Locus Focus

Concentrated Animal Feed Operations have been around for a few decades.

Basically concentration camps for cattle, pigs and chickens, these factory

farms not only torture animals but also are major polluters and a principal

emitter of greenhouse gases. But in recent years...

Northwest Natural Gas's Smart Energy program advertises itself as a way for

customers to “offset” their natural gas emissions by funding projects

that the company says “reduce, or prevent the release of, greenhouse

gases.” But in fact, as customers found out, Smart Energ...

More than three decades ago Urban Naturalist Mike Houck coined the term

Greenfrastructure to describe the important role that urban green spaces play

in providing climate resilience. Green infrastructure emphasizes the

importance of viewing our parks, forests, wetlands a...

When voters overwhelmingly passed a new city charter in 2022, optimism

abounded that the new form of government would more truly represent all of

Portland, not just the business elite who had been running things pretty much

for over 150 years. The city was supposed to be...

An unholy marriage between big tech and nukes threatens to upend the Pacific

Northwest as we know it. 45 years ago, soon after a serious accident at one

of the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island caused the core to partially

melt down, Oregonians overwhelmingly passed ...

Every year around this time environmental  lawyers, organizers and activists

converge on Eugene, Oregon for the Public Interest Environmental Law

Conference, held at the University of Oregon Law School. Three days of panel

discussions run the gamut from Indigenous Rights...

Baltimore Woods is a green fringe of oak and maple trees towering over the

neighborhood north of Cathedral Park. It anchors the Willamette bluff,

standing as a buffer between riverside industry and downtown St. Johns

residents. and providing shelter to native plants and ...

Portland has a new form of city government and one manifestation of this is

the most progressive city council the city has seen in years. But beneath the

veneer of a new governing structure an old entrenched bureaucracy appears to

remain. This came into focus on February...

On the morning of February 3, right in the middle of Locus Focus, we learned

that Portland's new mayor and acting city administrator approved the much

contested Land Use Compatibility Statement for Zenith Energy's expansion

along the banks of the Willamette River. This w...

For several years the city of Portland has been very opaque in its dealings

with Zenith Energy. Two years ago, in a backroom deal, the city gave Zenith

the green light to continue to expand its rail shipments of fossil fuels,

under the guise that the company would switch...