Fall beach cleanup saturday - Three Rivers 'densifies' - Lane County Jail earns grant

Beach Cleanup Set for Saturday

Thousands of volunteers will converge on Oregon beaches this Saturday for the Great Fall Beach Cleanup. It’s organized by SOLV and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. The twice-annual cleanup is a tried and true formula and is essentially the same this year says parks beach ranger Trisha Wymore.
210 – “It’s pretty much the same as last year, ten AM to on e PM, and, six registration sites for volunteers.”

Volunteers can register at several beach locations, or if they can’t decide where to go, can sign up at Siuslaw Bank in Florence. They’ve added a few wrinkles this year according to Wymore.
211 – “We’ve got some great giveaways from the Oregon Lottery this year. We’ve got some really cool recyclable grocery bags that the lottery put together so you don’t have to use those plastic bags that end up on the beach.”

Over the past 26 years nearly 190-thousand volunteers have picked up some 1250 tons of trash from Oregon beaches.

Three Rivers Casino and Hotel used to offer water bottles to guests, but did away with them several months ago in a move to sustainability. Since then, however, they’ve gone through an estimated 47-thousand polystyrene cups each month. With the help of their cup supplier, Three Rivers has installed a machine that crushes and compacts the foam so it can by recycled. Chief Operating Officer Mike Rose says the machine, called the “Densifier”, is the only one in Oregon and it uses intense mechanical pressure to force all the air out of the foam and break down the cell walls. It can take eight-thousand cups and compress them into a block about 15 inches high. Rose says any poly-styrene foam can be recycled except packing peanuts. Three Rivers will make it available to local residents to provide an easy way to reduce the amount of foam that ends up in landfills.

A $500-thousand grant from the U-S Department of Justice will be used to expand video surveillance and recording technology at the Lane County Jail. Sheriff Russ Burger says the technology provided by the money will improve safety for staff, inmates and visitors at the Lane County Adult Corrections facility in Eugene. Some of the money will also be used to improve communications for parole and probation officers when they work in the field. The City of Eugene will receive $150-thousand in a ‘companion grant’ that will be used to expand a regional training facility that can be used by all law enforcement agencies in the area. The projects funded by the Department of Justice would not have been possible otherwise. Burger says they would have remained on his ‘wish list’ for many years.

Here is the latest Oregon news from The Associated Press

JUNCTION CITY, Ore. (AP) - An Oregon man who killed his young
daughters and then himself left a note indicating he was despondent
over a pending divorce from his wife of 14 years. The
Register-Guard says Lane County sheriff's deputies found the note
inside the Junction City home of Richard Rauscher, whose body was
found Monday along with his daughters', Eryn and Aidan. Eryn was in
third grade and Aidan was a fourth-grader.

ALBANY, Ore. (AP) - A Marion County sheriff's spokesman says the
body of a 57-year-old Salem man last seen Sept. 12 was found
yesterday in an Albany-area pond. Rickie Harlan had set out on a
planned fishing trip to the Snake River in Idaho and was due home
by Sept. 16. He never showed up at his first stop to meet his
brother.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A Portland-area transit agency says it has
fired a bus driver who was videotaped while apparently reading an
electronic book as he drove along Interstate 5. TriMet says
40-year-old Lahcen Qouchbane (la-SHAWN' KOOSH'-bane) was terminated
for "posing an immediate threat to public safety" and violating
policy.

GRESHAM, Ore. (AP) - Police in Gresham have noticed an uptick in
reported car prowls and say the thieves appear to be targeting GPS
units. Between June 1 and Sept. 1, police logged 50 car prowl
reports in which a GPS unit was stolen. And officers in the east
Portland suburb say there are likely many more unreported thefts.

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) - Wildlife officials have captured and
killed a juvenile cougar that apparently had been making herself at
home in a Corvallis neighborhood. The cat is believed to be the
same animal that in the past week injured a small dog at one house
and may have killed a pet cat at another. A deer carcass was also
found nearby. The 46-pound cougar was captured early yesterday.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - The Oregon wolf management plan, proposals
for mandatory hunter orange and big game regulations are all on the
agenda next week for the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission
meeting in Bend. The commission will decide season dates, bag
limits and open areas, statewide youth hunts and other regulations
for big game hunting in 2011.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Congressman Kurt Schrader faces a tough
challenge from Republican Scott Bruun in November, but Schrader is
doing his best to distance himself from the plummeting ratings of
Democrats in Congress. Bruun has been identified as a "Young Gun"
by national Republicans, and internal polling from both candidates
shows the race is Oregon's closest.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

TAKING A LOOK INTO COAST RADIO SPORTS:
Community
The Siuslaw Athletic Boosters will hold their second annual “Move Your Bones” five-K fun run and walk October 23rd at Florence municipal airport. Pre-registration can be done at Coastal Fitness, On Your Feet and Coast Radio. It’s free for ages six and under, seven to 18 costs just $5 and everyone else is ten bucks. Money raised in the Move Your Bones Five-K goes toward booster club activities. Last year they raised well over $20-thousand for athletics at Siuslaw High School and Middle School.

On the Schedule:
Prep volleyball tonight… Siuslaw opens up Far West League play on the road in Winston against the Douglas Trojans. Mapleton has Mountain West League play against the Mohawk Indians in Marcola. In the Sunset Leauge, it’s Reedsport at Bandon.