MAY/JUNE 2024

May/June 2024

‘It Feels

Impossible To Stay’

The U.S. Needs Wildland Firefighters More Than Ever, But The Federal Government Is Losing Them

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[ OREGONIANS HELPING OREGONIANS ]

In 2020, a project was launched that turned empty hotels into homes for the unhoused, including people who’d lost their homes in the recent wildfires. Brian Resendez, a broker bringing hotels into the fold, was so moved by the experience that he became a donor to support organizations providing critical services to the unhoused. Thank you, Brian. Want to find the perfect match for your generosity? Oregon Community Foundation can help. Let’s get started.

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‘It Feels Impossible To Stay’: The U.S. Needs Wildland Firefighters More Than Ever, But The Federal Government Is Losing Them

By Abe Streep

Highly skilled firefighters are the last line of defense against wildfires, but that line is fraying because the government decided long ago that they’re not worth very much. These highly trained men and women protect communities from immolation, yet they earn the same base pay as a fast-food server while taking severe risks with their physical and mental health. Despite the mounting public concern over the increasing severity of wildfires, the federal government has not seen fit to meaningfully address these issues. The effects of this chronic neglect have now become strikingly clear as the fire service is finding it difficult to fill its ranks, prefiguring what advocates are calling a national security crisis.

Cindy DeGroft

Craig Faulkner

JEFFERSON JOURNAL (ISSN 1079-2015), May/June 2024, volume 48 number 3. 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.

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to The Jefferson Journal, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR. 97520

Jefferson Journal Credits:

Editor: Abigail Kraft

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APPLEGATE VALLEY OREGON

“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

TUNED IN

PAUL WESTHELLE

The Pundit Problem

In an attempt to add conservative viewpoints to its news coverage, NBC recently announced that former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair, Ronna McDaniel, would join the network as a regular commentator. And then it fired her less than a week after her first appearance.

NBC backtracked as a result of criticism from its own newsroom, which it apparently didn’t consult. NBC’s journalists objected because McDaniel actively worked to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election and made repeated statements designed to delegitimize the press.

Following McDaniel’s first interview as a paid commentator on Meet the Press, veteran NBC news anchor and chief political analyst Chuck Todd dressed down the NBC brass that hired her. Todd told program host Kristen Welker, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation. Because I don’t know what to believe. She is now a paid contributor by NBC News, so I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract.” Todd went on to say, “There’s a reason why there are a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.”

Since the advent of CNN and the 24-hour news cycle, political pundits have played a central role in filling air time on TV news programs when there isn’t enough news to report. As the saying goes, “opinions are cheap,” which is especially true when comparing punditry to reported stories developed by journalists and fact-checked by editors.

In an excellent analysis of the role pundits play in TV news, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik recently examined the issue:

On Why Networks Hire Pundits: “The networks … want to be able to rely on a stable of people to show up and be lively and informed on the air, often with little notice. They want to make sure they have voices reflecting an array of views from both parties. And they want exclusivity, which means they want to prevent the same high-profile figures from appearing on their competitors’ shows.”

On The Questionable Loyalty of Pundits: “… To whom do the loyalties of these partisan figures lie? They should rest with the newsrooms that employ them and the viewers they serve. And yet the pundits often act as surrogates for the parties that made them. It’s not clear they always believe what they’re saying. And sometimes, they appear to be auditioning for future jobs.”

The TV news landscape is littered with paid pundits of many political stripes. From Donna Brazile to Reince Priebus, many have leveraged their roles serving in the government to land lucrative gigs giving their opinions on TV news shows. For news consumers, it’s impossible to know which commentators are being paid by networks and which are offering their views as unpaid independent sources.

Responding to McDaniel’s hiring by NBC at a reported annual pay of $300,000, NBC senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny posted on social media: “So many talented reporters laid off this year. Workers who provided the content, won the awards, built the credibility of their shops, and worked for a yearly salary at a fraction of what big name contributors get in fancy contracts to fill pundit boxes on TV.”

She’s right. We need more journalists and fewer pundits.

Paul Westhelle is JPR’s Executive Director.

‘It feels impossible to stay’: The U.S. needs wildland firefighters

more than ever, but the federal government is losing them

By Abe Streep

Illustrations By Hokyoung Kim

Highly skilled firefighters are the last line of defense against wildfires, but that line is fraying because the government decided long ago that they’re not worth very much.

This

story was originally published by ProPublica

Black Butte is an inactive volcano that rises from the high desert in eastern Oregon. In May 2022, a turboprop plane approached its pine-blanketed slopes, carrying about 10 men wearing bulky Kevlar outfits. They were smokejumpers with the United States Forest Service, the agency that directs the majority of the nation’s efforts to manage wildfires. Within the vast and hierarchical fire service, smokejumpers occupy a singular niche, parachuting into remote areas to fight early-stage wildfires. There are only about 450 nationwide, and the physical requirements are rigorous.

One of the smokejumpers on board was Ben Elkind. Thirty-seven years old with a long, athletic build and restless energy, he had been fighting wildfires for 14 years and jumping for the last eight of them. Despite his elite status, Elkind earned about $43,000 in 2021 over the course of the seven-month fire season. His base paycheck, though, was less than half of that. Like most wildland firefighters, he relied on overtime and hazard pay, which can be accumulated on two- or three-week shifts away from home. Many firefighters exceed 1,000 hours of overtime in a season. Elkind chose to be with his wife and two young children more that year and worked a relatively modest 700 hours of overtime, the equivalent of 17 additional weeks.

Still, the beginning of the season usually rekindled the parts of the job that Elkind loved—especially the adrenalized clarity that arrived when his crew’s spotter tapped him on the back, indicating that it was time to jump. In recent years, the Forest Service has switched from round parachutes to rectangular ones, which allow for greater maneuverability. During training exercises that spring, Elkind was still getting accustomed to the new chute. After he slid out of the plane’s open door, a tailwind picked up. He did not descend quickly enough to the landing zone, sailing slightly past it. He saw ponderosa pines rushing toward him and tried to slow his chute. Its canopy collapsed, and he free fell. When he landed, his left leg crashed through his pelvis. Colleagues rushed to him, cutting his suit away. An ambulance sped him to a hospital, where doctors would eventually insert three plates and 12 screws into his hip. He was sent home on painkillers.

Doctors told him he would be on crutches for at least two months, possibly three. When I spoke with Elkind soon after the injury, he said, “I got a lot of pills going, but it’s all right.” Then his tone shifted. “I need to—I would like to—get back jumping,” he said. “That would mean I’ve recovered, but I also know that you don’t always recover from these things.”

He had more immediate worries, though. He could file for workers’ compensation benefits through the Department of Labor, but wildland firefighters have historically struggled to receive those, since federal caseworkers are often unfamiliar with the job’s geographically diffuse nature. (A firefighter based in

Idaho might get injured in Arizona, adding a layer of complexity to an already burdensome and bureaucratic process.) A recent survey found that nearly half of Forest Service employees who had suffered an on-the-job injury chose not to report it, assuming that they would receive little or no help. Even if Elkind recovered quickly enough to do office work, he would not be eligible for hazard pay or likely earn overtime, meaning he’d be making around $20,000. His wife, Amber, a physician’s assistant, would be contributing most of the family’s income. “It’s not a great situation,” Elkind told me. “My base check doesn’t cover rent alone.”

Knowing that the government couldn’t offer a swift remedy, his colleagues started a GoFundMe campaign, which quickly raised $50,000. Elkind called it a lifesaver. It was, he said, what wildland fighters did when a colleague was seriously injured. It was, he told me, “standard operating procedure.”

For communities throughout the American West, wildland firefighters represent the last line of defense, but that line is fraying because the government decided long ago that they’re not worth very much. The highly trained men and women protecting communities from immolation earn the same base pay as a fast-food server while taking severe risks with their phys-

ical and mental health. Despite the mounting public concern over the increasing severity of wildfires, the federal government has not seen fit to meaningfully address these issues. The effects of this chronic neglect have now become strikingly clear as the fire service is finding it difficult to fill its ranks, prefiguring what advocates are calling a national security crisis.

Fighting wildfires has always been a dangerous occupation, but in the last decade it has become staggering in its demands. Accelerating climate change, coupled with a century of suppression of wildfire, has created thick stands of trees primed to burn across much of the American West. In certain parts of the country, fire seasons that once lasted a few months now span much of the year. In 1993, the federal government fought wildfires on 1,797,574 acres; by 2021, that figure had more than quadrupled. Each spring brings a game of geographic roulette. In 2017, Montana set a state record for wildfires. The next year, California followed suit, with nearly 2 million burned acres, a figure that stood briefly before it was topped twice in the next three years. Experts have been forced to coin a new term for fires exceeding 1 million acres: gigafire.

In many places, wildfire is an essential part of the ecosystem: It clears out dead underbrush and aging foliage, spreads

new seeds and enables biodiversity. Extinguishing it, as federal and state governments have done for 100 years, just creates a larger and more dangerous fuel load. Great swaths of the country are now in what scientists call a fire deficit—they haven’t burned for a long time, and they need to, or fires will only get bigger and more destructive. The only way out of such a deficit is to let a wildfire go or to manage it by setting a prescribed burn to reduce the amount of fuel. But in drought-stressed and densely populous places, that is difficult. In 2022 in New Mexico, two prescribed burns got out of control, merged and scorched an area larger than Los Angeles. It can be all but impossible to suppress a megafire, but the government must try, unless it wishes to write off, say, Mora, New Mexico, or Malibu, California. There is no technology up to the task; most of the work is still done by unseen, underpaid people with chainsaws and hand tools.

But at exactly the time when the country needs wildland firefighters more than ever, the federal government is losing them. In the past three years, according to the Forest Service’s own assessments, it has suffered an attrition rate of 45% among its permanent employees. Many people inside and outside the fire service believe this represents one of the worst crises in its history. Last spring, as the 2023 fire season was getting started, I asked Grant Beebe, a former smokejumper who now heads the Bureau of Land Management’s fire program, if there had been an exodus of wildland firefighters. He initially hesitated. “‘Exodus’ is a pretty strong word,” he said. But then he reconsidered. “I’ll say yeah. Yeah.”

“The ship is sinking,” Abel Martinez, a Forest Service engine captain in California and the national fire chair for the National Federation of Federal Employees, the union that represents wildland firefighters, told me. (For this story, almost every wildland firefighter who agreed to use their full name has an official role with the union; the one firefighter identified by their middle name does not.)

Although nobody could provide precise numbers, leaders like Beebe are especially concerned that the attrition has been particularly acute among those with extensive experience— those like Elkind. It takes years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to train a wildland firefighter capable of overseeing the numerous resources—engines, helicopters, smokejumpers— that are deployed on large fires. As Beebe put it, “You can’t just hire some person off the street into one of our higher-level management jobs.”

The reasons for the exodus are many, but fundamentally it reflects an inattentive bureaucracy and a culture that suppresses internal criticism. Only in 2022 did the fire service acknowledge an explicit link between cancer and wildland firefighters, even though officials have long expressed concern about the connection. And it was only last year that the fire service held its first conference on mental health, even though officials have been aware for decades of the high incidence of substance abuse and divorce among wildland firefighters.

But more than anything, wildland firefighters are leaving because they’re compensated so poorly, the result of a byzantine civil service structure that makes it extremely hard to sustain a career. The federal fire service is responsible for managing blazes on nearly 730 million acres of land—an area almost

the size of India. Among the five agencies, one dominates in terms of influence and size: the Forest Service, which employs more than 11,000 wildland firefighters, most of whom work from roughly April to October. The hiring system dates to the early years of the agency, when it often recruited from bars and relied on volunteers to suppress wildfires by 10 a.m.

About one third of the workforce is temporary—firefighters who are automatically laid off at the end of each season. Even those who are permanent receive compensation starting at $15 per hour until they accumulate overtime and hazard pay. Because of the way the government classifies their work, it’s extremely difficult for wildland firefighters to increase their base salaries unless they frequently move around the country. Altogether, it’s a pay structure that incentivizes risk taking and a nomadic existence.

For more than a century, the Forest Service was able to call on a ready workforce, one made up largely of rural men. (It is estimated that 84% of wildland firefighters are male.) Because of the reliable flow of applicants, the agency did not need to advocate for increased pay. But the changing nature of fire seasons, combined with the skyrocketing cost of living in the mountain West, has made firefighting less alluring than it once was.

A Forest Service spokesperson wrote that since 2021 the agency has acknowledged the attrition among its workforce: “It is why agency and department leadership have been doing everything possible in coordination with the administration and Congress to provide a permanent, competitive increase in wildland firefighter pay, as well as staffing capacity and mental health programs.” The spokesperson pointed to a raise—from $13 to $15 an hour—created by the Biden administration in 2021. The spokesperson also wrote, “With the increasing duration and intensity of wildfires the agency understands the need to do much more.”

Last fall, the Forest Service processed its applicants for 2024. An official who has been involved in hiring for the agency for more than a decade characterized the returns as “abysmal”—“It’s the smallest list I’ve ever seen,” he told me. A severe dearth of applicants for temporary seasonal jobs—the entry point for the next generation of wildland firefighters—forced the agency to extend its hiring period. For permanent positions, the returns were not much better.

Talk to enough wildland firefighters, and you’ll eventually hear about freedom. Not liberty, necessarily, but the thrill of a job that requires walking around woods with a chainsaw. Hannah Coolidge joined the Forest Service when she was 25, eventually becoming a hotshot, part of an elect crew that tromps far into forests to cut breaks around the largest wildfires to rob them of fuel. For a decade, Coolidge never attended a wedding or a funeral during fire season, but she loved the life—living outside, working with a tight-knit group, having winters for herself, being in phenomenal shape. (Researchers at the University of Montana have found that, during fire season, hotshots can expend about as much energy as cyclists in the Tour de France.)

Taylor Hess also came for the time off but found that a Montana fire crew brought communal purpose, something that had been missing in the Midwestern town where she was raised. She liked huddling with colleagues at the end of the day, frying Spam over a wildfire’s dying embers and pouring an electrolyte

mix on top. “It’s kind of gross,” she said, but she cherished those moments: “We get so close.”

