Elks say thanks with Christmas Dinner
Joyce Middleton isn’t sure just how many hams and turkeys they are preparing, all she knows is that they expect to feed well over 900 people Christmas Dinner at the Elks Lodge, Christmas Day between noon and three pm.
Joyce Middleton – “We are thanking the community for supporting us in our efforts to… with our fundraisers… and our events all year; and reaching out to our community.”
Lodge members have been preparing and serving the dinner each Christmas for several years. There is no charge, and the dinner is not a fund raiser. Still, she adds, people do insist on donating at times. Middleton says any cash collected from this weekend’s Community Christmas Dinner will be set aside in a special account and used to help offset next year’s expenses.
NORAD Tracks Santa
For more than 60-years the U.S. Military has been tracking the flight of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Lt. Commander Paul Noel is on special assignment with NORAD Tracks Santa.
Paul Noel – “It was purely an accident, it happened when a misprint in an advertisement in a local paper urging children to call in and talk to Santa. The phone number was a misprint and they connected them to the continental air defense command.”
That mission has continued every Christmas season since 1955. This year according to Noel, more than 15-hundred volunteers will be answer phones, emailing updates and posting Santa’s position online.
Paul Noel – “On the website at www.noradsanta.org, or you can call in for live updates. 877-446-6723.”
The tracking begins at midnight Mountain Time… 11 PM Pacific… and continues through Christmas morning. If you prefer, the Oregon National Guard will be posting updates on KCST every hour Christmas Eve beginning at five pm. By the way, Noel is a former KCST News Director. He’ll end a 36-year U.S. Naval Reserve career this year… the NORAD Track’s Santa assignment will be his final… and yes, Noel is his real name.
Beach detour to protect plovers
A potential winter-time conflict between an endangered shorebird and off-highway vehicles has been relieved. For the past several years biologists have discovered Western Snowy Plovers have been using the several hundred foot wide space of open sand at Breach Road near Siltcoos Beach as an overwintering area.
The only problem with that is that the tiny bird is no match for large four wheel drive vehicles that regularly traverse that path to get to the beach.
Officials began talking about building a seasonal detour for off-highway vehicles almost two years ago, but it wasn’t until this fall that it was completed.
That detour is well marked and is just 600 feet north of the existing, long-time beach access corridor. Shane Gill with the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area says the detour will be in effect through March 14th.
Watch for sea turtles
Visitors to beaches along the central Oregon Coast in the next weeks should keep an eye out for stranded sea turtles. Last winter there were four sea turtles rescued from Oregon Beaches.
Jim Burke says this is not their normal range. He’s the director of Animal Husbandry at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
Olive ridley and pacific green sea turtles live and breed in warmer waters along the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Sometimes they can wind up in the colder waters off Oregon and when they do, they can become sick or weak and might wash up on the sand.
If they do, they need immediate and specialized care in order to survive.
Burke said if you see a sea turtle on the beach, call the Oregon State Police tipline immediately. That’s 800-452-7888. He said you should mark the location of the turtle and stay nearby to observe if possible.
Quick federal payments urged
Oregon’s Senate delegation has teamed up to urge federal officials to send Oregon counties their share of timber revenue from public lands as quickly as possible.
Under the 1937 Oregon and California Railway Lands act a portion of the revenue received from logging on those lands is required to be shared with local counties. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley each sent letters this week to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, urging the two agencies to make the payments in a timely manner. Last year, the payments to 33 Oregon counties totaled $95-million and was not received until March.
Reducing waste this Christmas
Once the gifts are unwrapped and the decorations begin to come down, what do you do with the leftovers?
Lane County Master Recycler Kelly Bell says there are alternatives to just throwing it all in the trash.
Some of those alternatives are easier than others if you live on the coast. Things like block Styrofoam or packing peanuts that were packed around gifts can be recycled, but not at the curbside… you’ll have to take them to one of three St. Vincent DePaul locations in Eugene and Springfield and drop them off.
Same thing with Christmas lights… working or not… they can be donated to Next Step Recycling in Eugene.
Gift wrap paper can be recycled at the curb, as can cardboard boxes.
Finally… that Christmas Tree. Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue volunteers will be picking up trees twice in coming weeks… Saturday December 31st, then again on Saturday the 7th of January. Call the fire station next week to schedule your pickup.
