Business AgLife
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Thursday, June 18, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Oregon gained back over 22,000 jobs in May despite pandemic shutdowns
By Jamie Goldberg
The Oregonian
PORTLAND — The unem-
ployment rate in Oregon fell in
May, but remained historically
high as the state continued to nav-
igate the economic fallout from
the coronavirus crisis.
Oregon gained back 22,500
jobs in May as the unemployment
rate fell from a record 14.9% in
April to 14.2% last month.
Despite the job gains in May,
Oregon has still shed 243,500 jobs
since the start of the COVID-19
crisis. Oregon reported a histor-
ically low unemployment rate of
3.5% in March before the unprec-
edented pandemic devastated the
state economy.
“Historically, this loss is
unprecedented and currently
thousands of Oregonians are still
suffering the economic realities
of being unemployed,” said Anna
Johnson, senior economic ana-
lyst for the Oregon Employment
Department.
Along with reporting the
unemployment rate for May,
the department clarified that the
unemployment rate in April was
14.9%, somewhat higher than
the 14.2% the department had
reported last month based on
data from the first half of April.
Oregon’s April unemployment
rate was the state’s highest since
it started keeping comparable
records in 1976.
While the unemployment rate
dropped in May, the jobless rate
still topped the worst days of the
Great Recession, when Oregon
unemployment peaked around
12% in 2009.
Oregon’s unemployment rate
in May was 1 percentage point
higher than the national unem-
ployment rate. The national
unemployment fell from 14.7%
in April — the highest since the
Great Depression — to 13.3% in
May due to a limited resumption
of economic activity, according to
the U.S. Department of Labor.
The drop came as a pleasant
surprise after some economists
predicted that the national unem-
ployment rate could increase to
around 20%, but it is important to
note that the Department of Labor
numbers do not factor in people
who have seen their hours cut due
Deal near on Wallowa Lake dam work
By Bill Bradshaw
EO Media Group
WALLOWA — The Wal-
lowa Lake dam is getting closer
to long-awaited repair and
rejuvenation.
A memorandum of agree-
ment that will release funding to
refurbish the dam is on the brink
of being signed, said Jim Har-
beck, director of the Nez Perce
Fisheries division in Joseph. Nez
Perce Tribal Fisheries is one of
four signatory groups involved.
The century-old dam was
completed in June 1917. The
work was described as “firm
as the Rock of Ages” in a Wal-
lowa County Chieftain article at
the time. The dam, which has no
fish passage, also exterminated
the run of thousands of sockeye
salmon that spawned in the lake
each year.
In 1996, Wallowa Lake Dam
was listed as a high-hazard
structure by the Oregon Water
Resources Department’s Dam
Safety division. Measures were
taken to implement immediate
structural improvements to sta-
bilize the dam, and the reser-
voir has been held below full
pool elevation to maintain safety
levels. More permanent repair
and refurbishment of the dam has
been a long-time goal.
Monday, Harbeck met by
phone with representatives of the
other involved organizations —
the Wallowa Lake Irrigation Dis-
trict, the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife and the Con-
federated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation. They dis-
cussed the memorandum and
agreed on most points.
“We are extremely, extremely
close to coming to agreement,”
Harbeck said after Monday’s
meeting. “On the vast majority
of the MOA, there’s agreement
across the board. I’m hoping
that within a week’s time there
will be a document ready to be
signed.”
The memorandum is crit-
ical because last year the Oregon
Legislature passed and Gov. Kate
Brown signed a bill that included
a $14 million appropriation for
the dam — contingent on the
signing of the MOA. Another $2
million is still being sought from
other sources, Harbeck said.
The $16 million project pro-
to the coronavirus crisis or are not
looking for work due to fears and
new responsibilities associated
with the pandemic.
Oregon’s numbers may under-
state the unemployment rate as
well.
“Some of the workers who
were recorded as employed, but
absent from work, should have
been classified as unemployed
on a temporary layoff,” said
Johnson, about the national num-
bers. “If they had been properly
See, Jobs/Page 4B
New vet joins
Enterprise
animal clinic
By Ellen Morris Bishop
EO Media Group
Photo by Bill Bradshaw/EO Media Group
Blane Hayes, caretaker of the Wallowa Lake Dam for the Wallowa Lake Irrigation District, looks up at the
dam Friday, June 12, as water from the lake flows through at about 400 cubic feet per second.
