From frog massacre to frog rescue: Oregonians rush to help when migration meets traffic

31 March 2014 — The great frog rescue of 2014 started — sorry to say and may they rest in peace — with the great frog massacre of 2013. Oh, that ghastly night. That deadly night. Conditions near Linnton, along busy U.S. 30, were premium for a northern red-legged frog migration: the cover of darkness in early January; temperatures hovering in the mid to high 40s; and spilling from the sky, reliable Oregon rain. During migrations worldwide, other species large and small swim, fly or amble to find food or mates, to lay eggs, give birth or escape untenable climates. Frogs, naturally, hop. Instinct sent these bolting from the safety of Forest Park, where they mostly live, toward the few ponds and wetlands remaining in suburban Northwest Portland’s industrial strip, where they breed and lay eggs. We’ll never know if they comprehended the obstacles in their path. Could they possibly have grasped the grave dangers of crossing two surface streets, a roaring four-lane highway, train tracks and potential encounters with the usual predators – birds, snakes and the like? Surely, even if the frogs had the capacity for such thought, they’d never have dreamed that a few dozen soft-hearted, ecologically mindful Oregonians would organize, study, plan and inconvenience themselves, night after night for three months, to help them get to the other side.  Read more…

Oregon on track to recover lost recession-era jobs in another year, state economists say

31 March 2014 — Oregon’s economic upswing is on track to recover in another year the jobs the state lost in the recession, a state economist said. Oregon fell harder during the Great Recession, but it’s adding jobs at about 1 percentage point faster than the national average, said Josh Lehner, a senior economist with the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. But it’s clear Oregon still has ground to make up before its employment will surpass pre-recession levels. ”By and large over our history, we have these more pronounced swings so even though we fall further than most places in a recession, we generally make up that ground in an expansion,” he said. “Is there fundamentally something wrong with Oregon? The answer is generally no.”   Read more…

Concern over landside-logging connection near Oso is decades old

31 March 2014 — the March 22 deadly slide was the latest in a long string of landslides to hit the area known as the Hazel or Oso slide along the North Fork Stillaguamish River. State and tribal officials have known about and tried to block landslides on that spot for half a century. Despite the known hazards, the slopes above the slide area have been clearcut multiple times. Clearcutting is known to aggravate the risk of deep-seated landslides like the one that destroyed Steelhead Drive neighborhood in Oso, Wash., on Saturday. A clash over logging next to the Hazel slide in the 1980s even shaped, over the course of a decade, Washington’s current statewide restrictions on logging of land prone to deep-seated landslides.  Read more…

Portland, tantalizingly close to March rainfall record, may yet miss it

30 March 2014 — Portland’s skies gave their all this week – but may not have enough left to make March a record breaker. Downpours on Friday soaked Portland International Airport with 1.69 inches of rain, setting a record for that date that had stood since 1943. Saturday’s showers brought the monthly rainfall total to 7.40 inches by 4 p.m., within spitting distance of Portland’s March record – 7.89 inches, set in 2012. As the skies dried out Saturday afternoon, though, so did the forecasts for Sunday and Monday. The National Weather Service now says that, while rain will continue well into next week, it won’t be as intense as the last few days. “We’ve got one more front coming in, kind of brushing us tomorrow (Sunday) night,” said Miles Higa, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland. “The bulk of the rain is heading south, into Northern California,” he said. “They could use it – that’s for sure.” Hearty March rainfall has erased drought concerns in Northwest Oregon, but the southern parts of the state and much of California remain unusually dry. As for Portland’s rainfall record – Higa said it looks doubtful, even with a wet forecast and two full days to go.  Read more…

Oregon adding jobs at the 6th-fastest rate in the U.S. (interactive map)

30 March 2014 — Oregon added jobs at the sixth-fastest rate in the nation during the past year, according to a report issued Friday. Oregon’s jobs base expanded 2.6 percent between February 2013 and February 2014, a pace that lagged just a handful of other states, shows the new U.S. Labor Department data. Explore the map above to see how every state measures up. Click on each state to learn how fast they are growing, and how many new jobs they gained in the past year. All but four states — Kentucky, New Mexico, Alaska and Virginia — have picked up new jobs in the last year. North Dakota, however, was the clear front-runner. The Midwest state’s jobs base expanded by 4.1 percent, or by 17,800 new jobs.  Read more…

Willamette Valley national wildlife refuges reopen winter closures on April 1, as birds migrate north

30 March 2014 — Public access into winter sanctuary portions of the Willamette Valley national wildlife refuges have their annual reopening on Tuesday, April 1, according to the refuge staff. These areas are managed as winter sanctuaries for geese and other waterfowl in order to replenish their energy reserves required for nesting and migrating. Some of these waterfowl are now moving on to their nesting grounds in Alaska, leaving behind later spring migrants and summertime nesting residents.  Read more…

Kayaking waterfalls:  No way out but down

30 March 2014 — Kayakers call it the SRG — the Salmon River Gorge. A place that roars with the thunder of nearly a dozen waterfalls. A place so steep, treacherous and inaccessible that no trails lead there. The only way in is by boat. And the only way out is down. What kind of person would boat down a river so dangerous that it was considered un-runnable as recently as the 1990s? Luke Spencer, for one. He says the excitement and beauty of the place combine to make it, as he puts it, “the Shangri-La of Oregon kayaking.” “When I got into it I’m like, ‘Sweet, I’m kayaking, it’s thrill seeking’ … but there’s so much more to it than that.” The world inside the Salmon River Gorge is not unlike that of the Columbia River Gorge. Water pours in from every direction and moss dangles from basalt protrusions hundreds of feet above the river. It’s a photographers’ delight. But seeing it requires kayaking, and kayaking the Salmon River Gorge is a class V-VI adventure with life-and-death consequences. That no one has died here speaks only to the fact that the run remains something of a secret among expert boaters. While not the first to run the Salmon River Gorge, the regulars — people like Luke Spencer, Ryan Scott, Keel Brightman — each spend upwards of 200 days a year running some of the toughest whitewater in the Northwest.  Read more…