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TUESDAY • April 13, 2021 • $1.50
Good day to our valued subscriber Ted McKenzie of Wallowa
Throwing an
SRS to boost
schools, roads
Oregon, Idaho senators
making bipartisan push
to reauthorize Secure
Rural Schools
By DICK MASON
The Observer
UNION COUNTY — The
budget outlook for public schools
in Union County is set to receive
a boost.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s offi ce
announced Union County will
receive $746,677 in federal Secure
Rural Schools funding in 2021.
SRS provides
funding for rural
counties and school
districts to replace
revenue from falling
forest receipts due to
a national decline in
Merkley
timber harvesting.
The money will be
part of $39.3 mil-
lion in Secure Rural
Schools funding,
which 31 Oregon
counties will receive
Wyden
for schools, roads,
law enforcement and other essen-
tial services.
Union County Commissioner
Donna Beverage said in Union
County most of the money will
go toward schools and roads.
She said the SRS money Union
County receives comes with
guidelines stipulating how the
county can spend the funds.
“It is very critical for our
schools and roads,” Beverage
said.
Union County Public Works
Director Doug Wright said the
SRS funding his department
receives always is welcomed.
“It is a very important part of
our budget,” Wright said.
He said his department relies
on the funding for general oper-
ations, road projects and plowing
snow.
Wallowa County will receive
$1.02 million in SRS funding, and
Baker County will get $801,102.
The $39.3 million the 31
Oregon counties will receive is
the last the SRS’s current autho-
rization will provide. The SRS
program has been in place since
2000 and has been reauthorized
many times since for rural coun-
ties nationwide.
“For the better part of two
decades, SRS payments have
maintained an economic lifeline
for rural Oregonian counting on
quality schools, dependable infra-
structure and more in their com-
munities,” Wyden said in a press
release. “The ongoing challenge
of dealing with COVID-19 and its
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Kerry Searles tests a harrow Thursday, April 1, 2021, on the Melville family’s Cornerstone Farms just outside of Enterprise. The Melvilles — like other Wallowa County farmers
— are getting ready for planting season.
A time for (no-)tilling
Wallowa County
farmers treat soil gently
to gain greater results
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA COUNTY — With the
arrival of spring, most Wallowa County
farmers are gearing up to break ground for
planting season.
But maybe “break ground” is the wrong
term, since most here are advocates of
“no-till” farming. No-till — or direct
seeding — involves no or minimal cultiva-
tion, the application of herbicides to fi ght
weeds, and the planting of cover crops that
cattle can graze and will return nutrients to
the soil.
“We got rid of our tillage equipment
— the plows, the discs and the cultivators
— over 40 years ago,” said Tim Melville,
patriarch of the family-owned Cornerstone
Farms near Enterprise. “We have fi elds that
have not been tilled in over 40 years. We
just rotate one crop after another year after
year.”
He sees the practice as environmentally
friendly.
“We stop soil erosion to next to nothing
from both wind and water,” he said. “The
other big advantage is you’re sequestering
carbon because all your residue is being
cycled back into the soil by all the biology
that is created in those top few inches.
They’re consuming all that residue — it
just disappears. All the worms and bugs
that are in that soil are consuming the res-
See, Funding/Page 5A
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Kurt Melville of Cornerstone Farms welds a part on a no-till grain drill while overhauling the machine Wednesday,
March 31, 2021, in preparation for planting on the Melvilles’ farm near Enterprise.
idue. A plant is mostly carbon, (and) they
breathe it in.”
Melville sees the relationship between
man and plants as one where each helps
the other.
“They (plants) are taking what we
breathe out and turning it into something we
can breathe,” he said. “It’s what you call a
symbiotic relationship.”
The Mevilles — including Tim’s wife,
Audry, and their sons Kevin and Kurt and
their families — farm about 5,000 acres in
the county raising a wide variety of crops.
They hope to gets started planting this week,
Kurt Melville said.
“We grow everything,” he said. “Wheat,
barley, hay, fl ax, canola, timothy hay, peas,
oats, mustards, quinoa. A lot of things.”
Other growers in the Wallowa Valley
have followed the lead of the Melvilles,
who began their no-till practices in the late
1970s.
“They were the ‘groundbreakers’ in
no-till,” said Mark Butterfi eld, who farms
See, No-till/Page 5A
Oregon lawmakers to tackle redistricting
House Republican leader again calls
for independent commission
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — The Oregon
Supreme Court will enable law-
makers, not Secretary of State
Shemia Fagan, to get fi rst crack
at redrawing legislative district
boundaries despite a pandem-
ic-caused delay in federal census
data.
The court issued an opinion
Friday, April 9, giving legislators
until Sept. 27 to come up with a
plan — even though the Oregon
Constitution sets a deadline of
July 1. After Sept. 27, if legisla-
tors do not come up with a plan,
the Constitution gives the task to
the secretary of state.
The U.S. Census Bureau says
it will be late summer before it
will release census-block data,
which Oregon and other states
rely on to redraw their political
maps after each 10-year census.
Nothing in state law bars Oregon
INDEX
Classified ...............4B
Comics ....................7B
Crossword .............4B
Dear Abby .............8B
WEATHER
Home ......................1B
Horoscope .............4B
Letters ....................4A
Lottery ....................3A
THURSDAY
Obituaries ..............3A
Opinion ..................4A
Sports .....................6A
Sudoku ...................7B
SCHOOL STIMULUS
OREGON REDISTRICTING BASCIS
• The Legislature is primarily responsible for drawing congressional and state legislative
district lines.
• Oregon received fi ve congressional seats as a result of the 2010 Census.
• Oregon expects to gain a sixth U.S. House seat as a result of the 2020 Census.
from using other sources of data.
Senate President Peter
Courtney and House Speaker
Tina Kotek, joined by Repub-
lican minority leaders, asked the
court for an extension beyond
July 1. Fagan said the court
lacked the authority to order an
extension, and that any delay
would interfere with the time-
tables for the 2022 primary
Full forecast on the back of B section
Tonight
Wednesday
28 LOW
55/27
Cold
Breezy
election. The fi ling deadline is
March 8, 2022, for the May 17
election.
The justices decided the
matter based entirely on written
arguments and did not conduct a
hearing.
The court’s order takes eff ect
Monday, April 19, unless Fagan
See, Districts/Page 5A
CONTACT US
541-963-3161
Issue 42
2 sections, 14 pages
La Grande, Oregon
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