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Teana Tozer went to college on a basketball scholarship then she was hit by a drunk driver she still plays but she doesn't have a jump shot anymore. This message and the broadcast of real time is made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oregon. Ladies and gentlemen one thing we are not going to do on Real Time tonight is look back at the 80s. If you missed that decade. You got to catch up somewhere else. That's right. For the next hour we're going to look ahead at some of the issues that need our attention in the future. Join us for this edition of Real Time. Now I've got a couple of things to say Rita before we get started. First some good news, Real Time has already caused one of the major networks to change their Friday night schedule. Now

we've got a visual aid that will show what the other networks were showing back in October when Real Time went on the air. There it is ABC at Perfect strangers. Dallas on CBS. Something called hardball on NBC. But since then NBC has dumped Hard Ball and replaced it with something called True Blue clear evidence the big guns are now running scared. Real Time has served notice we're going after Dallas - right now Larry Hagman start looking for a new job. Now that's the good news. Now there is bad news and that is that. Personally I'm angry. I'm starting off tonight in a really bad mood. I'm somewhat bitter. That's because last time we were on the air a couple of weeks ago I said our trivia quiz-in was going to be harder than ever. Right after the show ended we started getting phone calls with the correct answer. I am upset so I decided what was needed was to punish our quiz researchers we do have a research team. In fact there were some cameras rolling earlier this week when I carried out that punishment. It was kind of grim. This is a family show. This shows though what happened. I am fed up with these questions I ordered that our two researchers should be tied up

and severely disciplined and you can see pretty clearly I hired a couple of guys I mean business and I'm not going to put up with any more easy trivia questions. I like Jennifer's hair though. Well it's a family program. I won't show exactly what happened to the research group but they know their jobs are on the line this week. No more nice guy. Well I'm I'm really glad Jeff that that is all straightened out. All right. We do have some serious topics tonight. We're starting a multi-part look at the problems surrounding workers compensation in Oregon. We also have a real time media panel tonight to talk about how the press is treating suspects who are under arrest. And we'll also look at the problem of dioxin pollution in the Columbia River. And we'll even throw in some sports talk. Yes. Sports talk later on. But first here's Jeff with some people who have a lot to say about one of Oregon's most controversial problems. Well Rita when you mentioned workers compensation around the state. You could end up talking for hours because everybody seems to have an opinion on why the system isn't

working. Safe corporation that's the state accident insurance fund recently canceled policies for thousands of small businesses. The system is losing millions of dollars a year. And this week Governor Goldschmidt called together a special panel to try to find some solutions. Tonight we're going to start a multi-part look at workers comp and what's wrong with it. And with us are "Ted Cauldingoski?". He's the state insurance commissioner and his name seems to come up all the time when we hear about workers comp. We'll find out if that's justified or not. We also have Keith Skelton. He is a former state legislator who has also worked on national commissions that studied the Worker's Comp around the country. And "Bill Mushashkey?" is another man who was involved in the process that originally drew up the current system that we got back in the 60s so these men all have the long view. Some people call it the institutional memory. I think that's a term we should encourage a lot the media's use of institutional memory. And the gentleman I think the one thing that I was told and putting together this signal was make these guys talk about what is worker's comp supposed to be don't get them off the track

on what's going wrong right away. What's it supposed to be doing? Why do we have this system? Who wants to take it? Let me let me start on this Jeff. I came to the state of Oregon in 1952. Up until that time I had been in law school and I'd also been working for an insurance company where my main job was that of of being hearings representative for worker's compensation claims this was in the state of New York and afterwards in the state of Washington when I came to Oregon I was horrified to discover that only 50 percent of the workers in the state of Oregon were covered by workers compensation which was then insured by the state funds. The other 50 percent went like this about 15 percent of them were covered by a system of insurance called employer's liability where they had to a worker had to establish that the employer was at fault before they could get any any money for their claim. And about 35 percent of the claims were handled under under welfare. So

the general public was picking up the tab for about 35 percent of the claims. And as I said I was horrified by that. And when I got into the legislature I decided that we were going to try to do something to bring workers compensation to all, or all that we could in Employees in this state. When you say that you are horrified is it because you didn't feel that enough workers were getting the coverage they needed? As far as I was concerned, The state of Oregon back in the early 90 hundreds as far as compared to other states - because most states by that time had developed a system where most or all of the workers were covered by Worker's Compensation. So what were the consequences - that workers were actually going without needing medical care? Yes, they were. In fact. So it was a terrible situation at that time. It was a very, very outmoded system but a lot of people were making money out of it. Lawyers were making money out of it because they represented both sides of these employer liability cases and some of those employer liability cases where big verdicts. although only only 80 percent of them really ever.

[Inaudible] So the basic difference between what was in Worker's Comp is that the old system of employers the worker go the the worker did not recover anything for an on-the-job injury unless you could prove negligence. But if he was able to do that he got unlimited damages. So it was attractive for litigation. Under Worker's Comp, which is a no fault system a worker who is hurt on the job simply has to prove that he was hurt on the job. He does not have to prove negligence or fault. Did anything that went wrong that was his fault. That's right. It may have been his own fault. But nevertheless he was covered and got some compensation, but not unlimited. He would recover immediate medical, hospital, and temporary disability on a scheduled basis. And then if he had a residual or permanent disability he got a scheduled compensation for that. So it was more certain compensation, but limited compensation and that was the difference between what was in what Oregon move toward particularly in 1965.

