Oregon Timber Counties Flail, Awaiting Congress to Renew
Key Funding
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JEFFERSON JOURNAL (ISSN 1079-2015), September/ October 2025, volume 49 number 5. Published bi-monthly (six times a year) by JPR Foundation, Inc., 1250 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Periodical postage paid at Ashland, OR and additional mailing offices.
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By April Ehrlich
A budget crisis a century in the making is coming to a head as Oregon’s rural counties wait on Congress to approve funding they’ve long relied on.
By Vanessa Finney
Vanessa Finney explores the stories of Oregonians who are continually growing and even reinventing themselves as they age, proving that you are never to old to learn.
By Rob Davis
ProPublica’s Rob Davis examines the origins and misinformation surrounding Oregon’s controversial statewide hazard map.
APPLEGATE VALLEY OREGON
“Aside from the excellent Applegate wines I’ve had from producer, Vineyard, made such an impression on me over the last few years that I from the July the attitude, which are
“But Aside from the excellent Applegate wines I’ve had from Willamette producers, the wines of one producer, Troon Vineyard, made such an impression on me over the last few years that I drove seven hours from the Mendocino Coast in July to pay a visit to Applegate Valley, While I admire the way Troon farms and its empirical attitude, the proof is in the wines, which are invariably fresh, lively and expressive,”
—Eric Asimov The New York Times
—Eric Asimov, The New York Times
TUNED IN
PAUL WESTHELLE
Public Media Federal Funding Gone
On July 18th the worst-case scenario for the public media community became real. Nearly 60 years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 into law, Congress and the Trump Administration eliminated all previously approved funding for public radio and television stations across the country. With no funding to award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the independent non-profit organization that was established to distribute annual station operating grants and shield stations from political interference, announced that it was closing its doors at the end of the year.
After signing the Public Broadcasting Act, President Johnson laid out the aspirations of the fledging enterprise saying, “While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man’s spirit. That is the purpose of this act.”
In the decades since the Great Society legislation created the public broadcasting system in the U.S., public radio and television stations have enjoyed significant bipartisan public support. They still do today. In a Harris Poll conducted in July, right before Congress voted to eliminate funding, 66% of Americans said that they support federal funding for public radio. In an age when it’s hard to find political agreement about almost anything, 59% of Republicans and 76% of Democrats agreed that public radio is a good value for taxpayer dollars.
So, where do we go from here?
The loss of all federal funding with little advance notice has rocked the public media ecosystem. Hardest hit are stations serving small, rural communities which reach less wealthy parts of the country and which need to support and maintain expensive infrastructures because their audiences are spread across larger geographic areas — stations just like JPR.
Here at JPR we have some significant challenges ahead of us as we work to develop a new business model built entirely on local support. But, we’re also blessed with one of the most generous public radio audiences in the country when you compare per capita giving levels across the U.S. Our plan is not to cut our service, but to put faith in our listeners to stand with us during this critical time. If we can increase listener support by 25% by the end of the year we’re confident that we’ll be able to maintain our current service levels while balancing this year’s budget and establishing a new sustainable baseline going forward.
We’re off to a very encouraging start. From June 1st through August 15th we’ve been able to raise just over half the federal funding we lost through additional listener support — raising nearly $270,000 over what we raised last year during the same period. During this time, we’ve received some truly generous gifts that have humbled us all. We’ve welcomed hundreds of first-time donors and welcomed back a wave of previous JPR contributors. We’ve witnessed a groundswell of current donors significantly increasing their support. And, we’ve expanded the number of monthly sustaining contributors, which has created a more durable and predictable financial foundation for the coming months. Many of the JPR listeners we’ve been in touch with have left heartfelt comments about how our service touches their lives and enhances the civic and cultural life in our region.
Thank you for investing in our future. We’ve never been clearer about the importance of our mission and the value of our work. Together with NPR and the amazing network of local public radio stations across the country, we’ll continue to bring you rigorous journalism that fights disinformation with facts, local news that keeps us engaged in our communities, courageous storytelling that celebrates our shared humanity, and inspired music that connects us all — every single day.
Paul Westhelle is JPR’s Executive Director.
‘We Are Sinking’
Oregon Timber Counties Flail, Awaiting Congress to Renew Key Funding
ABy APRIL EHRLICH
budget crisis a century in the making is coming to a head as Oregon’s rural counties wait on Congress to approve funding they’ve long relied on.
The crisis originates with a compromise from the era of President Teddy Roosevelt and was prolonged by piecemeal solutions made during the Timber Wars of the 1990s. Now, as lawmakers delay another potential stopgap, the president’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill removes a key funding source for Oregon’s timber counties.
If nothing is done, rural counties could find themselves with no money to pay for sheriff’s departments or other essential needs.
“If we’re not able to fix this, we wouldn’t be able to have a law enforcement presence in Klamath County,” said Klamath County Commissioner Derrick DeGroot.
In Curry County, the sheriff’s department already only responds to calls for life-threatening emergencies or crimes that are actively happening. Over time, Jay Trost, a commissioner there, said people will notice other services decline: more unfixed potholes, more deteriorating bridges and longer 911 response times in rural areas.
“We have to get creative,” Trost said. “That’s just where we are.”
Where timber once paid the bills
Many rural Oregon counties once relied on a portion of revenue from trees logged on federal lands to cover the costs of es-
Curry County is one of many Oregon counties that includes vast stretches of federally owned lands, such as the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.
at top: Undated photo of logging companies cutting trees in the Mount Hood National Forest near Hood River, Ore.
sential services. These counties contain huge swaths of federal lands within their boundaries — up to 70% of their land base. That federal land doesn’t generate local property taxes, which typically pay for public services, like roads, law enforcement, health departments and libraries.
So the federal government started sharing a portion of its logging revenues with those counties. When those declined, federal lawmakers came up with the Secure Rural Schools program.
Since then, many Oregon timber counties have had a choice: receive funding from Secure Rural Schools, or get a cut of the federal government’s timber revenues. Most have typically gone with Secure Rural Schools since the payments were larger.
In 2023, Secure Rural Schools sent more than $4 million to Klamath County, where more than half of the land is owned by the federal government. That money funded the entirety of the sheriff’s department budget, DeGroot said.
But Congress needs to regularly re-authorize the program, and lawmakers have not renewed Secure Rural Schools funding since 2023, leaving more than a dozen Oregon counties flailing with significant budget holes.
Without the program, counties have defaulted back to federal timber revenues, which are just a fraction of what counties have been used to. This year, they’ll be planning budgets around that shortfall.
Klamath County expects just $400,000 from timber receipts, DeGroot said — one-tenth of what it received through Secure Rural Schools.
Klamath County’s federally owned forests, rivers and lakes — including Oregon’s iconic Crater Lake — are beloved by hunters, hikers, campers and fishermen. But providing services to areas around federal lands, like sheriff’s patrols and road repairs after logging operations, comes at a cost.
“We still love our access to public lands. That’s why we live in Oregon, right?” DeGroot said. “But now hosting them as a county government is a liability and no longer an asset.”
The cost of a One Big Beautiful Bill
The small timber payments that counties are now relying on may disappear, too.
This year’s budget reconciliation bill, what President Donald Trump calls the One Big Beautiful Bill, requires federal agencies to ramp up logging. But it also includes a provision requiring “all monies” from those new timber sales go into federal coffers. That could mean nothing from new logging contracts will be shared with the counties that house those forests.
That’s money that counties would otherwise use to pay for essential services, like road repairs and law enforcement.
“It’s real basic stuff for safety and people’s quality of life,” said Mindy Crandall, Oregon State University forest policy professor. “It’s shocking to me, quite frankly, that they’re proposing keeping all that revenue.”
Even though timber receipts will bring in much less than what counties had been getting through Secure Rural Schools, these funds are still crucial to rural areas that are operating on shoestring budgets.
“Those are the receipts that allow us to tread water,” said Trost, the Curry County commissioner. “The removal of those means we are sinking.”
Trost believes the provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill was an oversight, and is holding out hope that Republicans in Congress will restore timber receipts within a year.
“Most of our counties, and especially our timber-dependent counties, are lobbying very hard right now in getting this course corrected,” Trost said. “I trust that we’ll be successful.”
Timber counties’ budget crunch
Rural Oregon counties can’t collect property tax on federal land, which makes up a big share of their total territory — so they’ve counted on two programs to help their budgets. Those funds are no longer available. Congress has not renewed the Secure Rural Schools program since 2023. And under the Big Beautiful Bill, counties will see revenue from the sale of timber on federal land dwindle. Here’s how much money is at play.
Timber payment figures are from the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, after 25% of proceeds were diverted to school districts. After administrative fees, each county likely received less than what appears here.
Table: April Ehrlich
Source: U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management
Rural Oregon counties can’t collect property tax on federal land, which makes up a big share of their total territory — so they’ve counted on two
programs
to help their budgets. Those funds are no longer available.
Some lawmakers tried to protect county timber revenue as Congress moved to increase logging on federal lands, including U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Oregon Democrats, who backed amendments that would have continued revenue sharing. Those amendments didn’t make it into the final bill.
“This has caused considerable angst among counties,” Wyden wrote in letters to the Forest Service and BLM in mid-August.
Wyden called on the agencies to declare that they will continue revenue sharing with counties by September. “Courts have
decided that Congress needs to be explicit when it intends to repeal a law,” he wrote, adding the budget bill cannot repeal the law that requires a share of timber receipts to go to counties — despite its directive to pay that revenue entirely to the federal treasury.
On Aug. 15, a spokesperson with the U.S. Forest Service said the agency is still working to determine how the One Big Beautiful Bill will affect county payments. The Bureau of Land Management didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, an Oregon Republican who represents many timber counties, said removing timber revenue sharing was a compromise. Bentz voted in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill and hopes it will bring jobs back to a region where many sawmills have been shuttered.
The Republican-backed budget bill passed by an extraordinarily tight margin. It only avoided a filibuster from Democrats by meeting procedural rules. Bentz said sending money to counties instead of the federal government could have broken those rules.
“That would have caused the Senate parliamentarian to have thrown the entire provision out,” Bentz said. “Getting jobs for people, trying to save our mills and getting wood fuel out of the forest was certainly worthwhile, and we’ll have to address the tax issue in some other fashion.”
About seven mills closed in Oregon last year. While timber executives blame a lack of supply — they say there just aren’t enough trees being cut — lumber mills close for a variety of
file: A stand of ponderosa pine trees in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in Klamath County, Ore.
PHOTO COURTESY OF
reasons, including market conditions, increased production costs and automation.
Due to advances in milling automation, it’s not clear if cutting down more trees in federal forests would increase milling jobs.
Federal timber harvests have been on the rise since 2002, after cratering in the ’90s. Yet despite that increased logging, employment in the timber industry has been mostly flat since 2010, according to U.S. Forest Service data.
As for Secure Rural Schools, Bentz said his office is working on renewing the funding.
“We are, at this point, working to include it in another bill, and we think we have support for it,” Bentz said. “We think it’s going to happen.”
How we got here
The timber revenue sharing funding mechanism that Oregon counties still rely on goes back to the early 1900s, during the Roosevelt administration.
After eastern states became heavily industrialized, Roosevelt saw a value in protecting vast stretches of nature from development. Not just for recreation — Roosevelt was an avid hunter — but for water quality and natural resources, like timber.
So, he championed the creation of national forests and parks. But blocking these areas from development meant burgeoning communities across the West couldn’t collect taxes on large chunks of land within their boundaries.
“Those lands are not generating revenue in a traditional sense for counties,” said Crandall, the OSU forest policy profes-
“If we’re not able to fix this, we wouldn’t be able to have a law enforcement presence in Klamath County.”
—Klamath County Commissioner Derrick DeGroot
sor. “So the way the federal government has dealt with that is by doing revenue sharing.”
The Roosevelt administration made a promise to counties: The country would preserve hundreds of millions of acres of public lands for recreation and resource extraction, like mining and logging. Whatever proceeds the government collects from logging those lands, a quarter of it would go to counties.
Those local governments have built their budgets around that income ever since.
Timber revenues reduced to a trickle in the 1990s, after a national outcry against clearcutting ushered in new environmental regulations. At the same time, globalization spurred many timber companies to shift wood production overseas.
The federal government came up with Secure Rural Schools in the early 2000s to help fill funding gaps for schools and county budgets. But the program wasn’t meant to last indefinitely, according to Mark Haggerty, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank.
“They were always intended to be transitional payments that declined year over year,” Haggerty said. “The idea was that counties would eventually diversify and find other ways to generate revenue to pay for local services, and so those appropriations wouldn’t be needed forever.”
Oregon counties struggled to identify those other revenue sources. In the 1990s, Oregon voters also passed strict limits on how much local governments can raise taxes. Any substantial tax increases need to be approved by local voters.
Many of Oregon’s timber counties have opted to keep their tax rates among the lowest in the state.
Now without Secure Rural Schools, timber receipts or property tax increases, those same counties are being left to choose between which essential services to keep, and which to let go.
April Ehrlich is JPR content partner at Oregon Public Broadcasting. Prior to joining OPB, she was a regional reporter at Jefferson Public Radio where she won a National Edward R. Murrow Award for her reporting on the impacts of wildfires on marginalized groups. Her reporting comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
BRYCE DOLE / OPB
Freres Wood, a large logging mill operating in the Santiam Canyon. Like mills across rural Oregon, it has been one of the region’s largest employers.
