Opinion
A4
BAKER CITY
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Saturday, November 19, 2022 • Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Addressing
Morrow
County’s water
emergency
T
he news that the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality will restructure the
composition of a key committee focused on
nitrate pollution in local drinking water is a good move,
but what impact the changes will be remains a mystery.
The DEQ appointed new members to the Lower Uma-
tilla Basin Groundwater Management Area and triggered
a move to restructure how the board operates last week.
The focus of the group is to find out what is creating
the high levels of nitrates in the groundwater and then
craft recommendations on how to lower those levels.
The groundwater pollution saga lingered for decades,
and last summer Morrow County declared an emer-
gency to battle contaminated drinking water. The county
— with some state help — has worked on this challenge
since then. Meanwhile, environmental groups petitioned
the Environmental Protection Agency to assist, and the
federal agency warned the state it might intervene.
The changes to the committee are certainly welcome
and every little bit helps in this situation, but in the end,
what, exactly, are the modifications to the board mem-
bership and its mission going to do to reduce nitrates?
What will the changes do to address the pollution
situation?
Umatilla County Commissioner Dan Dorran said that
people would look back on these changes and “say that
we kicked the football off and started the game today.
We’ve only been practicing for the last 30 years. Now we
are doing it for real.”
It’s hard to make out what Dorran meant. The commit-
tee has been in existence for a while now. There should
have never been any “practicing” regarding groundwater
contamination.
Changes to the board membership and its mission are
fine, but they’re essentially administrative modifications
and don’t do anything to fix what has become a world-
class debacle for Oregon and local counties.
The hue and cry will be that local, regional and state
leaders and officials are working hard to fix the pollu-
tion issue. We hope that is true. So far, though, there
hasn’t been the kind of speed and decisiveness one would
expect.
We hope the new board members prove to be crucial,
and we are sure their intentions are good. Yet what voters
really should be able to see is a very methodical blueprint
regarding how county and state leaders are going to solve
this problem.
Anything less is window dressing and simply misses
the whole point.
█
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald. Columns, letters
and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily
that of the Baker City Herald.
COLUMN
Update GI Bill for the online era
BY SHANNON RIGGS
E
ach year, more than
700,000 veterans rely on
the GI Bill to pay for their
education, but those who pur-
sue online degrees don’t receive
their benefits in full. We must
show veteran students pursuing
online degrees that the coun-
try appreciates their service by
asking Congress to address this
oversight.
GI Bill benefits include a
monthly housing allowance
based on the college’s ZIP code.
Students are allotted more fund-
ing in cities and towns where
housing is more expensive, and
less where housing is less costly.
When veterans pursue degrees
online, however, the housing al-
lowance is reduced to half the
national average, regardless of
location or housing costs.
At Oregon State University,
where I serve as the executive di-
rector of our Ecampus, the 493
veteran students who pursued
their degrees online full-time
with us in 2021 faced a short-
age of $871.50 per month. (The
shortage for part-time students
is pro-rated, so a student taking
three classes instead of four per
semester would receive 80% of
the housing allowance).
If the GI Bill was set up this
way under the assumption that
online students have more flex-
ibility, more ability to work and
less financial need, our univer-
sity data shows otherwise. At
Oregon State, distance students
actually have greater financial
need: 44% of our online students
are eligible for Pell Grants, com-
pared with 25% of our on-cam-
pus students.
Further, students who need
to balance work and school — a
primary reason students pursue
degrees online — aren’t eligible
for as many financial aid re-
sources as full-time students.
The quality of online degree
programs has increased substan-
tially since the GI Bill law was up-
dated in 2008. As early as 2010,
an authoritative U.S. Department
of Education report showed “no
significant difference” in learning
outcomes between online and
in-person courses. More recently,
a 2019 study confirmed that on-
line learning is as effective as face-
to-face education in the class-
room. Many education scholars
believe that course design, faculty
and class size are more import-
ant factors than whether college
students are learning remotely
or not.