That's the tradeoff between worker's compensation and the liability system. The tradeoff is that the worker gets short compensation for any work incurred disability, but he doesn't get as much money as he might get from a jury. But on the other hand, the jury might give him nothing. So Ted you're looking real pensive. Sounds they just described a really great system to me. So what's happened here doesn't sound like we quite got--had had that happen today. Well historically let me just tell you that "Oswaldwest?" when he was elected governor in 1910 what most people in Oregon know "Oswart?" was for the beach law that's here in Oregon, that means that they're free to all the citizens. "Oswaldwest?" also was the father of the Oregon worker's compensation system. And this program, this last November was 75 years old. It's in its 76th year history. To show you where it's been, the first claim that was ever filed in the system was filed by an individual named Robert Smith who worked for the old Oregon power company. He missed a day and a half's work. There

were-- the medical bills were five dollars, he was paid two dollars and seventy cents for lost time, for a total claim cost of seven dollars and seventy cents. And you can take it from there to where we are today. Which is where. Where Oregon Probably in, nationally, on a comparative ranking in terms of cost for three major benefits medical - we're I think first in the nation on the average cost on time lost per second and on permanent partial disability we're first, and what the problem is what we've done with this system is basically expanded it, and Keith and I were talking before and it becomes the basic remedy for a lot of social problems that were originally designed just for the workplace. But it's encompass now a broad spectrum. And in fact the program is. To the point where in terms of frequency of how many people have access to the system

it's probably one of the most liberal in country. Are you saying the system's then gone far outside the original boundaries? The original-- originally in order to recover even under workers comp, you had to show some kind of an accident -violent and external means - sort of an event. Gradually over the years the definition of what is a compensable injury expands and expands, and now it covers subjective matters, stress heart, aches, strains, and that kind of thing that is not necessarily wrong but it does open up the system to abuse in the sense that people claim that they were hurt in the job and maybe they weren't. I'm enjoying this. This is a great history lesson. Sort of wonderful. I bet a lot of people are wondering how we got into this mess and where it all started off. With respect to SAIF, the largest worker's comp insurer in the state of Oregon which is now what dumping $20000. Twenty seven thousand. Yeah. Walk us through. That originally was a quasi public institution, correct? Can you give us the sense of how that thing

got started. Well let me-- as the Oregon insurance [inaudible] since I deal with this every day. Let me tell you that first the original structure was called "Saiac?" and this was in 1914 when the when the law was created was the State Accident Industrial Commission, and it encompassed both the insurance mechanism and the administrative part and the adjudicative function. In 1965, when what Keith was referring to earlier they created the three-way system. One of the characteristics of that is they broke the department up. It was no longer called "Saiac?". but what was developed were two separate departments. So there was the Worker's Comp board which had the adjudicative and the administrative function, and there was something called the State Compensation Department, SCD, which was the insurance mechanism, and that was the way it was until 1969 when the State Accident Insurance Fund was created as a public agency. Now in 1979-- Let me just make sure I understand. This was created because basically no one else wanted to handle workers comp

insurance. No. No. No. It wasn't a stream of competition-- --Prior to 1965, one of the characteristics of all of the compensation systems west of the Mississippi basically was the development of a monopolistic fund. A state fund under the theory that no one should profit from the injuries of an injured worker. And it was viewed as that insurance companies in the private sector would profit from a worker's injuries. It is a phenomenon. There are some funds east of the Mississippi but the [inaudible] predominantly west of the Mississippi. Well, we have a 180-degree turn now because now SAIF wants to profit. it wants to turn a profit. Well, I think it always wanted to make a profit. The question is, is that it wasn't a profit as It's not normally referred to in the private sector, where there is a return to shareholders or something of that nature. Under this system the profit was to be returned to the policyholders in the form of lower premiums. Here's what I think is happening is as I understand it, this system is paying out more than it's taking in. It's running in the red constantly. Not only with SAIF but many of the insurance

companies, as well. Right. We're talking about the whole worker's comp system is losing money. One of the biggest insurers in this state, Liberty Mutual, is being subsidized. by other states. By its profits in other states. Well, now is it your view then that that's the basic problem, is to stop that outflow of money? Well, basically the problem is that not enough money is taken in to pay the kind of claims that are being made against, whether it's SAIF or the private carriers or self-insurers. And it's largely because of the fact that it's hard to anticipate in advance what kind of costs you're going to have, because medical costs are going up. Hospital costs are going up. People are appealing more of the determinations of the disability. So they're getting more and more money in and it's out running the premiums that are charged to employers. Let me back up just a minute. And follow up what [Joe?] just said and I look at the access to workers compensation claims as a door. And the

door has been opened in this state so wide to everybody. By the-- by the Court of Appeals of the state,the the costs of worker's compensation in this state in my opinion can relate directly at the liberal decision, at the foot of the liberal decisions that have been made by the Court of Appeal. They have made the claim door so wide that practically any kind of claim at all- if you, if you fell off your chair here tonight of course you'd have you'd have a claim. But on the other hand let's assume that you. Let's assume that you decided that you were going to be stressed and upset because we didn't answer the questions correctly. And that happens on this show constantly. [laughs] I can see what your point is and I want to ask all of you gentlemen we've got this special panel now that the governor has called. Any thoughts on that? Is this really going to go anywhere? Is this fixable at all? Let me-- Yes or no. [laughs] In answer to the question, the answer is yes it's clearly fixable but the fact that the governor today, and I was with him, he met with the panel. It was a highly successful meeting. What is unique about this approach is

traditionally the way that one brings about a group of people to work on this problem is you bring about, bring in every interest group that you can think on with the panel. You basically come up with something that doesn't do much and that is because-- He specifically left out the lawyers and the doctors. --Well, there's much more that he left out, because the only two are there are the employers and employees. And the governor's position is that this was the program that was originally designed for those two parties and he's going to return it to them. All right. We are about out of time. I'd love to discuss with you gentlemen the timing of the governor's move, I mean he did have two sessions of the legislature to make-- --He was highly successful-- Yeah but he-- I also want to call up a picture that I pulled out of the files because it's a picture that seems to run a lot in the papers whenever this issue comes up. I don't know if we have it on the monitor. If we have it we can put it up. There it is. Ted Kulongoski is the guy with the [inaudible] Thanks to Ted Kulongoski, Keith Skelton, and Bill [?] for being with us tonight. And remember that in the weeks ahead we will be talking with representatives from the business community, labor, doctors and lawyers, politicians, and probably a lot more on this worker's comp issue so stay tuned. Thanks very much.