A lot of the job is grueling and dirty: mopping up the end of a wildfire in a sea of ash; constructing line around piles of downed limbs in advance of lighting a prescribed burn; unrolling a sleeping pad in the woods or an ad-hoc camp, then awakening to the boot of a superintendent or water from the sprinklers on a high school football field. It’s slow until it’s not. Then it becomes vertiginous and hallucinatory. “It is a landscape of extremes,” Eric Franta, a wildland firefighter based in Oregon, told me. During Bobbie Scopa’s first fire, she was walking on a hill above a burning canyon when a chief bellowed for her to cover her head. An air tanker dropped chemical retardant, a great red squall that shook the ground. “I thought, ‘This is the coolest fucking job!’” she said.

In many communities, it’s also the best available employment option. Jake Kennedy, now an engine driver in California, was recruited by a former wrestling coach in a tiny Oregon town where the Forest Service was one of two reliable employers. Morgan Thomsen grew up in a remote part of Idaho where his parents were fire lookouts, so he was raised thinking that fighting fire was a good way to earn a living. Kristina—her middle name—enlisted in part to honor her family. Her grandfather had been a smokejumper, and her parents had both worked as

wildland firefighters. “We have this loyalty in my family to the Forest Service,” she said.

Among his peers, Elkind is seen as fortunate. He didn’t join the Forest Service to escape rural poverty—he has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Lewis & Clark College—but rather to seek adventure. He was also a smokejumper, with the status that the job entails. (A fire service joke goes like this: A group of wildland firefighters walk into a bar. How do you know which is the smokejumper? They’ll tell you.) Still, Elkind, like so many of the firefighters I talked to, seemed almost trapped by the freedom he had once sought. “I like my job,” he said. “It’s just hard to see the effects when you’re starting out a career.”

Those effects weren’t just his busted pelvis. It was being away from his family for long stretches. (“It’s a Catch-22,” a firefighter told me. “For us to be able to provide for our families, it requires us to basically detach from our families.”) And it was how difficult the Forest Service made it for someone to rise and earn a decent living. To earn a promotion and reach higher pay grades, firefighters usually have to move among the agency’s nine regions or earn a master’s degree in forestry and leave the fire line.

Elkind didn’t want to do either of those things. He’d grown up in Oregon, and his family was rooted there. In early 2022, he and Amber moved to Redmond, a town of 35,000 in the central

part of the state, where the Forest Service has one of its seven smokejumper bases. Compared with nearby Bend—a bacchanalia of Gore-Tex and microbreweries where the median home price hovers above $700,000—Redmond is middle class. But, as Elkind told me, “This place is blowing up.”

Redmond, like many towns where wildland firefighters live, has experienced an influx of remote workers since the onset of COVID-19, which has driven up housing costs. The rent on the Elkinds’ modest house is $2,300. Even before his accident, he was nervous about making ends meet. In November 2021, the government offered some relief when Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which created a temporary pay raise for wildland firefighters of either $20,000 or 50% of their regular check.

When I visited Elkind at his home, toys were scattered across the floor, an elk mount lay on a couch and bills were piled on the dining room table. He wore shorts and a tank top, and his hair was long. Save for the flecks of gray in his beard, he looked boyish. Three months after his accident, he still walked with a limp and needed a cane but was able to drive his kids to school. He had considered filing for worker’s compensation but decided against it, because it was hard to reach his caseworker and because the Forest Service offered him an office job, which allowed him to benefit from the temporary pay raise.

Until the move, Elkind had been living a split existence, with his family in Portland and his job in Redmond, where he camped out on a colleague’s property during fire season. In the summer of 2020, lightning started a fire on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon. It soon spread onto land managed by the Forest Service, and Elkind was dispatched. Upon arriving at a fire camp, he was alarmed by a lack of veteran firefighters. “It was like a ghost town,” he said. He found himself training people from municipal departments who had been hired on temporary contracts to fill vacancies. Over Labor Day weekend, wind carried embers for miles, causing the fire, which became known as the Lionshead, to jump and merge with others. The blazes burned more than 400,000 acres, killing at least five people.

At the same time, his mother’s home near Hagg Lake was under evacuation orders brought on by another fire. Amber was in Portland with the couple’s 2-year-old son, in a house without air conditioning. She was also pregnant. Elkind told her to ducttape paper towels over a box fan to create a makeshift air filter as smoke from the fires suffused the city. “I think I had a little bit of a mental breakdown,” he told me. “Homes are burning down. People are dying.” Entire forests in western Oregon were disappearing. He couldn’t stop what was happening to the only place he’d ever called his own.

The decision to relocate to Redmond was so Elkind would not be away from his family throughout fire season. Still, he worried about the choice. Amber had been able to find work with a clinic in Redmond. But for him to reach a higher hourly wage would likely require the family to move again. “What’s she supposed to do? Quit her career every year and a half so I can get a dollar-fifty an hour raise?” he asked.

During our discussions, Elkind often edited his sentences so as to not sound as though he was blaming the Forest Service, even though as a union representative he had protection. His affection for his work became a refrain that he repeated to the point of awkwardness: “I like my job. It’s just difficult to justify it with a family.” “I do love my job, but that doesn’t mean that I think it’s worth it for a young person.” “I would almost do it for free,” he wrote in an op-ed that appeared in The Oregonian in 2021 that was critical of the Forest Service’s refusal “to rise to the challenge of climate change and the growing demand that increased fires, short-staffing and low pay presents for our workforce.”

That rhetorical hesitancy was a reflection of Elkind’s torn feelings, but it was also an acknowledgment of something else: The Forest Service is known to function as a company town in rural America, deterring discussions that could result in negative attention. When I spoke with Jaelith Hall-Rivera, the Forest Service deputy chief for state, private and tribal forestry, she acknowledged that the agency has a reputation for discouraging employees from speaking out. “We have tried for a long time to change that culture,” she said. “Especially in fire, you have to be able to speak up when something doesn’t feel right to you.”

The National Federation of Federal Employees says it does not track instances of workplace intimidation or retaliation among wildland firefighters, so it’s impossible to ascertain how often this occurs. But fear of reprisal was a common thread in many of my conversations. At a gathering of wildland firefighters and agency supervisors that I attended last spring, a member of a Forest Service rappel crew approached me eager to

discuss the changes she wanted to see in the agency—especially the need for more women in leadership positions. An older colleague quickly pulled her aside; when she returned, she asked if she could see the article before it was published. When I asked if a superior had told her not to speak to me, she said, “I don’t feel comfortable answering that.”

Every year, returning federal wildland firefighters take a refresher course covering safety practices. Firefighters get to choose from a number of videos. One, titled “Smoke: Knowing The Risks,” is led by George Broyles, a former wildland firefighter and public information officer. From 2008 to 2014, he spearheaded the Forest Service’s research into the physiological impacts of wildfire smoke. “Exposure to carbon monoxide and some of these other chemicals is going to impact the way we think,” Broyles says in the video, which emphasizes wildfire smoke’s effect on performance and decision-making. But when it comes to the long-term health effects of working in smoke, the video is circumspect. “That’s an issue that’s still understudied,” Broyles says. The video, which was produced in 2018, never mentions the possibility of cancer, nor does a more recent preparedness guide for new recruits.

It is now widely accepted that all firefighters—structure as well as wildland—are far more susceptible to cancer than the rest of society. In 2022, the International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that the job is carcinogenic to humans. But still the Forest Service and the other federal agencies that employ wildland firefighters have been slow to acknowledge the obvious. Part of the problem is a lack of epidemiological research into the distinct risks that wildland firefighters face. Dr. Jeff Burgess, the director of the Center for Firefighter Health Collaborative Research at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is working to fill that void by conducting long-term epidemiological studies on wildland firefighters. “We just don’t have the same degree of information on cancer risk in wildland firefighting that we do in structure firefighting,” he said.

Last February, I attended an event at the University of Miami called the International Firefighter Cancer Symposium, which brought together firefighters from as far away as Australia and researchers from institutions like the American Cancer Society and the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. It was a gathering for those who study cancer and those who develop it while fighting fires. Many of the researchers were looking into the dangers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, commonly known as “forever chemicals.” Synthetic compounds, PFAS are ubiquitous in municipal fire- and water-resistant gear and have long been used in firefighting foam. (The Forest Service says it does not know whether its protective gear for wildland firefighters contains PFAS but that it has sent samples to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for testing.)

The conference’s emphasis on PFAS reflected a huge gap in research. Structure firefighters encounter smoke that is often more toxic than wildfire smoke, but they also use powerful respirators. Wildland firefighters eschew respirators since most are bulky and can be operated for only about 30 minutes at a time. Of the numerous studies presented, only one explicitly focused on wildland firefighters. In that project, which hasn’t yet been published by a peer-reviewed journal, researchers

from the University of Miami examined exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, produced during prescribed burning. They found that wildland firefighters had elevated exposures to the compounds, which have been associated in the general population with lung and bladder cancer and cardiovascular dysfunction.

That smoke contains such material is not news to the Forest Service. In 1989, the agency convened its first gathering to discuss the physical effects of smoke and allotted some money for research. Attendees recommended that the agency conduct an epidemiological cohort study to examine long-term health risks. Funding for the study was never appropriated, though.

Eleven years later, researchers employed by the Forest Service published a paper that found that smoke from prescribed burns contained elevated levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter, including benzene and formaldehyde, both of which are carcinogenic. It noted that, during high winds, the levels were up to three times above what workplace safety organizations recommend. Despite this, it concluded that “the adverse health effects of smoke exposure at prescribed fires seem to be manageable.”

At a summit in 1997, researchers again suggested that the Forest Service undertake a cohort study to look at the effect of wildfire smoke among the workforce, using markers like blood and urine samples. It, too, was never done.

Starting in 2008, Broyles, with the support of the Forest Service, traveled the country and to test fire crews’ smoke exposures. It wasn’t an epidemiological study, but it led to a 2019 peer-reviewed paper that modeled wildland firefighter cancer rates based on what is understood about smoke’s impact on the general population. It projected that wildland firefighters’ incidences of lung cancer would be elevated by between 8% and 43%.

The study was posted on the agency’s website, but, according to Broyles, its findings have led to little change. He said he was brushed off when he proposed an updated version of the smoke video to address the risk of cancer. (When asked about Broyles’ assertion, an agency spokesperson wrote, “The Forest Service is deeply committed to not only understanding occupational risks to employees but mitigating these risks.” They added, “Recruitment materials for wildland fire positions often describe the job as difficult and dangerous.”)

In 2022, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, which is made up of leaders from the five federal agencies that oversee wildland firefighting, released a new preparedness guide for recruits that made no mention of cancer. “It confounds me,” Broyles told me. “Quite frankly, it breaks my heart.” As of last year, his 2018 smoke video was still being shown to federal firefighters. (When asked why the materials did not refer to cancer, the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior said they were developed before the agencies were provided legal language recognizing a link between the disease and wildland firefighting.)

The firefighters union and an advocacy group called Grassroots Wildland Firefighters used the 2019 paper to lobby the Department of Labor, and in April 2022, the department announced that it would recognize numerous cancers, including lung, testicular and thyroid, as an occupational hazard. (Notably, cancers distinctive to women, such as ovarian, were excluded.) Eight months later, Congress passed a law that called cancer a

presumptive sickness for federal firefighters and mandated that the five agencies that make up the fire service file a report on illnesses, including cancer, in the profession. “We’re just starting that,” said Hall-Rivera, the Forest Service deputy chief.

Some advocates have expressed hope that a deeper understanding of wildland firefighter cancer rates might evolve after the launch of the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer, a voluntary database managed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Congress allocated funding for the registry in 2018, but it went online only last spring. According to current and former employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NIOSH’s information technology department caused unnecessary delay. “From my perspective this is gross mismanagement,” said one person with direct knowledge of the project. Another official supported that assessment. (In a statement, a NIOSH spokesperson wrote that since 2021, the agency “has designed, built, tested, and deployed a robust enrollment system that incorporates industry best practices for information security and sensitive data management.”)

Immediately after the registry launched, Elkind decided to enter his name. When he arrived at the hospital after his training accident, he underwent a full-body CT scan, which revealed a mass in his thyroid. It proved to be cancerous. He had no family history of thyroid cancer, so he assumes his illness came from smoke inhalation, but he’ll never know. “Not everybody’s as lucky as me to break their pelvis at work and get scanned at the hospital,” he said with deadpan sarcasm. The next time we spoke, three months after the accident, he said, “I’m not upset at the Forest Service. I’m just like—I’ve never heard them say, ‘Hey, this smoke is cancerous.’”

In the fall of 2020, after Oregon’s fire season ended, Elkind went for a run in Portland’s Peninsula Park. He had recently been laid off for the winter. For many wildland firefighters, this period of sudden transition is brutal: When you’ve been operating on intensity for six months, taking out the trash and folding laundry can feel empty. In the past, Elkind had managed the annual pivot by doing construction work and house projects or by traveling with friends. But he was still experiencing the acute pressure he’d felt since the peak of fire season when so much of Oregon burned. Amber had just given birth to the couple’s second son, and he wasn’t sure how to responsibly move forward in his career. “I was so stressed out,” he told me.

Elkind thought he’d try to contact a therapist—something he’d never done. During his run, he called the Employee Assistance Program, a service set up by the federal government that provides workers from any agency as many as six sessions per condition with a mental health professional. Elkind hoped to arrange an appointment in person but was informed that the session was only available right then on the phone. That wasn’t the worst of it: When he shared his employment information, he was told that he would not be eligible to receive help until he returned to work during the next fire season. “I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll drink a few more beers and forget about this,’” Elkind said.

The Forest Service revised its EAP policy a year later and now offers consultations to firefighters for up to six months after their layoff. (“The agency has been proactive in addressing known challenges with past EAP services,” wrote a spokesperson.) However, because the EAP serves a vast federal bureaucracy, multiple wildland firefighters told me that they did not trust

its counselors; the people on the other end of the phone, they said, knew little about what their job entailed.

