Coos Bay: The Cost of Playing Cards with Mother Nature

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Produced by: 
KBOO
Program:: 
Air date: 
Wed, 04/02/2014 - 10:00am to 10:15am
Interview on the Jordan cove LNG disaster-in-the-plaster. plus: Scotus tips the plutocrats

1, Hanford workers say they don't know what's going on.  They have voiced concerns to the Department of Energy,  another entity that does not know what's going on but is less forthcoming.  Two-dozen workers have reported medical problems over the past two weeks after breathing chemical vapors. The vapors were detected primarily in the Hanford area that houses large tanks holding radioactive waste.
 
2, The cage fight of the decade is underway in Astoria. It's the corporate legal battle between Westerlund Log Handlers, a deeply indebted Clatsop County timber operator, against versus  China National Building Materials Import & Export Co., part of a $30-billion-a-year enterprise partially owned by the People's Republic of China.Westerlund wants to end its relationship with China National and move on. China National is seeking to install its own executive atop Westerlund and is demanding immediate repayment of the $3.55 million it loaned Westerlund. It has even hired an auctioneer to sell off Westerlund's heavy equipment.
 
3, Medical marijuana in Hillsboro? Hillsboro City Councilor Megan Braze cast the sole no-vote against the first reading of a one-year ban on medical marijuana facilities yesterday.  There was no council discussion of the ban, which received its first of two readings*. The one-year moratorium will get a final vote April 15.
 
4, Yesterday Oregon United for Marriage pushed U.S. District Judge Michael McShane to strike down Oregon's ban on same-sex marriage by May 23, which is when the group says it has to make a decision on whether to go to the ballot.
 
5, The mayor of Castle Rock is required to take anger management classes for violating the courtesy code at a City Council meeting when he raised his voice against the police chief who asked for more money for ammunition.
 
6,  It is rare but not unprecedented for a pipeline company to be charged with criminal safety laws.  But yesterday  Pacific Gas and Electric Co. was charged with federal felony counts involving safety violations linked to a deadly 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area
 
7,  District of Columbia elections officials say some problems with electronic voting machines have led to a delay in reporting results from the city's Democratic mayoral primary.  I guess if gerrymandering isn't possible, Republicans have to revert to other proven methods.
 
8, Just When You Thought it was Safe to go Back to the Beach…Chile's President Bachelet gets cautious on the tsunami threat as 8.2 quake kills 5 in northern Chile.
 
And Finally, This:
9, Jared Buzzell, of Lisbon, Maine says he was searching for wild mushrooms Thursday when he saw a porcupine get hit by a car in Minot. Buzzell says he'd heard that a valuable mineral deposit used in Chinese medicine formed in the stomachs of porcupines.  He then cut open the dead porcupine to search for the mineral and instead found the baby.  When he cut the umbilical cord he thought the baby porcupine was dead until he started massaging it and it began breathing.  Buzzell and the baby pocupine are resting comfortably  No word on the search for precious minerals or mushrooms or how and where  Buzzell acquired his apparent pocupine midwifery skills.
 

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