[musical interlude] Is The press convicting defendants before they ever go on trial? Some recent cases in the Northwest have raised that question. Wesley Dodd is accused of murdering three young boys in the Portland-Vancouver area. His lawyer wanted to have the press barred from the pretrial hearings because he was upset by the media coverage of the case. Is the press the guilty party in this debate? Tonight we brought together a Real Time media panel for this discussion. Mark Zusman is editor of Willamette Week, a newspaper that often takes unconventional approaches in its reporting. Stephanie Fowler is a former TV reporter and also served on the editorial board of The Oregonian. And Barbara Gale teaches

Communication Law and Ethics at the University of Portland. Barbara, let me just start off with you. When it comes time to teach, where to draw the line on things like printing, uh, publishing confessions of defendants and the question of whether or not you're going to jeopardize somebody's right to a fair trial. What did you teach? I really start out with the idea that the main goal of the press is to be the reporter of the facts, not the maker of news. And look at the bench press bar guidelines which clearly indicates that prior confessions are not ethical to print. Prior criminal history, stories that would inflame the public against the defendant. Those kinds of issues that would not give the defendant the chance for a fair trial. Let's make sure we understand what the bench press bar guidelines are. Who wants to take it? Does anybody know what they are? It's this little book-- They're guidelines.

They're not laws that are, that were drawn up many, many years ago as a result of some meetings between members of the bar and members of the press. And as a general matter, honored in the breach. Meaning. Meaning very rarely are they honored. They're very rarely honored. The idea was to protect both the rights of the press and the rights of a defendant, to balance the first amendment rights with a sixth amendment right to a fair trial. All right. Of the cases we're talking, about Wesley Dodd in particular, there were some fairly lurid details released about how he went about a murder, and they were published in the Oregonian. They were broadcast on KGW TV, which then had to apologize they were so lurid. I'm just throwing out the question - was some sort of line crossed in that or is that pretty much par for the course.? What are your thoughts about it? Well. I think it's - first of all it's very hard to, as an editor, create rules that you can then almost apply like a cookie cutter

on each particular instance, whether it be this murder trial or or or another trial of another individual. And there's an enormous amount of judgment that's used on the part of a journalist and an editor every time a story brings to bear. Well in that particular case does a reporter actually do -- do people sit around and go, now are we going to jeopardize this guy's right to trial? No. No. Who has time to think about that? And the presumption here is that the reporter is the agent, and is an active entrepreneurial agent going out digging up the news, and perhaps where we're blaming the wrong person. The reporter. In most cases, and particularly in your daily TV news and daily newspapers, is just filtering the information that they get from prosecutors and from law enforcement agencies. They're reporting the information that they get. In that in that case they got it from an affidavit that they needed to search Dodd's apartment then, and it was a confession which I'm sure reporters have had

access to in previous times but have elected not to-- In fact that, that specific affidavit variety, the newspaper--the daily newspaper in this town as well as four of the television stations did make separate judgments about how to handle that affidavit. KGW released more of that information that was in the affidavit. The Oregonian did hold back. So there are judgments made, and I think those are judgments of taste-- Well, where would you come down on it? Would you have published that stuff? That particular affidavit? I would not have gone into the detail-- Why not? --that KGW did. In my mind it it went beyond the bounds of taste, which is a very dicey thing for journalists to get involved in. But they're the kinds of things that we do make decisions. Here's something else, Mark, now I did bring this on and that's because you had a cover here a couple of weeks ago of this guy here, Brian Hessel, who is a suspect in the murder of Heidi Dozler. And I read the article, and it was real interesting, and I wouldn't want this guy to come to a slumber party. [laugh] But I was left with the idea of well, what did I get out of this article? And was this just kind of, even the headline

here - ' One chance too many' - is that kind of suggesting a little more here than has actually come out about whether this guy is guilty or not? Well Jeff make your point. In other words, are we suggesting that - are we convicting him before his trial? Is this a nail in this guy's coffin? To be completely honest with you I have fewer concerns about an individual's ability to get a fair trial in this country than I do about the enormous number of injustices that are never brought to trial. So I start there. Secondly, in that case clearly we had a great deal of information which if you put it on one side of the scale would suggest that this individual is guilty. It's all factual information. There were a lot of details that, from a point of view of taste, we did not present to our readers because I thought it went beyond the bounds. But I thought it was a fair story. Don't you- Don't you feel like the story itself though? Uh, we have a presumed innocent until proven guilty,and don't you think the story adds to the public's determination of guilt before this person ever had a trial? If you take the Stevens case for example, that individual was charged-

really never even charged- was suspected. He was in jail. There all kinds of stories similar to the Dozler one run on him, and then we find out months later that indeed he's not even going to be accused. I mean, that's the point at which this is a very fuzzy issue and as Mark says, in 99 percent of the cases it requires judgment. That case, I think, is the far side of the line which is very clear. And I think the press ought to keep its hands off when the cops don't even have enough goods on someone to arrest them on the charge for which they're a suspect. Then that press ought to keep hands off. I think they went way overboard. This guy's life has been ruined. Well, do you think, though that in the case of the Dozler Bill Haas story in the Willamette Week that it's okay if you think they're guilty, then we can publish whatever we want. Well I'd say two things. One is, the logical extension of your argument is that nothing should have ever been written about Manuel Noriega because the fact is he has yet to be brought to trial. And yet if you've read the newspapers the general assumption is that he's been guilty of terribly felonious crimes and

