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Monday Mailing

Year 21 • Issue 30 13 April 2015 1.

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Oregon Debates Fracking Moratorium Mapping Trees To Figure Out Just How Good For Us They Are Fukushima Radiation Has Reached North American Shores Road to Health: Bike and Pedestrian Paths Play Greater Role in Transportation Project Funding Greenhouse Gas Reduction Toolkit Now Online Free TREC Seminars Building “Buy Local” Campaigns that Shift Culture and Spending Income Inequality: It’s Also Bad for Your Health Common Grant Writing Mistakes You Can Fix Today!

Wind Map People Are Furious That Nestle is Still Bottling and Selling California’s Water in The Middle of The Drought

1. Oregon Debates Fracking Moratorium Should Oregon temporarily ban fracking?

A legislative committee will hear testimony Tuesday on a bill that would put a 10-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas exploration and production in the state.

In the United States, more than a million wells have been "fracked," a process that usually involves injecting water, sand and chemicals into rock under high pressure to fracture it and release trapped hydrocarbons.

Quote of the Week: "Still round the corner there may wait a new road or a secret gate. And though I often have passed them by a day will come at last when I shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien Oregon Fast Fact: Oregon is located nearest the 45th parallel. The 45th parallel is equidistant from the North Pole and the equator and is found just north of Salem.

Proponents tout the economic benefits brought to communities with wells and the energy independence they afford.

To access the full story, click here.

2. Mapping Trees To Figure Out Just How Good For Us They Are OpenTreeMap is helping cities figure out where all the trees are, so they can better judge the environmental and public health impacts of a wellplanted city. Here's a hint: The impacts are huge.

Until recently, cities haven't had a good handle on their trees.

Generally, they've not kept good records of where their trees are, which ones need attention, and what "ecosystem services" (say, in reducing pollution) they provide.

That's changing because of OpenTreeMap, open-source software that's powering more than a dozen urban tree-inventory initiatives.

Philadelphia now has PhillyTreeMap (56,884 trees and counting).

Tampa has Tampa Tree Map (2,669 trees so far). And San Diego has San Diego Tree Map (340,952 trees). And more projects are on the way.

To access the full story, click here.

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3. Fukushima Radiation Has Reached North American Shores Seaborne radiation from Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster has reached North America.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution detected small amounts of cesium-134 and cesium-137 in a sample of seawater taken in February from a dock on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

It's the first time radioactivity from the March 2011 triple meltdown has been identified on West Coast shores.

Woods Hole chemical oceanographer Ken Buesseler emphasized that the radiation is at very low levels that aren't expected to harm human health or the environment.

For more information, click here.

4. Road to Health: Bike and Pedestrian Paths Play Greater Role in Transportation Project Funding Pedestrian paths and painted bicycle lanes that seemed to randomly appear along roadways in the past sometimes would satisfy bureaucratic requirements but little else.

That's changing.

State agencies have come to see transportation as not just moving people and freight, but also helping build healthier communities by connecting pedestrian and bike routes to the places people want to go.

The Oregon Department of Transportation now has an Active Transportation Section that addresses pedestrian and bicycle elements and how they tie in with public roadways. More recently, the Oregon Health Authority was given a say in ODOT plans with an eye toward producing future generations that are leaner and healthier.

The metamorphosis has changed thinking at every level and impacts how projects are funded, said ODOT Active Transportation Section Manager Mac Lynde.

To access the full story, click here.

5. Greenhouse Gas Reduction Toolkit Now Online The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Toolkit is designed to help local jurisdictions identify and explore the kinds of actions and programs they can undertake to reduce vehicle emissions, as well as meet other community goals, such as spur economic development, increase biking and walking, support downtowns, create healthy livable communities, and more.

Each Strategy Report describes an action, program or policy which can be implemented by a jurisdiction. The report gives an overview of what it is, how it can benefit a community, how costly it is implement (and how long it takes to see results), and gives examples of where it has been used.

The reports are an entry point to a topic, and intended as a tool for planners to explore and communicate about the strategies described.