Statistics from the National
Center for Education highlight
steady growth in student enroll-
ment in online courses, with the
COVID-19 pandemic accelerat-
ing that growth. More college stu-
dents are adult learners choosing
online degree programs to stay
at their jobs and avoid relocating
their families. Withholding half
the housing allowance for online
courses doesn’t make sense be-
cause, whether attending on cam-
pus or not, veteran students still
have housing expenses.
The rationale behind the GI
Bill was to help veterans tran-
sition from military service to
civilian life. By all accounts, it
has been highly successful in
the more than 75 years since it
was signed into law. The GI Bill
more than doubled the num-
ber of college graduates in the
United States while helping to
educate millions of veterans.
But, unfortunately, it has
fallen behind the times. Online
education is here to stay, and
lawmakers should update the GI
Bill accordingly.
█
Shannon Riggs is a public voices fellow
of the Op Ed Project and the executive
director of academic programs and
learning innovation at Oregon State
University Ecampus. This column was
produced by Progressive Perspectives,
which is run by The Progressive
magazine and distributed by Tribune
News Service.
OTHER VIEWS
Moon mission could spur science
N
Editorial from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
ASA’s Artemis program
is edging toward a re-
turn to the moon —
this time to stay — with its suc-
cessful launch this week of an
uncrewed rocket. Some Ameri-
cans looking at the Earth-bound
problems all around us might
reasonably ask: Why? The an-
swer is not just about the scien-
tific discovery that a permanent
presence on the moon promises
but also the much-needed sense
of national purpose it could re-
capture.
Humanity’s first climb to the
moon began, rhetorically at least,
in September 1962, when Pres-
ident John F. Kennedy defined
the purpose of the endeavor: “We
choose to go to the moon in this
decade and do the other things
not because they are easy, but be-
cause they are hard.” Just seven
years later, Neil Armstrong be-
came the first human to set foot
on an extraterrestrial surface.
The motivation for that as-
tounding feat was, first and fore-
most, geopolitical. Beating the
Soviet Union to the moon was
another front in the Cold War,
one that united Americans. The
significant scientific discovery
and spinoff technology that the
moon missions spurred — in-
cluding computer-miniaturiza-
tion capabilities that ultimately
made possible the laptop or
cellphone on which you may be
reading this editorial right now
— were almost incidental.
There’s no Cold War driving
things this time, which necessi-
tates a little more explanation as
to why America is returning to
what it is, after all, a large cold
rock in space. First, there is the
science and the basic human
drive for exploration — both
worthy ends in themselves. The
ultimate goal, with private com-
panies providing heavy input, is
to establish a permanent moon
base as a jumping-off point for
exploration of Mars and beyond.
Moon rocks and soil samples
collected during the Apollo mis-
sions added immensely to scien-
tists’ understanding of the origins
of the moon, Earth and the rest
of the solar system. Modern teb-
vsting methods, more advanced
than what was available half a
century ago, could add to that
understanding, especially if astro-
nauts are able to conduct exper-
iments on the moon itself while
living there.
That possibility has grown
with the discovery a few years
ago that water is trapped within
the moon’s seemingly barren sur-
face. If it can be extracted and
processed, it could provide not
only drinking water for astro-
nauts, but breathable air and even
hydrogen rocket fuel.
Although there is no more
Soviet Union to race with, geo-
political factors remain. China is
planning to build and staff a lu-
nar base in the coming decades.
Allowing a global adversary that
kind of scientific and strategic
foothold — in orbit right above
us — would be not just disheart-
ening but potentially dangerous.
Finally, there is the unifying
effect that a return to the moon
could have on a deeply divided
America. That cold rock in space
brought Americans together
once before. We need that kind of
shared mission again.
COLUMN
Fishing contest scandal removes scales from our eyes
T
he slimy side of professional, high-
stakes angling has at last been ex-
posed.
Not that any reasonably observant
person, whether or not experienced in
the ways of the rod and the reel, needed
to have the scales removed from their
eyes.
