Monday Mailing - November 10, 2020

RARE Monday Mailing Year 27 | Issue 08 09 November 2020 1.

Quote of the Week:

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“The transformational power of love is the foundation for all meaningful social change.”

- bell hooks

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Bonanza Solar Project Faces Local Opposition (Lydia Ivanovic) Northwest Co-op Builds for a Local Food Future Beyond Big Ag Research: Food Insecurity Is Worse for Rural Residents During the Pandemic Opening Doors: Land Banks and Community Land Trusts Partner to Unlock Affordable Housing Opportunities Washington State Tribes, Utility Consider Old Dam’s Removal (Katie McFall) 2 Rural Oregon Counties Vote to Consider Joining Idaho; Move Oregon’s Border Dream Remains Long Shot Matt Meyers: ‘That’s the Epitome of Rural Oregon’ Nez Perce Tribe Invests in Lodge Conservation Easement Fires, Pandemic Rapidly Changing the Jackson Co. Housing Crisis Designing for Dementia

Bonanza Solar Project Faces Local Opposition

Herald and News A solar energy project may be coming to Langell Valley, but some of its potential neighbors aren’t so sunny about the prospect.

Oregon Fast Fact Oregon’s comprehensive plan requirements stem from Senate Bill 100, signed in 1973. Passage of this bill is largely attributed to a Linn County dairy farmer concerned about the suburbanization of the Willamette Valley.

More info.

Hecate Energy LLC hopes to take advantage of the Klamath Basin’s 300-plus days of sun per year by constructing the Bonanza Energy Facility. Rows of photovoltaic panels spanning up to 1,851 acres would convert sunlight into electrical energy, which would be sent via transmission line to the Captain Jack Substation north of Malin. From there it would enter the California-Oregon Intertie, an electricity superhighway that transports power between California and the Pacific Northwest. Utilities like Pacific Power and Portland General Electric would have the ability to purchase the electricity through energy markets.

The facility would generate between 150 and 300 megawatts of carbon-free power, and an accompanying battery system RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 1 of 5

housed in 11 separate buildings could store up to 1,100 megawatts of energy to make up for Klamath County’s rare cloudy days.

Read the full story.

2. Northwest Co-op Builds for a Local Food Future Beyond Big Ag High Country News Just over a year ago, on a brisk late September day in Spokane, Washington, two mediumsized cargo trucks backed up to the open garage door of a small warehouse in an alley behind a carpet store and a used-car dealer. Inside the warehouse, a forklift beeped incessantly as its operator stacked pallets of cardboard boxes full of meat, cheese and produce onto the trucks’ lowered loading gates.

A farmer drove up in a faded red minivan. He unloaded bags and boxes of crisp red, orange and yellow bell peppers and tomatoes as big as softballs, the last in a procession of morning deliveries from farmers to the warehouse of the Local Inland Northwest Cooperative, or LINC Foods. The co-op is a marketplace, an online and physical hub where restaurants, schools, grocery stores, hospitals and individual shoppers can order produce and other food from small farmers in the region instead of relying on huge wholesalers.

Read the full story.

3. Research: Food Insecurity Is Worse for Rural Residents During the Pandemic Daily Yonder Rural areas make up a disproportionate share of the counties where residents have high levels of food insecurity, according to a national hunger-relief organization.

Research from Feeding America shows that while 63% of the counties in the U.S. are rural, 87% of those counties had the highest rates of overall food insecurity.

“People who live in rural areas often face hunger at higher rates, in part because of the unique challenges living remotely presents,” wrote Feeding America. “These challenges include an increased likelihood of food deserts with the nearest food pantry or food bank potentially hours away, job opportunities that are more concentrated in low-wage industries, and higher rates of unemployment and underemployment.”

Read the full story.

4. Opening Doors: Land Banks and Community Land Trusts Partner to Unlock Affordable Housing Opportunities Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Earlier this year, Kizzy Jefferson closed on her first house. The newly finished threebedroom, two-bathroom residence in Acre Homes, a historically Black neighborhood in Northwest Houston, sold for $75,000, less than a third of the city’s median single-family home price of $250,000. Long considered an unusually affordable city, Houston RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 2 of 5

has experienced the same soaring property values in recent years as many other metropolitan areas in the United States. In the past decade, median home prices in the city have increased by 67 percent, while income has increased by only 20 percent.

