS
employs about 150 people.
Both Lifeways and CCS contract
with Greater Oregon Behavioral
Health Inc., which manages mental
health care for Oregon Health Plan
clients in 15 counties, including
Umatilla and Morrow.
As executive director of CCS
Photo contributed by Portland General Electric
A pile of biomass has arrived at the Boardman Coal Plant for a full-
day test burn, now scheduled for the first quarter of 2017.
Logging residue would provide
just 6-8 percent of that feedstock,
according to the report’s estimates.
As for additional thinning projects,
the Sierra Club cautions against
tailoring forest management to meet
future energy needs.
“Forest management practices
motivated to meet energy needs sets
a dangerous precedent for our public
forests, especially when continuous
large volumes are needed in the
supply chain as is the case with the
Boardman proposal,” the report
reads.
Alexander Harris, conservation
organizer with the Sierra Club in
Portland, spearheaded the report. He
said the organization is not pursuing
a campaign against biomass, but is
watching closely to see that climate
and forest consequences are being
closely monitored by PGE.
Corson reiterated the project is
still in the research and development
phase, and many questions still need
and mental health director for four
counties, Kimberly Lindsay oversees
mental health care for a large swath
of Eastern Oregon. She said finding
enough manpower is a continuing
headache.
“There are not enough mental
health professionals in Oregon, that
is accurate,” Lindsay said. “There
are not enough and there hasn’t been
enough for a number of years.”
The problem is magnified in rural
areas.
“I don’t think we’ve been planful
as an industry about looking at ways
of recruiting and retaining, especially
in Eastern Oregon where we already
struggle a little bit to get professionals
here,” Lindsay said. “I think we’ve
done a poor job of keeping our own
talent here and giving them a reason
to come back home.”
Both CCS and Lifeways are
working to grow their own talent.
“We started a scholarship program
– last year, we did $1,000, renewable
for four years — eight scholarships
across the four counties,” Lindsay
said. “When it’s fully up and running,
if all the students renew, in the fourth
year, we’ll be paying out $64,000.
Sixty-four thousand is a lot of money
for an agency our size, but that’s
where we feel like we need to be
because of the talent shortage.”
The shortage might not be quite
so critical if Medicare had a broader
definition of who is eligible for
payment. Kevin Campbell, CEO of
GOBHI, finds Medicare’s limited
scope frustrating.
“Medicare only pays for certain
types of providers,” Campbell said.
“A licensed community social worker
can bill, but a licensed professional
counselor cannot bill. We know what
works. We’ve spent money to keep
people out of hospitals with respite
centers and acute care treatment
centers like Juniper Ridge in John
Day, but Medicare flat out won’t pay
for things like respite. They’ll pay
for someone going to a hospital for
$1,200 a day, yet won’t cover $150-
to-$500 a day for lower-level care
that could have equal results.”
“Medicare is one of the worst for
access,” Lindsay said. “It impacts all
of rural America. In Morrow, Gilliam
and Wheeler counties, we don’t have
any licensed clinical social workers.
New Year’s Eve
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to be answered before the proposal
could even be considered feasible.
He chided the Sierra Club report for
making some faulty assumptions,
such as sourcing of the biomass,
which Corson said would come from
multiple sources.
“There seems to be a decent
possibility the answer to the ques-
tions could point to a sustainable,
renewable, environmentally respon-
sible solution for the plant that would
benefit our customers and the local
community,” Corson said. “We’re
continuing our research to make
sure we have the best information
we can collect before we make any
decisions.”
A successful full-day test burn
would mark the next milestone in the
process, and could lead to additional
multi-day trials in the future.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or
541-966-0825.
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There’s one in Grant County.”
If you have Medicare and are
depressed and you live in Wheeler or
Gilliam County, she said, you won’t
be seen at all. “Access is zero.”
Prevention is a strategy that could
eventually ease demand. GOBHI
pays Lifeways and CCS to embed
counselors in schools and coordinate
care for Oregon Health Plan clients
who have severe mental illness. The
latter keeps them healthier and out of
the emergency room.
Shelton feels confident in the
direction Oregon is headed, though
she worries about increasing numbers
of mentally ill and not having the
workforce to treat them.
“There are good quality services
and a genuine intent to deliver those
service in the state of Oregon,”
Shelton said. “Nationwide there’s a
problem with access. Part of that is
because our population of people who
require services for mental illness as
well as substances — the two work
together to cause dysfunction — that
population is getting bigger every
single day.”
That’s part of the impetus behind
the Mental Health Reform Act, part
of the 21st Century Cures Act signed
into law by President Barack Obama
earlier this month. The bill includes a
$1 billion grant to help states combat
the opioid epidemic and $4.8 billion
to study the brain and find new treat-
ments.
GOHBI’s in-house recruitment
specialists just started offering free
recruitment services to the mental
health agencies in its 15 counties.
Currently, Campbell said, there are
78 masters-level positions open and
22 candidates.
Despite the challenges, Campbell,
Lindsay, Eck and Shelton remain
committed to the mental health
industry and their jobs.
“This is my passion,” said Eck,
who worked in inner-city St. Louis
before ending up in rural America. “I
love what I do.”
Shelton said she finds comfort in
the direction mental health care is
going — the focus on prevention and
the collaboration with law enforce-
ment and other community partners.
“I have been in the field for 30
years,” she said. “Every day, I find
huge hope in what’s happening.”
yearlong journey
home. Eventually, mild
devoted to writing
anxiety medication and
about mental
counseling helped him
health has officially
ease back into home life.
blown my mind.
