In brief: Pipe failure caused BP refinery fire

FERNDALE, Wash. – BP said the Feb. 17 fire that shut down its Cherry Point oil refinery in Washington state near Ferndale was caused by a pipe failure in the crude processing unit.

Refinery Manager Stacey McDaniel said the pipe has been replaced and is being monitored while a redesign is considered.

BP added a maintenance “turnaround” to the repairs, which at one time required more than 3,200 additional workers at the site. The refinery returned to operation at the end of May. Its outage had been blamed as a factor in high West Coast gasoline prices.

Cherry Point is the third-largest refinery on the West Coast and produces 20 percent of Washington’s gasoline and the majority of jet fuel for Sea-Tac, Portland and Vancouver, B.C., airports.

WSU Tri-Cities head leaves for new job

FORT WAYNE, Ind. – A Purdue trustee said the newly named chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne will not be subject to mandatory retirement at 65 like the man she is replacing.

Trustees Vice Chairman Thomas Spurgeon said university policy states that newly hired people can stay in place until they can build a $44,000 annuity. He said that typically takes seven to eight years. The university announced Tuesday it had hired 64-year-old Vicky Carwein, chancellor at Washington State University’s Tri-Cities campus, to replace Michael Wartell. Wartell turned 65 in November.

Carwein grew up in the central Indiana town of Gwynnville. She previously was president at Westfield State College in Massachusetts and chancellor at the University of Washington-Tacoma.

Stink bug found near Oregon orchards

SALEM – A bug that attacks fruit crops and has caused major damage in the eastern United States has shown up this month in the Oregon towns Hood River and Rogue River, both in Orchard County.

The brown marmorated stink bug has been in the United States since the 1990s and in Oregon since 2004. But the latest reports are worrisome because the bugs are now near famous cherry, apple and pear crops in the Columbia Gorge and Southern Oregon, according to the agricultural publication the Capital Press.

“This thing is a major agricultural pest, and it goes after orchard crops,” Oregon State University entomologist Peter Shearer said. “We suspect there is an infestation that has started in Hood River.”

In addition to orchard fruit crops, the pest attacks wine grapes and hazelnuts, Shearer said, putting at risk two prominent Willamette Valley crops.

The insect is believed to have come from Asia. It feeds on crops, rendering them unsellable, and the damage it causes provides entry points for pathogens. It spreads by hitching rides on vehicles. It was first found in Oregon eight years ago in Portland. It has since been found in Salem, Corvallis, Sandy, Troutdale, Arlington, and in Deschutes County. The pest also has been found in Vancouver, Wash., and near Longview, Wash., and it was recently found in Idaho for the first time, in Nampa. Shearer said it took several years for the pest to expand from cities to crops in the mid-Atlantic region, but when it did, the effects were substantial.