The INDEPENDENT, March 21, 2012
Member sought for Hatchery
Research Advisory Committee
The Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife and Oregon
State University are seeking
five new members for the Ore-
gon Hatchery Research Center
Advisory Committee.
Five positions, one each
representing federal govern-
ment, conservation, science-
at-large, education K-12 and
public-at-large, are currently
open, with duties running from
May 2012 through April 2015.
If reappointed, subsequent
term(s) will be three years.
Candidates must submit a
letter of interest by March 30,
2012. The letter should specify
why the applicant is interested
and provide three verifiable ref-
erences. ODFW and OSU rep-
resentatives will finalize their
selections by May 1, 2012.
The 15-member committee
advises the Oregon Hatchery
Research Center (OHRC) Se-
nior Scientist on activities and
functions related to the opera-
tion and maintenance of the
OHRC. Committee members
represent the federal govern-
ment, local governments, con-
servation groups, sport fishing
groups, the commercial fishing
industry, tribes, resource pro-
ducers (agriculture, timber and
gravel), watershed councils
and education. Two members
represent the public-at-large
and four represent the scientif-
ic community.
The committee meets quar-
terly, with 2012 meetings
scheduled for March 12, June
11, September 17, and Decem-
ber 10.
The OHRC is a cooperative
research project between
ODFW and OSU. The center’s
mission is to develop an under-
standing of the mechanisms
that may create differences be-
tween hatchery and wild fish,
and devise ways to reduce and
manage the differences so that
hatcheries can be used re-
sponsibly in the conservation
and management of Oregon’s
native fish.
For more information about
the Advisory Committee or how
to submit a letter of interest,
please contact Margaret Cleve-
land at margaret.l.cleveland@
state.or.us or 503-947-6230.
For more information about the
OHRC, visit OHRC’s Web site
at www.dfw.state.or.us/OHRC.
FEMA suggests spring is a good
time to update emergency plans
Daylight saving time is here!
The Federal Emergency Man-
agement Agency (FEMA) en-
courages all Americans to use
the change to daylight saving
time to update emergency pre-
paredness plans. For years,
firefighters and safety profes-
sionals have asked the public
to change smoke alarm batter-
ies throughout their homes, as
they move their clocks ahead.
According to FEMA Regional
Administrator Ken Murphy, the
March ritual of making homes
safer from fire is also a great
opportunity to review disaster
preparedness plans and re-
stock disaster kits.
“Here in the Pacific North-
west, spring signals increased
risks for flash flooding, thunder-
storms and wildfires. Daylight
saving time is a great time to
inventory and restock emer-
gency kits and rehearse disas-
ter plans,” said Murphy. “No
matter how busy or hectic our
daily routines, we all need to
take the time to think about
what to do in the event of se-
vere weather, earthquake – or
any other major disaster.”
Visit www.Ready.gov for in-
formation on such topics as
preparing a disaster kit, taking
care of your pets in a disaster,
and involving your children in
disaster planning.
This is also a good time to
consider buying flood insur-
ance. As spring approaches, so
does the threat of unexpected
flooding. You don’t need to live
on a mapped flood plain or
near water to need flood insur-
ance. Flooding can be caused
by storms, melting snow, water
backup from inadequate or
overloaded drainage systems,
and dam or levee failure.
All too often, homeowners
learn after the fact that protec-
tion against flood or water dam-
age is not part of their normal
insurance protection package.
Flood insurance is affordable
and widely available through
Page 13
Power of the People
By W. Marc Farmer, General Manager,
West Oregon Electric Cooperative
Why Not Under-
ground?
Obviously Mother Na-
ture is still reminding us it
is winter, not spring yet,
and the winds, snow, and
heavy rains keep coming.
With these storms come
the inevitable outages
from trees and tree limbs into our power lines.
As I have mentioned in previous articles, we
serve over 2 million trees with 4,300 meters
sprinkled in among them. While the trees are
beautiful, they and power lines don’t mix well at
all.
It is during the storm and outage times that I
have several members asking, and in several
cases demanding, that we underground the en-
tire system to avoid future outages. On the out-
side this seems to be a simple and logical solu-
tion to the problem. It is when you begin looking
into the costs to install and the costs to repair
underground lines that reality enters into the
equation.
Wherever you put power lines, they are sus-
ceptible to something, maybe even multiple
things. Above ground, lines are brought down by
falling trees and tree limbs, heavy snow, winds,
the errant driver who runs into one of our poles,
people falling trees for timber or firewood, and
miscellaneous other events. Underground lines
are not free from outages, as they are vulnera-
ble to water seepage, varmints, mud slides, tree
roots, and the occasional backhoe (watch where
you dig). Trees still pose a threat to underground
lines when they topple, as the root balls rip the
wire out of the ground.
The biggest reason we don’t
underground all of our lines,
though, remains the same: it is
the cost. Estimates show that it
costs from 4 to 10 times as
much to bury electric lines as
to string them on poles. These
costs would easily double your
current electric bills, while, as I
described in the above para-
graph, outages still occur on
underground lines. You might,
therefore, gain only a 50% im-
provement in reliability. The
savings in reliability could be
insurance agents. The average
flood insurance policy costs a
little less than $400 a year for
about $100,000 of coverage.
There is a 30-day waiting
period before the coverage
goes into effect, so plan ahead
to avoid unpleasant surprises.
To find an agent near you and
learn more about flood insur-
ance, visit www.FloodSmart.
gov or call the toll-free hotline
at 1-888-379-9531.
quickly eaten up by the increased costs to find
and repair underground lines.
When we experience an outage on overhead
lines, most of the time the problem is easily and
quickly seen with the naked eye and can be
readily accessed by the crew. A two man crew
can repair most minor problems in a couple of
hours. Major problems would, of course, require
more manpower and more time. In the case of
underground lines, we have to bring out special-
ized equipment, called a Thumper, to locate the
underground fault. Then several crews are re-
quired to bring in and operate the backhoe, flag-
gers along the road for safety as needed, and
for repairs to the line. This takes much more
manpower, equipment, and time, which all result
in increased costs and length of the outage.
When opportunities present themselves, we
do try to underground as much as possible,
while considering the financial constraints we
operate within. For example, we were able to
take advantage of FEMA Mitigation Funds to
help pay most of the costs for undergrounding
the Timber to Elsie transmission line, which
saved the Co-op and its members millions in
costs, and thousands of dollars annually to
maintain and repair the line. Where it makes
good sense economically, we do and will contin-
ue to underground more lines each year. We
keep track of the lines that are repeatedly dam-
aged by trees and have a four year revolving
work plan to address these problem lines. We
definitely are striving to increase the reliability of
our system, and we have significantly increased
our system reliability for non-storm related
events. Even for minor events we show signifi-
cant improvement. Major storm events are just
that, major storm events, and there is nothing
we can do when Mother Nature wields her
forces and power.