He encourages other
The journey started
soldiers to put their pride
simply enough.
aside and say, “I need
My editor, Daniel
help.”
Wattenburger, asked me
I ventured inside the
Kathy
to do a series on mental
Umatilla County Jail.
Aney
health, producing a story
More than 90 percent of
Comment
each month on the topic.
inmates at the jail deal
I would shine a spotlight
with some kind of mental
on facets of the subject, writing
health issue. Inmates in suicide
about everything from mental
watch cells made of see-through
illness on the streets to PTSD.
acrylic walls were in clear view
By the end, my readers would
of a deputy in the control room.
see the challenges and also the
I watched as one of the suicidal
most promising pathways to
inmates, a twenty-something
better mental health in Umatilla
man with a buzz cut, goatee
County and beyond.
and tattooed devil horns, stared
I was an innocent — a babe
blankly ahead. The jail’s mental
in arms. Though I had written
health coordinator, Ed Taylor,
about mental health before, the
is a stubbornly optimistic guy
subject’s long waving tentacles
who gives inmates the tools to
soon wrapped me up and
deal with “the stuff going on
swung me to and fro as the year
inside their brains.” With most
progressed. The complexities
of the inmates, drugs and alcohol
boggled. The experiences of
interweave with mental illness
those I met grabbed hold and
and it is difficult to tease them
wouldn’t let go. Each person
apart. It’s like the chicken-or-egg
helped hammer home the reality question, figuring out which
that any one of us could be
came first. Really, it almost
caught in the web of mental
doesn’t matter. A person is
illness.
hurting, Taylor told me — let’s
A man named Michael
go from there.
Haines told me of his first
My mind was blown again
psychotic break at age 19.
one morning inside a little
A typical college student,
cinderblock building that houses
he had suddenly started
the Lifeways Day Treatment
experiencing hallucinations
Program. There, counselors
and delusions. The voices he
and teachers nurture children
heard seemed absolutely real.
who have experienced trauma,
Now a 26-year-old graduate
often from child abuse and
student, Haines described
neglect. The children lose
his struggle to cope. A free
control, are easily angered and
intervention program called
lack social skills. Some have a
Early Assessment and Support
salty vocabulary and too much
Alliance gave him valuable tools understanding of sex for their
such as the ability to test reality.
age. They often have been
Today, he counsels other young
ejected from regular classrooms.
schizophrenics.
At the Day Treatment Center,
Then there was Kevin Hines,
they learn to cope. For a few
who jumped off the Golden Gate hours, I observed counselors
Bridge and survived. On that
and teachers help the children
night 16 years ago, he stood at
with a blend of humanity
the rail, his thoughts churning.
and toughness. The children
After a long time, the severely
absorb skills and strategies and
depressed teenager jumped
eventually are eased back into
and instantly wished he hadn’t.
the school system.
Hines adjusted his body so he
I spent time with police
shot feet-first into the murky
officers who deal with mental
depths. His back was broken, but illness on the streets. This
he was alive. Hines now speaks
happens daily, if not hourly.
to young people in a quest to
Officers come across a
keep them from choosing to end person lying on a city street
their lives.
or hallucinating or urinating
A young Heppner mother
in a public place or acting
told me of her journey from
aggressively. The officers use
abused child to drug addict
words to soothe and de-escalate,
to college student. At her low
but often must book mentally
point, Rita Glover’s life was on
ill people into jail for lack of
a drug-induced roller coaster
anywhere else to go.
with periods of semi-clarity and
I talked to several mental
attempts to get clean. She lived
health administrators who
in a leaky, cockroach-ridden
explained Oregon’s constantly
trailer in Hermiston. In her
evolving mental health system
worst moments, she confided,
and expounded on their
“I was running around making
frustrations and hopes. Each
terrible memories. At least once
dislikes that the current system
a week, I cried myself to sleep. I doesn’t help much until people
didn’t want to live, but I was too reach the crisis stage. They
chicken to die.” She gave herself expressed excitement, though,
over to treatment at Community
about the focus on prevention.
Counseling Solutions and is now One program embeds counselors
clean and fiercely committed to
in schools and another helps
staying that way.
coordinate care for people with
I talked to Ryan Lehnert over severe mental illness as a way
coffee about post-traumatic
to keep them on track and out of
stress disorder. Ryan, a corporal
the emergency room.
with the Pendleton Police
There isn’t space to tell you
Department, led a platoon of
about every fascinating person
Oregon Army National Guard
or every program I encountered.
soldiers in Iraq in 2004. The
I ended the year feeling as if I’d
men spent their days doing
slugged down a cocktail with
reconnaissance, looking for
equal parts hope and despair.
explosives, scanning the terrain
I was Pollyanna in a gloomy
for irregularities — old tires,
dungeon looking out the window
a grain sack, new dirt, a dead
at a spectacular rainbow.
animal, wires or anything else
My journey is over for now,
out of the ordinary. He worried
but it’s far from finished.
about his soldiers and felt
■
deep in his soul the promise
Kathy Aney is a reporter
he made to a soldier’s mother
and photographer for the East
to bring her son home safe.
Oregonian. Contact her at
He described “being wrapped
kaney@eastoregonian.com or
pretty tight” when he returned
call 541-966-0810.
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A
HEALTH: Medicare only pays for certain types of providers
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