Monday Mailing
Year 26 • Issue 16 30 December 2019 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 1.
Judge Approves PG&E $24.5 Billion Plan For Wildfire Victims And Insurance Companies (Katie McFall) Nearly A Fifth Of US Emissions Come From Public Lands. A New House Bill Aims To Cut Them To Zero By 2040. (Michael Hoch) Getting Rural America Back on Its Feet Hunter, Angler Wallets To Get Lighter From the Ground Up: Building Child-Focused Community Resilience Agritourism Allows Farms To Diversify and Has Potential Benefits for Rural Communities In Rural Colorado, The Kids Of Coal Miners Learn To Install Solar Panels The Homeownership Obsession How Portland’s Earthquake Preppers Are Planning for the Worst (Emily Bradley) WEBINAR – Assessing the Impacts of New Mobility on Cities
1. Judge Approves PG&E $24.5 Billion Plan For Wildfire Victims And Insurance Companies Quote of the Week:
Farewell, old year; we walk no more together; I catch the sweetness of thy latest sigh... Here in the dim light of a grey December; We part in smiles, and yet we met in tears; Watching thy chilly dawn, I well remember... - Sarah Doudney, "A Parting"
Oregon Fast Fact #21
The nation's most photographed lighthouse is the Heceta Head Lighthouse located in Lane County.
A federal bankruptcy judge in San Francisco on Tuesday approved two settlements totaling $24.5 billion offered by Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. for victims of Northern California wildfires and insurance companies that have paid out damage claims. The utility has acknowledged that its equipment ignited several catastrophic wildfires in recent years. A settlement of $13.5 billion, announced last week, is designated to compensate wildfire victims. Another $11 billion will go to the insurers.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali released his decision after a marathon five-hour hearing Tuesday. The action improves the utility's bid to exit bankruptcy proceedings before a June 30, 2020, deadline. That's when the utility could become eligible for a statefinanced wildfire fund. The judge also allowed a civil suit to be brought against PG&E by families of the victims of the December 2016 " Ghost Ship" fire which killed 36 people. A trial will determine the utility's liability in that blaze. "Today marks an important milestone – the Bankruptcy Court has approved our settlement agreements resolving all major wildfire claims," PG&E said in an emailed statement. To access the full story, click here. Page 1 of 6
2. Nearly A Fifth Of US Emissions Come From Public Lands. A New House Bill Aims To Cut Them To Zero By 2040.
House Democrats on Tuesday introduced an expansive new climate change bill that aims to zero out greenhouse gas emissions from public lands while supporting workers in the transition toward clean energy. It’s one of the most aggressive climate bills that’s been introduced in the current Congress, and by targeting coal, oil, and gas production on public lands and their downstream consumption, it would take a bite out of nearly one-fifth of US carbon dioxide emissions.
“It is a new idea and a new paradigm for how fossil fuel energy would be developed on federal lands,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, senior director for environmental strategy at the Center for American Progress. The 640 million acres of America’s public lands are home to unique wildlife and natural treasures. And beneath them are coal, oil, and natural gas deposits that can contribute to climate change as they are extracted and burned. The bill, called the American Public Lands and Waters Climate Solution Act, aims to make federal public lands a net-zero source of emissions by 2040. It raises the price tag via royalties for fossil fuel extraction in these regions and channels the added revenue to provide economic aid to parts of the country that depend on mining and drilling. Tallied in the public lands total isn’t just emissions associated with fossil fuel extraction, but downstream uses of fuels such as burning coal for electricity or gasoline in cars. To access the full story, click here.
3. Getting Rural America Back on Its Feet
American life has always been characterized by distinct differences between city and country — this has provided rich material for generations of comedy routines, from vaudeville gags about naive hayseeds and shady city slickers to the 1960s sitcoms The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres to the reality TV adventures of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in The Simple Life. But these differences don't seem so funny today as the gap widens between rural and urban dwellers in terms of economics, politics, and social attitudes. This incites widespread misconceptions. People living outside metropolitan areas feel insulted by charges that they are backward, bigoted, and unambitious. Urbanites bristle at insinuations they are somehow less American or virtuous than rural residents. These misconceptions even color how many of us think about planning issues. At a recent national rural livability workshop sponsored by AARP, a roomful of midwesterners were asked what myths about rural America they would most like to dispel. "The idea that our communities are not walkable," was the first response, which drew an immediate round of yeses and head nods.
