Make the McKenzie Connection!
Make the McKenzie Connection!
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A film premiering this week tackles the potential harms of the nuclear industry. Portland State University professor emeritus Jan Haaken directed the documentary “Atomic Bamboozle: The False Promise of a Nuclear Renaissance.” The film draws on historical lessons from the campaign to shut down the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon. The plant closed in 1992. Haaken said the nuclear industry is promoting a new design concept known as small modular reactors, or SMRs. Her initial int...
WALERVILLE: Traffic snarled to a stop and blocked the McKenzie Highway Monday morning after trucks collided at the site of recurring accidents. According to reports from the Oregon State Police, the accident occurred at 8:07 a.m. at Milepost 13, where the roadway crosses a narrow bridge over the Eugene Water & Electric Board's Walterville Canal. Police say the driver of a white Hino box truck left the road for unknown reasons and then re-entered the highway. He then hit the sidewalk of the...
LEABURG: McKenzie Fire & Rescue is among the finalists in the running for the Eugene Water & Electric Board’s 2023 Greenpower Grant. The fire district‘s proposal would include installing solar panels on their headquarter station in Leaburg. The panels, according to the grant proposal, “would contribute to the preservation of the area’s natural resources in an environmentally friendly way.” The panels are expected to help reduce the Leaburg building’s annual electricity $6,100 bill and could o...
Turnout was great at the McKenzie Valley Young Life’s Easter Egg Hunt at the McKenzie Community Track & Field. There was a special area for 0-4, and a timed release for the other age groups. Added activities included games like sack and three-legged races. Besides the free entry, the event generated donations towards the costs of going to camp for participants in the Young Life programs. At the Walterville Grange Easter Egg Hunt, children of all ages were placed in groups to get a fair chance a...
EUGENE: The Lane County Board of Commissioners could write a prescription for relief from rebuilding anxiety at their April 25th meeting. On the agenda are possible code amendments that were developed in response to concerns faced by owners of buildings destroyed by the Holiday Farm Fire in Blue River. According to senior planner Becky Taylor, the existing rights-of-way in the “downtown” area of Blue River were formally established by plats originally developed when the town was created. Most of the rights-of-way in the area are from 40 to 60 f...
BLUE RIVER: The Lane County Sheriff’s Office and family members are asking the public for help in finding a missing Blue River woman. According to LCSO reports, Mekenna Reiley was last seen on Thursday evening, April 6th. Friends and neighbors say they hadn’t seen or heard from the 40-year-old since. The Sheriff’s Office says that Reiley’s phone, purse, vehicle, and dog were left behind at her residence near Blue River Reservoir, but her location was unknown. It’s feared Reiley may be suffering...
A federal judge has ruled in support of a Bureau of Land Management effort to restrict bureaucratic delays to timber harvests and fuel reduction projects on BLM lands. U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane on March 27th granted summary judgment in favor of the BLM’s 2020 Final Rule eliminating the agency’s protest process which, the agency argued, had resulted in unnecessary bureaucratic delays to timber harvests and fuel reduction projects on BLM-managed lands, including more than 2 mil...
The federal government has awarded seven financial institutions in Oregon a total of $22.3 million in grants to help underserved communities recover from the pandemic. The money, announced Monday, is part of $1.7 billion awarded to more than 600 institutions nationwide through a U.S. Treasury program to boost recovery among low-income and moderate-income communities that were the hardest hit during the last three years. The grants are designed to provide capital and financing for small...
The Deschutes and Willamette National Forests remind people that overnight permit reservations have begun to be accepted for the Central Cascades Wilderness Permit System. The permits are required for all overnight use within the Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Washington, and Three Sisters wilderness areas from June 15th through October 15th. 40% of Central Cascades Wilderness Overnight Permit reservations became available for advanced reservation Tuesday on Recreation.gov. Officials said the remaining 60%...
The Special District Election scheduled for Tuesday, May 16th, will call for a bit of creativity for some voters. A number of the smaller units of government drew no interest from people willing to serve on them. Without a check box to mark, voters will have the option to write someone in or skip that portion of ballots that will be mailed to local residents on April 27th. Two McKenzie area water districts drew no candidates - the 51-year-old McKenzie Palisades district and the Dearborn district in Rainbow. The Palisades Water District had...
The Oregon Health Authority starts a months-long review of the state’s 1.5 million Medicaid members this week to determine who still qualifies for the health insurance. Normally, states review the financial eligibility of members annually, but during the pandemic, the federal government expanded benefits to states that kept members insured. Medicaid, known as the Oregon Health Plan in Oregon, provides free medical, behavioral health, and dental coverage. The extra federal benefits ended F...
A $120 million initiative to boost literacy would be one of the single largest investments of its type in Oregon history if it passes. But during a public hearing for the proposal at the House Committee on Education on Monday, critics said it doesn’t go far enough and risks wasting money without stricter spending rules. At the end of the hearing, the committee unanimously approved the initiative, moving it to the budget-writing Joint Ways & Means Committee. It would be the seventh major initiati...
