Behind the Scenes: Black United Front Nude Dancing 3 Mile Island The Last Salmon and much much more . . .
Edited by: Joel Weinstein, Joe Uris and Lenny Dee A d Safes by: David Milholland Cover A r t by: Isaac Shamud-Din Logo by: Delohnette CLINTON ST QUARTERLY Contributing Artists: Sharon Torvik, Isaac Shamud-Din, Steve Sandstrom, Henk Pander, Jerry Harley, Bill Dodge, DeJohnette, Barry Curtis, and David Barrios Cadillac-Fairview Fight is On An Oregon Journal poll has confirmed what the Clinton Si. Quarterly reported last issue: most Portlanders do not like, or want, the proposed Cadillac-Fairview Development which has been proposed for Downtown. Journal readers voted by a 198-60 margin that the proposal was bad for Portland. They voted 222-36 disapproval of using the city’s condemnation power to acquire land for the project. Portlanders opposed the “ sky- bridge” concept of linking together blocks within the project, by a 201-49 margin. Finally, by an overwhelming Vol. 1, No. 3 Fall 1979 222-31 vote, people objected to using city money to subsidize the development. Responses were highly emotional, as they usually are when you talk of destroying a large part of a people’s culture and history. "Tell Cadillac-Fairview Corp. Ltd. to tear down buildings in Canada.” “ Subsidies should be for low-income people and should be for the public good, not to help a multinational Clinton St. Quarterly is published free to the public by Clinton St. Center for the Arts, Inc., 2522 S.E. Clinton St. Portland, OR 97202. © 1979 Clinton St. Quarterly. corporation enlarge its fortune.” “Small business and not big business; local, not foreign.” However, the fight still rages, as the city council is not yet convinced that this project isn’t in the best interests of Portland. While the Cadillac- Fairview proposal has been on the back burner as the city council busied itself with selecting a new mayor, the project is expected to come up for a vote in council sometime in the next month. Now is the time to express your opposition to the idea. Remember, the Cad-Fair developers have been hard at work lobbying the council. If you are in opposition to this plan, call up all of the city council members and tell them so. Or, attend the anti-Cadillac meetings on Thursday nights at the First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park (enter Madison St.) at 7:30 p.m. If you would like further information or wish to join SOLD (Save Our Liveable Downtown), call 284- 4810. Sunday at the Bagel Ladies Morning for a great take-home brunch. We have lox and cream cheese, too. Every Sunday 9-1. Cinnamon-raisin bagels (and all our other varieties) baked fresh Sunday ' i 'O N .E . FREMONT • PORTLAND • 2 8 2 -8 6 2 7 • OPEN TUES.-SUN. 5829 S. E. Milwaukie Portland 97202 232-9440 Open Tuesday-Saturday 11:30-10 Fine German Pastries PAPA HAVDA Espresso Drinks Beer and Wine Lunch 2
H A R D N E W S The Golden Fleece, or Why Taxes Are So High Call Girl Date Book Fingers VIP’s Headlines of both major Portland daily papers in June were filled with reports of alleged mishandling of vice investigations by the Portland Police Department. D.A. Hari Haas accused the police of improper conduct. Officers apparently had sexual relations with a key prosecution witness. The witness was loaned $200 by the head of the vice squad. The police responded to Haas' accusations by suggesting that the D.A. was covering for important clients of local whores. What was never made clear, however, are these facts: Two trick books were in the possession of the police and the D.A.'s office. According to informed sources the books contained the names of some of Portland and Oregon’s most important business and political leaders. Allegedly the “ trick” books detailed sexual preferences of at least one judge and a major elected figure in Portland City government. The “trick" books, according to our sources, were last in the hands of the D.A.’s office. No one will say where the books are now. But they are probably great bedtime reading for someone. Some Like It Hot A retired navy officer and his wife are believed to be the first Americans to simmer to death in an overheated hot tub. Deputy coroner Margo Martin ruled that the couple passed out and died of extreme overheating at the spa in their home in Simi Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles. For sheer futility, it’s hard to imagine a government agency compiling a sorrier record than that of the New York office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). During the fiscal year ending in October 1978, 200 INS investigators in New York spent $23.6 million locating a total of 10,607 “ deportable aliens” —or roughly $2,225 for every man, woman and child that the INS, . in its own vernacular, deemed “ wet.” If this doesn’t sound like too high a Machine SNAFU Causes Needless Patient Death In early June, the Clinton Street Quarterly has learned, a patient died because of equipment failure in the operating room of a major westside hospital. The patient was undergoing a routine surgical knee repair. In the course of the operation, the victim was given too much oxygen. The respiratory center in the brain failed and the patient’s lungs, heart and circulatory system malfunctioned. Efforts at open chest massage failed. Like one in every 100,000 bounty, then consider one more fact: Of these more than 10,000 “ deport - ables,” maybe half are actually sert out of the country. The others manage to elude deportation somehow— by jumping bail, marrying an American, or tying up proceedings against them long enough to establish permanent residence, or citizenship. And even the total number of aliens apprehended is but a fraction of the estimated 750,000 to 1.5 million living in the New York metropolitan area. anaesthetized persons undergoing surgery, the patient failed to survive what was supposed to be a very safe procedure. The Clinton Street Quarterly also learned that the patient's family was not informed of the real cause of death. They were simply told that the patient had died while undergoing surgery. Thus the anaesthcsiologist, the surgeon, and the hospital were able to avoid a possible malpractice suit. Recycling Supporters Sought Portland Recycling, a long-time environmental activist organization in the Portland community, has announced that they will be conducting a membership drive and public awareness campaign during the months of July and August. The purpose of the membership drive will be to raise money to pay off some long-standing debts, and to purchase trucks and other equipment to make Portland Recycling a self-sufficient organization. Portland Recycling, a non-profit company, began offering recycling services to Portlanders in 1970, and since 1974 they have recycled more than 30,000 tons of paper, glass, aluminum and other recyclable materials, making them one of the largest recyclers in the nation. Today, Portland Recycling has six full-time, 24-hour-a-day recycling drop-off centers, which offer community recycling and education programs to more than 20 residential areas from Tigard to the Coast, The organization is trying to move as quickly as possible to complete self- sufficiency and a position of being able to pay their employees and continue their operations and education program, through the sale of recyclable materials to re-use markets, and by generating public support for their organization through the sale of public memberships. At press time the exact details of the membership drive were not available, although it is reported that it will involve a large outdoor concert later this summer, co-sponsored by KGON- FM radio, with all proceeds from the concert going to Portland Recycling. Members of Portland Recycling will receive admission to this concert, a monthly newsletter, and a window decal. Memberships are expected to cost between $5 and $10. For more details on how to join Portland Recycling, cal) 228-5375. The Only Full Service Restaurant in the John’s Landing Area 6:30 a.m. - 8 p.m. Everyday Live Music Thurs.