The fire service does offer wildland firefighters access to a crisis intervention program after the death of a colleague, say, but it provides little aid for those facing the daily burdens of the job—and those can be extreme: Trees falling next to where you’re standing. Helicopters flying in to remove the injured. Mopping up for days, surrounded by smoke. Many wildland firefighters, who operate in a culture that prides itself on stoicism, respond to those pressures in ways that aren’t surprising. Some chase more adrenaline: kayaking, skiing, mountain biking. “There’s a lot of dealing with it through drinking and drugs—at best,” Hannah Coolidge, the Washington hotshot, said. In January, researchers with NIOSH and the CDC released a peer-reviewed study that confirmed what Coolidge and others told me. It found that among six federal wildland crews, 78% of the firefighters reported binge drinking.

“We’re so unhealthy in such a ubiquitous way that it’s almost hard to pinpoint,” a Forest Service firefighter in Oregon said. He had returned home from combatting a fire to find his house burned to the ground. Since then, he had endured symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. A firefighter in Wyoming who recently left the service told me that, like many of his colleagues, he couldn’t maintain a relationship: “I wouldn’t date me either. I’m not emotionally available. I’m gone.” A recent survey of the spouses of wildland firefighters found that almost half had considered leaving their relationships because of the job.

“Wildland firefighting is similar to other high-risk occupations and also similar to the Western American culture around how to manage difficulty,” psychologist Patricia O’Brien, a former hotshot who now oversees the Bureau of Land Management’s mental health program, told me. “There’s been a tradition of not talking about it, of keeping your personal life boxed up and separate and prioritizing work. And a sense that, as long as you’re able to show up and work, you keep your personal problems at home. We know that people may be able to do that for a period of time, but it’s not sustainable, and it’s harmful to people.”

In 2018, O’Brien, who at the time was a doctoral student, conducted a survey of 2,600 wildland firefighters, finding that one-fifth had experienced suicidal thoughts, while nearly 14% of respondents screened positive for probable PTSD—a rate about four times that found in the general population. Six years later, that data remains the most reliable on the mental health of wildland firefighters.

The Forest Service has responded to the mental health struggles of its workforce much the way it has responded to cancer: For years, officials have raised concerns about the issue, and for years, the agency has either ignored or minimized them. In a statement, the agency acknowledged it “has not conducted or funded a study into the mental-health effects of wildland firefighting.” Tom Harbour, a former national director of fire and aviation management at the Forest Service, told me that the agency began discussing the pressures on its workforce in the 1990s. “We started asking ourselves about the cost of the system we had built,” he said, referring to the agency’s emphasis on overtime and hazard pay. “Divorces, heavy drinking—those were just things that were kind of a byproduct of the system.”

“I ride the bus a lot. RVTD’s Umo app with Fare Capping means I will never pay more than the daily or monthly cap for that day or month. One less thing for me to have to worry about!” — Kelly

He added, “Why in the world should it take 30 years to make some of these changes?”

“That’s a fair question,” the Forest Service’s Hall-Rivera said. “We did have to build our awareness. It is hard to get people to talk about it, and we had to shift our focus and start asking for resources, start investing resources.”

In 2021, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allotted $20 million to the agencies overseeing the fire service to establish yearround mental health programs. The Bureau of Land Management had already been taking steps in that direction; five years ago, it launched a pilot program offering pre- and postseason mental health trainings for firefighters to help them transition in and out of the season.

But the Forest Service has lagged behind. Last year, for the first time, the agency announced a wildland firefighter mental health support program; with $1.5 million allotted over two years, it’s still in the planning stage. (The Forest Service’s budget for the fiscal year was $10 billion.) Individual districts have begun contracting at least one mental health provider, Dani Shedden, a former wildland firefighter who in 2022 quit to start a counseling business. Shedden told me that much of her work with the Forest Service is focused on post-season sessions, in which she shows firefighters how to use the EAP and find what she called “culturally competent clinicians” in rural areas. Shedden has conducted 10 such sessions.

Last April, many of the fire service’s leaders—including Hall-Rivera and Beebe—gathered in Boise, Idaho, for what was billed as a first-of-its-kind seminar on mental health. Long the nerve center for the federal fire service, Boise has become a boomtown, pricing out wildland firefighters, with a median home price of $513,000. After the event, attendees gathered at a downtown food court, where Kelly Martin, a co-founder of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, approached Jeff Arnberger, at the time a Bureau of Land Management official who also served on the executive board of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. They began discussing their hopes for the service—subsidized housing, fair pay, presumptive coverage for PTSD, a more tolerant fire service. “If you ran our model at Nikon or Google or McDonald’s, those places would be out of business in five minutes,” Arnberger said. “We pay our people like shit. We don’t offer them any help when they have a problem.”

By January 2023, doctors had removed the cancer in Elkind’s thyroid, and he had been cleared to return to smokejumping. Amber asked him not to tell her about his first practice jump, so he didn’t. He spent almost the entire summer away from Redmond. In early July, he jumped a fire in Washington and felt his old confidence returning. He then had a long stint learning to be a medical unit leader. When we spoke in September, he was working on a handcrew in western Washington as its assistant—in effect, the second in command. “It feels like I’m almost giving back, helping to train people, which is kind of nice,” he said.

With Elkind away so much, Amber left her job as a physician’s assistant. “I didn’t feel like I could do the summer with me taking care of the children and doing primary care,” she said. Compared with previous years, 2023 was a light fire season. Fewer than 3 million acres had burned—the lowest figure in more than 20 years. That was particularly fortunate for res-

idents of California, where, according to the union, 12% of Forest Service engines went unstaffed and had to be effectively shut down and six hotshot crews did not have enough firefighters to operate. In September—often the height of California’s fire season—the agency’s statewide wildland firefighting force had a vacancy rate of 35%. In one forest, the Modoc, 68% of positions were empty.

The temporary pay raise from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was set to expire in the fall. Kyrsten Sinema, the independent senator from Arizona, introduced a bill in August that would largely protect the increase, which had Republican and Democratic cosponsors. Then, over Labor Day weekend, the Forest Service sent an email to thousands of firefighters, informing them that they would be receiving a 50% pay increase—which turned out to be erroneous. The Forest Service explained that the notification was the result of a clerical mistake. “Please know that this error was not made deliberately,” the Forest Service’s human resources department wrote in a mass email two weeks later.

Elkind was on a fire when this occurred and said his attention was elsewhere. But for other wildland firefighters I spoke with, the email was indicative not just of the agency’s incompetence but of an obliviousness that bordered on cruelty. Congress has since voted to preserve the raise until Sept. 30, 2024, but its future remains uncertain. “I know that some of you are living paycheck to paycheck and do not have the means to save for a rainy day,” Hall-Rivera wrote on the Forest Service’s website. “Rest assured that we remain committed to securing the permanent solution that our wildland firefighters deserve.”

In the fall, when the Forest Service began to assess the state of its workforce for the 2024 fire season, the results were shocking, according to an official. Undesirable applicants were appearing frequently for crucial positions. “This list really stinks,” he said. In Rapid City, South Dakota—typically a popular work location—there was only one applicant for an engine captain position by mid-November. In California, union officials were anticipating a mass departure of engine captains and hotshot superintendents. “We used to have the depth,” Abel Martinez, the California engine captain, said. “We’d just promote everybody up. Now you go to the cupboard, and there’s no food. There’s nobody there.”

When asked about the continuing attrition, an agency spokesperson wrote, “It is accurate to say that the Forest Service has lost firefighters to better paying jobs,” adding that the dynamic “is more pronounced in specific regions and states.”

In January, Elkind resigned from his position as a smokejumper to become an assistant captain on a handcrew. “It feels impossible to stay,” he told me shortly before he made the decision. “It feels irresponsible to stay—with a family.” Then he started, once again, to talk about what he prized about his job: chainsaws, doing something that almost no one else can do, sliding out of the door of a moving plane into the open sky. He would miss that, but he wanted to continue fighting wildfire. It is an incredible force—writhing, leaping, kicking off embers that dart toward other living things. It can be regenerative, but it can also devour.

Copyright 2024 ProPublica

Tree Sitters Protest Old-Growth Logging From 100 Feet Above The Forest Floor

In dense forests off I-5 in Josephine County, Oregon, up a few miles of winding dirt roads, a handful of tents, a hammock and an acoustic guitar mark the camp of those describing themselves as “forest defenders.”

This land, at the foothills of the Cascades, is a checkerboard of private and public ownership. The square of thick forest where activists have been camping since early April is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, part of the agency’s 11,000-acre Poor Windy project that includes areas slated for commercial timber harvest as well as forest thinning to prevent wildfires from getting out of control.

One activist, who wants to go by just “Taylor,” gestured to some of the larger trees among the camp.

“You can kind of see the ones with the orange markings around them here. These are all old-growth trees,” she said.

What makes a tree “old growth” can vary. But for the BLM, trees between 36 to 40 inches in diameter, depending on the area, and over 174 years old are generally off-limits to logging.

At the top of one of these trees, a massive Ponderosa pine with a thin band of orange paint around its trunk, a big banner reads: “No Old Growth Logging in a Climate Crisis.” There’s a small platform attached to the trunk near the top, over 100 feet above the forest floor.

“How’s the view up there?” yelled Taylor to the tree sitter, who declined to give their name, stationed on the platform.

“It’s beautiful. I see mountains all around. I see a lot of other old-growth trees along this ridgeline,” they yelled down.

“I’m up here to send a message to the Bureau of Land Management, that there are people watching them. And that we’re here to protest old-growth logging,” they said, speaking over a radio.

The activists here claim a logging company plans to put a road through this spot—that’s why they’ve chosen this location as their camp. Despite these old-growth trees being marked for protection, loggers can cut them down if they are in the way. George Sexton, conservation director with the Ashland-based environ-

mental nonprofit Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, calls it a loophole.

“Where those tree sitters are shows that the BLM is in fact logging old-growth trees that are older than our nation,” said Sexton.

In 2022, President Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to inventory old-growth forests and develop policies for their protection.

But some conservation groups think the federal government isn’t doing enough and, in response, they have been fighting timber sales like this one. Nearly 40 organizations recently sent a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning demanding the cancellation of the Poor Windy project. The BLM has already scaled back the plan, dropping around 10,000 acres, after a judge found it harmed protected spotted owl habitat. And environmental groups recently filed a complaint against the BLM to protect old-growth forest in the Rogue Gold Forest Management Project near Gold Hill in Southern Oregon.

“The BLM needs to faithfully implement old-growth protections, which they’re not doing right now. Or they need to acknowledge that they’re logging old growth and explain why they’re doing it,” said Sexton, whose organization was party to both of those lawsuits.

A spokesperson with the BLM’s Medford office, meanwhile, said that old-growth logging isn’t the goal for these projects.

“We work really hard to design timber sales and access roads to have the least amount of impact. We hear from our timber operators that they don’t want to cut those larger trees. It’s a safety issue. It increases the costs,” said Kyle Sullivan, a BLM spokesperson.

He said that there are barely any mills left in Oregon that can take old-growth sized logs and claimed those large trees that are felled are left on the forest floor to become wildlife habitat.

A tree sitter occupies a small platform attached to a Ponderosa pine in Josephine County.

JUSTIN HIGGINBOTTOM / JPR

JPR News Focus: Environment

Continued from previous page

Old-growth trees provide vital wildlife habitat, help forest ecosystems and store massive amounts of carbon. But some activists in Southern Oregon claim the Bureau of Land Management is allowing the logging of oldgrowth trees despite recent calls by the Biden administration for protection.

The BLM has legal requirements for how to manage forests in Josephine County, Sullivan said. The Oregon and California Revested Lands Sustained Yield Management Act of 1937—better known as the O&C Act—mandates the region be managed for permanent timber production. The BLM’s 2016 Southwest Oregon Resource Management Plan sets the quantity of timber sales and also prescribes thinning out forests to reduce fuel for wildfire.

“Some studies have shown that over 51% of forests in southwest Oregon are overly dense and in need of treatment. And so the actions that the BLM designs help reduce that competition, they can open up the canopy,” said Sullivan.

Although there’s disagreement about whether BLM’s actions in this area will help control wildfires. Sexton, with KS Wild,

thinks the Poor Windy project will increase wildfire risk. He claimed that the agency’s efforts at reducing the forest canopy and the planting of Douglas fir trees can raise fire hazards. The BLM, meanwhile, sees those actions as vital to treating forests that have become overgrown after decades of fire suppression.

Studies do show that old-growth trees are more resilient to fire.

Back at the “forest defender” camp at Poor Windy, while details of forest management are debated in court, this tree sitter deals with more immediate challenges.

“Well the sale is called Poor Windy. And it does sometimes get pretty windy up here. So that’s kind of the biggest challenge,” they said.

Despite the weather, they don’t plan to come down soon.

“How long you plan on being up there for?” Taylor yelled into the canopy high above their head.

“As long as it takes!” came the reply.

Justin Higginbottom is a regional reporter for Jefferson Public Radio. He’s worked in print and radio journalism in Utah as well as abroad with stints in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He spent a year reporting on the Myanmar civil war and has contributed to NPR, CNBC and Deutsche Welle (Germany’s public media organization).

JPR NEWS FOCUS ENERGY

ALEX BAUMHARDT

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has denied petitions to reevaluate the project that delivers gas from Canada to the Northwest and northern California.

Despite Petitions, Federal Regulators Approve Construction On Expanded Northwest Gas Pipeline

Federal regulators are allowing construction to begin on expanding a controversial gas pipeline running from Washington, across the Idaho panhandle and through Oregon to northern California.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order April 17 giving the greenlight to the pipeline’s owner, the Canadian company TC Energy, to begin construction following its denial Tuesday of appeals from conservationists and attorneys general in Oregon and Washington to reassess its approval of the Northwest XPress expansion project.

The 1,400-mile pipeline already sends billions of cubic feet of gas every day from Canada to utilities supplying natural gas customers in the Northwest and California. In 2021, TC Energy asked the federal energy commission to allow it to increase the pipeline’s capacity, adding millions of cubic feet of gas extracted by fracking to the pipeline each day. Company representatives told the commission and the Capital Chronicle that they need to increase capacity to meet demand.

