A2 THE BULLETIN • THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2021
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DESCHUTES COUNTY
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541-385-5800
COVID-19 data for Wednesday, March 24:
PHONE HOURS
Crook County cases: 798 (zero new cases)
Crook County deaths: 18 (zero new deaths)
6 a.m.-noon Tuesday-Friday
7 a.m.-noon Saturday-Sunday
and holidays
GENERAL
INFORMATION
541-382-1811
Deschutes County cases: 6,223 (23 new cases)
Deschutes County deaths: 70 (zero new deaths)
Jefferson County cases: 2,006 (1 new case)
Jefferson County deaths: 31 (zero new deaths)
Oregon cases: 162,384 (379 new cases)
Oregon deaths: 2,368 (1 new death)
COVID-19 patients hospitalized at St. Charles
Bend on Wednesday: 1 (in ICU)
8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
New COVID-19 cases per day
ONLINE
BULLETIN
GRAPHIC
129 new cases
130
(Dec. 4)
What is COVID-19? It’s an infection caused by a new coronavirus.
Symptoms (including fever, coughing and shortness of breath)
can be severe. While some cases are mild, the disease can be fatal.
108 new cases
120
(Jan. 1)
90
new
cases
7 ways to help limit its spread: 1. Wash hands often with soap
and water for at least 20 seconds. 2. Avoid touching your face.
3. Avoid close contact with sick people. 4. Stay home. 5. In public,
stay 6 feet from others and wear a cloth face covering or mask.
6. Cover a cough or sneeze with a tissue or cough into your elbow.
7. Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
110
*No data
available on
Jan. 31
due to state
computer
maintenence
(Nov. 27)
50
new
cases
90
70
60
(Feb. 17)
50
(Nov. 14)
7-day
average
28 new cases
(July 16)
40
31 new cases
(Oct. 31)
30
16 new cases
(Sept. 19)
20
(May 20)
1st case
100
80
47 new cases
9 new cases
www.bendbulletin.com
SOURCES: OREGON HEALTH AUTHORITY,
DESCHUTES COUNTY HEALTH SERVICES
10
(March 11)
EMAIL
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Lottery results can now be found on
the second page of Sports.
Dust explosion blamed for death New lawsuit
at Silverton-area seed business filed over
spotted owl
BY GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
SILVERTON — A dust explosion likely
caused a fire at a seed cleaning facility Tues-
day near Silverton, killing one worker and
injuring another, according to authorities.
Ed Grambusch, assistant chief of the Sil-
verton Fire District, said the victim was a
man in his 30s. He has not yet been identi-
fied. A second worker was also taken to an
area hospital with injuries not considered
life threatening.
The fire was reported shortly after 9 a.m.
at Riches Seeds. Upon arrival, Grambusch
said flames and heavy dark smoke were
showing from the roof of the two-story
building.
Managers on site told firefighters that one
person was still on the second floor. Crews
were able to get the fire under control in
about an hour, Grambusch said. The man
was found dead inside. His name is being
withheld until next of kin are notified.
While Grambusch said investigators still
do not know what the ignition source was,
they are pretty sure a dust explosion is what
caused the fire. Dust explosions can be a
hazard in seed plants and grain silos, occur-
ring when fine particles in the air combust
in a massive fireball.
Grambusch said the building was de-
stroyed, with damages totaling in the hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars. A message
left with Riches Seeds was not immediately
returned.
Associated Press
Silverton Fire District via Capital Press
A dust explosion likely caused a fire at a seed cleaning facility Tuesday near Silverton that
killed one worker and injured another, according to authorities.
Environmental groups have
filed a lawsuit seeking to pre-
serve protections for 3.4 mil-
lion acres of northern spotted
owl habitat from the U.S.-Can-
ada border to Northern Cali-
fornia, the latest salvo in a legal
battle over logging in federal
old-growth forests that are
nesting grounds for the species.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service cut the amount of pro-
tected federal old-growth forest
by one-third in the final days
of the Trump administration,
a move that was cheered by the
timber industry.
