Think Out Loud

In the Hermiston and Boardman area, there are more than seven active data centers owned and operated by Amazon Web Services. Last year, the city of Hermiston annexed 800 acres of land to AWS, paving the way for more in the future. And while some have shared concerns about the environmental impact these data centers have, they have brought their communities millions of dollars. For the city of Hermiston, Amazon’s operations have funded renovations to the library, city hall and most recently, a water treatment facility for Umatilla County.

In Umatilla County, 39% of residents are on Medicaid. In Malheur County, that number jumps to almost 52%. Both of these counties and more in Eastern Oregon have higher than average rates of Medicaid enrollment compared to the rest of the state. Changes to Medicaid made by the Trump administration will mean major cuts to the program that provides healthcare for many in Oregon.

Ann Ford is the CEO of GOBHI, a mental healthcare provider for this side of the state. She's also the president of Eastern Oregon CCO, the organization that manages the Oregon Health Plan for much of the east side of the state. Ford joins us to share the challenges of providing care and what Medicaid cuts could mean for patients.

Last week, a $6.2 million settlement was made between Madison Ranches and residents living in Morrow and Umatilla Counties whose wells were polluted with nitrates. The Lower Umatilla Basin has been grappling with high levels of nitrates for  decades, affecting drinking water in wells in various communities. Food processors and farms using fertilizers are regarded as the source of the problem.

J.R. Cook is the founder and director of the Northeast Oregon Water Association. He joins us to share irrigator's perspective on the issue and solutions they’d like to see.

 Earlier this year, Amazon recently purchased more than 1,000 acres near Boardman, OR. As reported in the Oregonian/OregonLive.com, it could be the site for the state’s first “exscale” data center. 

Kaleb Lay, director of policy and research at Oregon Rural Action, says that an uptick in data centers brings a number of concerns to the group, including water contamination, water use and growing demand for electricity. He shares more on their concerns.

The Blue Mountains — nearly 5 million acres that span the Malheur, Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman national forests — is long overdue for a new management plan. The current plan was developed in 1990, but efforts to revise it have proved so contentious that they have failed twice. The management plan was supposed to be revised every 15 years to respond to changes in forest conditions.

The latest proposal was published in early July, and the period for public comment will wrap up at the end of September. The issue has remained controversial, as public lands stakeholders have conflicting priorities for the area. We’ll hear from three different stakeholders: Jamie Dawson, the conservation director with the Greater Hell’s Canyon Council; Andy Geissler; the Director of Forest Policy for the American Forest Resource Council; and Tyler Dungannon, the conservation director for the Oregon Hunters Association.

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation recently launched a dashboard that looks at drought indicators on the reservation and how they impact First Foods. Community members can also submit their own observations and photos to illustrate the data collected by the tribes.

Lyndsi Lewis is the water quality coordinator for the CTUIR Water Resources Program. She joins us to talk more about the ecological — and cultural — impacts of drought.

The nonprofit Stepping Stones Alliance formed in 2020 to provide a year-round shelter for people experiencing homelessness in and around Umatilla County. The organization partnered with several cities and the county to build a temporary housing project, which opened in 2023. The facility includes an overnight shelter, as well as individual shelter units where “members” can receive wraparound services while seeking more permanent housing.

We’ll hear more about how the project is going from Executive Director Jesalyn Cole, who took us on a tour of the site. We’ll also talk with member Sean Scanlon, who came to Stepping Stones last year.

Two decades ago, there were roughly 10 indigenous plant nurseries in the country. Since then, that number has blossomed to around 100, including one operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The nursery only grows native plants, with its primary goal to grow vegetation to aid in restoration of natural habitats in Eastern Oregon. Gail Redberg is the CTUIR Nursery Manager. She gives us a tour of the facility, shares some of what they grow and why it’s important.

