THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 2021 A7
Vaccine
Continued from A1
Brown said she welcomed
Biden’s “audacious announce-
ment.”
“I will do everything I can to
make it happen,” Brown said.
Oregon’s current staggered
priority groups wouldn’t match
Biden’s deadline until July 1.
States have the central au-
thority over public health, and
Brown said the present plan
would stay in place until there
was a guaranteed supply be-
fore she would unleash addi-
tional demand onto the already
strained system.
Oregon officials were only
recently told they would re-
ceive 200,000 doses per month,
up from the previous 120,000
doses.
Asked how much more vac-
cine Oregon would need to
meet Biden’s schedule, Ore-
gon Health Authority Direc-
tor Patrick Allen said it would
“require a doubling of those
doses.”
“It would need to be an in-
crease on that kind of order
of magnitude,” Allen said.
“Maybe 300,000.”
Part of the math problem
has to do with the vaccines
themselves. Until recently, Or-
egon was only receiving the
Pfizer and Modern vaccines,
each of which requires two
shots given about a month
apart.
The state has received the
initial shipments of a new vac-
cine from Johnson & Johnson
that requires a single shot.
Brown and Allen both said
their caution came from not
wanting to set off the kind of
policy whiplash that hit Orego-
nians in mid-January.
When the Trump adminis-
tration announced the imme-
diate release of a large stockpile
of additional doses, Brown
dropped her carefully crafted
priority tier policy. She an-
nounced everyone in Oregon
age 65 and over would be eligi-
ble for shots.
Trump officials said within
48 hours that there was no
stockpile of new doses.
“This is a deception on a na-
tional scale,” Brown said at the
time.
The governor had to reverse
herself and put eligibility re-
strictions back in place.
Biden said Thursday that he
wanted the nation far enough
along in its vaccination pro-
gram to allow for small cele-
brations of July 4.
Horses
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McCarl insisted several times
that the horses were fine, even
when confronted with graphic
evidence of alleged neglect.
McCarl was arraigned in
January on two counts of fel-
ony animal neglect. On Thurs-
day, she appeared in court for
a settlement conference and is
due back again in late April.
It’s not the first time Mc-
Carl has been accused of ne-
glecting her horses. In 2001,
Lane County officials charged
her with six counts of misde-
meanor animal neglect. She
pleaded guilty to three of the
charges and was sentenced to
three years probation.
In March, neighbors on
SE Pony Springs Road east of
Prineville began contacting au-
thorities to report two horses
in the area looked unhealthy
and were clearly not being fed.
Police learned the horses be-
longed to McCarl, though the
property was not hers, and she
had recently had a falling-out
with the property owner, ac-
cording to court records.
One horse was a 24-year-old
gray and black gelding named
Tops, whose hips and ribs
were prominently showing,
according to police. The other
was a white and brown pinto
named Gracie, about 10 years
old, who was diabetic, suffered
persistent problems associated
with a club foot and bore a
deep and infected cut on one of
her legs from getting tangled in
barbed wire.
Veterinary treatment for
Gracie would cost around
$4,000, according to Kate
Beardsley, founder of the
Bend-based nonprofit Mus-
tangs to the Rescue, who also
received calls regarding the
horses, court records state.
Beardsley called McCarl and
learned she didn’t want her
horses going to a rescue group,
“If we all do our part, this
country will be vaccinated
soon, our economy will be
on the mend, our kids will
be back in school, and we’ll
have proven once again that
this country can do anything,”
Biden said.
Though Oregon officials
have a much higher level of
confidence in Biden’s stream-
lined transport system and in-
creased manufacturing of vac-
cine, Allen said supply needed
to be on the way first.
“We know the previous ad-
ministration made previous
announcements it was unable
to fill,” Allen said.
Oregon is currently limiting
shots to health workers, resi-
dents of nursing homes, educa-
tors and day care workers, and
most recently, all residents age
65 and older as of March 1.
The next eligible group can
seek shots March 29. It’s a long
list that includes adults age 45
and older with specific med-
ical issues, agricultural and
other food processing workers,
homeless people, residents of
low-income housing, those dis-
placed by last year’s wildfires
and wildland firefighters.
Pregnant women age 16 and
over were recently added to the
group.
OHA has not been able to
give estimates on how many
people will become eligible on
March 29.
May 1 — the date that Biden
wants eligibility to be offered to
all adults nationwide — is cur-
rently listed as adding front-
line workers — those who deal
daily with the public — those
living in multigenerational
households, and those age 16-
44 with certain medical con-
ditions.
Brown’s plan calls for every-
one age 45 and older to be el-
igible on June 1. On July 1, all
adults would be able to seek
shots.
Allen said the vaccination
effort involving seniors was go-
ing well statewide, though he
noted some counties — such
as Deschutes — were ahead of
the goal to have 75% of eligible
seniors inoculated, while other
counties lagged behind.
Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario,
joined all House Republicans
in opposing the bill, saying
it was too expensive and in-
cluded too much nonpan-
demic related spending. The
rest of Oregon’s congressional
delegation — all Democrats —
supported the bill.
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gwarner@eomediagroup.com
though she didn’t have the
means to care for them herself.
Beardsley explained to McCarl
the severity of Gracie’s condi-
tion but McCarl “minimized”
it and insisted she’d never give
up Tops and Gracie, Beardsley
told police.
Crook County Sheriff’s Of-
fice deputy Jacob Koski warned
McCarl her conduct was enter-
ing criminal territory.
“I explained to Richele that
her horses needed to be fed
and watered daily and that it
had to happen today,” Koski
wrote in a court document.
McCarl removed the horses
from the property but in late
October, Beardsley called po-
lice to say she’d again been
hearing McCarl’s horses were
being neglected.