“Even though there’s a de-
cent indication that the (Biden)
administration is taking a sec-
ond look, we didn’t want to
leave any room for error,” said
Susan Jane Brown of the West-
ern Environmental Law Cen-
ter, a plaintiff in the lawsuit
filed Tuesday in Portland.
Timber interests, including
the American Forest Resource
Council, filed a lawsuit earlier
this month challenging the de-
lay in implementing the new,
reduced habitat protections .
OREGON LEGISLATURE | MEASURE 11 HEARING
Lawmakers debate changes to mandatory minimum sentences
BY NOELLE CROMBIE
The Oregonian
Opposing sides offered a
distillation Tuesday of the de-
bate over Measure 11 in the
first legislative hearing on a bill
that would remove mandatory
minimum sentencing require-
ments for violent crimes in Or-
egon except murder.
Senate Bill 401 — sponsored
by Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eu-
gene, chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee — is one
of four bills filed this session
that would upend the state’s
longstanding, voter-approved
sentencing law.
Prozanski said at a news
conference that he wants his
bill to be “seriously considered
as the vehicle” for Measure 11
reforms this session, though he
said the others remain under
consideration as well.
SB 401 would convert man-
datory minimum sentences
into presumptive ones that
judges could either add onto or
reduce depending on certain
factors.
Nearly half of the estimated
12,500 inmates in the state
prison system are serving Mea-
sure 11 sentences.
Prozanski’s bill would give
prisoners sentenced under the
proposed law the chance to
earn credit toward early release
by taking part in treatment
and other prison programs.
Under Measure 11, offenders
serve the full sentence with no
chance for early release.
Proponents of doing away
with mandatory minimum
sentences said the approach
is outdated, invests too much
power in prosecutors and con-
tributes to prison population
growth as well as racial and
ethnic disparities in the crimi-
nal justice system.
District attorneys represent
the most public opposition to
the proposed changes. They
argue that the most serious
crimes deserve consistent and
reliable sentences, that manda-
tory minimum sentences have
made Oregon safer and that
crime victims are entitled to
the certainty that comes with
mandatory sentencing.
During his testimony, Wash-
ington County District Attor-
ney Kevin Barton cited a hand-
ful of prosecutions involving
Measure 11 offenses.
He said his interpretation
of Prozanski’s bill is that man-
datory minimum sentences
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would become the maximum
sentence a judge can hand
down. As a result, he said, peo-
ple convicted of violent crimes
would likely end up with
shorter sentences, he said.
“I think of the actual cases
that I have personally and di-
rectly handled,” he said. “When
I hear of assault in the first-de-
gree, I think about a baby who
received a brain injury after her
father intentionally suffocated
her and a mother who contin-
ued to send me pictures of that
victim child years after the trial
occurred and years after he
was sentenced to his Measure
11 time.”
Prozanski took a dim view
of prosecutors’ opposition
to what he characterized as
“reasonable reform,” framing
the criticism as a self-serving
power play.
“It’s pure power and control,”
he said. “That is what it comes
down to because they are in
the catbird seat.”
Some district attorneys have
broken with the rest and sup-
port SB 401. The elected pros-
ecutors in Deschutes, Wasco
and Multnomah counties all
testified on behalf of Prozans-
ki’s legislation. They said they
want to see judges invested
with more authority and dis-
cretion over sentencing based
on the facts of each case, not a
one-size-fits-all policy.
Multnomah County District
Attorney Mike Schmidt told
lawmakers that he’s “deeply
troubled” by the law, which
he said was passed in “an era
when many now misguided
practices were ascendant in the
criminal justice system,” such
as the war on drugs.
“We’ve learned that much of
what we believed was true 27
years ago was not only untrue
but actively harmful, creating
deep systems of inequity that
we’re still wrestling with today,”
he said.