SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2022
FROM PAGE ONE
BOND
TESTING
Continued from Page A1
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the school would rent
on Adams Avenue at La
Grande Light Truck.
“We have arranged to get
a lease,” La Grande School
District Superintendent
George Mendoza said.
levels of SARS-COV-2 throughout the
state. The program was launched in Sep-
tember 2020.
Limited staff
May deadline
The school district is
facing a deadline because
in December 2021 it
was awarded a $4 mil-
lion Oregon School Cap-
ital Improvement Matching
grant from the state for the
building of the academic
and athletic center.
The school district will
receive the $4 million grant
only if voters approve the
$4.845 million bond. Voters
would have to approve the
bond in May because this
was the election date spec-
ifi ed by the school district
in its application for the
matching grant.
“The only way we will
truly get it is if we pass
the bond,” Mendoza said
at the Jan. 12 school board
meeting.
School board member
Joe Justice said the magni-
tude of the Oregon School
Capital Improvement
Matching grant the school
district would receive
should not be overlooked by
taxpayers.
“They will be getting
almost two times what they
paid for,” he said.
District survey
The board voted after
earlier seeing the results of
a survey conducted by the
La Grande School District.
At least 142 people partic-
ipated in the survey and a
number of the responses
were encouraging for the
school district.
For example, one ques-
CATTLE
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Smaller processing
plants would also benefi t
rural economies by creating
jobs, he said.
Increasing options
Martin said he’s encour-
aged that Attorney General
Merrick Garland also par-
ticipated in the recent vir-
tual meeting.
Martin has been advo-
cating for years to have the
U.S. Justice Department
investigate what he believes
constitutes “price manipu-
lation” in the beef industry.
Matt McElligott, who
raises cattle between Haines
and North Powder, said he’s
glad that issues in the beef
industry are being acknowl-
edged at the federal level.
“The good thing is that
it is being talked about,”
said McElligott, who is
chairman of the public
lands committee for the
Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association and current
president-elect. “It’s some-
thing we in the industry
have been talking about
for a long time, the need
to have a more vibrant and
competitive industry.”
McElligott said that
although details of the
Biden administration’s $1
billion campaign have yet
to be determined, a pre-
liminary draft called for
spending $375 million, over
two phases, to “jumpstart
independent processing” for
beef and other meat.
The fi rst phase could
include $150 million ear-
marked for 15 specifi c local
processing projects, which
could potentially help
ranchers market beef to
local consumers, McElligott
said. Prospective processors
would compete for the dol-
lars under the proposal.
The second phase would
designate the remaining
$225 million to expand the
capacity at existing pro-
cessing plants across the
nation, he said.
McElligott said boosting
independent processing,
and thus reducing the dom-
inance of the four leading
processing companies,
would be benefi cial to both
ranchers and consumers.
“The more processing
you have, the more oppor-
THE OBSERVER — A5
Alex Wittwer/The Observer, File
The Annex building and adjacent maintenance shop on the
La Grande Middle School grounds show their age on Thursday, Dec.
23, 2021. In the May 2022 election, voters will decide on a bond levy
that would replace the structures with a pre-engineered building to
be used as an academic and athletic center.
tion asked if people would
favor a bond measure if
the Annex building would
be replaced with one like
the proposed academic and
athletic center. More than
55% of the respondents said
they would favor such a
measure.
Another question asked
the respondents if they
would support a bond mea-
sure if they knew it would
result in the space near the
La Grande Middle School
becoming safer because
the district’s maintenance,
facilities and grounds ser-
vices building would be
moved to another area.
Respondents were told
this would improve safety
by reducing traffi c in the
parking lot shared by La
Grande Middle School and
the district’s maintenance,
facilities and grounds staff
members. Fifty-fi ve per-
cent of the respondents said
they would support such a
measure.
Same taxes
Voter approval of the
$4.854 million bond would
not raise the school district
property tax rates in place
now. The district’s $31.5
million bond that voters
tunities we have for dif-
ferent markets for the cow-
calf producer,” he said.