Sheriff’s deputies next con-
tacted Dennis Frisby, a prop-
erty owner on SE Combs Flat
Road, where Tops and Gracie
were found. Frisby told dep-
uties that McCarl’s boyfriend
had knocked on his door one
night that summer asking
Frisby if he could pasture two
horses on a small, dirt-covered
patch of land on Frisby’s prop-
erty for “two weeks” while they
were moving house.
But after two months, it was
clear the couple had no inten-
tion of returning for the horses,
Frisby told deputies. Frisby had
tracked down the boyfriend
and learned he and McCarl
had broken up. Frisby told
deputies he called McCarl nu-
merous times to get her to pick
up her horses.
He’d tell her, “I don’t want
to wake up and find a dead
horse,” to which she’d typically
reply: “I’m trying,” court docu-
ments state.
Tops and Gracie were seized
and earlier this year, a judge
approved a forfeiture order,
though McCarl fought it in
court.
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Reporter: 541-383-0325,
gandrews@bendbulletin.com
Climate
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“Some of the climate model
projections show that the
snowpack will become more
variable, and will lessen, even
as precipitation amounts stay
the same, but there will be
more rainfall instead of snow,”
explained O’Neill.
In his talk, O’Neill will ex-
plain how the changing cli-
mate could affect this area’s
outdoor recreation potential,
as less snow and higher snow-
lines will diminish the snow
quality and season length at
Hoodoo and Mt. Bachelor.
Climate change could also
bring an increase in invasive
species, such as cheatgrass, in
Central Oregon, and impact
nesting bird habitats. There’s
the human impact too, in-
cluding an increased risk for
wildfire and inconsistent flow
of water for irrigators.
“That will put more stress
on agriculture. There won’t
that spring run-off, and the
climate is just going to be
warmer,” said O’Neill.
O’Neill’s knowledge of cli-
mate change is the culmi-
nation of years of study and
research in California and Or-
egon. He studied atmospheric
science at UC Davis and then
earned a master’s degree in
Oceanography from Oregon
State University. It was at OSU
where he focused his research
on how the ocean and the
weather interacted with each
other.
“Ocean temps and currents
affect weather. And lower fre-
quency variability in the at-
mosphere impacts the ocean,”
said O’Neill. “I used models
and satellite observations to
study that. I continued to this
day studying how the earth’s
climate is impacted by the in-
teraction between the ocean
and the weather.”
His interest in the weather
from an early age comes from
growing up near Rapid City,
Oregon State University/Submitted photo
Larry O’Neill is an associate professor in the Oregon State University College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmo-
spheric Sciences.
South Dakota, where his fa-
ther worked as a foreman at a
cement plant.
As a kid, he was fasci-
nated by the variable Mid-
west weather. In summer he
watched the thunderstorms
and the occasional tornado.
In winter it was blizzards and
cold snaps that sent the mer-
cury into rapid retreat.
“Especially in spring and fall,
we’d get these huge changes in
temperature,” said O’Neill. It
would be beautiful and 70 de-
grees and then the next day it
would be 50 degrees and snow-
ing, that was just infinitely fas-
cinating to me.”
O’Neill’s family moved
from South Dakota to Sacra-
mento when he 13. It wasn’t
the easiest of transitions.
“Everyone was more so-
phisticated and we were like
these country bumpkins.
We didn’t dress or talk right.
It was a rough age to move
there,” he said.
But O’Neill soon found his
own way. He volunteered at a
local TV station, helping out
the station’s weatherman a few
days a week.
“The forecasts weren’t very
good so he had to make ad-
justments or do his own thing,
so sometimes I would have
to add up numbers and do
some basic calculations,” said
O’Neill.
That led to an eye-opening
four years at UC Davis, where
his interest in oceanography
blossomed. He considered at
one point relocating to a trop-
ical beach and setting up in-
struments in the sand to mea-
sure the ocean’s impacts.
“I quickly realized that most
of (the work) is in front of a
computer, involving satellite
data and model data,” said
O’Neill. “Occasionally I do get
to go out and see and collect
data from instruments that I
employ.”
O’Neill’s most recent focus is
on precipitation and drought
variability over the Pacific
Northwest, and how that im-
pacts people and business sec-
tors — work he does when he is
wearing his state climatologist
hat. Every two years that role
requires him to issue an Ore-
gon climate assessment.
He also receives grants from
NASA to conduct weather
and ocean monitoring work.
In October he will board a
200-foot ship and spend three
weeks off the coast of San
Francisco conducting research
and experiments, specifically
on surface currents. The work
includes launching radio-
sonde balloons and testing
new equipment.
At Oregon State this past
fall he taught a graduate-level
class on Fluid Earth, an in-
troductory class on ocean-
ography, weather, and cli-
mate. This winter semester he
taught satellite oceanography,
teaching students how sat-
ellites measure the tempera-
ture of the ocean, winds, and
ocean color.
Doing instrumentation on
a tropical beach still sounds
alluring but Oregon — with
all its snow, wind, rain, and
temperature changes — has
become his passion.
“I love the PNW now. I like
the rainy season now,” said
O’Neill. “The first season I was
here it was a shock to the sys-
tem after moving from Cali-
fornia but after that, I became
fine with it. I started skiing,
got some waterproof clothes
for hiking, and learned how
to adapt. Now that I am doing
drought monitoring work I re-
ally appreciate the rain!”
The March 16 Science Pub
talk with Larry O’Neill is
scheduled for 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Interested individuals can
sign up for the talk through
the OSU-Cascades website.
From the campus’ main page
(osucascades.edu), click on
“for the community” and then
“science pubs.”
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Reporter: 541-617-7818,
mkohn@bendbulletin.com