UMATILLA/MORROW COUNTIES
A14 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2022
Merkley gets update
on Pendleton food
warehouse expansion
BY ANTONIO ARREDONDO
Hermiston Herald
Michael Durham/Contributed Photo, File
Portland General Electric’s Carty Generating Station in Boardman came in at No. 3 on a list Thursday, June 16, 2022, detailing Oregon’s
top 10 climate-polluting power plants.
More than half of state’s dirtiest
power plants are in this region
BY ANTONIO ARREDONDO
Hermiston Herald
Two Oregon environmental groups
on Thursday, June 16, posted their find-
ings for Oregon’s most climate-polluting
power plants, and the results look grim
for plants in Umatilla and Morrow coun-
ties — at least for now.
Six of the top 10 dirtiest plants in the
entire state are in the two counties, ac-
cording to research from the Environ-
ment Oregon Research & Policy Center
and Oregon State Public Interest Re-
search Group Foundation.
“Climate change is here and already
impacting lives,” said Celeste Meif-
fren-Swango, state director at Environ-
ment Oregon. “We need to do everything
we can to move away from fossil fuels
and towards renewable energy.”
That action already has taken place
in Boardman, where Portland General
Electric Co. in 2021 dismantled the final
coal-powered plant in the state. The pair
of environmental groups rated it the dirt-
iest plant in Oregon in 2020.
The two sister groups looked at data
from the Environmental Protection Agen-
cy’s eGRID, a comprehensive database that
shows the environmental characteristics of
nearly all of the nation’s power plants.
According to the report, Oregon’s top
10 most climate-polluting plants in 2020
were responsible for 98.4% of carbon
dioxide equivalent emissions from the
power sector while generating 32.2% of
total electricity. The total emissions of
Oregon’s top 10 power plants are 9.7 mil-
lion metric tons, which is equivalent to 2
million cars on the road for a year.
While none of Oregon’s power plants
fell in the top 100 dirtiest in the country,
this doesn’t mean the power plants were
in the clear. The top operating plant,
Calpine Corporation’s Hermiston Power
Plant in Hermiston, produces more than
1.56 million metric tons of carbon diox-
ide emissions.
With coal plants out of the picture,
next up could be natural gas plants.
These plants, mostly operated by Port-
land General Electric, also are changing.
“Our natural gas plants constitute a
part of our generation fleet that is chang-
ing, and will continue to do so,” Allison
Dobscha, a spokesperson for PGE, said.
“These plants will serve a different pur-
pose in the future than they do today,
serving more as capacity resources that
can provide flexibility and reliability
when needed.”
The remaining nine plants on the list
use methane gas, and the proposed shift
away from gas to cleaner energy is some-
thing Meiffren-Swango is hopeful for.
“This list underscores how methane
is an extremely potent gas,” the Environ-
ment Oregon director said. “We will fig-
ure out better ways to power our lives be-
fore it’s too late.”
With Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signing
a clean energy bill that promises 100%
renewable energy for electricity by 2040,
Meiffren-Swang said she believes that
change is coming, and soon.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley was in
Pendleton on Friday, June 17, to
tour the food bank Community
Action Program of East Central Or-
egon operates and find out more
about expanding those efforts.
The CAPECO warehouse serves
as a one-stop shop for low-income
houses to receive the food that they
need and sends goods to other local
food banks, but the facility has its
limits. CAPECO receives plenty of
food from grocery stores and other
resources — too much, in fact. The
warehouse is not equipped to han-
dle perishable foods and unable to
receive food in bulk.
Merkley, a Democrat, secured
$2 million in community-initiated
project funding for CAPECO to
support the construction of a multi-
use facility.
“I’m really glad we could procure
funds for a place like this,” Merkley
said. “Food banks are near and dear
to my heart.”
CAPECO CEO Paula Hall said
the CIP funds are going to be a
springboard for the organization.
“It’s something that I hope our
community will be proud of and
something for generations to come,”
she said.
With the closing of Pendleton’s
senior center, Hall said she sees the
organization opening its doors to
Pendleton’s senior population as
well. The warehouse at this time has
no availability for such hopes.
Hall said CAPECO is looking
at two lots in the Pendleton area to
build a new warehouse. Moving the
location would save the program
$25,000 a year and allow for more
events.
“We really want the new building
to be used by the community, not
just for our needs,” Hall said.
The food center also will serve as
a regional food bank, a communal
place for seniors to have meals, a site
to prepare home-delivered meals
for homebound seniors and people
with disabilities and more.
“Depending on the footprint we
have,” Hall said, “we could even have
an outdoor garden for kids to see
the plants grow and get their hands
on them.”
Other possibilities for the new
location include kitchens for meals,
washing stations for perishables and
more storage for fresh and frozen
food.
Merkley expressed his gratitude
for Hall and her team’s work. Af-
ter the tour, he presented Hall with
a flag flown at the U.S. Capitol as
thanks for her work toward elimi-
nating and destigmatizing hunger.
“You don’t have to know anything
about hunger, you don’t even have to
experience hunger,” Hall said. “But
you can be part of the solution.”
Merkley on this swing through
Eastern Oregon began the day at
the Eastern Oregon Economic
Summit in Hermiston, then in the
early afternoon toured Echo’s po-
table water system. The senator se-
cured $450,000 for the Echo as an-
other community-initiated project
through the fiscal year 2022 federal
government funding package.
The funding will allow the city
to replace aging service connec-
tions and update from old paper
maps to a GIS digital mapping sys-
tem of the new connections and
corresponding valves. This mod-
ernized mapping will allow Echo
to manage the system better and
create an accurate digital system
for all future related maintenance
work, which will reduce the finan-
cial burden on Echo residents.
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