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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2014
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Jordan Cove next in line for federal review BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COOS BAY — The Jordan Cove Energy Project is nudging the Bay Area toward preparation, since the LNG export terminal is approaching a major federal milestone. Jordan Cove public affairs director Michael Hinrichs repeated himself throughout the Oregon Employer Council South Coast’s meeting Tuesday morning, emphasizing communitywide planning every time.
“If you prepare and it doesn’t happen, that’s unfortunate,” he said. “But if we do occur and you don’t prepare I can easily see the community getting steamrolled, and I don’t want that to happen.” A draft environmental impact statement is expected from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sometime next month. This announcement would fall in line with FERC’s recent LNG (liquefied natural gas) decisions. FERC has approved one final EIS every month since February.
Cameron LNG in Hackberry, La., just got FERC’s final go-ahead June 19. Three days earlier, the Freeport LNG expansion in Freeport, Texas, received its final EIS, and three days before that, Cheniere-Corpus Christi LNG in Corpus Christi, Texas, received its draft EIS. FERC will meet again July 17. LNG export permit approvals have sped up in recent months, with politicians and economists blasting an approval process clogged with red tape. They say it’s slowing the nation’s ability to be a
major player in an expanding natural gas industry. “The United States has the capability and ingenuity to produce at even greater levels and to reap even greater economic benefit,” wrote Margo Thorning, American Council for Capital Formation senior vice president and chief economist, on the ACCF website last month. “But until energy and trade policies in Washington are revised to reflect the new energy reality and our new role as a global leader, we risk leaving much on the
Summer Food Service
table.” This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on HR 6, a bill that would fasttrack LNG export permit approvals. For now, 90 days of public comment — including public hearings during the first 30 days in Coos, Douglas, Jackson and Klamath counties — follow a draft EIS. While this isn’t the last chance the public has to be heard, Hinrichs SEE LNG | A8
Failing sewer pipe prompts street closure
By the numbers Area students who qualified for either free or reduced price lunch during the 2013-2014 school year: ■ Reedsport: 71 percent ■ Powers: 67 percent* ■ Myrtle Point: 67 percent ■ Bandon: 65 percent ■ Coos Bay: 60 percent ■ Coquille: 57 percent ■ North Bend: 53 percent *Powers does not have a free-reduced price lunch program; these students qualify for the Oregon Special Milk Program.
Century-old pipe in downtown Coos Bay is getting repaired ■
BY TIM NOVOTNY The World
COOS BAY — A section of North Fourth Street, between Highland and Market avenues in Coos Bay is temporarily off-limits so the city can complete an emergency sewer line repair. Jennifer Wirsing, engineering services coordinator for city, says this is not part of the major wastewater system upgrade that has been reported lately, but it is a perfect example of why such an upgrade is needed. “We had a sinkhole that was reported,” she said by phone Tuesday. “Over the course of our investigation of that sinkhole, two more sinkholes popped up. These are not Florida (-type) sinkholes. They are not more than 2 feet in diameter, but if left unattended, they could get worse.” The problem stems from the age and make of the pipe lying under that section of Fourth Street. Wirsing says it is a clay pipe that dates back to 1905, and a camera that was directed through the inside of the pipe during their investigation uncovered numerous problems. “It identified many large cracks and portions of the pipe that were missing,” she said. “Obviously, it is a problem that needed immediate attention.” The city of Coos Bay authorized Benny Hempstead Excavating Inc. to perform the sewer line replacement. The work will require street closures and detours for the duration of the project, which is only expected to last through Monday. That portion of North Fourth Street, along with a portion of Highland Avenue from
Waiting for kids on Thomas Avenue in Coos Bay, Luke Rushing waits with hot and cold lunches at the start of the summer lunch program. Rushing is an AmeriCorps volunteer helping with the program this summer in Coos Bay through the school district. Photos by Lou Sennick, The World
Bay Area kids line up for free meals The World
COOS BAY — In an area where the majority of students qualify for free or reduced price lunches, school districts spend the summer serving hot meals to hungry children. Volunteers packed 100 hot chicken sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, milk, apples, carrots and celery into a van Monday morning. They spent the next two hours darting around Coos Bay, putting lunch in the hands of smiling kids.
While fewer children statewide accessed free meals last summer (a 2 percent dip) due to budget cuts and lack of awareness, those communities with Inside targeted support — See a list of summer such as new fundmeal locations. ing and Page A2 partnerships in Coos Bay — saw an increase. Participation in the free Summer Food Service Program increased 12 percent in Coos County from 2012 to SEE MEALS | A8
SEE SEWER | A8
A new white van, used for the Coos Bay Public School summer lunch program, is loaded from the kitchen at Blossom Gulch Elementary School before heading out on the lunch route Monday.
US military forces to flow into Baghdad The Associated Press
INSIDE
Police reports . . . . A2 What’s Up. . . . . . . . A3 South Coast. . . . . . A3 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . A4
Comics . . . . . . . . . . A6 Puzzles . . . . . . . . . . A6 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . B1 Classifieds . . . . . . . B5
SEE IRAQ | A8
SEE FORESTS | A8
John Clauson, Powers Robert Schulze, Albany Doris Semon, Provo, Utah James Kurt, Black Bend
DEATHS
The Associated Press
A member of an Iraqi volunteer force holds a weapon during training in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — Nearly half of the roughly 300 U.S. military advisers and special operations forces expected to go to Iraq are now in Baghdad and have begun to assess Iraqi forces in the fight against Sunni militants, the Defense Department said Tuesday as the U.S. ramped up aid to the besieged country. On Capitol Hill, senators who left a closed briefing with senior Obama administration officials expressed hope Iraq could soon form a new government, perhaps in the next week, facilitating greater U.S. military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who attended that
meeting, backed what he described as an advancing American strategy. At the Pentagon, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters the troops in Baghdad included two teams of special forces and about 90 advisers, intelligence analysts, commandos and some other support personnel needed to set up a joint operations center in the Iraqi capital. Another four teams of special forces would arrive in the next few days, Kirby said. Those troops, added to the approximately 360 other U.S. forces that are in and around the embassy in Baghdad to perform security, would bring the total U.S military presence
ALBANY, Ore. (AP) — Earlier this year, authorities followed a pickup truck to a warehouse in Philomath and seized more than 13,000 pounds of salal, a leafy Northwest plant prized for its shelf life in floral arrangements. It’s shipped to the East Coast and even to Europe, and the black-market operation was an example of the wealth that thieves take from public forests, law enforcement officers tell the Albany DemocratHerald. Among the plunder: morel mushrooms, truffles, evergreen boughs for the Christmas season, bear grass for flower arrangements, sometimes whole fir trees or ferns for landscaping, Oregon grape or devil’s club for anti-inflammatories, and the white bark of a species of buckthorn called cascara that’s peeled off for use as a laxative. “If it grows out here, somebody’s probably taking it,” said timber Deputy Brandon Fountain of the Linn
Obituaries | A5
Cat’s cradle
STATE
BY LOLITA C. BALDOR AND BRADLEY KLAPPER
Oregon deputies say forests a gold mine for crooks
Feline takes a perch atop police investigator’s shoulders during search of burglarized Portland home. A5
FORECAST
BY CHELSEA DAVIS
Mostle sunny 63/57 Weather | A8
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