TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2020
THE OBSERVER — 7A
DATA
Continued from Page 1A
Sabrina Thompson/The Observer
The Blue Mountain Humane Association’s feral cat barn now is safe for cats. Prior to the
departure of the former director, the barn contained dead cats, trash and lumber, accord-
ing to the board’s president, Beverly Beach.
BMHA
Continued from Page 1A
“We got a bill for $4,800
because Brinlee was doing
his own payroll in 2016,”
Beach said. “We paid a
portion and are asking
for an abatement for the
rest. But this is money we
could have put toward any
number of projects for the
shelter.”
Cleaning up the sections
for keeping animals has
been the biggest and most
successful project, Beach
said. The room that housed
adult cats had urine-soaked
hay, and many of the cats
were not socialized prop-
erly, she said. Now the cats
seem happier and roam
more freely and interact
with the shelter staff more
frequently.
Because of old appli-
ances, scrap metal and
trash in the back area of the
shelter, Beach said, dogs
had not been able to get
fresh air and run around
outside, despite the multiple
acres of land the shelter
sits on. The back area of
the shelter now is clean
and every dog goes outside
at least once a day, Beach
said.
Another project has been
dealing with the property’s
feral cat population, many
of which used the barn on
the property as their shelter.
Beach said the barn was
fi lled with old hay and trash
and they found several dead
cats, all of which has been
cleaned out and the barn
refurbished for the feral
cats to enjoy safely.
“The board itself and
their family members have
been great about donating
and putting in time to clean
the barn out,” Beach said.
When Brinlee was
director, Beach said,
the feral cats the shelter
received were not spayed
and neutered. This caused a
boom in the cat population,
which the shelter is hoping
will be reduced with its
newly implemented “trap
neuter return” program.
“We can’t get the feral
cat population under con-
trol without TNR,” Beach
said. “So we will use this
barn as a gauge to see if the
program is working for the
next kitten season.”
The shelter has improve-
ments still to make,
including continuing to
clean the site, tear down
walls Brinlee put up to
create storage closets and
update appliances and fi x
maintenance problems.
With COVID-19 shutting
down the shelter to volun-
teers, Beach said getting
this work done has been a
struggle.
“We are working with a
skeleton staff,” Beach said,
“and with a large number
of animals coming in,
cleaning out things doesn’t
always take precedent.”
Beach said the main
focus is on taking care of
the animals at the shelter,
making sure they are in a
safe and clean environment
and properly documented.
The shelter’s record
keeping has been rein-
stated, including keeping
track of shots and other
care, and every animal is
in the system now, Beach
said.
The board also closed
Barkin’ Basement, a thrift
store that benefi ted the
shelter, after COVID-19
hit. The store cost more to
run than it was making,
Beach said, and customers
couldn’t come in while
they were shut down, so
the board decided it was
best to close the store and
sell off what items were
left.
Beach also said the FBI
is investigating Brinlee but
she has not received any
updates on the case. The
Observer tried to contact
Brinlee but has not been
able to reach him. Shelter
board members and his
ex-wife reported they do
not know how to contact
him. A social media search
for Brinlee also came up
empty.
we had pushed and that is
where we got started,” said
Wallowa County Commis-
sioner Susan Roberts. “(We
want) to do an economic
analysis of the affected
counties and the communi-
ties within those counties.”
Union County Commis-
sioner Paul Anderes said
the research will provide a
more accurate depiction of
how forest policies effect
the local economy.
“In the original forest
service plans, the socio-
economic impact was
too broad and general-
ized,” Anderes said. “This
new plan can include the
countywide profi le of
socioeconomic status, spe-
cifi cally for communi-
ties within rural Eastern
Oregon.”
The research and data
will provide more context
for the impact of the plans.
“The Forest Service
cannot get into each com-
munity, but we can,”
McConnell said.
The project will include
data from 10 counties in
Oregon and four in South-
east Washington, according
to a press release from
EOU. The updated analysis
plan will include counties,
such as Wallowa County,
that do not have a main
traffi c vein, and Union
County, which is full of
communities that will be
impacted by the forest plan.
The intent is for the
analysis to be more than
just a glance at the counties
as a whole. Maille said the
plan also is to involve coun-
ties and communities in the
discussion so the data will
be an accurate refl ection
of how the people living in
these areas feel about and
experience use of the forest.
Anderes said Union
County commissioners
selected cities in the county
where timber mills con-
tinue to run or have closed
down, including Elgin,
Union, North Powder and
La Grande.
Julie Keniry/ The Rural Engagement and Vitality Center
Quincy Backes and Sarah Buddingh, Eastern Oregon
University student interns at the Rural Engagement and
Vitality Center, visit with Jim Zacharias, owner of Jayzee
Lumber in Joseph in August. The visit gave the students
a chance to learn about the timber/lumber industry as
part of a project to gather data on how the Blue Moun-
tains Forest Plan could affect local economies.
Christoffersen also
spoke about the importance
of a more in-depth analysis
for the counties, noting it
would prevent viewing the
economic impact of forest
management decisions
through one lens.
“The desire was to
create a system to get more
localized analysis of what
would be the impact of
increasing or decreasing
timber harvest on national
forest land, (or) increasing
or decreasing the grazing
activities,” he said. “(It’s)
trying to understand the rel-
ative economic importance
of the national forest system
land and their management
to the economics of the
Eastern Oregon counties.”
He explained that
counties with a diverse
economy — such as Uma-
tilla County, which has,
he said, industrial activity
along the Columbia River,
farming, the Pendleton
Round-up and Blue Moun-
tain Community College,
for example — are going to
experience different effects
than a county that has a
large portion of land in the
forest system. He noted
58% of Wallowa County
land is national forest land
and the county has a strong
ag, ranching and forest
sector, plus a number of
small businesses related
to forest management and
Cliff Bentz
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forest contracting.
“You have, in one sense,
winners and losers in any
decision like that, or sec-
tors that would benefi t,” he
said. “If they, for example,
decided to increase timber
harvest as a hypothetical,
those counties that still
have sawmills would ben-
efi t the most, and those
counties that have a strong
forest service would still
have a benefi t.”
He said this process is to
inform the Forest Service
about the values and prior-
ities in Northeast Oregon
that can then help inform
the future management.
“At the same time, we’re
going to try to be creative
and promote innovation
about how our communi-
ties try to take advantage of
the opportunities that dif-
ferent management deci-
sions in the National Forest
Service offer,” Christof-
fersen said.
McConnell said this
project also is a good way
to discover a county’s
ability to resist or reduce
shock to its system through
management tactics.
According to Keniry,
the U.S. Forest Services
and Eastern Oregon Coun-
ties Association provided
$105,000 in funding. The
plan is to complete the
project within that funding
amount in one to two years.