Front Street Weekly; 424

Good evening. Welcome to another edition of Front Street Weekly, Oregon Public Television's news magazine. I'm Gwyneth Gamble-Booth; I'm Jim Swenson a,nd here's a preview of some of tonight's stories a little later on this evening, we'll see why Oregon, a state that boasts of a clean, wholesome environment, has a problem with the quality of its drinking water. In this day and age, 1985, that so many thousands of people in Oregon should be subject to drinking water that doesn't meet basic health standards; and nationally recognized scrimshander Bonnie Schulte demonstrates how that intricate art is done. But first we'll see how the Pit Bull Terrier's unsavory reputation has boosted their popularity in Oregon and throughout the country, and why some owners say these dogs are not for everybody. /so you've got to let them know you the boss; that's the thing about this. Well the American Pit Bull Terrier it seems has become the dog to own today even though it has a bad reputation or perhaps because of it - a reputation as a killer dog. Reporter Beth ?Willon? talked to some pit bull owners who have found that these dogs are personable,

trustworthy pets. But they also say that pit bulls must be carefully managed. The pit bull terrier has always commanded attention without even trying. The dog's stature, some say speaks for itself. In the past it was hard to miss a pit bull living in the White House. He was Teddy Roosevelt's sidekick and the Little Rascals pit bull, Pete the Pup, usually upstaged them all when he walked on to the screen. [Dog Barking] Today the pit bull is still commanding attention but not as a celebrity. Quite the contrary. These dogs that were initially bred to fight each other in pits have a very bad reputation - a reputation as vicious attackers and killers of animals and people. While many call these accusations ridiculous, others say their bad reputation has boosted the pit bull's popularity. It's a macho image. But yes I have a pitbull, I have this big killer dog and I'm a bigger

and tougher person for it. I promise you two or three pitbulls a day, they have become more popular in the last few years, and probably see 25 percent more in the last two years than we've seen in the past. Well one of the things that a lot of people have today is a hang up about protection. They're concerned about somebody breaking into their house and they want a dog that they feel is going to protect them. And when somebody looks in your house and these are put in there, they're not very likely to walk into it. Protection is a reason Jack Kane of Portland bought his two pit bulls. He says their macho image had nothing to do with his purchase. He believes they are faithful personable dogs, in the hands of the right owner - a strong willed owner for a hard headed dog. So you've got to let them know your the boss; that's the thing about that. If you don't, they'll do anything. They'll walk over you.. Some ways a grab some bone to grab some you know what you know where they I never have heard about them biting people, never have you know,... they're not for everybody.

I've had some that I have little problem handling myself. Those who are here just temporarily you know, But you've got to tell them who's boss, they'll respect you for it. Sur, they're terriers, and terriers are real smart dogs. The owners usually have to use psychology with em' because they can outsmart the owners. Protection, intelligence, and faithful companionship are not the only reasons pit bull sales are up. Some people are breeding these dogs to illegally fight each other. Because pit bull fighting is on the increase, The Oregon Humane Society in Portland will not adopt out pit bulls. They usually destroy them. They're a prevalent dogfighting problem. that, it's not so much that it's unnoticed, but it's hard to keep up, keep track of these people to find out where the dog fighting is going on and we don't want to take that chance. I don't feel that it's an animal problem, I feel it's a people problem and it's the people that breed these dogs for fighting. Basically train him to fight. Train him to be aggressive and

encourage aggression that are the problem, not the breed itself. Pit bull attacks on humans are increasing in proportion to their growing popularity. That's according to the Humane Society of the United States. In Oregon there are no firm statistics, but animal control and health officials say there has been an increase. That's with pit bulls kept as pets, and not chained up. My most famous one is the one involving the gun wielding bicyclist. This is a bullet that came out of the head of a pit bull which evidently attacked a bicyclist in North Portland. The bicyclist went home, grabbed his gun, and shot the pitbull. The shooting of the pitbull of course a violation of state law. But the pitbull running at large and attacking the bicyclist means a somewhat provoked situation. Well, ??? of working liking that ... and who should come up, but the ????? Lynn Fairfield and her son Timothy were walking down the street when accosted by two

