LOCAL/STATE
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
A17
Draft climate plan excludes carbon sequestration
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
SALEM — A new pro-
gram aimed at signifi cantly
curbing Oregon’s green-
house gas emissions is com-
ing under criticism for omit-
ting investments that could
help farms and forests
sequester more carbon from
the atmosphere.
The Oregon Department
of Environmental Qual-
ity released draft rules for
the Climate Protection Pro-
gram on Aug. 5 — simi-
lar to cap-and-trade legis-
lation thwarted twice in the
state Legislature by Senate
Republicans who fl ed the
Capitol to deny a vote.
After the second walk-
out in 2020, Gov. Kate
Brown signed an executive
order requiring the Ore-
gon DEQ and other state
agencies to take action on
harmful emissions, target-
ing a 45% reduction below
1990 levels by 2035 and
80% below 1990 levels by
2050.
Like cap and trade, the
Climate Protection Program
sets a limit on emissions that
gradually lowers each year.
Part of the program also
allows regulated utilities and
fuel suppliers to buy or trade
off set credits to meet their
reduction goals, referred
to as “community climate
investments,” or CCIs.
CCIs would pay for a
variety of projects to transi-
tion Oregonians from fossil
fuels to cleaner, more sus-
tainable sources of energy,
said Colin McConnaha, who
manages Oregon DEQ’s
Offi ce of Greenhouse Gas
Programs.
However, McConnaha
said it will not subsidize car-
bon sequestration on natu-
ral and working lands, such
as through no-till farming
and the planting of cover
crops. While the DEQ is not
opposed to carbon seques-
tration, McConnaha said
the primary focus of the
program is reducing fossil
fuels in homes, vehicles and
businesses.
“The primary drawback
in the context of this pro-
gram is simply that it would
take funding away from
investments in hastening
Oregon’s clean-energy tran-
sition,” McConnaha said.
That decision is not sit-
ting well with some mem-
bers of the rules advisory
committee tasked with help-
ing the DEQ to develop the
draft rules.
Jan Lee, executive direc-
tor of the Oregon Association
of Conservation Districts,
said carbon sequestration is
not only a critical tool for
addressing climate change,
but can benefi t rural com-
munities that are dispropor-
tionately impacted by creat-
ing healthier, more resilient
landscapes.
Lee said from the begin-
ning the committee dis-
cussed carbon sequestration
within the CCI program.
Then, at the fi nal meet-
ing in July, it was sud-
denly removed without
explanation.
“It was very diffi cult at
the end to drop it out,” said
Lee, whose association rep-
resents 45 soil and water
conservation districts across
Oregon. “Sequestration was
one of the few things that
could be done in rural areas
to deal with the impact of
climate change.”
Under Brown’s executive
order, the Oregon Global
Warming Commission has
also drafted a natural and
working lands proposal that
calls for a net sequestration
of 9.5 million metric tons of
carbon dioxide per year by
2050.
Not connecting seques-
tration with the Climate Pro-
tection Program’s source
of funding “is a big missed
opportunity,” Lee said.
The Climate Protection
Program sets the initial price
of CCIs at $81 per metric
ton of carbon. At 9.5 mil-
lion metric tons, that adds
up to $769.5 million worth
of investment that could be
coming in to rural Oregon,
Wallowa County Commis-
sioner John Hillock said.
“If you leave out seques-
tration, the rural communi-
ties aren’t going to be able
to share in this money,” Hill-
ock said.
Jeff Stone, executive
director of the Oregon Asso-
ciation of Nurseries, said he
was likewise disappointed
to see carbon sequestra-
tion excluded from the draft
rules.
If the Climate Protection
Plan has winners and losers,
the question then becomes
what Oregon wants its econ-
omy to look like in 25-30
years, Stone said.
“We should be doing
things that enhance agricul-
ture, and that enhances car-
Oregon Department of Forestry/Contributed Photo
A new Oregon state program aimed at curbing greenhouse
gas emissions is under criticism for omitting investments
that could help farms and forests sequester carbon from the
atmosphere.
bon sequestration,” Stone
said. “I think there’s a
missed opportunity here in
trying to build more bridges
rather than walls between
urban and rural.”
McConnaha, with Ore-
gon DEQ, insists the pro-
gram will prioritize rural
communities while main-
taining the focus on transi-
tioning to cleaner fuels.
For example, he said
many rural households and
businesses — including
agriculture and forestry —
have a tougher challenge
switching to cleaner modes
of transportation since they
often have to travel longer
distances and traverse rough
terrain.
“This makes helping
enable that switch to cleaner
transportation
especially
important for these commu-
nities,” he said.
A 60-day public com-
ment period is currently
underway for the Climate
Protection Program, ending
Oct. 4. DEQ will also hold
two virtual public hearings
to discuss the proposal on
Sept. 22 and Sept. 30.
Final rules need to be
approved by the Environ-
mental Quality Commission
before going into eff ect as
early as next year.
Youths to learn to make ‘haunted’ masks
‘Haunt Camp’
workshops planned
in Joseph, Wallowa
Chieftain staff
JOSEPH — A six-week
workshop in Joseph and
Wallowa will take place just
in time to get ready for Hal-
loween as high schoolers can
take part in Haunt Camp:
Creature Creation Work-
shop, the Josephy Center for
Arts and Culture announced.
The classes are free
and will take place in two
locations:
• The Place in Joseph
after school each Monday
and Wednesday beginning
Sept. 20.
• The Wallowa Elemen-
tary School Multipurpose
Room each Tuesday and
Thursday.
Start times will be deter-
mined to accommodate
student travel time, and
the course will run until
Halloween.
Students will learn how
to safely create a plaster
copy of their face, sculpt a
character mask and trans-
form it into realistic sili-
cone pieces while learning
the same techniques used in
Hollywood today.
“For years I’ve been
working on bringing this
class to high school stu-
dents in Wallowa County,”
artist J.R. Rymut said of the
Josephy Center/Contributed Photo
During the Haunt Camp Creature Creation Workshop, students
will learn how to create a plaster cast of their faces, sculpt a
character mask and transform it into realistic silicone pieces
while learning the same techniques used in Hollywood.
class. “I’m so grateful it’s
fi nally happening. Molding
and casting is rarely taught
in art classes, and we’re
creating high-quality pros-
thetic makeup the same way
special eff ects shops in the
fi lm industry do. And that’s
the point of the class: not
only are we making really
unusual, exciting projects,
as a professional creative
fabricator I want to intro-
duce teens to career paths in
the arts they may not know
exist.”
In the class, students will
design their own character to
bring to life.
“Monsters are fun, but
I hope some students want
to experiment with old-age
transformations or other
realistic disguises,” Rymut
said. “I want to see a lot of
fake noses in Safeway.”
“J.R. and I have been
working together for a while
trying to make this happen
and just by serendipity, we
had the perfect grant that fi t
perfectly with this project,
so we are able to execute the
program for free and for 15
students in both locations,”
said Cheryl Coughlan, exec-
utive director of the center.”
I can’t wait to see the end
result.”
Coughlan said the work-
shop isn’t limited to what’s
going on there.
“The workshop also lets
students exercise their dra-
matic and video production
skills at the end, by creating
TikTok videos to show off
their creations,” she said.
Students can register
online at hauntcamp.com.
Registration and face masks
are required. For questions,
contact Rymut at haunted-
camp@gmail.com.
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