Those opposed to the pipeline say the company has not proved a need for an expansion in an increasingly electrifying

world and one where renewable energy sources are becoming cheaper and more abundant. Natural gas is a major contributor to climate change, and environmentalists also oppose fracking which involves injecting toxic chemicals into the earth.

Northwest opposition

The project is opposed by environmentalists, the governors of Oregon and Washington, the states’ U.S. senators and the attorneys general of Oregon, Washington and California. For more than a year, they have called on the federal energy agency not to allow the project to move forward. They’ve said expanding the pipeline’s capacity undermines their goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and that the company will invariably pass the costs of the pipeline expansion on to natural gas customers in the region.

Consumers already pay significantly higher prices today for natural gas than they did even three or four years ago. All three natural gas companies in Oregon have requested rate hikes this year from the state’s Public Utilities Commission. Rates have gone up 50% on average since 2020 for residential customers of the state’s largest natural gas utility, NW Natural, according to the watchdog Citizens’ Utilities Board.

The offices of Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and Gov. Tina Kotek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Natural gas is almost entirely methane, a potent greenhouse gas and a main contributor to global warming. The expansion of the GTN Xpress would result in an additional 3.47 million metric tons of carbon dioxide being released for at least the next 30 years, according to a joint filing opposing the pipeline that was submitted to the federal commission in August 2022 by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Under Oregon’s Climate Protection Program, greenhouse gas emissions need to decrease 90% by 2050. At least 26% of that

PHOTO COURTESY TC ENERGY

A map of the Gas Transmission Northwest Express pipeline, or GTN Express, from the Idaho-Canada border to Southern Oregon.

JPR News Focus: Energy

reduction will have to come from natural gas. A 2020 Washington law mandates a 95% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Nevertheless, in October the commission issued its approval.

Dissent on the commission

The decision to deny a rehearing on the pipeline project approval was not unanimous, and one of the three members of the commission – Allison Clements – said in her dissent that she largely agreed with the states that TC Energy had not demonstrated adequate demand and that the expansion is detrimental to the states’ laws mandating gas companies reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Because FERC made its decision this week, and did not make its decision to deny the petitions within 30 days of issuing its October approval, the petitions are now in federal court, where the states’ attorneys general and attorneys for the Oregon nonprofits Columbia Riverkeeper and Rogue Climate will pursue a hearing by a federal Court of Appeals, where a judge could decide to side with the groups and the states.

“This is the first time in court we would essentially be arguing that FERC has to consider state climate laws when it looks at whether a project sits in the public convenience and necessity,” Audrey Leonard, staff attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper, previously told the Capital Chronicle.

But the pending litigation does not stop TC Energy from moving forward with its construction now that it has approval from the Federal Energy Commission.

Critics say the federal commission has a history of approving pipeline projects with little dissent.

A recent review of the commission’s major pipeline decisions by University of Virginia School of Law Professor Alison Gocke found commissioners approved 423 of 425 proposed pipeline projects in the last 20 years.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is a professional, nonprofit news organization. We are an affiliate of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers. The Capital Chronicle retains full editorial independence, meaning decisions about news and coverage are made by Oregonians for Oregonians.

Alex Baumhardt covers education and the environment for the Oregon Capital Chronicle. Before that she was a national radio producer focusing on education for American Public Media for four years. She has reported from the Arctic to the Antarctic for national and international media, and from Minnesota and Oregon for The Washington Post

Beach Creek is a neotraditional neighborhood of 55 smartly designed view homes focused on e cient living, wise resource use, and a low carbon footprint. For more information or to schedule a tour, please visit www.Kda-homes.com or call us at 541-944-7730.

The

The state’s most recent annual report card shows about 38% of students statewide were chronically absent in 2022–23.

National Data Shows How Oregon School Districts

Stack Up On Chronic Absenteeism

More students are missing school on a regular basis.

In the four years since COVID-19 closed schools, U.S. education has struggled to recover on several fronts, including learning loss, enrollment, and student behavior.

But perhaps the most stubborn and pervasive issue has been the sharp increase in student absenteeism seen across the country, as the New York Times reported on March 29. The Times analysis found an attendance problem that cuts across demographics and has continued long after schools reopened.

Nationally, an estimated 26% of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15% before the pandemic. This is according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. The New York Times highlighted this data in their recent coverage, including a tool to look up individual district data.

Oregon tracks attendance data as well. The state’s most recent annual report card shows about 38% of students statewide were chronically absent in 2022-23. The ones missing the most classes are students who identify as nonbinary, who are experiencing homelessness and who have disabilities.

Chronic absenteeism in Oregon’s public schools

The percentage of students who are chronically absent has increased in most of Oregon’s school districts from 2019 to 2023. Chronic absence is typically defined as missing at least 10% of the school year, or about 18 days, for any reason.

The data included in the Times report shows that most school districts across Oregon are seeing worse rates than the national average. But out of nearly 200 districts, close to 20 met or had better attendance rates than the national average. A handful even saw improvements.

The state’s second-largest district, Salem-Keizer Public Schools, had the highest absenteeism rate in the data when looking at the 10 school districts with the most students.

According to the data, about a quarter of Salem-Keizer students were chronically absent in 2019. Since the pandemic, that number has jumped to nearly half—48% of the district’s 40,000-plus students were chronically absent in 2023.

“It is very important for students to be in school as much as possible,” Aaron Harada, the district’s director of community relations and communications, told OPB in an email.

“Along with the rest of the country, we have certainly struggled with rebuilding regular attendance,” he said. “We know relationships matter, and our staff and schools do an amazing job at connecting with students and providing additional opportunities for engagement. We are encouraged to see some positive attendance trends across our schools this year.”

When expanding the scope to all districts in the state, some saw improvements in the last few years. Harper, Paisley, Blachly, North Powder and Powers school districts—all small, rural school districts with only a few hundred students—improved between 2019 and 2023. Ione School District, which serves about 200 students in a farming community near Hermiston, stayed the same, with 28% of students chronically absent.

Experts say attendance is crucial for students’ academic and social success. If they don’t show up, they can’t learn. Research, as reported by the nonprofit news outlet Education Week, suggests students are less likely to skip class if they feel connected to their teachers and peers, if they feel welcome in school and if they find their coursework relevant.

Natalie Pate is a K-12 education reporter for OPB.

Absenteeism in Oregon’s 10 largest districts

Chart: John Hill/OPB

Source: Oregon Department of Education

Such Stuff As Dreams Are

An Afternoon of Shakespeare and Guitar Featuring Anthony Heald & David Leisner

Saturday, June 8 · 4pm

Crafted by the acclaimed (and locally beloved) theater, film, and television actor Anthony Heald with guitar virtuoso and composer David Leisner, this program of Shakespeare speeches and complementary guitar music will delight you. Heald and Leisner have assembled a group of Shakespeare speeches and sonnets and interspersed them with another kind of language that is globally understood: Music.

INSIDE THE BOX

SCOTT DEWING

Playing The World’s Most Dangerous Game

Igrew up in the small town of Okanogan in northeastern Washington during the 1970s. The winters were cold and the summers were hot. But regardless of the season or the weather, my friends and I spent most of our time outside. In summer, we cruised all over town on our bikes like Hells Angels on training wheels. We climbed trees and fell out of trees to break bones and bruise egos. We ventured up into the sagebrush covered hills above town in search of rattlesnakes. In winter, we squared off for snowball fights and raced sleds down the steepest snow-packed street we could find. We were released into the wild and unsupervised by adults. The only rules from our parents were to “stay out of trouble” and “be home before dinner time”.

I recall all of this not to be nostalgic nor brag about my mostly idyllic childhood, but to make the observation that my neighborhood friends and I spent most of our time playing outside in the physical world. We were the last generation to fully do that. We grew up before the development of the Internet, social media, online video games, and smartphones began beckoning subsequent generations to stay inside, glued to a screen and interacting with others online rather than face-to-face.

According to social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, this shift from what he terms a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood” has had catastrophic consequences.

“Gen Z [those born between 1997-2012] became the first generation in history go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable… and unsuitable for children and adolescents,” Haidt writes in his new book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

“Children need a great deal of free play to thrive,” Haidt writes. “It’s an imperative that’s evident across all mammal species. The small-scale challenges and setbacks that happen during play are like an inoculation that prepares children to face much larger challenges later.”

The children of Gen Z, many of them in their teens and early to mid 20s now, are not doing well. Rates of teenage mental illness took a sharp turn upward beginning in 2010 and have been rising ever since. Clinical diagnoses of anxiety and depression among college students in the U.S. more than doubled between 2010 and 2018. Adolescent suicide rates have also more than doubled during that same time period.

Haidt makes a compelling argument that this growing mental health crisis has been driven primarily by the mass adoption of smartphones combined with increased engagement with social media and playing of online video games.

“With so many new and exciting virtual activities, many adolescents (and adults) lost the ability to be fully present with the people around them, which changed social life for everyone,

even for the small minority that did not use these platforms,” writes Haidt. “That is why I refer to the period from 2010 to 2015 as the Great Rewiring of Childhood. Social patterns, role models, emotions, physical activity, and even sleep patterns were fundamentally recast, for adolescents, over the course of just five years.”

Haidt outlines four resulting “foundational harms” that have emerged from the proliferation of smartphones, social media, and online video gaming: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction.

How do we address this crisis? Haidt recommends four “foundational reforms” that parents, schools, and governments can implement to significantly improve the mental health of our young people:

1. No smartphones before high school.

2. No social media before 16.

3. No phones in schools.

4. Increased childhood independence and unsupervised play.

While I agree with all those, I fear it’s “too little, too late”. The damage has been done by these new insidious technologies that were released and adopted without much thought given to possible long-term consequences and much needed oversight and regulation of the big tech companies that have profited from them.

We’re currently following that same path with the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Big tech companies are pouring billions of dollars into A.I. research and initiatives in hopes of becoming the dominant player in that emerging market. Google alone invested $30 billion in AI with Facebook following at $22 billion and Amazon and Microsoft each with a respective $10 billion.

As AI increasingly permeates all facets of modern life, we will be bombarded with new challenges at the same time we’re reeling from the challenges that have resulted from widespread adoption of smartphones and the proliferation of social media and online gaming that have, collectively, handicapped our youth.

“There’s a God-shaped hole in every human heart,” Haidt writes, paraphrasing the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. “If it doesn’t get filled with something noble and elevated, modern society will quickly pump it full of garbage.”

Scott Dewing is a technologist and writer. He works with and writes about high tech from his home office located inside a low-tech barn in Carver, Oregon.

STATIONS & PROGRAMS

Classics & News Service

FM Transmitters provide extended regional service. (KSOR, 90.1FM is JPR’s strongest transmitter and provides coverage throughout the Rogue Valley.)

FM Translators provide low-powered local service.

Translators

Monday through Friday..

5:00am Morning Edition

7:00am First Concert

12:00pm Siskiyou Music Hall

4:00pm All Things Considered

6:30pm The Daily

7:00pm Exploring Music

8:00pm State Farm Music Hall

Saturday..

5:00am Weekend Edition

8:00am First Concert

10:00am Metropolitan Opera

2:00pm Played in Oregon

3:00pm The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Stations

4:00pm All Things Considered

5:00pm New York Philharmonic

7:00pm State Farm Music Hall

Sunday..

5:00am Weekend Edition

9:00am Millennium of Music

10:00am Sunday Baroque

12:00pm American Landscapes

1:00pm Fiesta!

2:00pm Performance Today Weekend

4:00pm All Things Considered

5:00pm Chicago Symphony Orchestra

7:00pm State Farm Music Hall

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NEWS BRIEFS

New EPA Standards On ‘Forever Chemicals’ Will Require Action For Oregon Water Systems

Justin Higginbottom/JPR News

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced the first-ever national drinking water standards for chemicals known as PFAS. Announced April 10, those rules will impact Oregon.

The EPA’s new rules set an enforceable limit, called a maximum contaminant level, for five kinds of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances as well as for the mixture of two or more of certain PFAS analytes.

PFAS include thousands of man-made chemicals used to make products ranging from nonstick cookware to firefighting foam and have been called “forever chemicals” because they don’t degrade naturally. If consumed, the chemicals can build up in one’s body, potentially causing a host of health effects including cancer and liver damage.

In 2021, the Oregon Health Authority began sampling nearly 150 of the state’s 3,450 water systems for the chemicals. The agency resampled some of those places last year.

According to that data, over a dozen of those tested water systems, many servicing residents at mobile home and RV parks and including locations from Josephine to Multnomah counties, had levels of PFAS above the new EPA’s guidelines.

The OHA’s existing health advisory levels for PFAS, which are non-regulatory standards meant to provide information on health risks for residents, are currently significantly higher than the new federal limit. For example, Oregon’s advisory level for PFOS and PFOA, linked to decreased vaccination response in children and increased cholesterol, is 30 nanograms per liter. The EPA’s limit for those analytes is 4 nanograms per liter.

In a press release, the EPA said their new rule will reduce exposure to PFAS for around 100 million people and prevent thousands of deaths. The agency will give public water systems three years to test for the chemicals. Operators have five years

to lower PFAS levels in their water if those are found to be over the maximum contaminant level.

Nearly $1 billion in federal grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will be available nationally for that effort.

Federal Water Managers Announce 2024 Allocations For Klamath Basin Agriculture

Roman Battaglia/JPR News

The federal Bureau of Reclamation announced its initial water supply allocation for Klamath Basin farmers on April 15. Despite average snowpack in the region, the projected supply still isn’t enough to meet agricultural demands.

The agency’s initial water allocation to farmers from Upper Klamath Lake is 230,000 acre-feet, which is slightly less than last year’s supply.

Farmers are only getting around two-thirds of the water they want, according to Moss Driscoll, the director of water policy with the Klamath Water Users Association. He said there could be more water allocated later in the season, but farmers need to make decisions about their crops now.

“That’s not a fair request to just tell them to be patient when that’s not a choice right now,” Driscoll said.

The Bureau was not available to comment on the recent announcement.

According to the 2024 operations plan, there is likely enough water to fully supply repayment and settlement contractors, which represent about 105,000 acres of land, according to Driscoll.

