July marked the sixth consecutive monthly drop in the state’s jobless rate, down from 3.5% in June and from a recent high of 4.8% in January.

Oregon added 6,800 seasonally adjusted, nonfarm payroll jobs in July after a gain of 5,700 jobs in June, per OED’s press release, which adds that July’s gain was nearly double the average increase of 3,700 jobs per month during the previous 12 months.

OED notes that nearly all of Oregon’s job growth in the past year has been in three industries — health care and social assistance, leisure and hospitality, and government — with each sector up about 10,000 jobs and expanding by 4% to 5%.

The sectors seeing the biggest jobs gains since June were health care and social assistance (which added 3,400 jobs), government (which added 1,600 jobs), professional and business services (which saw 1,000 more jobs), and construction (which added 900 jobs in July).

The health care and social assistance sector grew by 13,900 jobs between July 2022 and July 2023 — or 5.2%. While the industry is still slightly below its March 2020 peak employment level, it is still the fastest-growing sector of employment, with each subset of the industry rapidly adding jobs. Nursing and residential-care facilities have added 2,800 jobs in the past year; hospitals added 1,900 jobs; and ambulatory health care services added 2,400 jobs in the past month. The Employment Department notes that ambulatory health care services has reached a record-high number of jobs, with 98,300 people working in the sector as of July 2023.

The biggest month-over-month declines were in financial activities, which lost 600 jobs, and manufacturing, which lost 500. Transportation, warehousing and utilities as a sector lost 500; private educational services also saw a decline of 500 jobs in July. OED notes that manufacturing as a sector has contracted over the past year, though there are exceptions: Transportation equipment manufacturing has grown by 400 jobs in the past year, and nondurable goods manufacturing — which includes food and beverage manufacturing — has added 1,300 jobs over the past year, though it cut 200 jobs in July.

The contractor issued a press release Tuesday saying that on May 30, someone exploited a security vulnerability in Progress MOVEit, a software product several state agencies use. The release says PH Tech learned about the incident on June 16. The information accessed varies from person to person but includes personal information, including names and social security numbers as well as protected health information like member ID numbers, diagnosis codes and claim information.

The company says it disabled access to the platform and fixed the security vulnerability, and has directly contacted customers to offer free identity-theft protection services through IDX, a data-breach response service.

Also Wednesday morning, the Oregon Health Authority issued a press release encouraging OHP members to watch for additional information, to request a free credit report from each of the three major consumer reporting companies — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian — and to contact PH Tech directly if they need further assistance.

“We’re urging OHP members to activate credit monitoring as a precaution,” Dave Baden, interim director at OHA, said in the health authority’s release. “It’s disheartening that bad actors are looking to exploit people in our state and that their actions create a burden for others, who have more than enough to manage already. However, there are important steps that OHP members can take to further protect their data.”

OHA is the second state agency to experience a data breach this year. In June Oregon Driver & Motor Vehicle Services — which also uses MOVEit — confirmed that 3.5 million driver’s license and identification card files were compromised in a hack that happened earlier that month.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney – District of Oregon, Noble Marital Trust, doing business as Noble Family Dairy, pleaded guilty to one count of negligently discharging a pollutant on Monday in federal court.

Noble Family Dairy is situated about 13 miles east of Grants Pass and is certified as organic, according to Oregon Department of Agriculture records. According to a 2021 profile of the dairy that ran on a blog for the Coastal Farm & Ranch retail chain, operators farm just over 1,000 organic acres and graze an additional 500. The article says it produces 8,750 gallons of organic milk per day, and says 100% of the milk Umpqua Dairy ships to stores after processing is from the Noble Dairy farm.

In April of this year, the business was charged with one count of discharging a pollutant in violation of a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, a misdemeanor under the Clean Water Act.

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The case, which was investigated by the Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division with assistance from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and ODA, stems from a series of events in 2019.

