Beat Check with The Oregonian The Oregonian/OregonLive

Few helped define the Portland food scene that would fuel the city’s glowing reputation for innovation and creativity the last two decades than Naomi Pomeroy, the celebrated chef, cookbook author and James Beard Award winner.
Pomeroy died July 13 in a tragic accident while floating on the Willamette River near her hometown of Corvallis. She was just 49.
On the latest Beat Check, Oregonian/OregonLive food critic Michael Russell and I talk about Pomery’s indelible impact on Portland and beyond.
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Many consumers want to do their part to slow down global warming and they’re flocking to companies that try to do less harm to the planet. Companies, in turn, love to claim they’re environmentally friendly, sustainable or carbon neutral. Because in a world battered by climate change, it’s not just morally right to fight climate change, it also pays off.
Nike, the world’s largest sports apparel brand, has been at the forefront of environmentally friendly commitments. The company has promised to significantly slash its emissions by 2030. It has touted innovations that would not only lessen its impact on global warming but also become a “powerful engine for growth” and an industry model.
But in December, Nike started slashing its sustainability workforce, leading to doubts about how the company can fulfill its carbon reduction pledges. Nike executives told The Oregonian the company remained committed to its sustainability goals and has made them everyone’s job.
On Beat Check, Matthew Kish, a business reporter who covers the apparel industry for The Oregonian, talked about why apparel companies like Nike are interested in sustainability, how they’re planning to fulfill their promises and why they may have trouble doing so.
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Forecasts for this past weekend called for another lengthy heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees for four days in a row — maybe longer.
This won’t be the Portland area’s hottest stretch. That was a 2021 heat wave when temperatures hit 116 degrees. About 100 people died in Oregon.
But this 2024 heat wave might end up among the longest, which weather officials say could be similarly dangerous.
Environment reporter Gosia Wozniacka joined host Elliot Njus to discuss this dangerous effect of climate change and how the Portland region is preparing for more frequent, more severe heat events.
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Longtime reporter Tom Hallman Jr. retired last week after nearly 44 years at The Oregonian. His byline is a favorite for readers who know he will deliver a feature story well worth their time.
Hallman joins Editor Therese Bottomly on “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to talk about his career and what goes into his style of writing and reporting. Hallman won the Pulitzer Prize for his feature “The Boy Behind the Mask.” He also was a Pulitzer finalist twice.
Other memorable stories include:

The Apology

The Rescue

Saving the music

A Principal’s Gift

Swept Away


Listen to the full conversation.
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Authorities in Oregon have known for over three decades that groundwater in the eastern part of the state, a rural region where many people rely on domestic wells for drinking water, is contaminated with high levels of nitrates and unsafe to drink – yet, until recently, have done little to address the problem.
Until 2022, many people in the region had no idea they had been drinking contaminated water for years. Some still don’t know it because the state has tested only about half the affected domestic wells despite a 2023 deadline to finish the testing.
Research has linked high nitrate consumption over long periods to stomach, bladder and intestinal cancers, miscarriages, as well as thyroid issues. It is especially dangerous to infants who can quickly develop “blue baby syndrome,” a fatal illness.
In May and again earlier this month, three dozen nonprofits and two retired Oregon Department of Environmental Quality administrators sent a letter to Gov. Tina Kotek asking her to make good on her promises to test all domestic wells in the region, find a permanent source of water for those forced to rely on bottled water and take action to clean up the groundwater. Kotek had visited the area after becoming governor.The letter called the nitrate contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin “among the most pressing environmental justice issues in Oregon.” Most of the population in the region is poor, Latino or Indigenous.
Late on Friday, Kotek sent a response. In her letter, the governor said she has directed the Oregon Health Authority to, among other actions, complete the testing of the remaining wells and the retesting of some households identified as being at high risk by June 30, 2025.Kristin Anderson Ostrom, the executive director of Oregon Rural Action, and Kaleb Lay, the group’s director of policy and research, talked on Beat Check about why the contamination has taken so long to address, what can be done about it in the short and long term and what the crisis says about Oregon’s approach to environmental justice.
The eastern Oregon nonprofit, alongside the Morrow County public health department, has been instrumental in testing domestic wells in the region and pushing the state to do more testing and to limit nitrate pollution.Allowing another full year to test the remaining wells and setting the bar low on retesting is not an adequate response, Ostrom said. And the state needs to take substantive action to rein in the sources of pollution, she added. Much of the nitrate contamination comes from farm fertilizer, animal manure and wastewater that are constantly applied to farm fields.
“This is an ongoing emergency and it needs to be recognized as one – the lives and health of thousands of our neighbors are at risk and it’s the State’s responsibility to protect them from further harm,” Ostrom told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
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Across Oregon, county and city leaders say they don’t have the money to maintain their streets and sidewalks.
In the Portland area, a pair of mega transportation projects years in the making remain unfinished and drastically underfunded.
All the while, the Oregon Department of Transportation says will require an annual $1.8 billion boost to meet a growing list of transit needs throughout the state.
The agency’s director recently said the entire system is “hemorrhaging.”
On the latest Beat Check, reporters Shane Dixon Kavanaugh and Carlos Fuentes discuss Oregon’s transportation woes, attempts by state leaders to address them and the messy politics in the middle of it all.
Read More:
Oregon lawmakers want to fix roads and beef up transit. Where will they find the money?
ODOT pumps brakes on two major freeway projects amid budget crisis, tolling pause
Gov. Tina Kotek shelves plans for I-5, I-205 tolls in Portland area
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