Thursday, March 21, 2019
East Oregonian
OFF PAGE ONE
A7
Vaccines: Legislators must balance public health concerns with parental rights
Continued from Page A1
Smith said the proposed
legislation has sparked
many a conversation in Cap-
itol corridors and offices.
“It’s the number one topic
all legislators are talking
about,” Smith said.
“It is an emotional issue
for people on both sides,”
Hansell said. “Two values
are in conflict — parental
rights versus public health
— and I feel strongly about
both.”
Smith posed the dilemma
to his 5,000 Facebook
friends on Tuesday. He
wrote, “Please share your
opinion: Before the legisla-
ture is the question should
immunization be manda-
tory for all Oregon children?
Why?” A few hours later, he
had more than 100 replies.
Opinion was almost evenly
split between yeas and nays.
Here is a sampling of
comments:
“We in this country take
for granted the fact that our
children aren’t exposed to
diphtheria, mumps, chicken
pox, measles, influenza and
polio ... I have come across
mothers in other parts of
the world who would give
their life to protect their
children.”
“My government should
not be involved in my per-
sonal healthcare choices for
my child.”
“Vaccinate or keep them
home.”
“Government is getting
too intrusive.”
“There are immunocom-
promised children who can’t
get vaccinated and rely on
herd immunity to keep them
healthy. Why should those
parents constantly worry if
their cancer stricken child is
going to get measles?”
“Absolutely. For the same
reason wearing a seatbelt is
mandatory. For the safety of
others as well as yourself.”
“Government doesn’t get
to decide how we raise our
children,” wrote one man,
but also added, “Parents
should be held accountable
for harm done to their chil-
dren or others when a simple
vaccination would have pre-
vented it.”
Smith was left scratching
his head.
“The responses are all
over the board,” he said.
“When you have a split dis-
trict, what is the correct
thing to do? I’m trying to
measure protection of soci-
ety versus parental rights.”
Hansell said he will
likely vote against the bill
unless some parental “off-
ramps” are added.
During a recent road-
show of the Joint Ways and
Means Committee to East-
ern Oregon, he listened to
constituents troubled about
increasing
government
control.
“They were concerned,”
Hansell said. “Where does
government oversight or
Crime Lab: Facility on track to open in May
Continued from Page A1
the reception staff will con-
trol the secure entrance with
a video system to see and
talk to anyone wanting in
and the front glass is bullet
resistant.
The east side of the build-
ing houses the labs and the
new vehicle bay.
The general lab area pro-
vides five work stations,
there is a separate area for
fingerprint collection, and
another for chemical analy-
sis for controlled substances.
Davis also pointed out two
side-by-side rooms for
screening large items, such
as bedding. He said that’s a
boon because staff can work
on material from a suspect
and a victim at the same
time in separate spaces.
Work is nearing comple-
tion on the vehicle bay, also
on the east end. The bay
has a hydraulic lift to allow
work under vehicles. Davis
said the bay is a significant
addition and when not in
use will double as storage
for the crime scene van. The
bay leads to the room for fir-
ing weapons into a ballistic
water tank. Davis said that’s
a better place to shoot a gun
than the general lab area.
Staff have to pass
through a “bio-vestibule”
to get from one side of the
building to the other. Gerard
said that serves as a “clean
room space” to protect the
victims were young and
unvaccinated. Four Oregon
cases were linked to the
outbreak.
Dr. Richard Lehman, of
the Oregon Health Author-
ity, didn’t weigh in on the
bill directly, but said a high
vaccination rate protects
communities against such
diseases as measles.
“Measles is such an
incredibly infectious dis-
ease. In order to protect a
population, you need about
94 percent to 95 percent of
people vaccinated to get that
herd immunity,” he said.
“When there are a bunch
of vaccinated folks around
an infected person, measles
has no place to go and it will
die out.”
“I ENVISION KIDS COMING OUT
OF THERE WITH ART AND
DESIGN GOALS — THAT THE
DATA CENTERS AND
NIKES OF THE REGION WILL
WANT TO HIRE.”
Jim Doherty ,Morrow County Commissioner
Energy: Solar array
Continued from Page A1
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Armondo Rodriguez, of Pasco, takes a measurement while working in the fingerprint pro-
cessing room at the Oregon State Police crime lab on Wednesday in Pendleton.
labs against contamination.
A
trailer-sized
air
exchange unit outside the
building also helps keep the
lab clean, and a natural gas
generator provides backup
power to the building. In the
off chance electricity goes
down and the gas does not
flow, the generator works
off two large exterior pro-
pane tanks. In essence, the
backup has its own backup.
“The goal is to never,
ever lose power here,”
Gerard said.
He also said the lab
requires “a crazy amount
of equipment” and ensur-
ing the myriad connections
were right the first time
meant plenty of planning
and coordination with state
police prior to installing
anything. Miner said that
work is reaping rewards.
