Make the McKenzie Connection!
Make the McKenzie Connection!
Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 1847
EUGENE: This month the Lane County Board of Commissioners added their support for improved area communications by authorizing a $500,000 transfer to the Lane Council of Governments to support the McKenzie Broadband Intergovernmental Agreement. A staff report on the proposal noted that land-based internet service is already available on utility poles above ground that are exposed to disruption from natural hazards common in the Cascades such as snowstorms, windstorms, and wildfires. The report went on to add that “an added benefit of this p...
BLUE RIVER: Rain showers provided some welcome relief on Sunday by reducing fire activity. The wetting rainfall helped remove danger levels in areas east of McKenzie Bridge that had been at Level 1. While Hwy. 242 remains closed to traffic, one lane of Hwy. 126 is open to traffic following a pilot vehicle, east of its intersection with the Old McKenzie Hwy. In that area, the 511-acre Boulder Creek Fire remained 0 percent contained while crews dealt with fire-weakened trees along the highway...
RAINBOW: “There wasn’t a major tribe that lived here but there were people who came through,” this may not have been what people had hoped to hear but it was David Lewis’s honest appraisal of Native peoples’ involvement with the McKenzie River Valley. Speaking at the Upper McKenzie Community Center earlier this month he went on to add that those interactions were most likely to have involved late summer visits for fishing or berry picking, rather than establishing any permanent villages...
The Eugene Water & Electric Board is offering residential and commercial loans for backup power systems. Residential electric customers may qualify for up to a $5,000 zero-interest loan Commercial customers may qualify for a four percent interest loan, with the loan amount based on project details and eligible costs. Purchasing a backup power system can help increase safety and resiliency in a power outage. Our Backup Power Program assists customers with the purchase and installation of a...
A sanctuary for stargazing in Oregon is the largest in the world and is set to get even bigger. In eastern Oregon, the organization DarkSky International declared 2.5 million acres of the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary in the first phase of its process in March. It plans to increase the sanctuary to more than 11 million acres in the next few years. Damon Motz-Storey, director of the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club, recently visited the area. “Anybody who’s visited it on a cle...
One year after a wildfire burns in a forest, the U.S. Forest Service assesses the damage. What the agency finds at this one-year mark informs its post-fire restoration efforts, including how many trees foresters are required to plant to replace ones that died due to the fire. However, according to a growing body of research, one year just isn’t enough time to determine how many trees have died following a wildfire. Two recent studies, created independently of each other, that examined the e...
MCKENZIE BRIDGE: A Level 1 (Be Ready) evacuation notice remains in effect for areas North of McKenzie Highway from the East end of Drury Lane East to the Clear Lake Cutoff. Residents have been encouraged to sign up for emergency alerts at www.LaneAlerts.org On September 8th an emergency closure order was issued for the Linton Creek Fire, expected to extend through January 1st, unless rescinded or modified sooner. The fire, caused by a September 6th lightning strike on the McKenzie River Ranger...
The Willamette National Forest has issued an emergency closure order for the Linton Creek Fire, Boulder Creek Fire, and other new fires resulting from the lightning storm on Sept. 6, 2024. With widespread fire suppression occurring across the McKenzie River and Middle Fork Ranger Districts and fire growth occurring on multiple fires, the expanded emergency closure area is needed to ensure public and firefighter safety. The closure order rescinds the previous Linton Creek Fire order. A short stretch of the McKenzie River National Recreation...
BLUE RIVER: “Lane County will be working once again with the community to determine the feasibility of constructing a separated bike/ped bridge that would support emergency vehicles and withstand an earthquake,” according to senior planner Becky Taylor. The study, she says, “will explore two alignment options and develop design concepts. The goal will be to develop a community-preferred design concept that completes the gap in bike/ped connectivity from the school to the downtown and improves th...
WALTERVILLE: The Eugene Water & Electric Board plans to start generating electricity from the Walterville Hydro plant as soon as possible, “but we need to ensure it is done safely and by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) dam safety requirements.,” according to utility communications specialist Adam Spencer. EWEB dewatered the Walterville Canal in February after receiving an automated alert from a water seepage monitor. The detector, near the Walterville Powerhouse, monitor...
Oregon is in the upper echelon when it comes to the number of women in higher office. Four of the five statewide elected positions in the state are held by women, including Tina Kotek in the governor’s office. It is a rare achievement. Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women in Politics, said the national average for women in statewide elected offices is about one in three. However, the number of women in the top positions in Oregon is guaranteed to go down in November, with m...
