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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
NASA: Drinking water a top concern Dems seek half of
cap-and-invest deal
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A group of freshman look over a schematic demonstrating how to make an electrical circuit on Tuesday at
Pendleton High School.
Continued from 1A
While
one
student
answered “Wi-Fi” when
asked what were the essen-
tials for extraterrestrial colo-
nization, the pipeline team
established five basic needs:
water, oxygen, food produc-
tion, energy and transport.
Each science class session
revolved around an experi-
ment that demonstrated that
need.
Multiple classes touched
on the importance of drinking
water in space.
With weight being a
premium on spaceships,
astronauts aren’t able to
take large amounts of water
with them on missions. The
International Space Station
recycles urine and sweat to
keep its inhabitants hydrated.
“Today’s coffee is tomor-
row’s coffee,” said Isabel
Carrera, a doctoral student in
the University of Washing-
ton’s environment program.
Quinn Oksoktaruk, a
Washington geology student,
demonstrated the value of a
water purifier in space.
After mixing together
water, Italian salad dressing
and sand, Oksoktaruk made
a makeshift filter. He then
had the students make water
filters of their own using
household items like coffee
filters, cotton, sand and
pebbles.
One by one, students
turned the water from a sickly
yellow to varying levels of
gray. In space, Oksoktaruk
said the water would be
filtered multiple times before
it would be given back to
LIFEWAYS: Spriggs-Flanders
was a Wallowa County clinician
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Tedrick Mealy, outreach coordinator for the Washington NASA Space Grant
Consortium, demonstrates using an hand crank to light an LED while taking about
the energy needs for colonizing the moon on Tuesday at Pendleton High School.
astronauts to consume.
In one of the neighboring
classrooms, Carrera said
electricity also plays a crucial
role in determining whether
water is safe to drink. Water
with contaminants is more
likely to conduct electricity
while pure H20 doesn’t.
Carrera had students
isolate oxygen and hydrogen
in water by using baking
soda, sugar, a plastic
container, aluminum foil, a
battery and rubber bands.
Other
classes
used
different projects to explore a
different necessity: a session
on energy had students use
a circuit board to create a
speaker, the lesson on food
production used hydroponics
to show how food could
be produced without soil,
and a transportation project
required kids make card-
board lunar rovers.
Tedrick
Mealy,
the
outreach coordinator for the
Washington NASA Space
Grant Consortium, organized
the event.
Mealy said the visit from
the pipeline group was
an effort to make NASA
projects and STEM subjects
relate to high school students
across Oregon, Washington,
Idaho and Montana.
The visit is meant to
establish connections with
both students and teachers.
CARTY: Emissions vary based on operations
Continued from 1A
accurate information, and
PGE did not provide that to
either the DEQ or the Oregon
Facility Citing Council when
it sought the permit.
That was back in 2009,
but the Carty Plant was not
operational until July 2016.
Corson said the manufacturer
of Carty’s turbine, Mitsub-
ishi, found that starting and
stopping the machine emitted
more pollution than initially
projected.
“We used the best data
available [in 2009],” Corson
said. “Now we have new
data.”
That data shows the upper
limit of Carty’s emissions, and
the permit should reflect those
possibilities, Corson said.
“We appreciate in absolute
terms these look like large
numbers,” he said. “But in
terms of plant operations and
actual emissions they will
still be within appropriate
health and safety standards.”
Doug Welch with the DEQ
in Pendleton concurred. He
is the senior environmental
engineer writing the new
permit.
“We consider this a kind
of course correction,” he said.
Even with the higher
limits on the proposal, the
levels are within standards for
human health and safety. The
DEQ ran computer models to
figure out the effects on air
quality and make sure they
would not violate regulations
under the federal Environ-
mental Protection Agency.
“We wouldn’t issue the
permit if there was a health
problem,” Welch said.
SALEM — House
Democrats are making a
last-ditch effort to enact at
least half of a cap-and-in-
vest program in Oregon
this year.
Acknowledging reluc-
tance among lawmakers
to pass a full program this
year, House Speaker Tina
Kotek, D-Portland, has
proposed setting up only a
cap on the amount of carbon
emissions that individual
companies may release
into the atmosphere. The
change would come in the
form of an amendment to
a House bill proposing the
cap-and-invest program.
The idea behind the
amendment is that the
Legislature would, in 2019,
develop a program for
pricing carbon emissions
that exceed that cap and
investing the proceeds into
projects intended to offset
climate change.
If the Legislature failed
to complete the program
during its regular session
in the first half of next year,
the amendment authorizes
the Oregon Environment
Quality Commission to
develop the program.
Rep. Diego Hernandez,
D-Portland,
testified
Tuesday in the House
Rules Committee that he
hopes the amendment will
“propel us toward an agree-
ment on a cap-and-trade
bill in 2019.”