-Sun. Nights Beer and Wine 6439 S.W. Macadam 246-5108 DeNICOLA RESTA URANT Mrs. DeNicola and her family invite you to the DeNicola's Restaurant. The DeNicola's prepare each entree with fine ingredients. . from recipes they brought with them from Italy. They serve tne kind of Italian food you've been looking for. TAKE OUT 234-2600 BANQUET FACILITIES 3520 SE Powell 4:00-11:00 Tue-Thur 4:00-12:00 Fri-Sat 4:00-11:00 Sun. 3
Why Neil Can’t Win By M.G. Horowitz A balmy Sunday evening during Rose Festival was hardly any time to talk polities. But it was the first Sunday of the month and it was once again Neil Goldschmidt’s turn to appear on KGW TV's “Open Line". Hardly ten minutes had elapsed when host Paul Linnman popped the question. "Are you ready now, Mr. Mayor, to tell us whether you will run for the U.S. Senate?" The Mayor smiled. He allowed that he had traveled around the state to lest the waters for a candidacy. Before he could declare, however, he needed to decide whether “ this is really what I want" and whether Washington was "really where my family and I want to live." But the Clinton Street Quarterly had another question for the Mayor: is this an election you can really win. Your Honor? No one doubts that Neil Goldschmidt can excite urban voters in Portland and Eugene: he’s shown that ability in two previous elections and in past appearances in both cities. But how would he fare outside the urban nexus — in semi-urban yet telling comities like Jackson. Marion, Deschutes. and Umatilla? Io ask the question is to also ask its twin: how is Bob Packwood doing in those counties? Has the two-term Senator endeared himself to the voters in those regions? "As long as he doesn’t make any obvious blunders — and he's avoided that — any awareness of his lack of a record would have to be created," Bend columnist Jackman Wilson told Ihe Quarterly. “He's been a Senator for two terms, he hasn’t been indicted! — it may be easy for people to think that he’s doing all right. They may not be aware of his stand on issues but they haven't heard of him in any kind of unpleasant context so they have fairly neutral feelings towards him, which is really not too bad the way things are." “ In Central Oregon, then,” we inquire, “no news is good news?" “Yeah. A) Ullman keeps getting elected time after time and he hasn’t really done all that much for the district. About ah he's delivered is a Visitor Center six miles south of here." "What about Goldschmidt’s image in this region?" Wilson pauses. “ If people have any awareness of Goldschmidt at all, he’s perceived as a liberal Portland politician and people would question his understanding of problems in this part of the state.” I glance at a recent editorial about Goldschmidt in the Bend Bulletin. Its title: "His Interest” . The report is much the same from southern Oregon, where Medford reporter David Force appraised a possible Packwood-Goldschmidt match. “ Packwood hasn’t been especially successful at becoming personally identified with pork barrel projects in southern Oregon," Force wrote us, "but he has a name familiarity edge, which is probably adequate to win the election all by itself. Goldschmidt is known in a relatively positive sense in Medford, for cooperating in the city's efforts to develop a viable downtown area based on Portland’s experiences. But southern Oregon also includes rural counties where Goldschmidt’s association with Portland and urban issues might be a negative factor no matter how successful his involvement in them." As political observers, both Wilson and Force can conceive, of course, of a Goldschmidt upset. “ If there was a good campaign,” allows Wilson, “good enough to where names and faces and issues became familiar to the voters, I think Goldschmidt could win here.” “Goldschmidt might make considerable capital," adds Force, “by emphasizing Packwood as a member of the Washington establishment. But name familiarity gaps can be overcome only with heavy campaign spending. Goldschmidt would need an extremely well-financed campaign. Yet Packwood is already winning the 1979 Money Election.” Ah, money, the icon of post-war politics. Why is it so necessary for upsetting an incumbent or repressing a challenger? "A political campaign," one veteran campaigner explained to us. “ is an educational process. The educating that goes on is to educate the voters to vote for your guy instead of the other guy. If I had a choice between hiring a psychologist or a political scientist, I would take a psychologist every time because at least hopefully he understands human nature. People will give you all kinds of reasons why they vote for you but the real reason is that they like you better." “How do you get them to like you better?” we ask. “ I’ll mention some things you spend money on that you might not think about. The first money you get in a campaign has to go to staff, people don't even think about that. In addition to that, you're going to have headquarters expenses. You’re going to have travel expenses. You got all that — and we could be talking now of $100,000 easy — before you even think of spending any money on media. If you want to have billboards, billboards are expensive. You’re going PORRETTA PIZZA 2239 SE Hawthorne 232-2812 TAKE OUT ONLY BEERANDW INE TOGO PORTLAND SATURDAY MARKET BEST PIZZA IN PORTLAND Whole Wheat or White Crust Subs-Salads Hours: Tue, Wed, Th. Sun 4-10 Eri-Sat 5-12 SPECIAL SUMMER HAPPENINGS JULY8 CRAFTS DAY Free demonstrations by master craftspeople AUGUST 11-12 WATERFRONT WEEKEND The whole Market moves to Waterfront Park for a weekend of merriment. Sunshine guaranteed. Quality handcrafts • International food Local produce ■Free entertainment Every Saturday and Sunday till Christmas Under the Burnside Bridge in Old Town 4