A species of woodpecker once thought to limit itself to recently burned areas can breed successfully in the unburned parts of fire-prone landscapes too, according to a study by Oregon State University scientists that holds key implications for improved conservation and forest management efforts. The research led by doctoral student Mark Kerstens and Jim Rivers, a faculty member in the OSU College of Forestry, sheds new light on the black-backed woodpecker, which lives throughout northern North...
State Forester Calvin Mukumoto has proclaimed all of April as Oregon Arbor Month, allowing lots of time for commemorative plantings and other tree-related activities. “Trees play an essential role in the lives of Oregonians,” said State Forester Mukumoto. “Living through the extreme heat of 2021 and the isolation of the COVID pandemic has brought home to all of us the importance of urban trees to provide shade and cooling, as well as contact with nature right in our own neighborhoods. This procl...
LEABURG: Brad Dimock, Colorado River guide, river dory historian, dory builder, teacher, and owner-operator of Fretwater Boatworks in Flagstaff, will be a featured presenter from 5 to 7 p.m. at the McKenzie River Discovery Center’s Hatchery building, April 22nd. His talk will tie into the evening’s theme, “Spawning Grounds: It Started with this River” and will be a show-and-tell of the links between the McKenzie, Rogue, and Colorado dories, some of the histories, and “generally enamor the audie...
A Leaburg man who killed his 71-year-old roommate in July has been sentenced to 15 years in jail. The Lane County Sheriff’s Office had arrested Nickolas Trevor Jessee, 37, on July 8th, after a day-long search. According to reports, deputies received a call from a neighbor shortly after 10 p.m, on Friday, July 8th. The witness reported seeing a dispute involving two males at a residence in the 44000 block of the McKenzie Highway. When police arrived on the scene they found Gary Stuart Coulter o...
BLUE RIVER: More than two dozen people had a chance in March to record their feelings on good and bad aspects of plans that will help determine how Blue River rebuilds after the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire. During a meeting in the McKenzie High School gym, maps and comment forms for Lane County’s Blue River Drive design concept project allowed people to focus on four different sections of the road. Transportation planner Becky Taylor told the group to address issues like what the best and worst o...
BLUE RIVER: The McKenzie School District opened its McKenzie Little Eagles Child Care Center last Thursday. The new offering fills the child care gap left by the devastating Holiday Farm Fire. Previously, there wasn't a licensed child care facility within the school district boundary, making it hard for families to return to work after COVID. Families returning to the McKenzie Valley as rebuilding continues have faced similar challenges. Organizers say it's hoped the center will help attract...
MCKENZIE PASS: An unexpected Spring thaw opened up a lot of territory to outdoor enthusiasts this week. Unfortunately some hikers who ventured up to a section of the Pacific Crest Trail had to be rescued. At 12:01 p.m. on Friday, a youth group from San Jose used a satellite phone to contact the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office. They reported seven members of their twelve person group were suffering from respiratory impairments and circulatory problems. Some were unable to walk. A dispatcher f...
WALTERVILLE: Rumors of a monster catfish living in the Walterville Pond have been told for generations by natives up and down the McKenzie Valley. Although most simply enjoy telling their version of the story, many claim to have actually seen it, yet some never believed it ever existed. Red Mudger of Deerhorn first told the story of the day he discovered the big fish. That was in 1912, only a year after the Eugene Water & Electric Board constructed the 70-acre storage lake. The Mudger family...
People planning on traveling up Hwy. 126 to access Sisters and parts of Eastern Oregon need to replan their route. The road is closed to allow for removal of rock from a landslide as well as filling in a massive hole that had blocked traffic east of Deer Creek over the weekend. Although times and days may vary depending on the weather, repair work is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily from April 3rd through 13th, or until rock removal is completed according to the Oregon Dept. of...
DEERHORN: A truck full of eels overturned near Deerhorn Road last Thursday, dousing a sedan with slithering sea creatures in a scene straight out of nightmares. Shortly after, five other vehicles were doused with goo that sent creatures slithering across the road near the intersection with Hwy. 126.. According to Oregon State Police reports, the fish were technically not eels, but hagfish, which have a skull but no jaw or spine. When distressed, hagfish secrete slime, earning them the nickname...
BLUE RIVER: The board of directors of the O’Brien Memorial Library reports they are poised to start rebuilding this spring, as soon as they get a building permit. As part of the process, the board plans to continue to apply for grants, accept donations, and trim expenses. “Our mission is to provide a welcoming space to residents and visitors of Blue River and the McKenzie River Valley, with books inspiring a love of reading and lifelong learning,” according to Mary Sherman. “Our library will be...
FINN ROCK: Ideas about resurrecting the town of Blue River kept people busy last Saturday during a two-hour community meeting at the old McKenzie High School gym. The discussions were focused on what might happen after people realized Lane County's right-of-way setbacks could have impacts on buildable areas along the town's main street - Blue River Drive. Originally, the county had planned to focus on an area extending from the eastern junction with Hwy. 126 to where the street crosses Blue...
When the fires die down, the mud stops sliding, the drought lets up or the rain quits pouring, land managers must decide: Can damaged land grow back on its own, or will it need some help? That help often comes in the form of seeds: millions and millions of seeds, delivered by a plane, machine, or even foot. But too often, there aren’t enough to go around, according to an expansive new report. That means that restoration is likely to be slow or not happen at all. And that can lead to soil erosion...
