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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 25, 2019)
NEWS Wallowa.com Wednesday, December 25, 2019 Bag ban: Statewide law goes into effect Jan. 1 WHAT’S UP WITH PLASTIC BAGS? Continued from Page A1 Ellen Morris Bishop Wallowa County Chieftain streams and groundwater, as well as negative effects of the bags on wildlife that may consume them. Ironi- cally, the bags came into use as a way to save trees. Grocery stores in Wal- lowa County are already making plans for the change. Failure to comply with the law would potentially result in fi nes of $250 a day. Enterprise Safeway man- ager Steve Hunter said there is a notice posted in the store explaining to customers the effect of the change. Safe- way plans to charge 5 cents each for paper bags — the minimum charge that is mandated by the new law. The store will continue to sell reusable fabric bags for $1. Pearl Sturm, a man- ager at The Market Place in Joseph, said they will soon post a notice. “Quite a few of our cus- tomers already bring in cloth bags,” she said. As she rang up cus- tomers’ purchases Thurs- day, Dec. 19, Sturm regu- larly asked them, “Bag or no bag.” Many declined to have their purchases bagged at all. At Wallowa Food City the managers were unavail- able, but a spokeswoman said the store already has paper available and sells cloth bags for $1. Mike Goss, owner of the Dollar Stretcher in Enter- prise, said he plans to com- ply. “Whatever the law is, the law is,” he said. “I’m not going to violate the law.” Bill Bradshaw Ellen Morris Bishop Carol Baker exits the Enterprise Safeway Thursday, Dec. 19, with a shopping cart full of bagged items. Baker doesn’t mind that the plastic bags will be banned by state law Jan. 1 because they’re too often left as litter. “Guess I’ll have to stock up on the reusable bags,” she said. Wallowa Food City is ready for the plastic bag ban, with plenty of paper bags in stock. “I just don’t think they should force us to charge for the paper bags,” the checker said. The plastic bags have been around for a long time. Safeway and Kroger, two of the biggest super- market chains in the U.S., switched from paper to plastic bags in 1982. More stores followed suit. By the end of the decade, plastic bags, which were econom- ical to produce, had almost replaced paper around the world. Ironically, plastic bags came into vogue partly to save trees from being cut and turned into paper gro- cer bags. Here at home, random shoppers in Enterprise and Joseph seemed largely in favor of the new law, though opinions and rea- sons varied. “I see those empty bags all over the place,” Carol Baker said at Safeway. “They should be banned because no one will pick them up.” Mike Hale, at the Market Place, is all for the change. “I don’t like the plas- tic bags,” he said. “I’d pay more to not have them.” Some people have been making the shift to reusable bags. “It’ll remind me to remember the bags I always have in my car,” said Mon- ica Weaver, another Safe- way shopper. Susan Barcik, also at Safeway, had another reason. “I’ve been using (reus- ables) for a while,” she said. “I just got tired of recycling.” Larry Davidson, while coming out of the Dollar Stretcher, admitted to a self- ish reason for preferring the plastic bags. “I like the bags because I can carry them,” he said. But John Anderson, also at the Dollar Stretcher, was ada- mantly against the new law. “It’s crazy,” he said. “We’ve been using plastic bags forever. Why quit using them? … It’s just the gov- ernment doing more stupid stuff.” Some shoppers who were asked seemed merely resigned to the change. Rick Quesenberry, at the Dollar Stretcher, saw the Starting on Jan. 1, Oregon retail stores and restaurants can no longer provide sin- gle-use plastic checkout bags. They may off er paper bags, but must charge customers at least 5 cents per bag. And those bags must contain 40% or more post-consumer recy- cled fi ber. Grocery stores may also provide reusable plastic bags (4 mils thick) or reusable fabric bags. Restaurants may still provide paper bags at no cost. The concern about plastic bags, especially in the marine environment, is global. Coun- tries banning them include India, Australia, Morocco, France, and Italy. Countries where regulations on their use and disposal, including taxes on their use, include Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Pakistan, China and Japan. In the U.S. California, Oregon and Hawaii have banned use of the bags. Washington and New York are considering similar legislation. More than 200 individual cities have also banned the bags, including Anchorage, Wasilla, and Palmer Alaska, Boulder, Co, Coral Gables, Fla., Boston, Ma., Hoboken, N.J., Santa Fe, NM, and Laredo, TX. Many cit- ies also tax paper bags heavily. But not everyone hates plastic. Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Iowa are among the states that have laws protecting plas- tic bags against any ban. The bags break down into micro plastics which are capa- change as inevitable. “It’s got to be done,” he said. “I always liked paper A7 ble of attracting and holding toxins that include persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and toxic organic compounds such as DDT, dioxins, and PCBs. These may be consumed by fi sh, including salmon, that otherwise enter our food chain. Toxins held on these plastic particles may also leach into groundwater. In the U.S. according to the EPA, we use over 380 billion plastic bags and wraps yearly, requiring 12 million barrels of oil to create. Globally, about a trillion of these bags are manufactured, used once, and then discard- ed. The EPA statement about plastic pollution, and especial- ly thin micro plastics is: “There is a growing concern about the hazards from plastic pollution in the marine environment. Plastics pose both physical (e.g., entanglement, gastrointesti- nal blockage, reef destruction) and chemical threats (e.g., bio-accumulation of the chemical ingredients of plastic or toxic chemicals attracted to , and then held on the surfaces of plastics) to wildlife and the marine ecosystem. Although plastics in the remote gyre accumulation areas of the oceans (like the “Pacifi c gar- bage patch”) garner the most media attention, they are not the only water bodies polluted by plastics. Plastic trash and particles are now found in most marine and terrestrial habitats, including the deep sea, Great Lakes, coral reefs, beaches, rivers, and estuaries.” better anyway.” — Ellen Morris Bishop contributed to this story. Council: Vendor fee rate hike will undergo more research and investigation Continued from Page A1 In response to an audi- ence question about the park, Braden said a citizen contacted the city and asked if the city would be inter- ested if the caller offered to donate land for the park. After some negotiations, the citizen agreed to have the city draw up a contract with a property description to transfer the title. According to the mayor, the property had once served as a park and housed base- ball fi elds as well. She added that the project would even- tually entail much citizen involvement and public meetings as well. “We’ll try to make it as pleasing to everyone as we possibly can do,” she said. “Nothing will get done with- out public meetings.” Under unfi nished busi- ness, Sajonia said the city staff had spent some time researching transient mer- chant licenses in order to develop a fee schedule, which included fee compari- sons with other cities. The vendor fee hike is a part of city resolution 2019- 23 which covers fees for the city’s administrative ser- vices, including adminis- trative, business and land use services. The vendor fees fall under the business category. The city staff suggested the annual license fee for non-commercial food ven- dors (such as raw fruit or vegetable sales) at $375 while commercial food vendors (such as prepared foods) pay $475 per year. Sajonia said the $375 fee matched with the low end of Chief Joseph Days vendor fees. She asked Becky Rush- ton, co-owner of the Outlaw Restaurant and Saloon, who said that food vendors pay $375 while booth fees vary. “That’s just way too low for a whole annual year,” Rushton said. “Those peo- ple (the CJD vendors) do it for four days, and to think you’re going to do it on an annual basis for that amount of money, I just think that seems really, really, really low.” Sajonia, who owns Embers Brew House in Joseph, agreed and said she had the same response, even though she admitted the sug- gested fees were at the high end of what other munic- ipalities levy against ven- dors. Rushton took it one step further. “I think if we put mor- atoriums on other things, we should put them on that too,” Rushton said. “In other words, if you can’t have air bnb’s and that sort of thing, then I don’t think we should have transient vendors.” “That’s harsh,” an attendee said. Another audi- ence member agreed. Rushton remained defi - ant. “It’s no different than people not wanting parks,” she said and giggled. An ensuing discussion with Sajonia revealed that the city of Bend charges $110 per year less than Joseph’s pro- spective vendor fees. Sajonia referred the mat- ter to council discussion. Council member Pearl Sturm said she didn’t have a problem with the fee sched- ule. New member, Richard Pointer, thought the research and schedule suffi cient. Sajonia took on her self-de- scribed role as “devil’s advo- cate” and said she had a hard time believing a food cart in Bend “only” paid a $375 fee. Braden said the amount is what the city requires and doesn’t take space rental fees into account. Rushton argued that some local businesses allow food carts on their property with- out paying extra for sewer and water. She then alleged if she had such booths on her Indian Lodge Motel prop- erty, she would immediately be charged. She also said the city lost revenue with tran- sient vendors. Audience member Kathy Norman suggested the city not raise rates so high that it alienates vendors and also suggested the city could rent vendor spaces as well. Kathy Bingham suggested the city did not own enough Main Street property to rent to vendors and that if private property owners wanted to allow licensed vendors, it was none of the city’s busi- ness — unless vendors were banned. The mayor said the ven- dor fees were instituted in order that the city recoup fees it would not receive oth- erwise. She added it was the city’s responsibility to pro- tect local businesses from vendors who operate only during lucrative summer- time months while perma- nent businesses pay street, sewer and water fees, even during winter months. “Does that $375 cover what those people did (the ELECTRICAL & PLUMBING SUPPLIES ELECTRICAL & WATER SYSTEM CONTRACTOR PUMPS • IRRIGATION HARDWARE• APPLIANCE PARTS 208 S. 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After more discussion, the council unanimously passed 2019-23 with the exception of the transient vendor fees, which will undergo more research and investigation. Serving Wallowa County • Convenient Delivery • Residential • • Commercial • Industrial •