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In many people's minds, rural Americans only walk the few steps between a parking space and their destination. But a quick look at the facts tells a different story. A 2018 AARP national survey of U.S. adults over the age of 18 found that 30 percent of rural residents walk regularly for at least some trips. More detailed U.S. Department of Transportation data shows that 7.2 percent of trips in towns with populations between 2,500 and 10,000 are made on foot. That figure rises to 8.5 percent in communities with populations of 10,000 to 50,000. These figures outpace those for suburbs outside the urban core, where just 6.7 of trips are pedestrian. And they are not so distant from the 12 percent of trips on foot in the urban core (defined as cities and close-in suburbs). To access the full story, click here.
4. Hunter, Angler Wallets To Get Lighter
Oregon resident fishing licenses will increase $3 and resident hunting licenses will go up $1 in 2020 to help fuel fish and wildlife management in Oregon. The fee increase is the third and final one since 2016 under a law passed in 2015 by the Oregon Legislature to incrementally add to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s budget. The latest increases were adopted Friday by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission during its meeting in Ontario. The increases mirror the schedule adopted in 2015 by the Legislature. A resident angler license will increase from $41 to $44, while the adult combined tag for salmon, steelhead, halibut and sturgeon will rise from $40.50 to $46. That means a typical Rogue River salmon/steelhead angler will see her costs climb from $81.50 to $90 next year. For hunters, the increases are smaller. To access the full story, click here.
5. From the Ground Up: Building Child-Focused Community Resilience
Each day, approximately 69 million children say goodbye to their families and head off to school, daycare, or a variety of child-centered programs. This is a reminder that, while parents and caregivers lead their children’s development, they are also part of a broader community that influences children’s growth, development, and safety. In a disaster, these communities can become more important than ever for a child’s wellbeing.
School-age children are in the care of over 8.5 million school staff members at more than 132,000 public and private schools across the nation, as well as numerous other childcare settings (with another 1.2 million staff employed). In addition, some children might be cared for at health facilities, foster homes, or other long-term places. Because so much of children’s growth and development occurs outside the home, their resilience to disaster is directly tied to their community’s resilience. According to our survey of Americans and their opinions on children in disasters, however, more than one-third are not Page 3 of 6
confident in their community’s ability to meet the needs of their children in a disaster. And while this same survey shows decreased trust in government in the decade that preceded it, it also finds that more than half of the respondents expected to be reunited with their children within a few hours of a major disaster. To access the full story, click here.
6. Agritourism Allows Farms To Diversify and Has Potential Benefits for Rural Communities
Agritourism helps U.S. farmers and ranchers generate revenue from recreational or educational activities, such as tours of a working farm or “pick-your-own fruits and vegetables” programs. Beginning and small and mid-size farms are increasingly exploring agritourism as a strategy to remain competitive. Agritourism also has the potential to help revitalize rural economies, educate the public about agriculture, and preserve agricultural heritage. In addition, community-focused farms may find agritourism an attractive option because it provides more labor opportunities for local residents. Farm agritourism revenue more than tripled between 2002 and 2017, according to data from the Census of Agriculture. Adjusted for inflation, agritourism revenue grew from $704 million in 2012 to almost $950 million in 2017. The 2017 data excluded wineries, although they were included in the 2002, 2007, and 2012 data, which suggests agritourism revenue growth may have been even greater during that period. However, agritourism revenue is still small relative to total farm revenue, accounting for 5.6 percent of farm-related income in 2017. Although many factors affect an operator’s decision to adopt agritourism, ERS researchers identified farm and regional characteristics associated with higher agritourism revenue. Being located near natural amenities or in close proximity to other outdoor activities had a statistically significant positive impact on agritourism economic activity. To access the full story, click here.
7. In Rural Colorado, The Kids Of Coal Miners Learn To Install Solar Panels
At a picnic table in a dry grass field, a group of elementary school students watched as high school senior Xavier Baty, a broad-shouldered 18-year-old in a camouflage ball cap and scuffed work boots, attached a hand-sized solar panel cell to a small motor connected to a fan. He held the panel to face the setting Colorado sun, adjusting its angle to vary the fan speed. “Want to hear a secret?” he asked the kids around him. “This is the only science class I ever got an A in.”
As he readily acknowledges, Baty hasn’t been the most enthusiastic science student at Delta High School. This class, however, is different. Along with a group of other seniors and a few juniors, Baty is enrolled in “Solar Energy Training.” The class not only provides a science credit needed for graduation; it also trains students for careers in solar energy or the electrical trades. It allows Baty to work with his hands, something he enjoys, while positioning him for employment in a fast-growing industry.
