Spring Cleaning for the Week

[April 2nd, 2008]

• The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is shutting down a 50-year-old dump on the Tualatin River. The DEQ issued a final order Tuesday telling Lakeside Reclamation Landfill (“Grapes of Trash,” WW, July 18, 2007) to stop accepting garbage by July 1, 2009. The DEQ also orders landfill owner Howard Grabhorn to improve health and safety procedures, and expand monitoring of groundwater and landfill gases. Grabhorn spokesman Larry Harvey says the goal is to close the dump eventually, but Grabhorn may appeal DEQ’s decision so the closure can happen safely.

• Portland Public Schools may be stingy with its custodians, who faced threats of outsourcing and slashed wages during recent contract negotiations. But if you’re PPS lobbyist Justin Martin , you get $4,500 a month from the school district for less than full-time work. For the fourth time, the School Board voted Monday night to extend the district’s contract for a year with Martin, who also represents the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde and other organizations. By comparison, the Beaverton School District no longer employs a lobbyist, but paid about $2,000 a month when it did. Martin, who used to get $8,000 a month from PPS, attends hearings in Salem and helps craft the district’s legislative agenda.

• Some residents along the west side of the Willamette are squawking that Pacific Power should fulfill its promise to restore a nest on a utility pole for a mating pair of osprey . The utility company capped the 100-foot-tall pole last year out of concern the birds might be electrocuted. The company promised a replacement by the ospreys’ nesting season from March through August. “We were told an alternative platform was going to be put in place,” says one resident, Roger Goldingay. Pacific Power now expects to replace the nests next year. And local enviros Mike Houck and Bob Sallinger say the ospreys have already found a new site on a South Waterfront crane , and that waiting is better for the birds’ safety.

• Tea time invades coffee hour: Kristian Foden-Vencil—Portland’s most aurally recognizable Brit expat journo—is taking over April Baer’s job as host of Morning Edition on Oregon Public Broadcasting starting the week of April 7. According to OPB’s vice prez for news, Morgan Holm, Baer will be picking up the slack on the political beat. In January, veteran OPB political reporter Colin Fogarty left for Pyramid Communications, a PR firm.

• The Portland Trail Blazers—with their hotel-to-arena buses and electricity-gobbling Rose Garden—may seem the antithesis of green-friendly. But the franchise will take a baby step toward acknowledging its big ol’ carbon footprint this Thursday, April 3, by hosting a “Green Awareness Game” against Houston for Earth Month (it’s a whole month now?). Reps from various city and state agencies and companies are planning promos, and Blazer forward Channing Frye will be the evening’s tree-huggin’ spokesman. Nice. But the New Jersey Nets played the league’s first carbon-neutral game this Tuesday (they bought hybrid truckloads of carbon credits), and their initiatives (see netsgogreen.com for more info) make Portland look like...well, New Jersey.