“That gives producers more
options and it gives con-
sumers more options.”
Now, only about 5%
of the beef cattle born in
Oregon are actually butch-
ered here, McElligott said.
Both he and Martin
pointed out that building a
processing plant is no small
undertaking.
“To say it’s complex is
an understatement for sure,”
Martin said.
Complying with federal
food safety rules and other
regulations is neither simple
nor inexpensive, and Martin
said he hopes the Biden
administration’s $1 billion
campaign will also include
resources to help potential
entrepreneurs negotiate the
regulatory labyrinth.
Among other things, he
advocates for the federal
government to eliminate
or streamline regulations
that deter people from pur-
suing regional or local pro-
cessing plants, and to assign
a coordinator to work with
prospective owners to help
them with all aspects of
the endeavor, including
fi nancing.
McElligott said a signifi -
cant obstacle in the industry
for ranchers who want to
sell beef directly to local
customers is that packaged
products must be inspected
by someone certifi ed by
the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
He said he can sell a half
of beef “on the hoof” to a
neighbor, but not a single
pound of packaged ham-
burger unless it’s been
inspected.
McElligott said he’s
encouraged that a draft plan
for spending the $1 billion
includes $100 million to pay
overtime to USDA-
certifi ed inspectors, which
could expand independent
processing markets.
Truth in beef labeling
Mark Bennett, a Baker
County commissioner who
also owns a cattle ranch
in the southern part of the
county near Unity, agrees
with Martin and McElli-
gott that the Biden admin-
istration’s announcement is
promising.
“I think it’s a worthy
undertaking,” Bennett said.
approved in 2014 was refi -
nanced in 2021, dropping
the rate taxpayers are now
paying from $1.93 to $1.65
per $1,000 of assessed
property value begin-
ning in July, the same time
charges for the $4.854 mil-
lion bond levy would kick
in.
The rate per $1,000 of
assessed property value for
the $4.854 million bond
would be 28 cents, dis-
trict offi cials said, meaning
property owners would be
spending on school district
bond payments the same in
July as what they are paying
today. Mendoza pointed out
taxpayers could improve
school district facilities
without paying more in
taxes.
Justice noted that the
length of time taxpayers
will be paying off the dis-
trict’s bond debt will not be
longer if the bond passes.
It is now 13 years and will
remain so if the new bond is
approved in May.
Justice said the chance
La Grande School Dis-
trict voters will have before
them in May is “a rare
opportunity that I don’t
think any of us thought we
would ever have.”
“Any time you have con-
centration it limits com-
petition and the opportu-
nity for innovation. This
whole discussion is really
crucial.”
Bennett said one of the
most common topics that
come up in his conversa-
tions with other ranchers
is mandatory country of
origin labeling.
Although some meat
sold in the U.S., including
chicken, is required to be
labeled to show where the
animal was raised, that’s
not the case with beef.
Beef can be labeled as
a product of the U.S. even
if the cattle were raised in
another country but were
butchered in the U.S.
(Retailers can also
include details about where
animals were born and
raised; they’re just not
required to do so.)
Ranchers and industry
groups have been pushing
for beef, which has not
been subject to mandatory
country of origin labeling
since 2016, to be reinserted
into the labeling law along
with chicken and other
meats.
“American consumers
want to know where their
beef comes from,” Bennett
said.
There has been some
interest in Congress in
reinstituting mandatory
labeling for beef. It ended
after offi cials from Mexico
and Canada vowed to
impose tariff s on Amer-
ican beef if the mandatory
labeling continued.
A group of U.S. senators
introduced legislation in
September 2021 calling for
the U.S. Trade Representa-
tive and U.S. Department
of Agriculture to come up
with a plan to improve beef
labeling transparency.
McElligott said country
of origin labeling “really
needs to be addressed.”
He pointed out that
Americans’ demand for
beef has continued to grow
even with rising retail
prices.
He considers this evi-
dence that people recog-
nize the value of beef.
“If you look at every-
thing beef gives you from
a nutritional standpoint,
it’s still an economical part
of your plate,” McElligott
said.