neighborhood pitbulls. One of the pitbulls was eventually destroyed by a court order. He looked right at Timothy and raised the fur on his back, and had a field glass glazed look on his eyes so I just went and picked up Jimmy; soon as I picked him up the dog got on my leg, and another brown pitbull that was with this dog. started jumping up and pulling at his foot and trying to pull him down. Mrs. Fairfield says the owners told her the pit bulls were family dogs, dogs that would only bark at strangers. I think they can be very very protective. You know they can love you a lot. You know they'll think you're you know, you're man, they're your best friend. And if someone even looks like he's gonna, you know, do anything to you, he's gonna have the power to tear you up. The Beaver State pit bull club is trying to better the image of pitbulls. They believe the media has given the animal a bad rap because of some incidences of violence with the

dogs. Some go to dog shows, others participate in weight pulling contests. Keeps your dogs exercised and I'm a bit of a lazy sort myself, and that's, ya know, a little bit of a motivation for me to get out every day and do something with the dogs. Keep 'em in shape, I don't like a fat slobby dog that just, you know, does nothing but lay around. We're just doing all we can to, you know, build up the image of the breed, instead of, you know, public tearing it down. It's just a dog that's stubborn, has a stubborn tendencies that you know, you raise them the right way and you know they're just great. ???? No it'sa cheap trick you have to know that are dangerous any dog want to run a street that would hope to kill 'em. So that's why I keep my dog chained up, all the time. The Oregon Humane Society and law enforcement officials say that pit bull fighting is on the increase in Oregon, particular in the Portland area. However the type of fighting is a very clandestine sort of

operation, and hard to crack. And the only evidence, is when a dog comes into the Humane Society, badly mangled from one of these fights. Gwyneth? Clean water; that's something we tppk for granted in Oregon. In fact it's something in which we take a great deal of pride, and yet Oregon has one of the highest rates of waterborne disease in the country; and as Kyle ??? reports, the causes of this contamination may not be what you expect. (water running) It's from rivers, lakes, and streams like these that most Oregonians get their domestic water supply. The water we use in our homes and businesses. This is the water we drink. In most cases the water has a long way to travel before it comes out of our taps. By the time it gets there, most of us don't even think about how clean, or how safe it is. Drinkable water is something we take for granted, especially here in Oregon, where we take pride in the

purity of our land, our air, and our water. But the federal government says that between 10 and 20 percent of Oregon's nearly 1000 community water systems are not providing safe drinking water. To me that's absolutely unacceptable. In this day and age 1985, that so many thousands of people in Oregon should be subject to drinking water that doesn't meet basic health standards, and we're talking bacteriological standards which are related to disease. and her ???? baby, which is also related to disease, is unacceptable. Federal and state officials say that Oregon's water problems stem from inadequate treatment of drinking water, complicated by dual agencies regulating water quality standards. Most of our drinking water comes from surface sources - lakes, rivers and streams more vulnerable to contamination than water coming from underground sources. Contamination can be anything from dirt in the water caused by logging operations,

human and animal waste, all of which can cause water borne diseases. All it takes is one hiker, or fisherman who has disease and does contaminate the water because of water borne disease outbreak. The other more recent concern that we have is that with giardiasos , this this is a parasitic disease that can be transmitted even by animals, and beavert is one of the animals that has been incriminated because the beaver lives in the stream, they can carry this parasite and transmit that in the water and then that can be picked up by a man. These kinds of contaminants are violations of federal water quality standards. Most of the time, standards can be met by throughly treating the water. Adding chemicals to remove bacteria, and then filtering. 100 percent of them

need treatment; not all of the public water systems provide treatment. But I believe that surface water should be treated either with a minimal amount of chorination, all the way up to full treatment. Residents of Lake Oswego, Lake Grove, Tigard and Tualitan drink w water that has gone through full treatment. Back in 1969 when this facility was built, the Willamette River was one of the dirtiest in the area. So Lake Oswego decided to pull its water from a cleaner source, The Clackamas River. The Clackamas is still one of the cleanest rivers, but even this clean water source requires full treatment in order to meet state and federal water quality standards. The Lake Oswego water system serves a good sized population; large enough to get the financial backing needed to build and maintain this kind of costly treatment facility. But not every water system in the state, especially those serving smaller communities can afford treatment.

