Think Out Loud

The double-crested cormorant is one of many seabirds that love to eat salmon. The birds were driven away from East Sand Island near the mouth of the Columbia River decades ago in an effort to protect the fish, but wildlife managers are now responding to some unintended consequences. Roughly 10,000 cormorants now prefer to make their home on the Astoria-Megler bridge. The acid from their excrement, or guano, eats through the bridge coating which Oregon Department of Transportation workers must remove regularly for safety inspections. Nesting cormorants can also  find their way onto the roadway, leading to encounters which can be fatal for the birds and pose safety hazards for drivers. We talk with James Lawonn, an avian biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, about what’s being done to protect the birds and the bridge. 

Earlier this year, millions of dollars were allocated to counties across the state as part of a homelessness state of emergency. We hear from an organization based in rural Oregon that’s working on rehousing residents in Baker, Grant, Union and Wallowa counties. Connie Guentert is the executive director of Community Connection of Northeast Oregon, Inc. She joins us with details of the organization’s work. 

Two dozen elected officials, law enforcement officers and substance use treatment providers traveled from Oregon to Portugal recently to learn about the country’s 20-year-old drug decriminalization program, which inspired Oregon’s voter-approved Measure 110. The trip was organized and largely paid for by the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, a statewide advocacy organization focused on implementing M110. The group met with Portuguese policymakers and addiction service professionals to learn how the country built an integrated health care response to its addiction crisis. Lily Morgan is a Republican state representative from Grants Pass. Kate Lieber is a Democratic state senator representing Beaverton and Southwest Portland and serves as the Senate Majority Leader. They join us to talk about the trip and whether it presented applicable lessons for Oregon.

Lone Fir Cemetery is one of the oldest continuously operating cemeteries in Portland. It also serves as a painful reminder of the racist and exclusionary treatment of Chinese immigrants who first arrived in Oregon in the mid-1800s, working as miners, merchants and other laborers. From the 1860s to the 1920s, roughly 2800 Chinese immigrants were buried in a section of Lone Fir known as Block 14. Ledgers were used to record the names of many of the people who were buried there so that the remains could be dug up and the bones sent to China for reburial in ancestral villages and towns. By the late 1940s, Multnomah County officials claimed that all remains at Block 14 had been repatriated. But they hadn’t, according to an archaeological survey commissioned by the county in 2005 which found evidence of human remains at the site.  Today, Block 14 is a bare field with no permanent reminder of its history or significance to the Chinese American community. But Metro, the regional government agency which owns the cemetery, is attempting to change that by using a voter-approved parks bond to build a memorial to honor the memory of people buried at Block 14. The project will also honor former patients from the state’s first psychiatric hospital, the Oregon Hospital for the Insane, nearly 200 of whom were buried at Lone Fir. Hannah Erickson, a communications specialist at Metro Parks and Nature, and Helen Ying, president of the Lone Fir Cemetery Foundation, join us to discuss the history of Block 14 and the two design proposals for the memorial. 

After facing pandemic-era high inflation rates and a shift in migration, Oregon’s economy is stabilizing, according to a new forecast. The forecast also notes that economic recovery post-pandemic has been inclusive across the board, as people of all backgrounds are seeing lower poverty rates and higher rates of employment. Josh Lehner is an economist with the state. He joins us to share more on the state of Oregon’s current population trends and what the labor market is looking like. 

With the presidential election less than a year away, a  recent survey commissioned by the Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division highlights the challenges facing Oregon’s county clerks. Researchers at Reed College’s Elections & Voting Information Center surveyed nearly all of Oregon’s 36 county clerks who not only administer elections but also record property transactions and issue marriage licenses. But as the survey reveals, that job has become tougher and more stressful in recent years, with mounting threats, harassment and even suspicious mail that was sent earlier this month to clerks’ offices in Oregon, Washington  and several other states.  More than a third of Oregon’s county clerks have also retired or resigned in 2020, which raises concerns around maintaining adequate staffing heading into an election cycle that takes months to prepare for and certify the results of. Joining us to discuss the challenges facing Oregon county clerks are Paul Manson, the research director of the Elections & Voting Information Center at Reed College and lead author of the survey, Lane County Clerk Dena Dawson and Jackson County Clerk Chris Walker. 

Portland Public Schools students are out of class for the 10th day this month as the first strike in the district’s history continues. The Portland Association of Teachers claims the most recent offer it presented to the district would significantly reduce the financial gap between the two sides, but the district has disputed how much the proposal would actually save. Renard Adams is chief of research, assessment and accountability for PPS. Angela Bonilla is the president of PAT. They join us with the latest on where negotiations stand.

Tooth enamel is the strongest substance produced by the human body, protecting the sensitive lower layers of the teeth. But once it wears away, we can’t regrow it. The cells that create enamel, called ameloblasts, die shortly after the teeth are formed. New research from the University of Washington could eventually change that, however. Researchers have succeeded in transforming stem cells into ameloblasts, which can produce a rudimentary enamel under the right conditions. Hannele Ruohola-Baker is a professor of biochemistry and associate director of the Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington. She joins us with more details on what the ability to regrow enamel could mean for dental patients.

Oregon’s timber reputation is largely built from softwoods like Douglas Fir. But a new lumber mill in Philomath aims to take advantage of the many hardwoods available on the western side of the state. Patrick Lumber aims to mill Oregon white oak, Pacific maple, tan oak, madrone, chinquapin, myrtle and Oregon ash trees from lots that are being thinned for fire protection. David Halsey, CEO of Patrick Lumber, joins us to tell us about their strategy for this new mill.

The Oregon Justice Resource Center recently released a report focusing on access to abortion in Oregon county jails. It found that access to the procedure varies widely by county. We hear more about the report from Brittney Plesser, co-director of the Fair Law Project at Oregon Justice Resource Center.