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Perennial Lives Stories of Oregonians Who are Flourishing in the Second Half of Life
When I was about thirty years old, I picked up a coffee-table book at an acquaintance’s house that intrigued me. It was called Fifty on Fifty: Wisdom, Inspiration, and Reflections on Women’s Lives Well Lived, by Bonnie Miller Rubin. As someone who was arriving later than average to typical mileposts, I found the stories inside deeply reassuring: Linda Ronstadt testifying about the freedom to continually reinvent her sound over the course of a thirty-year music career; reporter Nina Totenberg saying she was glad to have broken the biggest story of her career at age forty-seven rather than twenty-seven because “it was the kind of situation where only experience will save you.”
I could have used that assurance the year before, at UCLA. Already an older student, I was halfway through a degree in comparative literature when I approached a college counselor about adding music as a second major. He dismissed the idea, saying it would take too long. I can still see his stony face turning away from me, his pursed lips as closed as his mind, but the real villain in the story was not so much an unimaginative counselor as my own self-doubt. Why had I given such definitive authority to this gatekeeper of age? It’s silly now to think of another two-year postponement of my graduation date as negative in any meaningful way—as if a deathbed regret would be, “If only I had finished at age thirty-two instead of thirty-four!”
In hindsight, I recognize the difference as inconsequential, but at the time, I wasn’t secure enough to risk being any more out of step in a situation where I was already the oldest student in the room. Instead of feeling proud of gradually working my way through college, I had a self-conscious sense of being “too old.”
That inhibition would never occur to me today—nor to the myriad of people I talk to in my role as the host and creator of My Better Half, a podcast that airs on Jefferson Public Radio as part of its award-winning civic affairs program, The Jefferson Exchange. About once a month since our first episode aired in 2022, I interview individuals who in some way demonstrate or explore the creative potential of our later years. The vast majority of guests so far have been people who live in JPR’s broadcasting region, from far-Northern California to Southern Oregon. Others are just passing through: After she gave a concert in our area, I spoke to eighty-two-year-old Judy Collins, who was celebrating the release of her first entirely original album.
Some guests have no local ties but have written about the subject in a way that transcends geography. When I talked with Ashton Applewhite about her book This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, she schooled me on the concept of “internal ageism” and how negative views of our own aging actually worsen our health. In 2023, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik told me about a series of tasks he challenged himself with in midlife, like finally learning to drive, and then wrote about in his book The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery
Closer to home, it hasn’t been a challenge to find examples of Oregonians who are continually growing and even reinventing themselves as they age.
By VANESSA FINNEY
By 2034, there will be more state residents over the age of sixty-five than under the age of eighteen.
When Eugene resident Yaakov Levine reached his forties, he found himself still looking for his life’s work. It was when he got involved with the ManKind Project, a global network of nonprofit men’s groups, that his mission crystallized. Building on his longtime goal of avoiding the fate of his father, who suffered heart attacks in his fifties that left him unable to care for himself, Yaakov was inspired by the mentorship he received to go back to school and earn credentials as a functional nutritional therapist. As he told me in our 2023 interview, he spent seven years in private practice before taking a position as a nutritional health coach for Natural Grocers. Now seventy-one, he has spent the last nine years guiding people toward their health goals.
Another guest, Diana Coogle, showed even greater disregard for traditional school age, earning her doctorate from the University of Oregon just one month before her sixty-eighth birthday. After a long career of teaching and writing (she was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in 1999), the Applegate resident said she didn’t feel like a late bloomer in the sense of accomplishing a long-delayed goal. It was more, as she put it, about “refusing to let the frost of old age freeze me into no longer blooming.”
No frost gathers under Diana’s feet. As she shared with me in 2024, she keeps a practice of setting goals before milestone birthdays, like walking eight hundred miles in the year before her eightieth. She continues to challenge herself with backpacking, backcountry skiing, and the idea of life as a continuum on which to keep staying active. “There is a Zen saying that I think describes a great deal of my life,” she said. “‘Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.’ One achieves the high points, but the essence of life doesn’t change.”
When I interviewed Deborah Costella, then sixty-seven years old, in November 2023, I found another example of someone building upon decades of experience in the same field. A trans-
plant from Las Vegas, Deborah was ambitiously parlaying a long career as a personal chef, food writer, and cooking instructor into what she hoped would be a flourishing new chapter. She had just opened her own cooking school in downtown Ashland, and she was rightly proud of her bravery in doing so. In our interview, she shrugged off those who had doubted her leap of faith (“Why is Deborah opening a cooking school at her age?”) and said it actually strengthened her resolve as an entrepreneur.
Her enthusiasm was contagious, but any gardener knows that transplants don’t always take. While her business plan made sense on paper, in practice it’s been more difficult to break even with the new school. Two years later, her business still hasn’t gathered enough support to sustain itself, and although she led a successful culinary tour through Italy last October, she suffered a bad fall upon her return that has left her in a cervical collar for months. In light of these financial and physical setbacks, she’s decided to close her brick-and-mortar school in favor of activities that are still within the realm of her passion but have less overhead. She’s already assessing how she can “bloom where you’re planted,” which might mean a return to food writing and teaching, privately or online. Whatever future she chooses to prepare for, it begins with pruning what no longer serves her.
While some people build upon decades of experience to go even further in the same field, others pivot to another field entirely. Matt Witt, who spoke with me from his home in Talent in 2023, has been on one such path. After a career in community and union organizing—advocating for the likes of coal miners, sawmill workers, and schoolteachers—he shifted to nature photography and found community there, too. In his sixties, he was invited by a photographer known for his mentorship to join a photographers’ group that met monthly to share knowledge and inspiration—and his landscape and wildlife photos improved because of it. When he met a newer generation of community organizers involved in issues like affordable housing and climate change, he began using his new skills to support their efforts. After the Almeda Fire tore through the region, he partnered with local organizations to provide framed nature photos to three hundred residents of Talent and Phoenix who had lost everything, down to the art on their walls.
If the central question of My Better Half is “How are people thriving in their later years?,” an underlying question might be “What do people require to keep thriving?” The answer is often “Each other.” Matt touched on that interdependence in a recent email exchange with me: “In nearly two decades of hiking and photographing in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Southern Oregon, I have been continually reminded that flowers generally do not bloom on their own. They often need pollinators like bees, butterflies, or birds. And so it is with people.”
In her audio series The Late Bloomer, poet and scholar Clarissa Pinkola Estés explains a common trope in folklore—a character who has conformed so much to society that they’ve lost the ability to authentically bloom. Estés says these individuals are often aided by mentors, elders who urge them to “transgress, break the rules,” in order to recover the lost part of themselves.
This archetype reminds me of Pam Haunschild, who was a guest on my podcast in January 2023. A self-described “obedient child,” she adhered to her mother’s wishes instead of her own when she pursued a degree in finance rather than accept a scholarship to go to art school. After completing her life’s work in banking and academia, she retired at fifty-six; by age fifty-seven, she was taking a printmaking workshop in Carmel. The workshop reignited her original passion to create, and she experimented with several different art forms over the next couple of years, an exploratory period of trial and error that she thoroughly enjoyed.
Stories like the ones I’ve shared here have better outcomes when they take place within an age-friendly community, one that empowers people of all ages to stay active, connected, and able to contribute to its economic, social, and cultural life.
Pam is now a prolific nature and wildlife painter represented by galleries in Bandon and Ashland. Since returning to her first calling, she has been honored with key public commissions, like producing the playbill cover and poster art for the 2019 Britt Music & Arts Festival in Jacksonville, and designing and painting a native plant mural at Southern Oregon University. Today, years after picking up that lost thread of her young adulthood, she’s still evolving. “I do more teaching and mentoring now than I did ten years ago,” she said. “And there are different perspectives I am now taking in my own artwork … more abstraction, art series more linked to environmental topics and issues like how trees communicate with each other, and how king tides are a harbinger of overall sea level rises.” Recently, Pam’s painting Rooted was juried into the Watercolor Society of Oregon’s spring show at the Grants Pass Museum of Art.
Ninety-three-year-old Roy Sutton is a competitive sprinter from Ashland, who at the time of our interview last August was about to head to the 2024 Oregon Senior Games in Corvallis. The games are one of two main annual masters sports events in Oregon, along with the Hayward Classic in Eugene, and Roy has placed well in his age group at both of them. I first learned about Roy’s devotion to exercise when he ran past me in Ashland’s Lithia Park. Later, during our interview for My Better Half, I learned that aside from being an accomplished athlete, he is also an outspoken fitness activist. He showed me letters he’d written to news editors, asking why they cover high school and college sports but not senior games. He also hoped to promote the recommendation to get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise per week by establishing an informal “150 Club,” where people wear gear with that logo around town and recognize certain fitness values in each other. Knowing that lifestyle is now considered a greater determiner of longevity than genes, Roy attributes his high level of health to a lifelong commitment to regular exercise. Just this February, he came in
The real villain in the story was not so much an unimaginative counselor as my own self-doubt. Why had I given such definitive authority to this gatekeeper of age?
a close third in the sixty-meter dash at the 2025 USA Track and Field Masters Indoor Championships in Florida.
Interviewing ninety-somethings reminds me of the optimism and commitment to growth I see in my own family, who live in Gold Hill. When my sister-in-law supposed at age forty-five that she was now “middle-aged,” my brother asked her, “Do you really want to limit yourself to ninety?” Being longevity-minded like this can make it feel worthwhile to start new projects and challenges. My mother graduated from Southern Oregon University at age fifty-six with a bachelor of arts in environmental science, and she became a certified fitness instructor for seniors this year, at seventy-five. I visited the class recently and found myself working out to a playlist I’ve seen her dancing to in her garden at home: Hozier, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran, Stephen Sanchez. Meanwhile, my father played guitars in bands as a teen and young adult, then set performing aside as he started a lifelong career in building design and civil engineering. He eventually moved back home to care for his mother during the last few years of her life, and after she passed at the age of ninety-six, in 2017, he took up guitar again with all the discipline he’d invested in his design work. Living in his childhood home, this time in his seventies, chord posters and guitar racks reappeared on the wall. His homework this time around was following YouTube music lessons, practicing blues progressions, and improving his picking technique.
Considering all the ways these interviewees—and my own family members—have demonstrated resilience, drive, and even physical prowess later in life, I wasn’t surprised to hear a statistic that came up in a recent interview I did with Debra Whitman. Debra is the chief public policy officer of AARP and the author of the book The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond. She has found that Americans over fifty are a boon to—not a drain on—the economy. This bodes well for Oregon, where in 2023, nearly one in four workers was fifty-five or older.
But Debra reminds us that while enormous advances in longevity have been made since 1900, when the average American didn’t even make it to age fifty, large disparities still exist across gender, ethnicity, education, and income level. As she puts it, your zip code is now more important than your genetic code when it comes to health and longevity. According to her research, a person born today in Multnomah County can expect to live to eighty-nine; in Jackson County that number goes down to sixty-six, a twenty-three-year difference in life expectancy. She says, “People aren’t necessarily different in Multnomah versus Jackson County, right? We’re all humans. We have the potential to live longer lives.”
Stories like the ones I’ve shared here have better outcomes when they take place within an age-friendly community, one that empowers people of all ages to stay active, connected, and able to contribute to its economic, social, and cultural life. In this framework, older adults are more likely to be hired or start a business. They can rely on quality health care, lifelong educational opportunities, reliable transportation, and safe outdoor
spaces, as well as respect from their communities. According to Debra, both the public and private sector play a role in this kind of supportive ecosystem.
We can see Oregon lawmakers rising to this role as they grapple with an imminent, unprecedented demographic shift. By 2034, there will be more state residents over the age of sixty-five than under the age of eighteen. Older adults will make up 21 percent of the state population, and nearly half of those will be people of color. In February 2025, state legislators introduced a House bill that would establish a plan for healthy aging, coordinating the efforts of state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community representatives.
The bill is one of several pro-aging initiatives in western states. I found Debra through the Stanford Center on Longevity’s Longevity Book Club, which offers virtual conversations with authors writing on the subject. In Washington state, where Debra grew up, the Northwest Center for Creative Aging advocates for the creativity, vitality, and wholeness inherent in all of us. The “About Us” page on their website could be describing the people featured on My Better Half, along with countless other still-blooming older adults: “As we age, we discover new capacities and new interests,” it reads. “We seek activities that expand our minds, strengthen our bodies, and open our hearts. We recognize the necessity of interdependence, humor, generosity, and gratitude to bolster us during challenging times.”
As I first learned from reading Fifty on Fifty, it can be an inspiring, even fascinating, process to watch people collect certain laurels without any desire to rest on them, to see them feel the length of their lives so far and ask, “Now, what’s next?” It’s not that these cases are necessarily extraordinary; it’s that they show us how late-in-life flourishing can become ordinary When our very bone cells regenerate every ten years, it’s reasonable that a forty-, sixty-, or ninety-year-old would seriously consider what untapped excellence they might still contain, and what pleasures life can still yield to them. There are many instances of our fellow Oregonians’ drive to bloom, whether they are overcoming injuries to become even stronger, reviving a neglected passion, or charting a completely new course. Our success in these endeavors depends partly upon a synergy between the individual and the systems we find ourselves in: being supported by the environment, then contributing the fruit of our labor back to it. If we can continue to root out the internal ageism that would prevent a growth mindset, and if we can design policies that create age-friendly habitats in which to thrive, older adults may increasingly be limited only by their interests and imagination.
This piece was originally published in the Spring 2025 issue of Oregon Humanities, a triannual publication that is free to all Oregonians.