I doubt very much you would suggest that you wouldn't want to read- be reading about him over the last couple of weeks. The Stevens thing if I could make one perhaps conspiratorial theory, that information was released by law enforcement authorities. And in my mind it's, if anybody's responsible it was, or irresponsible, it was their responsibility for letting that information, or floating that information to the press who they knew was going to pick it up and run with it. All right. Do you think that we're seeing, uhm, is this something new? This phenomenon or is it--have some new lines been crossed, and are we kind of running into a situation where it's maybe not so much a question of free press as a question of competition. With respect to especially the Dodd situation. I have to repeat that Dodd is only accused, and has not been convicted, just so we don't [inaudible] we're just kind of wondering about here. I say absolutely not. And if the general presumption here, again, is is the press too aggressive. I don't think the press is aggressive enough.

Now I think Barbara, what I'm curious about is we talk a lot about objectivity and I'm assuming that in teaching classes you talk about the idea of objectivity which a lot of people talk about now but in fact is pretty recent. When you're when you're doing your classes, I mean how do you approach that whole subject? How can you really be objective and still get out facts that are going to have some kind of implication one way or another? Well, we talked about the responsibility to public, the responsibility to be objective in in terms of facts, and what kind of facts should you be putting out in the newspaper? In fact, my class actually did an exercise looking at the Wesley Dodd case and the consensus was that, yes you could, you can talk about the arrest. You can talk about some of the specifics of that arrest but you need to, when you start developing a history of that person, and you start publishing lurid details. I think you cross the line into sensationalism. It's not new by any means. The Shepard case. Dr. Sam Shepard was a total mistrial due to sensationalism in the press and trying him in the

papers. And I think there's a fine line to be crossed between being objective and reporting facts about a crime so that the public gets the information it has to have, and then sensationalizing those facts or trying that person in the paper. I think you have to remember as Mark pointed out, that the press is not a monolithic thing, and there were different degrees of taste displayed in the treatment of the Dodd case. And as far as his history is concerned, I think that's very fair game because that points out - we've got to talk about a greater good too. I mean, you've got the right of the individual and you have the right of the greater-- the greater good. And I think his history pointed out some very severe failures in our legal system, and laws that were designed to deal with these people and to catch them. And I think the publication of his prior history minus some of the more lurid details, was most relevant and most critical. [Barbara] I agree that the public needed to have that information to take some action, to change the laws on sexual offenders.

But I also think that you also, some of the press stories did harm to the public in that there were children that watched television stories. I have some older women students whose children actually were terrified to go to bed because of the lurid details that were reported in the [inaudible] [Male Speaker] As an alternative then, Barbara I guess hey what do we where do we go then with that kind of an approach? Are you are you basically saying we don't want to have big chunks of information reported for that reason? That a reporter is going to have to make that decision? [Barbara] I think there has to be some more guidelines adhered to instead of the race to be who's first and and who has the most sensational story. And I think the Wesley Dodd case is clearly one where people were trying to get there first, and it was a hot story and it's about a topic that is distasteful. And I don't think as much care was given the kinds of facts that were reported that should have been. [Stephanie] He also was caught red handed with a little kid in his arms and that makes a difference in the minds of, of editors.

[Rita] But it does sort of raise the question that, if you're going to actually start publishing and reporting on all of the exact way someone was murdered. There's very few murders that are not horrifyingly grisly. I mean, you could cover the entire Middle East that way if you wanted to. Is that where this thing logically goes? Do we actually start, you know, will the next horrifically horrible murder get reported in graphic detail? Point case by the case here, and how far does this go. [Mark] I think you're hearing a consensus that some of the reporting of the affidavit specifically went too far. The problem is that journalism is not a profession that lends itself well to rules. What it lends itself well to having talented people who can exercise the appropriate kinds of judgment. I think inappropriate judgment was exercised in that case. I don't think the answer is to clamp down the rule and necessarily say this is the way it's got to be in the future. [Rita] All right. Let me just ask about the fate of the infamous Oregon bench press bar guidelines. I mean those things, are those things that we can just kind of throw them out the door now? [laughs] Are they finished?

[Stephanie] I've never seen them. I reported for 14 years in Oregon. And I think I was regarded as a very responsible reporter. I never saw them. Never saw word one about them. [Rita] Should we have a public burning, I mean-- [laughter] [Mark] I think Stephanie's point is well taken. I don't think they're very well [Rita] --All right, okay. [Mark] --very well known. [Rita] All right. And no kind of guidelines like that do you feel are really necessary.? I'm sort of intrigued that they ever existed. [Mark] I think discussions about what's appropriate is fine. I think the reason why those things are only guidelines is because of a recognition, both on the part of the bar and the part of the press, that these are not the kinds of things you can legislate. [Comfortable?] with that? [Barbara] I think, too that that in the end, however we have to be careful that we don't totally erode someone's right to a fair trial even in a despicable case. And once you start eroding the rights to a fair trial and.. and going beyond just factual information, I think you start jeopardizing constitutional rights. I want to thank our panel and something tells me this will come up again. We've been speaking

with Mark Zusman with Willamette Week, Stephanie Fowler who has been with the Oregonian and was with Channel 6 here, and you're doing media consulting now aren't you? Is that a whole other topic? Well, how many more minutes do you have? [Laughs] Well, it's another show. And also with us is Barbara Gale, a professor from the University of Portland. Thank you all. I think I hurt my back during that last segment I think - is Ted still in the building? don't know..I think it's too -- too complicated. Now, we have entered a new decade and a lot of so-called experts are going on radio and TV shows to tell us what people who look into the future are thinking. And frankly I don't pay much attention to people who do predict ahead. The fact is we're in the future right now. It's 1990. And when I was growing up I used to read magazine articles that said we'd all be flying around with rocket belts by now and there would be colonies on the moon. And in many ways it's obvious that the future is running behind schedule. Now I'm not saying that's bad, either. A lot of what people predicted for the last half of the 20th century was pretty grim. Here's a good example. I