For decades, a wide array of groups have had representatives on the Hanford Advisory Board. They’ve provided input on a variety of issues around the cleanup of waste and contamination from the nuclear reservation in central-southeast Washington. Now, the Department of Energy under President Trump is curtailing the board. The advisory board is going from 70 members, including alternates, to 20. The new members will be selected by the government, and any group members or representatives of tribal nations will no longer speak for a constituency but only for themselves. Critics say these changes will reduce representation and accountability, while the DOE says the changes standardize the board and “enhance engagement with those that live closest to Hanford.”

We talk with Senior Correspondent for Northwest Public Broadcasting Anna King, who’s covered the Hanford Nuclear Reservation cleanup for the last 20 years, to learn more about the impact of this change.

For three decades, many residents in Eastern Oregon's Umatilla basin have been drinking nitrate-polluted drinking water. Some residents blame nearby food-processors and farms that use nitrogen-rich fertilizers for the issue.

Last week, a $6.2 million settlement was reached between Madison Ranches and the people living in Morrow and Umatilla Counties who filed the suit. Kaleb Lay, director of policy and research at Oregon Rural Action, took OPB’s Think Out Loud on a tour of affected areas, along with Jim Doherty, a rancher and former Morrow County Commissioner. We’ll also hear from Paulo Lopez whose well is polluted.

The Inland Northwest Musicians have been performing across nine counties in northeast Oregon and southeast Washington for nearly three decades. 

The group formed in 1999 to bring classical music to communities that may otherwise not have access to it. It consists of three ensembles: the Inland Northwest Orchestra, the Inland Northwest Chorale and the Willow Creek Symphony, a preparatory ensemble for new musicians of all ages. 

Lee Friese is the music director and conductor for all three ensembles. Alice Massey is a founding member of the group and serves as concert master of the orchestra. Payton Baxter has performed with the Willow Creek Symphony since she was 12 years old and now manages the group.

They all join us to talk more about bringing classical music to remote corners of the state.

More than 2 million Oregonians live in drought stricken areas. Dry summers in the Pacific Northwest affect various industries including agriculture, water supply, fisheries and hydropower. But could science change that?

Cloudseeding is an 80-year-old technology where tiny particles, often of silver iodide, are added to clouds via aircraft to help trigger rain or snow. Rainmaker, based in California, has been testing this technology using drones in areas across the country, including in Pendleton. Parker Cardwell is the chief operating officer for the company. He joins us to share more on what cloud seeding is and what the company has learned in Oregon.

 The Hagen Fire, which started a month ago, continues to burn on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The tribes have declared a public health emergency because of the poor air quality from wildfire smoke. On top of that, much of the area is in a severe drought. 

Kimberly Hughes is the emergency management coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She joins us to talk about how the tribes prepare for and manage these crises.

Filin is a style of music that combines traditional Cuban bolero with American jazz and blues. Over the next few weeks, Portland vocalist Jessie Marquez will explore the genre in a series of performances and conversations at El Centro Milagro, the first of which will take place this Saturday, Aug. 15. The series will culminate in a full ensemble performance on Sept. 5 as part of the Montavilla Jazz Festival.

Marquez joins us to talk about her connection to Cuba and the musical relationship she sees between the island and the U.S.

Data from the 2024-2025 school year shows that Oregon schools have the second-highest chronic absenteeism rate in the country. It breaks down to about a third of Oregon students being chronically absent — missing more than 10 days of school a year.

In Malheur County, though, things are different. A recent analysis of attendance data by the Oregon Journalism Project found that students in Malheur county are attending class more than any other county in Oregon. School districts in Malheur County have a tool in their back pocket: truancy citations, or fines issued as a last resort as a means of motivation for students to attend school regularly. Lawmakers banned the use of these fines in 2021, and school officials in Malheur County saw attendance slip. They brought truancy citations back in the 2023-2024 school year with a local ordinance, and attendance grew immensely, bolstered by wraparound services the district provides to support families struggling with school attendance.