Many often do not meet water quality standards. In the large treatment facility like this we're fairly safe. There's a buffer in-between the people and the water source. Where the serious problem occurs is where they don't have a facility like this. The small areas, the small treatment facilities that don't have the money to buy the chemicals, they don't have the money to buy the equipment. This is a very costly facility that we have here. It's millions of dollars that we're having to put forth to take and produce this clean water. Corbett, Oregon population 2000, needs a treatment facility to keep its water supply safe. According to the State Health Division and the Environmental Protection Agency there are about 170 systems in the state in the same situation. Corbett gets its water from Gordon Creek and until recently only treated the water with low levels of chlorine. But in 1982, Corbett's water didn't meet water

quality standards. They reported 15 cases of giardiasis, the water- borne and transmitted disease, to the State Health Division. The State Health Division has been able to help Corbett get rid of the disease-causing organism by adding higher levels of chlorine to the drinking water. We found in recent years that even the current standards don't fully protect our water systems against water-borne disease; in fact here in Corbett we didn't have violations of any current drinking water standards and yet we had a water-borne outbreak anyway. We need be looking at these systems more closely and we need to be providing in some cases more treatment than- than just simple disinfection. The problem is further complicated by overlapping regulations imposed by both state and federal agencies. The federal EPA and the State Health Division both are limited in responsibilities and resources. Now there are a couple of problems with- with the program here. Number one, our mandate is very narrow, Kaya.

We are strictly a compliance and enforcement agency. And number two, I have a very limited staff to carry out those compliance and enforcement activities, I just have four staff here to cover all of the 1000 community water systems that we regulate here in the state of Oregon. The State Health Division, then under a separate authority from the state Drinking Water Quality Act, is responsible for technical assistance and training to municipal water system purveyors. I think- I think it's complicated the way things are now between two regulatory agencies and I don't see any reason for that complication to continue. I think we can simplify the issue for the public and the water purveyor and have a better quality water in the same thing. There could be some help out of this dilemma. Legislation is pending in the state Senate that would allow the state to handle all water quality regulations through primacy.

We've had two- two systems for enforcing water law, our own and theirs. And increasingly we came to believe the government- governor believes I think, local government believes it has to deal with the regulation that the state does a better job, that it's more concerned at the local level, that it gets out there on the spot more often than the federal government does. That it has the ability to work in a more cooperative way with the local government in remedying the problems than the heavy hand of the federal government from a distance. State primacy will house the elements of a complete drinking water management program in one strong state agency. If we can get out and look at these water systems and start getting the water operators to do a better job of operating what they have, encourage them to move ahead to additional treatment in cases where it's needed, we can have better water for everybody in Oregon.

Giving Oregon primacy, that is to say primary control of enforcing federal government standards for safe drinking water, will not eliminate all of the state's drinking water problems. But many feel that consolidating water management policies into one state agency is a step in the right direction. However the state does want the assurance that federal funds will not be withdrawn, once that program is in place. Well a couple of weeks ago Portland's Saturday Market celebrated its 10th anniversary and established its permanent home under the Burnside Bridge. We spent some time at the country's largest outdoor market. We'd like to thank photographer Ellen Hanson for that breakaway. Nice work on Ellen's part.

Well wherever there is Ivory the art of scrimshaw can be found. And in the northwest, close to Alaska's supply of fossilized ivory, that art form is flourishing. At Newport, on the Oregon Coast, scrimshander ?Bonnie? ?Schulte? produces the miniature works using synthetic materials as well as the traditional ivory. Scrimshaw is carving, engraving in to the ivory, and filling up the grooves that are engraved in- with paint, ink, oil. On the sailing ships the whalers used the dirt on their hands to fill up those. But basically it's filling up the grooves and and in so doing an image appears on the surface of the ivory. Artist

?Bonnie Shulte? uses 16-inch drill bit, sharpened to a fine point to draw curved lines into the tusk. She uses an xacto knife for stippling that becomes the shading in her designs. It's such an exacting, tiny minature art form that the slightest change in the way that these things are used can either make the scrimshaw look rough or clean. I wear thick magnification glasses that were prescribed by an optometrist, so it's a very intense experience to make scrimshaw. ?Shulte? is a fine arts graduate of Williamette University. She began as a scrimshander in 1976. She's lived in Newport on the Oregon coast for ten years, where the environment inspires her work. Often ?Shulte? explores the Yaquina Bay with her friend Dan, studying the many forms of wildlife

