January 2, 2002

Environmental Watch: Hot year underscores climate challenges

PORTLAND -- Citing a report indicating that 2001 will go down as the second warmest year on record, Northwest Climate Response is reiterating calls for the reduction of pollution emissions in the Northwest.

"This trend threatens our forests, salmon and mountain snowpack on which our water supplies depend," said John Young, director of Northwest Climate Response.

Paul Horton of Climate Solutions says while the Northwest is already a leader in the fight against global warming more can be done. He also notes the burgeoning clean energy industry could be an economic powerhouse for the region in the years to come.

"The Northwest is already leading a clean energy revolution. We have a chance to help save the climate and in the process build ourselves a major new industry," Horton said.

A market analysis developed by regional utilities in November estimated the value of the clean energy market at $3.5 trillion, potentially creating 32,000 jobs, over the next two decades.

Climate Solutions is a member group of Northwest Climate Response, a regional organization with over 45 member groups working to reduce global warming pollution.

Salem launching environment commission

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Salem is about to become the only city in Oregon with a commission dedicated entirely to protecting urban natural resources when its new Environmental Commission begins meeting in 2002, officials say.

Several other cities in Oregon have boards that review various environmental policies, such as the Corvallis Open Space Advisory Commission and Albany's Tree Commission.

But research by Salem city officials turned up no others in the state with a group that oversees all aspects of a city's environmental impact.

The Salem Environmental Commission, approved by the City Council, has yet to choose its nine members.

Mayor Mike Swaim, who suggested the commission, said it will give the city a way to consolidate environmental protection efforts.

"We've got scattered efforts at protecting the environment," Swaim said. "We need to get ahead of the curve."

Swaim and Peter Gutowsky, the city staffer who will oversee the commission, have a list of issues to tackle, including green building, waste management and recycling.

The commission also may investigate the city's top 25 contractors from the past year to see if any have broken environmental laws.

The effort is modeled after similar commissions in cities such as Berkeley, Calif., and Highland Park, Ill., which have impressive lists of accomplishments. Berkeley, for example, created some of the first laws against chemicals that deplete the ozone layer.

Salmon hatchery on eBay

KOTZEBUE, Alaska (AP) -- Web surfers cruising eBay, the giant online auction site, now can bid serious money on a fish hatchery on the Noatak River.

The 150-acre property, owned by Theodore Booth Sr. of Noatak and Kotzebue, is described on the Web site as highly suitable for development as a hunting and fishing lodge, an eco-tourism retreat, or for a water bottling enterprise.

Bidding starts at $2 million.

"We took it on eBay to give it exposure," said Lee Stoops, director of economic development for the Northwest Arctic Borough. "We paid $100 to put it on eBay, which was a grant to Mr. Booth. That's the extent of our assistance to him, and hopefully, it will help find a buyer, or perhaps somebody wanting to lease the property."

Booth is selling 150 acres and keeping 10 for himself.

The property was leased by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the mid-1980s for a salmon hatchery. The state spent $10 million on improvements, ran the hatchery for a dozen years, and closed it. The property, with the improvements, then reverted to Booth. The property includes a 40,000-gallon tank farm, a modern three-bedroom home, running water and a road to the nearby spring.

Stoops says it was an expensive venture for the state. He looked over the financial records of the state investment and operating expenses, then divided all that by the number of returning fish.

"I came up with $50 per fish," Stoops told the Arctic Sounder.

During the recent commercial chum season, fish in Kotzebue were selling for around $2 each.

The eBay posting has attracted attention. "We get people who want to come and look at it," Stoops said.

The eBay item number is 1670756161.

Second Klamath power plant on fast track

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) -- State officials are expediting a proposal to build a second gas-fired power plant next to one completed earlier this year by the city and PacifiCorp Power Marketing Inc.

PacifiCorp Power Marketing wants to build a 500-megawatt power plant in Klamath Falls, near the Klamath Cogeneration Plant, a 500-megawatt plant that began operation last summer.

Earlier this month, the company asked the state Office of Energy to hurry the review of its application. The energy office and a citizen board -- the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council -- regulate large energy projects in the state.

Under the proposal, PacifiCorp Power Marketing would build, own and operate the proposed plant without the involvement of the city, said David Stewart-Smith, administrator of the Office of Energy's energy resources division.

Nearby gas pipelines and power transmission lines attracted the first power plant to the area. Stewart-Smith said PacifiCorp has a lease deal with Collins Products LLC to build the plant on industrial land where the wood products company had stored wood chips and equipment.

This is the second new power plant to be proposed in the region recently. Last month, Chicago-based Peoples Energy proposed a gas-fired generating plant near Bonanza.

PacifiCorp's proposed plant would have two gas-fired turbines and one or two turbines powered by steam generated from waste heat from the gas-fired turbines.

Stewart-Smith said that because the proposed plant site is adjacent to an existing power plant and on land already zoned for industrial use, the application qualifies for an expedited review.

A regular review takes, on average, about nine months and an expedited review takes about six months, he said. If a permit is issued, a developer has two years to start construction, although the company can seek amendments to extend that time frame.

Security system for Klamath water

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) -- A new security fence, video cameras and motion detectors are taking the place of federal police guarding the headgates of the Klamath Reclamation Project irrigation system.

The $90,000 security system was completed last week around the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation structure that became the center of protests last summer over restricting irrigation water to farms to conserve water for threatened and endangered fish, spokesman Dave Jones said Monday.

The security system went up after protesters met with authorities the day after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and said they would pull out to allow the federal government to concentrate on fighting terrorism.

The bureau spent about $750,000 guarding the headgates from July 14 through Sept. 26, when federal police left the site.

"We are hoping for a very peaceful new year," said Jones. "The snowpack building up in the Siskiyous and the area there gives us every hope this will not be another contentious year, that we have enough water to meet both the environmental obligations we have as well as our longstanding relations with the farmers who depend on that water."

Due to last winter's drought, there was not enough water to supply farmers after meeting Endangered Species Act requirements for endangered suckers in Upper Klamath Lake, the project's primary reservoir, and threatened coho salmon in Klamath River, which drains the region.