Monday Mailing
Year 21 • Issue 16 29 December 2014 1. Building OSU Marine Studies Center in a Tsunami Zone Imperils Students, State Geologist Warns 2. The Secret Life of Native Bees 3. Honeybees: Keep on Survivin’ 4. Oregon Turns To Redemption Centers To Boost Return Of Empty Bottles And Cans 5. The Rise And Fall of Wind Power in America 6. Meet The Woman Who is Trying to Change The Credit Card Industry 7. Starbucks' Grande Animal Rights Move 8. The Best Mobile Apps Of 2014 9. The 18 Best Infographics Of 2014 10. Columbia River Crossing Saga Shows Great Failure of Collective Undertaking 11. Oregon Scenic Bikeway Committee Accepting Applications for New Routes 1. OSU Marine Studies Center in a Tsunami Zone Imperils Students, State Geologist Warns Geologists say that when, not if, the Big One comes, waves as high as 43 feet will slam into buildings south of Newport's Yaquina Bay Bridge. A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake will smash into the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
Quote of the Week: “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” ~Anais Nin
Oregon Fast Fact: In 1905 the largest long cabin in the world was built in Portland to honor the Lewis and Clark expedition.
That's why Vicki McConnell, Oregon's state geologist, has written to Oregon State University President Edward Ray, advising him not to place a new marine-studies building designed to hold 500 people in the same tsunami inundation zone. "I know you are not willing to put even one, much less 500, students and researchers in peril every day," McConnell wrote in her Nov. 24 letter. Researchers would include tsunami experts, according to OSU. To access the full story, click here. 2. The Secret Life of Native Bees Over the last decade biologists, citizen scientists and others have fanned out across the United States and parts of Latin America to detect the presence of native bees in the landscape. It’s an effort by the U.S. Geological Survey to get a sense of the overall health and status of native bees, some 4,000 species of which are known to inhabit the U.S. After visiting 100 parks and various wild lands (places that can serve as refuge to bees, away from the stressors that appear in cities and on farms), cataloging bees, wasps and other species they interact with, the group has evidence suggesting native species are surprisingly robust, despite the downward trend in pollinator populations on the whole. Hardy native bees abound on public lands, while others continue to hang on in cities and farmlands altered by human activity.
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This is a bright spot amid the dire news heard recently about domesticated honeybees — the demise of hives due to an onslaught of environmental and biological threats. Though wild bees face adversity from the loss of habitat and exposure to pesticides, the phenomenon affecting domesticated bees known as colony collapse disorder does not affect native bee species. To access the full story, click here. 3. Honeybees: Keep on Survivin’ It’s no secret that America’s bees are in trouble: Since Colony Collapse Disorder hit the U.S. in 2006, the country’s beekeepers have reported an average annual hive loss of 30 percent. A groundswell of hobby beekeepers has emerged, wanting to do their part to save honeybees, and commercial beekeepers are racing to come up with solutions. It’s not just a critical issue for bees, but for our entire agricultural system: One-third of our food depends on bees and the industry is responsible for $15 billion in increased crop value annually. But some progress is being made. A group of honeybee breeders across the nation are looking to hardy, resilient bees they call “survivor stock” as one important step toward a solution. A host of factors likely play a role in CCD, including habitat loss, overuse of agricultural chemicals and an array of pests and diseases. Similarly, a variety of characteristics come together under the survivor stock definition. To access the full story, click here. 4. Oregon Turns To Redemption Centers To Boost Return Of Empty Bottles And Cans Major changes are underway, with more on the horizon for Oregon’s pioneering bottle deposit system. Those changes — the biggest since the Bottle Bill’s adoption a generation ago — have been slowly playing out as grocery stores close their return stations in favor of centralized off-site redemption centers. And the state will soon determine if the deposit paid for each bottle and can of soda, water or beer will remain at a nickel or double to a dime. Those changes are all about increasing the rate of empties — and deposits — that get returned. For about 20 years after Oregon’s Bottle Bill passed, the statewide redemption rate stayed above 90 percent, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. This caused a substantial reduction of beverage containers in landfills, on roadsides and in waterways. To access the full story, click here. 5. The Rise And Fall of Wind Power in America Back in the 1990s, wind turbines were a rare sight in the United States — and sprawling wind farms even rarer. Things changed considerably in the years since. Thanks to a series of tax credits from Congress and renewable-energy mandates from the states, wind power expanded at a torrid pace. Last year, wind turbines produced 4.1 percent of America's electricity. Some states do even better — Iowa and South Dakota get a quarter of their electricity from wind. Page 2 of 4