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The Case Studies in the Toolkit explore the strategies more deeply and show on the ground examples within Oregon where they have been used. They illustrate the benefit of multiple strategies used together, and show how collaboration and patience are used to achieve results.

To access the toolkit, click here.

6. Free TREC Seminars Friday, April 17, 2015 – 12:00pm to 1:00pm DASH: The Portland Region's Next-Generation Activity-Based Model Speaker: Richard Walker, Manager, Modeling Service Assoc: Metro DASH is the next-generation activity-based model being developed by the Metro Research Center.

Upon completion, it will be one of the most advanced in the nation. This model will be used extensively in estimating the activity and travel response of individuals to policies and infrastructure investments. Compared to past models, it will include enhanced consideration of the socio-economic roles of individuals, discrete temporal dynamics, and intra-household dependencies. Read more Watch online: Use this link on the day of the seminar Attend in person: Room 204 of the Distance Learning Center Wing of the Urban Center at PSU Upcoming Seminars April 24: Using Multimodal Performance Measures to Prioritize Improvements on US 101 in San Luis Obispo County; Jessica Berry, Transportation Planner, San Luis Obispo COG May 1: Topic TBD; Gulsah Akar, Assistant Professor, Ohio State University May 8: Topic TBD; Michael Olsen, Assistant Professor of Geomatics, School of Civil and Construction Engineering, Oregon State University May 15: Pedestrian destination choice; Chris Muhs, Ph.D. student, Portland State University May 22: New FHWA VMT Forecasts Implications for Local Planning; Andrew Mortensen, David Evans and Associates May 29: TBD June 5: TBD For a complete schedule of upcoming seminars, visit their seminar home page.

7. Building “Buy Local” Campaigns that Shift Culture and Spending The American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) has developed a new guide to help independent business owners, localist advocates, and local officials promote local business and community wealth building. The guide outlines strategies to build successful “Buy Local” campaigns that encourage consumers to shop at locally owned stores. It includes tips and resources for campaign content development, message framing, targeted marketing, and execution.

To access this new guide, click here.

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8. Income Inequality: It’s Also Bad for Your Health We know that living in a poor community makes you less likely to live a long life. New evidence suggests that living in a community with high income inequality also seems to be bad for your health.

A study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute examined a series of risk factors that help explain the health (or sickness) of counties in the United States. In addition to the suspects you might expect — a high smoking rate, a lot of violent crime — the researchers found that people in unequal communities were more likely to die before the age of 75 than people in more equal communities, even if the average incomes were the same.

“It’s not just the level of income in a community that matters — it’s also how income is distributed,” said Bridget Catlin, the co-director of the project, called the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps.

For more information, click here.

9. Common Grant Writing Mistakes You Can Fix Today!

There are common mistakes that many grant writers make that can hurt a proposal’s chance of being awarded. Getting over these hurdles can significantly help your organization’s application rise to the top of the pile. In this series, Alice Ruhnke, CEO of The Grant Advantage, will discuss common errors made by both novice and experienced grant writers and describe ways to avoid or fix them.

To access this wonderful resource, click here 10. Wind Map This beautiful conceptualization uses wind data to weave art from science. Created by visualization specialists Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg, the map uses information from the National Digital Forecast Database to create a “living portrait” of the wind blowing through our world.

Although the artists warn not to use the map to fight wildfires or fly planes, it is a lovely tool for getting a better understanding of wind movement.

To access the wind map, click here 11. People Are Furious That Nestle is Still Bottling and Selling California’s Water in The Middle of The Drought California just entered its fourth year in record-breaking drought, but that hasn't stopped food and beverage giant Nestlé from drawing water from multiple reserves in the state to make its bottled water.

People are furious.

The company uses California water in its Arrowhead and Pure Life brands, which usually sell for about a dollar each.

In response, a group has drawn up a petition demanding that Nestle halt its operations in the state.

The campaign is being run by Courage, a nonprofit organization based in California, and it's gathered 135,000 signatures since going up at the end of March.

To access the full story, click here.

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