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East Oregonian
Thursday, September 28, 2017
SPILL DRILL: River a ‘shared resource’
Continued from 1A
to detail how they will
respond to spills. Railroads,
however, were not included
under the law.
In April 2015, Wash-
ington Gov. Jay Inslee
signed the Oil Transpor-
tation Safety Act, which
extended contingency plan-
ning and drill requirements
to railroads as oil-by-rail
increased
statewide.
According to Byers, Burl-
ington Northern Santa Fe
Railway now moves 10-15
oil trains per week down
the Columbia River, with
each train carrying roughly
3.5 million gallons of crude
oil.
BNSF is one of four
companies
transporting
crude oil in Washington,
and the first to have a
contingency plan approved
by the State Department
of Ecology. The plan was
put to the test Wednesday,
along with an updated
contingency plan for the
oil company Andeavor,
formerly Tesoro. Andeavor
operates an underground
petroleum pipeline that
crosses the Umatilla Indian
Reservation en route to the
Tri-Cities.
Byers said the group
chose Hat Rock to practice
oil spill response because it
could feasibly experience
an oil spill by rail or pipe-
line.
“We’re making sure
everybody has the appro-
priate training,” Byers said.
“There’s a lot of moving
pieces that have to come
together in an oil spill, and
work appropriately.”
Breezy winds made for
slightly choppy waters
Wednesday on the river,
but nothing the crews
couldn’t handle. Andeavor
Associated Press
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A oil boom is deployed next to an island in the Columbia River during a oil spill training Wednesday near Hat
Rock State Park east of Umatilla.
also deployed a new piece
of equipment known as a
Current Buster, capable of
recovering oil four times
faster than conventional
booms.
Byers said Washington
law requires companies
with oil contingency plans
to use the best available
technology. Resources are
shared across state lines
with Oregon when it comes
to the Columbia River, he
added.
“We have a great
partnership with Oregon,”
Byers said. “We view the
Columbia River as a shared
resource. If there is an oil
spill, it’s going to affect
both states.”
Byers said the drills
also allow states to test
their Geographic Response
Plan for the Mid-Columbia
River, which was updated
in 2015. That plan provides
site-specific strategies for
cleanup response, such as
staging areas and resources
that may be threatened by a
spill.
Geographic Response
Plans fall under the North-
west Area Contingency
Plan, which covers all of
Oregon, Washington and
Idaho.
“It takes the combined
resources of the entire
response
community,”
Byers said.
While
emergency
planning is undoubtedly
a valuable tool, envi-
ronmental groups in the
Columbia River Gorge
remain dubious of oil-by-
rail and continue to warn
of the dangers of train
derailments and spills.
Dan Serres, conserva-
tion director for Columbia
Riverkeeper, said there are
still holes on both sides of
the river where responding
to an incident would be
difficult. Despite planning
and preparation, he said
the Mosier derailment still
resulted in a 14-hour fire,
as well as water contamina-
tion that posed significant
safety concerns for the
community.
If a controversial new
oil terminal in Vancouver,
Washington is approved,
Serres said it would add
another five oil trains
traveling daily along the
Gorge, increasing the risk
for another calamity.
“It would be a game-
changing proposal, and
not in a good way,”
Serres said. “Our basic
concern about oil-by-rail
remains.”
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
RISE: Services offered to all students
Continued from 1A
intensive help.”
He said Umatilla County
was a conduit for other
mental health and commu-
nity services, and having
access to those groups
would be beneficial for
those in the program.
Wilson
noted
that
the RISE program does
not provide therapy, and
any student who needs
one-on-one
counseling
will still be referred to
Lifeways.
There are three full-time
RISE team members, who
spend every day in the
schools. They lead groups
and interact with students
in an informal setting, even
being present at lunch time
so students can come up
and talk to them.
Wilson said so far,
students have been recep-
tive to the RISE counselors.
While any student can
talk with a RISE counselor,
those in the small group
sessions are referred there
by teachers, administrators
or counselors.
“A counselor may
see a family or a student
potentially struggling, who
may benefit from some
sort of intervention,” he
said. That student can be
referred to RISE, where
the counselors can help
them identify problems
and ways to deal with
them. If the student isn’t
showing results from those
meetings, they can then
be referred to Lifeways if
necessary.
The three RISE coun-
selors are Katrina Bretsch,
Roy Barron and Taylor
Wilson. Bretsch and Barron
work at the middle schools,
Wilson at the elementary
schools, and all three work
at the high school.
While they all collabo-
rate to help students, each
counselor brings a different
strength to the program.
Bretsch spent the last two
years teaching sixth grade
in Boardman. Barron
has worked in alcohol
and drug counseling, and
Wilson comes from a
mental health counseling
background.
Bretsch said the coun-
selors’ main goal is to help
student deal with their
problems rationally.