Davis said the larger and
better footprint allows for
staff expansion, should that
ever occur. But the new lab
is not adding forensic disci-
plines, such as DNA anal-
ysis and comparison. The
forensic division handles all
DNA extraction and com-
parison at its lab in Clack-
amas. Likewise, toxicology
work remains there and at
the Springfield lab.
Gerard said May 1 is the
construction end date. Davis
said he and the rest of the
staff won’t move in for a
few weeks after, but they are
thrilled about the new digs.
On a practical note, he
said, he had to take some
measurements in the build-
ing to see if the furniture
they will bring in the move
is going to fit.
Depot: Shock wave rattled Hermiston
Continued from Page A1
in 2015, told the East Orego-
nian in a 2010 interview that
she was waiting in a car at
to go home when the blast
caused her to hit the ceil-
ing. She was in a dress and
high heels, but immediately
reported for duty and vis-
ited the still-hot crater in the
sagebrush with photogra-
pher Jimmy Drake to docu-
ment the scene.
Linda Gilleese told the
Hermiston Herald in 2008
that the front axle of one of
the vehicles landed 20 feet
from her desk at her office
nearly a mile away.
In Hermiston, shock
waves from the blast rippled
through the city, shattering
plate glass windows down-
town and knocking mer-
chandise off store shelves.
Some residents who had
been outside reported seeing
a flash of light in the direc-
tion of the Depot about 15
seconds before the concus-
sion reached them.
N.W. O’Donnell, the
local manager of Pacific
Telephone & Telegraph Co.,
called the company’s Pend-
leton office after hearing the
boom, and was surprised to
hear the explosion a second
time through the phone as
the sound reached Pendle-
ton 30 miles away.
Emotional shockwaves
came next, as word of the
explosion traveled, leaving
the families of hundreds of
ordnance workers to spend
a sleepless night waiting to
hear if their loved ones were
among the victims. Brown
remembers hearing her
mother Minnie crying as a
local minister brought the
news after midnight.
The loss of the Fraser
intrusion, as some would
call it, stop?”
Currently, parents can
opt out of vaccinating their
children for both medical
and non-medical reasons.
Oregon students lacking
waivers or up-to-date shot
records aren’t allowed to
attend school after Exclu-
sion Day, this year on Feb-
ruary 20.
In Umatilla County, 178
students were excluded,
though most, if not all, were
readmitted after getting
shots or bringing proof of
vaccinations or a waiver.
The bill comes in
response to a recent mea-
sles outbreak in Washing-
ton’s Clark County with
73 confirmed cases. Most
Photo contributed by the U.S. Army, File
A Umatilla Ordnance Depot worker loads a 500-pound bomb
similar to the ones that exploded on March 21, 1944, into an
igloo.
family patriarch hit them
hard. Kenneth had always
done whatever it took to
support his family through
the Great Depression, but
even when he worked long
hours he took time to play
games like Chinese check-
ers with his children and
train them to do quick men-
tal math.
“He was a very intelli-
gent person— very math-
minded, and he loved read-
ing when he had time,”
Brown said.
The United States was at
war, and the blast at a mil-
itary installation brought
to mind fears of sabotage.
The military acted quickly,
and the Hermiston Her-
ald reported that all guards
employed at the Depot were
called into work imme-
diately, taking “complete
charge of the situation” and
remaining on high alert the
rest of the night.
The following Friday, a
joint funeral service for five
of the victims was held at
the Pentecostal Tabernacle,
presided over by Rev. S.E.
Graves. Altogether, five
women lost their husbands
and 13 children lost their
father.
Fraser’s family held their
own memorial in Irrigon.
Brown, who at age 90 is the
last surviving member of
Fraser’s immediate family,
said her mother’s grave at
Hermiston Cemetery has a
plaque in his honor.
Little mention of the blast
was made in subsequent edi-
tions of the Hermiston Her-
ald — two brief notices the
next week stated that contri-
butions were being made to
the families of victims, and
that while there had been
fear that the accident would
put a damper on recruit-
ment, “actual reports were
that more and more workers
were seeking employment
at the Depot.”
The paper also praised
the engineers for the U.S.
Army who came up with
the igloo design. The 1,001
cylindrical igloos with tri-
angle fronts at the Depot
were built off-center from
each other to keep any
explosion from setting off
a chain reaction. The sandy
soil and other design ele-
ments also kept the disaster
from being magnified.
The 1944 explosion
would turn out to be the
only fatal accident at the
Depot during its decades of
use. Today, a simple white
cross marks the spot, and
a ragged chunk of the igloo
serves as a memorial on the
portion of the Depot that has
been turned into a National
Guard training facility.