Linn County Sheriff Michelle Duncan reports that on Sunday, September 1st, dispatch received a report of an injured backpacker at Duffy Lake. The patient was a 16-year-old male from Portland who sustained a broken leg. The patient’s mother had sent a nearby backpacker to hike out and call 911. The good Samaritan made it to Maxwell Butte Sno-Park and contacted Linn County Dispatch at 4 p.m. Duncan said the Linn County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue (SAR) immediately began to mobilize a ground...
VIDA: Passports affirming visits to over 40 countries have helped Tiff and Scott Haugen record some memorable moments. Both spent years as teachers in Alaska and Indonesia - before settling down where they grew up - in Walterville. Both have shared their experiences in books and videos since then, developing full-time careers in the outdoor industry. Last Saturday, Scott detailed some of the action behind the scenes of those stories during a slide show at the Vida McKenzie Community Center....
As Oregon heads into another hot weekend, Oregon House Republicans are calling on the state Legislature to reform forest management and logging policies they say would prevent large fires from starting and spreading. In a letter sent Wednesday, Republican Reps. Jeff Helfrich of Hood River, Ed Diehl of Stayton, and E. Werner Reschke of Klamath Falls said lawmakers should roll back regulations and conservation plans to allow more logging on state forests, limit liabilities for volunteer...
LEABURG: “Our goal is to educate several generations to become stewards of the river,” was the message Gene Jones delivered at the August meeting of the McKenzie River Chamber of Commerce. He went on to explain that the McKenzie River Discovery Center (MRDC) would not only be “an education destination but also a stepping stone for economic development.” Located on the curve around Leaburg Lake, proponents of the MRDC received good news last Monday when the county okayed a special use permit...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is reminding people their Willamette Valley reservoirs are once again asking for your (emotional) support – they miss you and want to see you. According to the Portland District’s chief of reservoir regulation and water quality (so, basically, the smartest person in our district when it comes to reservoirs), the Willamette Valley reservoir levels are “fantastic” this year for recreation while also meeting objectives for endangered species-listed fish. And, th...
Visitors encouraged to stay safe, avoid wildfire areas and campfires Grab your bow for big game as the archery season for deer and elk began on Saturday, August 31st, in the Willamette National Forest. Some popular hunting areas are near wildfires with closure areas that will affect the hunting season. There are fire-related closures in place that primarily impact the Santiam Unit (16), the McKenzie Unit (19), and the Indigo Unit (21). Some roads and sites also remain closed from past wildfires...
Oregonians are likely to see more money back on their state tax returns in 2026 as tax revenues continue to exceed forecasters’ expectations. The state’s latest quarterly economic forecast, released Wednesday, anticipates a personal income tax “kicker” of $987 million. Oregon’s unique kicker law requires that when the income tax payments are at least 2% higher than budgeted, the excess revenue is sent back to taxpayers. Meanwhile, lawmakers are expected to have $676 million more available...
The federal government will move ahead with plans to kill tens of thousands of barred owls in Washington, Oregon and California to protect threatened spotted owls. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a decision on Wednesday to adopt a controversial barred owl management strategy that calls for lethal removal of the birds by shooting them with shotguns and, in some cases, capturing and euthanizing them. Barred owls are native to the eastern U.S. but began expanding their range in the...
BLUE RIVER: Over 650 firefighters are using firelines to control the spread of the 3,000-acre Ore Fire. On Tuesday, the fire was 25 percent contained. Despite a little over 3/4 of an inch of rainfall recorded at the Cougar Dam weather station last week, officials say pockets of heat from dense fuels remain within the fire interior and increased fire behavior will be possible as skies clear, temperatures rise, and humidities drop, causing fuels to begin to dry. A slow warming/drying trend is...
EUGENE: Supporters have described it as “potentially the most technologically advanced waste processing facility in the country.” Opponents, though, say the $150,000,000 waste sorting facility is “a massive project that will increase costs of living for all Lane County residents.” At issue is the CleanLane Resource Recovery Facility (previously known as IMERF) the county plans to build in Goshen. An August 20th Lane County Board of Commissioners’ vote to approve it was a replay of December...
With climate change driving hotter, drier summers across the West, the intensity of recent fire seasons is outpacing workers’ ability to track and analyze fires with traditional methods. “There simply aren’t enough boots on the ground, or eyes in pairs of binoculars to cover the base and the extent of what we’ve been dealing with and that’s been true across the western U.S. and the world,” said Sarvesh Garimella, the chief scientist and chief technical officer at weather app MyRadar. Ho...
After last year’s success, they had to do it again. The Army Corps Of Engineers has released its 2024 giant Cats and Infrastructure calendar. Last year it was an internet sensation, going beyond being viral to being featured on TV talk shows. This year they decided to time the release of their calendar with National Cat Day and it appears to have a gentler approach, compared to last year, when giant cats appeared to be trying to destroy infrastructure. Also new to this year is a dog calendar. T...