Vanessa Finney is a reporter and host at Jefferson Public Radio and produces a documentary series called The Work of Art for Southern Oregon PBS. She recently recorded her first musical album at age fifty-five.
Michal/Yungen Duo
September 12
Dover Quartet
October 12
Reverón Piano Trio
October 18
Galvin Cello Quartet
November 2
Stile Antico
November 14
Dudok Quartet
Amsterdam
January 16
Baltimore Consort
January 30
The Esmé Quartet
February 21
Mandelring Quartett
March 14
Trio Bohémo
March 28
Borromeo/Verona Octet
April 18
Amit Peled, cello & Daniel del Pino, piano
May 2
Canadian Brass
May 17
How The Rapid Spread of Misinformation Pushed Oregon Lawmakers to Kill the State’s Wildfire Risk Map
By ROB DAVIS
This is how misinformation gets accepted as fact.
Ayear after Oregon endures its most destructive fire season on record in 2020, state lawmakers order a map estimating the wildfire risk for every property in the state. It’s the kind of rating now available on real estate sites like Zillow. The state wants to use the results to decide where it will apply forthcoming codes for fire-resistant construction and protections around homes.
Around the same time, insurance companies start dropping Oregon homeowners’ policies and raising premiums to limit future losses, much as they have done in other disaster-prone states. Insurers have their own sophisticated risk maps to guide them, but some brokers instead tell homeowners the blame lies with the map the state produced. The belief gets treated as fact both on social media and in mainstream news — even though insurers and regulators say it’s not true.
The anger quickly spreads. Not only is Oregon’s map seen as at fault for higher insurance premiums, one conservative talk radio host calls it an attempt to “depopulate rural areas.” People in an anti-map Facebook group start musing about “Agenda 21,” a conspiracy theory implicating the United Nations in an effort to force people into cities so they can be more easily controlled. By the time the state pulls back the map and starts over, the myths about it have gained so much momentum there’s no stopping them. Oregon’s hotter, drier climate isn’t the problem; the map is.
Christine Drazan, the Oregon House Republican leader, joins more than a dozen other Republicans in February 2025 behind a sign that says “REPEAL THE WILDFIRE HAZARD MAP.” She calls the state’s map “faulty, defective, harmful” and says it, along with related fire-safe building and landscaping rules that are in the works, is “a heavy-handed bureaucratic takeover” that’s kept rural residents from insuring or selling homes.
“This map is destroying their property values,” she says.
In the end, what’s most remarkable about the campaign against Oregon’s wildfire map isn’t that misinformation found an audience.
It’s that it worked.
Chris Dunn, a wildfire risk scientist at Oregon State University and a former wildland firefighter, thought Oregon had a chance to be a national model for adapting to wildfire risks when he was asked to make the statewide map in 2021.
Oregon adopted a unique set of land use laws in the late 1960s and 1970s that helped curb urban sprawl. A coalition of farmers and conservationists formulated the legislation to preserve farmland and keep cities compact. To Dunn, protecting
homes seemed within reach because the state had maintained agricultural buffers around cities, helping to serve as firebreaks.
At the time, Zillow hadn’t yet come out with risk ratings. By building its own map, Oregon could use local input and make adjustments as it went along.
The map results would help Oregon decide where to require a tool proven to save homes from wind-driven wildfires: “defensible space.” Owners would have to prune trees up and away from their houses; they would need to keep their roofs clear of leaves, needles and other dead vegetation. The idea was to deny wind-borne embers fuel that can burn down dwellings — a problem fresh on lawmakers’ minds after Oregon’s devastating 2020 fire season destroyed more than 2,000 homes.
Dunn knew public communication would be important. Before the map was released, a private property rights group had warned its members in a letter that the map and its rules were worrisome. Gov. Kate Brown’s wildfire council, advising state leaders about the map’s rollout, knew about the letter and the potential for pushback, according to emails Dunn provided to ProPublica.
Dunn said he was clear with Brown’s wildfire director, Doug Grafe, and others on the council that the map needed a significant, coordinated and effective communications campaign starting months before its release. Dunn said all the state developed was a one-page document on the roles of each government agency.
(Brown and Grafe did not respond to ProPublica’s questions. Grafe told Oregon Public Broadcasting in 2022 that “we are committed to ensuring people understand what they can do to increase the likelihood their homes and properties will survive wildfires.”)
Without state outreach, many homeowners learned their homes were in “extreme risk” zones from a July 2022 letter in the mail. It gave them 60 days to appeal the designation or face complying with new building and defensible-space codes the state was developing.
The Almeda Fire swept through Talent Mobile Estates in September 2020. After the fire, only a few homes remained standing in the park, pictured in this file photo from Oct. 13, 2020.
Dunn could see that an uproar was building around his work. One community meeting where he was scheduled to present was canceled after state officials received threats of violence.
On Facebook, more than 6,000 people joined a private group, ODF Wildfire Risk Map Support, a base of opposition. ODF stands for the Oregon Department of Forestry, the state agency overseeing the map’s creation.
One member warned that state officials would snoop around their rural properties to tell owners what to do.
“Guys this is a agenda 21,” said the member, referencing the conspiracy theory promoted in part by former Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck.
Along with 31 thumbs-ups, eight angry faces and several other emojis, the post got 24 comments.
Oregon can’t stop firestorms with regulations, conservative talk show host Bill Meyer told listeners, “Unless you just get
Distribution of Risk Across Oregon (assuming a structure is present)
people off the land, and people wonder if that’s what the intent of all of this is ultimately.” Invoking a phrase associated with the Agenda 21 conspiracy, Meyer said rural residents would wind up having to move into “stack-and-pack” housing in Oregon’s cities. (Meyer did not respond to ProPublica’s emails.)
State officials’ lack of communication with the public “led to really significant challenges,” Dunn told ProPublica. “We don’t know if we could have well-communicated and sort of avoided those conspiracy theories and misinformation. But it was just so propagated in the media that it just took over.”
Jeff Golden, the Democratic state senator who helped draft the bill creating the map, said rural residents were understandably upset. The impacts of climate change were abstract to many people, Golden said, until they started getting those letters — at the same time insurance companies were dumping them.
“It’s a really hard adjustment,” said Golden, chairperson of the Senate’s Natural Resources and Wildfire Committee. “This is a very big chicken coming home to roost.”
Misinformation stoked people’s anger. “It makes a conversation that would have been difficult at best almost impossible,” Golden said.
State officials withdrew the map just over a month after its 2022 release, saying that while they had met the legislative deadline for delivering it, “there wasn’t enough time to allow for the type of local outreach and engagement that people wanted, needed and deserved.”
After homeowners blamed the newly released risk map for insurance cancellations and premium increases, Oregon’s insurance regulator formally asked insurers: Did you use the state risk map?
Companies filed statements, required by law to be answered truthfully, saying they had not. Oregon’s then-insurance commissioner, Andrew Stolfi, announced the industry’s response publicly at the time.
In this Feb. 6 photo taken at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem, House Minority Christine Drazan stands with fellow Republicans at a press conference. The party unveiled its legislative priorities and aim to tackle housing homelessness while cutting taxes and regulations.
The Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer map, created by Oregon State University as part of a wildfire policy directed by Senate Bill 762, outlines wildfire risk at the property ownership level across the state. State officials withdrew the map just over a month after its 2022 release.
OREGON WILDFIRE RISK EXPLORER
CREDIT BRYCE DOLE / OPB
These Facebook comments have been excerpted to preserve anonymity.
“Insurance companies have been using their own risk maps and other robust risk management tools to assess wildfire risk for years in making rating and underwriting decisions,” Stolfi said in a news release.
Stolfi told consumers to submit any documentation they received from insurance companies showing that the state’s map had been used to influence underwriting or rating decisions. Jason Horton, a spokesperson for Oregon’s insurance regulator, told ProPublica the agency has not substantiated any complaints.
For good measure, lawmakers in 2023 passed a bill explicitly banning insurers from using the map to set rates.
But as Dunn reworked the map, the cloud of misinformation continued to swirl on social media.
After Zillow and other real estate sites began posting wildfire risk ratings on properties nationwide last year, participants in the anti-map Facebook group alleged the state was behind it.
“Who would decide to move out here after seeing that?” one asked.
Zillow uses data from the research firm First Street, a Zillow spokesperson told ProPublica. A First Street spokesperson also said the group doesn’t use Oregon’s map.
Andrew DeVigal, a University of Oregon journalism professor who has studied news ecosystems around the state, said places where news outlets have shrunk or closed down have grown particularly reliant on such Facebook groups. These community watercoolers help confirm participants’ biases. “You surround yourself with people who think like you, so you’re in your space,” he said.
A ProPublica reporter identified himself to the group’s participants, asking in June for evidence that they’d been harmed by the state’s map. None provided definitive proof. Some acknowledged that they couldn’t demonstrate that the map had affected them but said they suspected it lowered their homes’ values or their insurability.
Among the respondents was Chris Dalton, who lives in La Pine, south of Bend. Dalton described spending about $2,000 trimming trees and another $500 putting down gravel to create defensible space.
However, Dalton said, the house’s location had been designated as being at moderate risk. That means it was not subject to the state’s defensible-space requirements. And even if Dalton’s property had been designated as high enough risk to be governed by the new regulations, they had not been finalized at that point and were not being enforced.
“I guess you could say we used common sense to get ahead of future problems,” Dalton said.
Oregon officials decided to give the map another try last year.
They re-released it, this time doing more outreach. Following California’s lead and aiming to make the map less confusing, Oregon also changed its nomenclature. Properties weren’t in risk classes, they were in hazard zones. The highest rating was no longer “extreme,” it was “high.” Dunn, the Oregon State scientist, said he thought the map had survived the effort to kill it.
But the backlash continued. Of the 106,000 properties found to face the highest hazard, more than 6,000 landowners filed appeals. At least one county appealed the designation on behalf of every high-hazard property in its borders — more than 20,000 of them.
In January, a new Oregon legislative session kicked off and wildfire preparedness was once again a top priority for the body’s Democratic leadership. Gov. Tina Kotek ordered a pause on decisions about homeowners’ appeals until the session ended, giving lawmakers a chance to decide what to do with the map.
Drazan, the House minority leader, led fellow Republicans in opposition.
She told ProPublica she “can’t know for sure” that the map caused homeowners to lose insurance or have trouble selling, as she’d asserted at February’s news conference. “I am reflecting what we were told,” she said.
Regardless, she said, the mandates on protecting properties went too far. “We’re not looking for the state to be the president of our homeowner’s association and tell us what color our paint can be,” Drazan said.
Even Golden, who’d helped shepherd the original bill mandating a map, began to waver.
Golden described conversations with homeowners who struggled to understand why work they’d done to protect their properties from fires didn’t lower their state risk rating. He said the map couldn’t account for the specific characteristics of each property, ultimately making it clear to him that it couldn’t work.
“I got tired of trying to convince people that the model was smarter than they were,” Golden said.
Dunn told ProPublica that the map was not intended to reflect all the changing conditions at a particular property, only the hazards that the surrounding topography, climate, weather and vegetation create. It wasn’t about whether homeowners had cleared defensible space — just whether they should. The work they do makes their individual homes less vulnerable, he said, but it doesn’t eliminate the broader threats around them.
By April, the map was on its way out.
The state Senate voted unanimously, Golden included, to repeal the state’s defensible-space and home-hardening requirements as well as the map that showed where they would apply.
Ahead of a 50-1 vote in the House to kill the map, familiar claims got repeated — including from a legislative leader’s office.
Virgle Osborne, the House Republican whip, lamented in a May press release: “These wildfire maps have cost people property values, insurance increases, and many heartaches.”
Osborne told ProPublica he stood behind his comment even though he had no evidence for it. Osborne said he believed Oregon’s maps helped insurance companies justify rate increases and policy cancellations.
“I can’t give you, you know, here’s the perfect example of somebody that, you know, did it, but no insurance company is that foolish,” Osborne said. “They’re not going to write a statement that would put them in jeopardy. But common sense is going to tell you, when the state is on your side, the insurance companies are going to bail out. And they have.”
With or without a map, former California insurance commissioner Dave Jones said, Oregon lawmakers could require insurers to provide incentives for homeowners to protect their properties. Colorado, for instance, ordered insurers this year to account for risk-reduction efforts in models used to decide who can obtain insurance and at what price.
Jones nonetheless called Oregon’s decision to kill the wildfire map “very unfortunate.”
“One of the biggest public health and safety challenges states are facing are climate-driven, severe-weather-related events,” Jones said. “Not giving people useful information to make decisions on that, to me, is not a path to public health and safety.”
During the June vote in the Oregon House, the lone person who voted to preserve Oregon’s wildfire map and its associated mandates was Dacia Grayber, a Democrat from the Portland area who’s a longtime firefighter and worked a brush rig during the 2020 wildfires.
She told ProPublica that by training, the first things she looks for while defending homes in wildland fires are the types of hazards the state intended to target: firewood under the deck, cedar shake siding, flammable juniper bushes growing close to homes.
Grayber said she was disturbed by the sentiment in the Capitol as the repeal vote neared. The decision to kill the map and eliminate home-hardening requirements, she said, had become a “feel-good, bipartisan vote.”
“We are walking away from a very clear decision to build safer, more resilient communities,” Grayber said.
The tragedy of it, she said, is “that it was 100% based in misinformation.”
Kotek, Oregon’s Democratic governor, signed the repeal on July 24.
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.
SAVORING LOCAL
NATALIE GOLAY
Lavender, of all things. As a child, I detested it. The camphorous smell overwhelmed my senses, and I avoided it at all costs.