Vale School District Superintendent Alisha McBride says the key to their success isn’t necessarily the fines themselves, of which they issued only one during the 2025-2026 school year, but the conversations that school districts, school boards and the community had to have around attendance in order to pass the local ordinance. We’ll hear from McBride about the ways Malheur County schools are battling chronic absenteeism and how those techniques can be applied to other counties in the state.

The prospect of gun control restrictions nonetheless fueled a sharp demand in gun purchases in Oregon leading up to and following the Measure 114 referendum. That’s according to a new study by researchers from Oregon State University, the University of Oregon and the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

Using background checks as a proxy for firearm purchases, the researchers found that background checks spiked nearly 160% in the two months after the passage of Measure 114. The researchers said the measure led to 63,000 more background checks in Oregon between October 2022 and March 2024 than would have otherwise been expected during this time. 

Katie Bollman, an assistant professor in economics at OSU, joins us for more details.

The Columbia River bar is a fierce, yet beautiful body of water, spanning across Oregon and Washington. With over 2000 shipwrecks reported since 1792, it is also known as “The Graveyard of the Pacific.”

In 1855, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began the construction of a jetty system, as a means to tame the dangerous ocean currents from the Pacific.

Oregon filmmakers Brett Eichenberger and Jill Remensynder’s new documentary “Taming the Mouth,” chronicles this history and how it reverberates today on this vital waterway in our region.

University of Washington researchers made these findings using the Landslide Exposure Database, an online tool they spent three years creating and recently made publicly available. The scientists say the database provides the first-ever building level assessment of landslide susceptibility across the U.S. for nearly 130 million homes and buildings.

The database also accounts for socioeconomic data, revealing an urban-rural divide to how natural disasters can impact communities. For example, residents in rural areas who are vulnerable to landslides may have fewer financial resources to move or recover from landslides compared to urban residents living in homes perched on hillsides in affluent neighborhoods.

Joe Wartman is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of Washington and the director of the Natural Hazard and Disaster Reconnaissance Facility. He joins us for more details.

It’s not uncommon for adults in custody in the U.S. to find themselves in solitary confinement for a range of behaviors, both violent and non-violent infractions. The practice is well-documented as being psychologically and socially damaging and to worsen the mental health outcomes for those subjected to it. The Oregon Department of Corrections is facing a class action lawsuit over the practice. 

And separately, a group of lawmakers has sent the agency a formal request to adopt U.N. standards known as Mandela rules, which would sharply curtail the use of isolation as a common form of discipline. Rep. Farrah Chaichi, D- Beaverton/Aloha, led this effort and she joins us to share more about the lawmakers’ letter, the DOC’s response and what she sees as the next legislative steps.

Soon after, Maher opened Rage Room Portland, which celebrated its one-year anniversary this month by opening its second location inside Stickmen Brewing Company in Tualatin.   

Business is also booming at OutRaged Rage Room, which opened in Vancouver in 2019. Owner Tera Gale says her three themed rage rooms are usually booked back to back on the weekends, with individuals or groups of up to 15 people paying to smash not only electronics and glassware but also personal objects they might find cathartic to destroy, such as a wedding dress from a failed marriage. 

Gale and Maher join us to share what they think is behind the appeal of rage rooms, where the adage, “you break it, you buy it,” is taking on new meaning.

The Salem City Council has voted unanimously to begin the process of adopting a data center moratorium. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has formed a task force to develop statewide regulations for these facilities, and she recently canceled the sale of a piece of state-owned land that the Verrus company was slated to purchase as part of the process of building a data center on the property.

Kotek released a statement about the cancellation. “This decision is about my responsibility to make sure state actions reflect Oregon’s values and serve the public interest,” she said. “I believe in growing Oregon’s economy and welcoming new investment, including in the technology sector. But growth has to make sense for the community, for our infrastructure, and for our natural resources.”

Verrus CEO Nelson Abramson argues his company's data centers are different than most — he makes the case that projects should benefit the community, support current infrastructure, and protect natural resources. He says the company’s facility would fulfill all those goals, unlike other similar facilities around the country. Abramson joins us to tell us more about the project.