Think Out Loud

When a climber was trapped under a boulder on Mount Hood over Memorial Day weekend, the field surgical team at Oregon Health & Science University responded. The team is trained to operate on patients outside of the hospital to free them from collapsed buildings, crashed cars and other emergency situations.

Justin Regner is the trauma medical director and division head of trauma, critical care and acute care surgery at OHSU. He oversees the field surgical team and joins us to share more about its work.

Oregon has given developers $1.4 billion to fund affordable housing as the cost of developing each subsidized apartment has nearly doubled. But thanks to a carve-out in its public records law, the state doesn’t have to provide the details of that spending. Rob Davis, an investigative reporter at ProPublica, joins us with the story.

Yesterday, in an emergency opinion, the Supreme Court decided that the Trump Administration can go forward with an executive order that would fundamentally change the way elections are conducted in the U.S.

Under the order, the Department of Homeland Security would create lists of U.S. citizens eligible to vote that it would send to states, and the U.S. Postal Service would decide who can get mail-in ballots. Though this isn’t the final legal word, the ruling creates a new level of uncertainty just ten weeks from the midterm elections.

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read joins us for a discussion.

The  East County Library is the newest library in the Multnomah County system. It officially opened in May, and it’s the most recent renovation in a list of library building or retrofitting projects that the county has taken on since a major library bond project was passed in 2020. It’s the second largest library in the system — around 95,000 square feet. Annie Lewis, the Director of Libraries for Multnomah County, joins us to tell us more about it.

n 2015, Shantae Johnson and Arthur Shavers decided to embark on a major life shift and begin a career as farmers. In the past decade, their work has expanded immensely to include a nonprofit, two farms, a commercial kitchen, a food pantry in the Portland-metro area and a soon-to-be Black Community Food Hub opening in Gresham.

It’s all dedicated to their mission of empowering, educating and creating economic opportunity for Black, Indigenous and People of Color who want to work in food systems. This work is done under the nonprofit “The Feed’em Freedom Foundation.” Executive Director Shantae Johnson joins us to talk about their work.

Last winter, Multnomah County and four cities in the area created the East Multnomah County Transportation Safety Action Plan. It was created based on survey data the county gathered from East Multnomah County residents to identify problem hotspots for transportation safety Gresham, Troutdale, Fairview and Wood Village. 

Vince Jones-Dixon is the chair of the East Multnomah County Transportation Committee. We’ll check in with Jones-Dixon about the issues the county has identified, and the steps that are being taken to improve traffic safety in the area. 

Last spring, the city of Gresham changed its primary water source from the Bull Run Watershed to groundwater by expanding its current groundwater system. Before the switch, groundwater was primarily used as a backup resource during summer months. The choice to separate from Portland’s water systems stems from Portland’s 2017 decision to build a new water filtration plant after the Oregon Health Authority ordered the city to treat its drinking water for the parasite cryptosporidium.

But the change has been noticeable to some Gresham residents. Groundwater is harder than the water from the Bull Run Watershed due to higher mineral content, and the treatment method changed along with the source, which has left some Gresham residents tasting or smelling the shift.

We’ll speak with Steve Walker, Gresham's water operations manager, for more information on the switch and what Gresham residents can expect.

In the Hermiston and Boardman area, there are more than seven active data centers owned and operated by Amazon Web Services. Last year, the city of Hermiston annexed 800 acres of land to AWS, paving the way for more in the future. And while some have shared concerns about the environmental impact these data centers have, they have brought their communities millions of dollars. For the city of Hermiston, Amazon’s operations have funded renovations to the library, city hall and most recently, a water treatment facility for Umatilla County.

In Umatilla County, 39% of residents are on Medicaid. In Malheur County, that number jumps to almost 52%. Both of these counties and more in Eastern Oregon have higher than average rates of Medicaid enrollment compared to the rest of the state. Changes to Medicaid made by the Trump administration will mean major cuts to the program that provides healthcare for many in Oregon.

Ann Ford is the CEO of GOBHI, a mental healthcare provider for this side of the state. She's also the president of Eastern Oregon CCO, the organization that manages the Oregon Health Plan for much of the east side of the state. Ford joins us to share the challenges of providing care and what Medicaid cuts could mean for patients.

Last week, a $6.2 million settlement was made between Madison Ranches and residents living in Morrow and Umatilla Counties whose wells were polluted with nitrates. The Lower Umatilla Basin has been grappling with high levels of nitrates for  decades, affecting drinking water in wells in various communities. Food processors and farms using fertilizers are regarded as the source of the problem.

J.R. Cook is the founder and director of the Northeast Oregon Water Association. He joins us to share irrigator's perspective on the issue and solutions they’d like to see.