A Foodie’s Excellent Lavender Festival Adventure
Iwas very excited to hear about the 2025 Southern Oregon Lavender Festival, which takes place in summer over two weekends: once in June and once in July. It was the perfect excuse for me to continue exploring this beautiful region. Spending a lovely, sunny July day driving around the Applegate with my dog, Herbie, and visiting friendly, family-run lavender farms sounded just about perfect to me.
Lavender, of all things. As a child, I detested it. The camphorous smell overwhelmed my senses, and I avoided it at all costs. Then, one day, in my early twenties, everything changed. I had recently arrived in Paris and was working at a steak house on the Champs Elysees. I had a job but nowhere to live. Youth hostels were an affordable temporary solution, but in the City of Lights, hostel stays were limited to three nights. For weeks, I moved every few days, lugging my heavy 12-string guitar and suitcases through the streets and on the metro—all while holding down a full-time job. One day, I ran out of options.
Miraculously, a “chambre de bonne” (literally, maid’s room) became available. An acquaintance of mine, connected with the Cité Internationale Universitaire, had put in a good word for me with student housing. The only hitch was that the room wasn’t available until the next day. But he had a solution for that too: that night, I could stay with a friend of his.
Whatever misgivings I might have had under normal circumstances, I squelched. I took him up on his offer. It was a good thing I did.
I entered his friend’s small but uncluttered apartment and felt the weight of the world lift off my shoulders. Soft pastels, natural wood and “something in the air” that I didn’t stop to analyze. My host led the way to the kitchen for a quiet, friendly meal and then, off to bed.
The next morning, I awoke feeling truly rested for the first time in ages. That’s when I noticed that a subtle aroma permeated the room. In that moment, lavender became inextricably
Established in 2020, Kingfisher Farms is a relative newcomer to the Applegate, but has quickly become a fixture on the Lavender Trail. Visitors can gather their own bundles from the expansive field or simply wander the rows and enjoy.
Going Rogue – A Foodie’s Tale
Continued from previous page
linked in my mind to relaxation, community, and kindness. It is anchored there forever.
I never saw my acquaintance nor his friend again. I don’t remember their names. I barely remember their faces. But I do remember the lavender.
Now I enjoy lavender in all of its forms. Pollinator gardens, aromatic sachets and essential oils, decorative bundles, natural cleaning products, cosmetics, there is so much to love.
In recent years, I’ve come to appreciate its many culinary applications as well. I never miss an opportunity to try out new lavender flavored foods.
Much as I would have liked to, I couldn’t comfortably visit all the farms on the trail in one day. I finally settled on four. I’d drive out to the farthest one and work my way home.
Before setting out, I called ahead to confirm dog-friendliness. Expecting resistance, I instead found acceptance at all four locations. As long as he was leashed, there was no problem. We were onto a good thing.
Goodwin Creek Gardens
First stop: Williams, OR. Of all the sites I visited that day, atmospherically, Goodwin Creek Gardens was the most reminiscent of my Parisian experience. It seems incongruous,
but somehow it had that same quiet, peaceful, life-affirming quality.
Displays of potted perennials and pollinator-friendly plants next to a small lavender demonstration garden set a welcoming tone. Herbie busily explored the new sights and smells as we made our way to the lavender patch at the back, near the creek. A bench beckoned. Time stopped.
Returning to the visitor tent, I spoke with owner Jered Grzybowski, who explained that while their operation might look smaller than some of the other farms, Goodwin produces 125 varieties of lavender and hundreds of other perennials. In fact, they supply growers in the region and clients all over the world. They’re also now the greenhouse propagation and demonstration garden division for Charsaw Farms, a family-owned lavender farm in Napa.
I toured one of the greenhouses with father-in-law Ed. He was so proud of the work that Jered and his wife, Anna, have accomplished since acquiring the property from its original owners seven years ago. He spoke glowingly of their commitment to organic practices and their success.
By then, the sun was high in the sky and temperatures were climbing. It was time to move on to our next stop, but not before I tried the homemade lavender lemonade. It was delicious.
English Lavender Farm
At the end of a long, gravel driveway off Thompson Creek Road, English Lavender Farm owner Derek Owen greeted and directed guests to the parking lot with a smile.
We began with the field, where row upon row of English varietals (Lavandula angustifolia), ranging from white to violet, blanketed the hillside beneath a solid blue sky and relentless midday sun. Half way up the slope, a red shade cloth stood out against a sea of purple.
After taking in the view, we made for the shade of bright orange patio umbrellas in the outdoor seating area below, surrounded by large lavandin hybrids humming with chubby black bumblebees. Aaron Reed of the Brothers Reed was performing. As usual, Herbie, the ultimate ice-breaker, charmed the occupants of neighboring tables.
Outside, vendors displayed their artisanal wares, and visitors learned to craft their own lavender wreaths. Inside, the store offered an assortment of lavender products.
I tried the lavender shortbread. It was crumbly and savory-sweet, just the way I like it. I also tasted some lavender cheddar at one of the food trucks and was pleasantly surprised. The flavors were well balanced, which can be tricky with herbs.
Kingfisher Farms
By mid-afternoon, we had reached our third destination: Kingfisher Farms on Applegate Road, where owners Bruce and
Annita Phillips grow twenty-one varieties of lavender. There is also a large flower garden for fresh-cut bouquets.
We entered through the drying barn, where bundles of lavender hung in rows on vertical wood and wire mesh racks. Once again, a sense of déjà vu—something about the wood and the scent of drying lavender—transported me to the past. This time, to the Buddhist temples I visited with my mother as a child in Japan. There had been no lavender in those temples; it was just a faint echo, a familiar, comfortable feeling.
In the gift shop next door, I came across a simple but cleverly designed recipe foldout—printed on cardstock like a trifold brochure and paired with a packet of culinary lavender, enough to make all nine recipes. I don’t know if it’s unique to Kingfisher Farms, but it’s a delightful idea.
Then off we went to pick lavender. I left Herbie to cool in the shade and set out to gather my bundle, basket and scissors in hand. Back at the store, Annita told me about the farm, their dog Lucee, and cooking with lavender. Next time, I’ll have to try her lavender-infused jam—apparently it tends to sell out.
Dos Mariposas Vineyards & Lavender Farm
We drove up to Dos Mariposas, near Jacksonville, in the late afternoon and, strolling through the vines, paused briefly to appreciate the lavender field.
That’s where we came across Judy Rennick, one of the owners. I commented on the warm, pleasant atmosphere at the vineyard. She explained that this was exactly what they were going for—a sense of community, where everyone feels welcome. Then she mentioned there were dog biscuits at the bar—if Herbie was interested. Yup. My kind of place.
We headed for the tasting room, with its open layout and covered, wraparound terrace. Musical duo Allison and Victor were setting up to play in the shade of a giant weeping willow at the edge of the property’s large duck pond—an idyllic scene.
I picked a table near the stage and ordered a Rosé of Pinot Noir and a carnitas taco.
The bartender also poured a tequila flute of Mimosaposa for me to sample—their take on the classic mimosa: Chenin Blanc and lavender lemonade. Herbie stuck to water and dog biscuits.
And the taco? Phenomenal. It took me straight back to Mexico. I ordered two more.
We rounded off the evening with Allison and Victor’s first set. The perfect place to end a perfect day.
Natalie Golay is the Senior Producer of the Jefferson Exchange. She has a B.A. in Visual Arts, a certificate of recommendation in multimedia from the Vancouver Film school, and a law degree from the University of British Columbia. A communications professional for over 20 years, Natalie is a natural storyteller with extensive audio and video production skills. She’s been an editor and writing coach, shepherding many inexperienced authors through the writing process. In her spare time, Natalie is a singer-songwriter/composer who loves audio gear and all of her silly pets.
NATALIE GOLAY
Dos Mariposas Vineyard & Lavender Farm’s field is bordered by vines on three sides. Guests can pick their own bundles, roam the grounds, visit with geese near the pond’s edge, or head to the tasting room’s wrap-around terrace for refreshments.
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DOWN TO EARTH
EMMA J NELSON
The treatment spans 12,585 acres and involves chemicals such as glyphosate, which is currently under review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
BLM Sprays Herbicides to Kill Invasive Plants, Prevent Wildfires
One of the chemicals used in the spray is under review by the Environmental Protection Agency for potential cancer risk.
The Bureau of Land Management is spraying herbicides from helicopters over federal lands in Klamath and Lake Counties through the end of the year, targeting invasive grasses that fuel wildfires. The treatment spans 12,585 acres and involves chemicals such as glyphosate, which is currently under review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The bureau’s Lakeview District Office has used aerial herbicides for a decade, as other methods weren’t keeping up with the growth of invasive species.
Cheatgrass, medusahead rye and North Africa grass are the most common invasive plants in the area. These grasses often spread after native species have gone dormant, hogging nutrients needed by native plants during their growing season.
Oliver Liu, invasive annual grass specialist at the BLM Lakeview District Office, monitors which areas in the district are most heavily infested with invasive grasses and need treatment. This year, much of the targeted land includes areas burned by wildfires in the past year or two.
“We presume that there’ll be a heavy invasive grass infestation following any big wildfire events,” Liu said.
Four areas burnt by 2024 wildfires — the Road 157 Fire, the Bowman Well Fire, the Tucker Hill Fire and the Warner Peak Fire — are scheduled for treatment this year.
The Lakeview District plans to use two herbicides: imazapic and glyphosate. Imazapic, sold under the trade name Plateau, is primarily used to prevent invasive seeds from sprouting. Glyphosate, commercially known as Roundup, is used after invasive plants have emerged and are competing with native vegetation.
The EPA said in 2020 that glyphosate is safe for human health and unlikely to cause cancer if used correctly. But two years later, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out that conclusion, saying the agency didn’t have enough evidence to support it.
Separately, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, labeled glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015. While the agency acknowledged that there was limited evidence in people, it based its assessment on stronger evidence from animal studies.
The EPA expects to complete a review of glyphosate’s safety in 2026. Until then, it stands by its original assessment that the chemical is not a carcinogen for humans.
The Lakeview District didn’t use glyphosate in its aerial spraying programs in 2023 or 2024. Liu said the office hasn’t been told by BLM to stop using it, but said that, under agency guidelines, it’s considered safe to re-enter treated areas once the herbicide has dried.
Glyphosate, because it targets growing plants, can pose a risk to native plants if not timed correctly. That’s why spraying in the fall and winter is critical, Liu said.
“We’re usually outside of that growing season of most of the natives that we’re trying to avoid,” he said.
The locations where herbicides are being sprayed by the Lakeview District can be found on the Bureau of Land Management website.
Emma J is JPR’s 2025 Charles Snowden Intern and a recent graduate from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communications. She previously worked as the calendar editor and reporter for Eugene Weekly.
A Bureau of Land Management helicopter sprays herbicides in southern Oregon.
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October 4 – Cosi Fan Tutte by W.A. Mozart
October 11 – Giulio Cesare by Handel
October 18 – Louise by Gustave Charpentier
October 25 – The Pearl Fishers by Georges Bizet
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PHOTO: ANDREW CIOFFI
The cast of The Pearl Fishers. Marina Rebeka (Leïla), Mariusz Kwiecień (Zurga), and Matthew Polenzani (Nadir) star in this performance conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.
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NEWS BRIEFS
Sen. Ron Wyden Toured the Medford Airport After Helping Secure Federal Funds for Recent Tarmac Upgrades
Emma J Nelson/JPR
Officials are planning a $180 million expansion to keep up with growing passenger traffic.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., toured Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport on Aug. 18 highlighting recent upgrades and long-term expansion plans as the facility adapts to rising passenger demand.
Wyden and fellow Oregon Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkley helped secure $6.41 million in Federal Aviation Administration grants in 2024. The money paid for renovations to the airport’s tarmac, including an extension of the main taxiway, the addition of two new taxiways and expanded aircraft parking space.
Construction, completed earlier this year, focused on airfield operations rather than passenger areas. Officials say the improvements will make ground navigation safer and more efficient for pilots.
“It’s gonna be a good place to be in the cockpit,” Wyden said. With that work complete, airport officials are shifting their attention inside.
Passenger traffic has surged in recent years, straining the airport’s terminal capacity. In May, nearly 99,000 travelers passed through — the airport’s busiest May on record. That marked a 10% increase over May 2024 and about 6% more than the previous high in 2019.
To accommodate future growth, officials are drafting a three-phase expansion plan aimed at doubling the airport’s passenger capacity by 2042. The project is expected to cost Jackson County about $180 million.
Plans include expanding the boarding area, adding ticket counters to support more airlines, and building a fourth security screening lane to reduce wait times.
One of the top priorities, airport director Amber Judd said, is improving the baggage claim area.
“Usually when you get off an airplane at a big airport, it takes you about half an hour to walk to baggage claim,” she said, “So you don’t really notice how long it’s taking. But here you’re at baggage claim really quickly, and so that wait can seem like hours.”
The first phase of the expansion is expected to cost $115 million. Judd said construction could begin as early as 2027. The county has set aside some funding and plans to apply for additional state and federal grants.
Advocates Sound the Alarm on Funding Cuts to Crater Lake
National Park
Roman Battaglia/JPR
National parks advocates met near Crater Lake in midAugust to raise concerns about the impact of federal funding cuts to the National Park Service.
National parks across the country are already short-staffed, and the U.S. Department of the Interior has proposed steep cuts to the Park Service’s budget for next year.
Karen Walters, with Friends of Crater Lake, said it’s becoming unsustainable.
