This November Portland voters have the historic opportunity to elect a new city council that actually reflects the diversity of its constituents. In 2022 voters overwhelmingly supported a city charter change that transforms the structure of the city government, dividing the city into four districts that each elect 3 council members to represent that district. Now several
The last 10 miles of the Willamette River have been designated as a Superfund Site, a federal designation for the worst contaminated areas in the United States. The North Reach of the Willamette is one of the most complex Superfund Sites in the country. This highly contaminated stretch of the Willamette starts at the confluence with the Columbia River and extends to the
Lawmakers and advocates have called upon Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum to launch an investigation into NW Natural for misleading consumers about the health impacts from gas. In their letter to Rosenblum they detail how NW Natural has taken a leaf from the tobacco industry in misleading consumers about the dangerous toxins emitted from their gas cookstoves.
Before Hamas’s horrific attack on Israel on October 7 we were mainly aware of two existential threats: the impending death of democracy and climate catastrophe. But that attack and Israel’s unrelenting response has split our attention and overwhelmed us with a barrage of issues that we cannot ignore. On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with long time labor, climate and
Woody biomass has become the fossil-fuel industry’s renewable, green savior but this source of energy is fraught with problems. British energy giant Drax has proposed building a wood biomass processing and export facility in Longview, Washington, that would use one million tons of wood each year, to grind into pellets and ship to east Asia for burn in industrial power plants.