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DECEMBER 23, 2011
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SPILLWAY MODIFICATION
PRAY FOR SNOW, BUT BE PATIENT • Despite La Niña, a ‘completely unusual’ December could be one of the driest on record
Ryan Brennecke / The Bulletin
A pedestrian walks across the Colorado Avenue footbridge Thursday morning. The Bend park district’s plan to turn the spillway into a recreation site includes replacing the footbridge to provide more clearance. That cost alone is estimated at $1.65 million to $1.87 million.
Colorado dam project costs will double — or even triple By Nick Grube The Bulletin
Changing the Colorado Avenue dam spillway from a potential hazard into a recreational draw will cost at least twice as much as expected. For the past couple of years, the Bend Park & Recreation District has been working on a plan to alter the spillway to allow floaters and kayakers to maneuver downstream without having to portage around the dam. A major component of the project is to improve safety on the Deschutes River. Spillway rescues have become an annual occurrence, and in 2006, a Keizer woman died there. The spillway modifications include dividing the river into three parallel segments: One for a whitewater play area, another for wildlife habitat and a third for a lazy-river-like passage past the dam. Estimates for such an undertaking were initially placed at $1.7 million, but now that the district has a deeper understanding of the project that figure has risen to $3.5 million to $4.9 million. “We’ve done more detailed engineering work,” Park District Project Manager Robin Laughlin said. “That’s the driving force behind those increases.” See Spillway / A5
Group resists tax drop for wealthy Oregonians By Jonathan J. Cooper The Associated Press
SALEM — Wealthy Oregonians will get a bit of a break on their taxes next year, and a left-leaning interest group says it will fight the automatic cut included in a voter-approved tax measure. Our Oregon, which is backed largely by unions, says the Legislature shouldn’t allow the top tax rates to drop when schools have to cram more students into classrooms and lawmakers are pondering more cuts to help programs. But the idea is unlikely to go far in Salem, where it would In Local require approval from a su• Panel will rule permajority of lawmakers. on hiring freeze The tax drop was built into exemptions, C3 Measure 66, the hotly contested referendum that raised taxes on people making at least $125,000. Starting next year, top tax rates will be lower than they are this year, but still higher than they were before Measure 66 was enacted. “We’re going to be making sure that Oregonians know that the richest 2 percent are getting a pretty massive tax cut and that they should call on the Legislature to fix that,” said Scott Moore, a spokesman for Our Oregon. See Measure 66 / A4
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By Dylan J. Darling
Christmas and New Year’s Eve, this month could be one of the
• No snow in a month, but tourism businesses find clever ways to weather the drought
driest Decembers on record.
By Scott Hammers
The Bulletin
E
ven if rain or snow falls on Bend as predicted between
The Bulletin
“This is completely unusual right now,” said Kathie Dello, deputy
director of the Oregon Climate Service in Corvallis. Unusual could be the best way to describe this month around the state. So far Portland has had less rain than Tucson, Ariz.; fogsocked Corvallis has been as cold as Buffalo, N.Y.; and Central Oregon has had less precipitation than what fell in July, according to the Oregon Climate Service. The service is the state’s repository for climate information at Oregon State University. Bend’s driest December came in 1976, when rare drought conditions during the winter left the city with no recorded rain or snowfall. Twelve years earlier, in
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Inside • Comparing 2010, 2011 fall temperatures in Bend, A4
1964, a record 8.74 inches of precipitation fell. The average high temperature in Bend this month has been close to 46 degrees, about 6 degrees more
than a typical December, according to National Weather Service data collected at the Bend public works buildings near Pilot Butte. The dry spell has been particularly surprising because it’s happening during what those in the weather world call a La Niña event, Dello said. During a La Niña, colder-than-average ocean temperatures in the Pacific Ocean around the Equator cause storm tracks across North America to shift over the Northwest. Typically that means more snow and rain than normal. See Weather / A4
A slow start to the winter has businesses dependent on snow-related tourism looking ahead, with stormier weather and the traditional start of the holiday tourist crush both just days away. There’s been no significant snow at Mt. Bachelor since the late November storm that allowed the resort to open in time for Thanksgiving. Snowpack at the base has been stuck on 31 inches since early December, said spokesman Andy Goggins, leading to a few discussions about setting up a webcam on the stake where snow is measured. Some who watch conditions at the mountain closely are having a hard time believing the base is neither growing nor shrinking. “We’ve had a few people ask us, ‘That can’t be right, it’s been at the same place for three weeks,’ ” Goggins said. Goggins said Mt. Bachelor’s snowpack is in better shape than several resorts in California, and the resort has seen a good number of out-of-state skiers and snowboarders. See Snow / A4
Ivy League is using financial aid to lure elite athletes By Bill Pennington New York Times News Service
The eight Ivy League colleges, renowned for their academics, were also once among the country’s highest-achieving athletic institutions, with national champions and multiple prominent and ranked sports teams. But that was 70 or 80 years ago, right?
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Andy Tullis / The Bulletin
On vacation in Central Oregon, Jon Bowser of Bozeman, Mont., left, and Amy Dethlefs of Anchorage, Alaska, walk across dirt to get to the snowpack before cross-country skiing at Virginia Meissner Sno-park on Thursday. “It looks a lot lower than last time I was here,” Dethlefs said. The last measurable precipitation fell in Bend on Nov. 23, but a slight chance of rain and snow is forecast for Christmas Day.
This month, the Harvard men’s basketball team, which has played the sport for more than a century, was ranked in the nation’s top 25 for the first time. For two months last season, the Yale men’s ice hockey team was No. 1 in the country. Cornell’s wrestling team was No. 1 throughout the same winter, one year after the
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Cornell men’s basketball team advanced to the final 16 of the NCAA tournament. In the last two years, the Ivy League has produced 108 firstteam all-Americans and won numerous individual national championships. Nineteen of its athletes competed at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and 10 won medals.
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This renaissance in a league known as the Ancient Eight can be traced to something that has nothing to do with sports. Coaches and athletic administrators said new policies have substantially enhanced financial aid for all admitted students, making it easier to recruit elite athletes. See Ivy League / A4
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