Locus Focus

For nearly two decades communities across the Pacific Northwest have been

fighting off multiple efforts to turn the region into a fossil fuel export

hub. Today we’ll look back at the successes of what Eric de Place with

Sightline Institute calls the Thin Green Line,

On thi...

In 1980, Oregonians passed a ballot measure prohibiting the siting of any new

nuclear power plants until there is an operating federal repository for

high-level nuclear waste. The law also requires a vote before any future

nuclear facility is approved. Forty years later sti...

On his first day in office Joe Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline. That

was great news. But that’s not the only fossil fuel pipeline that needs to

be stopped. Here in Oregon people are still trying to stop for good the

nearly dead Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline, while ...

Before European settlers transformed the north reach of the Willamette River,

near its confluence with the Columbia, it was a braided river of shallow

channels and islands rich in biodiversity. Today the area is designated an

industrial sanctuary, but the communities that w...

Salmon are the principal iconic species here in the Pacific Northwest, but

once salmon were iconic for all northern latitude countries around the world.

As we watch the once abundant salmon runs dwindle in the few remaining places

where they have thrived over the past centu...

Beavers have been called “Nature’s Engineers.” In fact, the Army of

Corps of Engineers could learn a lot from beavers. Instead of re-engineering

nature to serve narrow human interests, beavers engineer the natural

environment to serve not just their own needs, but the needs...

In the aftermath of massive wildfires that burned across much of Western

Oregon last summer, an inevitable slew of post-fire logging proposals

threaten to clearcut over 10,000 acres of fire-impacted federal lands along

the iconic McKenzie and North Umpqua rivers.

On this s...

When you think of West Virginia you probably think of coal. But as the coal

industry dies a slow death Appalachia is now pulled in two different

directions. On the one hand natural gas fracking now dominates the Ohio River

Valley and countless miles of gas pipelines spread ...

After a week of snow and ice, massive power outages and Donald Trump’s

second impeachment trial, how do we move ahead to implement the progressive

agenda so many of us are craving? While we wait to see—and how to

influence—what comes from Washington, DC, there is a lot to a...

Now that Joe Biden is president and democrats narrowly control the Senate and

the House is it a new day for America, and for Portland?

On this episode of Locus Focus, we talk with Portland Commissioner Jo Ann

Hardesty, now the longest serving commissioner, besides Mayor Ted...