Prosecutors say that at that time, the dairy had 1,760 cows but was only allowed 1,630 under its waste-management permit. That created a level of waste operators couldn’t contain. The dairy’s manure lagoons began to overflow; in response, operators dug a trench to capture runoff. But in February 2019 the trench failed, causing manure to flow into Caris Creek and into the Applegate River.

An inspector from the Oregon Department of Agriculture visited the dairy in March 2019 and found that while the trench had been fixed, manure was still collecting, sometimes in piles as high as 18 inches. The inspector also saw “what appeared to be islands of solid manure in Caris Creek and manure visibly discharging from the creek into the Applegate River,” according to the release.

“By disregarding the maximum number of cattle allowed by its waste-management permit, the Noble Family Dairy caused significant environmental harm to two waterways shared and enjoyed by countless Rogue Valley residents and visitors,” Nathan J. Lichvarcik, chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eugene and Medford branch offices, said in the release. “Our nation’s environmental laws exist to protect human health and the environment, and we will continue working closely with our partners at EPA to hold accountable anyone who violates them.”

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“This defendant’s actions caused the discharge of manure into the Applegate River and Caris Creek, causing significantly elevated levels of E. coli in the water,” Benjamin Carr, acting special agent in charge of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division in Oregon, said in the release. “EPA and its partners will continue to protect the waters of the United States from illegal pollution discharges that contribute to serious health problems and put our communities at risk.”

In June 2020, ODA issued Noble Dairy a civil penalty of $38,584 and entered a consent order requiring payment of $25,465 and installation of significant manure system infrastructure as well as additional sampling and inspections, according to an ODA spokesperson, who adds that the dairy is currently on schedule with compliance requirements with its confined animal-feeding operations permits, as well as the additional requirements.

Noble Dairy did not respond to a request for comment from Oregon Business, but the Oregon Capital Chronicle quoted attorney Kristen Tranetzki as saying the dairy has been in compliance with its permits since its 2019 violations and “is fully committed to compliance with state and federal regulations.”

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Oregon Business spoke with president and CEO Andrew Hoan about that rebrand, as well as the three-year strategic plan released at the June meeting. This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

So first, I wanted to talk about the name change — which sounds like it’s actually more of a reversion to an old name.

The history of it is a really interesting one. No one knows the exact details, but in the late ’90s, there was the Regional Chamber of Commerce and then there was the Association of Portland Progress, and they decided to bring the two entities together. They created this name, the Portland Business Alliance, which reflected the sense that neither of these are going to be the leading institutions — they’re just an alliance of business.

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But in doing so, the concept of the chamber — which is what one of our corporations is — was lost. For 20-plus years, every time myself or my predecessor or anybody on staff introduced themselves, they had to say, with the Portland Business Alliance, “greater Portland’s Chamber of Commerce.” If you have to explain what you are, then there’s a need and an impetus to make a course correction.

So we brought forward the Portland Metro Chamber, to just reflect what we are and what we do at the 501(c)(6) membership-based advocacy organization, so that we proudly wear it.

But the PBA name isn’t completely going away. Is that right?

When we talk about the collective impact of the Portland Metro Chamber, downtown Portland Clean & Safe, and our Charitable Institute, which is where our Partners in Diversity resides as an affiliate program, that is the alliance. We’re able to talk about our collective impact and the enterprise-wide abilities for us to serve those that support our organization — that’s the alliance.

But when we show up and we testify, and we advance good policy, and we connect members together, that’s the Portland Metro Chamber. So we just strengthened that brand, brought it forward and kept the Alliance [name] when talking about the collective impact of the three corporations.

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On the strategic plan, one of the things that jumped out at me had to do with growing small-business membership and support for smaller businesses. “Small business” can actually refer to lots of different sizes of businesses. So what are you thinking of when you think of a small business?

For the purposes of what the board staff and all of our stakeholders wanted, an emphasis on growing [membership among] that street-level, brick-and-mortar retail presents the thing that gives Portland its quintessential vibe. We know that [small retailers are] not going to be able to show up at every meeting; we know that they’re not going to be coming out and testifying or coming to mixers. But they want to be engaged. They want to be informed and they want to find ways to activate and support their communities.