There may be limited supply available for so-called “Warren Act Surplus Water contractors,” which constitute around 60,000 acres and other contractors who are provided water after everyone else.

According to the Bureau, “it delivers water for irrigation and related purposes to approximately 230,000 acres in southern Oregon and northern California.”

The plan also highlights one new factor this year, the ongoing restoration of the Klamath River that’s happening alongside the removal of four hydroelectric dams.

In its report, the agency said it’s limited in the amount of water that can be released at once down the Klamath River to avoid damaging environmental restoration work. Crews are currently replanting the banks of several former reservoirs with native species. Driscoll said less water sent downriver could mean there will be extra available for other uses.

He said the KWUA is in negotiations with local tribes to see if potential excess water can be given to farmers, who have more junior water rights.

“Frankly we don’t have to be in conflict and we don’t have to be issuing press releases calling for increased allocations,” Driscoll said. “But instead we can be looking at longer-term projects to improve our efficiency and make our operations sustainable.”

Ashland School District Lays Off Staff To Close Funding Gap

Jane Vaughan/JPR News

Ashland School District will lay off about 19 staff at the end of this school year because of declining enrollment. Those employees were unofficially notified of the decision in early April and will receive official notices soon.

Many of those being laid off are part-time employees. The majority are education assistants or paraprofessionals.

The district is seeking other ways to reduce staff too, like not renewing temporary contracts, attrition and leaving some positions vacant. Overall, these efforts will translate to a reduction of about 23 full-time positions.

The school district has suffered from declining enrollment in recent years, and as enrollment lowers, so does state funding.

The district currently has about 300 fewer students than it did in 2017, which corresponds to a $3 million decrease in state money tied to student population.

“It’s simply time to really tighten our belts and make sure that we are staffing appropriately based on the revenue,” said Superintendent Samuel Bogdanove.

He said the biggest reason for declining enrollment is the high cost of living in Ashland.

“You’re seeing fewer families move to Ashland, fewer families being able to find available housing in Ashland. And that’s been a long-term trend here in the city,” he said.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Almeda Fire and the end of an open enrollment law in 2018-2019 that allowed students to transition into the Ashland district also played a part in declining enrollment.

The district closed a gap of about $2.4 million with the current layoffs, Bogdanove said, which was the goal for this year. However, he said the district will also have to cut another $2.5 million over the next couple of years.

“There’s time for a little bit more strategic thinking about the district we want to be and the kinds of choices we want to make sure are available to families. For that conversation, you need a little bit more time to make sure we’re really shaping ourselves in a way that’s going to have the kind of impact that we want to have on the community,” he said.

Bogdanove said there’s some concern about future needs for students in the district.

“Even though we made tremendous gains academically and socially behaviorally with our kids coming out of COVID, there’s still high levels of need,” he said. “[There’s] some concern that, do we still need a higher level of resources than we can afford to meet all the needs?”

Bogdanove is retiring this year. The financial decisions for the district will soon be in the hands of new superintendent Joseph Hattrick.

Oregon Will Replace, Not Rebuild, Defective Homes For Wildfire Survivors In Phoenix

Jane Vaughan/JPR News

Oregon’s housing agency will replace dozens of modular homes in Phoenix that are meant for wildfire survivors, marking a dramatic change from the agency’s previous plan to house fire victims.

Last August, Oregon Housing and Community Services said they would renovate 118 homes that were found to be defective. Now, they’re going to completely replace all the homes instead at an unknown cost.

About three years ago, the state purchased 140 modular homes for about $26 million. Most of those were meant for the Royal Oaks Mobile Manor, which was destroyed in the 2020 Almeda Fire. The project broke ground in November 2022 and planned to house 118 families, prioritizing those who lost their homes in the fire.

But families’ move-in was delayed when they were suddenly told the homes were unfit to live in. There are unresolved questions about why the homes had defects, which included leaking water, mold and code issues.

According to an OHCS spokesperson, the agency will provide the funding to replace all the homes, and the Housing Authority of Jackson County will manage the purchase.

“OHCS and the Housing Authority of Jackson County have been working hard to find a solution that meets all our shared commitments for the Royal Oaks project, most importantly

having healthy and safe homes for residents,” reads a recent statement provided by OHCS. “When we last updated the community, we were developing plans to rebuild/rehabilitate the units. The planned approach was based on advice from OHCS’ consultants and informed by industry-standard best practices. After reviewing with local partners, they felt this approach would not fully reassure community members or set up the project for long-term success.”

This proposal still has to be approved by the organizations’ respective boards. OHCS expects that approval in the next 4560 days.

Some fire victims have been living in transitional housing for over three years, and this change only prolongs the creation of permanent housing.

OHCS says they don’t yet have a timeline for when families will be able to move in or the specific source of the funding.

Construction To Begin In 2024 On Pumped Storage Energy Project Near Klamath Falls

Roman Battaglia/JPR News

An energy project northeast of Klamath Falls will be one of the first new pumped storage hydroelectric systems in the U.S. in 30 years. In early April, developers announced the project design is finished.

The Swan Lake energy storage project will use two artificial lakes at different elevations, pumping water uphill when there’s extra power in the grid, and letting it run downhill through turbines when energy demand is high.

These projects are a critical puzzle piece in the future of renewable energy infrastructure, since wind turbines and solar panels don’t provide power consistently.

Erik Steimle from the company building the project, Rye Development, said more and more renewable energy is being built in the region.

“Having this project available in the late 2020s, early 2030s is really the time period when more and more utilities are needing this type of energy storage in the system to balance out intermittent renewables and provide reliable grid services,” said Steimle.

The project is owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which is also developing one of the first offshore wind energy projects on the West Coast, off Northern California’s Humboldt Bay. Steimle said Swan Lake will work with utilities to act as a kind of electricity bank. Local utilities will be able to use the pumped storage facility to store extra power, and to draw from it when needed to fill in energy gaps.

Steimle said it’s a more long-lasting storage system than lithium-ion batteries, which need replacement around every 15 years.

“Once you build it, you can essentially cycle it over and over again with very little degradation to the system,” he said.

But, the project faces opposition from the local Klamath Tribes, who are concerned about damage construction poses to a culturally significant area, including possible burial sites. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has offered a $40 million compensation package to the tribe.

According to the Klamath Tribes News, those opposed are concerned about giving up their right to sue if something happens in the future. Other members who see the money as a significant boost to tribal initiatives are trying to put the offer to a vote by all tribal members.

Steimle says the project will be able to provide around nineand-a-half hours of electricity for 125,000 homes.

Construction will begin this year, pending final approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This project will be one of the first new pumped storage projects in decades. Many of the current pumped storage hydroelectric facilities in use today were built in the 1970s, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

As of 2023, only three projects including Swan Lake had been granted licenses by FERC. 96 total projects are in the development pipeline, but they’re further behind in the process.

California Salmon Fishing Banned For Second Year In Row

Rachel Becker/CalMatters

Federal officials moved to cancel commercial and recreational salmon fishing off California as the fish still aren’t thriving In a devastating blow to California’s fishing industry, federal fishery managers unanimously voted to cancel all commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of California for the second year in a row.

The decision is designed to protect California’s dwindling salmon populations after drought and water diversions left river flows too warm and sluggish for the state’s iconic Chinook salmon to thrive.

Salmon abundance forecasts for the year “are just too low,” Marci Yaremko, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s appointee to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, said. “While the rainfall and the snowpacks have improved, the stocks and their habitats just need another year to recover.”

State and federal agencies are now expected to implement the closures for ocean fishing. Had the season not been in question again this year, recreational boats would likely already be fishing off the coast of California, while the commercial season typically runs from May through October.

In addition, the California Fish and Game Commission will decide in May whether to cancel inland salmon fishing in California rivers this summer and fall.

The closure means that California restaurants and consumers will have to look elsewhere for salmon, in a major blow to an industry estimated in previous years to be worth roughly half a billion dollars.

“It’s catastrophic,” said Tommy “TF” Graham, a commercial fisherman based in Bodega Bay who now drives a truck delivering frozen and farmed salmon and other fish. “It means another summer of being forced to do something you don’t want to do, instead of doing something you love.”

About 213,600 Sacramento River fall-run salmon—a mainstay of the fishery—are estimated to be swimming off the coast. Though that’s an improvement over last year, the forecast remains the second-lowest on record since the fishery was closed in 2008 and 2009, Yaremko told the Pacific fishery council.

The numbers this year, plus the fact that the forecasts for salmon returning to spawn are routinely overestimated, “add concern,” Yaremko said.

Many in the fishing industry say they support the closure, but urged state and federal officials to do more to improve conditions in the rivers salmon rely on. Fishing advocates and environmentalists have lambasted Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration for failing to prioritize water quality and flows to protect salmon in the vital Bay-Delta watershed.

“Our fishing fleets and coastal communities cannot be the only ones making sacrifices to save these fish,” said Sarah Bates, who owns a commercial fishing boat called the Bounty, berthed at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. “Water policy needs to take the health of our river ecosystems seriously.”

The closure comes as the fishing industry still awaits disaster aid promised from last year’s salmon fishery closures, which state officials estimated to have cost about $45 million. The fishing industry says that’s a vast underestimate.

“Some fishermen have already lost their businesses and many will in the coming months,” said RJ Waldron, who runs a charter fishing business out of the East Bay. Last year’s closure dried up his customers, and he put his sportfishing boat up for sale months ago.

“My dream of being a charter boat owner is very much a nightmare now.”

Brookings Church Wins Lawsuit Against City’s Permit Requirement To Feed Homeless

Jane Vaughan/JPR News

Afederal district court judge recently ruled that St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in the coastal community of Brookings can continue to freely serve meals to the growing homeless population.

The church had sued the city in 2022 over a new ordinance that required a permit for meal services in residential zones

and limited the number of days meals could be served to just two days a week.

St. Timothy’s had been serving meals to those in need for years, and Father Bernie Lindley argued the city was prohibiting the church from exercising its religious belief of serving the hungry.

Judge Mark Clark resoundingly agreed in his decision, even saying one of the city’s arguments about the necessity of a permit in order to serve meals “defies any stretch of the imagination.”

“It was everything I’d hoped for,” said Lindley. “I felt like all the things that I’ve been thinking about our feeding ministry, it was all verified for me. I’m not crazy. This was a problem that needed to be addressed legally.”

The city had argued that the church’s kitchen was classified as a restaurant, which is not allowed in residential areas. They also said the church was out of step with local laws and that requiring a permit would allow them to continue serving meals lawfully.

City officials and their attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The federal Department of Justice weighed in on this case in November in the church’s favor, saying the city’s request to decide the case should be denied.

The case originated several years ago as Brookings was trying to address a growing homeless population. In 2021, city officials received a complaint from neighbors called the Petition to Remove Homeless from St. Timothy Church. In recent years, as the homeless population has grown, the number of people St. Timothy’s serves per day tripled, according to court documents.

“The City of Brookings is very fortunate to have Reverend Lindley and the entire congregation of St. Timothy’s as compassionate, caring, and committed members of the community,” Judge Clark wrote in his opinion. “The homeless are not ‘vagrants,’ but are citizens in need. This is a time for collaboration, not ill-conceived ordinances that restrict care and resources for vulnerable people in our communities.”

Reading the recent decision, Lindley said, “I cried. Today’s a Wednesday, so today’s one of the days that we’re doing our ministries, our office hours, and my staff and I… [There’s] a lot of smiles, a lot of hugs, a lot of tears of gratitude.”

Alli Gannett, director of communications for the Episcopal Church in Western Oregon, said in November that the city’s ordinance added restrictions to the church’s work.

“Our ultimate goal is to not have any restrictions on feeding those in need. As Jesus calls us to serve the hungry and to care for those who are sick, any sort of restrictions put on that ministry prohibits us from fulfilling our call as Christians,” she said.

The church is now seeking to have its legal fees paid, which still have to be negotiated.

St. Timothy’s is separately appealing the city’s order to stop some of its programs, including an outreach clinic, a day program and an advocacy program. The city says these are social services that cannot be done in the church because they violate municipal code.

Dropping A Pin On The Origins Of Life, Reducing ‘Smoke

Taint’

In Northwest Wines, And Atomically Fast Shutter Speeds

Five illuminating, inspiring and just plain cool Pacific Northwest science stories from “All Science. No Fiction.”

How did life arise on Earth? Scientists believe that the building blocks—water and carbon—probably came from comets and asteroids hitting our young planet. But then after that, you need the perfect combination of conditions and resources to turn inorganic elements into organic compounds. Exactly where those conditions could have been found on Earth has been difficult to pin down.

But researchers at the University of Washington think they have found a spot in the Pacific Northwest that meets the criteria. It’s a shallow soda lake called Last Chance Lake, a few hundred miles north of Seattle in British Columbia.

Finding locations on Earth that have the right conditions to spontaneously create organic compounds is tough, in part because you need high concentrations of phosphorus. The shallow and often nearly dry Last Chance Lake fits the bill.

Based on their field and laboratory research, the scientists say soda lakes were plausible settings for the first sparks of life on Earth—and potentially on other planets as well.

The paper was published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

Same vaccine, different arms

So you’re at the clinic getting a COVID vaccine, and they ask you, “What arm do you want it in?” Which arm do you choose?

Well, if you choose the opposite arm from the one you got the first shot in, you could be making that vaccine up to four times more effective.

This is what researchers at Oregon Health and Science University discovered after monitoring the immune response of nearly 1000 people—some of whom got their original COVID vaccine and booster in the same arm and some who switched it up. The differences in immune response between the vaccines that went into the same and different arms started to appear three weeks after the second shot and increased anywhere from 1.3 to 4 times.

The scientists aren’t certain what causes the improved response, but they speculate the change in arm activates immune response in different lymph nodes, increasing the effectiveness of the vaccine.

They believe the improved protections aren’t just for COVID, but potentially any disease that has a multi-dose vaccine.

This research was published as a preview (awaiting formal publication) in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Attosecond-fast imagery of water atoms

Electrons move fast—so fast we don’t actually know where they are at any given moment as they orbit their atoms. If we could see them with our eyes, it would just look like a blur of motion.