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In Colorado’s North Fork Valley, solar energy — along with a strong organic farm economy and recreation dollars — is helping to fill the economic hole left by the dying coal industry, which sustained the area for more than 120 years. When the mines still ran, graduating seniors could step immediately into good-paying jobs. But in the past five years, two of Delta County’s three mines have closed. Approximately 900 local mining jobs have been lost in the past decade. Ethan Bates, for example, another senior in the solar energy training class, is the son of a mine foreman who lost his job when the Bowie Mine outside Paonia closed in 2016. Now, he’ll graduate as a certified solar panel installer. To access the full story, click here.
8. The Homeownership Obsession
The story starts with a gothic mansion, all stone turrets and peaked windows, a fortress-like structure. The camera descends from a dark swirling sky to a full moon to finally frame the mansion. A male voice narrates Shirley Jackson’s famous opening lines from her 1959 gothic novel, The Haunting of Hill House: “Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut,” he reads. We are told, from the moment we start the show, that this is a story about a house. And we are told that, while the house is sinister, it does have good bones. As the seconds pass, we move indoors. Children sit awake in their beds, children wander the halls, and a father in respectable blue pajamas comes to comfort his crying, ghost-touched daughter. “How long do we have to live here, Daddy?” she asks. “Well, your mother and I have to finish fixing this house, and then someone has to buy it,” he replies. “Then we can go?” she asks. Then, he says, they can go.
The 2018 Netflix recreation of The Haunting of Hill House isn’t just a reinterpretation of Jackson’s novel; it’s also part of a long tradition of American homeownership horror stories. These stories begin with a place. The place is bad, uncanny in a Freudian sense (the Austrian psychoanalyst’s word for the uncanny was unheimlich, which literally translates to un-homelike), but the place is also beautiful. In Rosemary’s Baby, American Horror Story, Dream House, Sinister, a lovely old structure, built with care and architectural flourishes—not to mention good bones—turns out to be a living nightmare. Often, the movie centers around a young couple or a young family. They quickly become trapped. The price was a trick. People don’t own the house. The house owns them. Like mold, it gets inside the unwitting buyers. It seeps into their lungs, their dreams, their bodies and minds, permeating everything. To access the full story, click here.
9. How Portland’s Earthquake Preppers Are Planning for the Worst
On a chilly Sunday evening this fall, a few dozen people gather in a home in Portland’s Alameda neighborhood. As they chat about the hosts’ landscaping and what they’ve been up to at work over wine and beer, the scene looks like a typical neighborhood cocktail gathering. Then a bell sounds from the living room, and everyone leaves their conversations and heads into the living room to sit on couches and fold-up chairs.
“One of the main elements of disaster preparedness is knowing your neighbors,” Michael Hall says as the meeting begins. He’s the bell-ringer and leader of Alameda’s self-titled “Council of Page 5 of 6
Blockheads,” which represents a two-block, 25-household area. For the last four years, the residents of this leafy neighborhood have convened twice annually over a lofty goal: ensuring the survival of everyone on the block in case of a disaster. For the next 30 minutes, the group talks about whether to order more stackable emergency water containers and how much extra food to stock up on (the new advice: enough for two weeks). They listen to earthquake survival tips from a guest speaker, Marilyn Bishop, who sells pre-made emergency prep kits full of freeze-dried rations. Four years ago, these neighbors hardly knew each other. But after seven meetings and counting, they now see each other as their lifelines. To access the full story, click here. 10. WEBINAR – Assessing the Impacts of New Mobility on Cities
(Wednesday, January 22nd 10 AM PST to 11 AM PST)
One of the webinar speakers is our very own Rebecca Lewis, Ph.D., Institute for Policy Research and Engagement Co-Director! Autonomous vehicles (AVs), e-commerce and the sharing economy are rapidly changing land use and transportation in cities. City leaders and professional planners are wondering how these technologies will change how they plan and operate cities. For the past year, the University of Oregon’s Urbanism Next Center and Sustainable Year Program focused staff and students on helping the cities of Gresham and Eugene better understand the potential impacts of a widerange of topics and study a variety of potential responses to address the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities. These topics include issues related to safety, social equity, active transportation, sustainability and environmental impacts, design and management of the right-of-way, and the metropolitan footprint. In addition, the cities thought about city operations and budgeting and how they can inform decision-making, manage innovation, and consider the fiscal impacts and new mobility revenue. During this webinar, the Urbanism Next researchers will discuss the research they conducted to help the cities navigate new mobility and emerging technologies. Researchers will discuss how cities are preparing for new mobility and autonomous vehicles in a way that supports goals around land use, active transportation, more equitable forms of travel, and greenhouse gas emissions. To register for the webinar, click here.
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