politicians, and they have become addicted to failure. If the salmon is to be rescued, it needs a wider public. Survival it can do for itself; it is up to us to see to it that a home is preserved, securing for the salmon the rights to survival. The salmon and trout are an indicator of land health, for everything that we do ends up in the rivers; and sick rivers and a sore land are not good salmon habitat. Aldo Leopold writes, “Conservation is the protection of the land’s ability to renew itself.” The salmon is a renewable resource. It’s just that as the land is developed, the waters which flow from it receive the insult of sedimentation, thermo-pollution and poisons; the physical changes in the streams which follow assure that they will rear fewer fish. But if the salmon and trout are indicators of land health, then they are also a reflection of the land itself, adapted, as it turns out, to local environments, These environments are not static; they change. The salmon has to adjust, yet it has been found that salmon are adapted genetically to local environments and are genetically changed as those environments change. The salmon, wherever it is found, is a reflection of the special circumstances which make up its habitat; it is of the water chemistry, the vegetation, the rocks, the sun. Changes in these circumstances create changes in the fish. Diversity is considered important to the survival of a population of animals. It is the diverse environments that the salmon are found in that give shape to the fish and to its behavior and life history. In Canada it was found that sockeye salmon, which need a lake for the juvenile salmon to rear in, will spawn in the inlet and outlet streams to the lake. Ones that spawn in the outlet must swim upstream to enter the lake, and the ones in the inlet stream move downstream to the lake. Even though the stream system has sockeye salmon in it, there are at least two distinct races of sockeye salmon using it. A single river may have one species of salmon, but also several races of that species, the races being adapted for survival within certain local habitats amidst that single river system. The salmon have colonized this coast, making a home of each part that is accessible to them. The various species coexist in the same rivers, and the races have exploited, through adaptation, certain sections of the rivers. Natural populations of trout and salmon are a remarkable adaptation to local environments. It is reflected in their genetic diversity which shapes the way they move through a stream, where they spawn, their age structure, their size. The following table is an example of the changes that took place in one population of steelhead after a hatchery reshaped the fish to fit its operations: ALSEA RIVER STEELHEAD WILD 1958 5.4 66.4 25.6 2.6 YEARS AT SEA / l * /2 /3 /4 % REPEAT SPAWNERS 11.1% HATCHERY 1978 4.6 / I 89.9 /2 5.5 /3 5.4% * / l means number of growing in the sea. years spent It is this natural diversity in a trout and salmon population which assures us that there will be future generations. One way that this is expressed, as is evident in the enclosed table, is in the age diversity within a single spawning population. In a natural population of steelhead or salmon, there is a variety in the ages of adults returning to spawn, so if disease or some other catastrophic circumstance were to affect the run. the whole population would not be eliminated in the future. If the spawning population were a single generation, this could easily happen. In the Alsea River, the hatchery steelhead population age structure is concentrated; the 3-year fish are reduced. the 4-year fish are absent, and the numbers of repeat spawners are reduced. This represents a reduced genetic diversity in the population, and that makes the population unstable. Now, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), at the Alsea Hatchery, is trying to breed diversity back into the steelhead population so that it resembles more closely their wild ancestry. The ODFW compared the survival of juvenile wild and hatchery steelhead in the natural stream environment at Trout Creek, a tributary to the Deschutes River. In this research, it was found that hatchery steelhead crossbred with hatchery steelhead had the lowest survival in the natural stream environment. The wild wild cross survived the best, while the hybrid hatchery-wild cross fell somewhere between. It was established that smolt production. the production of juvenile steelhead, from the interbreeding of hatchery and wild stocks, is less than what results from wild fish matings. When fewer juveniles are produced, there are also fewer returning adults in the next generation. It is quite possible for hatchery fish to overpower wild fish when hatchery fish are not isolated from wild fish. Interbreeding results in fewer smolts; wild fish have to survive the rigors of the natural environment, so that only 2 percent of the juveniles will result in returning adults, and the hatchery fish, because of their protected environment as juveniles. return in greater numbers. So, to some biologists, if the hatchery fish cannot be isolated from the wild stock, then the wild stock will eventually be lost. This is a serious problem because hatchery fish are normally not isolated from wild fish, so hatchery “enhancement” can and will result in lowered natural production. Research in Canada on pink salmon has shown that taking salmon “ donor” stock from one dtainage and releasing them in another that the donor stock does not return to the adopted stream as well as the native stock. They stray within the stream or into other streams nearby. Straying can be detrimental because, as was shown, interbreeding reduces genetic fitness of the native stock. This problem is compounded when the donor stock is reared in a hatchery as a brood stock, for they are changed genetically to fit the demands of the hatchery operation. When the donor stock is used to “enhance” the natural production in other streams, the effect is to reduce fitness of the wild stock through interbreeding, and the production of fewer wild juveniles. This is a common practice in West Coast states. Hatcheries are vulnerable to disease because the fish are reared in such dense concentrations. It is common to have a whole hatchery production destroyed because the fish cannot be planted out. If they were, they could infect the wild fish population and establish the disease in a river where it had not been present, where the fish are not resistant to it. Even though this is a quick look at hatcheries, it may serve to show that reliance upon them to increase our sagging fish runs is not altogether a sound biological investment. Hatcheries are a biological tool, a very useful tool, but they are not a panacea. But how have hatcheries gained such importance? They have become important to fisheries management because of the decreased abundance of our wild stocks and the inability, even under the best natural production. for wild stocks to meet the demands of an inflated fishery industry. The wildlife biologist realizes that he cannot secure the future of an elk herd unless the necessary habitat is available. The fishery biologist is under the same constraint, but the hatchery has become the quick fix. The late Mr. Roderick Haig-Brown, a naturalist and writer from British Columbia, says of hatcheries, “They are the easy way, the