Sebastian Haas holds a piece of the salt crust from Last Chance Lake with green algae in the middle and black sediment at the bottom.

KRISTYNA WENTZ-GRAFF / OPB

Ermias Asfaw, RN left, gives Loren Campos, 16, an immunization at a vaccination clinic held at McDaniel High School in Northeast Portland, Feb. 8, 2023. The catch-up vaccination clinic, offered in conjunction with Portland Public Schools and Multnomah County’s Education Service District, aimed to provide childhood vaccines for youth 5-19, before the immunization deadline in the schools.

JPR News Focus: Science & Environment

Continued from previous page

Scientists used a synchronized attosecond X-ray pulse pair (pictured pink and green here) from an X-ray free electron laser to study the energetic response of electrons (gold) in liquid water on attosecond time scale, while the hydrogen (white) and oxygen (red) atoms are ‘frozen’ in time.

So how would you get a clear image of an electron?

In photography, the way to capture a focused image of a fast-moving object is to have fast shutter speed.

And now physicists have their own version of this. In fact, last year, the Nobel Prize for Physics was given to a group of scientists who made huge strides developing a way to “see” these subatomic particles more clearly.

They developed a technique to take a snapshot in time—one attosecond long, or 0.000000000000000001 second. To get an idea of how mind-blowingly short that is: There are more attoseconds in one second than there have been seconds since the universe began.

Now researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Washington and other labs have created a new method of taking these snapshots. They applied attosecond-long x-ray pulses to water and successfully observed how the electrons in the molecules behaved.

The work could open up a whole new world in experimental physics. The researchers say the new technique will ultimately help us understand in far more detail how radiation interacts chemically with human cells in situations like space travel and cancer treatment.

Read the work in the journal Science

Protecting wine grapes from wildfire smoke

The difference between an amazing wine and something more “meh” often comes down to the growing conditions of the grapes. With the increase in wildfires over the past decades in the Pacific Northwest, there’s growing concern that wildfire smoke in the air can imbue some undesired flavors into ripening grapes. This “smoke taint” isn’t good news for the region’s large wine industry.

Researchers at Oregon State University believe they have found a way to keep wine grapes shielded from wildfire smoke. They’ve developed a spray coating that blocks or captures several chemical compounds known to cause smoke taint. They tested the spray on open-air vines, as well as vines exposed to smoke in a specialized chamber—MacGyvered together using duct tape, a grill, aluminum duct and some plastic sheeting.

The scientists hope to have the spray fully tested and ready for wide use within a few growing seasons.

The results were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Filtering salmon-killing tire debris

In 2020, scientists at the University of Washington and Washington State University figured out that a chemical found in vehicle tires was causing the deaths of returning adult coho salmon in urban streams. The chemical, a tire preservative called 6PPD, reacts with sunlight or ozone and transforms into the deadly 6PPD-quinone, which is then washed in the bits of tire debris into waterways during storms.

Now researchers at WSU are trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening. They tested different configurations of permeable pavement—artificial surfaces that allow water to filter through into the ground instead of running off. They’re being developed as an environmentally friendly way to manage stormwater.

After a series of experiments, they found the pavements filtered out and captured almost all of the tire particles applied and reduced 6PPD-quinone runoff by an average of 68%.

While permeable pavement is gaining popularity, durability concerns and the cost of replacing existing infrastructure means it is not yet common for roads. But these results suggest permeable roadways could help protect native salmon in high-traffic areas.

The paper on this topic was published in Science of the Total Environment.

In this monthly rundown from OPB, “All Science. No Fiction.” creator Jes Burns features the most interesting, wondrous and hopeful science coming out of the Pacific Northwest. And remember: Science builds on the science that came before. No one study tells the whole story.

Jes Burns is a science reporter and producer for OPB’s Science & Environment unit.

Jenna Fryer, an Oregon State University graduate student, processes grape samples before analyzing the grapes for smoke compounds.

COURTESY OF SEAN NEALON/OSU

ANA B. IBARRA

In 2008, Mexico began requiring that corn masa be strengthened with folic acid, but enforcement of that mandate has lagged.

Why Tortillas Sold In California May Be Required To Add A New Ingredient

Folic acid reduces the risk of birth defects and the FDA requires that bakers include it in enriched bread. California could extend the mandate to tortillas and foods made with corn masa flour.

Corn chips, tortillas, tamales and pupusas—while all delicious may be missing a key vitamin for women of reproductive age.

Folic acid has long been used to prevent serious birth defects and help babies develop. Medical and public health experts advise daily consumption during pregnancy, but also in the months before becoming pregnant. This B vitamin is so important the federal government requires folic acid in certain foods such as enriched breads and cereals.

Now a California lawmaker is carrying a bill that would require manufacturers of corn masa flour—used to make many classic Latino foods—to also add folic acid to their products. Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, a Fresno Democrat and physician, is carrying Assembly Bill 1830. The legislation would require that producers add 0.7 milligrams of folic acid to every pound of masa, and that this addition be reflected in the nutrition label.

Arambula wants to address clear disparities in who gets the necessary amount of folic acid. State public health data show that Latinas are less likely to take folic acid in the early weeks of pregnancy or before becoming pregnant when compared to other racial or ethnic groups. This puts them at higher risk of having children born with birth defects of the brain and spinal cord, most commonly spina bifida and anencephaly.

Folic acid, or synthetic folate, promotes healthy cell growth. Research has shown that when taken before and in the early weeks of pregnancy, folic acid can help prevent birth defects by as much as 70%.

“Food is the best way that we can get folic acid into our communities before they’re pregnant,” Arambula told CalMatters. “Oftentimes the prenatal vitamins that we give to pregnant people are too late.”

That’s because the brain and spine begin to form within the first four weeks of gestation. Many people may not even know they’re pregnant during this time, especially when the pregnancy is unplanned.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration followed that rationale when it handed down a mandate in 1998 requiring folic acid fortification in enriched grain products, including cereals, breads, pasta and rice. Since that rule took effect, the proportion of babies born with neural tube defects has dropped by

BY

35%—about 1,300 fewer babies every year—according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The FDA did not include corn masa flour in its folic acid mandate. Continuing to leave it out is “a real oversight,” Arambula said. Culturally, the diets of many Latinos, especially of immigrants and first generation residents, often rely heavily on corn flour.

Latinas get less folic acid

Dr. Megan Jones sees many high-risk pregnancies among Latina farmworkers as a maternal-fetal medicine specialist on California’s Central Coast.

She sees babies born with neural tube defects, cleft lips and cardiac defects, among other problems.

“We just had two babies with spina bifida in the last six months, they came kind of back to back. It’s not like I would say this is something we see every month, but a neural tube

California lawmakers are considering a bill that would require tortillas and other foods made with corn masa flour to include the ingredient folic acid. The vitamin reduces the likelihood of birth defects. Here, tortilla packages are stacked at a supermarket in Fresno on April 9, 2024.

PHOTO

JPR News Focus: Health & Medicine

Continued from previous page

defect is a big deal,” Jones said. “This impacts the kid’s ability to walk, to be able to use the restroom, orthopedic stuff. This is a huge undertaking for a family. I would say in general, even seeing three or four of these in a year has a big impact on a community.”

And while it’s difficult to pinpoint what exactly is to blame in each case, hypertension, diabetes and folic acid deficiencies can play a significant role, she said.

The CDC advises that all women of reproductive age get 400 micrograms of folic acid, much of which can be found in prenatal and women’s multi-vitamins. But Latinas and Black women are less likely to be taking these before pregnancy.

Between 2017 and 2019, the latest years for which state data is available, about 28% of Latinas reported taking folic acid the month before becoming pregnant, according to the California Department of Public Health. That compares to 46% of white women. Women on Medi-Cal, the state’s public health insurance program for low-income people, are also less likely to take folic acid before pregnancy compared to women on private insurance.

Regionally, women in the San Joaquin Valley and in the very northern part of the state were less likely to take folic acid.

Voluntary vs. mandated folic acid in foods

In 2008, Mexico began requiring that corn masa be strengthened with folic acid, but enforcement of that mandate has lagged, according to research conducted by Columbia University and Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has long acknowledged the potential benefits of fortifying corn masa with folic acid, but still does not require it. In a 2009 study, the CDC wrote: “Fortification of corn masa flour products could increase folic acid intake by nearly 20 percent for Mexican-Americans, who are at a 30-40 percent higher risk for a number of severe brain and spinal birth defects.”

With mounting data and advocacy, in April 2016 the FDA approved a petition to allow manufacturers of corn masa flour to add folic acid to their products. That was voluntary and producers have been slow to act. Two years after the FDA’s announcement, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that only 10% of corn masa flour contained folic acid; none of the corn tortillas tested did.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy organization, did its own survey of hundreds of corn masa products from 2018-2022 and found folic acid in only 14% of corn masa flours and found none in the 476 corn tortilla products analyzed.

Arambula’s legislation is sponsored by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The bill has made it out of its first policy committee, and so far has no registered opposition.

The March of Dimes, which advocates for maternal and infant health, for years has advocated for folate to be added to corn masa, so that more women can get folic acid through their diets. Advocates there believe California’s decision can have national influence and bring the issue back to the forefront, said David Pisani, director of advocacy and government affairs at March of Dimes.

“Folic acid hasn’t been on the tips of people’s tongues for quite some time,” Pisani said. “You don’t read about it, you don’t hear about it, and I think it’s because there is this misunderstanding that well, isn’t it already in everything most people are consuming? Obviously, the answer is not every product.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

CalMatters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Ana B. Ibarra covers health care for CalMatters. Her reporting largely focuses on issues around access to care and affordability.

KRISTEN HWANG

LABOR & EMPLOYMENT

They Work 80 Hours A Week For Low

Pay. Now,

California’s Early-Career

Doctors

Are Joining Unions

Medical residents have a grueling job, typically working 60 to 80 hours a week. Now, early-career doctors at several California hospitals are forming unions as they press for better pay and working conditions.

In some California hospitals, early-career doctors make as little as $16 per hour working 80-hour weeks. It’s training, known as residency, that every board-certified doctor must complete.

The grueling schedules for little pay have been contentious in medicine for decades, and they’re increasingly driving medical residents to form unions. The national accrediting agency for residency programs limits the average work week to 80 hours.

Last week, hundreds of resident physicians and fellows at Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California facilities became the latest to join the wave of medical trainees demanding better pay and working conditions. Their petition filed with the National Labor Relations Board comes after Kaiser Permanente refused to voluntarily recognize the union.

Union membership at medical training programs in California has more than doubled since 2020, according to data from the Committee of Interns and Residents, the union which represents most unionized trainee doctors nationally. Residents at Stanford Health Care, Keck Medicine of USC and all six of the University of California academic medical centers have organized labor unions in recent years.

three years. There are more than 144,000 doctors in residency programs nationally, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. In California, the number of unionized medical residents has grown by 62% since 2020, said Annie Della Fera, a spokesperson for the Committee of Interns and Residents.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Kaiser Permanente said the organization is committed to providing a good learning and working environment.

“We respect our long-standing relationships with labor unions and the rights of our employees to make decisions about whether they want to be represented by a union,” the statement said.

“It’s a big deal to take on something the size of Kaiser. What happens here will have an impact and is likely to ripple out.”

KEN JACOBS, CO-CHAIR OF THE UC BERKELEY LABOR CENTER

At stake is increased pay, overtime compensation, housing stipends and more manageable schedules. Unions representing residents have bargained for fertility benefits to support delayed family planning. Dr. Berneen Bal, a third-year psychiatry resident at Kaiser’s Oakland Medical Center, said some colleagues have even traveled out of state where it’s cheaper to freeze eggs.

Northern California Kaiser staff now must hold a formal vote to finalize unionization. If the vote succeeds, residents would join most other Kaiser workers—including pharmacists, nurses and housekeepers—in gaining union representation at the largest health provider and private employer in the state. More than 9 million Californians get health care through Kaiser.

Dr. Brandon Andreson, a second-year internal medicine resident at Kaiser San Francisco Medical Center, said the move to organize was spurred in part by other hospital residents unionizing across the state and country. In an informal vote more than 70% of trainee doctors across Northern California Kaiser facilities supported unionizing, Andreson said.

“There is a huge national movement to recognize residents as decent workers,” Andreson said. “We’ve become pawns in this giant game of making money for a hospital at the expense of your frontline workers.”

Nationally, union membership among medical residents has expanded from 17,000 to more than 32,000 in a little over

“As more residencies have unionized, it’s put greater criticism on this training structure that we’ve all just accepted for so long,” Bal said.

Pay for medical residents in California

At Kaiser’s eight Northern California hospitals, residents make around $80,000 per year and typically work between 60 to 80 hours a week, getting one day off per week, Andreson said. The pay range for residents at other non-unionized health systems in California is similar or lower. In contrast, starting salaries for full-fledged physicians are nearly $300,000 depending on specialty.

Unions represent few certified doctors in California because many employment structures make them business partners and prohibit them from joining a labor organization. Many doctors participate in the politically powerful California Medical Association, which represents their interests in the Capitol.

Doctors-in-training have long bemoaned grueling work weeks and little pay, but the pandemic fueled unionization, said Ken Jacobs, co-chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

JPR News Focus: Labor & Employment

Continued from previous page

“In health care specifically, COVID and the aftermath of COVID have pushed a lot of people into seeing the need for a union and going out and doing the work necessary to win a union election,” Jacobs said.

Hospitals relied on residents for surge staff during COVID-19 peaks but didn’t pay them overtime or offer other worker protections, several doctors interviewed for this story said.

Stanford Health Care initially excluded residents from eligibility for the first round of COVID-19 vaccines in 2020, a breaking point for trainee doctors there who unionized in 2022.

“It showed us that they view us as an expendable workforce,” said Dr. Philip Sossenheimer, a hospice and palliative medicine fellow at Stanford Medicine. “It was so stark the differences of how we’re treated compared to our colleagues who are doing similar work.”

seven years with additional time for specialty training known as fellowships.

Last year, residents at Stanford Health Care won additional benefits and a 21% across-the-board pay increase in their first contract.