Fishing, famously, is a hobby inextrica-
bly connected to a, well, malleable defini-
tion of truth.
The term “fish story” is almost synon-
ymous with exaggeration.
But of course the key element to these
tales is the one that’s always missing —
the fish.
These stories would be meaningless if
there were an actual fish involved, a tan-
gible chunk of flesh and fins that can tin-
kered with.
The whole point is that the fish in
question is the “one that got away.”
Its absence affords the angler consid-
erable latitude in describing the circum-
stances.
But if you bring a real fish into the mat-
ter you had best be prepared for scrutiny.
Especially when tens of thousands of
The first fish, based on its length, ought
to have weighed about 4 pounds.
But when tournament organizers put it
on the scale, the figure was 8 pounds.
A couple slashes of a fillet knife revealed
dollars are at stake.
the sort of subterfuge I would have ex-
Two competitors at a Sept. 30 tour-
pected from a devious child of moderate
nament in Ohio — Jacob Runyan, 42,
intelligence.
and Chase Cominski, 35 — were either
The anglers had crammed several lead
oblivious to this, or else so arrogant that weights down the fish’s throat.
they assumed they were above reproach.
This, as I suggested, is hardly a subtle
One thing they absolutely are not is
tactic.
clever.
But it is effective for the purpose, what
The pair, who were in line to pocket
with the density of lead.
$29,000, were instead disqualified from
Except the investigators yanked some-
the Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament
thing else from the carcass that also didn’t
when officials found that the five fish they belong — fillets from a different walleye.
had netted were, to indulge in euphe-
On one hand this seems to suggest a
mism, irregular.
certain level of cunning quite absent in the
Earlier this month the pair were in-
lead weight addition. Larding the fish with
dicted on felony charges of cheating, at- fillets had the advantage of being of pisca-
tempted grand theft, possessing criminal torial origin rather than chunks of heavy
tools, and misdemeanor charges of un-
metal.
lawfully owning wild animals.
(Fish in many waters, including some
I would like to think these are the first
around here, sadly do contain potentially
people to face that exact roster of charges. hazardous levels of another toxic metal,
But given the apparently limitless ability of mercury.)
humans to cheat, I doubt it.
But that metal is carried in their tissue
Jayson
Jacoby
and thus invisible, and in tiny amounts
that, so far as I can tell, have no appreciable
effect on their weight.)
Using fillets to plump up a substandard
walleye ought to leave the fish feeling nat-
ural, should anyone decide to run a suspi-
cious finger along the belly.
Balls of lead, by contrast, are apt to
catch the attention of even someone not
intimate with the physical attributes of the
typical walleye.
Also, fillets wouldn’t set off a metal de-
tector.
I can only conclude that Runyan and
Cominski lacked confidence that the sur-
reptitious walleye fillets would be suffi-
cient to ensure they won the tournament,
and that they decided the lead weights,
although potentially more risky, were nec-
essary.
I haven’t found a detailed accounting of
the event that answers what seems to me a
key question — would the pair have won
had they kept the lead weights in their
tackle boxes and relied solely on the fillets?
Regardless, it seems obvious that, like so
many cheaters, these anglers simply went
overboard, so to speak.
I doubt their walleye would have at-
tracted undue scrutiny had the fish been
only modestly heavier than typical given
their length.
But loading the fish with enough lead
to double their expected weight was all
but certain to expose the charlatans.
They could hardly have been unaware
that the tournament officials knew their
way around a walleye, after all.
One of the news stories I read about
the case included a possible answer to my
question.
An affidavit in the criminal case noted
that police in a different part of Ohio had
investigated allegations that Runyan and
Cominski had cheated in an earlier wall-
eye tournament.
According to a police report, the pros-
ecutor decided there wasn’t enough evi-
dence to charge the pair with a crime.
The story, unfortunately, doesn’t men-
tion whether the two won that tourna-
ment.
But I’m guessing that if they employed
lead in any fashion in that event, it was
for a legitimate purpose.
█
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.