Category Environment & Agriculture
Oregon teens reporting ‘eco-anxiety’ from climate challenges, report finds
Young people hold signs during a climate strike in 2019. (Salem Reporter/FILE) The issue of global climate change became achingly apparent to 17-year old Ukiah Halloran-Steiner of Yamhill County during the 2020 Labor Day weekend wildfires. She was kayaking on the Rogue River in southern…
Oregon’s agriculture sector could win millions of dollars in federal funding
Minto Island Growers employees harvest beets on the south Salem farm (Courtesy/Marion Polk Food Share) Oregon’s thousands of farmers and ranchers have an opportunity to garner millions of dollars in loans and free grants from the federal U.S. Department of Agriculture. Last week the agency…
Clackamas fuel company hit with state and federal fines for 2020 oil spill into North Santiam River
The overturned Space Age Fuel truck on Highway 22, February 16, 2020. (Oregon State Police) The company whose fuel truck overturned on Highway 22 two years ago, spilling gasoline and diesel into the North Santiam River, has been penalized by state and federal regulators, the…
Climate change is pushing toxic chemicals into drinking wells
A home under construction along the Santiam River in Gates in September 2021, a year after wildfire tore through the canyon. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) This story was originally published by Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Don Myron is probably best known as…
Despite ambitious targets, Oregon climate policies must go further to meet global calls to action
Oregon will need to prioritize carbon sequestration in state forests and farmlands in order to advance overall greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. (Oregon Department of Forestry/Flickr) Oregon’s top climate experts agree with the conclusions of a new international report that global greenhouse gas emissions must be practically…
More flooding, mudslides in Oregon as extreme fires to be followed by extreme rains
In the heavily fire damaged North Santiam watershed, hillsides where trees and plants were burned in the wildfire are at increased risk of flooding and mudslides. (Ron Cooper/Salem Reporter) Oregon will face more mudslides and flooding during the next 80 years as a result of…
Groups say BLM ignoring environmental concerns when issuing grazing permits
Cattle graze along the Snake River. (Bureau of Land Management) The Bureau of Land Management has been renewing livestock grazing permits on public lands in Oregon without a thorough environmental analysis, including on overgrazed land, according to two new reports. The Western Watersheds Project and…
Oregon has most miles of polluted or ‘impaired’ waterways nationwide, new analysis says
Upper Klamath Lake is among the most polluted lakes in Oregon. (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation/Wikimedia Commons) Oregon has more than 120,000 miles of polluted or “impaired” rivers and streams – the most nationwide, according to a new analysis. The report, released last week by the Environmental…
Nursery, labor contractor fined $6,300 in Marion County farmworker’s heat death
An irrigation system in a Marion County agricultural field (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) Oregon’s workplace safety agency fined a St. Paul nursery and Woodburn-based labor contractor a total of $6,300, saying both companies failed to keep employees safe from the triple-digit temperatures that led to the…