have some scenes from a movie called 'Things to Come'. And it's a movie that H.G. Wells scripted back in 1936. There we go. Destruction - as you can see Welles didn't have a very optimistic view of the oncoming decades. The movie warned about the danger of international conflict and perhaps more important, it also demonstrated the need for Hollywood to develop better special effects. And luckily we have them now. We can all be grateful that these predictions of ongoing global wars haven't come true. And with recent developments in eastern Europe it looks as though the world may be entering a period of unprecedented international cooperation for which we should all be grateful. There's also another prediction that many futurists have made over the years and in some ways I find it even more terrifying than the prospect of global war. And this is the prediction that someday men's fashions may look, well, I have to show you - like this. Did anybody really believe that these kinds of clothes would ever be in style? When I first saw Things to Come, the thought that I might ever have to go out in public looking like these guys - well, it's deeply disturbing. That guy looks like he's wearing the curtain from a

theater on his back and I don't have those kinds of legs either. Luckily those fashions haven't come in style. A lot of things haven't happened. Who would have thought that in 1990 you still wouldn't be able to pump your own gas in Oregon? So when people make big predictions I tend to be skeptical. Remember no matter how much we'd like to rush into the future we can't go any faster than one day at a time. Precisely how dangerous are dioxin levels in the Columbia River? Is it bad and getting worse? Are Columbia River fish even safe to eat? Those questions raised anew a month ago have produced a consistent response. Calls for a studies, studies, studies, and yet more studies but no answers so far. It all began when the Oregonian reported the results of rough samples that showed dioxin levels in fish up to 10 times the level previously reported. The samples were taken by the Environmental Protection Agency. Dioxin, which is known to cause cancer in animals is among the waste products some of the big pulp mills dump into the river. Soon after the EPA

report was revealed, the Northwest Pulp and Paper Association released its own study, concluding Columbia River fish are safe for eating and essentially saying there's not really a big problem here folks. But ultimately whose job is it to determine that? Are they doing their job? And is it really so very difficult in this day and time to determine whether or not a potential health risk exists due to tainted fish? With us tonight to explore some of these very big questions are Doug Morrison with the Northwest Pulp and Paper Mill Association, Nina Bell with Northwest Environmental Advocates which believes the Columbia should be admitted into the national estuary program and thus afforded certain federal protections, Kenneth Brook's operations director with the Oregon office of the Environmental Protection Agency and state representative Ron [Seis?], who heads the Chief Environmental Committee in the Oregon House of Representatives, and we welcome you all here. And so I'm going to throw out this question, first of all. A lot of people, you probably know them, I know them, maybe some at this table are among them are wondering can I eat the fish out of the

Columbia River? Whose job is it to tell me if I can eat those fish? Just tell me. Whose job is it. We don't need to reach a consensus. I'll take [laughs] first come, first serve. I'll tell you I've talked to a number of different agencies and I don't think it's clear whose job it is. I think EPA collects data, and the states collect data and the health departments really are in the end responsible to the citizens, both the state and the county health departments, to tell them whether they should eat the fish or not. So it's the health department, but the health department doesn't do its own study so they need somebody else to tell them. It's-- it's really a matter of coordination and making sure the information is there and that people are addressing it. And I think one of the problems that we found with the information that came out recently was not that EPA was withholding it for malicious or intentional reasons, but that they are doing their studies very slowly but surely, but they don't have sufficient resources to do the job that they want to do. And time passed, and when the information came out everybody said well the time passed and that was that was due to, to you know for

bad reasons, but I don't, I don't really think that was true. Well, are we in agreement that then the highest power here is in fact the Environmental Protection Agency, and that that is the place that we should turn to for the definitive information? Not necessarily. The EPA has, has a lot to say on the issue and I think there's a lot to be said for federal consistency. But the states have to play a significant role in deciding what's best for the people in this state, and not necessarily listen conclusively to somebody in Washington D.C.. Well, all right except that [inaudibe] Brooks is right here. [laughs] EPA has a responsibility for determining what national standards need to exist. In terms of dioxin, EPA has developed criteria designed to protect the human health and the environment. That criteria has been made available to the states and I think the difficulty that occurred recently was that EPA undertook a study to identify hotspots to determine if there was bioaccumulation occurring for dioxin.

And that information then became used for and interpreted a lot of different ways other than the way the information was was originally collected to be used for. OK. Based on the information that you did collect ,which the Oregonian as I said said there were 10 times the levels of dioxin as previously reported; are you telling us that it's safe or unsafe to eat the fish from the Columbia River? Okay. Some of the fish in the Columbia River certainly contain non-detectable levels of dioxin and a moderate level of consumption those fish would pose no public health hazard. And a moderate level is? It would depend on how often and how much fish people eat. But the issue that EPA's data was trying to get to is is dioxin accumulating in various aquatic organisms in the river? It was never designed to determine public health effects of the dioxin in the river. It was looking to see if dioxin was accumulating and starting to go up the food chain in the aquatic

