Project2:Layout 1
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
2/21/12
3:24 PM
SWIMMING: St. Helens is sending its 400-yard freestyle relay team to the 2014 state meet, Page A13 Page 1
TODAY’S WEATHER Showers Highs to 45 Page A14 Lows to 38
The Chronicle
$1.00 Vol. 132, No. 8 16 Pages
www.thechronicleonline.com
Permits seen as a win by both sides DEQ issues three permits for Ambre Energy’s Morrow Pacific project BY SHARI PHIEL news@thechronicleonline.com
Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality announced last week it issued three permits for Ambre Energy’s Morrow Pacific project and, interestingly enough, both the company and its opponents are counting it a win. The permits issued by DEQ are for air quality, water quality and construction stormwater for the proposed Coyote Island Terminal in Boardman. According to the state agency, it issued the three permits because “as proposed, they comply with all relevant environmental rules and regulations.” DEQ also noted the permits went through a rigorous internal review and an extensive public process involving more than 16,500 public comments. “As we’ve said all along, we are committed to meeting the high environmental standards set by the state of Oregon. By issuing these three permits after a rigorous process, the Department of Environmental Quality has affirmed that the project complies with environmental rules and regulations of the state of Oregon,” said Morrow Pacific CEO Clark Moseley. Ambre proposed the Morrow Pacific project in early 2012 with the goal of eventually shipping more than 8 million metric tons of coal annually from the Powder River basin in Wyoming and Montana to the Coyote Island Terminal in Boardman. There, the coal would be transferred to storage containers before being loaded See PERMITS, Page A8
INSIDE Classified Ads . . . A11-12 Legal Notices . . . . . . . A12 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . A6 Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . A7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . A13-15 TV Guide . . . . . . . . . . A10 Weather . . . . . . . . . . . A14
SHARI PHIEL / The Chronicle The City of St. Helens has signed an agreement with Boise Cascade to purchase the 17-acre riverfront parcel that once house the company’s veneer plant. What the city hopes to do with the property is still being decided.
St. Helens to buy Boise land ST. HELENS — Since Boise began shuttering its operations in 2008, the City of St. Helens has been in talks with the company to purchase some of its nowempty properties. The city moved a step closer this month when it signed an agreement to purchase the 17-acre waterfront property that once housed Boise
Cascade’s veneer plant. Since discussions to purchase the property began, there have been a number of ideas put forward about what could be done with the property. Ideas have included building a riverfront park with bicycle and walking paths, placement of a dock so river boat cruises like the Portland Spirit could let
passengers off for shopping trips in Olde Towne, or possibly a scenic drive from U.S. Highway 30 to the south side of the city. The agreement reached in early February between Boise and the city only confirms the intent of each to complete the sale, it does not constitute the sale itself. That will come later, as will
the purchase price for the property. City Manager John Walsh said they are not disclosing the purchase price for the property, which Boise believes to be under market value, at Boise’s request. Walsh also said funding for the purchase will come from harvesting 40 acres of 70-year-old
timber on its Salmonberry Lake property. City officials held an all-day workshop and tour of the Boise properties on Tuesday, Feb. 18 to look at not only the future of the veneer plant property but also other properties in negotiation. Those negotia
See BOISE, Page A8
Keeping the Faith: New pastor tends to local congregation BY SHARI PHIEL news@thechronicleonline.com
Courtesy photo Diana Vishneva performs Dove of Peace at the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics wearing a costume designed by Scappoose’s Michael Curry Design.
Curry adds color to Sochi’s Olympic opening ceremony BY KYLE BOGGS sports@thechronicleonline.com
Few events capture a global audience the same way the opening ceremony of the Olympics is able to. Since the inception of the Olympics, the games have started and finished with some sort of festival. Lately, the spectacle seems only to be growing in grandeur. This year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia was no exception. One of the leading creative forces helping create the festive atmosphere was none other than Scappoose’s own Michael Curry Design. Curry sent a team of three to Sochi. Amy Nevitt of St. Helens, Jarred Kearsley, a St. Helens High School graduate, and Harlan Whitman of Portland all spent two and a half months
in Sochi preparing for the opening ceremonies. They were three of more than 12,000 people that came together to help pull off the 45-minute long production that served as the official opening of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Among those thousands of people who helped make this show happen, several of them were what Kearsley deemed the best of the best. “I’ve done other shows, but this is the first time I’ve really experienced the Michael Jordans of theatre. They’re really good,” he said. Curry is one of those at the top of the game. He spent more than two years coming up with plans for the opening ceremony. “He had a huge impact on the design of the show and parts of the show,” Kearsley said.
There were two main areas Curry’s crew was tasked with handling: The boyars that formed together to create the fins on the very colorful whale that marched across the stadium floor, and the light-up strands that twirled from dancers heads as they spun around and collectively formed a dove. The view the three locals had of the opening ceremonies was different than what viewers in the United States saw. Rather than overhead camera angles, wide shots of the dancing or close-up shots of acrobats, Kearsley was stationed at ground level on one end of the stadium. That means that what he helped create, he still hasn’t seen the way the show’s producers intended it to be seen – other than watching on screens in the See CURRY, Page A8
For the past two months, parishioners at Plymouth Presbyterian Church have had a new voice delivering the Sunday sermon from the pulpit. Pastor David Hutchinson joined the church on Dec. 15, replacing Marilyn Allen who served as pastor for nearly two decades. Hutchinson himself has been a pastor for the past 22 years, serving primarily at two churches in Portland. With his previous work, he spent much of time focused on administrative responsibilities, something very different from his role in St. Helens. “It was a very programmatic job, very administrative. I liked it and I did a lot of good things there and left on good terms but it was time to do something different,” he said. “I was looking for a whole different thing and this is a whole different thing. It’s apples and oranges. It really isn’t even the same job.” Originally hailing from the heartland (he was born in Minneapolis, Minn., and raised in Iowa) Hutchinson arrived in Portland in 1995. There he served as pastor of a church with around 100 members, much the same size as Plymouth Presbyterian. He stayed there for 7 ½ years before moving on
to become Associate Pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church, also in Portland. “I was at Westminster in Portland for 11 years. That’s about a 700-member church with 12 staff and four pastors,” he said. “My main focus was planning the education program for adults, doing outreach to new members, working with youth and children program directors, that kind of thing.” Along with his role at Westminster, Hutchinson also began teaching at the University of Portland. “It was really too much to do my job at Westminster and do the teaching. I planned adult education for 30 to 100 people each week – so I had as many people showing up for adult education as we do for the whole congregation. It was a big job but I loved it,” Hutchinson said. “I like the teaching aspect of it but I was doing a lot of the programmatic, administrative stuff and I wanted to get back to preaching.” Hutchinson says he was mulling over an offer to take on more teaching jobs with the university, but wasn’t sure he wanted to continue his work at Westminster. “I was thinking about it and then I heard about Plymouth. I had known Marilyn, who was here for 17 years, and I liked her. Other people had told me about Plymouth, See PASTOR, Page A3