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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 2015)
Victory! Great meals on a shoestring — 6A Readers' survey results — 4A Lions top South Umpqua — 1B Thompson, Ducks will try to win it all, page 1B $ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2015 SOUTH LANE COUNTY'S MOST AWARD-WINNING NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1889 VOLUME 126 • NUMBER 28 Also Staff shuffl e means fewer doctors at hospital inside: New physicians expected this summer, but securing appointments could be a problem until then BY JON STINNETT The Cottage Grove Sentinel tember of 2014, a longtime nurse practitioner has left due to retirement, and a primary care physician has returned to only part-time duty following mater- nity leave, leaving the hospital shorthanded, a condition that will likely persist until this sum- mer. “We’re shifting in all sorts of directions,” Herrmann said. P ersonnel changes at Peace- Health Cottage Grove Community Medical Center have thinned the ranks of phy- sicians there, said the hospital’s Chief Administrative Offi cer. According to Tim Herrmann, who took over as CAO in Sep- Cats! “The challenge is to continue to offer access to physicians and appointments.” Recruiting new physicians is a time-consuming process that can take well over a year, Her- rmann said. “Most physicians are pretty well established,” he said. “So you spend a lot of time recruit- ing from the next upcoming class. Most residency programs end in June.” By that time, PeaceHealth ex- pects to easily be able to recruit two new doctors, Herrmann said, though in the meantime it may become more diffi cult to schedule time with a physician. The hospital will try to fi ll the gap with some type of local help between now and July, Her- rmann said. “We’re exploring our options, because between now and July is a long time,” he said. “There are no guarantees, though, be- cause we need somebody that’s available who has the right set of skills and qualifi cations.” Access to primary care phy- sicians has long been an issue AGAIN Log House, Territorial team up on another innovative, exclusive product Volunteers tougher to come by due to holiday absences BY JON STINNETT The Cottage Grove Sentinel F I Swish! Parent powers Lions, page 1B n recent years, two Cottage Grove- based businesses have stepped to the forefront of the market for grafted vegetable plants, and they’ve taken their latest endeavor from the “what’ll they think of next” fi le. In 2011, Log House Plants, a whole- sale nursery based near Dorena Res- ervoir, became America’s fi rst grower of grafted tomato plants for the home gardener, tomato plants that have been grafted to the rootstock of wild toma- toes to create one superior plant. Log House teamed with another innovative Cottage Grove company, Territorial Seed Co., to market grafted vegetables through Territorial’s mail-order cata- log, and the Mighty Mato soon began fi nding its way into America’s gar- dens. Alice Doyle, who has owned Log House along with Greg Lee for 40 years, said that experts there have courtesy photo Ketchup n' Fries offers tomatoes and potatoes — on one plant. Please see TOGETHER, Page 6A Please see DOCTORS, Page 9A Freezing Nights coalition activates during holiday week T OGETHER One local woman's love affair, page 7A in Cottage Grove, one partially addressed by the addition in late 2012 of a walk-in clinic that’s seen heavy use. “The walk-in clinic has been very busy,” Herrmann said. “With this time of year and the viruses we’re seeing, the clinic has been busy every day.” In addition to fl u season and thinned ranks among physi- cians, new patients who have received access to healthcare rigid temperatures early last week prompted the activation of Cottage Grove’s Beds for Freezing Nights program, which seeks to provide a warm place to sleep for those who need it when temperatures dip below freezing. Volunteers with the BFN coalition swung into ac- tion Sunday evening, Dec. 29 for a four-day acti- vation that offered a warm sleeping place through Friday morning, though the holiday plans of many volunteers made fi nding enough help diffi cult. The coalition reportedly served three guests on Monday, 5-6 on Tuesday, three people on Wednes- day and four Thursday evening. It’s these types of extended cold-spell activations that can test the 35 or so volunteers who aid the effort. “With this many volunteers, it’s pretty tight,” said BFN’s Janice Gutmann. “If everybody is here, an extended activation is OK, but with the holiday week, we were really scrambling.” About eight volunteers worked two shifts to help cover the need, Gutmann said. They set up shop at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, which has become the