Kaiser union could set precedent

Hospitals began adhering to an 80-hour workweek for medical residents 20 years ago. A 2009 Rand Corp. study found that reducing residents’ workloads to meet that standard and to prevent fatigue would cost major teaching hospitals more that $4 million a year, expenses driven by hiring substitute providers and additional residents.

“It was so stark the differences of how we’re treated compared to our colleagues who are doing similar work.”

DR. PHILIP SOSSENHEIMER, HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE MEDICINE FELLOW AT STANFORD MEDICINE

Sossenheimer said doctors-in-training are especially vulnerable to exploitative employer practices because it is nearly impossible to leave a residency and find another position. They are contractually obligated to complete their residency training if they want to practice medicine. Residencies last between three and

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Hospital executives across the country have been outspoken about increasing labor costs leading to higher prices for consumers, something which puts pressure on California’s attempts to tamp down medical costs. Research shows that wages contribute to higher health care costs in the U.S. compared to other countries, but spending on administration and prescription drugs are bigger drivers.

Despite the growing appetite for collective action among resident physicians, not every institution has accepted unionization efforts. Residents and fellows at Loma Linda University Health are locked in a legal battle over bargaining. The 80-member unit won union representation last June under the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, but the hospital is refusing to bargain citing religious exemptions, according to case documents filed with the National Labor Relations Board.

Loma Linda University Health is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Dr. Jessica Muñoz, an emergency medicine resident who led unionization efforts at Loma Linda, said seeing other residents win contracts and move to organize offers hope to her and her colleagues.

“No matter what happens here, I’m excited for all of these residents and fellows that are unionizing around California and the country,” Muñoz said.

Jacobs with the Berkeley Labor Center said establishing a union among Kaiser residents could have far-reaching impacts given the size of the health care behemoth, which is often looked at as a leader for worker pay and benefits.

“It’s a big deal to take on something the size of Kaiser,” Jacobs said. “What happens here will have an impact and is likely to ripple out.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

CalMatters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Kristen Hwang is a health reporter for CalMatters covering health care access, abortion and reproductive health, workforce issues, drug costs and emerging public health matters.

PRESS PASS

ERIK NEUMANN

JPR Hosts Sixth Snowden Intern In Summer 2024

For the past five summers, Jefferson Public Radio has participated in the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism. Based out of the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, it places undergraduates in newsrooms around the state for a 10-week, fulltime internship. Participants are paid, and treated like a member of their host newsroom.

This summer JPR welcomes James Kelley, our sixth intern in the program. James joins JPR from Oregon State University where he was the city editor of OSU’s student-led publication, the Daily Barometer and where he hosted a radio show on KBVR FM. JPR News Director Erik Neumann spoke with James, who will be arriving in Ashland this June.

Erik Neumann: Tell me a little bit about your background.

James Kelley: I grew up in Portland, Oregon and went to high school in Clackamas Oregon. I wasn’t too involved in journalism in high school. Throughout high school, I was interested in writing. I took English classes very seriously and I ended up transferring to Portland Community College in Portland. While I was there I became interested in a degree in psychology. So, I started taking classes in psychology and started exploring philosophy too, and just doing lots of reading about what it’s like to be a human in the world.

I applied to Oregon State in that winter that I was at Portland Community College because I wanted a big school and I wanted to stay close to home. I was really excited when I was accepted to Oregon State. I had a close friend who was actually a public policy student. Through my reading, I followed politics pretty closely in my early college years and in high school, and so, I was just really interested in government and how things work in the world. She was like, ‘Oh, you know, you would love this public policy major.’ It’s kind of a combination of economics and political science and sociology. And those were all fields that I was sort of tangentially attracted to when I was studying psychology, so it was really appealing to me.

Last year I wrote for Beavers Digest, which is our lifestyle magazine on campus. That was a really great experience building my portfolio. And then through Nicole and Brent, who are the organizers of the Charles Snowden program, came and talked to us at Orange Media Network, which is Oregon State University’s, student media organization and plugged the Snowden program. I was like, this is going to be great if I get this. And I did. I went and interviewed and they offered me the job and I couldn’t be happier about the placement.

EN: You’ve written for the Daily Barometer at OSU and you hosted a radio show on campus at KBVR. What do you like about journalism?

JK: I love getting to exercise my policy chops. I guess, where I get to go to City Hall and shake hands with people who, you know, if it was anywhere outside of Corvallis or if I was in a different profession, I would be challenged to do. That’s really exciting. It’s a balance between getting so starstruck and also being like, this is this is my job, which is entertaining and fun for me.

EN: Are there any topics that you’re especially interested in covering?

JK: I’m doing this so that I can broaden the language that I have about different topics and different things that get covered in the news. I would be excited to report on certain political issues and in housing.

EN: What’s a story that you’ve covered recently that you’re especially proud of?

JK: I think it was in November, I did a story on affordable housing in Corvallis. And that was interesting. I was on a scheduled visit to City Hall, and I was meeting with the public information officer there. They ended up introducing me to the community development director, and they mentioned that there were 400plus new affordable housing units that were being constructed

James Kelley, 2024 Snowden Intern

Press Pass

Continued from previous page

Being the excited, wide-eyed journalist that I was, I was really excited to report on that. And I was quickly humbled, because I realized that reporting on something like affordable housing is pretty nuanced. And so, in the initial version of the story that I wrote, I forgot to kind of include what affordable housing was, period. And who qualified. There were people in the comments that were like, ‘What is this? How does this apply? How do I know if I can live there?’ So, that was an interesting learning curve for me, but I loved it.

EN: It sounds like there was a record number of OSU students who were selected as Snowden interns this year. There isn’t a journalism major at the school. I was just curious why there’s so much enthusiasm for the program this year?

JK: One of my good friends was a Snowden intern last year. And she raved about the program and was excited for me to apply. Because there’s not a [OSU journalism] major we have such an interesting group of people at the Barometer. We have people in STEM and the liberal arts, all over different areas of study who are interested in journalism, in sort of an extracurricular sort of way. And for other people it’s, ‘this is what we do.’ For myself and for the other Snowden interns, there’s just been a growing interest in journalism here at Oregon State. At the Barometer, we’ve tripled the number of writers that we have, we’ve tripled

our circulation. We have this kind of upward momentum right now that’s really exciting. And for a school that doesn’t have a journalism major, I think we’re heading in that direction.

EN: What do you hope to learn this summer at JPR?

JK: Broadcast reporting is something that’s going to be new to me. I’m really excited to be able to learn more about Southern Oregon and Northern California; what it’s like down there socially, politically, environmentally. And I’m really eager to build some of those skills as a journalist that help people to be able to report on topics effectively. I think JPR is going to be just a fabulous place for that.

EN: Long term, is there anything that you’re hoping to do, either in journalism or a completely different field?

JK: I think I’ll be a writer in some capacity. I’m not sure what that looks like, whether or not it’s going to incorporate some of that public policy. Maybe I start exploring careers in public information, like working for local government or speech writing. That’s kind of the great thing about public policy is you can go in all sorts of different directions. I think writing in some capacity, with some level of public interaction is probably going to happen in my future. And journalism right now is the most obvious case of that.

Children’s Chorus Cantare Youth Ensemble Rogue Valley Chorale https://roguevalleychorale.org

May 18, 2:00 PM

UNDERGROUND HISTORY

CHELSEA ROSE

LEGOvision

Arecent episode of Underground History highlighted one archaeologist’s effort to share the wonders of our National Park System in a new way: not through words, but with LEGO vignettes. What originally began as an effort to get 10,000 signatures in support of a LEGO set in honor of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS), has grown into the National Park Service LEGO Vignettes social media account, with 20,000 followers on Instagram and over 70,000 on Facebook. We were joined on the show by the mysterious man behind the LEGO curtain, Gavin the LEGO Park Ranger to hear more about this innovative outreach effort.

LEGOs were created by Danish craftsman Ole Kirk Kristiansen in the 1930s. According to the robust historical background presented on their website, these beloved toys got their moniker by combining LEG GODT, which means to play well. The company began by making a variety of toys, but their “bricks” soon became their most popular offering. Originally made of beechwood, the toys were first hand-carved until a milling machine was purchased in 1937. The company switched from wood to plastic polymers by the end of the 1940s, and the rest, is history!

LEGO bricks can be found in many households across the world, with commercial sets curated to portray ancient Egypt, Viking villages, travel destinations, and more. But, by their very nature, the creation potential of these versatile bricks is endless. Gavin the LEGO Park Ranger has used this popular medium to lure LEGO’s cult-like following into celebrating and commemorating the weird and wonderful things found on National Parks and Monuments. The account has showcased nearly 2,500 scenes since it started in 2015—with some heavy hitters in our region, including Crater Lake and Oregon Caves, among them. The colorful tableaus often present quirky insight into life as a ranger, anniversaries and fun facts, and the ways in which NPS sites are tied in with popular culture and events (think the recent eclipse). Through these vignettes, I—and thousands of others— have learned about parks and monuments, off the beaten path sites, and more. LEGOs are not the only way passionate individuals are creatively endorsing the National Service. Amber Share, the artist behind the Subpar Parks account, sets bad visitor reviews to the scenes being panned, making for an amusing and ironically effective advertising campaign.

The natural and cultural resources protected and preserved by the NPS belongs to, and should be enjoyed by, all of us. While we can’t necessarily visit every park, efforts by the LEGO Park Ranger and others provide connection to these sites and stories. Public history and archaeology is important way to engage and promote stewardship, and the modern digital age has expanded outreach tools. You can explore National Parks through docu-

Gavin the LEGO Park Ranger has used this popular medium to lure LEGO’s cult-like following into celebrating and commemorating the weird and wonderful things found on National Parks and Monuments.

Chelsea gets the LEGO treatment as part of an Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project vignette!

A caveman wedding at the Oregon Cave National Monument

Underground History

Continued from previous page

Visiting the Old Man (a 450-year old

mentaries, virtual tours, and more, but first you have to know where you want to go. The LEGO Park Ranger can help with that.

Follow the LEGO Park Ranger on Instagram and Facebook @NPS LEGO Vignettes

Chelsea Rose is an historical archaeologist and director of the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA). She is a principal investigator in the award-winning Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project (OCDP) and is host of the award-winning Underground History podcast, a monthly radio segment on JPR's the Jefferson Exchange.

mountain hemlock log) in Crater Lake

The LEGO version of the hemlock log in Crater Lake.

JULIET GRABLE DOWN TO EARTH

Tribes Celebrate Release Of Hatchery-Bred Coho And Chinook Into Klamath River

This story was originally published April, 17 on www.ijpr.org

By the end of the week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife will have released 90,000 yearling coho as well as 400,000 Chinook salmon fry into the Klamath River.

Deconstruction of three dams on the Klamath River is just weeks away, and this Tuesday, a small crowd gathered just below Iron Gate dam to celebrate another milestone: the first release of threatened coho salmon since three massive reservoirs were drained in January.

A truck containing several thousand yearling fish idled quietly while representatives from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Quartz Valley Indian Tribe, Shasta Indian Nation, Karuk Tribe, and Yurok Tribe offered remarks.

“This is a great day,” said Arron “Troy” Hockaday, who serves on the Karuk Tribal Council. “It’s been a long time coming. I’m a fifth-generation fishermen; I started watching the decline of salmon in my early teens, in the 1980s.”

“We call this area K’íka·c’é·ki,” said Michael Olson, council member for the Shasta Indian Nation. “We’re here today to pray for the healing of that, and this river, and these fish. We need all three to be healthy for all of our people to be healthy.”

The fish were raised at nearby hatcheries; now they were about to begin their journey to the Pacific Ocean. CDFW staff backed the truck down the ramp and attached a large metal pipe to the back of the tank. Kenneth Brink, vice chairman for the Karuk Tribe, began to sing as fish poured through the pipe and into the river.

By the end of the week, the agency will have released 90,000 yearling coho as well as 400,000 Chinook salmon fry into the Klamath River. Conceivably, in several years some of these fish could return to newly accessible habitat above the dams to spawn. For many present, the fish represent hope, something positive to combat the poverty and epidemics of suicide, substance abuse, and murdered and missing indigenous people that have plagued Klamath River tribes since the taking of their lands and destruction of their ways of life.

“There was a time when I was a young man when my situation was hopeless; my elders and my grandparents were hopeless,” said Phillip Williams, who serves on the Yurok Tribal Council. Now, he said, “The tribe will be healing right alongside the river.”

The legacy of the dams

Just as the coho were being sent on their oceanward journey, excavators were working at the base of Iron Gate dam, removing the last remnants of the deconstructed Iron Gate fish

top: Arron “Troy” Hockaday documents the release of coho while Jeff Campbell, Fish Hatchery Manager at CDFW, makes sure all the fish make it out of the truck.

bottom: Operators use excavators to remove the remnants of a fish hatchery at the base of Iron Gate dam.

hatchery. The facility, which began operating in 1965, was one of several built to compensate for the loss of upriver spawning grounds when the dams were erected.

As part of the dam removal plan, a new hatchery has been built at nearby Fall Creek to replace the one at Iron Gate. CDFW decided to truck fish around Iron Gate dam following a debacle in late February, when they released 830,000 fall Chinook fry from the new hatchery into Fall Creek. The agency believes

Down To Earth

Continued from previous page

virtually all of the fish perished from “gas bubble disease”—a condition similar to “the bends”—after swimming through the pressurized, turbulent waters in the outlet tunnel at the base of Iron Gate dam.

The loss won’t affect overall goals, said Jason Roberts, environmental program manager at CDFW. Later this spring, the agency plans to release 1.75 million Chinook smolts, which are at least one year old.

PacifiCorp, the former owner of the Lower Klamath Project dams, will fund the Fall Creek hatchery for eight years. At that point, biologists will assess whether it should stay in service.

“I think everyone’s hope is that this river doesn’t need the hatchery in eight years, and that it’s thriving,” said Roberts.

Hatchery fish supplement wild populations and their numbers stay relatively constant, said Brett Kormos, environmental program manager at CDFW’s Coastal Fisheries Program. The Klamath River is “special,” Kormos added. “The vast majority of the fish in this river are natural origin fish, year over year. It’s mostly a naturally producing body of water, which is really different from how things are in the Central Valley and Sacramento River Basin these days.”