environment. OK, let me go to Representative [Seis?} We have now two gentlemen who are sort of, well, I don't know actually, uh, Doug Morrison is the one who said that maybe the EPA shouldn't be the court of last resort with respect to the most valid, the most credible, the most believable study. Where do you where do you--? Well I think obviously there is a serious problem. I would agree with Doug that I think the state agencies have to play a very substantial role here. I for one am not prepared to rely solely on the EPA or certainly not on the industry here. On the other hand I think it is true that in terms of the resources that say, the State Department of Environmental Quality and Health Division have, is they're not going to be able to do in-depth studies with the kind of background that the scientific and technical help that's needed. You really are going to have to deal with all of these pieces. Unfortunately, I think in some ways, since we're talking about the Columbia River which is a border between two states, it isn't, obviously sufficient for this

state to deal with alone. We've got to deal with Washington-- It's really clearly an issue that you have to have both states involved. You have to have the EPA. You have to have the industry and you have to have the environmental groups. All are going to have to play a part . I understand they all have to play a part but just tell us if the fish are safe to eat, which is a simple question. Uh, It doesn't strike me that it should really require quite that much as to do -- what, what to do to make the fish safe. or to make the river cleaner. or to not or to decide what the policy is going to be. What we want --I can see where all of those people might be called in but to get the simple information. Who do we turn to to tell us about it? I think you have to rely, in great measure, on EPA . Now, one of the comments is it's a question of how much you eat. The State Health Division said you have to worry about it only if you are a regular eater of fish, but the same problem the same issue happens. You talk about contamination of water. I'd like to ask some of those people who were saying only eat so much, would they eat it at all. I'm suspicious of the fish at this point at all. But it's not, it's not a simple question with a simple answer I think, because a lot of it has to do with

how do you collect the fish samples and what are you collecting those samples for. And so if you're collecting them as EPA was doing to monitor the river and to monitor what's going into the river, what effect it's having in bioaccumulating through the organisms, you're not doing the same thing as, as monitoring fish for the specific purpose of determining what the health impacts are going to be. [Rita] Why not do a study then, to determine what the specific health impacts are? Because to me, to some extent, I think that there's a legitimate question to be asked if in just raising all these studies and now we've got the EPA sample, we've got the pulp and paper study. We've got the two governors of two states are going to have a study. Uh, and then the Oregon Health Division says it's seeking more studies through the EPA, the federal health authorities, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and health authorities from Washington state. We could be, you know-- [Ron] Well, let me first of all say I think we're making a mistake, zeroing in on only the the dioxin issue. I think we ought to be looking at the whole issue of chlorine compounds that come from the uh, uh, breaching

process that these [inaudible] use and the stuff thats put into the river. There's a Canadian Studies and reports that indicate as much as 3,000 different chemical compounds are poured into the water as a result of this process. A lot of those are toxins. It is not dioxin only. Now, dioxin is, I think ,clearly the one that I think concerns people the most but we're talking about a lot of toxins. We ought to be looking at the larger question of what kinds of pollution--pollution is going into the river. How many different kinds of pollutions and so forth, and take a look at the bleaching process which I think is the real issue, which is creating the dioxins and the other chlorine compounds to begin with. [Doug] Well, uh, the study that was sponsored by Northwest Pulp and Paper Association by all accounts, is the most comprehensive fish tissue dioxide study done in any river in the world. And our expert toxicologists have informed us looking at that data in edible fish tissues that these fish are safe to eat. The Oregon Department of Health, and I believe the other agencies, will be taking a very close look at

that data. Their experts will be talking to our experts over the next few months and they will issue their opinion about whether that, that study is valid. And we encourage that type of review. Uh, Secondly I've got to say that uh, by all accounts, the-- the information that we have today indicate that our products are safe and that the discharges that we are--have in the Columbia River are not harmful to the environment or to human health. [Rita] Do you do you understand though, Doug, that because the industry put forth their study it's suspect, a little bit? There's got to be questions about it. Do you understand that-- [Doug] I didn't-- [Rita] So, so another objective party might need to be brought in. [Doug] I understand that there is good reason for skepticism and anybody who's doing any study you should take a very close look at it. And again we welcome that. We believe it's tight and we believe it will stand up to scrutiny. Secondly, I have to say on the dioxin issue that all of the mills have taken substantial efforts to reduce the levels of dioxin

they are discharging, despite all of this debate about what is safe and what isn't safe, they are reducing their discharges, they have already and they're going to continue to work very hard at reducing dioxins. [Nina] But what the pulp industry is not doing is now producing unbleached pulp and paper products, both office paper and consumer products, that are made from unbleached pulp, and the consumers want that because consumers, despite the result-- [Rita] This makes the paper less white, right? [Nina] Well it makes it-- in some cases it makes it less white. In Sweden, as you can see here this paper is-- [Kenneth] This is non-chlorine bleach pulp from Sweden. It's the report on dioxin from the Swedish environmental agency. [Rita] All right. [Kenneth] And that paper you cannot see a difference in the paper -- [Rita] it's very white.. I hope you can see it's very white. [Ron] You can't tell [inaudible] But I think the issue is that consumers, uhm, who are educated, and it doesn't take very much to educate them, want products that are made from unbleached pulp and they can't get them. The only thing that you can get in this country that's made from unbleached pulp is disposable baby diapers from Canada. And so, in this country where we can buy nearly everything legal and

illegal, we-- we can't get the products that we want. And people want those because they want to protect the environment and their own human health. [Rita] All right, Nina let me just ask you very quickly - and we're almost kind of running out of time here, and we need to devote a little bit more time to this - the National Estuary Program would bring in perhaps greater protection of the federal government and more involvement by the EPA in determining exactly what Mr.Seis is talking about, trying to determine exactly what is in the river and how safe is it? This week you issued a letter that was very critical of the governor of Oregon and the governor of Washington. What's the problem? [Nina] Well, the problem is that the governors of both states really are perpetuating the abandonment of this river that has been going on for decades by both states, and,and they decided not to nominate the Columbia to the National Estuary Program instead Institute, uhm, a as you say, one more study. It's fairly limited and it's partially paid for by the ports and the pulp industry. And what we wanted was the National Estuary Program, which did a lot more than study things. It talked about a development,