preferred location for the BFN shel- ter, although the shelter moves to First Presbyterian Church when the Catholic facility is unavailable. Gutmann said BFN can always use more volun- teers, and those interested in helping out or who may need a place to stay when temperatures drop can ac- cess more information at www.freezingnights.com. Upcoming year critical for local salmon restoration effort big a load as the other trips, so if there’s a silver lining in all this, that may be it,” Ziller said. About 230,000 Chinook smolts were due to be placed in the Row, though a rather complex set of circumstances necessitated their early release, accord- ing to Ziller. “These fi sh should’ve gone out in 2015,” he said. A lawsuit alleging that ODFW is releasing too many hatchery fi sh into the nearby McKenzie River helped prompt the early release, in ad- dition to fears over the viability of the spillway gates at the Leaburg Dam up- stream, which gravity-feeds water to the hatchery. “The lawsuit, the roll gate problems at Leaburg, some weather issues — it led to us needing to move a lot of these Spilled fi sh part of an attempt to reestablish Chinook locally, but tactics could change if fi sh don't return BY JON STINNETT The Cottage Grove Sentinel T he crash of a tanker truck on the McKenzie Highway last Tues- day, Dec. 30 — a truck whose driver was later suspected of driving under the infl uence of alcohol — spelled the demise of over 11,000 Chinook salmon smolts spilled onto the highway during the wreck. State Police later said that 45-year old driver Ray C. Lewis of Umpqua had a blood alcohol level of .29, more than three times the threshold of legal intoxication, following the wreck of the tanker, which occurred when the truck left the highway and struck a power pole at about 3 p.m. Lewis was transporting the fi sh from the nearby Leaburg hatchery to a des- tination in the Row River near Cottage Grove, according to Oregon Depart- ment of Fish and Wildlife Fish Biolo- gist Jeff Ziller. The smolts perished soon after the crash, Ziller said, and were the last of seven truckloads of young salmon slated for transplant into the Row at the Row River Nature Park just outside Cottage Grove that day. “He was driving the fi nal truckload of the day, and he wasn’t carrying as young fi sh, and one spot we can bring a lot of fi sh is to the Row,” Ziller said. “So that’s where they went.” Without that set of circumstances, Ziller said the salmon would’ve likely been placed in the river in February or March as part of an ongoing effort to establish a Chinook fi shery in the Row and the Coast Fork of the Willamette River. Fish and Wildlife fi rst started re- introducing Chinook there in the spring of 2012, releasing 213,000 young fi sh at that time, followed by close to 300,000 fi sh in 2013 and 207,000 fi sh last spring. Ziller said there are more fi sh sched- uled for release in the Row, but unless their older counterparts begin returning to the river in decent numbers to spawn, the fi sh may be placed elsewhere. “We have other batches scheduled, but the question is do we release them all there or elsewhere on the Coast Fork,” he said. “We’ll be looking to make those kinds of decisions in the next couple months.” The Army Corps of Engineers pro- vides funding to ODFW to mitigate the habitat lost to the dams at Dorena and Cottage Grove Reservoirs. The desire to decrease the impact of hatchery fi sh in the McKenzie, coupled with a desire to reestablish the fi shery in the Row, led to the concentrated efforts to place hatchery fi sh here using those funds. But unless quantities of fi sh start re- turning from the ocean this year, that could change. Please see SALMON, Page 9A Rain Country Realty Inc. ANT! 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Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424 By mail Corner of Sixth and Whiteaker, Cottage Grove In person 36025 Shoreline A treed acre that used to have a mobile so may still have power, water, and septic. property is within 100 feet of the shoreline $100,000 Brokers Ron Schneider..................521-8713 Laurie Phillip....................430-0756 Valerie Nash ....................521-1618 +Z\ WEATHER Licensed in the State of Oregon CONTENTS HIGH LOW 59 37 Mostly Sunny Principal Brokers Teresa Abbott ..................221-1735 Frank Brazell....................953-2407 Lane Hillendahl ................942-6838 Calendar......................................... 9B Channel Guide ............................... 3B Classified ads................................. 5B Obituaries....................................... 2A Opinion .......................................... 4A Public Safety .................................. 5A Sports ............................................ 1B 75 CENTS