We’ve established a membership rate for $100 for any business that defines [itself as] retail or microenterprise as well, to be able to join and just get on the list, start getting the information, find out what’s happening, discover ways to connect with other members. The emphasis is to just grow that base of memberships so that we can feel that we’re serving the things that really give us our general Portland vibe — who doesn’t love our restaurants or retail scene? So there’s a big emphasis on that, and then complementing that by growing out the services that we offer.

The strategic plan also mentions microlending. Is that something you’ve done in the past?

I was the former head of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce in Brooklyn, New York, and our three affiliate organizations were called Brooklyn Alliance Capital. I was part of establishing what’s known as a community development financial institution, or CDFI, that focused on lending to immigrant-based businesses. So yes, I have personally actually created and established a CDFI that is focused on microlending; the amount of loans that were made to those companies were anywhere between $5,000 and $25,000, and it still thrives to this day. Chambers of commerce across the country — this is what they do. They find innovative ways to serve businesses and grow the economy. And increasingly, chambers all over the country — especially large metropolitan chambers — bring a huge element of direct service. Microlending is one of them. Health care, workforce, those are things that chambers of commerce all over the country traditionally do.

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You’ve also mentioned increasing opportunities for advocacy for what you call average small businesses. Again, I assume you’re talking about kind of smaller retailers, smaller restaurants. Can you talk more about what you hope to see there?

Large business organizations like ours can show up and deliver really sound and good policy, and have thoughtful testimony and policy positions. But when a small business shows up, people pay attention — because they know it was so important that they locked the door to their store and took the time out of their day to express their feelings and what they want to see for the betterment of Portland.

I think effective business advocacy is predicated on the needs of small businesses. And surprisingly — or, I should say, unsurprisingly — small-business and big-business needs, they’re pretty equal. What do they want to see? They want to see community safety, they want to see our unsheltered crisis mitigated, they want to see the impacts of the drug epidemic on our street be resolved and to care for those individuals who suffer from addiction. We all share common interests here. It’s about making sure the voices of the most impacted who are on the street, retail storefront businesses, have a place to plug in. And we want to be a vehicle to help amplify that messaging and give them a platform that is easy to access. That’s so onerous to figure out: how to testify, where do I have to go? It’s important to give them the tools to be successful advocates for themselves and for the business community.

The strategic plan also mentions increasing housing production. What do you think we need to do right now to increase housing production?

When you ask, “What’s the golden ticket?” there is none. There are lots of avenues that we need to pursue. One of them has been the immovable object for decades, and that is permitting reform at the city level. We’re extremely encouraged about the process and the progress that’s been happening about consolidating various permitting, staff and bureau at the city level. And matching that with the public investment that we want to see for housing, especially the affordable level with the City of Portland housing bond, the Metro bond, and seeing those totally executed in combination with the new investments from the state. When we say big projects and big economic development drivers, we’re thinking housing has to be a part of every single one of those equations, because we need, obviously, the small-scale stuff that’s appropriate for neighborhoods, but we need the big ones to be able to move the housing production needle at all bandwidths, especially here in our core.

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Our downtown is going to be facing high vacancy rates for some time ahead. But we know that a future and a better, more vibrant downtown and a better commercial office market will include significant development of housing in the core, because who doesn’t want to wake up and walk two blocks to their office environment and then go out to some of our incredible cultural establishments? It’s not for everybody live in the downtown, but there are definitely people who, if provided the opportunity and access to housing in our core, would want to live in downtown, in the central city. So it’s also about reimagining the center city, so there’s not just one kind of use, but that it’s a vibrant live-work community.

The strategic plan also talks about charter reform. What do you want to see in terms of next steps?

The implementation of the voter-approved measure has got to happen, especially on the unified form of government. When you look at the basic services that the city provides, it’s the fact that we really just had a discordant and — let’s call it what it is — dysfunctional bureaucracy. We need a healthy bureaucracy. We need our civil servants to feel and understand that there is a system, they’re part of that system, they’re part of our recovery, and that there are clear lines of authority and delivery. Right now, I believe that the system that’s being put in place as we speak today is going to deliver on better, more effective services. It’s something that the business community has been calling for for decades.

