A6
OREGON
East Oregonian
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Climate change results in projected Oregon Gov. Brown
signs bill replacing
shifts for plant hardiness zones
‘alien’ in state laws
By KYM POKORNY
For The Observer
CORVALLIS — You visit
the nursery, pick out a primo
plant, come home, put it in
the ground and wait for it
to become a beautiful tree,
shrub or perennial. Then
spring arrives and it’s dead
or floundering.
What happened?
In some cases, cold
temperatures are the culprit.
It’s a matter of right plant,
right place, said Nicole
Sanchez, Oregon State
University Extension horti-
culturist. Plants survive to
a certain low temperature,
a characteristic they devel-
oped through evolution in
their native habitat. You need
to know about hardiness
zones to be assured your
plants will avoid cold-related
death. Plants bought at nurs-
eries should have the hardi-
ness zone on the label.
The zones are determined
by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, working with
Oregon State University’s
PRISM Climate Group, and
based on a 30-year period
of averaged minimum low
temperatures. The latest
hardiness map came out
in 2012 and is from data
collected during the years
1976-2005. Zones are ranked
from 1 (-60 degrees) to 13
(70 degrees), though the
extremes are rare. To find
yours, go to www.planthar-
diness.ars.usda.gov and put
in your ZIP code.
Oregon’s hardiness zones
range from 6a (-20 to -15) to
8b (15 to 20), with pockets
of 5b (-15 to -10) in Eastern
Oregon. The map doesn’t
reflect the coldest it has ever
been or ever will be at a
specific location, but simply
the average lowest winter
temperature for the location
over a specified time.
But with climate change,
the zones are shifting,
By JULIA SHUMWAY
Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon State University/Contributed Photo
This Oregon zone hardiness map for plants was created at Oregon State University and came
out in 2012. Shifts in zones due to climate change continue across the states.
Sanchez said. For instance,
the 2012 map zones changed
in many areas by 5 degrees
— or a half-zone warmer
— than the previous map.
Already, there’s talk of the
Portland area moving from
zone 8b to 9a, which has a
low of 20-25 degrees.
“We won’t know the
specifics about zones chang-
ing until we have another 30
years of data to go on, but
that doesn’t mean we wait
until 2035,” Sanchez said.
“They may use an earlier
time period. Then we can
look and see if there are long-
term changes that would be
reflected in new zones for
particular areas. So, we wait
and see.
“I always hear people say,
‘This is the warmest spring
ever’ or ‘I’ve never seen a
summer so hot.’ Usually,
they’re wrong. Weather is
a short-term phenomenon
and climate is a long-term
pattern.”
The map is a guide, not
an absolute document. There
can be winters when lows
dip below your zone mini-
mum, she said. Nature can
throw a curve ball; noth-
ing is guaranteed. For now,
gardeners should base their
plant choices on the current
map.
What happens in your
garden could very well be
different than your neighbor
because of what are called
microclimates. A microcli-
mate can have an effect simi-
lar to moving to a colder or
warmer zone. They can be
inf luenced by structures
like the orientation of your
house to the sun. South will
be warmer than north, west
warmer than east.
Other microclimates
may be related to slope: cold
air pools at the bottom and
the high points are cold,
too, because of wind and
exposure. So, the middle
of a slope is the sweet
spot for borderline hardy
plants. Microclimates can
be created with rock walls
and mulches, buildings and
fences, and windbreaks
created with plants.
Preliminary report shows no spike in
recidivism for prisoners released early
By CONRAD WILSON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
SALEM — A preliminary
report released this month by
the Oregon Criminal Justice
Commission found some
people released early from
prison because of the corona-
virus pandemic were not more
likely to commit crimes.
G ov. K a t e Br ow n
commuted the sentences
of 963 people during the
C OV I D -19 p a n d e m ic
between July 2020 and Octo-
ber 2021. The majority were
considered medically vulner-
able or near the end of their
sentences.
The Criminal Justice
Commission, a nonpartisan
state agency, looked at the first
266 people granted a release
between July and November
of 2020.
The agency found 18%
were arrested within one year
of their commutation, 8%
were convicted of a new crime
and 2% were reincarcerated.
CJC executive director
Ken Sanchagrin said those
numbers are similar to figures
from 2019 involving people
granted release or parole.
This chart comes from
a March 2022 report by the
Oregon Criminal Justice
Commission. It compares
recidivism rates from people
who got out of prison in 2019
with those who were released
in 2020 after their sentence
was commuted by Gov. Kate
Brown.