politically successful way, but dependence on hatcheries reduces the will to attack and solve the real problems of natural production and absorbs far too much money." The demand for fish is always able to outstrip the supply, since the hatcheries became increasingly successful in the 1960s through boosters of the commercial and sport fisheries. Today the troll fishery, which practices no limited entry off Oregon waters, is capable of overfishing the salmon stocks before they reach the rivers. A biologist working out of Puget Sound said that the environmental problems and the adverse effects of genetic damage to the stocks by artificial production is academic now because our greatest worry is to get enough fish back through the interception fisheries to reproduce. Along the Oregon Coast the wild coho salmon stocks have been overfished for a number of years, but only recently has the troll fishery come under season, location and size of salmon restrictions. I do not know a biologist who doesn't feel a cold chill whenever a harvest exceeds 50 percent of a population. In Oregon, bending to the interests of the commercial fishermen. the cut-off level was set at 75 percent harvest of wild coho. When it came to closing the season on an emergency basis just before Labor Day. Jack Donaldson, director of the ODFW, said, “The situation is grave." but he and the Commission kept the fishery open through the holiday, because it would cause too much economic dislocation, even though the harvest rate was al 93 percent of the wild coho run. The commercial fishermen become upset when they are closed down and see surplus salmon at the hatcheries. What they do not want to realize. however, is that hatchery coho can be harvested at a 90 percent level, while wild coho can be safely harvested at the 50 percent level. Since hatchery and wild coho and a mixed stock fishery, both are found in the sea at the same time, in the same places, harvesting hatchery coho at a greater rate results in overharvesting wild coho. When the commercial fishermen are closed down, they turn to their legislators, to the governor, and try to force the ODFW into letting them fish. The ODFW is reluctant to cross the legislators because in future legislative sessions, their budget will be cut or, as in this last session, a biologically unsound program gets rammed down their throat. Stocking out coho fry in Oregon coastal streams clearly is unsound, because the fry rear in the stream and compete for food and space with wild coho, steelhead and cutthroat. Direct competition from hatchery stock has been avoided in Oregon for many years. To change that because a powerful legislator wants it done is bad biology, but doing it is good politics. Commercial and sport fishermen are similar in one important respect: they participate in a consumptive activity. Taking fish without thought about where those fish come from or regard for their perpetuation endangers a renewable resource. It ts the nature of mankind, evidently, to distrust and oppose the guy who is after the same goodie as yourself. As the fishermen—the user groups: trollers, sports fishermen, gillnetters, Indian fishermen—fight each other in and out of courts, the BPA. the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of "The Acoustic Shop' Our entire stock of Martins and Guilds 41% off KU SX M These are the lowest known prices in the nation. Free beginning guilar lessons—no obligation to buy. All strings half price. Phone 239-7191 3928 SE Hawthorne Hours: 10:30am to 6pm Mon-Sat SARMA’S SHOPPE 2001 S.W. 6th PORTLAND, OR-97201 (one block south of The Cheerful Tortoise) 5
Reclamation, state water boards, private utilities, and agricultural interests are making rivers unproductive. Eventually, there will be no more salmon to fight over, yet as the salmon becomes a scarce resource, the fighting among the user groups grows more intense. The Columbia River was once one of the greatest salmon streams in the world. We have grown up with salmon and. consequently, we do not realize what a rare resource it is on a worldwide scale. It is a special phenomenon that is nourished by the very land we live on. To remain closed and disinterested to the salmon’s fate is probably not important to the salmon’s survival, for the salmon can do all that on his own as long as its habitat is kept healthy. But when one realizes that by keeping the rivers clean, one has to check pollutants and keep the soil on the hill; that by doing it Oregon is a better place to live, then it soon becomes apparent that by protecting wild trout and salmon stocks and the waters which nourish them is the only way to keep this coast whole and a fit place to live for fish and for people. Yes. the salmon's habitat is our very own. On the Columbia River, habitat destruction, the elimination of spawning grounds by dams, the manipulation of the river for power and irrigation at the expense of the salmon, mixed stock fisheries, overharvest of wild stocks, user group wars, unrealized compensation for salmon and steelhead losses, and the misuse of hatchery stocks, are leading to the salmon's demise, assuring its status as a threatened and endangered species. This is especially true in the upper Columbia River Basin. To correct this trend and give the salmon a secure future in the Columbia River and in Oregon, there needs to be a coordinated salmon management plan with the authority to make it work. This would be formed from the federal, state and citizens groups involved in “The salmon’s passage is a quiet one, and i f it no longer ascends the Columbia River, few people will know about it, but it will be gone in all its fine diversity. ” JStv/fuid ‘fnnit the problem. Known stock fisheries must be created so that hatchery salmon can be harvested and wild stocks permitted to spawn. Natural production areas must be given protection above other resource considerations, justified on the fact that few unaltered natural production areas exist today in the basin. All the provincial loyalties of government agencies and fishermen’s groups have to give way if the salmon is to survive. Otherwise, the West Coast will repeat the history of the Atlantic salmon fishery. We must learn how to do more than merely take what we want from a resource and begin to give something of ourselves to it, to see it through this crisis. The salmon’s passage is a quiet one. and if it no longer ascends the Columbia River, few people will know about it, but it will be gone in all its fine, full diversity. This country will have lost some of its meaning and richness. What myth will we then be creating about our origins? How wilt we then describe our short stay on this land? SAVE THE FISHERIES OF THE NORTH FORK JOHN DAY RIVER The North Fork wilderness complex is the largest wildland left unprotected in Oregon. The value of the fishery resource is $3.7 million. The North Fork is being managed as a natural production area by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for wild stocks of summer steelehad and spring Chinook. This watershed is the spawning and rearing habitat for 90% of the spring chinook and 70% of the summer steelhead using the John Day River system. The Umatilla National Forest wants to log the watershed but it is more valuable as a production area for anadromous fisheries. President Carter placed it into Further Planning during RARE II, but in order to protect the watershed, the water quality, and the fishery it must be given the greater protection of wilderness. Time is short so please call or write to your Congressman and Senators, for they will be deciding the fate of the watershed in Congress as they vote on what wildlands will enter the National Wilderness System this next month. Representative:___________________ U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 Senator:_________________________ U.S. Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 For further information contact: North Fork Wilderness Council Box 9 Prairie City, Oregon 97869 820-3714 Bill Bakke is a former conservation editor for Salmon Trout Steelhead magazine. Is the Columbia River the most radioactive river in the world? Answer in our Xmas Issue. PORRETTA PIZZA 2239 SE Hawthorne TAKE OUT ONLY BEERAND WINE TOGO 232-2812 KONG HARVEST NATURAL FOODS BEST PIZZA IN PORTLAND Whole Wheat or White Cr- r-t Subs-Salads 2.W se 23S~-S3Sg Hours: Tue., Wed., Th., Sun. 4-10 Fri.-Sat. 5-12 6
The Quarterly has been made privy to a harrowing story o f red tape asphixiation that might sn u f f out the breath o f 9-year-old Jack Nunn. CLINTON STREET EXPOSE By Lenny Dee Every day of the week, ace Chicago columnist Mike Royko writes of horrible asphixiations of simple justice at the hands of bureaucratic Catch-22s. He'll break your heart over the legless man who panhandles to find a permanent place of residence in order to receive Social Security benefits and then have the bureaucrats tell him that his increased income from panhandling will cut his Social Security benefits to the point where food and shelter are unaffordable. Or Royko might infuriate you with other tales of young punks threatening the lives of decent, hard-working citizens, yet are allowed to roam the streets on six months’ probation while a Windy City family makes a fortress of their apartment. Most Oregon chauvinists live here under the assumption that these bureaucratic snafus are relics of the older, decaying East. Lately it seems this myth might have as many holes in it as the Oregon State line. In the last month, the papers have detailed a depressing account of a young black man’s first days on a construction job in Central Oregon that in ugliness can be compared to James Meredith trying to integrate the University of Mississippi—yet neither the union nor the human rights commission felt empowered to help this beleaguered lad. Recently the Quarterly has been made privy to a harrowing story of red tape asphixiation that might snuff out the breath of 9-year-old Jack Nunn, who, for six years, has depended on expensive oxygen machinery to help his badly scarred lungs breathe. At age 3 Jack contracted viral pneumonia, which permanently scarred his lungs and required him to be on 24-hour oxygen supply. At that time, Jack's father's health insurance covered the crisis. Shortly thereafter Jack’s mom and dad got divorced. Mrs. Nunn remarried in the interim and Mr. Nunn quit his job, dropping their health insurance policy. His new stepdad could obviously not find an insurance company willing to provide coverage. Therefore, the State picked them up on the ADC stepfather grant. So the stepfather grant became crucial to Jack’s survival. This spring, Proposition 13 fever hit the legislature, and the stepfather grants were discontinued, leaving Jack’s lungs high and dry. The family continues to pile up huge bills while they frantically search for assistance. (The portable and home oxygen supply runs them $1,000 a month.) Jack’s mom contacted Congressman Les AuCoin’s office, and they tried to get help from the State Emergency Medical Care, without success. On her own, and with AuCoin’s office’s help, she contacted the Red Cross—who has no funding for such cases—the Oregon Lung Foundation (funded by Easter Seals), which only does research and education and does not provide direct assistance: Social Security: and the Shriners Hospital. Some of these agencies are not chartered to help such cases. Others, because the stepfather makes a moderate income, cannot help even though the monthly cost of the machines is three-fourths of his income. One charity could have helped only if the lung disease was a nonprimary illness, but Jack’s lung problem is very prim a ry . . . . Ironically, the only plan that could have helped is Multnomah County's Project Health (with only one year to live, thanks to Proposition 13 fever), but since Jack lives in Washington County. . . . All this activity is compounded by governmental officials flying around in circles and getting stuck on the flypaper. Senator Ed Fadeley, who introduced part of the welfare cutback legislation, was assured by Keith Putnam —Director of Adult and Family Services—that the State would find assistance. Marlene Haugland, Mr. Putnam's Executive Assistant, assured the Quarterly that they have been aware of the family for many years and that the branch office worked for many weeks in helping— there just wasn’t anything available. According to Ms. Haugland, it's frustrating to have need determined by the black and white on paper when there is a lot of gray in this world. Terry Anderson, who works at the Tri-County Community Council, helped the AuCoin office in their search for assistance and found local charities unwilling or unable to help, and the Washington County welfare workers slowed to a standstill by inertia and disappointment in the bureaucracy, without confidence in taking the case to higher offices. Caught in a Catch-22, Jack’s mom feels that no one would dare take the machine from her son despite all ’he “hot air" being blown her way by those concerned. To her, it's a matter of setting a precedent that might help others caught in the red tape nightmare of our bureaucracy. The last time I called Jack's house, it took every ounce of hjs lung power to call his mother to the phone before a heartbreaking wheezing cough set in. For what reason does government exist if it cannot aid a Jack Nunn? / / w we buy used records ARTICHOKE MUSIC 10:30-5:30 ♦monday-saturday ♦722 northwest 21st ♦243*0356 1____________________________________________ F 7