But the US wind boom is likely to start slowing sharply in the near future. Wind power still relies on government support — particularly the federal production tax credit, which can reduce the cost of building a turbine by one-third. And, in the past few years, Congress keeps letting that tax credit expire intermittently, leading to booms and busts in wind construction. To access the full story, click here. 6. Meet The Woman Who is Trying to Change The Credit Card Industry Merchant service providers have earned a bad rap in recent years. A brief browse of the Better Business Bureau’s website reveals a wide variety of complaints against leading credit card providers, often accused of overcharging, adding hidden fees, binding customers to long-term contracts, and commanding hefty fines when they try to escape. Suneera Madhani had been working for one such company for more than two years when she began noticing a high volume of complaints. "I wrote down every time a customer had a complaint," she says. "It was always about transparency and simplicity, and even just consistency in what they were being charged." But when Madhani brought these complaints to her superiors and suggested changes that might improve customer service, they expressed no interest in changing their tactics. To access the full story, click here. 7. Starbucks' Grande Animal Rights Move Your Starbucks bacon-and-Gouda sandwich and chicken-and-hummus bistro box are about to get kinder and gentler when it comes to the treatment of the animals that you’re eating. The $61 billion coffee giant said it will phase out the use of eggs, poultry, and pork from animals raised in gestation crates and support the elimination of artificial growth hormones for livestock. “Our priority is to ensure we offer food made with ingredients such as cage-free eggs, gestation crate-free pork, and poultry processed through more humane systems,” Starbucks said in a policy statement published on its website. To access the full story, click here. 8. The Best Mobile Apps Of 2014 There are a lot more to mobile apps than just Angry Birds. The best apps of 2014 are rethinking the way we consume news, socialize, create and consume art, call for help, comprehend scientific principles, and of course, approach our daily work. With the benefit of always being right there in our pockets, these streamlined digital experiences push the boundaries of software through experimentation Browse through our favorites in the slide show above, then, if you haven’t already, go download them! To access the full list, click here.
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9. The 18 Best Infographics Of 2014 You could sift through piles of dense data sets in an attempt to understand the trends and discoveries that emerged in history, psychology, current events, and even fictional dragons in 2014. Or you could look at these infographics, which visualize otherwise overwhelming data as beautiful charts, graphs, and maps. Co.Design's Infographic of the Day series regularly showcases the best in data visualization, and this past year saw many stellar examples of the power of the well-designed visualization to illuminate information about nearly any subject, from the serious (the daily activities of Congress) to the frivolous (a visual compendium of the world's best dogs). We couldn't resist promoting Co.Design's own in-house data visualizations: the Great Wheel of Food Mashups and a map of each U.S. state's weirdest eating patterns (we're a bit food-fixated, apparently). Here, our favorite infographics from the past year. To access the full story, click here. 10. Columbia River Crossing Saga Shows Great Failure of Collective Undertaking SEATTLE -- If, in some great museum of American public discourse, there's a gilded pedestal reserved for the Lincoln- Douglas Debates, then way in the back, in a darkened room that no one tells the docents about, you might find a cardboard diorama of the Benton-Rivers Encounter. It happened last year on the floor of the Washington state senate. Senator Don Benton, a barrelchested, goateed 57-year- old, says colleague Ann Rivers started the name-calling that made onlookers and pages gawk. She called him a "piece of s---" and leaned in so aggressively that, he says, he felt physically threatened. In Rivers' account, Benton stared, laughed creepily and repeatedly called her "weird." Some weeks afterward, according to a report by colleagues who tried to mediate their dispute, Benton would say Rivers, 48, was behaving like a "trashy, trampy-mouthed little girl." To access the full story, click here. 11. Oregon Scenic Bikeway Committee Accepting Applications for New Routes The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department’s Scenic Bikeway Program will accept applications in the spring of 2015 for new bikeway designations. Designated Scenic Bikeways are selected from locally proposed routes and represent the "best of the best" road bicycle riding in Oregon. Currently, there are 12 designated bikeways totaling nearly 800 miles. Oregon is the only state with an official Scenic Bikeway program. Completed applications consist of a proposed scenic route, a local proponent group, and letters of support from all governing bodies of road jurisdictions. The applications must be submitted from March 17-31, 2015 to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. Applications, general information and a list of important features for a bikeway and the criteria are available at: http://www.oregon.gov/oprd/BIKE/Pages/info.aspx Application Workshop scheduled for Jan. 14th 10 am - 11:30. Held via Go To Meeting. To sign up click here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12kUlYQ8WuLLPS413yEEbGcwl6_M9T06FvIggadKjo bQ/viewform For more information on the application process or the Bikeway Program contact Alex Phillips at 503-986-0631 or alex.phillips@oregon.gov
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