A partnership of local
government bodies known
as the Columbia Develop-
ment Authority hopes to
gain ownership of the rest
of the property sometime
soon.
Don Russell, chairman
of the CDA board, said the
CDA plans to turn the sec-
tion of the Depot with the
igloos into a wildlife pre-
serve managed by the Con-
federated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion. He said historical pres-
ervation is one of the last
pieces being negotiated for
the transfer, and the site of
the explosion will likely end
up featuring a plaque telling
the story.
Brown, the spunky girl
who delivered newspapers
in boys’ clothes and won
scholarships for college,
became a teacher after her
mother encouraged her to
pursue a higher education.
Now retired and living in
Hermiston, she said she has
been to several past memo-
rials for the victims of the
explosion in honor of her
father.
“He did a lot of things in
his life,” she said.
Commissioners approved
an updated agreement that
will include the capacity
for solar and battery power
at that facility. The previ-
ous agreement included
plans for a wind energy
project, but no plans for
solar and battery had yet
been finalized.
Morrow County com-
missioners approved an
updated Strategic Invest-
ment Program agreement
at a meeting on Wednes-
day, which allows for the
addition of up to 150 mega-
watts of solar electricity,
and 150 megawatts of bat-
tery storage. That’s in addi-
tion to a capacity of 450
megawatts of wind energy.
PGE will shut down a
450-megawatt coal-fired
plant near Boardman at
the end of 2020, around
the time the wind farm is
scheduled to start oper-
ating. Work on the solar
array and battery storage is
set to begin in 2021.
Though
it
didn’t
change from the original
SIP agreement, Morrow
County Commissioner Jim
Doherty said he was most
excited about the bene-
fit it would have for local
schools. The agreement
states that for the 15 years
that the SIP agreement
will last, $1 million will be
given to Morrow County
schools — $600,000 to
STEM (science, tech-
nology, engineering and
mathematics) programs,
and $400,000 to art and
music programs.
“For Morrow County,
that became a reality
today,” he said.
A SIP agreement means
that after the first $25 mil-
lion in taxable income, the
companies will pay some
portion of their income
to local entities, in lieu of
paying property taxes. The
county has a 15-year SIP
agreement with Wheat-
ridge. If built to its full
potential, the project could
lead to nearly $5 million
in annual SIP payments to
the county.
Doherty led a team
of people who spent sev-
eral years studying solar
energy and battery stor-
age before approving
the amended agreement,
learning how battery stor-
age operates and is taxed.
He said PGE approached
the county about putting in
solar and battery storage.
But there was no facility
in the United States with
a facility comparable to
what was being proposed
for the Wheatridge project.
A facility in Arizona
was the closest they could
find, with 30 megawatts of
solar energy, and 10 mega-
watts of battery storage.
“It was a start, so we
went out there, and came
back with a number to
NextEra,” he said.
The battery portion
of the project is taxable,
Doherty said.
“I still hazard that it’ll
be a year or two into this
that we’ll find out whether
we got it right,” Doherty
said. “That emerging tech-
nology has businesses get-
ting out a couple years
ahead of the tax abate-
ment program. The value
has already come down
considerably.”
But he said they got
a dollar figure they were
comfortable with.
Doherty said the poten-
tial for renewable energy
in Morrow County is vast
— he counted about six
solar projects and as many
wind projects in the same
area as Wheatridge.
“The important thing
is that folks are seeing
returns coming back to
them,” he said.
Doherty
said
that
aspect of the agreement
started with visits to Con-
gresswoman
Suzanne
Bonamici, whose dis-
trict covers the northwest-
ernmost part of the state,
including a portion of
the Portland-Metro area.
Doherty said when he
first began looking into
a project getting funding
for STEM in the area, he
heard Bonamici, an advo-
cate for STEM, speak, and
presented some of his own
ideas to her.
“She said she and her
staff would love to follow
through with this,” he said.
Morrow County School
District
Superintendent
Dirk Dirksen said they are
very excited about the pro-
grams that can be funded.
“We’re looking forward
to them breaking ground
so we can get started mak-
ing plans for how we’ll
add programs after school
and on Fridays,” he said.
Morrow County schools
have a four-day week, so
there would be opportu-
nities to add a variety of
classes. Dirksen said that
could mean anything from
robotics and computer sci-
ence to coding, career
technical education, or arts
programs.
Oregon Governor Kate
Brown issued a statement
about the agreement.
“I am so pleased to see
that as Oregon looks to its
future in renewable energy
infrastructure, we are also
planning ahead for the
future of the Oregonians
who will drive innovation
in this field for generations
to come — our students,”
she said.
Doherty said he hopes
that the funding will open
up a world of new opportu-
nities for Morrow County
students.
“I envision kids com-
ing out of there with art
and design goals — that
the data centers and Nikes
of the region will want to
hire,” he said.