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The
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
W EDNESDAY , A PRIL 5, 2017
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Bill would
create tax
credits for
fi re buffer
Hearing held last
week in Salem
By George Plaven
EO Media Group
Horse-powered
Eagle photos/Angel Carpenter
Gary Gregg, left, and Jim Jensen visit about a stagecoach Jensen is restoring.
Wheels of wagon business slowing down
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
H
The Oxbow Trade Co. in Canyon City has a display
of various horse-drawn wagons and carts which
are also for sale, as well as wagon parts and unique
hand-crafted goods. Tours are available when the
owners Jim and Mary Jensen are in the shop.
Wagons
are lined up
outside the
Oxbow Trade
Co. owned by
Jim and Mary
Jensen.
orse-drawn wagons hearken to a
slower era, but the nostalgia in-
dustry creating the old-fashioned
vehicles has itself been slowing
down.
John Day resident Gary Gregg has been
making horse-drawn wagons and carts for 18
years. At one point, Gregg was building up to 40
carriages a year, but the wheels of his business
aren’t turning as fast as they used to.
“If I had my way about it, we’d all have a
horse and buggies,” Gregg quipped. “I like that
type of era, that moment in time ... to kind of
slow down and live longer. It was a good way of
life, way back when.”
Gregg, now in his 80s, worked with horse-
drawn vehicles as a child. During summers in
Klamath Falls, from ages 10 to 12, he ran a team
of horses with haying equipment. He worked for
two meals and $1 a day for nine hours a day.
“Most people let the kids run the teams,” he
said. “Tractors were on the ranch. They did the
heavy work.”
See WAGONS, Page A10
Jim Jensen, left, and Gary Gregg
look at a pony-sized two-seated
bobsled which needs a fix at the
Oxbow Trade Co.
Federal budget cuts have local impact
Trump budget promotes defense, cuts programs
By Rylan Boggs
Blue Mountain Eagle
President Donald Trump’s
proposed budget provides for
increased defense and im-
migration control spending,
while decreasing spending on
many domestic programs.
The budget blueprint for
2018 released by the Offi ce of
Management and Budget pro-
vides a $54 billion increase in
defense spending without in-
creasing the national debt.
It would also increase
funding for immigration en-
forcement at the Department
of Justice and the Department
of Homeland Security, in-
clude additional resources for
a border wall, beef up Cus-
toms Enforcement and Border
Patrol and increase funding to
address violent crime and opi-
oid abuse.
Much of this additional
funding would come from
cuts to foreign aid and domes-
tic programs.
The budget would elim-
inate funding for numerous
agencies including the Cor-
poration for Public Broad-
casting, the Institute of Mu-
seum and Library Services,
the U.S. Trade and Develop-
ment Agency, the National
Endowment for the Arts and
the United States Interagen-
cy Council on Homelessness.
In the blueprint, Trump urges
agencies receiving cuts to do
more with less.
The budget is still in its
early stages and must be
approved by both the U.S.
House of Representatives and
Senate before becoming law.
“From rebuilding our
armed forces to beefi ng up
our border security and safe-
guarding our nation’s sov-
ereignty, this budget makes
security priority one,” Bud-
get Director Mick Mulvaney
said.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of
Oregon described the budget
as prioritizing special interest
and defense contractors while
attacking American families.
He especially took issue with
a proposed 26-percent budget
cut to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
The USDA provides loans
and grants to lower income,
rural communities to help
more than 2.3 million Amer-
icans have clean drinking
water and modern wastewa-
ter treatment facilities. In
2016, more than $1.7 bil-
lion was provided to more
than 600 communities and
$17,391,182 was awarded
for 14 different projects in
Oregon, according to a report
released by the Democratic
Party.
See TRUMP, Page A5
Secure Rural Schools
funds drastically cut
By Rylan Boggs
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant County schools
and roads are facing de-
creased funds in the wake
of the U.S. Congress failing
to reauthorize Secure Rural
Schools funding.
Oregon relies on these
payments to continue pro-
viding education to rural
areas.
SRS
funding
has
brought almost $4 billion
since 2000 to Oregon’s tim-
ber counties and schools.
The Forest Service now
will revert to making pay-
ments of 25 percent of the
federal timber sale revenue
from national forestlands
generated in each county,
according to U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden of Oregon.
The 25-percent pay-
ments to Oregon are pro-
jected to total slightly more
than $7 million, in contrast
to the $95.2 million Oregon
received in 2016.
In 2016, Grant County
received roughly $4.2 mil-
lion in SRS payments from
the Bureau of Land Man-
agement and Forest Ser-
vice. In 2017, it is projected
the county will receive only
roughly $200,000, accord-
ing to Wyden.
“Oregon counties de-
pend on SRS funding to
See FUNDS, Page A5
Oregonians who live in and
around the forest may receive
a tax credit for establishing
wildfi re buffers around their
property under a proposed bill
in Salem.
Senate Bill 1017 calls
upon the state forester to set
new guidelines for buffers,
encouraging the removal
of all trees within 300 feet
of any residential structure.
Homeowners who comply
with the standard would be
granted an annual tax credit,
though the amount has not
yet been specified.
Sen. Ted Ferrioli (R-John
Day) is sponsoring the bill,
which received a hearing
last week before the Senate
Environment and Natural
Resources Committee. Fer-
rioli’s district was ravaged
by wildfire in 2015, when
the Canyon Creek Complex
burned more than 110,000
acres and destroyed 43
homes.
“Oregonians have been
hard hit by damaging wild-
fires and this bill will help
better prepare our commu-
nities for future disasters,”
Ferrioli said in a statement
before the March 29 hear-
ing. “By passing this bill,
we can save money and in-
crease defensible buffers,
but most importantly, we
can help Oregonians better
avoid grief and suffering
associated with property
loss.”
Lawmakers adopted the
Oregon Forestland-Urban
Interface Fire Protection
Program in 1997, which
has since been implement-
ed across 17 counties. The
program encourages wild-
fire protection buffers of
between 30 and 100 feet —
depending on the location
— which property owners
self-certify every five years.
The bill would increase
the buffer space to a mini-
mum of 300 feet in order to
qualify for a tax credit, with
some exceptions based on
the terrain.
Doug Grafe, fire pro-
tection division chief for
the Oregon Department of
Forestry, said roughly 40
percent of 151,000 proper-
ty owners have been certi-
fied through the program.
Certification may protect
landowners from liabili-
ty up to $100,000 should a
fire spread through the area,
though Grafe admits that is a
difficult standard to enforce.
By providing tax cred-
its, SB 1017 aims to grow
interest in the program us-
ing a carrot, rather than a
stick. ODF does not have a
position on the bill, though
Grafe said he imagines more
people would be interested in
engaging with the program if
there was some kind of incen-
tive.
However, Grafe said the
bill would likely increase
the administrative cost of the
program since ODF would be
doing annual certifi cations for
the tax credit, instead of cer-
tifi cations every fi ve years.
The program currently costs
$60,000 per year to adminis-
ter, not including personnel.
See BUFFER, Page A5