“This is a win-win.
It’s a win for fish
as well as people
and it’s a win
for farmers and
irrigators.”
Jim Harbeck, director of the
Nez Perce Fisheries division
in Joseph.
vide the dam with a facelift and
extensive refurbishment, said
Dan Butterfield, irrigation dis-
trict president.
Mort McMillen, project man-
ager for design and execution of
the project, said plans are not to
completely replace the centu-
ry-old dam. McMillen works for
McMillen Jacobs Associates of
Boise.
He is a Wallowa County
native who grew up on a ranch
near the Silver Lake Ditch. He
said the plan is to modify the
existing structure by improving
the spillway, adding fish pas-
sage, adding more concrete for
weight, replacing the five con-
duit gates with new gates and
Photo by Bill Bradshaw/EO Media Group
Water from Wallowa Lake flows through the Wallowa Lake Dam at
about 400 cubic feet per second early Friday, June 12. The dam is
slated for a $16 million refurbishing next year that will include some
form of fish passage.
upgrading the electrical and
instrumentation.
In addition to restoring the
dam itself, Butterfield said fish
passage is a must. The dam has
no fish passage at all.
But that won’t necessarily
mean a fish ladder.
Freezing water in the winter
can create long-term structural
La Grande Fire Department receives donation
problems for a concrete fish
ladder, Harbeck noted.
“As the four Wallowa Lake
Dam stakeholders conclude the
MOA process, our attention will
turn to the fish passage issue,”
Harbeck said.
Last year, at the beginning
See, Dam/Page 4B
ENTERPRISE — Brooke
Greenshields never thought
about being anything else than a
veterinarian.
Now she is one, newly minted
from the Oregon State University
School of Veterinary Medicine,
and the newest addition to the
staff at Double Arrow Veterinary
Clinic in Enterprise. Her license
“kicked in” she said, on Monday.
She doesn’t see herself working
anywhere else. Everything she
loves is right here.
“As a kid, I always
followed around with
my dad since I was
tiny (Double Arrow
veterinarian Randy
Greenshields),” she
Greenshields said. “There’s never
been anything else.
I’ve always wanted to be a vet.
I love animals and I really love
working with the people.”
A 2012 co-valedictorian grad-
uate of Enterprise High School,
Greenshields participated in most
rural kid activities, including 4H
and FFA. She was a Tuckerette.
She was on the 2011 Chief Joseph
Days rodeo court. She played vol-
leyball. But there always was
the care of all creatures great
and small foremost in her mind.
So from high school she went to
Oregon State, where she majored
in animal science and then gradu-
ated in the spring from vet school.
“This kind of practice is one
of the hardest,” she said. “Almost
anything can walk through the
door. Every day is so different.
The thing I like most about prac-
tice here in a rural community is
that it’s diverse,” she said.
Beginning as a toddler who
hung out at Double Arrow with
her dad, she’s seen “almost every-
thing,” including llamas, alpacas,
pigs and an occasional macaw, as
well as captured raptors or owls in
need of aid.
One of her first official patients
last week was a hedgehog in need
of a toenail trim.
“It’s a normal thing we do for
dogs and cats, but on a hedgehog
it’s a little more exciting,”
See, Vet/Page 4B
Grant provides for four-wheel
drive ambulance
Contributed photo
Contributed photo
LA GRANDE — The city of La Grande Fire Department recently received a donation of $1,500 from Coun-
try Financial’s Paul Swigert. The fire department plans to use this donation for firefighting safety gear
and public education material.
ENTERPRISE — The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust awarded Wallowa
County Health Care District with a $152,000 grant to help Wallowa
Memorial Hospital, Enterprise, purchase the county’s only four-wheel
drive ambulance and its only ambulance with a neonatal transporter.
Before the grant, the hospital was relying on emergency helicopters to
make transfers for all patients in remote areas, but extreme weather
conditions sometimes prevented helicopters from reaching patients or
making safe transfers. The neonatal specialized equipment will allow
the hospital to transport high-risk and critically ill newborns for the
first time.