All well and good to glamorize the smokestacks, and to quaintly call a major shopping development "The Old Mill," but what I remember about the Brooks-Scanlon mill was that it was dirty, noisy, smelly, and dangerous.
"Eat your spinach and do your homework," Dad would say, "Or you'll be working on the green chain...."
Looking back, those look like good, solid jobs, with a nice paternalistic small town enterprise.
Anyway, the stinky smell coming out of Century Drive is a legacy of that past.
In fact, I've always wondered how they managed to clean up all the pollutants in the Old Mill area. I mean, from what I remember, they'd have had to scoop up inches of top soil...
I'm sure they must have passed muster.
There was also the City Dump,(County?), up Southwest of Century: I haven't quit fixed what's on that location now, but I know that I wouldn't want to be there...
Meanwhile, the city is looking to save money by personnel cost cuts. Juniper Ridge and Bat keep getting funding, if vastly reduced. But we can always lay more work on our employees! This seems like the usual too little too late in cutbacks. When you have one of these economic busts, you have to get ahead of the curve, make the cuts deeper than you think at first, instead of constantly falling behind.
Instead, the tendency is to keep thinking things will get better. To ignore the naysayers (bubble bloggers) and instead listen to the optimistic promoters -- who are way more fun to listen to.
I also noticed, in the little business blurbs that it seems like some of the bigger name real estate agents are consolidating under some of the bigger name real estate agencies.
Talk about Bend coming back all you want, but I think we're still downsizing...
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OREO More Shrub than Bush
February 25, 2011; 5:21 PM
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has signed a three-month extension of key surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act.
The law extends two areas of the 2001 act. One provision allows law enforcement officials to set roving wiretaps to monitor multiple communication devices. The other allows them to ask a special court for access to business and library records that could be relevant to a terrorist threat.
A third provision gives the FBI court-approved rights for surveillance of non-American "lone wolf" suspects - those not known to be tied to specific terrorist groups.
Obama signed the three-month extension of the provisions Friday. They were to expire Monday.
Lawmakers will soon start debating a multiple-year extension of the provisions, which have drawn fire from defenders of privacy rights.
I'm not so much worried about library records, what scares the fuck out of me is who is buying comic books in Bend. :(
"I'm not so much worried about library records, what scares the fuck out of me is who is buying comic books in Bend. :("
Not sure what you mean by this.
If you're talking about Bilbo (Martin Sheen) Buster, I don't think he reads comics.
Otherwise, I'm offended. :(
"In fact, I've always wondered how they managed to clean up all the pollutants in the Old Mill area. I mean, from what I remember, they'd have had to scoop up inches of top soil..."
Perhaps surprisingly, there wasn't very much pollution. There were a couple of places where diesel fuel had soaked into the ground, and that soil had to be removed and disposed of, but aside from those there weren't any significant problems. The process of turning logs into lumber apparently wasn't very chemical-intensive -- mostly a mechanical process.
Anyway, if you don't like Bilbo Sheen's rantings, you can ignore them. They're pretty easy to pick out.
He's been part of the bubble blog scene here in Bend from the beginning.
He's like the crazy uncle in the attic -- you can't quite disown him.
Bruce, didn't they coat everything in creosote? I vividly remember the smell....
Let's remember that HBM has only been here since 1986. I remember long before the 1980's that the old-mill was quite filthy. It was essentially a bypass for a long time.
The real question is .. "Is it better now"??
I don't think so.
Oh, yea Bill Smith, HBM's bud, made a lot of money ....
Talking about toxic waste dumps and pollution, here is HBM saying mechanical versus chemical, shit he knows nuttin about logging camps, I can say that 1,000's of barrels of waste oil seeped into the ground,... used oil from heavy equipment quite normal.
Now on to the REAL toxic sites in Bend, they be Nosler ( lead bullets ), Suterra ( years of ground pollution ), and APT ( high tech waste ),
Move along Jedi's pay no attention to Bend's mother lode of pollution. Most interesting is that Suterra has moved, and now their toxic site and be capped and ignored, better yet the explosion last year at Nosler, may justify them too to move to JR.
Bend is a mother lode of fucking pollution, and a 'love canal' just waiting for the RIGHT REPORTER to report the story, ...
What's fascinating is all this shit is within the same area of near the old-mill.
The old dump of SW Century Drive is still there, right? All fenced in. I live right across from it. Nothing sits on top of it, or even a part of it as far as I know.
"All fenced in. I live right across from it."
Good to know.
This was your old-fashioned dump, where EVERYTHING was dumped, no matter how toxic.
It's all sort of funny, if you drew a line on a map from the old dump to the old mill, this line would pass through suterra, nosler, and APT.
I call that line the 'Bend Canal', aka love canal.
"Paradise my Ass" - hbm :)
"here is HBM saying mechanical versus chemical, shit he knows nuttin about logging camps, I can say that 1,000's of barrels of waste oil seeped into the ground,... used oil from heavy equipment quite normal."
First, the Brooks-Scanlon mill site was not a logging camp.
Second, I mentioned that oil and diesel fuel had soaked into the ground in places and had to be cleaned up. The DEQ was all over that site like a chicken on a June bug; they did exhaustive testing.
"The real question is .. "Is it better now"?? I don't think so."
Well, of course you wouldn't. I'd say it's not better than a working mill because it doesn't provide as many living-wage jobs for working folks, but it's better than an abandoned mill site.
Duncan, why do you call him "Bilbo Sheen"?
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