“We are filling in for staff that is way, way, way short,” she said. “We are doing projects that should have been done years ago, but because of funding and staff cuts, they’re not getting done.”
More funding cuts could mean even fewer staff, along with more frequent visitor center closures and program cancellations. In July, a reconciliation bill pulled back hundreds of millions of dollars that had been intended to improve Park Service staffing.
Major staffing shortages were what prompted Kevin Heatley, former superintendent at Crater Lake, to resign in May. Staffing at Crater Lake has been cut in half over the past decade due to a lack of funding.
Caitlyn Burford, with the National Parks Conservation Association, said staffing levels are already critically low.
“Biologists and historians are cleaning bathrooms or running front desks,” she said. “Without our staff, our parks don’t run — not day to day, and definitely not long term.”
Burford and other advocates met with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on Sunday to advocate for national park funding and highlight the economic value parks bring to local communities.
Grants Pass City Council Votes to Settle Homelessness Lawsuit
Jane Vaughan/JPR
The Grants Pass City Council unanimously approved a settlement in its ongoing legal battle with Disability Rights Oregon on Aug.10.
The nonprofit advocacy group filed suit against the city in January after the city council voted to drastically reduce the availability of authorized camping sites. Homeless people were restricted to only one site from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Disability Rights Oregon argued that the change violated a state law that requires homeless camping rules to be “objectively reasonable” in terms of time, place and manner. The lawsuit also claimed that the city broke state non-discrimination laws.
The proposed agreement would require the city to ensure that a resting space with the capacity for 150 people be maintained in the urban growth boundary for one year. The space must be low-barrier and be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
City attorney Stephanie Nuttall explained at the Aug. 10 city council meeting that the city doesn’t have to be in charge of the space.
“As long as we’re making sure that somebody else is doing it, that would suffice,” she said.
The settlement also requires the city to award a $60,000 grant to a nonprofit organization that would provide services to the homeless community in Grants Pass. The city will also pay the plaintiffs’ attorney fees. The $85,000 sum will be split equally between the city’s general fund and insurance.
Tom Stenson, the deputy legal director at Disability Rights Oregon, is the lead attorney for the case. He said this settlement has been in the works since March.
“We’re moving the city more in a direction of trying to solve homelessness, trying to get people out of homelessness,” Stenson said, “rather than just, you know, say you’re not allowed to be here in Grants Pass.”
Stenson said the provisions for resting space and ADA compliance outlined in the settlement will be enacted as soon as the plaintiffs approve the agreement, but the city has until the end of 2026 to award the $60,000 grant.
Stenson said he expects that the plaintiffs will sign the settlement agreement, but it could take up to a week.
“By the nature of the problem, I can’t email it to them at home and have them print it out at their home computer,” he said. “We’re gonna have to physically go see people.”
According to CareOregon, the change will affect about 15,000 clients, which is roughly 15% of its members who use behavioral health services.
Kalia Feldman-Klein, a licensed therapist in private practice in Jackson County, said about one-third of her clients will be affected. She said she’s referring them to providers in CareOregon’s network but worries the transition won’t be easy.
“It can take a while to find a therapist that’s the right fit,” Feldman-Klein said. “Especially if you’re in the middle of treating like complex trauma, to suddenly have to stop that treatment and find someone else is a big disruption.”
In a statement, CareOregon described the move as a return to a pre-pandemic policy, although Feldman-Klein said the organization worked with out-of-network therapists as recently as 2019, when she opened her practice.
CareOregon said rising costs and federal cuts to Medicaid are behind the decision.
“Services from non-contracted providers cost as much as 40%-95% more than from contracted providers,” the non-profit insurance provider said in a statement.
Feldman-Klein said she and other providers were notified in early August about the changes.
“The suddenness of how it’s being rolled out is really surprising and concerning,” she said.
In August 2024, CareOregon stopped covering therapy from graduates still completing the 1,900 supervised hours needed for a license if they work in private practice. That change means recent graduates must work for an agency or clinic to see Medicaid patients.
Pacificorp Ramps Up Wildfire Monitoring with Medford Facility
Emma J Nelson/JPR
Careoregon is Cutting the Number of Therapists It Works
With. The Change Will Impact Around 15,000 Members
Justin Higginbottom/JPR
Starting in October, Oregon’s largest Medicaid provider, CareOregon, will no longer cover therapy sessions with outof-network providers.
Previously, licensed mental health care providers could see clients with the state’s Medicaid plan and bill CareOregon and its local partners.
Amid a class-action lawsuit over allegations it negligently caused wildfires, PacifiCorp is moving ahead with a new Wildfire Intelligence Center in Medford aimed at preventing future disasters.
PacifiCorp opened the center in May as part of its 2025 Wildfire Mitigation Plan.
PacifiCorp spokesperson Simon Gutierrez said staff have monitored 863 fires in Oregon since the center opened May 3. Of those, 71 led to emergency power shutoffs.
In 2023, a jury found PacifiCorp negligent for failing to shut off power during a 2020 windstorm, despite warnings from fire officials. The company was ordered to pay more than $73 million to plaintiffs affected by the Labor Day fires.
The center’s goal is to prevent similar disasters through earlier wildfire detection.
NEWS BRIEFS
Staff monitor a range of sources — from crowd-sourced apps like Watch Duty to emergency responder communications — to assess active wildfires. Specialists use wildfire cameras across PacifiCorp’s six-state service area to track proximity to the company’s infrastructure.
Zylon De La Torre, an emergency response specialist, said he uses public data and live camera feeds to estimate fire locations before field teams arrive.
“If the fire is going to be a problem for us, sometimes we can see our electrical assets in the vicinity,” De La Torre said.
While staff at the center don’t shut off power directly, they notify PacifiCorp offices in Portland and Salt Lake City when conditions meet the utility’s criteria for de-energizing lines. Final decisions are made by system operators at those offices.
“If we have a fire that initiates directly below our equipment, that’s something we have to respond to very quickly,” Gutierrez said. “But if it’s a fire that’s off in the distance, obviously we’ll be in more of a monitoring mode where we can take a look at it, see which way the wind’s going, communicate with first responders, decide whether it’s a risk or not.”
The wildfire intelligence center uses cameras equipped with artificial intelligence to spot signs of smoke, but the technology can’t distinguish between a wildfire, a car fire or a dust plume from a nearby farm, De La Torre said. That’s where staff come in — to confirm what’s actually burning.
Though the center primarily focuses on wildfires, it also monitors other emergencies. Center manager Nick Linfoot said the team provided “situational awareness” during the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Russia.
PacifiCorp has appealed the judgement of the class action lawsuit and is scheduled to return to court for damages trials in February 2026.
Fallen and Can’t Get Up? A Call to Redding Fire May Now Cost You
Justin Higginbottom/JPR
The Redding Fire Department now charges nearly $500 to respond to some non-emergency calls. The department aims to curb call volume and recover costs.
The Redding Fire Department has begun charging a $489 fee for lift assists, non-emergency calls for when someone has fallen but doesn’t need to go to the hospital.
Fire officials said the department receives about 1,200 such calls each year. Sometimes people even call when they need help getting to the restroom, Deputy Chief Jay Sumerlin said.
“Calls are becoming so frequent that when we have a true emergency — let’s say a shooting, a stabbing or let’s say a baby not breathing — I may not have a fire engine in place anymore,” he said.
The Redding City Council approved the fee in 2023 to offset costs and dissuade unnecessary calls. Sumerlin said the fire
department began gradually rolling out the policy this year. So far, Sumerlin said, about 500 people have received bills.
He hopes it starts a conversation in the community.
“What do you want your fire department to do?” Sumerlin said. “And it’s not a simple, ‘Oh yeah, go pick up everybody.’ I mean, I can go mow your lawn for you if you want, but you’re going to have to pay for it.”
Low-income waivers are available, he said.
“I’ve been processing waivers left and right,” he said.
There’s currently no process to bill insurance providers, but he encourages residents who receive a bill to check with their carriers.
So far, Sumerlin said he’s unaware of anyone paying the fee.
“I think people are just kind of still in shock that they’re seeing a bill from the city for this,” he said.
Many lift assist calls come from medical alert devices, Sumerlin said, often sold to people as a subscription service.
“What they don’t tell you is that we’re subsidizing their company,” he said.
“We are here to serve,” said Redding Fire Department Chief Jerrod Vanlandingham in a statement. “That’s what community taxes pay for, but, in these cases, taxes are being stretched to cover situations that could be managed by the staff from assisted living facilities and retirement homes, or by family and friends.”
Vanlandingham said the department sometimes reaches out to health care providers when a resident makes frequent calls.
The fee may eventually expand to all medical service calls, but Sumerlin said that would likely require further discussion with the city council and the public.
It’s unclear how many cities in California charge similar fees. But Sumerlin said it is a trend as departments are increasingly expected to expand services beyond firefighting.
“Nobody changed the way we were funded as an organization,” he said. “We just took on another role without forward thinking.”
Federal Cuts to Planned Parenthood Could Close Doors in Oregon
Emma J Nelson/JPR
Planned Parenthood clinics in southwestern Oregon are bracing themselves for closure.
Planned Parenthood clinics in Oregon and California are bracing for potential closures after a federal budget bill cut off Medicaid funding for providers that offer abortions — threatening access to preventive care in states where abortion remains legal.
NEWS BRIEFS
The bill prohibits nonprofits that provide abortions from using Medicaid to pay for other treatments. While federal law already bars the use of federal money for most abortion services, the bill expands restrictions, blocking Medicaid coverage for other care, including STI testing and family planning.
In a written statement, Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, called the bill a “backdoor abortion ban” and said it would make accessing abortion more difficult nationwide, even in states where it is legal.
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund estimates nearly 200 health centers are now at risk of closing without federal funding. About 90% are in states where abortion remains legal.
Some closures have already begun.
Five clinics in the Bay Area and Central Valley have announced closures. They were run by Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which serves parts of California and Nevada. These closures follow the loss of $300 million in federal funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates in California. in federal funds.
Planned Parenthood Southwestern Oregon, which serves eight counties, temporarily closed its Grants Pass health center in November 2024 due to staffing shortages. President and CEO Amy Handler said if federal cuts continue, the clinic won’t be able to reopen, and more closures could come in “months, not years.”
“We can hold steady a bit longer,” Handler said. “It won’t be forever.”
The regional affiliate has four health centers: two in Eugene, one in Medford and the one in Grants Pass.
Handler said they serve approximately 22,000 patients every year, with 70% relying on Medicaid. Abortions account for about 5% of the services.
“We provide everything from A to V, which is abortion to vasectomies and everything in between,” Handler said. “To target Planned Parenthood because of one service is unfair, unjust. It puts lives at risk because of all the critical preventative care that we provide.”
JPR NEWS FOCUS
SAJINA SHRESTHA
PUBLIC HEALTH
Advocates who run a syringe service program in Roseburg say it won’t deter people from drug use.
Advocates Say Syringe Distribution Ban in Roseburg May Not Decrease Drug Use
This ban was created in an effort to ensure public safety, but advocates who run a syringe service program in Roseburg say it won’t deter people from drug use.
The City of Roseburg has banned needle exchange and distribution on public property like parks, streets, and sidewalks. This ban was created in an effort to ensure public safety, but advocates who run a syringe service program in Roseburg say it won’t deter people from drug use.
For the city, the ban is one way of protecting workers and the public from the dangers posed by needles that have been discarded after being used to inject drugs.
According to Roseburg officials, the city’s Code Compliance Officer and Douglas County work crews frequently encounter used syringes in parks. Workers have seen up to 600 needles during weekly cleanups in Umpqua Greenway, a river trail. In one instance, a police officer was poked by a syringe after someone left two bags of about 200 uncapped needles in a camp.
“The City of Roseburg is doing our best to keep our parks clean for the public, and that includes trying to ensure that citizens and staff aren’t being exposed to needles,” Police Chief Gary Klopfenstein said in a city newsletter.
However, advocates say the ban is impacting people who use the syringe distribution programs.
HIV Alliance is a nonprofit that operates a syringe exchange program in Roseburg. They also provide safe injection supplies and peer support through the program. Since the ban took effect last month, outreach workers say they’re hearing of clients reusing needles, which increases the risk of infections, Hepatitis C, and Syphilis.
Michaela Starr O’Leary, the Prevention Director at HIV Alliance, said that while the nonprofit is continuing to provide peer support, safety kits, and syringe collection, the ban has actually made people more reluctant to drop off syringes in the parks, creating an accessibility issue.
“People are really hesitant to [drop] them [off] in the parks,” said Starr O’Leary. “They bring them to the office, which is good, but, the whole point of going to the park is to meet people where they’re at to make it accessible, make it more likely that they engage.”
Starr O’Leary added that the syringe distribution ban might even deter people from asking for support in the first place.
“Lots of places that don’t have syringe exchange or have made it illegal still have, you know, issues with open drug use in parks,” said Starr O’Leary. “It’s not going to solve that issue,
to try and make it less visible. It’s just gonna make sure that people feel like they can’t get help.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Syringe Services Programs are effective, do not increase illegal drug use or crimes, and decrease HIV and Hepatitis C transmission.
HIV Alliance says they are working with the Roseburg Sheriff’s Office and other community partners to create a safer community.
“This is an uncomfortable, complex issue that we all wish wasn’t a thing, but it is, and the only way to get through it is to keep people alive long enough to get well,” said Starr O’Leary. “All we can really do is try to keep people alive, keep them healthy long enough to hopefully help them get into treatment or better the situation in one way or another.”