“It takes two to three incomes to afford most houses,” said Jefferson, a Houston native and single parent who works in the healthcare industry. As a veteran, Jefferson had tried for years to get a VA-backed loan to buy a house in her hometown. Last fall, she was walking out of her local library and saw a flier for the Houston Community Land Trust (HCLT). She attended an informational meeting in January, and by the beginning of April she had become a homeowner.

Read the full story.

5. Washington State Tribes, Utility Consider Old Dam’s Removal Oregon Public Broadcast Tribal leaders in northern Washington state have announced an effort to determine the feasibility and costs associated with removal of a dam that has not generated electricity since 1958.

The Enloe Dam, built 100 years ago, blocks fish from reaching the Similkameen River and is of no use to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation wanting to bring salmon back to the river, The Seattle Times reported.

“It’s got to go,” tribal business council Chair Rodney Cawston said, as he watched the river cascade over the 54-foot (16-meter) dam. “Our people have lived off salmon for thousands of years. This is of just huge importance to us.”

Read the full story.

6. 2 Rural Oregon Counties Vote to Consider Joining Idaho; Move Oregon’s Border Dream Remains Long Shot The Oregonian Voters in Union and Jefferson counties say they want their slice of Oregon to become part of Idaho.

To be more precise, a majority of residents who cast ballots in those rural counties decided to require that their county commissioners hold meetings about relocating the border.

In Jefferson County, 5,655 residents -- 51.02% -- voted for the measure. In Union, 7,401 -52.42% -- supported it.

The measure also was on the ballot in Wallowa County but fell just short, with 2,429 (49.53%) voting yes and 2,475 (50.47%) voting no.

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Read the full story.

7. Matt Meyers: ‘That’s the Epitome of Rural Oregon’ Capital Press In Molalla, Ore., where most of the residents are affiliated with the timber industry in some way, word that there’s a fire on the hill brings out every able body with a truck, water tank or chainsaw.

“At a point it got really dangerous because we just had people driving all over trying to put stuff out,” Matt Meyers said, “I was put in charge of a check-in and dispatch station at our base in order to screen people and use them effectively. There were plenty of locations for them; this was a big chunk of fire.”

From his vantage point on Elk Prairie, Meyers, a utility worker with a logging background, had a bird’s-eye view of the Beachie Creek Fire as it traveled some 14 miles in a day. Even scarier was the night they drove to the end of the road to determine which hot spot to attack the next morning.

Read the full story.

8. Nez Perce Tribe Invests in Lodge Conservation Easement The Observer A long-held dream of reintroducing sockeye salmon to Wallowa Lake is one step closer for the Nez Perce Tribe.

The tribe secured a conservation easement in October on the 9.22 acres at the head of the lake and along the Wallowa River owned by Wallowa Lake Lodge LLC. “The main reason we have wanted this easement is for protection of the inlet for sockeye salmon and protecting the waters and the habitat around that area expressly for sockeye reintroduction and for the fisheries,” said Shannon Wheeler, Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee chair. “The other reason — it’s a place that’s very meaningful to the tribe.”

The conservation easement covers all 9.22 acres of the lodge grounds. It maps out three conservation zones, each about one-third of the property. One, around the lodge and cabins, allows for expansion of the lodge and cabins in areas that will not impact habitat or old-growth trees.

Read the full story.

9. Fires, Pandemic Rapidly Changing Jackson Co. Housing Crisis Fox 26 RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 4 of 5

The limited housing options in the Rogue Valley have only shrunk more since the Almeda and South Obenchain fires displaced thousands in September.

The housing demand is shaking up the market for both buyers and sellers. It’s no surprise that there are more buyers than there are sellers in the Rogue Valley but how people are buying is changing the housing market in the Rogue Valley itself.

“We just have way more buyers than we do sellers,” said realtor Steve Thomas of EXP Realty. He says 2020 has been a roller coaster of a year for real estate in southern Oregonbut the ride is far from over.

“We’re still getting them into properties but we’ve had to be very creative and aggressive and trying just everything we can do to get them in,” Thomas said.

Read the full story.

10. Designing for Dementia Planetizen Washington, D.C. is one of many cities with a growing population of older adults. "31% of the region’s population growth between now and 2045 will comprise people over the age of 65. Among these hundreds of thousands of people, up to a quarter will have dementia and other memory loss at some point in their lives," writes Jonathan Paul Katz.

Many lives could be improved by prioritizing design interventions that make urban spaces more usable for people with dementia, says Katz. Contrary to popular belief, the word dementia describes a range of conditions and experiences related to cognitive decline. Kats further asserts that people with dementia, however, can age in their communities rather than in an institutional situation.

Read the full story.

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