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!
G
E
L
E
D
N
A
SPACIOUS
5DLQ&RXQWU\5HDOW\FRP
33985 Witcher
Gateway
This huge ranch house
is on 88 acres of trees,
pasture, barns and
more. Home has several
bedrooms including
separate guest quarters
downstairs. Lots of
amenities and room to
roam! $699,000
NA!
E
R
O
D
ACRE AT
UDLQFRXQWU\UHDOW\#JPDLOFRP
CONTACT US
www.cgsentinel.com
On the Internet
(541) 942-3325
By telephone
(541) 942-3328
By fax
cgnews@cgsentinel.com
By e-mail
P.O. 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