That’s not to say Klamath River salmon are healthy. Klamath River coho are federally listed as threatened, and Chinook runs are a fraction of what they once were. Salmon runs across the West are suffering from the cumulative effects of habitat loss, water withdrawals, and ocean warming associated with climate change. For the second year in a row, the Pacific Fishery Management Council recommended in mid-April that commercial and recreational fishing in California coastal waters be suspended.

Habitat loss, disease, river flows and temperatures have hurt Klamath River fish, said Kormos. The three former reservoirs behind the dams were like giant bathtubs; they heated and cooled slowly, creating unnatural temperature conditions on the river downstream.

“One of the immediate things we’re really encouraged to see is that the temperatures are responding in a more natural way that we’d expect to see with a river,” said Dan Chase, Director, Fisheries, Aquatics and Design at Resource Environmental Solutions, which is spearheading the restoration of the river. “We’re seeing earlier spring warming, which is good for fish.”

As was expected, an enormous pulse of built-up sediment released from behind the dams when the reservoirs were drawn down this January compromised water quality downstream. The river turned muddy and dissolved oxygen levels dipped. These spikes, though dramatic, have fallen within expected ranges, and water quality monitoring by Klamath River Renewal Corporation shows turbidity trending down. The Karuk Tribe has been inspecting fish in the main stem of the river and report that juvenile coho heading to the sea appear healthy and unaffected by the sediment load.

The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency on March 26, citing water sampling from the

Klamath River that showed levels of arsenic and lead above drinking water standards, and levels of several other heavy metals above the state’s “beneficial use” standard.

A new generation of stories

While they waited for more coho-bearing trucks to arrive, Hockaday, Williams, and Leaf Hillman, a Karuk tribal member, traded stories about the river, their families, and of course, fishing.

As Hockaday recollected, his grandmother described the river as narrower than it is today, with deep, cold pockets of water.

“The river used to freeze sometimes, and she’d go ice skating,” said Hockaday.

Willliams recalled that starting when he was about 12, his grandfather liked to take him fishing for lamprey. “I would eel all I wanted and he’d sit there the whole time,” said Williams. They used dip nets or eel baskets to catch them.

“We always used socks,” said Hillman, describing how he would wade out into the river with socks on his hands, then feel around on the bottom for the sinuous lamprey.

These are the kinds of stories the men hope their children’s children will be able to tell someday. In a few years, Hockaday wants to bring his young grandson—the seventh generation of fishermen in his tribe—to witness some of the fish released this week return to their spawning grounds. By then, Iron Gate and the other two remaining dams will also be part of the past.

Juliet Grable is a writer based in Southern Oregon and a regular contributor to JPR News. She writes about wild places and wild creatures, rural communities, and the built environment.

Phillip Williams, Arron “Troy” Hockaday, and Leaf Hillman share stories from times past as they celebrate the release of year-old coho salmon into the Klamath River.

PHOTO: JULIET GRABLE/JPR

DON MATTHEWS

Farewell

By now, you have probably heard that I will be retiring as the host of First Concert at the end of June. It has been an amazing experience for me to discover and share with you so much beautiful music that I was unfamiliar with and enlarge the catalog of classical music here at JPR.

When I first arrived at JPR in July 1998, I went into the music library feeling like a kid in a candy store. I trained as a musician and thought that I knew a lot of classical music but there were so many recordings, it was overwhelming. To begin with, I looked for what was familiar and programmed music by some of my favorites including Beethoven, Corelli, and Debussy among many others. After a few weeks, I started to expand a little with well-known names but sharing some of their less familiar pieces. You probably know Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” but did you know that he wrote cello sonatas? These sonatas are so warm and lyrical; I had not expected these lovely pieces from the composer of so many concertos.

I next started to look for composers that were unfamiliar to me like Baldassare Galuppi. A contemporary of Handel, Galuppi is mentioned in a poem by Robert Browning but had never heard his music. Both Handel and Galuppi made their living as opera composers and they share a gift for melody and expressing emotion. Galuppi’s Concerti à quattro soon became some of my favorite Baroque concertos.

Then, there was Josef Myslivecek, a contemporary of Mozart, whose life story sounds like an opera plot. Abandoning a mill that he had inherited in his native Bohemia, Myslivecek traveled to Italy and became a successful opera composer. The young Mozart met him when he went to Italy to obtain a position writing Italian opera, and Myslivecek was a mentor to the young man. Myslivecek’s music is full of the same wit and joie de vivre and provided part of the sound of what makes Mozart sound like Mozart.

Over the centuries, some music was overlooked because of racism or misogyny, and music written by Jewish composers was often dismissed or even suppressed as it was in the 1930s and 40s. This included not just music written in the early to mid-20th century, but also composers from previous centuries. One of those was Solomon Jadassohn, who was a contemporary of Brahms. When comparing these two, you can hear how they knew each other’s work, and witness a friendly conversation between the two, especially in each of their four symphonies.

As we entered the 21st century, I started to receive recordings by composers that had been overlooked for far too long, including women and composers of color. A good example is Caroline Shaw, whose name I first heard when she appeared on a TV show called “Mozart in the Jungle” and I was later given a recording of her music. At age 30, she became the youngest

recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and her compositions are a wonderful example of the conversation between the centuries. This was especially evident with her 2020 Grammy award-winning record “Orange”, which uses ideas and themes from Claudio Monteverdi and JS Bach.

Perhaps my favorite discovery was Florence Price, an African American woman who wrote a lot of music. Most of her music beyond a few titles was thought to be lost, but in 2009, a house in the suburbs of Chicago where she lived was scheduled for renovation. The couple who purchased the property discov-

For over 25 years, Classical Music Director Don Matthews has enjoyed sharing classical music with JPR listeners.

ered boxes and boxes of music written by Price that had never been published or performed. She is someone who took the advice of Antonin Dvorák: a generation earlier he noted that to write real American classical music, composers should look to music derived from African American and Indigenous sources. He used material that he heard while he was in the US to create his “New World Symphony” and she carried on that custom by expanding and using ideas from African sources.

It is this aspect of expanding the conversation between these other voices that has been a large part of why I have enjoyed my work at JPR as the host of First Concert. Including these artists alongside of the compositions of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms gives me hope that Classical Music will continue to be relevant well into the future.

So, as I conclude my tenure here at JPR, I thought about opening up the conversation with you about your discoveries as we have listened together over many years. During the month of May, feel free to email me at matthewd@sou.edu with your music discoveries and tell me a little about what they meant to you. They could be pieces by composers that you thought you knew or perhaps music by someone that you never heard before. In June, I will play as many of those pieces that I can and with your permission, share your stories. I can’t imagine a more joyous celebration of the time we have shared to together exploring the world of great classical music.

A Nature Notes Sampler II is a broad collection of radio com mentaries based on Dr. Frank Lang’s popular series that aired on JPR since the publication of the first volume in the year 2000. This collection of es says offers Dr. Lang’s same eclectic, often humorous view of the natural world in the mythical State of Jefferson and beyond. Over 100 of Dr. Lang’s commentaries have been collected in this second vol ume. Make it your first collection of Nature Notes, or add it to the original publication for a complete set!

Order A Nature Notes Sampler II for $19.95 postpaid.

Where There’s A Will There’s A Way! Our Gift To You...

JPR now offers a free online tool that enables you to create a legally valid will, completely free of cost.

This tool is for individuals who want to proactively manage their financial future, take care of loved ones, and have an opportunity to contribute to community organizations that reflect their lifelong values. The platform makes it easy to put your intentions and priorities on paper... and all it takes is about 20 minutes of your time (and no obligation to contribute to JPR).

Go to iJPR.org/make-a-bequest to learn more, and get started today!

MILK STREET

CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL

Turkish-style Flaky Flatbreads

We tried katmer, a flaky, unleavened flatbread sometimes sweetened with sugar, tahini and/or nuts, during a recent trip to Turkey. The bread’s thin profile, tender texture and goldenbrown spots were reminiscent of lavash, but it boasted buttery-rich layers that lighten it considerably and made it especially delicious. A series of rolls and folds, with butter and oil brushed in between, create the dough’s signature flakiness. When the katmer hits a hot griddle or skillet, its layers steam apart. The folded dough packets can be made up to 24 hours in advance, then covered and refrigerated; there’s no need to let them come to room temperature before the final roll. Serve the finished breads warm or at room temperature with meze or as a part of a meal. The sweet version below is great for breakfast or as an accompaniment to coffee or tea.

Don’t shortcut the resting times for the dough. Without sufficient resting between steps, it will be difficult to roll the dough thinly without it springing back. Make sure to get the cast-iron skillet very hot before adding each flatbread, otherwise it won’t puffup.

MAKES 8 10-INCH FLATBREADS

1 HOUR PLUS RESTING AND REFRIGERATION

Ingredients

650 grams (5 cups) all-purpose flour, plus more if needed andx fordusting

1 teaspoon table salt

85 grams (6 tablespoons) salted butter, melted and slightly cooled

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

1. In a stand mixer with the dough hook, mix the flour and salt on low to combine, about 5 seconds. With the mixer on low, slowly add 1¾ cups water. Knead until the dough is smooth and clears the sides of the bowl, about 5 minutes. If the dough sticks to the bowl after 5 minutes, knead in up to 2 tablespoons more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it clears the sides.

2. Lightly flour the counter and turn the dough out onto it. Using a bench knife, divide the dough into 8 even pieces. Form each into a taut ball by rolling it against the counter in a circular motion under a cupped hand. Space the balls about 1 inch apart on a lightly floured surface, then cover with a kitchen towel; let rest for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, stir together the butter and oil.

3. Set 1 dough ball on a lightly floured surface and, using a rolling pin, roll it into a rough 11-inch square of even thickness, dusting with flour as needed. Lightly brush the surface of the dough with about 4 teaspoons of the butter-oil

mixture. Fold the top third of the dough down over itself, then fold the bottom third up; press gently to seal. Lightly brush the surface with about 1 teaspoon of the butter-oil mixture. Fold the strip into thirds, forming a small, squarish packet; press gently to seal. Dust the surface of the packet with flour, then transfer it to a large plate; repeat with the remaining dough balls, keeping the packets in a single layer. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 24 hours. Meanwhile, cut eight 12-inch squares of kitchen parchment; set aside.

4. When ready to cook, lightly flour the counter. Set 1 packet on the lightly floured surface and, using a rolling pin, roll it into a 10-inch square of even thickness, dusting with flour as needed. Lightly flour a parchment square and set the dough square on top. Repeat with the remaining dough packets, stacking the dough squares on top of each other, separated by parchment.

5. Heat a 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium-high until water flicked onto the surface immediately sizzles. Pick up a dough square by 2 corners, peel it off the parchment and lay it in the skillet, taking care not to let the dough fold over itself. Cook until bubbles form and the bottom is spottily browned, 1 to 2 minutes. Using tongs, flip and cook until the second side is golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Cook for about another minute, flipping as needed, until lightly puffed and browned all over. Transfer to a wire rack and cover with a kitchen towel. Cook the remaining dough in the same way. Wipe out the pan if excess flour begins to build up and smoke, and adjust the heat as needed. Serve warm or at room temperature.

6. Turkish-Style Flaky Flatbreads with Sweet Spiced Tahini - Follow the recipe to make and divide the dough. While the dough balls rest, in a medium bowl, whisk together 90 grams (6 tablespoons) tahini, 85 grams (6 tablespoons) salted butter (melted and slightly cooled), 80 grams (6 tablespoons) white sugar, 2 teaspoons ground coriander and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon.

Continue with the recipe, using the tahini mixture in place of the butter-oil mixture.

POETRY

SUE COGLEY AND CAL KENNEY

Mirage in Three-Quarter Time

Walkin’ to town the other day I see this tree. Just an ordinary tree, mind you, a run-of-the-mill, green needled, rough barked, smellin’ of sap kinda tree. All of a sudden this tree starts to sway. I look away, then sneak a quick glance. Still swayin’.

I go up real close. “What do you think you’re doin’?” I ask. “Would you like this dance?” the tree replies. Hell, I don’t know what to say, so I step in and hold out my arms. Hand to limb we waltz, stepping in time to the sweet sounding, fast moving, syncopated rhythm of a mockingbird tangled with the wind.

— Sue Cogley

Sue Cogley has lived in various Oregon locations over 30 years—Poe Valley, Malin, Bonanza, and now Klamath Falls. She started writing poetry after her first husband’s death in 1991 and is also an artist working in watercolor and oil paints.

From Cal Kenney: “In the early ’80s I was a Peace Corps volunteer for two years on the island of St. Vincent in the Eastern Caribbean. These 24 months exemplified goals many of us strive for in life: community, health, beauty, projects, sharing, travel, culture, love, accomplishments … and, need I forget, fun.”

Caboose

end of line story caboose in America usually red swept aside by technology wave goodbye stranded at a crossing sight of caboose compensation the warm glow of humanity light inside most with a cupola above and center of car conductor watched length of moving train for problems detail eye when halted brakeman’s job walk down cars checking hoses at end signal tooting horn or swinging lantern climbs aboard

office with work table warm inside caboose confines dirty sheeted bunks cooked meals on attached special stove rock and roll

called way, van or carry cars “caboose” derived from Dutch word Kambuis, meaning: cabin house or ship’s gallery. monkey cars for those to remember dot landscape unlikely places was a man’s gig poetic justice testament change of times

end of line story caboose in America usually red swept aside by technology wave good-bye

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 self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Amy Miller, Poetry Editor Jefferson Journal

1250 Siskiyou Blvd Please allow eight Ashland, OR 97520 weeks for reply.

— Cal Kenney

The Cascade Theatre is celebrating our 20th Anniversary along with the McConnell Foundation’s 20th Anniversary of the Sundial Bridge. Join us at the theater for the documentary “Angle of Inspiration” detailing the creation and construction of the bridge, on June 30th, 2024.

These two iconic attractions bring thousands of visitors to Redding each year and represent enduring creativity in Northern California.

Come celebrate with us!

See cascadetheatre.org for more tickets and show times and for all our upcoming events.

Thank you for supporting the arts in Redding all these years!