INSIDE TODAY
DAWGS
LEAGUE
CHAMPS
INSIDE
THE GUN
DEBATE
SPORTS/1B
NATION/7A
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2018
142nd Year, No. 90
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
PGE seeks permit to increase pollution limits
Company says Carty plant in Boardman needs more flexibility in permit
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Contributed photo by Michael Durham
Construction of the Carty Generating Station as seen
in August 2015.
Lifeways
brings on
consultant
to restore
confidence
By KATHY ANEY
and JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
Lifeways
recently
received an ultimatum:
change its ways or lose its
contract.
The
mental
health
provider responded by
engaging consultant Paul
Spriggs-Flanders to help
the agency improve crisis
services for Umatilla County.
In past months, Pendleton
and Hermiston police chiefs
and others have criticized
Lifeways for leaving it up
to law enforcement officers
to de-escalate mental crises
encountered on the streets.
Often, they said, people in
crisis end up in jail or back on
the streets without receiving
adequate treatment. They
also complained that Life-
ways won’t deal with people
in mental crisis who are also
intoxicated.
Kevin Campbell, CEO of
contracting agency Greater
Oregon Behavioral Health,
Inc. issued a public statement
in early January saying that
if Lifeways didn’t make
“key changes” by Feb. 20,
its contract for crisis services
in Umatilla County would be
terminated.
Spriggs-Flanders could be
just the one to put Lifeways
on a better course, said Camp-
bell. He said Spriggs-Flan-
ders, the founder of the
Wallowa Valley Center for
Wellness, has worked in the
trenches and recently retired
from the Enterprise mental
health center.
See LIFEWAYS/8A
Portland General Elec-
tric’s natural gas-fired power
plant in Boardman would
be allowed to emit more
than three times as much
carbon monoxide and eight
times as much smog-causing
pollution if a new permit is
approved.
Dan Serres, conser-
vation director with the
environmental organization
Columbia
Riverkeeper,
called the higher amounts
“eyebrow-raising.”
Steve
Corson, spokesman for
Portland General Electric,
said the new permit would
allow for the upper limit of
pollution at the plant, which
still would be within federal
standards for air quality.
The Oregon Department
of Environmental Quality is
holding a public hearing on
the proposal Thursday at 6
p.m. in Boardman at the Port
of Morrow’s Well Springs
Room.
Portland General Electric
can emit 99 tons of carbon
monoxide a year at the Carty
plant under the DEQ’s current
air quality permit. The new
permit would increase that to
324 tons a year.
Volatile
organic
compounds would see a
larger jump, from 24 tons a
year to 194 tons a year. VOCs
are organic compounds that
combine with other elements
in the atmosphere to cause
ozone or smog.
“The way PGE initially
got this permitted was with
the expectation of a lower
pollution profile than what
they’re asking for,” Serres
said. “This was really
eyebrow-raising for us to see
this huge proposal coming
from the gas-fired plant.”
Serres also said the
permitting
process
for
See CARTY/8A
LIVING
ON THE
MOON
NASA classes teach basics of lunar colonization
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
On Feb. 6, SpaceX
launched a rocket into outer
space that the company
envisions could one day carry
supplies to the moon.
Two weeks later, NASA
had students from Pendleton
High School working on how
humankind could establish a
lunar colony.
Northwest Earth and Space
Sciences Pipeline, a collabora-
tion between NASA and the
University of Washington, set
down on Pendleton as a part
of an outreach program.
Academics working with
the pipeline took over several
PHS classes, giving short
lectures and conducting
experiments under a single
theme: What would it take for
humans to colonize the moon?
It’s not exactly an easy
answer. A video shown during
science teacher Glenn John-
ston’s class stated that it would
take an estimated $10 billion
to establish a lunar settlement
and another $2 billion per
year to maintain, figures that
far exceed NASA’s current
budget.
See NASA/8A
Staff photos by E.J. Harris
TOP: A group of freshmen look over a schematic demonstrating how to make an electrical
circuit on Tuesday at Pendleton High School.
ABOVE: Students watch as Geologist Quinn Oksoktaruk demonstrates an improvised wa-
ter filter in a science class Tuesday at Pendleton High School.
BACKGROUND: This image, contributed by NASA, was taken before separation of the lunar
module and the command module during Apollo 11 Mission.