Sajina Shrestha joined the KLCC news team in 2025. She is the KLCC Public Radio Foundation Journalism Fellow. Her reporting comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
COURTESY OF THE CITY OF ROSEBURG
A Roseburg police officer gathers syringes in a public area
TIFFANY CAMHI
Oregon’s College Leaders Navigate Uncertain Financial Waters EDUCATION
Financial uncertainty” could be the phrase of the year for colleges and universities across the country, including in Oregon. Many of the state’s 24 public higher education institutions are entering the upcoming school year with dire financial outlooks.
For cash-strapped Southern Oregon University in Ashland, there are no easy answers. In August, SOU announced a plan to reduce its annual budget by 15% over the next three years to a target of $60 million. In the proposal, more than a dozen degree programs would be nixed and 20 jobs eliminated.
“There’s not going to be a winner coming out of this,” SOU Provost Casey Shillam said at a meeting of the Higher Education Coordinating Commission on Aug. 14. “But when we get to the end of this work, our university is still going to be here. We are going to be stronger and we are going to be able to continue meeting the needs of our community.”
SOU leaders say the cuts are needed to stabilize the university and are the result of mounting financial pressures.
Shillam was joined by other top leaders of Oregon’s community colleges and public universities to discuss ways to preserve academic programs and continue to support student needs.
Fiscal issues brought on by declining enrollment, flattening state funding and high personnel costs at state schools have been brewing for years or even decades. But the Trump administration’s attacks on universities this year have caused the situation to boil over.
Federal directives have frozen billions of federal dollars that usually flow to postsecondary schools and help support institutions’ bottom lines. Grants that do not align with the administration’s agenda to end “illegal diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, as well as other priorities, have been paused or canceled. The funding interruptions affecting higher ed include money for medical and scientific research as well as for programs to support students.
Many of the administration’s directives are tied up in litigation. But as Oregon’s colleges wait to see if federal money will be freed up, they are taking action to slim down budgets and create new revenue streams.
“Our communities, the ones who pay local taxes and are asked to pass local bond measures, depend upon us to provide the workforce and local opportunities they need to survive and thrive,” Chemeketa Community College President Jessica Howard said at the HECC meeting. “In these budget-constrained times, finding the way to do so often means collaborating and finding every efficiency.”
Howard said partnerships between colleges and universities will be key to keeping budgets balanced. She pointed to-
“There’s not going to be a winner coming out of this.”
— SOU Provost Casey Shillam
ward Chemeketa’s paramedic licensure program, which offers remote learning opportunities to students at three other community colleges in the state.
Courses with low enrollment or degree programs that students could take at neighboring schools are another cost-saving opportunity, because they allow colleges to cut or consolidate them. Howard said this is especially true for career technical education, or CTE, programs that require more faculty and expensive equipment and facilities.
“We’ve been asked to include programs in aviation, wind turbine technology, paralegal, hemp horticulture and veterinary technology,” Howard said. “These are offered by other colleges or universities nearby and we are happy to direct potential students their way.”
Institutions are coming up with some out-of-the-box ideas too, like SOU’s plan to build an on-campus retirement community to make additional money for the university.
At the HECC meeting, higher education leaders maintained that they’re approaching budget choices with a focus on workforce needs, student experiences and institutional missions.
Portland State University Provost Shelly Chabon said all of PSU’s actions consider the potential impact on students and communities. The downtown Portland university faced an $18 million deficit last school year. Balancing the budget was a controversial undertaking that resulted in a combination of program reductions, faculty cuts and administrative streamlining.
“We are all facing unprecedented times that require strategic transformation,” Chabon said. “This has meant removing what is no longer serving us and making space for new ideas.”
HECC commissioners, who help set the state’s higher education policy and funding decisions, were overall pleased to hear about these financial sustainability plans.
Near the end of the meeting, HECC commissioner Jennifer Smith said the conversation left her feeling “really hopeful,” but she warned college leaders not to lean heavily on layoffs to control costs.
“Education is a human-to-human endeavor,” she said. “If the economy really takes a downturn, people may be going back to college and looking for services they won’t be able to obtain because of staff reductions.”
Tiffany Camhi covers higher education for Oregon Public Broadcasting, a JPR news partner. Her reporting comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
JPR NEWS FOCUS ENVIRONMENT
ALEX BAUMHARDT
“If a producer creates more packaging waste, a producer will pay more for the disposal of the waste, not Oregonians.”
— State Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro
Weeks After Launching New Statewide Recycling Program, Oregon Sued by Wholesalers
The $8 trillion wholesale product distribution industry is challenging a four-year-old Oregon recycling law weeks after the law took effect.
The Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act, passed by the state Legislature in 2021, was meant to create statewide standards for what can and cannot be recycled and established new packaging fees for companies that sell products in Oregon. The fees, based on the weight and recyclability of the material, are meant to require product manufacturers and distributors to cover some of the end-of-life costs for disposing of their packaging — costs that are currently borne by the businesses and Oregonians who have to pay for the garbage.
Products with less packaging and with reusable packaging carry lower fees than goods packaged in bulky plastics and single-use materials, ideally encouraging producers to choose lighter, more sustainable materials. It follows regulations in Oregon in recent years that require manufacturers to pick up some of the end-of-life costs of paint, mattresses and electronics, or to invest in programs to recycle such products.
But on July 30, about three weeks after the law was implemented and manufacturers received their first bills, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors sued the state in U.S. District Court in Portland to stop it from continuing, claiming the law is unconstitutional. The association is a trade group representing what it says is the $8.2 trillion wholesale distribution industry.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Environmental Quality Commission and State Attorney General Dan Rayfield are named as defendants in the suit.
Katie Romano, a spokesperson for the Environmental Quality Department, said in an email that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Shifting the burden
The wholesale distributors claim the law is unconstitutional because, as it’s structured, it gives regulatory authority over the fee schedule and collection not to the state’s environmental quality department but to a private entity — the Circular Action Alliance, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
Twenty multinational corporations in the food, beverage, retail and consumer goods industries, including Amazon, Coca-Cola and Nestlé, formed the alliance in 2022. It oversees similar recycling fee programs that are rolling out as a result of new policies in California, Colorado, Maine and Maryland.
In Oregon, the alliance is in charge of setting and collecting fees for 60 different material categories based on weight and
Under Oregon’s new Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act, hard-to-recycle packaging materials such as plastics command higher fees from producers than products that are easily recycled. No nation on earth produces more plastic waste than the U.S., according to a 2022 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
recyclability. Along with local governments, the alliance participates in choosing where to invest the revenue from those fees, which must be projects that improve Oregon’s recycling infrastructure.
Eric Hoplin, the wholesaler association president and CEO, said in a statement on the group’s website that Oregon’s law is unfair because it shifts undue burden for disposal costs to distributors who don’t get to make packaging choices.
On June 4, officials from the group asked the state’s environmental quality department to delay enacting the law for another year, despite more than a year of public comment and rulemaking the department undertook before fully launching and enforcing the regulations.
“Rather than encourage sustainability through a uniform and transparent system where compliance burdens are shared across industries, Oregon chose to shift the burden to the parts of the supply chain that have little to no control over decisions to design, reduce, reuse or recycle a product,” Hoplin said.
In their suit, the group’s lawyers claim that Oregon’s law discriminates against out-of-state producers and violates state and federal due process laws. The lawyers claim the fee-setting methodology used by the Circular Action Alliance has not been publicly disclosed, debated or subject to rule-making and that companies forced to pay it were not given the chance to challenge it or resolve disputes.
“For many, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses operating on thin margins, the fees were unexpected and unexpectedly high,” they wrote in their filing.
PHOTO COURTESY OF OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Environment
Continued from previous page
The law exempts producers who earn $5 million or less in gross revenue.
State Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, who co-sponsored the recycling modernization law back in 2021, said in a statement that the law is supposed to bring more fairness to Oregonians who have been on the hook for disposal costs of product packaging for years.
“If a producer creates more packaging waste, a producer will pay more for the disposal of the waste, not Oregonians,” Sollman said. “Oregon’s residential customers and small businesses are bearing the greatest burden of the rising cost of waste.”
Sollman said the “multi-trillion-dollar industry” is “fighting for profit, not for Oregonians. The lawsuit they filed Wednesday threatens our progress toward a cleaner, more sustainable Oregon.”
Alex Baumhardt is a JPR content partner from the Oregon Capital Chronicle. Before that Alex was a national radio producer focusing on education for American Public Media. She has reported from the Arctic to the Antarctic for national and international media, and from Minnesota and Oregon for The Washington Post.
JPR NEWS FOCUS ENERGY
MONICA SAMAYOA
As of Aug.7, the Oregon Department of Energy had not received any formal communication from the EPA about plans to eliminate the program.
Oregon Could Lose $87M in Federal Support for Rooftop Solar
On Aug. 7, the Trump administration announced that it’s rescinding grants that would have funded solar adoption.
Oregon is set to lose a nearly $87 million federal grant aimed at boosting solar adoption for low-income and rural Oregonians, after a Trump administration move to end the Solar for All program.
But officials in the state issued a statement suggesting Oregon might sue to keep access to the program.
Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced through a social media post it was ending the $7 billion Solar for All grant as part of the implementation of the federal budget legislation called the One Big Beautiful Bill.
According to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the “EPA no longer has the authority to administer the program or appropriate the funds” to keep the program running.
“With clear language and intent from Congress in the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is taking action to end this program for good,” Zeldin said in video posted on X, on Aug. 7.
Last year, Oregon was awarded nearly $87 million through a competitive federal grant program, with 40% of the funding aimed at communities most impacted by climate change.
The Solar for All program was intended to help lower-income households as well as rural Oregonians get easy access to rooftop solar at little to no cost. The program also aimed to provide rebates for solar on multi-family buildings and would develop more community solar projects that would benefit low-income households.
The program’s other purposes: lowering greenhouse gas emissions, reducing air pollution and creating more renewable energy jobs.
“We are surprised and disappointed to hear the U.S. EPA moved to rescind these already-obligated funds,” Oregon Department of Energy Director Janine Benner said in an emailed statement. “ODOE will work with our partners, the Governor’s Office, and Oregon’s Attorney General to consider next steps to ensure these funds continue to serve Oregonians as intended.”
As of Aug.7, the Oregon Department of Energy had not received any formal communication from the EPA about plans to eliminate the program.
Solar for All was funded through the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which set aside hundreds of billions of dollars toward climate action. The Trump administration has worked to dismantle the law through multiple executive orders along with the passage of One Big Beautiful Bill.
file: The rooftop solar array on a south-facing roof in Portland, Ore., Dec. 1, 2022. On Thursday, the Trump administration announced its rescinding rooftop solar grants that Oregon has already started spending to support.
The funding awarded to Oregon was set to go to the Oregon Department of Energy, Energy Trust of Oregon, and Bonneville Environmental Foundation.
Benner said the state energy department has already started “spending significant administrative funds to stand up the Solar for All programs later this year.”
According to the state Department of Energy, as of Wednesday the agency has spent more than $400,000 to develop and implement the program.
Some of the funds awarded to Oregon were slated for —
• $29 million for solar installations at single-family households, with little to no upfront customer cost.
• $10.86 million for solar for multifamily buildings that provide tangible benefits to low-income residents.
• $15 million for financial and technical assistance to develop community solar projects under the Oregon Community Solar Program.
• $11 million for financial and technical assistance to develop Consumer-owned Utility Territory Community Solar projects.
• $2.87 million for workforce development activities. The program was set to roll out later this year.
Monica Samayoa is a science and environment reporter for Oregon Public Broadcasting, a JPR news partner. Her reporting comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
RECORDINGS
As with all technological advances in music, there is room for AI in the right context.
Is Velvet Sundown 2025’s Band of the Summer?
NPR’s Isabella Gomez Sarimento published the story, AI-generated music is here to stay. Will streaming services like Spotify label it? — It revolved around the band Velvet Sundown. In a few short weeks on Spotify, Velvet Sundown had almost a million followers and its popularity only increased throughout the summer. The release of two “studio” albums in a month combined with social media photos that look artificial, and an absence of a history, live performances, or any other in-person promotional activities, fueled suspicion that the band was fake. To add to the confusion, in July a person using the name Andrew Frelon created a fake X account claiming to be a spokesperson for the band. He was even interviewed by Rolling Stone claiming the content was made using AI. He later admitted to having nothing to do with the band, but was himself, perpetrating a hoax on the media. Velvet Sundown – Official, whatever that means in this case, has since admitted to being a “synthetic music project.” Andrew Frelon, it turns out, is a Canadian web policy expert named Tim Boucher.
As kids, our vision of AI was Rosey from The Jetsons or C3PO, and of course, HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. We wanted robots to do the work we didn’t want to do so we had more time for relaxation and creative pursuits. It seems that tech companies have provided the opposite. Now we consume AI generated art, sometimes without our knowledge, in our limited leisure time, all while doing those jobs we hoped the machines would do.