Now, we have concerns, of course, about the system of voting that we just enacted. There is no comparison anywhere else that we can find. So we also want to make sure that democracy and its integrity here in our system are secure, and that people do have the ability to exercise their right to vote. So making sure that the new system of voting is implemented effectively is also really, really important, because the complexity of having the city’s method of ranked-choice voting, next to the county’s method of ranked-choice voting, next to Metro’s not-ranked-choice voting, next to what will be the state’s future version of ranked-choice voting could be a little complex. It’s important that voters feel that they are encouraged, not discouraged, from this complexity, and that we’re able to pull off a significant overhaul in our voting system.

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Per an Oregon OSHA press release, boxes at the store were stacked more than seven feet high and unsecured. The agency cited the stack as a serious violation during an initial inspection visit. Management at the store submitted documentation intending to show the hazard was abated, but investigators didn’t consider the documentation sufficient, and also received an anonymous complaint saying the unsecured merchandize hazard had not been sufficiently addressed.

That prompted a follow-up inspection, which included employee interviews and a review of internal documents that showed the hazard had “only briefly” been abated. Investigators also found that an employee had tried to correct the hazard, but the stack of boxes collapsed, trapping an employee who had to be helped by a coworker to get free.

“Ensuring employees are protected from harm by implementing clearly recognized and legally obligated safety measures must remain a priority for any employer,” Oregon OSHA Administrator Renée Stapleton said in the release. “Willfully and knowingly disregarding such safety measures is absolutely inexcusable.” 

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According to Oregon OSHA spokesperson Aaron Corvin, since November 2021, the agency has cited Dollar Tree 11 times at different store locations across the state for violating requirements. Three of those citations went to the Forest Grove location and three to the Wilsonville store. The rest involve a citation each to locations in Redmond, Oregon City, Aloha, Eugene and Salem.  

“To be sure, some of the citations involved more than one violation and also different types of violations,” Corvin wrote in an email to Oregon Business. “We have cited the employer for violations of rules governing secure storage, prevention of slipping and tripping hazards, access to exit routes, and the requirement that employers maintain a safety committee.”

In March, the New York Times reported that since 2017, Dollar Tree has been cited for 90 violations and fined $14 million by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Division; Family Dollar, which Dollar Tree acquired in 2014, has been cited 54 times and fined $5 million.

The store has 30 calendar days to file an appeal.

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“We are focused on maintaining a safe environment for our associates and customers and ensuring our stores comply with all health and safety regulations,” a company spokesperson for Dollar Tree said in a written statement shared with OB. “We take the issues identified in our Forest Grove store seriously, remediate them as quickly as possible and continue to enhance our safety program and protocols.”

Dollar Tree Inc. is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Chesapeake, Va. Per its website, as of January of this year the company operated more than 16,000 stores in 48 states and five Canadian provinces; it employs more than 200,000 people. The company has stores, which are known for offering merchandise at extreme discounts, in 65 Oregon cities. It is publicly traded and as of Wednesday, shares were worth $147.67.

A study published in the American Journal of Public Health this January, which surveyed 50,000 households on their food purchasing practices, found that dollar stores are the fastest growing food retailers by expenditure share, growing by 89.7% between 2008 and 2020 and by 102.9% in rural areas, though still accounting for just 2.1% of food purchases overall in 2020.

Dollar stores are also one of the fastest growing sectors of retail overall: in 2022, Dollar Tree opened 464 new stores, relocated 120 stores and closed 205 stores. The company reported a 9% net sales increase of $7.72 billion.

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The bakery’s eighth Oregon location will be situated in the Main Street Commons, a multilevel food and drink hub on the southeast corner of East Main Street and 2^nd Avenue. It will offer delicious rustic bread, all-butter artisan pastries baked on site, and other locally sourced, made-to-order menu items.

