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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 2017)
TRUMP IN PUERTO RICO HURRICANE/6A 64/39 MORE INFO ON VEGAS SHOOTER BUCKAROOS RALLY BACK IN FIFTH SET NATION/7A VOLLEYBALL/1B WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2017 141st Year, No. 252 One dollar WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD Depot transfer delayed again Army sets deadline to May as CDA waits for direction By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian Staff photo by E.J. Harris Nursing instructor Jessica Humphreys, right, demonstrates how to make an occupied bed with students Nildia Resendiz Rios, lying down, and Cristina Hernandez on Tuesday at BMCC in Pendleton. NURSE! By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian Is a nursing shortage looming? Maybe. Maybe not. At fi rst glance, the situation seems dire. Our population is aging. According to the AARP, about 10,000 people turn 65 every single day. Nurses are getting older too. Are we on the cusp of crisis as a 2016 article in The Atlantic declared? Between 2010 and 2030, it said, the number of Amer- icans over 65 will increase by 75 percent. Demand for health services will soar. A third of nurses will reach retirement age in the next 10-15 years. Training enough nurses and fi nding enough faculty and enough clinical sites for the students to gain practical Every day 10,000 Americans turn 65, demand for care rises experience is daunting. Susan Bakewell-Sachs, dean of the Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing, doesn’t deny the demographics, but suggests taking a deep, cleansing breath. Bakewell-Sachs stopped at Blue Moun- tain Community College recently on her way back from a white coat ceremony at Eastern Oregon University. The EOU nursing program is one of OHSU’s satellite campuses, and BMCC and OHSU also have a partnership. Bakewell-Sachs sat with Carla Hagen, EOU’s associate dean of nursing, and Laurie Post, BMCC nursing program director, in a tiny conference room. The three are intimately acquainted with the complexities of training nurses. They mentally fi nish each other’s sentences and have formed a sisterhood of sorts from being together in the trenches of nursing education. Bakewell-Sachs, who has read the Atlantic article along with a voluminous amount of nursing industry data, said she is not in panic mode. “We’re not racing off a cliff tomorrow,” she said. “What you don’t want is to foster a ‘we need everybody to become a nurse’ thinking. This isn’t realistic. We need to ensure we have the capacity in our education system.” The savvy Bakewell-Sachs switched to academia after caring for preterm infants in a hospital setting. She came to OHSU from a college in New Jersey in 2013. The administrator worries somewhat See NURSE/8A “We have more chronic conditions, and the older we get, the more likely we get multiple chronic conditions.” — Susan Bakewell-Sachs, Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing Lawmakers focus on air pollution from wildfi re By GEORGE PLAVEN East Oregonian Wildfi re season may be creeping to a close in north- east Oregon, but the fallout is just beginning to ramp up in Washington, D.C. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-Oregon), will hold a hearing Wednesday exam- ining the impacts of large fi res on air quality, releasing massive amounts of partic- ulate matter and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. “Year after year, cata- strophic wildfi res rage on federal lands, including parts of my district, and our skies are choked with smoke throughout the West,” Walden said during a Sept. 13 House committee hearing. “Air quality issues in my home state continue to rise Staff photo by E.J. Harris to dangerous levels because of these fi res, forcing cancel- The setting sun glows red due to wildfi re smoke in the air lations of community events, Wednesday, Aug. 2., outside of Pendleton. school closures and lost tourism dollars.” day and “very unhealthy” for Comparing air pollution from The Oregon Department one day. of Environmental Quality Thick smoke blanketed wildfires to other sources maintains 35 air particu- the area from fi res as far away late monitors statewide, as Montana and Canada, in More than 685,000 acres were burned by wildfires in Oregon in according to U.S. Forest Service data. The equivalent including one in Pendleton. addition to a rash of infernos 2015, carbon footprint from human activity: Between July 1 and Sept. 6, around the state, such as the More than 3 million the local air quality index 48,573-acre Eagle Creek Total greenhouse passenger cars driven was listed as “moderate” fi re near Cascade Locks in gases from Oregon for one year. for 13 days, “unhealthy for the Columbia River Gorge. wildfires, 2015: OR sensitive groups” for fi ve All together, wildfi res have 14.2 million tons 1.3 million homes’ days, “unhealthy” for one energy use for one year. See POLLUTION/8A Companies hoping to bring development projects to the former Umatilla Chemical Depot won’t be able to get started for at least eight more months after the Army pushed the latest deadline for transferring the land from December to May. “I don’t know what else we can do,” said Greg Smith, director of the Columbia Development Authority. Once the land — 17,000 acres at the junction of Interstate 84 and Interstate 82 outside of Hermiston — is transferred from the U.S. Army’s ownership, it will be divided up as an Oregon Military Department training base, a wildlife refuge and industrial land. In June 2013, Smith’s predecessor Don Chance told the East Oregonian that transfer of a portion of the prop- erty to the Oregon Military Depart- ment would likely happen within 60 days, with the rest of it transferred to local control in time for businesses to open their doors in 2014. That’s been the story ever since — transfer of the property will happen “soon,” followed by an announcement that the Army’s Base Realignment and Closure offi ce has shifted the timeline for transfer by a few more months. Smith said at this point he’s highly skeptical of any deadline given, including the newest May 2018 timeline, but “we have no choice but to accept it.” With a variety of issues such as water rights already worked out, much of the remaining work centers See DEPOT/8A Depot timeline ■ 2004-2011: Nerve agents, munitions and other weapons are destroyed at the Umatilla Chemi- cal Depot ■ June 2013: Reuse authority director Don Chance says transfer could happen in time for business- es to be running on the depot in 2014 ■ August 2013: Crews begin dismantling the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility ■ July 2014: Umatilla Army Depot Reuse Authority becomes Co- lumbia Development Authority in preparation to start developing depot after transfer expected in early 2015 ■ October 2014: Final staff at disposal facility laid off as demili- tarization operations offi cially end ■ December 2014: Army says it doesn’t want to give the depot back to local control for free after all, but eventually agrees to a free transfer ■ July 2015: Greg Smith becomes director of Columbia Development Authority and Army extends time- line for depot transfer from late 2015 to November 2016 ■ April 2016: Deadline for depot transfer moved from November 2016 to May 2017 ■ December 2016: Agreement reached on the division of water rights for the depot ■ April 2017: The Army’s Base Realignment and Closure offi ce submits a draft agreement for transfer of the depot and moves timeline from September 2017 to December 2017 ■ May 1, 2018: The latest es- timate from BRAC on when the depot will be transferred