Did you take the weekend off? Catch up with these stories.
Temperatures will be mild, but don’t count on rain to clean the last of the particulates from the air. Check our local weather coverage.
Smoke from Central Washington wildfires drifted west into the Vancouver-Portland metro area on Saturday, dramatically reducing air quality and leading to a flurry of worried calls to emergency dispatch centers.
The Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency, which handles 911 dispatch calls in Clark County, received more than three times its normal number of calls between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Saturday, prompting officials to ask for people to call 911 only if they see fire or a column of smoke.
“Most of the calls, especially (Saturday) morning, were related to ‘Where is the smoke coming from in the area?’ ” said CRESA spokesman Eric Frank. “People were fearful the fires were in their area or right around them.”
Smoke started to build in the Vancouver-Portland area between 11 a.m. and noon Saturday as winds shifted and began blowing from the east, according to the National Weather Service in Portland. Conditions worsened throughout the afternoon as the easterly winds picked up.
Frank said CRESA usually receives about 370 calls between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. On Saturday, the agency received 1,150 calls in that period, more than the 1,000 it normally handles in a 10-hour shift.
He said calls to 911 began to slow to a “trickle” by 5 p.m. Saturday, in part due to a push of information his agency sent out to media partners and posts on social media.
“The biggest message is, if people have a legitimate emergency and need to call 911, then we understand that and expect them to call. But, if they are just seeking information about the smoke and what’s going on, they should ask (those questions) on social media sites and we will try to answer them there,” Frank said.
When recreational marijuana was legalized, Washington entered the unknown, triggering questions — and predictions — about what might happen. Would drug dealers hang around the pot shops? Would it bring riffraff into the neighborhood and make shops easy crime targets? Would people abuse the drug? Or smoke and drive, putting others in harm’s way?
As is evident by millions of dollars in sales each month at Vancouver’s retail stores, people certainly use marijuana. And it has had some consequences on the community, but there’s apparently no evidence of major behavioral shifts.
For starters, it’s unclear what percentage of the population uses marijuana.
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health for 2012 and 2013 found that 17.58 percent of all Washington adults used marijuana. That was before the retail shops were up and running.
One of the more measurable and pressing questions that arose from Initiative 502 debates was whether more people would drive stoned, endangering others on the road.
Shelly Baldwin, spokeswoman for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, said drugs have surpassed alcohol as factors in fatal crashes.
“Marijuana ends up being the most frequent drug, but certainly we see methamphetamine and opiates and cocaine, prescription drugs. There’s a long list,” Baldwin said.
Crime analysts at the Vancouver Police Department haven’t found any indication that pot retailers are contributing to increased crime or calls for service, said agency spokeswoman Kim Kapp. There hasn’t, for instance, been a single robbery or attempted robbery at any of the city’s six pot shops.
Undersheriff Mike Cooke was the commander of the Clark-Vancouver Drug Task Force when I-502 was being considered, and he was a vocal opponent of the initiative. He’s still against it and considers the new law bad for the community. Even though there are no retail marijuana shops in unincorporated Clark County, the sheriff’s office continues to field marijuana-related calls, including some quality-of-life issues.
“I have taken calls from people very frustrated that they now see marijuana growing in their neighbors’ yards openly,” Cooke said. “It’s the secondhand smoke that comes over the fence line.”
Lifeline Connections, a Vancouver drug and mental health treatment center, sees a handful of people who struggle with marijuana addiction. Last year, 25 clients listed marijuana as their primary substance, which means it’s the drug that’s had the most adverse effect on their lives. Seventy-three such clients sought treatment in 2010. Marijuana is more often listed as a client’s secondary drug — not as destructive but still used by people struggling with substance abuse.
After death in a crosswalk, family finds cause to smile in another bus
There’s an irony in how a bus– that once caused deep grief and sorrow– can bring hope to a family and a community more than five years later.
On the night of April 24, 2010, five friends were in a crosswalk in Old Town Portland when a TriMet bus making a left-hand turn struck the group, trapping three of them under its wheels. Twenty-two-year old Vancouver resident Danielle Sale was one of two young women who were killed in what company officials dubbed “the worst tragedy in TriMet’s history.”