Claire Randall, Grand Central’s CEO, says the company is expanding to Hillsboro because of the continued growth that’s happening there, and it aligns with the company’s overall strategy for expansion.

“We were excited about the opportunity to take part in the revitalization of downtown Hillsboro and the community-building opportunities it provided,” Randall says. “Hillsboro is one of the most rapidly growing areas in our region. Plus, from a business standpoint, our Cedar Mill café is our most successful bakery and we’re assuming that enthusiasm for our brand would continue west down the Willamette Valley corridor. Our strategy has always been to grow slowly and thoughtfully while taking advantage of opportunities that support our mission. Our plan is to open a new café every two to three years in line with our resources and customer demand.”

Grand Central was established in Seattle in 1989. Last year, the company announced plans to transition from private ownership to a perpetual purpose trust, but has since  paused the transition. Randall says the company plans to resume the project when conditions are more favorable both internally and within the broader economy. She adds that while sales continue to recover after the pandemic, staffing shortages and rising ingredient costs have impacted the company’s financials.

“We are reluctant to take on investors and additional debt obligations before these conditions improve,” Randall says. “The rise in interest rates over the past year means that we will likely have to provide higher base dividends to investors than we originally modeled. We’re currently in discussion and planning about how to structure financing the trust transition in a way that won’t be unduly burdensome to the company. Our hope is to re-ignite the project later this year.”

An official ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Hillsboro bakery is scheduled for July 8. 

Established in 2020, the Comcast RISE (Representation, Investment, Strength, and Empowerment) Initiative aims to support the growth of small businesses and entrepreneurs that are committed to uplifting their local communities. The program provides grants to businesses in five cities across the United States, Portland included.

In light of a recent study that showed that 50% of small business owners are working more hours now than they were a year ago, the grants this year will be particularly helpful for small businesses as they transition from pandemic recovery to expansion and growth.

Grant packages include business consultation services, educational resources, a $5,000 monetary grant, creative production, media placement schedule and a technology makeover. Requirements include being established for three years or more, having 100 or fewer full- or part-time employees, and being independently owned and operated.

“Grants like this are essential because small businesses are essential to our community. Small businesses inspire us, they help us to shop with intention and they share a lot of love,” says Sarah Shaoul, founder of Bricks Need Mortar. “By supporting small businesses who could use some extra support with these resources, they are helping the entire community flourish.”

“The RISE grant was extremely important for me and my business. It came right on the middle of pandemic in a time that I was fighting to keep my business open, and it brought me a huge encouragement and hope that everything would be ok. As small business owners we very often feel lonely and hopeless,” says Natasha Busse, owner of Dogville PDX. “The RISE grant gave me the help I needed in a very difficult time and the energy that I needed to keep going. I cannot compete with the big names; I am a small business, but I know I provide an exceptional service. Having the help of a big name like Comcast gave us the confidence we needed to keep going.”  

Applications are being accepted now through June 30. Grants will be announced in August 2023 and 100 small businesses will be awarded with them in September 2023.

“Being a women-owned and Asian-owned business post-Covid is extremely difficult,” explained Dr. Lani Doser, owner of SkinwiseRx. “Initiatives like the Comcast RISE grant allow business owners to get ahead, reach further and follow their dreams. I would encourage all Portland-area small businesses to apply.”  

Lora DiCarlo was founded in 2017 by Lora Haddock DiCarlo and Doug Layman. In its early years, the company received a blitz of press coverage hailing its high-end vibrators and its founder as a blend of technological savvy and sex-positive feminist leadership. In November the company abruptly went dark, taking its website offline and leaving orders unfulfilled. An investigation published by Oregon Business in February revealed the company was the subject of multiple Bureau of Labor and Industries claims alleging sexual harassment and unpaid wages. Earlier this month, Fortune published a feature on the company detailing allegations of financial mismanagement and harassment, with former employees telling the magazine they were asked to test “used, not-clean sex toys” as part of product development.