Scoop's Power Bill Shafts The No rthw es t Friends: I am a former Portlander living in Eugene, where I have the honor and responsibility of being one of the five elected commissioners that make policy decisions for Oregon’s largest customer-owned utility, the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB). This utility is known nationally for innovative leadership in energy conservation and development of decentralized renewable energy sources— hydroelectric, geothermal, cogeneration, wind, and biomass. EWEB is also Portland General Electric Company’s silent pardner, along with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) in the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. I was elected to help get EWEB out of that program sponsored hy BPA, The Clinton St. Quarterly recently asked me to contribute an article about the controversial Northwest regional electric power bill currently before the U.S. House of Representatives. This bill, also known as the Jackson Bill or Grandson of Peenuck. has been introduced and successfully managed in the Senate during the present and two previous Congressional sessions by the senator from Boeing, Henry “Scoop" Jackson. This bill would allow BPA to hock the entire federal Columbia River Power System as collateral to back construction bonds sold to pay for completion of nine Trojan-sized nuclear power plants. This plan to spend at least $12 billion on these nukes and then repay it with interest by soaking the ratepayers of the Northwest through the wholesale rates of BPA would be enforced by the federal government if this bill is passed. This vast conspiracy to put the electric utility ratepayers of the Northwest into billions of dollars of debt that would mean electric utility rates so high we cannot even imagine them now. This plan was hatched up by BPA. its “direct service" aluminum company customers, and the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee (PNUCC) in a high-pressure atmosphere of thinly veiled economic blackmail where the publicly owmed and investor-owned utilities were brought together for shuckin’ and jivin’ by BPA and the Atomic Energy Commission about everything from construction costs to disposal of high- level radioactive waste. But that’s also another story. By John Bartels Here is my testimony before the House Water & Power Subcommittee at their hearing on the Jackson Bill on September 8, 1979. I also describe here an ongoing movement toward utility reform that has been called the “ unfinished agenda” of the 1979 Oregon Legislature. It would create an Oregon alternative to the federal model of electric power ownership and control BPA has cooked up in the Jackson Bill. I’ll also discuss Oregon's new' law on formation of customer-owned “ People’s Utility Districts,” and the comic opera that accompanied the successful formation election campaign that created the Emerald People's Utility- District in November 1978, Pacific Power & Light, the investor-owned utility the committee of rural Lane County people sought to take over, spent $300,000 on the campaign. The Emerald PUD Committee spent $3,000 and won, creating the opportunity to make Lane County an allpublic-power county when the Emerald PUD energizes. If you arc interested in bringing our energy future under democratic control, please contact the Ratepayers’ Union in Portland. In the next issues of The Clinton St. Quarterly’ I’ll go into the Oregon model of local democratic control of our energy systems and supplies, and the vision of an energy future they see for us in Washington, D.C. The Testimony Members of the Committee, my name is John Bartels. I am one of five elected commissioners of the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB). EWEB has not yet taken an official position on these bills. I speak today as a single publicly owned utility commissioner representing part of the second largest urban area in Oregon. This area is experiencing rapid growth of both population and demand for electric power. In 1970 the ratepayer-owners of EWEB responded to an initiative campaign by voting in a four-year moratorium in nuclear power investments and set EWEB on its present course of bringing on decentralized and renewable sources of generation that are cost effective, environmentally acceptable, and acceptable to our customerowners. We are successful and will continue to be successful in achieving these difficult standards for new electric power generation if and only if such federal legislation as you are considering today is laid to rest. These bills, and indeed all bills introduced in earlier sessions, would expand the authority of the Administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration to allow him to rewrite all the long-term BPA contracts for federal hydropower with the investor-owned utilities and the large industrial customers—mainly aluminum companies. In addition, these bills would allow this federal marketing agency to contract to purchase power from plants that are not built and thereby assume the financial responsibility to pay the debts incurred in construction of very large steam electric power generating plants, either coal or nuclear fired. S 885, the Jackson Bill, would make the ratepayers of the Northwest, who ultimately assume the debt, pay even if the plants never work. BPA was created to perform a limited function; that was to sell the power generated at federal hydroelectric projects in the Northwest to publicly owned utilities to provide an economic “yardstick” by which to judge the rates charged by the investor- owned utilities and to build electric power transmission facilities in such a manner as to expand the electrification of the Northwest in the rural areas and in the industrial and agricultural sectors. During the era of plentiful hydroelectric power supplies, the BPA Administrator wrote 20-year contracts with both the aluminum industry and the investor-owned utilities. Now BPA intends to rewrite these contracts for federal hydropower on the basis of promises to increase the power supplies by adding nuclear and coal-fired plants. These plants, however, are years behind schedule, and the cost overruns are gargantuan. All this cost has been mixed in with the federal hydropower. Although this has been going on for years, these construction costs are just going to hit the BPA wholesale power rates in January 1980. The effect of this has been to mask the true EDIBLES LIVE MUSIC SPIRITS MONDAY Coffee Lolita and Kamora $1.50 Russell Street Special $1.95 (Our Giant Hamburger loaded with everything starting at 6:30 PM THE BEST IN LIVE MUSIC every thursday, friday and Saturday TUESDAY Buck Night Well Drinks Only Steamers Speca' $3.25 Bucket of Steamed Clams starting at 6:30 PM WEDNESDAY Tequila Night All Tequila Drinks $1.50 THURSDAY Ladies Night Cover $1.50 Ladies $.50 1st. Drink For Ladies Free Mile North of the Coliseum - 1 Block off Interstate Avenue 8