A hearing on the
amendment is scheduled
for Thursday, Feb. 22, at
the Oregon Capitol, said
House Majority Leader
Jennifer Williamson, who
chairs the House Rules
Committee.
House
Republican
Leader Mike McLane of
Powell Butte has repeat-
edly opposed passing a
cap-and-invest
program
during the Legislature’s
“short” session this year.
The 35-day session in even
years is designed to clean
up existing policy and
amend budgets, McLane
has said.
House
Democrats,
such as Rep. Pam March
of Ashland, who spoke in
favor of the amendment
Tuesday, said climate
change is an urgent issue
that needs to be addressed
immediately.
The hearing Thursday
night in Boardman could
bring a contingent of PGE
customers from Portland.
Serres said that depends if
the latest winter storm turns
Interstate 84 into an under-
ivable ice rink. Attending or
not, he said, Columbia River-
keeper is going to push DEQ
on the Carty Plant pollution.
“We’re going to be asking
DEQ to take a much harder
look at way to control the
pollution from this plant,”
he said, which could mean
limiting the start-ups and
shut-downs or perhaps other
technologies.”
Corson, who said he
also plans on attending the
hearing, said Carty already
has the “best available
control technology” to
abate emissions of carbon
monoxide
and
volatile
organic compounds. He also
added the permit limits are
just that — the limits — and
not what PGE expects Carty
to emit on a regular basis.
For 2017, he said, the plant
operated consistently with
few start ups and shut downs
and emitted 17.6 tons of
volatile organic compounds
and 31.1 tons of carbon
monoxide. Both are below
the limits of the permit the
plant operates under now, but
Corson said the possibility
exists for higher emissions,
so the permit should account
for that possibility.
“Emissions vary signifi-
cantly, even from month
to month, based on plant
operations,” he said. “So the
permits reflect the higher
limits of what’s possible
while still staying within the
appropriate standards for
health and safety.”
Following the hearing, the
DEQ will continue taking
public input in writing. Welch
said Columbia Riverkeeper
and other groups submitted
a letter asking to extend the
public comment period 60
more days, and the state
agency is likely to grant that
extension, although there has
yet to be an official response.
Welch said the DEQ
reviews the comments and
considers if they raise new
points or shine a light on
new information that would
lead to modifying the permit.
Once the state regulators
finish their work, Welch
said the EPA makes sure
the permit squares with its
requirements.
Serres said Riverkeeper
sees no justification for the
pollution increases aside
from what PGE claims, and
the new data show fracking
plants can be very polluting.
“There needs to be a more
robust analysis of what this
would do to the Gorge and
the people who live nearby,”
he said. “It doesn’t make
sense for a new facility to
see this enormous lurch in
pollution.”
Corson said Carty is a key
resource in PGE’s effort to
distribute renewable energy.
The plant is highly efficient
and uses the best technology
to control pollution, he said,
and the change in the permit
would allow the company to
operate Carty as intended.
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0833.
The pipeline can connect
students with NASA after-
school programs and summer
camps aligned with school
curriculum.
In turn, teachers can
rely on NASA’s STEM
expertise to help them feel
more comfortable teaching
more technical subjects like
robotics.
Mealy said all of this is
done in an effort to avoid
going “over their heads,”
adding that the pun was not
intended.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
“He’s managed crisis
services. He’s worked as a
crisis worker. He’s worked
with numerous commu-
nity partners such as law
enforcement, courts and
hospitals,” Campbell said.
Spriggs-Flanders could
not be reached for comment.
A Wallowa Valley Center
for Wellness representative
said he worked as a clini-
cian for the group for many
years, and was one of the
main crisis workers for the
service.
GOBHI,
as
the
contracting agency, has
Lifeways’ fate in its hands.
Campbell said the board
met Feb. 8 to discuss the
issue. Board members gave
their approval for hiring
Spriggs-Flanders.
“We took into consid-
eration the progress that
has been made to date,”
Campbell said. “The action
of the board was to hold
in abeyance termination
of the portion of mental
health services contract for
crisis services in Umatilla
County.”
Pendleton Police Chief
Stuart Roberts, who has
been involved with discus-
sions with both Lifeways
and GOBHI, said he thinks
the group is making posi-
tive changes.
“One thing we have
now that we didn’t have
before is investment by the
CEO,” he said, referring
to Tim Hoekstra, who was
hired in January.
He said they are
working with law enforce-
ment to close some of the
gaps in following through
with patients. He said that
includes implementing a
strategy that ensures that
people in crisis are released
to a responsible person, and
to a safe location.
Roberts said he wasn’t
so concerned with Life-
ways making changes by
the Feb. 20 deadline, as
long as they continued to
make them.
“That’s a pretty aggres-
sive timeline,” Roberts
said. “As long as I can see
progress being made, I’m
willing to play along. As
far as I’m concerned, the
probationary status is kind
of ongoing until we get to
where we need to be, and
we’ve got a long path to
travel.”
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