The Umpqua Post
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Wednesday, April 9, 2014 | Serving the Reedsport area since 1996 | theworldlink.com/reedsport | $1.00
Reedsport OKs pot dispensary moratorium BY STEVE LINDSLEY Umpqua Post
The Reedsport City Council on Monday voted to approve a moratorium on allowing new medical marijuana dispensaries. The moratorium carried an emergency clause. “The emergency here is, in essence,” Mayor Keith Tymchuk told the council, “the fact that the state legislature has given cities the opportunity, in the most recent session, to set some standards even to establish a moratorium on these medical marijuana facilities, but we have to do so by May 1.”
The moratorium is to give cities and counties a chance to study the issue. The legislature will revisit the moratorium in its 2015 session. Meanwhile, businesses across the state are applying with the state for licenses to open medical marijuana facilities. None have been announced for Reedsport. The legislature gave cities the option of doing nothing, thus allowing the facilities, gave cities the option of setting their own guidelines of where and when the businesses could operate or enacting a one year moratorium.
City Manager Jonathan Wright said many communities are taking a wait-and-see approach of what other communities are doing before deciding how to proceed in the future. “This is a a temporary moratorium,” he told the council. “It’s good for one year, however it can be removed by the council at any point in the moratorium. “At this point, because of the unknowns involved with the Medical Marijuana Act, many communities, including the county ... are invoking these temporary moratoriums just so they can get a
little more time to feel out what is happening.” Mayor Tymchuk said there are more questions than answers and the city should use the one-year moratorium to gather more information. The council was thoughtful on the issue. “I’ve had a couple of conversations just this afternoon,” Councilor Diane Essig said, “with folks that heavily depend on it, just to be able to get around. They’re perfectly happy to go into Coos Bay. They’re treated extremely well, according to them.”
Tymchuk noted the moratorium would not affect current Oregon law on medical marijuana card holders. “Damn,” Councilor Frank Barth exclaimed after hearing the intricacies of the law. “I just don’t think there’s enough information, myself. If we have to move on something like this, I guess we have to. There’s too many ‘what ifs’ there for me.” “I wish the state had given us a little more time to consider,” Tymchuk said. “If we’re going to do something, we have to do it by May 1. The council unanimously approved the moratorium.
Reedsport wave energy project sinks BY DEVAN SCHWARTZ Oregon Public Broadcasting
By Steve Lindsley, The Umpqua Post
CERT trainees deal with “victims” in a training exercise on Saturday at the Reedsport Community Center. The trainees were going through a scenario where an earthquake destroyed the building. The victims came complete with simulated injuries, including some gruesome ones.
CERT responders drill for emergency scenario Saturday turned out to be a tense day for a group of people ending four weeks of training as Community Emergency Response Team members. Their weekly training, at the Reedsport Community Center, ended with a scenario forcing them into dealing with an earthquake scenario, complete with victims. First, they were drilled by Gail Young on the knowledge they’d received over the previous three weeks. “You are directed to help with the immediate victims” Young read from the test booklet. “A fellow team member asks you get some clean water to wash soiled gloves. You know the supply team is on its way, but could be several hours away. Grabbing a bucket you run to a nearby stream of water. What should you do to sterilize the water for medical use? Most of the people shouted out “A.” “D,” Young corrected. “Mix in eight drops of nonperfumed chlorine bleach per gallon of water and wait for 30 minutes.” There were murmurs among the crowd and
many even corrected Young. “That’s drinking water,” many said. “That’s what they tell us,” Young responded. This, apparently, was a group that took its training seriously. After the test, the training group donned helmets, CERT vests, eye protection and got ready to enter an emergency scenario. The scenario involved a 9.3 earthquake that struck the community center. “You want to go in there, get these people, find out if they’re dead,” Reedsport CERT Leader Dan Loop told both groups. “If they’re alive find out what their injuries are and pull them out.” The floor was divided up with tarps” Green for ambulatory, yellow for non-life-threatening injuries, red for emergency help and black ... that was the morgue. They were instructed to leave dead victims alone.