development plan. It would coordinate all the local state and federal agencies that are involved in the river, and federal involvement is very great. And it would also do studies and talk about implementing some cleanup and some changes. Do you see any change in the two governor's positions and do you understand what might have motivated them to not seek the, uh, federal policies? -- [Ron] Well, I would say that-- [Nina] It's politics. [Ron] --One of the, one of the problems is, and I think we've got to keep working on it, we are both - Senator Springer and I, who are co-chairs of the [inaudible] Committee on Environmental Hazardous Materials, sent a letter to the two governors encouraging them to go forward with the application. They chose not to do that, I think partly because there's a distrust of EPA. But the other thing that is part of the politics here and something we've got to work on, the Columbia River is a vital resource for those of us who live down here in Oregon and the other side of the river. The Or-- the Washington state legislators tend to view their life in reference to Puget Sound. And we're out of sight, out of mind. We've got to figure out a way to make this river a bigger part of the two, of the region, because to get at these problems - this is

not to say that we step back and don't take the leadership, but to get at them we need the cooperation of both of these states. [Rita] All right. OK. Well, we're going to continue to track it. I'm sure it's going to be back in the news. And, so we all agree that in the meantime we should just eat moderate amounts of fish from the Columbia-- [Doug] I disagree. --whatever that is, except for Doug Morrison who says to eat-- [Ron] I'm not sure I'm going to eat it -- [Nina] And no bottom fish. [Rita] And no bottom fish. [Doug] I ate sturgeon out of the Columbia the other night. [Rita] All right. [Doug] And I enjoyed it, and I gave it to my wife and I'd give it to my children if I had some. [Rita] All right. OK. Doug Morrison is with us. He's with The Northwest Pulp and Paper Association, Nina Bell with Northwest Environmental Advocates, Kenneth Brooks with the Oregon office of the EPA , and state representative Ron Seis. We thank you all. Thank you. [music]

[Jeff] I think that big fish dinner I had is giving me a terrible backache so.. I ate it on the job I think, and that qualifies for a pretty big settlement. Now, we have had some important issues tonight but we haven't said a word about something that is really bugging millions of Americans and that is which college football team is really number one? If you went bowl crazy last weekend and watched all the games you know that top ranked Colorado was beaten by Notre Dame, and then Miami was voted number one in the final polls, and now there's just widespread anger and bitterness all over the country and we decided that Real Time shouldn't avoid such a major nationalist issue. So tonight David Kahn is here to help us sort it all out. He's a longtime sportswriter and he's been keeping tabs on the college football controversy. And right.. now, David thanks for being with us tonight and I know that this has caused a lot of high blood pressure for you, so what about it? Do we do we need the National playoff system to settle once and for all who's number one? Everybody's screaming for it. What about it? Well, personally Jeff I can wake up every morning without having a real number one team. I know that for some sports fans though it's an awfully difficult task.

Every year this sparks some kind of debate because every year it seems there's at least two if not three teams laying claim to who should be number one. And as you pointed out this year is no exception. So what do we do? Do we do we institute the national playoff system? Now, you were telling you on ESPN they said this coming weekend or next weekend would be the perfect playoff date for Miami and Notre Dame because classes are starting the following week. As you said I just happen to be watching ESPN and they're called football analysts, a man by the name of Lee Corso. said that next Saturday, which would be the 13th of January, would be the perfect time for this game and his point was on the 15th of January Notre Dame goes back to classes and on the 16th of January Miami goes back to classes and thus, they wouldn't have to miss any class time. But what he failed to point out was that these kids from Miami and Notre Dame have already been in practice sessions for several weeks getting ready for these two bowl games and in Notre Dame's case the Orange, and in Miami's case the Sugar. and to ask them to spend another week with their coaches is

nothing more than indentured servants working for the university to get ready for yet another game that doesn't allow them to go home for a week to visit their families, to visit their friends, perhaps their high school sweethearts and it's really not very fair to the kids involved but that's kind of typical in sports especially college sports because too often the adults are making decisions for themselves, and really not thinking much about the kids. Well I guess this year was kind of a special one here in Oregon because the bowl ripple effect actually reached all the way up to Oregon. Can you believe it? The Independence Bowl, first time since 1963. I kind of get the sense that you might have different feelings than a lot of people seem to have around the state about whether this was the major sports event for Oregon athletics of the 80s, and a lot of the the general feeling here was this was terrific. What do you think? Well not to belabor the point, but again it seems to be a decision that was made by adults for adults, not really thinking about the kids, the students involved. You know, let's be, let's be straight about this Independence bowl. It is the Newberry's of bowl games.

It's based in Shreveport, Louisiana which is--the Newberry's, the discount--? Exactly. It's the 99-cent bowl game. There's there's a slew of bowl games.There's got to be some at the bottom and some at the top and the Independence Bowl is right there at the bottom. It's based in Shreveport Louisiana, which is one of America's worst cities. Well now we did it we got i-- That the opinions expressed of course are your own. I hope knowing this signal will be skipping down to Shreveport here for all we know. [David] I'll take my chances. [Jeff] Yeah, OK - press on. [David] It's in one of the worst cities in America. Not the kind of place where you can get an 18 year old college freshman real excited about going to Shreveport. It is annually staged there, annually pitched to also-rans who really don't win their conference, aren't at the top the independent heap, and it's the kind of game that comes on at 5 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon with a Bewitched rerun as its lead-in so it's just a, it's a non entity. [Jeff] Well, now I got to, I got to press one thing here. Now, a lot of people said well, look this is the kids worked hard. This is the reward for having a good season and they get to go to a bowl game.