The music industry and fans have long fought and usually accepted advances to technology. In the 1980 song Spirit of Radio, Neal Peart of Rush lamented about “all this machinery making modern music” calling it a question of honesty and later saying “glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity.” Well, flash forward, and music has survived over the years, though more machinery now goes into creating it. We’ve survived sampling and changed laws governing its use, ensuring that credit and royalties are given to the original artists. Even us old school rockers have come to appreciate the appropriate use of a sampled track. I’ve written before about the evolution of electronic percussion instruments. I’m not even sure if you can officially count it as “percussion” as there is nothing being struck. It has however become something that used creatively, can reproduce the sound of natural percussion and take it from there into new sounds and wildly imaginative rhythms. Just because it isn’t a natural instrument, doesn’t mean that it can’t be beautiful in the right hands. On the low-tech end of the spectrum, we accept washboards and washtub bass, brooms, spoons, saws, and other tools and household items to create music. The genre skiffle, popularized in the early/mid-20th century by people playing whatever they had available, was born from this. Prior to AI, someone had to compose music, no matter what medium they used. AI threatens human involvement in the creative process. As with all technological advances in music, there is room for AI in the right context. The Beatles won a Grammy for the 2023
single Now and Then which, by using AI, reunited The Beatles. The song came from a ’70s era Lennon demo. The surviving Beatles worked on it in the ’90s but never completed it. With help from Peter Jackson, they later used AI to isolate Lennon’s vocals. Using George Harrison’s guitar tracks from the ‘90s, Paul and Ringo played the rest of the track. In this case, AI was used to enhance rather than create music. I have no doubt that in the right hands, AI can be used like any other tool to help make good music in the same way AI and CGI have been used in movies to create scenes we can’t create in an analog world. Like all art, the quality and value are in the creativity used to compose it.
To be fair, Velvet Sundown’s biggest hit Dust on the Wind is a passible pop song, if not a little generic and bland. Had I heard it prior to knowing about them, I likely would have been fooled. Therein lies the problem. Record executives and streaming platforms are already paying real musicians much less than their efforts deserve while raking in record profits. Now the competition for ears and paychecks, will include music created by machines that, without paying royalties or giving credit, rely on mimicking the work of musicians to manufacture a product, and many listeners won’t know the difference.
For the music purist, the idea that music isn’t just being created on machines, but by them, is disappointing. For musicians doing the hard work of trying to survive while being an artist, Velvet Sundown represents a serious threat to what makes them tick. For a music director in radio with a focus on authenticity and genuine artistry, using adaptive AI to manufacture music based on the works of others, and algorithms to predict hits, threatens to homogenize music even more than streaming platforms have already done. It is antithetical to our mission at Jefferson Public Radio of celebrating the creative work of real musicians.
Dave Jackson curates the music on JPR’s Rhythm and News Service, manages music staff and hosts Open Air, JPR’s hand-picked house blend of music, JPR Live Sessions and Open Air Amplified. The exploration of music has been one of his lifelong passions.
DAVE JACKSON
One of the Velvet Sundown’s photos from social media.
INSIDE THE BOX
SCOTT DEWING
“Why do I have to be stuck in what is called the ‘WIMP’ interface—Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pulldowns—that was invented in Xerox PARC 50 years ago?” — Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google
The End of WIMPy Computers
The first time I used a computer, the only thing I could get it to do was generate syntax errors. A “syntax error” is what you get when the code you’ve written contains errors that are uninterpretable by the computer.
The year was 1984 and I was a high school sophomore taking “Computer Programming”. We were learning to program in BASIC on Apple IIe computers and I was sort of a prodigy when it came to generating syntax errors. My teacher, who was also my basketball coach, told me I had a better chance of becoming an NBA basketball player than I did a computer programmer.
I didn’t play in the NBA nor did I become a computer programmer. I did, however, take a course entitled “Introduction to the Apple Macintosh Computer” while I was in college that set in motion my career in tech.
Released in 1984, the Apple Macintosh was Apple’s second iteration of its mass-market GUI-based personal computer. “GUI” stands for “Graphical User Interface” that, today, is the familiar collection of windows, dialogue boxes, menus, and icons that you click on to execute tasks on a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
I loved the Macintosh. No typing of commands to execute code. No computer programming required. No syntax errors. Just move the mouse-pointer with your hand and click on icons to launch applications and select functions from menus. It was magical and I was hooked.
Both the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems can trace their roots back to the Alto personal computer developed at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973. The Alto became well-known and its GUI touted as the future of computing by early tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
In fact, Steve Jobs and a team of Apple engineers visited Xerox PARC in 1979 for a demonstration of the Alto. It is no coincidence that those same engineers built Apple’s first GUI personal computer called “Lisa” in 1983. It’s also no coincidence that Microsoft, which dominated the personal computer market with its MS-DOS operating system, released Windows, a GUI-based operating system, in 1985.
Fast-forward some 40 years, and the GUI-based operating system remains the computing paradigm with Microsoft Windows still dominating 72 percent of the global desktop operating system market with Apple trailing a distant second at 16 percent. Meanwhile there are more than 7 billion smartphones worldwide that all run GUI-based operating systems with Android currently capturing 72 percent of the global smartphone operating system market and Apple iOS in a distant second with 28 percent.
All of this is about to change.
“I think user interfaces are largely gonna go away,” said Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, in a recent interview.
“You can talk to them [AI agents]. You can tell them what you want and the UI can be generated for you,” Schmidt said. “Why do I have to be stuck in what is called the “WIMP” interface—Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pulldowns—that was invented in Xerox PARC 50 years ago? Why am I still stuck in that paradigm? I just want it to work.”
We’re not so much “stuck” in this WIMPy computer paradigm as it’s worked quite well and we haven’t invented a better, widely adopted alternative.
But that’s mostly because, until quite recently, computers weren’t very good at understanding human language and had to be given specific instructions in a language they could understand. Modern-day computers are binary systems that perform computation using electronic switches that are either on or off. All data processed and stored in a computer system is converted into a binary format of 1s or 0s. This is referred to as “machine language” and it is the only language computers understand.
Machine language looks like this: 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111.
The Apple Lisa, a GUI-based personal computer with WIMP circa 1983
Inside the Box
Continued from previous page
Humans are very bad at understanding machine language. When we say “hello” to someone, we just say, “Hello”—not the above, which is how a computer computes “Hello” in machine language.
Computer programming languages are highly structured formal languages that humans (well some humans) can use to instruct a computer what to do. Those instructions then pass through a “compiler” that translates the code into machine language that the computer can understand and compute.
Today’s AI systems run on this same computer architecture and process information using binary data. But they’re not programmed the same way as traditional applications like, say, Microsoft Excel. Traditional software operates in an environment where every instruction and condition has to be explicitly programmed.
While they do use programming languages and algorithms, AI systems use “machine learning” and are architected to be trained on large datasets, to learn patterns and make decisions. And while they still have traditional programming languages under the hood, they can be given instructions using human language. In other words, human language is becoming the “programming language” for AI.
Many of today’s most popular generative AI systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude still utilize WIMP for interaction with users typing prompts into a GUI. But that’s rapidly being replaced by humans interacting with AI systems using spoken language.
And if Eric Schmidt is right (and I believe he is) these generative AI systems will generate customized interfaces for us on the fly for visualizing and manipulating data in collaboration with AI.
Eventually, our WIMPy computers will be beaten out of existence by strong AI capable of creating personalized immersive simulations populated with interactive avatars, entire virtual worlds where we won’t just create, process, and consume information—we’ll experience it.
Scott Dewing is a technologist and a human writer who hasn’t (yet) been replaced by AI.
“We
JES BURNS
SCIENCE
There’s enough available energy in the waves off Oregon alone to power 6.4 million homes — that’s more homes than in Oregon and Washington combined.
Oregon Has a Massive New Wave Energy Testing Facility. But Who Is Going to Use It?
Oregon’s PacWave testing facility is now complete, but delays and cuts to federal funding for renewable energy development could impact its future.
After more than a decade of planning, permitting, community outreach, drilling, cable-laying and construction, Oregon is now home to the largest-capacity wave energy testing facility in the world.
Construction on Oregon State University’s $80 million PacWave South near Newport wrapped up this spring. But uncertainty around federal funding for the research and technology development threatens to derail plans to use the facility for testing wave energy converters. At least one wave energy developer initially slated to deploy its technology at PacWave has canceled its testing plans because it lost a federal grant.
Oregon sits on rarefied ground when it comes to wave energy potential, according to PacWave Chief Scientist Burke Hales.
“Oregon is a Goldilocks of wave energy. It’s just right,” he said. “California has coastal infrastructure, but not a particularly good wave climate. Washington has a good wave climate, but not nearly the coastal infrastructure that Oregon has.”
Oregon has a coastline dotted with ports, electrical infrastructure and some of the best waves on the planet for generating energy.
Seven miles out into the ocean off the central Oregon Coast, the PacWave test facility is invisible to the naked eye. It’s a rectangle — roughly 2 by 1 nautical miles — divided into four testing areas.
Beginning next year, companies will begin deploying their wave energy prototypes, connect to a power cable on the seafloor, and track how well their devices convert energy from Oregon’s mighty waves into usable electricity.
“We anticipate the first cable-connected device to be in the water in the summer of 2026,” Hales said. “[Although] some of the political and federal upheaval has thrown some uncertainty into that timeline.”
Under the Trump Administration, grant programs across many science and technology fields have been canceled, and federal funding for research has been eliminated or delayed.
One of the main funders for wave energy technology, the Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office, is expecting a 20% budget cut in the next fiscal year.
Having a place like PacWave to test new technology creates opportunities for wave energy developers. They’ll be able to see how their energy converters perform in real ocean conditions
The PacWave wave energy test facility off Oregon’s coast will provide wave energy developers a place to test their devices in the open ocean and transport the energy they produce back to the grid. The electricity runs along a cable like this buried under the seafloor.
without spending time and money navigating federal and state permitting processes.
“The cost of developing a test site like this is way more than a developer can afford,” Hales said. “Having [the test facility] done ahead of time ... basically allows you to focus on what you do best, which is build wave energy devices.”
Even though the idea of converting energy from waves into usable electricity has been around for at least a half-century, the technology itself is still in its infancy. The U.S. government only started giving significant policy and funding consideration to wave energy technology in the past 20 years.
“Really any type of development of technology like this needs that driving force, said PacWave Director Dan Hellin. “They need funding from federal agencies like the Department of Energy.”
Oregon’s wave energy promise
There’s enough available energy in the waves off Oregon alone to power 6.4 million homes — that’s more homes than in Oregon and Washington combined.
“People actually really like the idea of wave energy,” Hellin said. “Lots of people come to the beach. A lot of people live along the coast. They can see and experience the power of the waves. So the idea of trying to capture that energy is a concept they can grasp pretty quickly.”
JPR News Focus: Science
Some of the most energy-rich waves in the world can be found in the Pacific Northwest. And the enormous untapped storehouse of energy in the ocean makes it an intriguing target to pair with other renewables.
There are waves even when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. But wave energy technology lags far behind solar and wind.
“If you say a wind turbine, everyone has the same picture in their mind. If you say a wave energy device, there’s such a variety,” said Sarah Henkel, a marine biologist and interim director of the Pacific Marine Energy Center.
Some devices bob up and down in the water and while others hinge on the surface. Some work underwater and some use waves to push air through wind turbines.
“Because the wave devices have a very, very hard time testing at full scale, what you see … is a Rube Goldberg collection of wildly divergent devices,” Hales said.
All wave energy developers face the same challenges out in the ocean — corrosive saltwater, harsh weather, and barnacles and other living creatures trying to make the energy converters their homes.
Then there’s the pesky problem of turning the slow, up-anddown motion of waves into usable power.
Because of the costs, time and bureaucracy involved in bringing new wave energy designs to fruition, no one knows
yet what will ultimately become the “three-blade turbine” of the wave energy world. Or even if there is only one optimal design that will work, regardless of the ocean conditions.
“We don’t have the ability to iterate and fail fast. I think we need to be able to do that,” said Alex Hagmüller, CEO of Oregon-based wave energy company AquaHarmonics.
Hagmüller said the PacWave test facility offers a way for engineers like himself to test and improve their designs.
“That’s paramount to moving the industry forward,” he said.
AquaHarmonics was on track to be among the first few companies to get a wave energy converter into the ocean at the Oregon test facility.
But those plans have been derailed.
“We’ve been DOGEd”
At the AquaHarmonics workshop in West Linn in late April, Hagmüller and systems engineer Riley Short were prepping a highly simplified test of the power output of the company’s mid-size wave energy prototype.
“It [would look] kind of like an iceberg. Most of it — three-quarters of it anyway — is underwater when it’s installed,” Hagmüller explained.
The test simulates the up-and-down forces of the waves, but turned on its side in the cluttered workspace of the small Quonset hut so the 30-foot tall device actually fits in the building.
Jon Lang; Bandon – 1991 Arima Sea Ranger
“The 20-foot Arima Sea Ranger was a great boat for fishing in saltwater and bigger rivers… lots of good memories rock-fishing and crabbing outside Bandon. That boat will take rougher conditions than you can fish in. The foam injected double hull is unsinkable; you can swamp it, roll it, but not sink it.
Funny but true: the best days of a boat owner’s life are the day you buy it and the day you sell (or donate) it! I got to a point, after some health issues, that I was getting sea-sick every time I went out. No matter how good the fishing was, it wasn’t worth it.
This is the second boat I’ve donated to JPR - it’s quick, easy, the money goes to an awesome cause, and I don’t need to hassle with taking people on test runs or haggling over the price. Make a call, snap some pics and the next thing you know you’re waving goodbye to it.”
Left: Lake Tahoe, Carnelian Bay
Right: Late 1980s; Sacramento River
AquaHarmonics engineer Riley Short shows off the company’s wave energy converter in this video screen shot taken in April 2025. Using the motion of the waves and an e-bike motor, the device would be able to generate enough electricity to power a tsunami warning buoy and high speed internet anywhere in the ocean.
“For this one, we’re going to do a frequency of 0.1 Hz, or a period of 10 seconds. Something in the range of like a 2- or 3-foot wave,” he said.