costs of huge, central station multimegawatt coal and nuclear plants and send a false economic signal to the consumers. This has, until recently, kept alternative, renewable energy resources from being cost effective because the real costs of coal and nuclear were disguised. After 1973, though, when the BPA contracts with the investor-owned utilities ran out. the coal and nuclear plant construction costs directly impacted the private utility rates. The rates doubled in five years, and Oregon ratepayers responded by voting in a ban on including construction work in progress (CWIP) in private utility rates by an overwhelming 67 percent. BPA has been attempting a federally controlled solution to the problem of scarce energy supplies in the future for the past 10 years with their Hydro- Thermal Power Program. We know what their results have been: plants that are not cost effective and not reliable. plants that are environmentally unacceptable, plants that are too large to live around, take far too long to build, and rely on fuels that are not renewable and are always escalating in This vast conspiracy to put the electric utility rate payers o f the Northwest into billions o f dollars o f deb t.. . cost. The ratepayers of the Northwest were not consulted on this program and are finally recognizing the disastrous economic impact it will have on this region if it is continued. These bills have always promised vague solutions to concrete local problems. The results have been and will continue to be negative. These energy questions must be resolved from the bottom up, not from the top down. Expanding the authority of the BPA Administrator is not what we need to solve our problems. Already the BPA Administrators have used their authority to bully the public utilities into slicking with this bankrupt energy program. The BPA Administrators have refused to reallocate the federal power according to law after the 20-year contracts with the private utilities ran out in 1973. Instead. BPA served the customer-owned utilities with a “ notice of unsufficiency," stating that BPA would not be able to renew the contracts the public bodies have now when they expire in the late 1980s. However, BPA also had their Hydro- Thermal plan, which would solve the problem by getting BPA involved in coal and nuclear power projects and also mix the public and the private utilities in generation projects together by exempting the private companies from some provisions of the Public Utility Holding Company Act, which was passed in the 1930s to prevent the conglomeration of utilities into holding companies prior to their financial collapse in 1929. This is another example of BPA trying to get around the law. This entire approach of having the federal government “ fix" the energy shortage is characterized by pie-in-the- sky theory. For instance, the pass- through of federal power to the investor-owned utilities is described as the way to lower the electric rates for the majority of Oregonians who are presently served by private utilities. The facts are that BPA already has authority to sell to the investor-owned utilities on an annual basis and did sell to Portland General Electric Company during the nine-month period their Trojan Nuclear Power Plant was closed last year. The PGE rates did not go down 20 percent the way the investor-owned utility advertising promises their rates will go down if the Jackson Bill is passed. The Administrator is still trying to get the public and investor-owned power supplies together. Local control over power supplies and rate making, of course, disappears and becomes vested instead in one federal appointed official—the Administrator of the BPA. Rather than expand the authority of the Administrator, 1 want to cut it back and force this agency to obey the law. The publicly owned utilities should have sued BPA for reallocation of power in 1974 and never allowed themselves to be blackmailed this way. This idea is bad economics, filled with prejudices about the technology, and generally out of touch with what the people in Oregon want. During the 1979 session of our state legislature, we revised the statute on formation of People’s Utility Districts. Committees are now working to form new PUDs and energize old ones in several parts of the state. In July our legislature passed an 18-month moratorium on nuclear power plants to allow time for an initiative to be placed on the general election ballot in 1980 that would ban construction of nuclear power plants until the federal government licenses a nuclear waste disposal plant. In addition, an effort was also made in our state legislature to activate dormant powers of the state constitution to create an Oregon Energy Development Commission to bring the bonding power of the state behind the decentralized, renewable energy projects of the Oregon publicly owned utilities. This measure will also be taken to the initiative with the nuclear moratorium. Polling done both during and after the Oregon legislative session indicate Oregonians are going to make their minds up about both their energy future and ownership of electric utilities in the general election in 1980. This is exactly the wrong time to impose a federal program that will usurp this local control. You have heard enough about these bills already to know that there are many other conflicting uses of Columbia River water to be worked out. howto get the depleted fishery into the cost-benefit analysis, and how to coordinate the multiple agencies involved with all these issues. At EWEB we have found the only federal legislation we need to proceed with bringing on decentralized, renewable energy sources that are part of our local economy and not arbitrary economic penalties externally imposed, has been dealt with on a problem-by-problem basis very effectively by our Congressman Jim Weaver. These things can be done in much simpler ways, much quicker, than with these regional, omnibustype efforts. Let us lay aside this idea of a big federal solution controlled by federal bureaucracy, take what we have learned in the five years about energy in the Columbia Basin, and start again from the bottom up. Thank you very much for coming to Oregon to see how the ratepayers view this legislation, and thank you for not holding this hearing at the Bonneville Power Administration headquarters. Two days after this Congressional hearing, EWEB voted unanimously to oppose passage of the Jackson Bill until BPA allocates the federal hydropower according to the present federal law. More later, John Bartels Fuadty KeigkMcW State pWucc al fempriced Kaiwiaf Jwwid Rodd fiuit Ca. S IV. (Mett &IVkitaken Yesterday’s Paper 324S .W .9 th 227-6449 Custom Framing—Ready Made Parrish. Icart, Fisher, Russell, Vanity Fair, Currier & Ives, Old ads and art prints postcards, books, mag’s Vintage radios and tubes maps, stock certificates cigar and fruit labels and more Visa — Masterchargc Wed.-Sat. 11:30-5:30 The Only Full Service Restaurant in the John’s Landing Area 6:30 a m. - 8 p.m. Everyday Live Music Thurs.-Sun. Nights Beer and Wine 6439 S.W. 