AP-OR–3rd Right Now/1211
TIMBER TOWN’S COMEBACK
Former Oregon lumber town rides digital wave to a comeback
PRINEVILLE, Oregon (AP) — Crook County, located on the edge of a national forest in Oregon, used to have five major lumber mills. But amid restrictions on harvesting from federal lands, logging began a freefall.
The county’s mills began to close. The global recession hit a few years later. County unemployment soared to around 20 percent, the highest in Oregon.
Now, the digital revolution is providing Crook County and its main town, Prineville, with a second chance.
Facebook completed its first wholly owned data center in Prineville in 2011. Within months, it began building a second. Facebook is now building a third. Then Apple came to town and built two data centers.
The future looks much brighter. Unemployment is down to 6.8 percent. Recently, Prineville announced that Apple will build a third data center.
TIMBER HARVEST-OREGON
Oregon timber harvest slips below 4 billion board feet
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s timber harvest has declined for the second year in a row.
The Oregon Department of Forestry said Monday the 3.79 billion board feet harvested in 2015 represents an 8 percent decline from the year before.
Brandon Kaetzel, a top economist at the department, says the decrease was largely driven by a slowdown in exports to Asia.
The slowdown snapped a two-run run in which the harvest topped 4 billion board feet. Before 2013, Oregon hadn’t hit that mark since 2006.
Sixty percent of Oregon’s forest land is federal. Industrial and family owned lands comprise another 34 percent and the rest is divided between entities such as the state, counties and tribes.
OREGON WILDFIRE
Firefighters work to contain Gilliam County fire
(Information from: East Oregonian, http://www.eastoregonian.com)
PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — Crews say they’ve gotten the better of a wildfire that has scorched about 56 square miles and threatened homes in eastern Oregon.
A spokeswoman for the Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center tells The East Oregonian crews expected to have the Scott Canyon fire fully contained by Monday night.
The blaze started Thursday along the banks of the John Day River and spread toward the community of Mikkalo — halfway between Arlington and Condon.
The fire has been determined to be human-caused, but investigators are working to figure out exactly how it started.
Ground crews had battled the flames with help from six single-engine air tankers and three helicopters, which dumped water and retardant around the perimeter.
The structural damage was limited to one unoccupied homestead, which was completely destroyed.
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DAIRY PROPOSAL-EASTERN OREGON
Proposal could bring second large dairy to eastern Oregon
(Information from: Statesman Journal, http://www.statesmanjournal.com)
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Officials are considering a proposal for what would be the state’s second largest dairy in eastern Oregon.
The Statesman Journal reports the proposed Willow Creek Dairy would house 30,000 animals. Wym Matthews with the state Department of Agriculture says the dairy would be near Threemile Canyon Farms, which is the state’s largest dairy with 70,000 animals.
The department is accepting public comment on Willow Creek’s plans to manage the nearly 200 million gallons of manure it will produce each year.
Greg te Velde has operated the dairy with 8,000 animals for more than a decade on land leased from Threemile Canyon.
Morrow County officials are holding a public hearing Thursday to discuss water concerns with the project, which is located in the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area.
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SLEDGEHAMMER SLAYING-SENTENCE
Man gets life in prison for woman’s 2013 sledgehammer death
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A 22-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison for helping kill his cousin’s great-grandmother with a sledgehammer in her suburban Portland home.
Micus Ward was given the sentence Monday without the possibility of parole. He had been found guilty of murder and aggravated murder in the 2013 death of 71-year-old Jacqueline Bell.
Ward’s cousin, Joda Cain, was convicted of manslaughter in the killing and sentenced to 10 years in prison last October.
Prosecutors say Cain, who had been living with Bell, persuaded Ward to come to Oregon from Kansas to help kill the woman.
Ward’s attorney called the life sentence unconstitutional, arguing that his client has an intellectual disability that contributed to his actions the night of the crime. Ward has an IQ of 59.
PLANE-LASER POINTER
Oregon man charged with shining laser at aircraft
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Authorities arrested an Oregon man accused of shining a laser pointer at a police aircraft, but a 7-year-old who did the same was let off the hook.
Sgt. Pete Simpson of the Portland Police Bureau says officers were patrolling by air Saturday night when a laser shined. The officers contacted air traffic controllers and the location from where the strike came was established.
Gresham police arrested a 37-year-old man on charges of recklessly endangering another person and unlawful directing of light from a laser pointer.
While this was going on, a second laser hit the aircraft.
Responding officers discovered a 7-year-old child playing with a laser pointer in southeast Portland. They found the child’s mother, gave her the device and explained the danger of pointing a laser at an aircraft.
OREGON EXPLOSION
Explosion rattles Oregon police car; no injuries
(Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com)
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. (AP) — Sheriff’s deputies say an explosion in Oregon rattled a police car, but the two officers inside escaped injury.
Capt. Spence Slater tells The Register-Guard the Junction City officers felt the concussion of an explosion Sunday night and initially thought they had been shot at.
Slater says detectives think the explosion was a pipe bomb, and don’t know whether the officers were targeted or if the timing was a coincidence. It comes after a series of attacks on police nationwide.
At first, police thought the source of the explosion may have been from one of two nearby houses. A SWAT team and a military Humvee were among the officers and equipment dispatched, in case anyone responsible for the explosion was holed up.
Police concluded that no one in those houses was the culprit.
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OREGON CAVES UPGRADE
Park service to upgrade historic chateau to Oregon Caves
(Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/)
OREGON CAVES NATIONAL MONUMENT, Ore. (AP) — A nonprofit organization says the National Park Service’s plan to upgrade a historic hotel at the Oregon Caves National Monument doesn’t go far enough.
The Mail Tribune reports that the park service is expected to spend $8 million to $10 million to overhaul the 83-year-old Oregon Caves Chateau in 2018. Oregon Caves Superintendent Vicki Snitzler says the primary goals are functional: to resolve accessibility issues and improve insulation.
Sue Densmore, director of the 300-member Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau, wrote in a letter to Snitzler and the Oregon congressional delegation that the NPS plan is a good start but doesn’t address historic and structural restoration. She writes that delaying the work and closing the hotel for a longer period could hurt the region’s economy.
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Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.