that can be found there. In our boat experiences I'm constantly excited by all the different kinds of animals, and it's funny because it does take me into wildlife, scrimshaw. I have always loved realism. I find it to be a challenge, to say something meaningful, or even powerful. On a tiny surface on a very tiny object. And I feel that since I was a painter before I started scrimshaw, I naturally my scrimshaw looks like little paintings. It forces me to design in my purest form. There can be no confusion, and or it's lost. Currently ?Shulte? is working on a series of knife handles with the Gutmann Cutlery Company, based

in Mount Vernon, New York. The commission calls for 84 sets of knives with four knives in each set. Each of the four depicts a different animal on the endangered species list. The sets will retail for 2600 dollars each and the project will last for 18 months. It's a reproduction kind of thing that I'm doing, even though each knife is hand carved. All exactly the same, to the minutest detail. No ivory is used in these knife handles. A synthetic substance, Micarta, provides a good working surface for the pieces. Micarta is- is a material that is man made. It's paper that has been pressed or impregnated with resin and it- the combination of those two materials produces a substance very much like ivory. Only it's

consistency for scrimshaw is perfect. For many years scrimshaw was done on tusks taken from living animals. But today legislation governs the use of fresh ivory and it is increasingly hard to obtain. So that she does not create a demand for fresh ivory, ?Shulte? uses only Micarta or fossilized tusk from extinct animals. We work on the fossilized ivories and even those we consider to be a very precious material and to not be squandered. But to create something on a fresh ivory, such as fresh walrus, fresh elephant ivory, whales teeth, any of those are absolutely taboo in my studio. The ancient ivories that ?Shulte? uses are either Mammoth or Mastodon. These large mammals were common in North America during the latest glacial age, 20,000 years ago. In the 18th and 19th centuries the use of fossilized ivory for billiard balls,

piano keys and other articles, before the advent of plastics, decreased the ancient ivory supply. Today it is still available, but always increasing in value. I happened to be at the right place and the right time, when scrimshaw was just getting started. Eileen Shattuck is not an artist, but a Portland dealer in ivory carvings from many parts of the northwest. What started out as a hobby grew into a full-time job for her. She points out that each finished piece of scrimshaw has employed several people along the way in its production. A cutter for lapidary work, the scrimshander to decorate the ivory, and often another artist to set a piece in gold or silver. ?Bonnie? ?Shulte? is only one of nearly 20 artists whose work she markets in Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii. I do a lot of work with ?Bonnie? through the mail and every time I get her work in it's like Christmas, it's just fun to look at. Each year since 1977, ?Shulte? has done a piece on the theme, of The Lady and the Tiger.

Shattuck keeps these in her personal collection. In Newport, ?Bonnie? ?Shulte?'s work can be found at The Wood Gallery. Store owner Kelly Barker has carried scrimshaw since the shop opened in 1979. I'd say there's a real good demand for it. It's just coming of age as an art form it has changed from a craft and into an art really over the last decade. When I think of the scrimshanders I think of about three people that are top, and ?Bonnie?'s one of them. Stan Gillis, owner of The Real Mother Goose, a fine crafts gallery, also admires her work. She was a painter at one time and that comes across into her work. The intricacy of her work, the shadowing and everything that she does and I think probably more than anything it's just the coloration in her work. Probably the finest work that's available anywhere in the country is available in the northwest. The future may bring more commissions and new artistic challenges for ?Bonnie? ?Shulte?. And she will continue to make her home and he

workplace at the Oregon coast. There's a kind of a power, or a passion that goes on living so near the end of the continent, or right near such a powerful force as the ocean. As a place to become inspired, or just to find solitude it's very rich and very enduring. Well since we interviewed ?Bonnie? ?Shulte? last spring she's nearly completed the endangered species series for the Gutmann Cutlery Company and now she's beginning a new series depicting birds of prey. These knives too will be made from the synthetic substance Micarta. ?Shulte?'s work is also available locally. And while that's one kind of art that is flourishing in Oregon, there's another and that's the art of attracting the

convention business to Portland. On the next edition of Front Street Weekly you'll see how Portland is aggressively campaigning for its share of the pie, and what those business dollars could mean to the community. And jewelry designer Ray ?Aussay? tells you how to avoid the sting of a hot jewelery deal. It definitely is not a good idea to buy from somebody on the street who approaches you and says I have a nice gold watch, that sort of thing just never pans out, it never pans out. And the northwest is seeing a renewed interest in an ancient art form, storytelling. And this audience is black. That's our program for this evening. Thanks for joining us on Front Street Weekly. We'll be here next week. We hope you will too. Good night. [silence]