The company has not filed for bankruptcy, and the whereabouts of its principals are not known; when OB tried to reach Haddock this winter, an email request bounced back and her phone number was no longer in service. Recent court filings in an ongoing patent lawsuit show the company has not had legal counsel since November 2022 and has not responded to motions filed in the case this year, leaving the plaintiff pessimistic that it will receive damages in the case.

The company was headquartered in Bend but had filed incorporation papers in Delaware under the name Uccellini, with Lora DiCarlo listed as a trade name.

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Novoluto, a competing sex-toy maker, sued Uccellini in December 2020 for patent infringement, asserting that Lora DiCarlo’s products — Osé, Osé 2 and Baci — infringe on the patent for its signature toy, the Womanizer.

On May 26, Novoluto filed a motion for a default judgment against the company, as well as an injunction prohibiting Uccellini and those associated with it (including directors and employees) from acting against the patent. Novoluto requested $2,165,351 in damages in the suit. The case’s docket history shows that on June 1, Magistrate Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai signed an order granting that motion.

The judge’s order is sealed due to a protective order, but a redacted version of Novoluto’s May 26 motion says Uccellini “fails to provide discovery and fails to defend, generally, frustrating the patentee’s ability to prove its case,” and that the status of Lora DiCarlo remains unclear.

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“Moreover, while Defendant has not declared bankruptcy or otherwise formally dissolved or gone out of business, its operating status, and whether it is solvent or insolvent, and if it is in some sort of suspension or is, instead, planning to resume business activities, is entirely unknown and unknowable (by Novoluto) at this time,” the motion says.

The document further argues that an injunction is necessary because the legal remedy would not be adequate given Uccellini’s status: “Novoluto’s chance of actually recovering any damages award from Defendant is ‘speculative at best.’”

As Oregon Business reported in February, both companies continued to file motions in the case through 2022, but in November of last year, Uccellini’s attorneys, Nathan Brunette and Steve Lovett, filed a motion to withdraw as the company’s legal counsel. A follow-up motion filed in December said the reasons for withdrawal could not be disclosed in the public record, but that “counsel has not received the needed instructions from Defendant regarding positions it wishes to take on the substance of this case.”

Brunette told OB he could not comment on the situation. Portland attorney Scott Davis, who has served as Novoluto’s lead counsel on the case, did not respond to a request for comment.

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Semiconductor manufacturing is the state’s largest manufacturing sector by employment, exports and contribution to Oregon’s GDP. The available money is intended to support Oregon firms in their expansion around the state.

Applications will be accepted beginning on June 19, with an initial review of applications starting on June 28. The first round of funding will close on July 28 and additional rounds will be dependent on what dollars remain.

Business Oregon and the Governor’s office are partnering to administer and distribute the funds as envisioned in SB 4.

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Oregon Business spoke via email with Business Oregon’s Global Trade and Business Manager, Colin Sears.

Approximately how many businesses do you anticipate distributing the money to?

We don’t have an estimated number of businesses. We do know this is an important opportunity for businesses interested in applying for the federal CHIPS program and expect the program to be popular.

Is there a cap on how much funding one business can receive?   

There isn’t a cap. The overall program is limited to $190M in funding.

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How does the bill’s investment in research and development give Oregon a brighter outlook?

The semiconductor industry in Oregon is already robust. We hope this investment continues to assist companies engaging in research and development to ensure Oregon companies remain a leader in this space.

What kind of workforce development opportunities do you foresee coming to the state because of these funds?

Recruiting, retaining, and advancing a diverse workforce pipeline is critical. We hope that these funds will leverage opportunities and partnerships to ensure jobs in this industry are available to all Oregonians, including those from traditionally underrepresented communities.

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Has the state developed any other new incentives to encourage the semiconductor industry to stay here and to expand?

The state and local partners have a number of existing programs that have been utilized by industry. These programs have proven to be effective in retention and expansion of industry partners here in Oregon. 

The Oregon Legislature is currently considering an R & D tax credit that would have significant benefits for Oregon semiconductor businesses engaged in research and development. 

What other important information should we know about the Oregon CHIPS Fund?