La Grande began testing when OHA
began the initiative, but ultimately ended
the local testing at the end of January
2021. According to Bridge, the sanitary
sewer and wastewater treatment center
stopped sampling for COVID-19 due
to two main reasons — short staff and
skewed results.
The local wastewater testing facility
employs four workers, in addition to
Bridge. With a slim number of employees
to cover a seven-day work week at the
facility, a single absence has a large
impact on day-to-day operations.
“Anytime someone has the sniffl es they
have to go home,” Bridge said.
Bridge stated that the process of
sending off the samples took about an
hour per day, but that the limited number
of staff members played a major role.
“It really wasn’t that lengthy, but every
week we’d have to mail out a sample,” he
said.
Outside factors
Bridge also noted that the La Grande
wastewater treatment center takes in
waste from the rest stops along the inter-
state, which aff ected the results. Bridge
and the staff had no sure way of knowing
if the results indicated the virus among
La Grande residents or travelers passing
through town.
“I couldn’t get them to understand that
we take wastewater from the rest areas,
we have a direct pipeline into it,” he said.
“Just because we had COVID hits or
something happened, we could not iden-
tify where it was coming from.”
The sampling was never a requirement
from the state, but La Grande volunteered
to take part in the early stages of the pan-
demic. Health offi cials at OHA have used
the test results to detect new strains of
COVID-19. This was the case throughout
2021 when the delta variant emerged in
the summer, and wastewater testing is
expected to detect omicron spread in local
communities, according to the state’s
COVID-19 blog from Dec. 8.
“Wastewater surveillance complements
individual-level surveillance testing,” Dr.
Melissa Sutton, OHA’s medical director
of viral pathogens, wrote in the Dec. 8
blog post. “It off ers several advantages
over individual-level sequencing — it is
cost-eff ective and detects infections that
may be asymptomatic or occur in people
who haven’t been tested.”
The La Grande wastewater treatment
center also utilizes ozone, an oxidant used
to remove pollutants and microorganisms.
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Melting snow reveals a sewer manhole cover on
Sixth Street in La Grande on Thursday, Jan. 13,
2022.
Bridge noted that this treatment method
was another factor skewing results when
La Grande was operating as a COVID-19
wastewater treatment center.
“We use ozone in two of our lift sta-
tions to cut the grease down,” he said.
“Ozone kills everything. There would
have been nothing left in those two lift
stations, and they treat half the town. At
that point, I just thought it was a waste of
time.”
Increasing viral loads
Baker and Pendleton are the nearest
active COVID-19 wastewater testing cen-
ters, reporting regular updates since Sep-
tember and as late as Jan. 3 — OHA col-
lects and releases wastewater sample
results once per week.
Wastewater monitoring levels are mea-
sured on a scale of viral concentration,
while OHA’s dashboard refl ects recent
trends from city to city. A rating of 6.25
and below is considered low, 6.25 to 7.25
is considered moderate, measurements
from 7.25 to 8.25 are viewed as strong,
and a value between 8.25 and 9.25 is con-
sidered very strong.
Pendleton’s latest report showed a
viral concentration of 8.109, and its regis-
tered trend has been a sustained increase
for the last two weeks. In Baker City, the
samples have shown a plateau since late
September, and the most recent report
revealed viral concentration of 8.102.
Ontario and Hermiston are the next closest
testing sites, which both have shown sus-
tained increases over the latest reports.
OHA is ranked No. 11 nationwide in
proportion of all specimens sequences
during the pandemic — the organization’s
website indicated that OHA sequenced
7.1% of all molecular specimens. Testing
through local cities in Oregon accounts
for roughly 60% of the state’s population,
according to OHA.
While communities throughout the state
use the wastewater testing, La Grande’s
wastewater treatment offi cials ultimately
found it to be a logistical burden.
“They were asking us to, it wasn’t
required,” Bridge said. “I did it for a few
months and we knew (COVID-19) was
going to be there, we just don’t know
exactly where it’s coming from.”