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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 2021)
Serving Central Oregon since 1903 • $1.50 MONDAY • January 4, 2021 Trump pressures Georgia official to ‘find’ votes Story about the president’s phone call and other news from Washington, including what’s ahead for the new Congress » A4 WETTER WEATHER AHEAD Vaccinations: How Oregon ranks As the United States struggles to inoculate as many people as possible against COVID-19, some states are doing better than others. Federal data shows Oregon trailing 40 other states. Story on A2 A faint rainbow appears north of Bend as the sun briefly breaks through a layer of clouds on Saturday. Rain and snow are forecast through much of the week. Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin Where there’s no more room for bodies As communities across the U.S. see another virus surge, California funeral homes run out of space BY CHRISTOPHER WEBER Associated Press LOS ANGELES — As communities across the country feel the pain of a surge in coronavirus cases, funeral homes in the hot spot of Southern California say they must turn away grieving families as they run out of space for the bodies piling up. The head of the state funeral directors association says mortuaries are being in- undated as the United States tops 350,000 COVID-19 deaths. More than 20 million people in the country have been infected, according to data compiled by Johns Hop- kins University. “I’ve been in the funeral industry for 40 years and never in my life did I think that this could happen, that I’d have to tell a family, ‘No, we can’t take your family mem- ber,’” said Magda Maldonado, owner of Continental Funeral Home in Los Angeles. Continental is averaging about 30 body removals a day — six times its normal rate. Mortuary owners are calling one another to see whether anyone can handle overflow, and the answer is always the same: They’re full, too. In order to keep up with the flood of bodies, Maldonado has rented extra 50-foot refrigerators for two of the four facilities she runs in L.A. and surrounding counties. Continental has also been delaying pickups at hospitals for a day or two while they deal with residential clients. See Funeral / A12 Timber tax cuts cost Oregon towns billions — then came the pollution On a damp night in November 2019, dozens of residents packed into the lo- cal firehouse in Corbett, a town about 30 miles outside of Portland. Water manager Jeff Busto told the crowd that logging had devastated a creek that pro- vided part of the town’s drinking water supply. A timber company had clear-cut thou- sands of trees along the creek, leaving only a thin strip standing between the town’s drinking water and recently flat- tened land strewned with debris. A sin- gle row of trees was left on either side TODAY’S WEATHER to protect it from mud, herbicides and summer sun. After many of those trees were bowled over by wind, the creek flow dropped so low that the town could no longer get water. As a result, Corbett now had only one creek supplying drinking water for more than 3,000 residents. If a wildfire or more logging compromised the remaining creek, the town’s taps could run dry in as little as three days, Busto said. “I’m really seriously concerned about the future of this community,” Busto told the crowd. “There are places all over the world that lose their water source and they lose their town. If you Occasional rain High 51, Low 28 Page A12 INDEX Comics Dear Abby Horoscope A9-10 A4 A4 guys don’t have water coming out of your tap, you’re not going to be able to live here.” In rainy Oregon, communities tap a network of streams and creeks to supply millions of residents with cold, clean wa- ter. The problem is the land surrounding drinking water streams is, in many cases, owned not by the towns or the residents who drink the water, but by private tim- ber companies that are now logging more intensively than ever, cutting trees on a more rapid cycle and spraying her- bicides to kill other plants that compete with replanted seedlings for sunlight. See Timber / A11 Kid Scoop Local/State Nation/World A8 A2-3 A2-4 Puzzles Sports Weather A10 A5-7 A12 Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian Logging near Wheeler, in Tillamook County, has transformed a town that is home to just a few hundred people. The Bulletin ù An Independent Newspaper We use recycled newsprint Monday E-Edition, 12 pages, 1 section DAILY BY ROB DAVIS The Oregonian U|xaIICGHy02329lz[