So what about it? [David] Well, I think there is something to be said about that. But I think that maybe too much was made of that. I think it was the Oregon Athletic Department's idea that hey, if we go to this game we're going to be satisfied, and a lot of our alumni, a lot of our boosters who for all these years- as you put it, not since 1963- for all these years these people have wanted us to get to a bowl game. And let's forget about the fact that it's a good bowl game. It's a garbage bowl game but who cares. It's a bowl game, and let's go to this game and just tell our people it's a bowl game and hope you like it. [Jeff] Well. All right. I guess in terms of what's going to happen next year, that's another thing I heard. Is this going to help-- [David] Well that was one of the comments that came out, is that Oregon's point in going was, or at least one of its points in going, Jeff, was look, we've got to go to a bowl game no matter how good it is because next year when these bowl committees start sniffing around trying to find a team for next year, they want to take a team with bowl history and thus, if we go this year we will have some history but the Independence Bowll is no kind of place to gain any kind of history. If you go back in the past

decade- just the past decade- you'll see that the roster of the teams that they've invited is littered with nobodies. Mississippi's, Air Force's. Last year, for example, They had Texas El Paso and southern Mississippi. [Jeff] Well, David, I - [laughing] I think I think we better, we better cut it right there. But we do appreciate David Conn for giving us his gridiron expertise, and we may tackle him again when the next big sports controversy erupts in a sporting life. David. Thank you. [David] Thank you Jeff. [musical interlude] [Jeff] OK it's time for a feature on this program that's caused repercussions around the state. The Real Time dart board. If you haven't seen it before, I get to throw a dart. We do it at this big map, and then we send a

crew to wherever the dart lands. Also very important to note, we've made an addition to the map this time. It now includes Washington up here. We got a lot of calls saying where's the other state that OPB goes into? So there it is. We don't want anyone in Washington to feel left out. And we're also giving ourselves a couple of weeks to follow up on the dart board, because this is wintertime and travel can be tricky. I got to find my mark here because this is prescribed by science. Take one shot with the dart. We'll go wherever it lands. Let's see what happens right now. No practice. This is not a rehearsal, this is real so.. Oh, dear heaven. I don't know what I've done but I went across the Columbia River. If we hadn't had the part of Washington up there -it looks like Big Butte but I don't really know. There may not even be any towns up there. Oh, there's one there. Termination Point. That's exactly where we want to go in the middle of winter. Termination Point. I'm sorry. I could take another throw at it, but would it be hopeless so. Rita, I don't know if you're going to Termination Point or not, but we're going to send somebody there. [Rita] I've heard it's really beautiful there. [Jeff] Yeah I hope so. Maybe-- [Rita] It's really pretty-- [Jeff] Maybe you'll have a great time. [Rita] Yeah, you're going to have -- well, OK, somebody's going.

[Rita] Well the Real Time pop quiz has been getting a terrific response the past few weeks. Last time we showed you a picture of some waterfalls, and we said they got their name when a train was stranded nearby in the last century. Jeff was complaining a little bit earlier in the broadcast that this was too easy, but it did stump some of our callers. this is [Diana Cole?] from [Klamath?] County. Is it creek, Medicine Creek Falls? Falls? [Rita] Now to be honest, we did get a virtual waterfall of correct responses. And here's the call that put Jeff in a snit. [recording] Rand Fisher out in Washington County, and your questions aren't harder, they're easier. That's Starvation Falls, at Starvation State Park on I-84 in the Columbia Gorge. Thank you, really enjoy your show. [Rita] All right. Yes, Starvation Falls is the answer and we also got one particular response that deserves some extra attention.

[recording] This is Chuck Williams, and your photograph is of Starvation Creek Falls in the Columbia Gorge. In fact it looks remarkably like the photograph I took of the falls for my book, "Bridge of the Gods, Mountains of Fire." Even the captions match. What do I win - a free copy of my book? A plug maybe? Happy holidays, bye. [Jeff] Now we're glad that Chuck Williams called and yes, it was his book that we used for the picture. This is the library edition. Not a spectacular cover but it's still his book and we realized we should give credit to some of the other sources that we've used on these quizzes so for our Picture of Shaniko a few weeks back. Credit to the book titled Shaniko by Helen Rees. And another quiz we used a picture of William Ladd and that was from the book Merchants, Money, and Power: Portland Establishment 1843 to 1913 by historian Mark MacColl. Thanks to all of them. [Rita] Now another quiz for next week and we hope this will be tough. It's a man a man who was primarily a farmer but some of his other ventures included a butcher shop and general store. He also donated a lot of land to the city that bears his name. So who was this man and what is

the name of the city. Let us call us. Call us at 2 9 3 1 9 9. And if you're the person who took this picture we'd really like to hear from you because you're probably the oldest person in Oregon right now. [Jeff] All right. That should give you a little bit of a clue. Thanks everyone for watching tonight. Next week Congressman Ron Wyden will be one of our guests plus more surprises more on workers comp and we'll see you then. Good night everybody. [musical interlude] [musical interlude]

[Commercial] Tiana Tozer went to college on a basketball scholarship. Then she was hit by a drunk driver. She still plays, but she doesn't have a jump shot anymore. This message and the broadcast of Real Time were both made possible by BlueCross and BlueShield of Oregon. [Dana] The stones in this pond symbolize longevity, and wish all who visit here long life and good health. Hi I'm Dana Garrett and next time on The Collectors, we'll be holding appraisals in the Japanese garden in Portland, Oregon. Explore the beauty and mystery of Asian collectibles. When we look at rare ceremonial prints, rose medallion porcelain, and Oriental furniture. Enjoy a taste of the far east next time on The Collectors. [Narrator] Tomorrow night at 8:00 here on

OPB.