Fast-forward to May 2015, and a bright red double-decker 1965 Bristol bus drives the streets of Vancouver causing a stir of excitement while delivering some mighty fine barbecue and raising money for families dealing with sudden loss.
Nellie’s Food Cart — a play on one of Danielle’s nicknames — is a legacy of love that memorializes not one but two Sale family members. Owned and operated by David Sale and his family, they share the story of Danielle’s life and honor their niece-turned-daughter, Kristy Cassidy, as well.
Cassidy graduated from Hudson’s Bay High School and was enrolled in the Gateway to Adult Transition Education program that helps prepare developmentally disabled students for independent living. One night in 2004, at the age of 18, Cassidy died in her sleep.
Born out of their own deeply personal heartache, Dani’s Wish was founded by David’s wife, Jeannette, in 2014 to help families in Clark County with funeral expenses after the unexpected loss of a child.
“We help anonymously. That’s what my daughters would’ve wanted. Kristy could not get out of bed without a smile on her face. To teach a family like mine the gift of grace and happiness, no matter what you’ve been through, it’s just a pure blessing,” David said.
It was that smile that had encouraged her older sister, Danielle, to set a goal to become a flight nurse and focus on helping developmentally delayed adults while attending Boise State University.
Just a few weeks into their Vancouver food truck adventure, Nellie’s is already touching people and providing healing.
Possibility of increased capacity could add steps to oil terminal process
The recent release of a largely unredacted contract is having repercussions for Washington state’s ongoing examination of the environmental impacts of what would be the nation’s largest rail-to-marine oil transfer terminal at the Port of Vancouver.
In an Aug. 18 letter to the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, Kristen Boyles, an attorney for Earthjustice, calls on the council to expand its study of the oil terminal in light of new information revealed by the port in its lease with Tesoro Corp., a petroleum refiner, and Savage Companies, a transportation company.
The new details include that the companies have the ability to expand or build a second oil-by-rail facility if they exceed handling an average of 400,000 barrels of crude per day with the first terminal. The port had previously concealed the 400,000 figure from the public but divulged it and other details on Aug. 6 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit against it.
“This is the first time that the public has been informed that Tesoro-Savage and the port reasonably anticipated that the proposed facility could handle an average of 400,000 barrels per day; the average through-put capacity provided in Tesoro-Savage’s application is 360,000 barrels per day,” Boyles said in her letter. “To our knowledge, this 11 percent larger volume capacity is not the basis for the current environmental review or analysis in Tesoro-Savage’s air and water permits. We ask (the evaluation council) to ensure that its environmental analysis, as well as its calculations in its Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act permits, is based on the proposed facility’s actual maximum capacity under its physical and operational design (which is apparently more than 400,000 barrels per day), rather than any anticipated operational limit.”
More cities reconsider fireworks limits
As the Vancouver City Council debates a ban on personal fireworks, two other cities in Clark County are considering changes to their fireworks regulations.
Camas is poised to vote on further restricting fireworks sales days and discharge times. Both Camas and Woodland are evaluating whether to grant city officials the authority to declare an emergency ban on fireworks during times of extreme fire danger.
The Camas City Council will vote Sept. 8 on whether to shrink the summer window for legal fireworks use from three days (July 1-4) to July 4 only and reduce the number of days when fireworks could be sold from four days to three. By restricting the fireworks discharge time to July 4, Camas would be in keeping with Vancouver and Washougal.
The ordinance would reduce the sale of New Year’s Eve fireworks in Camas from five days to three days. The hours when fireworks may be shot off on New Year’s Eve would remain from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., however.
The ordinance also would include a clause for an emergency ban on fireworks.
A public hearing will be held before the council votes Sept. 8. Capell said he’s “very confident” the ordinance will pass because the council already has discussed it extensively.
The Woodland City Council will hold a workshop discussion early next year about amending its fireworks ordinance to allow the declaration of an emergency ban, Woodland Mayor Grover Laseke said Thursday.
By state statute, changes to fireworks laws take one year to go into effect.
