The Nugget
Vol. XLII No. 50
Citizens
weigh in
on future
of SPRD
P OSTAL CUSTOMER
PRE-SORTED STANDARD
ECRWSS
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
Sisters, OR
Permit No. 15
News and Opinion
from Sisters, Oregon
www.NuggetNews.com
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Honoring Sisters veterans passed...
Assessing
public
safety in
Sisters
By Sue Stafford
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
Correspondent
Last week9s public meet-
ing on the next two years for
Sisters Park & Recreation
District was modest in size (12
people), but rich with insight-
ful, thoughtful input from
those in attendance.
<It is exciting to see com-
munity members taking the
time to share with us their
thoughts and opinions on how
Sisters Park & Recreation
The Deschutes County
S h e r i ff 9s O ff i c e m o t t o
is <Proudly Serving Our
Community,= and the Sisters-
Camp Sherman Rural Fire
Protection District puts the
residents of the district at the
top of their organization chart.
Both agencies are charged
with providing for the pub-
lic safety of the communities
they serve with police and fire
See SPRD on page 32
PHOTO PROVIDED
Local veterans have placed a large wreath to left of the flag pole at the Village Green veterans memorial,
adorned with bright red tags. Each tag has a name of the 42 local veterans who are buried at Camp Polk
cemetery. The wreath was to be placed at the cemetery, but snow forced another plan. The wreath was
donated by a local resident, and will stay at the park through the end of the year. Veterans who worked
on this project were Lance Trowbridge, Earl Schroeder, Jeff Mackey and Bill Anttila.
Slash pile burning
created smoky skies
By T. Lee Brown
Correspondent
Slash burning in Deschutes
National Forest west of
Sisters caused unhealthy air
and confusion about burn-
ing regulations last Friday
and Saturday. Large landing
piles were lit Friday morn-
ing by the U.S. Forest Service
(USFS).
By afternoon, they looked
like early solstice bonfires.
Smoke billowed in columns
of slush-gray and pine-yel-
low. Walking among the
fires, the forest looked like a
scene from <The Lord of the
Rings= movies, with signal
fires blooming across snow-
capped peaks.
USFS chose Friday to
burn landing piles despite
indications of stagnant air in
the area. In town, measure-
ments of PM2.5, fine particu-
late matter, pushed up to 183
on Friday, according to the
World Air Quality Project9s
realtime air quality map. The
map uses monitoring data
from sources including the
State of Oregon9s Department
Inside...
of Environmental Quality
(DEQ).
The 183 level is in the <red
zone,= considered unhealthy
for breathing 4 slightly
worse than Beijing9s air qual-
ity, which stood at 181 that
day. The red zone covers fine
particulate matter measure-
ments of 151 through 200.
According to AQICN,
<Everyone may begin to
experience health effects;
members of sensitive groups
may experience more serious
health effect.=
By Saturday morning,
a shroud of smog wrapped
around the homes of
Crossroads, several miles west
of town near Highway 242.
USFS Fire Management
Officer James Osbourne told
The Nugget, <We took a num-
ber of calls because of the air
stagnation reports.=
On Thursday, Crossroads
residents had received notices
stating: <Please be advised
that Sisters-Camp Sherman
Fire Department has closed
outdoor burning due to a
See BURNING on page 15
See SAFETY on page 16
Project will plant thousands of trees
By Jim Cornelius
Editor in Chief
It will take a generation for
the landscape to recover from
the devastating Milli Fire that
scorched over 24,000 acres
in Sisters Country in the late
summer of 2017. Some local
youth are giving the forest a
jumpstart with a plan to plant
10,000 trees in the Trout
Creek area this spring.
Representatives from the
Waldorf School of Bend will
have a table at Sisters Coffee
Co. on Saturday, December
21, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
where they will share infor-
mation on the project and
accept donations for a fund-
raiser for the school.
The project grew out of a
sixth-grade fundraiser at the
school, where students auc-
tioned off a community effort
to reduce carbon footprint by
creating a <micro-forest.=
Waldorf School parent
Erin Hansen told The Nugget,
<we ended up getting some
surplus trees from the Forest
Service.=
There were 500, in fact,
and Hansen wasn9t sure the
young students would be
able to knock the work out
PHOTO PROVIDED
Pete Stoddard of the Sisters Ranger District found a good place for
students to plant and explained reforestation in a burned forest.
in the time they had. But
Pete Stoddard of the Sisters
Ranger District found a safe
and viable spot for them to
work 4 and work they did,
getting all 500 trees planted
in about 2-1/2 hours.
Stoddard provided a real
See TREES on page 38
Letters/Weather ................ 2 Obituary ............................ 7 Entertainment ..................13 Sisters Naturalist ..............31 Classifieds ..................35-36
Meetings ........................... 3 Announcements ................12 Holidays in Sisters .......17-29 Crossword .......................34 Real Estate ................. 37-40