The Oregon CHIPS Fund is a tremendous investment in our existing Oregon businesses. We hope this investment will leverage additional funding, particularly funds available from federal programs, to elevate Oregon in the semiconductor space and position our local companies and Oregon as a global leader. 

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To learn more about this funding opportunity and the CHIPS Act, visit www.oregon.gov/biz/.

The report, Wildfire Smoke Trends and the Air Quality Index, which was released Monday uses data from the DEQ’s air monitoring stations and other sources to assess the effect of wildfire smoke on public health in 2022. Among its key findings:

• 2022 saw less smoke than previous wildfire seasons, but the amount of smoke Oregonians experience in summer has trended upward over the past decade.
• Late-season fires caused unhealthy air quality into October for much of Oregon. 
• The Cedar Creek Fire burned 127,000 acres from August to October. 
• The Rum Creek Fire in Josephine County burned 21,000 acres and the McKinney Fire in Northern California burned more than 60,000 acres, causing smoky conditions in southwestern Oregon in August and September. 
• Central and southern Oregon saw the most adverse effects from wildfires in 2022. 
• Oak Ridge in Lane County saw the worst air quality in 2022 with 37 days of “Unhealthy for sensitive groups” and “hazardous” days. 

The report shows the days of unhealthy and hazardous air quality are on the rise. Historically, wildfire season started in late July and lasted till early September. But recent years have seen the season extend from mid-July till early October. 

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The last decade has seen increasing wildfires across Oregon, both in size and duration.

Oregonians have become more familiar with air quality index (AQI) levels, checking the number and color—ranging from green (healthy) to burgundy (hazardous)—to gauge whether or not it’s safe to be outside.

Wildfire smoke releases a wide variety of pollutants, including black carbon, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and metals. Those pollutants are measured as particulate matter: PM2.5 and PM10. PM2.5 is especially harmful to human health because it can be breathed deep into the lungs and may even reach the bloodstream. AQI is calculated using PM2.5 measurements. Exposure to particulate matter can cause coughing and difficulty breathing, and aggravate existing conditions like asthma. 

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The DEQ uses Federal Equivalence Method (FEM) monitors to continually measure PM2.5 levels across the state. These monitors are installed in places like parks and schools. They take measurements automatically, but must be checked regularly by DEQ scientists for calibrating and maintenance. 

There were 60 air quality monitors in place across Oregon in 2022. Susan C. Mills, DEQ public affairs specialist, says the DEQ is increasing that number each year. Measurements from those monitors are available to the public in real time. 

Oregon Business asked Mills if any changes have been made to monitoring for the 2023 season. She says they’ve transitioned from filter-based sampling every one to six days to continuous monitoring at PM2.5 monitoring locations required by the EPA. Also, the AQI database is now being stored in the cloud, rather than a server in Hillsboro, which will “make it more robust and less likely to break down when thousands of people are using it.” 

The DEQ’s monitoring system has doubled in size across Oregon over the past five years, and they’re working closely with communities to place monitors in locations that need them. For example, there are now monitors along the coast, in places like Brookings, Coos Bay and Tillamook. 

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The report highlights the number of unhealthy days before and after 2015 for 4 metro areas: Bend, Medford, Klamath Falls, and Portland. Before 2015, Klamath Falls had 20 unhealthy days. From 2015 to 2022, there were 61 unhealthy days from wildfire smoke. Portland had never seen unhealthy days prior to 2014 (since measurements have taken place). “From 2015 to 2022 [Portland] had seven unhealthy, three very unhealthy, and five hazardous days from wildfire smoke.” 

Mills says the report shows the trend in longer, more intense fire seasons continuing. The DEQ offers a variety of resources for tracking and protecting yourself from poor air quality in Oregon, including instructions on a DIY air filter and the free OregonAIR app which can be downloaded to your smart phone for AQI updates once an hour. 

The DEQ’s report comes as wildfire smoke from eastern Canada drifted downward, affecting air quality in much of the Northeastern United States, with New York City recording an AQI of 158, considered unhealthy for all groups, by midday Wednesday.