At this size, the device can provide enough energy to power remote sensors like tsunami warning buoys and high-speed internet anywhere on the open ocean. The highly controlled workshop test confirms those outputs. But they won’t know how truly viable their system is until they test it in the ocean.
They can’t do that without operating funds. The company was waiting for money from an already-approved federal grant to come through, but it never happened.
“We’ve been DOGEd,” Hagmüller said in April, referring to the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, initially headed by Elon Musk. “Effectively our funding is at a standstill.”
The undelivered funds would have put the company on track to deploy their device at PacWave as early as this September. Hagmüller said AquaHarmonics was in line to be first in the water at the new wave energy testing facility.
On June 30, their current grant window officially ended. On that day, Hagmüller started the process of laying off AquaHarmonics’ small staff.
“It’s been pretty stressful. I’m grieving for us all,” Hagmüller said.
The company’s wave energy converter, which was on the cusp of being tested in the ocean at PacWave, now sits gathering dust in West Linn.
PacWave outlook
In addition to the research grant awarded to AquaHarmonics back in 2022, the Department of Energy awarded $25 million to seven other wave energy converters and applied technology projects designed to prime the pump for eventual open-water testing at PacWave. Two of the companies award-
The waves off Oregon’s coast, captured in a video screen shot from 2014, are some of the most energetic in the world. It’s estimated that they contain enough available energy to power 6.4 million homes.
ed are currently lined up to begin testing at the Oregon facility over the next couple years.
The company CalWave plans to deploy and connect their device to the grid, feeding power to coastal communities.
And Oregon State University spin-off company C-Power, which has a West Coast office in Corvallis, plans a non-grid-connected deployment.
For PacWave, that’s half capacity. With the lack of clarity and action around federal funding, the adjacent legal turmoil and often-partisan attitudes towards renewable energy, no one knows what to expect the coming months and years.
“We really would rather be working sooner,” said chief scientist Hales. “It’s not free to keep the site viable. We have to maintain our staff. We have to maintain maintenance and monitoring of the facility.”
Those maintenance and monitoring costs accrue whether or not the facility has paying customers with wave energy converters in the water.
But with a project that’s already taken more than a decade to come online, success is going to be measured in different ways. For Hales, that’s having wave energy converters deployed at PacWave feeding megawatts of energy back to the grid.
For marine biologist Henkel, it means having all four testing berths at PacWave fully occupied by 2030.
“Five years from now is just one federal administration away,” she said.
Jes Burns works for OPB’s Science & Environment unit as a science reporter and producer of the Northwest science show “All Science, No Fiction.” Her reporting comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
TODD SONFLIETH / OPB
MICHAEL BENDIXEN / OPB
UNDERGROUND HISTORY
CHELSEA ROSE
On the Road Again
Summertime is peach, tomato, and archaeology season! While investigations happen throughout the year, field schools, public outreach, and big excavations peak during the warmer months. By fall, our boots are dusty, feet are sore, and labs are overflowing with the summer’s haul.
Southern Oregon University is one of many schools that offers an opportunity for students to gain experience and insight into the field of archaeology by providing a hands-on summer intensive program. Participants in this year’s Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project Archaeological Field School visited four sites across the state that were selected for their potential to add to our growing database of Chinese American sites and stories. We learned about life in the John Day Chinatown, started digging in to the history of the Chinese cowboys and ranch hands of Grant County, and explored several facets of the historical Chinese immigrant community of Astoria and Oregon’s coastal canneries.
Students learned about archaeological survey (a fancy way to say walking around and looking for things), excavation (i.e., how to dig square holes with straight walls), site sketching and mapping (how to draw things nicely), and more. We were joined by our colleagues at Historical Research Associates Inc. in John Day and Astoria, where the class learned all about Ground Penetrating Radar (or, GPR as we say in the biz). This non-invasive technique allows us to see underground, so we can better understand site formation processes, locate buried features and foundations, and even identify potential hazards (like buried fuel tanks from long-ago gas stations. True story). We also toured a variety of historical sites and museums, which was not only a treat in and of itself, but helped root us in the communities in which we were working.
Experiences like this are a right of passage for archaeologists. You not only learn the relevant skills of the trade needed to enter the field as a professional, but equally important, whether or not a “career in ruins” is really for you. Mixed in with the wonder of discovery and sense of adventure (some of our daily commutes were seriously 4wd truck commercial material), you get heat, rain, pokey and bitey things, and this year, a tsunami advisory was thrown into the mix for good measure. Archaeology is also a team sport—so a month of camping and cooking together will make it real obvious if you are better suited for the solo life of a plumber or computer programmer. But the reward? We get to speak for the people of the past, many of whom have no voice in the documentary record.
Our field school also focuses on “public archaeology,” which meant we had free community lectures, trivia nights, and story sharing events mixed in. But you don’t have to join a field school to learn about archaeology. The Portland State Univer-
If we do not collectively cherish and steward these resources—on public lands and in our backyards—we risk losing the opportunity to understand our shared past.
sity-based Archaeology Roadshow has been bringing public archaeology fun across the state for years, with annual summer events in Portland, Bend, and Burns, and a winter event in The Dalles on December 6, 2025. In August the SOU Laboratory of Anthropology joined the Southern Oregon Historical Society and others for our third annual Archaeology Night at the historic Hanley Farm, where local families came to learn about artifacts and the science of archaeology from a variety of local professionals, organizations, and agencies. While Oregon’s public archaeology game is still strong, some beloved national programs are conspicuously silent these days. For decades the Passport in Time Program, know as the PIT program, has paired citizen scientists with archaeologists on public lands. This allowed non-professionals to play archaeologist for the summer alongside professionals, and contributed important knowledge about our shared history on public lands. While the pause or potential loss of this free program is alarming, even more so is the erosion or devaluation of the important rules and regulations that protect cultural heritage.
Archaeology can be interesting and entertaining, but it is also an important tool for capturing information about the past; whether it be understanding ancient environments, human adaptations to a changing climate, under-represented populations that did important things that benefit us today, archaeological sites are non-renewable resources, and if we do
CHELSEA ROSE
not collectively cherish and steward these resources—on public lands and in our backyards—we risk losing the opportunity to understand our shared past. And I would argue that this is at our peril. So keep your trowels sharp and your ears to the ground on how you can help your local archaeologists protect and preserve the important cultural resources in your community, and beyond. The next generations will thank you!
Chelsea Rose is the director of the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) and host of the Underground History podcast, which airs during the Jefferson Exchange on JPR’s News & Information service and can be found on all major podcast platforms
above and previous page: Students and staff in the 2025 Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project field school traveled around the state investigating early Chinese Oregonians.
top: Archaeologists with Historical Research Associates Inc. taught students how to do Ground Penetrating Radar surveys at the Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site.
above and left: Families learn about archaeology at this year’s Archaeology Night at the historic Hanley Farm.
CHELSEA ROSE CHELSEA ROSE
SUPERABUNDANT
HEATHER ARNDT ANDERSON
Autumn Sopes
Not to brag, but I have a really bodacious potted hoja santa plant. I saw a little start for sale at Los Paniaguitas in Woodburn a couple years ago, liked how it looked and smelled and could afford the $5 or whatever it cost to bring it home. Its broad, aromatic leaves remind me of the wide perilla leaves used to usher bites of crispy Korean pork and spicy ssamjang into one’s mouth between bites of pickled radish. Though perilla is a mint and hoja santa is in the pepper family (the true pepper family, Piperaceae), they both contain some of the same volatile aromatic compounds, like the ones that provide scents of mint, anise, basil and hops. It’s not that chaotic an idea after all. See, I think we can normalize a multicultural approach to cooking simply by visiting the produce aisle. There’s rarely any benefit to dogmatism in ingredients. Pomegranate and walnuts, for example, are key components of chiles en nogada — a Mexican national dish — but neither are American crops; they were both introduced to the New World by Spaniards (not exactly a fair trade all things considered, but whatever).
By purchasing fruits, vegetables and herbs from markets that serve communities from outside our cultures of origin — or better yet, growing these crops in our own gardens — not only do we
gain more culinary knowledge, but we get solid lessons in botany (to which plant families do these ingredients belong; where do they grow?) and organic chemistry (are the flavors and aromas familiar?). Depending on your curiosity, how flexible your schedule is and the strength of your wifi connection, maybe you’ll learn about the history of this ingredient — how long has it been in cultivation, and who’s cooked with it in the past?
It’s not just ingredients that can provoke this type of deeper understanding — individual dishes, too, have their taxonomy and lineage. Because I research culinary history, naturally I think of sopes as a kind of Mexican trencher — essentially the corn version of the edible bread plate so common in medieval times. They’re delightfully rustic. Even though you’re using the same basic masa dough as you would for tortillas, you don’t need a tortilla press; instead, you form the little rimmed plate by hand, blessing the food with your fingerprints as you work. Sopes can be as straightforward as you like, with just beans, cheese and salsa, or you can use them as a foundation for experimentation. With so many New World ingredients like chiles, tomatillos, sunflower seeds and squash at their peak, it’s pretty hard to mess it up.
Makes 12 sopes
OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and a weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. Her work comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
Ingredients
2 cups masa harina
2 cups warm water
2 tablespoons bacon fat, lard or oil
2 or 3 fresh chiles, whatever type you prefer, diced
1 medium-sized calabacita or other summer squash, diced
2 fresh hoja santa leaves, finely sliced (optional)
½ small white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups cooked pinto or mayocoba beans, drained and rinsed (canned is OK)
1. In a large bowl, mix together the masa harina and water until a dough forms. It should be as soft and pliable as play-doh, so add another teaspoon of water or masa harina as needed to achieve the right consistency. Knead until well combined, then roll the masa dough into a ball, place it back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
2. While the dough is resting, heat the bacon fat in a medium skillet over medium heat. Saute the peppers and calabacitas in the oil until glossy and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Season with a few pinches of salt and pepper, stir in the hoja santa to warm up and become fragrant, then transfer the sauteed vegetable mixture to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Turn the heart down to medium low, add the onion and garlic to the skillet and saute until they begin to soften, about 5-8 minutes.
3. Add the beans and chili powder to the skillet and stir-fry until the beans are warmed through. Begin mashing them with a spoon or potato masher, adding water as needed to achieve the texture and thickness you prefer. You can make them smooth or chunky, but if you like them smoother try not to make them too runny or they’ll be a mess when you try to eat them. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed, then keep the beans warm over low heat while you cook the sopes, adding water as needed to keep them from drying out.
4. Divide the masa dough into 12 equal portions, rolling each into a ball. Place a ball of dough between two slips of wax paper or plastic wrap, then flatten with the bottom of a glass or the heel of your hand to make a disk roughly ½-inch thick. Repeat with the remaining dough.
5. Heat a flat top griddle or large skillet over medium high heat, then drizzle generously with oil. Working in batches, cook the sopes until golden brown and slightly crisped, about 1-2 minutes, then flip. Cook until the other side is golden, adding more oil to the pan as needed to keep it well lubricated until all the sopes are cooked. As soon as they’re cool enough to handle, pinch the sides to form a little ridge to hold the toppings in place.
6. To serve, spoon a layer of beans into the cooked sope, add a spoonful of the sauteed vegetables, then add whichever toppings you like.
HEATHER
ARNDT ANDERSON / OPB
Pillowy sopes filled with warm refried beans and the last of summer’s vegetables.
POETRY
BILL GHOLSON
Harbor Moonfall
for Jane
When I had my aortic dissection, the doctor opened a darkened chamber of my heart and I have been living there ever since.
It was a small death, a preparation for the big death which we all must experience. Death’s appearance shook me, yes, it shook me. As it might you.
Keeping death present before my eyes now is a way back into life.
Where was my harbor when the sky blackened and the storms battered me?
It was always there in my weakened heart, where I am now.
My heart is my harbor.
Writers may submit original poetry for publication in Jefferson Journal
Email 3–6 poems, a brief bio, and your mailing address in one attachment to jeffmopoetry@gmail. com , or send 3–6 poems, a brief bio, and a selfaddressed, stamped envelope to:
Amy Miller, Poetry Editor Jefferson Journal
1250 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520
Please allow eight weeks for reply.
In winter, at the hospital, I parted the clouds, summoned by an apricot moon which I promptly flipped with one arched index finger and watched it fall, rolling to a vanishing point in a dark purple sky.
Then, I guess it was my mind told me to lift my arm and I knew I could lift my arm to the dim, orange color and I could assist the moon if she needed it.
I think, or say out loud, in my proper bed:
“I’ve lost something.”
The nurse recognizes my eagerness, my willingness, my urgency to see into another’s face. We each have a cradle in our eyes. She answered my call.
I share the story “Of Things Taken Away” with her, working around my known limitations and the absence of an organ, or a measure of it.
The halls are quiet and shadowed by the moon’s fall; the nurses are unsettled as their eyes crazy-swing from the moon to my charts.
They said the numbers look good for now. I have strained myself on this night, craning to watch the moon, to forget the transit of the laser.
I see the stars ignoring me as a sign. But for now I do not know what it is a sign of.
It could not be permanent death because I watched an owl perch on my fence just last week. She said I had strayed, but pointed the way back for me.
Oh moon! Who will break your fall? I am here should you need me.
Bill Gholson is a poet and an emeritus professor of rhetoric and writing living in Ashland with his wife Jane and dog Walter and kitten Pearl. His poems have been featured on the Jefferson Exchange and published by the Oregon Poetry Association and Main Squeeze, among others.