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Economic Conversion bc/big dipper studio Churning Guns Into Butter by Lloyd J. Dumas According to President Carter's budget for fiscal 1980, the Department of Defense will get appropriations totaling some $138 billion next year, up from $128 billion during the current fiscal year. Thal increase—coming at a time o f "austerity" and cutbacks in nondefense programs—represents a hike o f 3 percent over and above the projected rate o f inflation. I f the budget is passed intact, defense spending will consume about one-third o f the federal budget. That amounts to about $680for every man, woman and child in the United States. Does military spending need to be so high? Hawks and doves argue endlessly about how much national security a $138 billion defense budget actually buys. But there is one point on which both sides agree. Much of the support for high military spending stems not from a concern for national security but from a concern for jobs. in the debate a year or two ago over the B-l bomber, for example, the number o f jobs due to be lost i f the B l was cancelled was much more important politically than the bomber's potential strategic value. And virtually every newspaper account o f a military base closing or a canceled defense contract begins with an estimate o f how many people will be thrown out o f work. If jobs were somehow not at issue, those who advocate arms control and reduced military spending would gain an edge in their continuing battle with the advocates of "preparedness.” The debate on weapons systems and defense budgets could then focus not on the need to maintain employment but on America’s legitimate military requirements. Advocating the B-l, the MX, the cruise missile, and other expensive weapons systems on the grounds of their contribution to national security might not be so easy. Doubtless the military knows this: that's why jobs figure so prominently in Defense Department arguments for continued high spending. If the link between jobs and defense expenditures is to be broken, people must be convinced that they would be better off economically if the government spent its money on other things. A practical mechanism must also be created for planning the conversion of defense-related industries and facilities to nonmilitary operation. It is not surprising, of course, that Americans associate high defense budgets with a healthy economy. It was World War II that finally pulled the country out o f the Depression, and in the two decades o f growth that fo llowed the war, the federal government spent a large chunk o f its budget on defense. Military spending since World War II has varied from its current high to a low of $20.3 billion (1972 dollars) in 1948. But it has never dropped below 30 percent of total federal spending. Now, there is no doubt that government spending of any kind creates jobs; if Washington paid people to dig ditches and fill them up again (the classic example), that, too, would put a lot of people to work. The trouble is that jobs by themselves don't necessarily contribute to people’s material well-being. Military goods and services, unlike consumer goods, are not something that people can use and enjoy; they are not part of the "standard of living.” Nor do they contribute to the economy’s capacity to produce —as do roads, bridges, and other public works. In this sense, they are economically unproductive.* They consume, however, enormous amounts of land, labor, and equipment, which otherwise could be u^ted for consumer goods or capital investment. In the short term, military spending (or any other government spending) reduces unemployment, adds to purchasing power, and creates the illusion of prosperity. In the long term, resources used unproductively will be a drain on the economy. Other things that need doing will not be done, and the society as a whole will suffer. It is possible, in fact, to trace a number o f our current economic ills to the extraordinary diversion o f productive resources to military uses in the decades since the end o f World War II. The unprecedented combination o f high inflation and high unemployment in the 1970s is the predictable result o f a cumulative, long-term process o f economic deterioration that resource diversion on such a large scale is bound to produce. Because the flow of money to military firms is not “balanced,” in the economist’s scheme of things, by a corresponding production of goods and services that the firms’ employees can buy, defense spending creates the classic inflationary situation of too much money chasing too few goods. Theoretically, this part of the problem could be corrected by increasing taxes, thus drawing the “excess” money out of the economy. But increasing taxes to cover increases in military spending is generally considered politically unworkable, and so has not been done. The internal operation or the weapons procurement system aggravates the inflationary impact of the defense budget. Virtually all military contracts include incentives for producers to hold down costs. But the incentives are poorly designed and enforced; in practice, military contracts turn out to be cost-plus. No firm that knows its customer will cover ail of its costs— including guaranteed profits—will hold back on spending. The inevitable freewheeling attitude bids up the prices of the productive resources the various firms buy—resources also needed by civilian firms. In this way the defense budget fuels “cost push” inflation. Internationally, the outflow of dollars resulting from U.S. military spending abroad has played a major role in undermining the value of the dollar. Over the 20-year period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, the total net inflow of foreign currencies to the United States on trade (exports and imports) was nearly $49 billion. During the same period, according to Commerce Department figures, more than $54 billion flowed out of the United States for military purposes alone. Military spending thus turned a positive trade situation into a negative overall flow, and caused dollars to pile up overseas. As with any other commodity, the “price” of a dollar (measured in other currencies) drops when the supply increases. That, in turn, makes every good imported into the United States more expensive: the price of a Toyota, for example, has risen several hundred dollars in the past year simply because more dollars are needed to equal a given number of yen. Since America imports large quantities of consumer goods—cars, television sets, shoes, and so on—the dollar’s decline contributes directly to the rate of inflation. Since we also import a wide variety of producer goods (oil and steel, for example), a rise in the price of imports will be felt indirectly as well. Government officials and commentators alike frequently tell us that the troubles of the dollar are attributable largely to the OPEC-induced oil price hike. Anyone inclined to believe this should consider the fact that the dollar was first devalued in 1971—more than two years before the embargo and price hikes of 1973. The most inflationary effect o f the high U.S. defense budget is indirect: it lies in the technological deterioration o f U.S. industry brought on by the arms race. Each year since the 1950s, the military budget has exceeded the after-tax profits o f all U.S. corporations combined. It has, thus, in effect, preempted a huge amount o f the capital that could have been used for productivity-increasing investments in new technology, equipment, and facilities. The military sector has also claimed the considerable talents o f between 30 and 50 percent o f all U.S. engineers and scientists. That alone would be enough to throw civilian 10
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