“It doesn’t appear that
being let out early for these
folks had any type of negative
impact as far as higher rates
of recidivism that we would
normally expect,” Sanchagrin
told OPB.
Sanchagrin said his agency
will issue another report
sometime in the next year.
The report found of the
commuted people who reof-
fended, 10 involved a crime
against another person.
“Of these 10 individ-
uals, the most common
person crime was menacing,
followed by recklessly endan-
gering another person, assault
in the fourth degree, and
robbery in the second degree,”
the report states. “There was
one arrest for assaulting a
public safety officer and one
arrest for robbery in the first
degree.”
The report also states
one person who received
a commutation was later
convicted of and incarcerated
for second degree manslaugh-
ter.
Brown has faced criti-
cism, and a lawsuit, over the
pandemic-related commuta-
tions. In January, two district
attorneys in Oregon filed a
complaint, alleging the gover-
nor went outside the bounds of
her executive powers to issue
the commutations.
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“I’m in zone 6,” Sanchez
said. “If I wanted to plant
dahlias, which are zone 7
plants, I’d plant them on
the south side with a gravel
mulch that would store heat.”
Zones are essential
when choosing a plant. To
be successful, plants must
fit into your zone, which
helps with selection. If you
have five plants you like and
only two are in your zone, it
narrows down your selec-
tion. You can push the enve-
lope; just be prepared to lose
plants periodically.
“Some gardeners get a
kick out of out of growing
something that allegedly
won’t grow in their zone,”
Sanchez said. “Sometimes a
plant will survive for several
years because the weather
doesn’t get down to the mini-
mum of your zone. But, then
a really cold winter comes
along and zaps them. Be
careful with woody plants
like shrubs and trees. They
are investments. You can pay
$350 for a tree or $15 for a
flat of impatiens.”
SALEM — Oregon will
get rid of all references to
noncitizens as “aliens” in
state documents by the
summer of 2023 after Gov.
Kate Brown signed a law.
The measu re will
remove statutory references
to “aliens” beginning on
Jan. 1 and require all state
agencies to replace the word
“alien” with “noncitizen” in
their rules by July 1, 2023. It
follows similar laws passed
in California and Colorado
in 2021.
A cursory review of
Oregon statutes shows the
word “alien” appears more
than 100 times, mostly in
reference to foreign insur-
ance companies. But the
word also is in laws about
public pensions, concealed
handgun licenses and hiring
contractors.
The bill’s sponsor, Demo-
cratic Sen. Kayse Jama of
Portland, came to the U.S.
as a Somalian refugee in the
1990s. As a refugee, he was
classified as an “alien” under
state and national law.
“Referring to immigrants
and refugees as ‘aliens’ is
an outdated, dehumaniz-
ing practice that stems from
xenophobia and allows indi-
viduals to express bigotry
without using overt racist
language,” he said in a state-
ment.
Jama said he hoped other
states will follow Oregon’s
lead in removing the word
from their laws.
The law is one of several
pieces of pro-refugee legis-
lation passed in recent years.
Brown earlier this month
appointed a director for a
new state office that will
support new immigrants
and refugees. The Office
of Immigrant and Refugee
Advancement was created
by legislation sponsored by
Jama in 2021.
In December, lawmakers
also allocated $18 million to
help Afghan refugees who
began relocating to the U.S.
last fall after U.S. troops
left the country. The state
expects to be home to about
1,200 Afghan refugees by
September.
President Joe Biden said
the U.S. will take in about
100,000 Ukrainian refu-
gees fleeing Russia’s inva-
sion of their homeland, and
it’s unknown how many will
come to Oregon.
“In Oregon, we welcome
immigrants and refugees
from around the world,
recognizing that these
communities are a vital part
of the fabric of Oregon’s
history, culture and econ-
omy,” Brown said in a state-
ment.. “I am pleased we are
making progress through
efforts like the Welcoming
Refugees Bill, the creation
of the Office of Immigrant
and Refugee Advance-
ment and now, removing a
dangerous label from our
lexicon through SB 1560.
Words matter, and I applaud
Senator Jama and all Orego-
nians who worked to make
this important change.”
Brown is making her
way through about 130
bills passed by the Legisla-
ture earlier this spring. She
has until Monday, April 4,
30 days after the legislative
session ended, to sign or veto
measures or allow them to
become law without her
signature.
So far, Brown has not
vetoed any bills. She has
yet to take up some of the
most high-profile measures,
including a proposal to
phase in overtime pay for
farmworkers and hundreds
of millions in new state
spending on infrastructure,
housing and education.