Plans to deploy Oregon’s first commercial wave energy project have been formally dropped by the company. After spending millions on the project off the coast of Reedsport, Ocean Power Technologies pulled the plug and will focus on another project in Australia. Kevin Watkins, a company representative, said this would have actually been the first such project in the Western Hemisphere but they had trouble securing adequate funds. “In consultation with the Department of Energy, OPT has made the decision to terminate further work on the project and initiate decommission and closeout activities,” Watkins said. This was the only wave energy project planned for Oregon state waters that had even begun the permitting phase, according to Paul Klarin, marine program coordinator with the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development. The company’s wave energy projects generated national headlines in the run-up to a planned launch in October 2012. But after it
District admits it did not notify all the necessary parties that underwater pipe replaced for several years. “We’ve had MAO (Mutual Agreement and Order) with (Gardiner) for awhile,” said Keith Andersen, western regional administrator for the DEQ. “When it became clear that we weren’t making the kind of progress we were hoping for, we said ‘you know
Two grants for the Gardiner Sanitary District to improve its wastewater system and repair the leaky pipe under the Umpqua River continue to move forward at the SEE CERT, PAGE A6 state level. “There were two different grants,” Becky Bryant, with the Infrastructure Finance Authority, said. “One grant went directly to Gardiner, and that is for the pipe, actually.” That grant is for $500,000. “I have received back and I have what. We need to have a continexecuted the contract,” Bryant gency plan in case this thing really explained. “They got legal counsel goes sideways.’ That contingency documentation that they procured plan was developed, I think, in their engineer in a way that would 2011. Part of the contingency plan cover this project. So, we were able includes various measures for to review their scope of work.” addressing leaks when they occur. Bryant said, once she gives her One of the parts of the continapproval, the engineer, Civil West gency plan is notification.” Engineering Services of Coos Bay, Andersen said, to his knowlcan “get to work.” edge, that plan includes notificaAnother grant is for $2 million. tion of the newspaper. “One of the other pieces of “It includes (the city of) documentation we need is an IGA Reedsport, Douglas County,” he (intergovernmental agreement) said, “it includes the diving combetween the city (of Reedsport) and the district for the treatment. SEE SPILL, PAGE A6 Then there is an IGA between the
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Gardiner Sanitary receives two grants
DEQ verifies GSD spill in February The Umpqua Post has verified, with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, a sewer spill into the Umpqua River in February. The spill, estimated at 14,000 to 15,000 gallons came out of the Gardiner Sanitary District pipe underneath the river. That pipe has been subject to leaks for 10 years. The last spill occurred in September, 2013 and was estimated at 45,000 gallons. The Umpqua Post was not notified of the most recent spill at the time it happened. The DEQ has been trying to get
delayed the deployment of its first buoy, the project seemed to be stuck on hold. The larger piece of the muchanticipated project would have placed a flotilla of 100 energy-producing buoys, each the size of a school bus, in the waves off the coast of Reedsport. But that was abandoned in March. This smaller project, made up of 10 smaller buoys, was the last remaining piece. The first buoy designed to gather wave energy remains at the Port of Portland. Jason Busch, executive director of the Oregon Wave Energy Trust, says the company should donate it to them as a farewell gesture. “It’s an amazing piece of equipment and it’s a shame it may never be deployed. At this point, I doubt it will,” Busch said. The company hasn’t released the amount spent on the wave energy project, nor the number of jobs that would have been associated with it, but Busch estimates the investment to be at least $10 million. “They spent a lot of money on that project at Reedsport,” Busch said. “Building that buoy, getting
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county and the district, because of the block grant,” Bryant said. “I delivered IGAs for the county on the 27th, the week of Spring Break. I was down there and I kind of went through them with one of the board members. We are supposed to have both of those documents executed by the end of April.” Bryant said the work could start very soon. “We know that, working with DEQ, it could potentially take four to six months at most,” Bryant said, “for the complete design. It think it’s even less than that. “We know the pipe (project) could move first.” Gardiner Sanitary District has been under pressure from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to fix the leaky pipe under the river for the past 10 years. That pipe has leaked into the river on numerous
SEE GRANT, PAGE A6