“It’s pretty much getting
the child off the ‘fight or
Facebook,
Twitter
and Google
invited to
hearings
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Katrina Bretsch, mental health counselor and program manager of the RISE
program, teaches some relaxation techniques during a small group session
Tuesday at Armand Larive Middle School in Hermiston.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A student squeezes a stress ball during a RISE ses-
sion Tuesday at Armand Larive Middle School.
flight’ state of mind,” she
said. “It’s quite impossible
for kids to learn at school if
they don’t feel safe. They
may not be physically
unsafe, but even if they
don’t feel safe to express
their ideas. We want to get
them to an executive state
of mind so they can make
“It’s pretty
much about
getting the
child off the
‘fight or flight’
state of mind.
It’s quite im-
possible for
kids to learn
at school if
they don’t
feel safe.”
— Katrina Bretsch,
mental health counselor
decisions not just based off
emotional safety.”
Barron said the RISE
counselors lead between
five and eight groups a
day, each lasting about 30
minutes. As they spend
more time in the schools,
he anticipates the program
will change based on
students’ needs.
“If we have an all-girls
group about trauma, that
may be better served by
Katrina than by me,” Barron
said.
Some of the groups
they lead help students
work on resilience, stress
management, mindfulness,
empathy and self-esteem.
“As we collect our data,
we’ve been discussing,
what are the areas kids
really say they’ve been
struggling with?” Bretsch
said. “A lot have said anger
management is a big thing.”
Barron added that many
have said they need help
dealing with anxiety as
well. They use tactics such
as breathing techniques
and role playing, to help
students deal with their
anger.
“And we try to under-
stand why they’re feeling
anxiety,” Bretsch said. “For
some, they may identify
that they’re just drinking
too many energy drinks. Or
they’re playing too many
video games. Once it’s
identified, we help them set
goals for how to solve that
problem.”
Bretsch said while they
help students identify some
of their problems, they
leave the personal analysis
for private discussions.
“What we work on in
the group — it’s more
discussing general skills,”
she said. “If they want
to talk about something
more personal, I let them
know they can talk to me
privately.”
Barron said as of late
September, they had about
150 referrals from around
the district. But he antic-
ipated that number may
grow as the school year
progresses.
Helping
students
re-evaluate the way they
think about their own prob-
lems is a key for the RISE
counselors.
“When we know what
triggers (them), we can
redesign how we think,”
Bretsch said.
–——
Contact
Jayati
Ramakrishnan at 541-564-
4534 or jramakrishnan@
eastoregonian.com.
WASHINGTON — The
House and Senate intelligence
committees are inviting tech
giants Facebook, Twitter
and Alphabet — the parent
company of Google — to
appear for public hearings as
part of their investigations into
Russia’s interference in the
2016 election, The Associated
Press has learned.
The House intelligence
committee is planning to hold
a hearing in October and the
Senate intelligence committee
has invited witnesses to appear
Nov. 1. The announcements of
public hearings come the day
before Twitter is scheduled to
hold closed-door staff brief-
ings with both panels.
Rep. Adam Schiff of
California, the top Democrat
on the House intelligence
committee, confirmed the
House hearing in an interview
with the AP, though he noted a
date had not yet been set.
In a joint statement, Schiff
and Republican Rep. Mike
Conaway from Texas, who
is leading the House investi-
gation, said they will hold an
open hearing in the coming
month “with representatives
from tech companies in order
to better understand how
Russia used online tools and
platforms to sow discord in
and influence our election.”
They added, “Congress
and the American people need
to hear this important infor-
mation directly from these
companies.”
The details of the invitation
from the Senate intelligence
committee were confirmed
by two people familiar with
the panel’s interactions with
the companies. They spoke
on condition of anonymity to
discuss the private invitations.
It’s not yet clear whether
the companies will accept the
invitations to appear. Face-
book and Google confirmed
they had received the Senate
invitations
and
Twitter
declined to comment.
The hearings come as both
panels have been scrutinizing
the ways that the social
media platforms and online
ads were used by Russians
to influence the election. The
committees are examining
the spread of false news
stories and propaganda and
whether anyone in the United
States helped target those
stories to specific users on
social media platforms.
In the closed-door brief-
ings Thursday, Twitter’s
representatives will likely
face questions about the
spread of false news stories
and propaganda through the
use of fake accounts and
automated bot networks.
REVENUE:
State expects
$20B in next
two years
Continued from 1A
collect debt on behalf of other
state and local agencies.
The revenue department
— which is expected to
collect more than $20 billion
in revenue in the next two
years — has been plagued
with issues in the past decade,
many of them identified by
multiple audits.
At the urging of the
Legislature, the department
is expected to undergo addi-
tional external and internal
reviews in the near future.
Krawczyk says the depart-
ment has met the reporting
requirements laid out in
Brown’s executive order,
and is working on a report
about whether it’s feasible
to publicly post information
about the state’s debtors
online, as the governor has
called for.
The agency is also
working to recruit for and fill
vacant positions, according
to director Nia Ray.
State agencies, under
another bill passed this
session, are now required to
report debt they write off to
the Department of Adminis-
trative Services by Dec. 31
every year.